February 2008 Archives

(I’m supposed to be writing a paper.)

CICADAS/MONOTONIX: happened Monday night at Cap’s. Why haven’t shows happened there before? If they have, why didn’t I hear about them? Energy condensed into such a small space can’t be anything but explosive. Cicadas were so loud that I could feel the sound vibrating through my chest cavity and making my clothes whisper and, at times, so powerful that my eyes started to cross (grateful for earplugs).

Monotonix … whoa. Singer (owner of a Captain Hook-mustache and long brown curls, not unlike my dad on my parents’ wedding day) proclaimed, proudly, “I AM RONNIE JAMES DIO!”

He danced on the bar in his yellow lacy shirt and running pants, poured ice down his pants, crowd surfed, poured beer all over himself, took off most of his clothes (pelt-like chest & back hair). Like Iggy Pop, but with arm motions straight from middle eastern folk music;

Guitarist = wall of sound abrasion that facilitated (rather than distracted from) Ronnie James Dio’s antics;

The drummer, with his goggles on, had passing resemblances to both Borat and Egon Spengler; his drum beats vascillated between assault and groove, and midway through the show, his entire drum set was transported, over the heads of the audience, into the center of the Cap’s (this was before he crowd-surfed while playing). No fire, this time; but I wouldn’t have missed it if I hadn’t heard about it.

One of those bands for whom recorded music will never, NEVER do them justice.

I am feeling super emo about school. It is taking so much self-discipline just for me to get my homework done in a passable manner. I am procrastinating like never before. If it weren’t for KUGS … there would be no incentive for me to go to campus during the week.

I feel low & mopey, and try to figure out what the root is … and then I realize that it’s just because it’s Sunday night, and I have to go back to school tomorrow, and unlike most other situations in my life (which I can exert some control over, to change)- school is something I just have to stick out. For at least a few more weeks.

will you remember the route to her heart from her thighs:

Gee whiz. It’s been quite a week.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Kate Bush lately. She said, of this song: “I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman, can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each others roles, if we could actually be in each others place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised! And I think it would be lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was either… you know, I thought a deal with the devil, you know. And I thought, ‘well, no, why not a deal with God!’ You know, because in a way it’s so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you.”

Interpretive dancing usually doesn’t do it for me; but I can’t take my eyes off her.

I’m leaving in a few minutes to go to my radio show. You know that part, in Grosse Pointe Blank, when Minnie Driver (who is a DJ at a hip Joe Strummer-friendly radio station) goes on air, and asks her listeners whether or not she should take John Cusack back? Today, for the first time ever, that sort of abuse of radio power almost sounded entertaining. But this moment of weakness did not, I assure you, last for long.

It was a spectacular sunny day today- it reminds me of summer just enough to make the rest of winter unbearable.

But, as Chris says, sexy season has begun.

I have the biggest crush on Tender Forever.

I found this hilarious review of her old album, “The Soft and the Hardcore,” on Pop Matters; evidently, the author is operating under the misconception that Melanie is into guys.

After I read that the songs are “totally lesbo” on “Paper Television,” I listened to it completely differently- is this my issue, or the song’s?

Why does the homo or hetero nature of pop-song love totally influence my understanding of songs and their authors?  It’s not fair, and yeah, homophobia & sexism … but when a reviewer (even on a two-year-old review) forces Melanie’s girl-lust rhymes into a hetero package, and makes her analogous to earlier French sex-pop icons like Bardot, all sighing and lip-biting- it blunts the edge and makes her sweet gay tunes into something pedestrian/heterosexual.  The reviewer is all “penises” and “tumescence,” and maybe, in the end, he does pick up on her queerness … but.  but.  If it was just a sexy sexy French girl who was straight, would I like it so much?

Finally, two videos:  first, the one that made me fall into crush with Tender Forever in the first place; then, a song from her new album, which is resplendant in its own clever hot and awkward way.

Because, as Melanie Valera says, in great wisdom: “My name is Tender. Tender Forever.  But it doesn’t mean that I am not stronger.”

The EMP has posted the list of panels and presenters for this year’s edition of the annual Pop Conference.

Nothing is really jumping out at me (not enough panels with Sara Jaffe or Mairead Case), but lots of other really good stuff (like “Ay Morrissey!: Latino Morrissey Fanaticos and the Renewed Possibilities of Fandom, Race and Cultural Citizenship”).

It’ll be going down April 10-13 in Seattle. And Ann Powers will be there.

(Georgia Christgau has to be related to Robert, right?)

Okay, let’s be 16 again. Ready?

We’re going to make a mix-tape.

THE mix-tape.

Because tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

When I’m bored in class, I make mix-tape lists: The Ultimate Break-Up Mix Tape. Guilty Pleasures. Jenn’s Guide to the Entire History of Women Making Punk Rock (this one is still very much a work-in-progress).

My sister and I used to classify certain songs as “the perfect mix tape song.” There was something undefinable about these ones- a certain je ne sais quoi (god, how long I have been waiting to use that phrase!) that would impart the perfect tone to a mix-tape. Usually it was something exquisitely obscure- a b-side, a rarity, a hidden live track. Off the top of my head, I can remember only two of the songs that were on our list, although we once planned to make an entire mix tape of these ones. “Princess and the Pony,” by Sean Na Na; and “Modern Romance,” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (I would also now add “Music for Evenings,” by the Young Marble Giants, to that list, and “Ex-Boyfriend Beat,” from Skinned Teen.) Of course, a whole tape of these songs would spoil their individual perfection, I realize now; it’s best to sprinkle them, sparkling and sparingly, throughout a mix.

But I digress. I have made many mix-tapes since age fourteen; I have even made my share of crush tapes, although it’s been a long time since I felt any compulsion to compose one of those. The crush tape is a delicate, fragile creation- ideally, it will be pored over by your sweetheart, as they attempt to understand the contents of your heart refracted through the words of others.

Pop songs are so inclined toward hyperbole when it comes to relationships, and thus, it’s very difficult to assemble a crush tape that is both charming and truthful. When you are still in the first blush of a budding romance, you do not want to pull out all the stops and record something like Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” onto your cassette. Conversely, you do not want to be so informal about your song selection that you make the mistake of picking a tune that you like quite well, but have never listened closely to the lyrics … and when you finally do, a few weeks after handing over the tape, you realize that you have given them “Long Black Veil” or some similarly baffling choice.

Some of the sweetest tunes I can think of for a crush tape: “Sweet Heart Fever,” by Scout Niblett (which I actually received on a crush tape, once; at least, I think it was a crush tape. See above reference to “poring over tape & extracting meaning”).

Nearly anything from 69 Love Songs, by the Magnetic Fields; I especially prefer “Acoustic Guitar” these days (“The Book of Love” falls into the Dolly Parton category, unless you have already professed; in which case, crush mix-tapes are kind of beside the point).

I know I wrote down some other ones; probably Mirah or the Blow or something. The greatest problem with these kinds of tapes, though, is this: the best songs are never happy songs. The best songs are the ones written on the edge of hysteria (often inspired by heartbreak). The songs that you save for the day after Valentine’s Day, when you wake up and it’s still winter and your only company is unrequited love. The sad bastard music: Carissa’s Wierd, or some particularly heartbreaking Ryan Adams; maybe, when you get over the sadness and move onto subverted sexual frustration, you could put on the Violent Femmes or Kevin Blechdom. Or, the ultimate don’t-need-you song collection: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

But today, it’s still the 13th; if you run to the store, you still have time to grab that 60-minute cassette, and spend your evening with some Jonathan Richman records, trying to decide which song you will commit to tape to make that perfect crush statement: the one that expresses your admiration while still remaining a little mysterious about the depth of your feelings.

Godspeed.

A few weeks ago, I went on a field trip with one of my classes to Mount Vernon. We visited a high school coping skills class; basically, it’s for kids who have been through trauma (they told us their stories: abuse; drugs; molestation; eating disorders; so much, so much).

The class doesn’t have “homework,” per se; instead, they have a check-off sheet that they have to fill out each week. If they are lacking in any of the categories, then their work for the week is to make up that deficiency.

I could write pages about that class; the dynamics, the hurt, the hopefulness. It was incredible, unlike anything I have ever seen in a classroom. As we were leaving, they gave us the same check-off sheet that the kids use.

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Can any of us say that we met all of those things this week? Nutrition, sleep, hopefully. But then you get to “centering and solitude,” “support given & received,” “goal met,” “ART.”

These days, how are we all doing?

I’m working on this stuff, for my homework. I need more centering & solitude; I need more art.

I think this is a good starting place for personal inventories.

The interactions I have with older men at the record store are full of weird vibes.

Last week, a friendly older gent asked, “So, whose girlfriend are you?” (Is it so improbable, with my gender, that I would have been hired for my own merits and knowledge?)

Just now, a phone call from a customer- one minute, he’s talking about ordering some Stevie Ray Vaughan and asking me if I like my job; the next, he’s asking me about my personal life- “Are you making money? Do you have another job?” Then, apropos of nothing, I earned this:

“Well, I hope you get married and have kids someday!” (delivered in the nicest & most earnest way). Equally fervently: “I hope I don’t!” “Oh. Really?”

These things make me laugh a bit uncomfortably, and complain a little loudly; head shakes and shoulders shrug, and put it on the internet.

This is it.

In the middle of “quarter-life crisis” or whatever;

and

I THINK I KNOW NOW.

Have you heard about this? The All-Ages Movement Project? Actually linking all of these different groups, that are working to build community through DIY arts & music.

I’m taking this summer off from school. Maybe longer. Didn’t know what I was doing, so I just kind of … kept going, with school and everything. But now I know. Life-path plans: I’ve thought about all-ages arts & music activism and community building for a long time. It’s where my soul is. I thought it couldn’t work, though. Where does the money come from? how do you pay rent on the building? these sorts of things are never long-term. The groups doing this kind of work are so disjointed, isolated from each other- how do we make it into a larger community?

Like Alex talked about, with ABC No Rio in New York- these things CAN WORK in a long-term way. AMP is connecting the dots, and these people- kids in their twenties, making art and making music in small towns and big towns and medium-sized towns- because this is the way that we learned about community and about change, and it’s the way we know how to create community and create change. Department of Safety, Old Firehouse, Vera Project, WhAAM. We have to start grassroots-style- person-to-person, interpersonal relationships, and then we can apply what we know and we’ve done to the larger picture. There’s something going on these days; we can all feel it.

All-ages music activism seemed frivolous to me for a long time- in the sense that I didn’t understand if it actually benefitted anyone, or was just a desire for some rock and roll. But now I get it. Communities don’t spring from the earth fully-formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus; art is not frivolous, but essential. The problems happen when we think that arts are a luxury, less of a priority.

I don’t know where I’m going to do it, or how it’s going to happen, but at least I know where I want to end up.