Hip Hop Hooray!

Oh snap! It was my first hip hop show EVER! I got out my old ADIDAS track jacket, some gold chains and chunky rings, so I felt like the 4th member of RunDMC, and rounded up my homies and I was ready to kick it.

Having never been to a hip hop show before, I was a little surprised that the doors weren’t until 10pm. I must be getting old, since I thought this was some sort of misprint on the tickets. Strange but true. Maestro did not even take the stage until 11:30, so I weasled my way up to the front of the stage so I could get a good view, especially since I only had on my Chuck T’s which meant I didn’t have the height of stiletto heels to my advantage.
Maestro opened up with “Drop the Needle” which got the crowd pumped, and just when you thought the song was over he laid down the “black tuxedo, black tuxedo, black, black, black tuxedo” and everyone lost their shit. He interacted with the crowd on many levels, giving handshakes, love and props to his fellow Canadians, and even holding out the mic so our friend got to sing along. The Maestro is 41 now, and I guess that little person inside me from twenty years ago was thinking he would come out with his crazy slanted Arsenio Hall hairdo and moustache, but times have changed and he was in a ball cap and white dress shirt, jumping around on stage with so much contagious energy. Maestro also dropped his biggest hit “Let Your Backbone Slide” which is the best selling Canadian hip hop single of all time, and “These Eyes” which is one of Alex’s favorites.

After a short intermission and a DJ scratch session, Naughty By Nature took the stage. Treach came out in a fur jacket and hoodie, looking like a mean mofo. I have to admit the white girl in me was a little scared, but as he proceeded with the show and joked around with the crowd; calling us “his family” I realized every little white girl needs a big black brother. I was still at the front of the stage stuck next to a wigger who was the longest, lankiest and the leanest white boy I have ever seen trying to dance to hip hop, he was waving his arms around like he was trying to land a plane, and I can’t believe I didn’t get elbowed. However, I was privy to wigger-boy shouting out lyrics in my face whenever he happened to turn my way like he was free-styling his own tracks, which was absolutely hysterical. NBN mixed up a bunch of what we called “white people’s favorite black songs” such as “California Love, Drop it Like its Hot”, and “Golddigger” and in between those scratched up remixes, they would perform their own tracks. The boys opened up with “O.P.P” which made everybody bounce, and gave us “Jamboree, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” and ending with “Hop Hop Hooray” where they dragged a bunch of peeps on stage and they all danced.

I was hoping there would be some raw break-dance action happening, but the show was pretty dope as is. Treach and Vin Rock also did a shout out to 2Pac, and Treach actually poured some Hennessy on his tattooed arm which had a picture of 2Pac on it. There was so much love in the room last night and the boys kept yelling at us to all get home safe and not fight cuz we are all family, which is a pretty awesome statement for a hip-hop band to make since Vancouver has become Canada’s gang capital. In any case, if this is any indication of what hop hop shows are like, count me in for the next one!

Depeche Mode, "Wrong"

Hey, you guys like Depeche Mode right? Well, here's the first single from their forthcoming album Sounds of the Universe. Produced by Ben Hillier, who also helmed the delightful return to form that was Playing the Angel way back in 'Ought Five, the track actually makes me think of some of the stuff from Dave Gahan's underrated 2007 solo album Hourglass. It's not knock-me-on-my-ass awesome, but it certainly has that recognizable DM sound and the repetition of the song title throughout actually hearkens back to some of the stuff they were doing circa Some Great Reward. Also, does anyone else really enjoy hearing Martin doing his angelic vocal thing as a counterpoint to Dave's tortured sex lizard wail? I sure do! I'm actually pretty excited for this record now!

Depeche Mode, "Wrong (Radio Edit)"

Laughter and Reception

I recently watched a performance of Erik Satie's ballet "Relâche", which accented small chamber and ensemble pieces of Satie's with theatre, dance and film he had a hand in crafting as well (you haven't lived until you've seen Satie lamping around an artillery gun in slo-mo, replete with his trademark bowler). The show was both lively and contemplative in trademark Satie fashion (although I still prefer his piano work), but the audience's reaction to some of the material presented struck me as odd...

A series of short ensemble pieces were preceded by a suite of three short chamber songs with vocal accompaniment. These first songs were as "serious" and emotive as Satie gets, and were treated as such by the audience. Later, there was a series of brief comedic pieces ("Sports & Divertissements") which were narrated by an actress performing an exaggerated pantomime: the audience laughed throughout. But it was the audience's reaction to "Mercure", the short pieces between these "serious" and "comedic" pieces, which puzzled me. The pieces are brief, seemingly off the cuff. One might describe most of them as comic in tone, but not comedic. The audience listened "properly" to each song, but when each of them came to a quick and sudden end, laughter broke out.

I'm not sure if what prompted the laughter at the end of the pieces was simple propriety - one doesn't laugh during classical music unless there's a clown onstage, as there was with "Sports & Divertissements" - or the sudden conclusions which punctuated the pieces at there end. Were people laughing at how quickly the pieces resolved? At how short they were? If that's the case, it seems like a stunted manner in which to approach comic music. All of the pieces in "Mercure" were brief and resolved themselves quickly. Those which were explicitly comic were so throughout their duration, not just during their abrupt conclusion. If we laugh at the manner in which an episode of "Seinfeld" ends with multiple storylines crashing together in manic chaos, we've also been laughing during the episode. So why not laugh during a piece of comic music as well as at its end?

I suppose I'm drawing a somewhat arbitrary line in the sand between music with explicitly comedic content (Weird Al, Spike Jones, or, say, Biz Markie) and music with a comic approach to form and structure (Sparks, Wire). I laugh at Weird Al's jokes or Biz's zaniness during their music, but if a Sparks or Wire song is both amusing and taking liberties with pop/rock expectations and structural devices, I tend to have a smile on my face throughout a listen, but that doesn't necessary culminate in a catharsis of laughter once the song's ended. I don't keep a straight face until "Field Day For The Sundays" reaches its quick end then break out laughing - "They ended the song after 29 seconds! How magnificently frivolous!" Music rarely makes "jokes" in the most restrictive sense of the term: setup and punchline (although I'd be keen to hear suggestions or examples). It may have a humourous conclusion, but it plays and japes along the way (especially Satie's): everything does not depend on the punchline.

Bah, I have hundreds of problems and concerns about the way music is received in public, especially art music. I don't expect people to be slapping their knees and hooting throughout performances (that actually sounds quite hellish), I just wish that music which overturns so many formal conventions like Satie's would be able to provoke at least some upset in the conventions of listening.

The art of flail

So Alex decided to make this blogging thing into a classic game of one-upsmanship last time out. How should a man respond? Should he synthesize his post and his friend's by directing people towards Celtic Frost's amazing cover of "Mexican Radio"? No, that'd be too calculated (but seriously, check that shit if you haven't). Should he wade through countless HOINH-plagued threads on Side-Line in an effort to find a new cut even goofier than "Run Your Body"? A tall order, indeed. Should he write another twenty-page MLA-styled essay with numerous secondary sources on Why I Refuse To Spend Money On Boyd Rice Projects? No, he's got more than enough stuff distracting him from his thesis as is. Should he stop writing in the third person and just quickly troll through my mp3 drive in another Smuckles-inspired flail, and come up with another "cover in another style" track in the form of Thou Shalt Not's Richard Cheese-influenced rendition of "Headhunter", which I used to spin from time to time? Sure, that'll do. Hell, if I'm gonna respond to a track which jacks "That Total Age", I might as well do so with a track which jacks the only EBM club album more overplayed than that one.

Thou Shalt Not, "Headhunter"


Yeah! What now, Alex? You think you're all that just cuz you can drop the ball while blogging every once in a while? Pft. I once went for a full year without posting anything on LJ apart from "Which member of the Bay City Rollers are you?" survey results. I've been cat-blogging since 2000 and I don't even have a cat.

UCNX, "Run Your Body"

Did you read B's engaging and informative post about US Black Metal on Tuesday? You find me another fucking blog that drops that kind of science, on the real, on the regular. Go ahead, find me one. I'll just wait here.

All big upping aside, that was some good blog. There are two ways I respond to one of my colleagues spitting game like that. I can either take it as a cue to step my posting game up, come up with some next level shit that deserves to share digital turf with the aforementioned freshness. Or to paraphrase Ray Smuckles (patron saint of DiJ), I can choke with the kind of focus and intensity you usually see in successes and come up with some last minute bullshit just to get a post up before the week is out.

That said, the track I’m posting today is pretty damn great. A medley/mash-up of Nitzer Ebb’s “Let Your Body Learn” and Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” by Jersey-Philly EBM players UCNX, straight out the Side-Line forums. It seems kind of obvious now that I think about it. The CD single also features a bangin' instrumental K-Nitrate remix and a UCNX remix of an Idiot Stare track, holy fuck, mid-nineties US Coldwave stand the fuck up! So yeah, suck on that Bruce!

UCNX, "Run Your Body"

American Black Metal: A Beginner's Guide

It's been nearly two decades since a rash of church burnings and the murder of Euronymous fanned the flames of black metal's infamy to reaches far beyond the Norwegian woods of its birth. Fifteen years after the influence of progenitors like Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer crystallized in the form of Emperor's genre defining "In The Nightshade Eclipse", Norwegian black metal remains an inimitable source of inspiration and controversy for both metal fans worldwide as well as those more interested in pop culture at large. There can be no denying that mainstream attention has forced Norwegian black metal into a constant state of agitated self-reflection. Not that I can blame it - a coffee table book dedicated to any genre's aesthetic couldn't help but stir the pot. Pity the modern day Norweigian black metal band which, along with more classical problems like ridding Norway of Judeo-Christian influence, now has to deal with its kvlt status being constantly endangered by mp3 blogs.

While no one will ever deny Norway as black metal's permanent ancestral and spiritual home, issues like those outlined above, not to mention the sheer amount of time that's passed since the genre's inception have helped other countries forge their own particular brand of black metal. I keep hearing about the strength of the black metal scene in Pakistan, and I'll be honest: I'm dying to know what that shit sounds like. Oddly enough, though, for my money the black metal that's been springing up closer to my door, just south of the border in the US, is what's been pushing the boundaries of the genre in the most rewarding dimensions. Here's a quick run-down of some USBM that's been weighing heavily on my winter-shrouded, cosmically-damned soul.

Xasthur
One-man outfit Xasthur could be said to be emblematic of USBM, especially its healthy respect for yet distance from its Norwegian ancestry. Taking Burzum as a starting template, Xasthur's Malefic jettisoned both Vikernes' NSBM bullshit (huzzah) along with his folklore obsession. Rather than paganism or racial myths, depression and suicide, those standbys of American youth culture, begin to emerge as dominant themes (although the corpse paint remains). It's a strictly low-fi affair with no frilly guitar or keyboard wankery, making Xasthur a formative influence on the ambient black metal and depressive (no, that's not a typo - it's "ive", not "ing" - don't ask me) black metal sub genres, which have flourished in the US.
Xasthur, "Black Imperial Blood"


Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice
Another solo group, Leviathan's Wrest has a history as a prog metal drummer. While he shares Malefic's love of lo-fi monotone, Wrest's rhythm sections are slightly more dynamic than Xasthur's, even if they're hardly flashy. Leviathan also unleashes a tad more traditional black metal brutality, but Wrest's side project, the puzzlingly named Lurker of Chalice, goes off the reservation in some provocative ways. Shoegaze harmonics and distortion are applied to black metal compositional structures, with the odd hint of melody to boot.
Lurker of Chalice, "Granite"


Velvet Cacoon
A Portland group shrouded in mystery, it still remains unclear if Velvet Cacoon are a "legitimate" band or an elaborate prank upon the black metal scene's insatiable desire for ever more extreme and outlandish band mythologies. Stories of drummers falling off of forest cliffs in drunken stupors, connections with the E.L.F. and the "dieselharp" (a guitar amplified through an aquarium full of wine and blood) have been discredited, but a small clutch of releases (not to mention "fake" demos of other bands' material deliberately released by VC to confuse fans) still exist. Velvet Cacoon embody the paradox of low-fi: by not giving a fig about production quality, they draw the listener ever further into their recordings' textures. Black metal's ambient possibilities become apparent through sheer repetition rather than ever softening itself.
Velvet Cacoon, "Avalon Polo"


Twilight
Ah, the great American tradition of the supergroup. Malefic, Wrest, and a handful of the US' other darkest lights worked on a single LP by correspondence. Who'd have thunk that solo black metal dudes wouldn't play nice with others? In any case, the tracks range from the grey skies of Xasthur and Leviathan to the rawness of Twilight's other members' pedigrees in Nachtmystium, N.I.L. and Isis.
Twilight, "White Fire Under Black Text"


Wolves In The Throne Room
Another environmentally-minded outfit from the Pacific Northwest ("If you listen to Black Metal, but you don't know what phase the moon is in, or what wild flowers are blooming then you have failed.") bereft of Norwegian aesthetic and thematic concerns, Wolves In The Throne Room are poised to become the defining band of USBM. Welding psychedelic and ethereal influences to black metal, Wolves' releases seem effortlessly free of any of the pigeonholing to which black metal is too often subject. They've adopted black metal as a means to an intensely personal end and owe no fealty to anything which doesn't take their music where it needs to go. My personal favourite of all of these bands, Wolves In The Throne Room could do to USBM what Ulver did to Norwegian black metal: completely redefine it by leaving it all behind.
Wolves In The Throne Room, "Cleansing"

Slept On: Lowlife

In this and further Slept On installments, we'll be shouting out bands past and present (but mostly the former) who never received their due.

I was stunned when I first heard about Lowlife. It wasn't that I was surprised to learn that there was another excellent, gloomy dream-pop band from Scotland I'd never heard of - it was the fact that this particular band featured none other than Will Heggie, architect of the stark, echoing basslines which dominated the Cocteau Twins' early releases which knocked me on my back. Rather daftly, I'd assumed that Heggie had simply faded into the woodwork after leaving Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser to develop the glorious, chiming mellifluousness that became their signature sound. In actuality, it turns out that Heggie signed on with a rockabilly band to fill in on bass for some tour dates and recording sessions, then afterwards opted to forge onward with them in an entirely different direction, more in keeping with his previous tenure. Ignorance aside, I couldn't help but have high expectations when I snagged Godhead, Lowlife's third full-length from 1989. Undiscovered (by me) Cocteaus-related work? This had better be good.

I needn't have worried. Lowlife's discography quickly rose above my expectations, and became a hypnotic, multi-faceted jewel in my record collection.

After Rain, a solid EP of galloping post-punk (somewhere between U2 and Skeletal Family), shit got darkly dreamy with debut LP Permanent Sleep. The band's similarity with the Cocteaus is, perhaps expectedly, most noticeable on this early work. The swishy rhythms of tracks like "Mother Tongue" quickly call Heggie's earlier work on tracks like "But I'm Not" and "Shallow Then Halo" from the Cocteau's Garlands. Permanent Sleep is a generally dour affair, with very little light ever penetrating the waves of melancholy which roll over the album with a weary tempo. Sophomore full-length "Dimminuendo" brims with confidence, even if that confidence manifests as wistful contemplation. It's here that comparisons with Echo could be made, but singer Craig Lorentson's voice is of an entirely different cast than Ian McCulloch's. A deep baritone, Lorentson's voice was often mixed to the forefront of Lowlife's records, giving just about everything set to tape a magisterial, if mournful feel.

While there's some critical consensus holding up "Dimminuendo" as Lowlife's best work, I opt for their subsequent album, "Godhead". It is an aching, glowing thing of beauty. When I was in my early teens I bought records rather rarely (compared to my current collecting), and those which I did often turned out to foundational life-changers: "Disintegration", "Substance" (both of them), "The Queen Is Dead". Those records demanded to be listened to ad nauseum, no note or detail going unnoticed or unabsorbed, each lyric striking a chord if only for verbalizing sentiments I'd only just discovered. "Godhead" hearkens back to those days, and reminds me of a time when there was much less music around me, but that which there was mattered so much more. It's a strange thing to encounter music like that in the almost curatorial process of mining through the also-rans and never-weres of a genre one's achieved a pedestrian familiarity with. Lowlife make me feel as though I'm hearing this sort of music - sad, expressive dream pop - for the first time again.

A fourth album, "San Antorium", added some brighter sparkles to the formula. A reissue campaign has brought Lowlife's first four LPs, bolstered with "Rain" and plenty of singles, remixes and session tracks back into circulation, along with a nineteen-track "introduction to" CD. Extensive liner notes by Brian Guthrie, the band's manager (and, yes, Robin's brother) add to the reissues' strength. No info on whether the band's final album, "Gush", will be getting the same treatment. There's also an excellent archival website with plenty of info for the newcomer to boot.

This is gorgeous stuff, people. Don't let it pass you by.

Lowlife, "Hollow Gut"


Lowlife, "Bittersweet"