Imagine the delicate pattern of her wings fluttering frantically. Imagine her screams for help distorted by the glass. Imagine the occasional throb of her tiny fists on the glass. Imagine the vicious never-ending whir of the blades. It goes on and on and yet you know the music of it will change in moments when the pixie runs out of tricks and breath. Now hear the interruption of those blades, the gutteral whipping and whirring, as she uses whatever magic her wand can muster. Imagine the dreadful glittery blood, her tiny bones shaking against the glass. This is what Crystal Castles sounds like.
Tag Archives: Gotta Hear This Music
The Drop
In learning to DJ I have gained an even greater respect for the art of the drop. In mixing it’s the easiest thing to lift the pace of the music slightly up and up throughout the night. The energy in the room goes up and the asses shake it just a wee bit harder.
To do the opposite is far more difficult. We’ve all been on a dancefloor when a careless DJ tosses a slow groove on after a stomper and the crowd disperses. You know this is a real fail when the slow jam is actually a mighty sexy, danceable song, but it’s location after the fast bass makes is seem like the kind of tune that would make you want to change the station. But if you can pull off one of those drops you have a much more dynamic, interesting set than if all the songs volley around the same beats per minute range.
If you want an exemplary DJ in this respect, go see Diplo. As much as I love The Twelves and Miami Horror, Diplo will remain a favorite because he is so good at tempo drops. Befitting his name, you never know when Diplo is going to switch it up and drop a low sexy beat that makes the jumpers switch to vertical humpage (time to dip looooooooow). He dares to play slow lusty numbers after bangers and pulls it off every time.
I have this idea of the well-excuted drop on my mind because there is a beautiful drop Loo & Placido mashup Californication [2Pac feat. Roger Troutman vs. Plump DJ’s vs. Zero Cash] that has me keeping the song on repeat. DJs talk about teasers, grabbing a snippet of the forthcoming song to get the crowd excited about what’s coming up. There’s barely any 2 Pac at the front end of this song. When the teaser comes in at around the two minute mark, “In the city…” it doesn’t sound like it is going to lead you into the familiar 2 Pac tune. There’s exactly thirty seconds of echoing build up followed by the most glorious drop I’ve heard in a long time.
Hip-hop is usually much slower than dance music, surprising to some, even slower than rock and roll. So when that voice sings “California loooooove” the whole room slows down. What slays me about this mashup is, at this point, the song isn’t even mashed; it starts right where it should if you bought it on the juke box. Loo & Placido are essentially having a cigarette break, just throwing that 2 Pac down into the middle of the song, naked as the day it was born, without all the fancy trimmings a DJ provides. They are saying with the wave of a hand, “this shit is so good we are going to serve it to you straight, no chaser. AND YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT. AND YOU ARE GOING TO DANCE.”
And it works. There is a gorgeous ecstasy in leaving that steady electro beat for the opening bars of “California Love” that will make you wonder if you have ever heard 2 Pac before, if you were every really listening. It will make you start to wonder what magical powers these two French men harbor in the simple act of selecting and combining songs. They will make you think perhaps every song is going to sound better when delivered by Loo & Placido. That’s one hell of a drop.
Download now or listen on posterous
Loo_&_Placido_–_Californication_(Tupac_vs._Roger_Troutman_vs._Plump_DJs_vs._Zero_Cash).mp3 (10763 KB)
Crystal Castles II: A Pixie in a Blender
Crystal Castles reminds me of that episode of Night Court where the judge falls for an art scene punk rocker. The punchline at the end is when he finally hears her album. If I recollect, the nostalgic moment is destroyed by the fact that her music consists solely of a woman screaming by the railroad tracks. Of course Crystal Castles doesn’t sound like a woman screaming by the railroad tracks unless you were to put a a robot symphony in front of her. I draw the connection to the sit-com artist because our hero Harry’s pretentious lover might have screamed a plot point or something to guide the listener, beyond raw shouting. In the same way, despite a great deal of emotional intensity to the music, there is a barrier between Crystal Castles and their audience. On their album II, it’s never explicit what the songs are about, even with helpful titles like “Pap Smear” and “Doe Deer.” Where Alice Glass‘s vocals are actually words they are inscrutably distorted with effects. One gets the impression it is deliberate. Their album art is vague and their website has no bio. Even in concert, Alice explodes, tossing her screaming body across the stage, but almost entirely obscured by smoke. Crystal Castles is a band that’s determined to remain abstract.
The last track, “I Am Made of Chalk” is a fine example. It sounds like a cat being violently transformed into a manatee before dissolving into a puddle of cat-manatee. The catmatee is a thankful accent to the beautiful synth behind that. Otherwise it would be too damn pretty. The balance is perfect, but what it is beyond the soundtrack to a nightmare, I have no idea.
But despite my distrust of any attempts they have to be obtuse, I can’t compare it to the geometric compositions that give our halls of modern art a bad name. No, because unlike a pile of circles and boxes, Crystal Castles is damn effective. Those glitches and loops and shouts stir my blood. Music is the most primal of the arts and their self-titled II succeeds like the sound a of a riot two blocks over. It’s all questions and no answers. They make me gasp, my heart beats faster, like running toward an explosion at a clown convention: bold and bright and bloody and fearful and ugly, with torn rubbery masks and tufts of cotton and feather floating.
Yet, II is so skillfully constructed it strikes the intellect. Their crescendos are perfectly measured. Much is going on in any one song, various sound effects layered in delightfully frightful ways. If you’re the type who’s been trained to think of electronic music as repetitive and unchanging, Crystal Castles will grab you by the eggs—as soon as the keyboard has you convinced there is some kind of pattern, there is something akin to an explosion, usually accompanied by Alice’s voice. On “Doe Deer” it sounds like she is calling to you from Tron, a pixelated cry to save her from the terrible fate of those trapped in video games. It’s music that stirs the imagination. Its alternation of pattern and complexity will entertain the Sudoko-solving side of your brain.
So they are primal while also thoroughly, clinically intellectual. Well Crystal Castles is full of contradictions. They sound masculine and feminine. They have the angry urgency of punk and the cold bass of the dance club. You could call them industrial, but there are too many pretty moments for such a dirty moniker. They whip the chipper sounds of nostalgic video games into a magical brew darker than Rasputina.
The album opens with an interesting enough intro that could be confused with your standard EDM fair. But then it hits you with a wall of beats and bells bliss. It’s like the explosion of a glitter bomb.Therein lies the flux, the back and forth between pattern and chaos.
Take “Intimate.” The song combines a relentless fast keyboard melody with a series of crescendos that give the sensation the song is rising up and up until it hits a static. Which turns into a wash and then there’s that melody again… well I don’t want to give any spoilers, suffice to say the song has more drama than a sci-fi marathon. And did I mention that I have no idea what they’re singing about?
I am tempted to use the word 8-bit. That’s how I came to Crystal Castles, in search of bands that sample the video games of my childhood. But to call Crystal Castles 8-bit is like calling Dickens a soap opera. Most of the 8-bit out there is simplistic and gimmicky at best. If Ethan Kath is building instruments out of Game Boys than that’s all well and good but the music holds its own outside of originality of medium. Any snatches of Mario and Link will be obliterated into abstraction, just like everything else. You are left with something intriguing that refuses to be pinned down by anything that came before it. This is the promise of electronic music: We won’t need instruments because all recorded sounds will be their instruments. The collage possibilities will be infinite. Crystal Castles may be the first band to really deliver on that promise.
Some Predictions About Books By Way of Some Predictions About Music
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the “future of publishing.” After all, books have never had as much cash to spare as the recording industry, and look at the mess they’re in. Already it is not so difficult for a self-published manuscript to sell itself on Amazon.com. What will happen when everything goes digital? The suggestion is that there will be an opening of the gates, and the latest best-seller will stand on the same virtual shelf with thirty self-published manuscripts. The optimists claim that this is where the great unpublished books will be discovered and pessimists point to the unleashed masses of poorly thought-out, half-written tomes filled with spelling errors. But it doesn’t matter if fantastic self-published books are available if they’re drowned out by countless other books vying for the consumer’s attention.
I’m thinking of this issue again because Chuck Wendig just wrote a post on this very subject. I must requote a quote that he included in his piece from a Salon.com article (“When Anyone Can Be A Published Author“)
Furthermore, as observers like Chris Anderson (in “The Long Tail”) and social scientists like Sheena Iyengar (in her new book “The Art of Choosing”) have pointed out, when confronted with an overwhelming array of choices, most people do not graze more widely. Instead, if they aren’t utterly paralyzed by the prospect, their decisions become even more conservative, zeroing in on what everyone else is buying and grabbing for recognizable brands because making a fully informed decision is just too difficult and time-consuming. As a result, introducing massive amounts of consumer choice leads to situations in which the 10 most popular items command the vast majority of the market share, while thousands of lesser alternatives must divide the leftovers into many tiny portions.
Chuck says in response, ” that doesn’t sound like what will happen when the FUTURE OF PUBLISHING is made manifest. It sounds like what happens right bloody now.”
As it is, there are about 100,000 brand new titles published and printed every year, and it is fair to say that even the most devoted readers may touch 1/100th of that. If you include self-published books, the number of books published is 600,000 to a million. That doesn’t take into account the thousands of reprints of absolute classics that exist. I am pretty sure that if I devoted my entire life to reading I would not get through every book on my imaginary wish list before I breathe my last breath. Now imagine compounding this with an onslaught of unpublished manuscripts, from gorgeous to garbage, that would land on the market place if the result of this revolution were a totally leveled playing field. What would happen?
Continue reading Some Predictions About Books By Way of Some Predictions About Music
Digression, Regression, Return
If there is a reason I don’t finish the-Great-American-Novel it is because I live in a world where I can track down lost sit-coms from my childhood. The kind like this episode of Square Pegs, wherein Bill Murray plays a substitute teacher who tells his student, “OK chocolate lady, do your thing to me.”
This whole Square Pegs thing came up because my sweetie had a childhood crush on Jami Gertz, who plays a supporting role as the prissy gossip (yeah, I’m his type). I’m all, “oh, yeah, I do remember a show where Sarah Jessica Parker plays a nerd.” How could I resist looking that up?
The acting is terrible (except Bill Murray here, but he’s a guest) but the writing is good enough to pull you through. The music is terrific and terrifically eighties. But the true joy is the sheer nostalgia.
The clothing alone is a nostalgia trip. You can’t believe how awful their outfits are. Women in the eighties always seem to wear clothing that’s too big for them. These people have professional costume designers and they all stand around wearing brightly colored sacks and grandpa’s vests. The eighties have already come back in fashion and I still think Molly Ringwald’s character butchered that dress in Pretty and Pink.
But don’t let me digress. Or let me, and let me be grand about it: one of the greatest joys of hitting the big 3-0 is the constant influx of nostalgia (see video above) and the joy of sharing it with the next generation. Continue reading Digression, Regression, Return
The XX Marks the Mezzanine
- Image via Wikipedia
While Destructo was finishing up his set at the Mezzanine, I wandered upstairs in search of a better view. I was surprised to see a DJ setting up in the back room. Hope alighted my belly. I asked the gent assembling what his name was and he said Jaime. Hope swelled. I asked him if he had a DJ name. He seemed a little taken aback, like the answer wasn’t ready at his fingertips.
“The XX.”
I said, “Oh, great. Then you’re who I’m here to see.” Well that wasn’t exactly true—I’d only found out he was going to be there a few hours ago, but it immediately outshone my interest in the main act, Major Lazer. Major Lazer’s set was probably starting at that minute, I didn’t know or give a damn.
He seemed shy and not at all accustomed to the cult of celebrity. When I told him “I love your album” I almost thought he didn’t believe me. But truth be told, in that crowd he wasn’t a celebrity. I wanted to tell him that by the time he comes back to San Francisco The XX will be the name on everyone’s lips but that sort of praise always sounds like B.S., especially in a loud crowd, especially when that crowd is not dancing to your music.
I originally thought they were going to squeeze him in for a short set on the crowded, enormous, sweaty main stage. Instead I had a sweet spot directly in front of the DJ with all the room I needed to lay down whatever dance move struck my fancy. There was no stage, he had a DJ table on the floor sandwiched between some cordoned off VIP booths. Basically, my pal and I were the only ones dancing for a time. We didn’t mind. It was like seeing (a third of) The XX DJ at a private house party. Upstairs at the Mezzanine is small, intimate, even hidden. It was warm and oddly dry. We threw our limbs where we damned well pleased. Even when the crowd picked up, it seemed the other groovers were happy to make room for us. Territory: marked. We tore that dancefloor up so hard that a random woman in the crowd went out of her way to score a high-five with yours truly.
One thing I’ve found pretty consistent about DJ sets is that most have a preferred BPM. Jamie was no different, most of his songs were, like the XX’s album, simple, chill beats. He mixed them beautifully, showing off a variety of techniques but never actually “showing off.” He played a mix of vinyl and CDs; most were songs I’ve never heard before. He chose only one hip-hop song and I wanted to ask him who it was but I was too busy getting busy. I would have liked for him to have played more songs with vocals but, unlike Diplo & Switch’s set, there was plenty of melody to please my ears.
My pal had a chat with a guy whose pupils were the size of silver dollars while they watched Major Lazer from the stairwell. In the throes of some ecstatic experience he tried to convince that we were missing out on the action. But watching Switch shout and hype frenetically over Diplo’s BASS BASS BASS and no melody, our peeks onto the main floor convinced us otherwise. The bass-hungry crowd only seemed to wander upstairs for respite (perhaps they were intimidated by our awesome dancing? I like to think so).
As the hour approached for Miike Snow’s upstairs set, girls crowded in next to me, snapping photos. I had forgotten I could take photos and almost didn’t want to. It seemed like snapping photos in his face would ruin the illusion in my head of a personal experience now (weren’t we single-serving friends now that he was on a first-name basis? Hmm, probably not). But then I got kind of annoyed that these bitches didn’t even want a picture of Jamie. By the time I had my camera out, he had already crept off the stage. I had just enough time to wonder if these girls newly crowding the floor thought he was some local DJ, how many didn’t know The XX was going to be their new favorite CD, how many were going to repeat “Crystalized” over and over on their trendy mp3 players. Then, like a secret whispered in the night, he was gone.
Glasser – Tremel (Jamie XX Remix)
The XX – VCR (MATHEW DEAR REMIX)
Florence and the Machine – You’ve Got the Love (XX Remix)
Best Dance Remixes of 2009
At long last, here is the list of the Hottest Remixes of 2009. How was this list made? Songs were judged by their propensity for eliciting uncontrollable ass-shaking, head-bobbing and shout outs to your deity of choice. I narrowed further by including only remixes, thus no mash-ups or straight-out hot dance songs. Also, every song was to the best of my research actually produced in 2009…since you can’t exactly look this stuff up on Amazon. Final judging was done by listening to the list backwards to ensure that each song is indeed just that much finer than the last. This is an exercise that I highly recommend.
These mixes are not the songs that make me think “This is really good.” No, no, these are the ones that leave me clutching my breast, uttering, “SO GOOD, SO fucking GOOD” with a primal vehemence that is beyond rational: It is animal. If you feel the need to howl while listening, it’s okay, I understand. Just try to follow it up with some shake-shake-shimmy.
1. HEARTSREVOLUTION – Switchblade (Designer Drugs remix)
(*1st blogged Jan 2009 on Hot Biscuits)
Sick sick sick sick sick. Such a perfect combination of HEARTSREVOLUTION’s dark electro “razor sharp candy coated glass” with DD’s outstanding beats. How can you not hear that scary/sexy voice chanting “if you love me than do it forever” without taking that as a personal call to the dance floor? Personally, my body begins a series of twitches, tremors and knocks that some may call dancing.
2. Radiohead – Everything In Its Right Place (Gigamesh remix)
1st blogged on Jan 2009 on Pretty Much Amazing)
This is not a song that I ever expected to hear in a remix. DJs tend to stick with new songs and when they go for something older its usually a song that’s been established as a pop classic.
Instead, Gigamesh lent his skills to something so dreamy and nonsensical it would be tough to pull off. And yet: what’s so beautiful about this mix is how seamless it is. The bass doesn’t feel at all out of place on those strange but beautiful layered vocals. It’s not a complicated mix, which is fine, because too much cutting and chopping would destroy the surreal magic of the original. Gigamesh somehow ties up all that surreal magic and delivers it to the dance floor.
In my experience, the reaction to this remix has been a combination of wonder and delight. It works just as well in the chillroom as the get-down-throw-down room. And it is very easy to mix with other songs, despite not having a cumbersome, long intro.
3. Rogues – Not So Pretty (Feed Me Remix)
(Only 3 bloggers, all in Feb 09! First was http://www.ohhcrapp.net)
At first it’s just a delightfully upbeat electro pop remix. A clever opening treble sounds like a computer imitating a beat boxer. Then as it drives into the refrain this tasty treat is exactly like Britney Spears: Underneath that pretty pop is something dark and gritty. When the refrain kicks in with the grungy guitar the song growls a little, contrasted with his sweet pretty voice. and just when the music takes a turn back to the pretty he turns gritty, shouting: “You ain’t so pretty!” It may be the PMS talking but this mix is so pretty I could cry.
4. Little Boots – Remedy (Buffetlibre vs Sidechains Remix)
(1st Blogged Jul 2009 on Sheena Beaston)
Songs like this are why I am obsessed with music. Oh! Her little “Oh-uh-oh”s! The whistle! The drum solo! The bass drop that fills me with chills and trembling! Oh-uh-oh! Dancing is indeed my fucking remedy, Little Boots, and these two DJs consistently draw me to the dancefloor. If the snake oil salesmen sold a potion that made me feel like this song does, I’d be the first in line for the cure.
5. Groove Armada – Drop The Tough [The Twelves B-LIVE Remix]
(1st blogged Jan 2009 on This Big Stereo)
The biggest surprise of this list was not who made it, but that the whole thing didn’t end up being a litany of The Twelves greatest hits. By far the most fun live DJ show I’ve seen, The Twelves consistently produce adorable disco takes on the hottest indie songs. This one was my favorite of 2009, but, while some DJs have a mix of bangers and losers, any of their 2009 mixes would be a respectable addition to your Best-Of list.
6. Jewel Kid – Break My Heart (Computer Club remix)
(1st blogged July 2009 on Penned Madness)
The bass on this hits like a hammer. But a pleasant hammer…a hammer of bright colors perhaps? This song was one of the few that entered my mp3 player in 2009 that never moved out of heavy rotation. Few DJs can rock a beat this hard without it sounding tacky and pasted on. Looking to hear more bangers from this LA DJ in 2010.
7. Empire Of The Sun – We Are The People (Jimmy2sox Remix)
(1st blogged Feb 2009 on This Big Stereo)
There were a ton of remixes of both this song and this album in general when Jimmy2sox came on the scene, by DJs who’s names would not be followed with “Jimmy who?” I already had my favorite “We Are the People” mix all picked out, and my second favorite too. Then this came along. The first time I heard that saxophone solo I was hooked. Who the hell adds a saxophone solo to a remix? Jimmy2sox, that’s who.
8. Metric – Sick Muse (Adam Freeland mix)
(1st blogged Sept 2009 on We like It Indie)
It opens with gorgeous synths that slice like Ginsu knives. Then when you think it’s showed you all it has to show, it seeds this dark bass which leads into hazy snow before picking up and up and up into some heavenly place in Emily Haine’s voice. He doesn’t chop it up too much, leaving choice lyrics such as “all the blondes are fantasies.” No instrument shouts for attention over any of the others; it feels like a song in its own right. I know this song well (Metric is a favorite) and when I’m listening to this mix I still forget which parts are from the band and which are his production.
9. NASA – Gifted (Aston Shuffle remix)
(1st blogged May on Discopunk)
This song is so fantastic to begin with that it needs no remixing. The spacey synths perfectly capture the nostalgia of 80s Freestyle: close your eyes and you might think you’re back in the seventh grade roller skating rink. Not surprisingly, many notable DJs have lent their hand to this tune. I have the Treasure Fingers remix. Oh, how many times I’ve heard the Steve Aoki remix. You be good, you listen to me: this is the mix you play.
10. Sneaky Sound System – It’s Not My Problem (Thin White Duke mix)
(1st blogged May 2009 on This Big Stereo
Her voice comes in like something from a dream. The pitch rises like a tornado and when the beat breaks it crashes like a beautiful wave. This, my lovelies, is where the good little disco beats go when they die.
I have nothing more to say because now I must dance.
P.S. If you own these songs, and you are under the impression that it would be wiser to remove them than allow for the puny quantity of publicity this simple blog provides, let me know and the links will disappear.
*I put more hours than I’d have liked into making sure these songs really came out in 2009. Though the first mention I could find was in 2009, that very post refers to this track on their best of 2008 list. So I sunk more time into trying to find the true release date, as well as contacting Hot Biscuits themselves. Ultimately, searching the site that released the album and the mix itself didn’t post it until 2009.
Treasure Island Music Festival: Saturday Evening
As a Floridian, most bands arouse the crowd by saying how surprised they are to see a lively crowd in the netherworld of suburban hell. All day at Treasure Island the bands were raving about how much they loved our city. While every band wants to sweet talk their audience, it’s easy to believe. Treasure Island has one of the best views of the skyline and I can only imagine, as a performer, what it must have been like to be standing on that stage with water all around you and San Francisco leaping up across the bay bridge. The weather was perfect when the sunset greeted the Brazilian Girls on Saturday night. They raved quite a bit about what a joy it was to come and perform at this festival. With the clouds turning yellow and gold and a warm breeze blowing through the autumn eve, I think most of us were happy to be there.
Even though they’re not actually Brazilian, I kept comparing the Brazilian Girls to the Brazilian act Cansei de ser Sexy. Both rely on a wordly, outrageous front woman that wears ridiculous outfits. Both have fantastic keyboardists. Both have a sense of humor and a touch of sexy. Where they differ is in their experience as musicians. Brazilian Girls have that been-around-the-block quality while CSS is still drunk on their own fame. For this reason CSS puts on a better show—there’s a ton of energy and excitement that it’s a thrill to be a part of. But Brazilian Girls were satisfying, even if their audience was mostly drawing blanks when it came to their multi-lingual songs. I’d like to see them again when they are the main act and have an audience that truly appreciates them.
Once Treasure Island was fully cloaked by the dark of night, MSTRKRFT took the stage. Seeing a live DJ-set is always like ordering the mystery meat, and MSTRKRFT was no exception. Simply because someone is a good producer doesn’t mean they are any good at throwing down tracks on the fly or anticipating what the audience is feeling. I had hoped that since half of MSTRKRFT was once in a rock band (Death From Above 1979) that they would be more committed to playing entire melodies unlike some other DJs I won’t mention *here. And they were slightly better. But I won’t say they picked the freshest dance tracks. More importantly, they did a lot of egotistical showing off of skillful song transitions that completely abandoned playing the best part of the song. A *lot of DJ’s do this and it drives me crazy. It wasn’t terrible but I would say the DJ that wasn’t even listed on the schedule was playing more songs that made me want to wiggle and jiggle than this all-star DJ.
MGMT was the headliner for Saturday night. MGMT started their set by announcing that this would be the last time they would be able to play these songs for a long time so they were going to play the entire album from start to finish. Holy smokes, right?! This implied that they are ready to hop into the studio to start working on new material, which is great news because we’ve all overplayed their first album and all it’s subsequent remixes till the phrase “Shock me like electric eel” leads me to **violent twitching.
It also meant that we of the mp3 generation were going to hear how the album was intended to be listened to. Hearing the whole thing played through really did give it more of a narrative quality that was more cohesive than, say, the entire ***Green Day’s American Idiot musical. I have often described MGMT to the uninitiated as a disco-folk band. But now that I’ve seen them I’d have to say they’re a psychedelic-disco-folk band. I caught some happy folks gazing at their shoes from time to time, including members of the band. They’re not a roof-raising show but they were skilled musicians and a good time was had by all.
*I lied: Bloody Beetroots, Crookers: shame shame shame
** not literally. It’s just overplayed, I’m saying.
***which was terrible. Just so you know.
Treasure Island Music Festival 2009: Sat morning
Perfect weather introduced the first and most promising act of the Treasure Island Music Festival: The Limousines. I’ve caught the end of their show once before and they were good enough that I got up early on a Saturday just to see them again. Unfortunately traffic around the Berkeley Bowl caused me to miss half their show again. Their songs are cute and funny and both the lyrics and the beat make me want to dance from even the first time hearing them. In my mind, The Limousines are the band of 2009 to get excited about.
The next act we caught was Murs. He had nice beats though his rapping voice wasn’t particularly special. We got up and danced for “To Protect and Entertain,” which is a Busy P track that he has a segment in. Surprisingly, he chose to use the Crookers beat live. Can’t be blamed, as that is one sick remix. That’s maybe the second time I’ve heard a live version of a remix (not counting Smash-up Derby). I wonder if, and how quickly, that will become commonplace—and if DJs will be given proper credit for their reworkings.
After that came Passion Pit. I don’t know why these guys don’t stir me more live. Their songs are all lovely and quirky and danceable. Maybe it’s because none of them have an inner-diva that craves the audience to stay riveted on their every move. Though I’ve read that their breakout album was actually a love-letter from the lead singer to his girlfriend, no insight is given as to where the songs come from. Not that I am discouraging anyone from seeing Passion Pit. The audience was enthralled, singing along like true fans. Replaying the shit bootleg I recorded there stirs joy in my heart. And they are still top of the heap among the bands putting out albums this year.
The Streets were the second biggest surprise of the festival. I’ve always felt that some of their songs were a bit slow or too repetitive but live the Brit-rapper’s charm and wit had me hooked. The Streets is a naughty but reasonable rake. The singer that accompanies him really adds to the show and the new guitarist did the kind of intensive shredding you don’t expect to see in a rap show. Blame all the photo editing I did prior to writing this, but Wayne Vibes made a cameo in my dreams last night. Anyone could plainly see that the penis of a man who can play guitar like that would have no trouble making new friends so it was no surprise when impish Streets informed Wayne that he’d be “getting laid tonight.”
At one point The Streets told a girl astride someone’s shoulders that she was blocking the view of all the people behind her. The penalty would be to remove her shirt. The chiding didn’t work on this girl but I can imagine that many titties are unleashed at Streets shows. As the show neared its end The Streets continually teased the audience that he had a favor to ask of us, just one favor, and that it was coming up. He finally had everyone in the audience “go low” so that you could look out and see the thousand behind you, crouching. Audience participation like this may ultimately be little more than silliness but it is a big part of *why I go to shows in the first place. I ate it up.
*Oh! Seed for future blog!
Song Lyrics and TV on the Radio
SeeqPod – Playable Search provided the songlist for the tunes mentioned in this blog
I have a long running argument with several people that love music but ignore song lyrics. Their thinking tends to be that they listen to music for the music, any poetry is incidental. I reply that by paying no attention to lyrics they are missing out on a huge facet of the experience, like watching a ballet without any music. True, not every great song has great lyrics. But finding out that a song you already love has an interesting story woven throughout adds a new layer of excitement to it. It allows a fresh discovery. I imagine this is one reason I am able to listen to some bands without tiring of them for months—because after getting to like the melody there is another whole layer to discover.
All art is simply communication—more stylized, beautiful, and complex but communication nonetheless. If one ignores the lyrics, that is like saying that you are interested only in the pleasure the sounds produce in your ears and not the idea the artist is using that music to impart. Thus, listening to music and ignoring the lyrics is a bit like kissing without affection. Most artists don’t sit down and just string together a melody. They usually have some idea of what the song is going to be about, at least a vague concept—love, politics, revenge. Just listening to an instrumental song, this is the most you can generally get out of it, an abstract feeling. Most artists have a more specific concept: “I’m going to write about how this person made me feel when they rejected me” or “I’m going to write a song about right now, lazing about on a Sunday afternoon.” All artists set out to express something, music is just their chosen medium. If they have taken the time to put words to the song, they’re giving you a message about what that song is about. As the music rises and falls, the lyrics correspond to that swell in emotion. You can speculate as to why the music crescendos and wanders as it does but if the artist has taken the time to write you a roadmap in the form of the lyrics, why not take a look at it?
How can one listen to “Both Hands” and not be drawn into the story about the woman on the third floor that listens to she and her partner’s “swansong”? Just the line, “I am writing graffitti on your body I am drawing the story of how hard we tried,” gives so much power and meaning to the song I am incredulous to imagine that you listen to the melody and aren’t moved by it.
Or the way Buffalo Springfield plings the guitar on the lines “Paranoia strikes deep/ Into your life it will creep…” That song is indelibly linked not just to the turbulant sixties but specifically to the clashes between cops and protestors. That song never had meaning for me until I listened to the lyrics. Now I can understand why it was a rallying call for a generation. The same goes with “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.
All this I’m talking about I experienced again today with TV on the Radio. I’ve been absorbing their sound for more than two years now and I never gave much thought to the lyrics. Electronic bands tend to be weak on songwriting anyway. But I happened upon a fantastic live acoustic version (which you can enjoy here) wherein the lyrics are more clear and I was able to appreciate them for the first time.
First I listened to “Young Liars.” The wordplay is intriguing and makes me want to listen to the song over and over to grasp how the interplay of these lyrics ties to the larger work. It starts off: “My mast ain’t so sturdy, my head is at half. I’m searching the clouds for the storm,” putting a dark sailing image in my head. This is followed by a huntress, her “bullets bearing the name of each tigress who’s left to a tooth. Save the skins for a pelt and the rest for a belt.” Later he says, “my heart’s still a marble in an empty jelly jar.” That’s a fantastic metaphor—it captures how he is feeling physically, intellectually and emotionally. He goes on to say that his nervousness will become prescience and “I’m Making maps out of your dreams.” The song ends with “Young liars, (Oh I said) Thank you for taking my hands/And burying them deep in the world’s wet womb/Where no one can heed their commands.” TV on the Radio has a sound that is dark and ominous, the music has already given us that abstraction. But more specifically the lyrics suggest the writer’s fear of the future and what he is capable of. And he does this using images (the ship in the storm, the ruthless huntress, the heart-jelly jar metaphor) that create a picture in the listener’s mind. The lyrics, though still vague, take the song from a pleasant abstraction and transform it into a dark journey. It adds such a visual layer to the song that a music video is the only way to supplement it (and videos never seem to be the artist’s vision, but the director’s, so it wouldn’t be the same at all). Reading the lyrics, how do you not visualize them? I picture the huntress on a B-52 bomber, loading a revolver, her legs crossed, a stack of rifles at her side, dressed in the 1940’s splendor of the Safari. And all this, visually, is just a metaphor for how he is feeling. You may visualize it differently, but undoubtably the image as you experience it brings something new to the song.
Now that I had discovered their lyrics, I was excited to move on to “Dry Drunk Emporer”. I was in for a surprise. I had no idea that TV on the Radio even wrote vaguely political songs but this one is clearly about our commander in chief.
The lyrics, in full:
baby boy
dieing under hot desert sun,
watch your colours run.
did you believe the lie they told you,
that christ would lead the way
and in a matter of days
hand us victory?
did you buy the bull they sold you,
that the bullets and the bombs
and all the strong arms
would bring home security?
all eyes upon
dry drunk emperor
gold cross cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he’s been
standing naked for a while!
get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!
and bring all the thieves to trial.
end their promise
end their dream
watch it turn to steam
rising to the nose of some cross legged god
gog of magog
end times sort of thing.
oh unmentionable disgrace
shield the childrens faces
as all the monied apes
display unimaginably poor taste
in a scramble for mastery.
atta’ boy get em with your gun
till mr. mega ton
tells us when we’ve won
or
what we’re gonna leave undone.
all eyes upon
dry drunk emperor
gold cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he’s been
naked for a while.
get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!!
and bring all his thieves to trial.
what if all the fathers and the sons
went marching with their guns
drawn on washington.
that would seal the deal,
show if it was real,
this supposed freedom.
what if all the bleeding hearts
took it on themselves
to make a brand new start.
organs pumpin on their sleeves,
paint murals on the white house
feed the leaders L.S.D
grab your fife and drum,
grab yor gold baton
and let’s meet on the lawn,
shut down this hypocrisy.
Wow. That’s a statement as bold as any rage against the machine like “Killing In the Name Of.” Here all along the phrase “Dry Drunk Emperor” was meaningless to me. I was liking the sound of the words strung together and nothing more. But it is so concise and apt. Bush is a “dry drunk” and those two words express so much—a history of irresponsibility, weakness and mistakes, the fact that he is dry implies that he is stifled, unhappy and looking for some other outlet, like war. “Emperor” is a better choice than president (which he isn’t) or even king—as the latter is related to kingdom while an emperor leads an empire, something liberals do associate with our government. More importantly, “emperor” reminds us of “the Emperor Wears No Clothes” which he alludes to with “he’s been standing naked for a while!”
“Dry Drunk Emperor” is more than a pretty song, it is a call to action. Like the Buffalo Springfield song, the lyrics mark it to this moment in history that so many of us feel connected to. Prior to knowing the words, I enjoyed the song but did not identify with it. Now that the lyrics have provided a key to understanding what TV on the Radio sought to express I feel a personal connection to the song and thus the band itself. This is so much more meaningful. It can only add to my experience of the music. And to all those music-lovers that like the pretty songs, and they like to sing along, but they don’t know what it means—well I say you’re only hearing half the music.