since this is a blog about lowbrow art just as much as it is about highbrow art, please allow me to flex my lowbrow.
i’m not *entirely* sure what’s wrong with me, but for some reason i have yet to experience the brilliance that can only be Sharpay’s fabulous adventure. but! if it’s as horribly cheesingly drippingly fabulous as the HSM2 song ‘fabulous’ i am ALL OVER THAT MESS.
it’s rather rare that disney designs a blonde haired, pink loving ditz as the ‘antagonist’. but i must admit i’ve got a few questions.
why do troy and gabriella’s lame ballads always win over sharpay and ryan’s upbeat pop songs?
why is sharpay compelled to steal kelsi’s music?
is chad aware of the irony of his actions during the ‘i don’t dance’ sequence?
i mean, has he been aware of what he’s been doing for the past 1.5 movies or what?
since tiara’s role is fairly superfluous, was her introduction into the franchise a way of protagonizing sharpay in order to ensure the success of her spin-off?
why doesn’t sharpay have any friends [besides the 'girls' at lava springs] ?
who wouldn’t be annoyed if you spent your entire high school career basically running the drama department only to have a jock and a new girl to upstage you?
so we’re in our quarter life and we’re done castigating our parents’ generation. that is like, so 2009 [along with anything 8-bit]. passe. yesterday’s jam is today’s jam. shacking up with a middle-aged man has, oddly enough, expanded my already rather wide musical musings. here’s a list of musicians and tracks that i have somehow jumped the shark, value-wise.
1] NOT THE BEATLES.
let’s set one thing straight. if we’re talking about giving value where value is due – here’s one example of a band who has been grossly over-valued. after sifting through their vast collection of repetitious albums, there is no one single stand out track, not a single solid compilation. enough of the beatles. they are neither cute nor talented, and most definitely not ‘ground-breaking’. if you start your career in a swath of screaming teenage females, you don’t really get to play the unconventional card. oh you have songs about drugs and the devil? WOW. rewind 20, 30 years and listen to robert johnson. thanks. now go and acquire your own taste in music and stop rehashing the same tripe over and over. thanks.
2] Neil Young
now that we’ve set the record straight, we’re off with The Original Wild Man.
i’m aware that mr young dislikes the sharing of his music without recompense, but he said so himself :: ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE. while we’re on the topic of compensation, we might as well bring up Farm Aid [as a newly enrolled devotee of the homesteaders unlimited guild [?]]. it’s nice to know that there’s a fellow canadian who not only understands but supports my desire for ducks, my goat lust, my bee envy.
the role of the storyteller has been greatly perpetuated by neil young’s gift for song crafting. growing up, i had always love love loved ‘cortez the killer’ [liberal artist and history buff shining through]. not to harp on the original, but built to spill’s cover and 20-minute guitar solo has really taken it to ‘the next level’. listening to him on the local rock station – CHOM 97.7 – he was one of the first of a line of ‘oh, adults like that kind of music so i guess i should too’, without ever having really paid any real attention to them.
3] Dire Straits
in a similar vein of #2, i had only ever known dire straits for their big hits – money for nothing, sultans of swing – without exploring their technical and storytelling mastery. scores of generations of bards are bowing. let’s go down to the waterline.
4] Russian Classical and Modernist [Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky...]
when i hear people say ‘i don’t like opera’, they are making a statement that is not unlike saying ‘i don’t like pop music’. it’s a rather broad statement that comes from being narrow-minded. operatic productions cannot, and should not, be lumped into one group, as styles and artists vary greatly from one artistic movement to another. i’ve gone out on a limb and put sergei and igor together with pyotr and modest because on the whole, i’ve come to prefer russian composers over, say, spanish or italian. perhaps it’s the structure, perhaps it’s the chill of perseverance. lately i’ve been on a bit of a baroque kick, but the flow and jarring of history and story always brings me back to russia. back to the stigma of opera, it’s popularity during the height of its composition as a form of entertainment is the modern equivalent to going to the bell centre to watch madonna shake her tits on stage. it would make as much sense but move you just as deeply to experience it IRL, even if the viewer were absolutely clueless as to what the singers were trying to convey. i’m not saying ‘like opera’. just try and find the kind of pop music you like.
just don’t sell out and try to convince me the beatles were the greatest band ever.
a rather tragic amount of time has passed since my last real entry – mostly because i was incredibly uninspired, tired of school, and just tired in general. but as i was sitting on the ‘gin couch’ watching josie and the pussycats yesterday, i felt the urge to reach out and pick mbls again.
i’ve finally felt some redundant relevance here in the bog [since the xx post i have graduated university, written and published 4 zines, collaborated on 2 more, joined a yarnbombing collective and proceeded to move out of montreal! phew!], this relevance due mostly to my diabolically theological leanings and intrinsically synchretic lifestyle.
the creative process is a ficklefuck of a pickle, but i’ve finally reached a point where i can map out my methods on a solar and lunar calendar. those who know me know what i’m talking about when i say ‘holy shit sponge mode’. the most recent sponge has been combining my many sources of herbal, planetary, and colour correspondences into one mostly gender and intention neutral volume. FUN ! but i love my lore and superstitions and symbols and they deserve to be all together.
this is straying widely from my original intention, but my notes are pretty scattered tbh especially since i am now listening to traditional appalachian music so i’m never really ~here~, i have always been and always will be a bizarre oddity smattering the fringe theories of life, the universe and everything and like to think i have a slight grasp on the nature of pop culture and the relationships held in this circle.
for most of modernity’s mythologies now take place in light boxes which make one believe one is socializing while physically remaining in solitude. there’s a story about a person, taking the role of the ‘hero’, who attempts to play the role of the outsider. gains status of the inner circle, becomes disillusioned, and flees, or rather reverts to their former state. one is either in or out. happy mediums don’t exist in entertainment, but somehow the weirdo will prevail in all this. the weirdo wins in cinematic experience, but something is lost in translation.
our lives are not walking commercials no matter how often we might be told this. while many creative people do have to market themselves as a brand in order to reach their own level of success [infinite variable], it is considered ‘dirty’ because art must be noble and perfect and float about the material world while offering the world material objects. i am stuck on this point. i have become more sensitive and aware to the placement and role of advertisements now that i watch most of my beloved reality tv on the computer, where i can close any popups and not have my daisy of love interrupted by 3 minutes of wonkwonkwonk for every 5 minutes of showtime. these things are important to me – the changing role of hero worship dependent on progressive technologies should not i repeat not be spoiled. i will be a better person by observing psychologically behaviour in realtime, not by spending $10 on the most technologically advanced oral health system.
so why is it so effective? teenagers are surely not as empty and vapid as Big Money wants them to be. they are the last bastion of rebellion. if i can connect with a group of 13 year old boys when i’m ‘bombing, and they can see the value in my work [as valueless as it really is, these kinds of groups are my target audience] then i know i have succeeded in someway. there’s no subliminal messaging, there’s no fooling these monsters. we’ve lived every minute of our lives having been forced perfect life images upon us and yet no one lives this way. there’s a realization that no one knows what they’re doing AND ITS OKAY.
what’s not ok is having a place of constant one way dialogue. when defacing advertisements in public places, the defense is always for the ad. here we have a culture where pieces of paper and plastic have more rights and are valued more than the citizens who habit it!
so. what do we do? these bogs aren’t big enough for us all. the conversation is old, but there’s no resolution readily available, other than ‘know thyself’. stop victimizing yourself and take a risk on a homemade venture. i’ll pick up the ‘like art, god is a verb’ some other time. how do i still miss america after all this?
before tomorrow’s epic tarot post – here’s me ranting about xiu xiu, again.
admittedly late to her own party, by about 4 years
the reason i was so hesitant to listen to xiu xiu’s remixed & covered album is because of the supernatural sacredness that i surround [almost all] music with. when it came out, i only knew one or two of the covering bands which, fairly enough, would mean i wouldn’t appreciate much of the effort put into remixing [or 'corrupting'] the original tracks.
WELL.
we can clear corruption from our lexicon immediately.
it is hard to pick a place to start as i am bursting with a once again unfolding of xui-ness. released after the air force, before woman as lovers, it caps up what i like to call ‘the golden years’ but that’s another argument.
i FINALLY got around listening to it because of my recent grouper kick. i read [somewhere?] that grouper aka liz harris did a phenomenal cover of ‘tonite and today’ and ended up loving the whole damn thing. tonite and today drips with reeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeerb ooooOOOOOoooOOOoooooOOOo that we love so well. there’s a hint of marble mouth behind a thick curtain. even extends the track a whole 1:10 but even that doesn’t seem long enough. the perfect song to miss your dearly departed friendly stranger.
hammer to the head aka this song is a mess but so am i aka future former ghosts man aka freddy ruppert buzzes the saw along in the delicious schizophrenia with glitch hiccups and …. gun shots? i am indeed, not so good. does justice to the original [think 0:34] which live pales to the studio version. SHIT. walking into a normal room and suddenly everyone breaks down into tears. instead of questioning the outpouring you join them. that is TSIAMBSAI.
FABULOS MUSKLES all popped up with beats erase the lullaby. i would love to sing kid 606′s version to the children i cater next time they cannot sleep and suffer ear infections. art nannying 101. upon furthur reflection, this remix sounds eerily similar to former ghosts’ new orleans? only with a jamie stewart ten in the swear jar era voice.
break my face and it was
the kindest touch you ever gave
wrap my dreams around your thighs
drape my hope upon the hope to touch your arm
fabulous muscles
if i were ever to somehow own a convertible, this would be the song i would blast. rolling up st laurent boulevard.
thank you for keeping the intro. thank you for keeping the song structure. there’s always a lot to work with [sometimes, too much - like the air force medley. why? why why? please don't freestyle on wigmaster.] i still have a lot of trouble swallowing knife play as an album, even if it contains some of the best lyrical material i’ve come across. kp is the golden universally ambiguous. best to yell from treetops. try it ::
MIXING PILLS AND GAS WITH INCEST !
VENICE IS THE RIGHT PLACE TO KILL YOURSEEEEEEEEEELF !!!!!!!!!!!!!
pre-seer-ving the skeleton and draping it in danse beats and rhinestones.
now, the original ::
i know i sound like a meth infused adolescent but apathy but my blood has been poisoned with erratic energy. i know i’m too old for this but oxbow’s saturn has got me back into satanism.
november is always a fuck of a month. a grey descending into frost. a lack of colour or warmth – in our impossible climate and the citizens who are ______ enough to call this place home. NO JUDGMENT BEING PASSED i just do not get you at all at all at all.
november :: wherein our hero dabbles in memes, combines them in order to make a list of things that she is not loathe to draw.
01 :: me! drawing, me! blue hair not included. the real right hand is my signature style. it’s drawn in a mirror. i am left handed. you be the judge.
02 :: some one you ‘like’
i do indeed like my breakfast partner / fellow cat toucher. we drink coffee and young blood.
03 :: a / some / all friends
i chose an absent friend. i think about them a lot. i hope they’re okay.
strangely enough
as i am getting pretty sick of this town, i seem to be more and more interested in the local acts. before it was sacrilegious to live here and say you did not like the arcade fire. now there is a chanting in my skull ONE OF US ONE OF US. but their newest release ‘the suburbs’ is pretty catchy. good for walking to work those early saturday mornings. a definitive soundtrack to a deserted boulevard st laurent.
valleys is a local act i wish i had $5 to spare to go and see [yes! i am indeed that broke!]. they opened for xiu xiu all those weeks ago and i’ve been haunting their myspace ever since, which is kind of useless considering i am not getting the same interrupted spiritual agreement i had initially. this is where recordings fail in some respects. a seance is not sonic.
one of my favourite things about the beginnings of a doomed relationship is musical sharing. they brought a silver mount zion to my attention – quite possibly the ultimate soundtrack to an oncoming winter. pair it with grouper’s ‘dragging a dead deer up a hill’ and the coasts collide.
