New ground

After a lengthy hiatus, Alex and I are taking another crack at music blogging. We're fired up and have a swank new site:

http://www.idieyoudie.com/
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Industrial People

JG Ballard is dead at 78. I think it's fair to say that if there's a single author who was a literary influence on more of the artists in my record collection than any other, Ballard would be it. The range of artists who've been inspired by Ballard is tremendous: Joy Division, Brian Eno, huge swaths of the early punk and new wave landscapes. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that without Ballard, industrial music as we understand it might never have coalesced. His themes - technology, sex, architecture, psychology - became those of musicians whose opted neither to flee from nor gleefully embrace the emergence of electronic music within the pop world, but instead to engage in a dialectic with it: Throbbing Gristle, Fad Gadget, Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark. We do not wage war against the machine, nor do we ignore it as it seeps into our aesthetics and subtly shifts our expectations. We study it and its history and through it our own as we observe the changes it enacts in us and we in it.

Ballard was as good a navigator as we could've hoped for of the multiplicity of our futures, those we've inherited and those we've forged. Pick up a copy of "High Rise" or "Concret Jungle", put your TG24 boxset on loop and reflect on what we've lost, kiddies. We'll never see his likes again.

Marissa Nadler

So I know that our posts at DIJ have slacked off in the past couple months, and for that I'm sorry. Without wanting to speak for Alex or Trish, my time of late's been consumed by thesis work, bitching about the bullshit Galactica finale, listening to Carcass, Charles Stross novels, finally giving Lost a shot, and thesis procrastination. But I've also been going to loads of shows.

I'd like to offer not a full review of Marissa Nadler's show at the Media Club last night so much as a brief yet ringing endorsement of her current tour and entire body of work. If Leonard Cohen, Mazzy Star or the short stories of Flannery O'Connor have ever accompanied you and your favourite bottle through a lonely night of quiet reflection on topics like lovers and death, then you should've already been augmenting such revels with any of Marissa's three previous albums (debut "Ballads of Living And Dying" being my harrowing favourite). If not, new album "Little Hells" serves as a great showcase for why Nadler's light years ahead of her supposed peers in the contemporary singer songwriter sweepstakes (Seriously, Joanna Newsom? What is wrong with you people?), and shows her becoming much more proficient with full-band instrumentation.

Speaking of bands, the way Nadler's rearranged her sparser material to suit her touring group is simply ace. Shoegazy gauze augments the plaintive keen of songs like "Heart Paper Lover" without overpowering them, and at the forefront of the live experience remains Nadler's voice. I think I might've dropped the book I was reading the first time I heard it a few years ago. The voice of a woman who knows that this bender will be her last. The voice of the dead woman you wronged beckoning from just outside your window. The voice which dragged you out of your home in the night to ramble along the hills with a bottle of whiskey and try to remember and forget at the same time.

With that slightly purple description out of the way, I humbly implore you to pick up "Little Hells" and to see if Nadler's bringing her songs and her voice to your neck of the woods.

Marissa Nadler, "Rosary"

James, "Say Something (Utah Saints Radio Edit)"

Fifteen-odd years back I chanced across a track on the radio by James, britpop stalwarts who never cracked the biz this side of the pond. The cut was "Say Anything" from their 1993 "Laid" album, but it wasn't the album version that I found when I nabbed "Laid" on cassette. The remix that I'd heard added some characteristically early 90's techno flourishes that punched the song's melancholia up into the heavens. I never heard that remix again after that chance encounter on All Hit LG730 (yes, I'm old school enough to have grown up with an AM station) until today.

Turns out that the remix I heard was done by Utah Saints, and I can't believe I never sussed that out on my own. The radio-friendly brushes of light acid and disco diva backing vocals have the Leeds stadium house outfit's fingerprints all over. While it sounds dated as all get out, the remix still gives me that same hit of summery pop that made me wish I'd had a blank Maxell rolling in the tape deck that night. Peep it (along with the original if you've never heard it) below.

James, "Say Something"

James, "Say Something (Utah Saints Radio Edit)"

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"

Seabound, "Scorch the Ground (Forma Tadre remix)"

I've always quite liked Seabound, their style of synthpop has always seemed more thoughtful and emotive then many of their contemporaries for lack of a better description. They've also always maintained a pretty high degree of quality in their releases. The band has just released a b-sides and rarities comp When Black Beats Blue which is a bit disappointing, coming as it does on the heels of a live record, but does have a few gems for those folks who are waiting on the next album length platter of original music. Of specific note are a version of their club classic "Hooked" with a distinctly different vocal and a nice live version of "Watching Over You" that Reagan Jones of Iris lends his vocals to. The real exciting bit for me though is a Forma Tadre remix of "Scorch the Ground", leveraging as it does DiJ's general FT stannery and specifically my love of his remixes (especially the ones for Assemblage 23's "Document" and haujobb's "Penetration".)

On a side note, I would very much have liked to see Seabound's "Day of the Century" make the cut for the disk, due it being a b-side that is in serious contention for the group's best song. I guess since Metropolis decided to tack it on to their rerelease of No Sleep Demon that it didn't need to appear again. But hey, at least that gives me a reason to mention that that record along with most of Metro's catalogue has been uploaded to eMusic, my own personal favorite digital music retailer.


Seabound, "Scorch the Ground (Forma Tadre remix)"

Zentriert ins Antlitz

I dashed into the DJ booth, demanded to know what was playing, scribbled the name down and hit up Google as soon as I got home. The cause of this flurry of activity? Zentriert ins Antlitz, a dark electro band heavy on the ambient side.

If "Frames"/"Solutions For A Small Planet" era Haujobb floats yr boat then you need to check this stuff out. Thankfully, they've made that painfully simple by offering up their 2007 full-length, "Diametral", for download under a Creative Commons license, as well as assorted EPs and side project releases. Their actual CD releases often include access to entire discs' worth of remixes and bonus tracks. In short, they're on top of getting the goods to you quickly and with panache.

I haven't become so quickly obsessed with tracking down all of a dark electro band's releases in years. Sometimes it takes hearing true innovation and complexity to make you realise how lacking so much of the other material in a genre is. ZiA's music is a transmission from a wondrous alternate universe in which the 90s expeditions made by Haujobb into the coldest reaches of electro (as well as Forma Tadre's symphonic work, Klinik's dalliances with psy-trance, and Mentallo & The Fixer's sheer sonic overload) were acknowledged as the great leaps forward that they were and embraced, rather than being shunned for the sake of stale arpeggios and safe-as-houses club mixes.

-Zentriert ins Antlitz, "Der Zorn des Lammes"
-Zentriert ins Antlitz, "Jahr Fuer Jahr"

Reductio ad Hitlerum

Hey there, loyal DIJ reader! Have you, like us, been roundly disappointed by just about everything Apoptygma Berzerk has put out since 2000's "Welcome To Earth" (their Kim Wilde cover being a notable exception)? Would you say that yr disappoinment has been rooted not so much in the band's desire to explore new territory (believe me when I say that I want EBM bands to succeed when they branch out) but by the sheer mediocrity of the limp ballads and uninspired rockers that the outfit churned out on "You And Me Against The World"? Have you ever made those thoughts public? Are you getting tired of me shoving words in yr mouth?

If the answer to the above questions is "yes", then congratulations: Stephen Groth just called you a Nazi. Yep, that's right: in an interview with Side-Line, El Grotho tries to set the record straight on Apop's stylistic shifts, but ends up whinging about how harsh fans of Apop's earlier material have been in their critiques of the band's newer efforts, a hardship which Groth equates with Nazi censorship:

I get this kind of nazi war feeling when reading some of them. It's just like the Nazi's 'Berufsverbot', Jews, artists, thinkers and politicians were not allowed to do what they were doing because they had different opinions on things. The Nazi's decided what was good music, good books and good art, and then burned the rest. They burned everything that they didn't like, remember the Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in Nazi Germany. If you can not enjoy and accept that people think different and have other views, then thats really sad. Reading some of these comments does gives me that very bad taste in my mouth...

Y'know what leaves a bad taste in my mouth, Steve-o? Punks who wanna play Big Rock Star and then act as though they don't understand the plot of "Ziggy Stardust". I accept that people have different views: you think the last nine years of Apop material are great, I think they're trite pablum - no need to drag Hitler into the debate, dick. If your ego is so big that it can be wounded by a bunch of online rivetheads who call your bid for mainstream success as they see it to the point that you feel the need to not only violate Godwin's Law but compare yourself to victims of the Nazis, then you haven't just failed at Using The Internet 101, you've also failed at being a rock star. The pretty boy guitar hero that you've fancied yrself for some time should be above such petty grievances. Shit like this just goes to show those of us who've slagged you in the past that not only do you lack musical chops, Groth, but that you lack the promotional skills to succeed in the big league you've been striving in vain to make a mark in for nearly ten years now.

Oh yeah: Groth also goes on some weird tangents about how "some" media coverage of the moon landing may have been faked, that while he's not a 9/11 Truther, "the official explanation of 9/11 is bullshit", and may or may not favourably compared Apop to The Beatles. Draw yr own conclusions.

Hot Chip, "Transmission (Joy Division cover)"

I've personally heard more Joy Division tributes and cover versions than most music bloggers have had hot lunches. It's a crowded field with few standout selections, people tend to either go way faithful (boring!) or single out one element or lyric to hammer away on ad nauseum, like The Killer's enormous flail on "Shadowplay". Aside from my fondness for The Swans' fantastic cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (I like the Gira vocal version a bit better) and Moby's version of "New Dawn Fades" (which might actually just be due to my associations with Heat) I wouldn't give a toss for most reinterpretations of JD's material. I do however quite like Hot Chip, mostly because they're clearly influencd by a lot of bands I like without ever sounding slavish. Indeed, the kind of indie electropop they ply wouldn't have sounded out of place on any number of Factory releases, which is I guess why this cover of "Transmission" works for me so well. Actually, what I keep thinking of when I hear the weird vocal treatment and the piano is the Bowie/Eno Berlin trilogy, which itself was a pretty enormous influence on Curtis and company. It's a pleasant little surprise courtesy of a forthcoming War Child covers compilation which will also feature Franz Ferdinand covering Blondie (!) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering the Ramones and TV on the Radio covering David Bowie. It's enough to pique my interest, and I fucking hate covers compilations.

Hot Chip, "Transmission (Joy Division cover)"

Freedom Highway

You may know that we love The Boss here at DIJ. We also love Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. And on a day like today, goddamn if we don't love America.

Kommando XY, "Genesis Does (What Nintendon't)"

OH RAD! Old school EBM stylists Kommando XY have a track on their debut album Welcome to Gestrikland that sings the vocoded praises of the Sega Genesis! Named for one of Sega's delighful slogans from the early nineties (pre-dating the release of the SNES I think) the track shouts out numerous beloved Sega franchises like Alex Kidd, Wonderboy and Golden Axe. It's pretty silly, but for the faithful like yours truly it's also a loving tribute to one of the great consoles of yesteryear. The rest of the album is pretty hot, it delivers on the promise of old school DAF style EBM that bands like Spetsnaz have largely squandered.

Kommando XY, "Genesis Does (What Nintendon't)"

Cinematic Rehabilitation

There are countless songs which become inextricably linked with a moment in film or television they're set to: "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet, "Ride of the Valkyries" in Apocalypse Now, hell, even "Born Slippy" in Trainspotting. In those and other cases, a bit of music we'd always enjoyed or had never heard was simply given a new context - more reasons to appreciate it. But what happens when the context of a film is so powerful that it alters the way you feel about a song you previously loathed? Here are a few songs which were rehabilitated forever for me via "the magic of pheelm":

"Paper Planes" in Slumdog Millionaire
If you've hung out in as many record stores as I have over the past three or so years, yr probably just as sick of M.I.A. as I am. Her beats are decent but too tinny for non club listening for my taste, and her near-monotone delivery drives me batty. But it's the fact that Arular and Kala are played just about non-stop in just about every sort of record store imaginable, presumably due to her supposed cross-over appeal, which pushed her from an otherwise unremarkable musician I'd have quickly forgotten about into a ubiquitous force of annoyance. How many times have you heard "Boyz" while trying to buy some jeans or renew yr driver's license? (how many, how many?) In any case, I've been content to grimace whenever any of her stuff came on and leave it at that, and "Paper Planes" was simply another Pavlovian stimulus (in all likelihood - I don't remember ever really paying attention to it, apart from possibly being irritated that she was jacking one of my favourite Clash tracks).

I watched Slumdog Millionaire while going through my second run of The Wire, which might've helped open my ears when "Paper Planes" began to lazily slide overtop of a montage of brothers Jamal and Salim hustling on the trains of Mumbai. The similarities between the brothers and the corner kids of Baltimore were obvious, which made me think about "Paper Planes" in relation to the innumerable hip-hop tracks which could score Bodie or Wallace's lives. Suddenly, "Paper Planes" didn't sound like another club track of the month so much as it did an anthem to the camaraderie that arises out of desperate necessity during the hustle, whether it's taking place in India or the US. Hell, you could tie it all back in with Dickens' cockney urchins as well: "Paper Planes" would suit the Artful Dodger just right. The grind may be different, but the game stays the same.

"Lookin' Out My Back Door" in The Big Lebowski
I'd never given much thought to CCR before watching The Big Lebowski. In all honesty, I tend to tar most country/folk tinged rock mega-groups from their period with the same brush: lazy stoner shit which didn't realise how quickly it would become irrelevant. Their political differences and feud aside, Neil Young and Lynard Skynard sound just about the same to me: boring.

It isn't so much the particular scene in which "Lookin' Out My Back Door" is playing that quelled my distaste for CCR, and it's not even about the song itself. More than anything, CCR seemed to fit not just the character of the Dude, but his entire ethos so well that the stunted nature of his taste became part and parcel of what made him such a lovable and memorable film character. At least he hates the fuckin' Eagles, man.

"Don't Stop Believing" in The Sopranos
Let's be honest, to anyone under forty with an iota of taste, Journey are a fucking joke: one to be trotted out at drunken karaoke, a ritual which itself becomes ripe for parody. I don't think I need to stress just how low the cultural capital of this arena rock cheesefest was before the final episode of The Sopranos aired.

David Chase knew all of this when he picked "Don't Stop Believing" (rather than, say, "Thunder Road" or anything else by the patron saint of Jersey): "in the location van, with the crew, I was saying, 'What do you think?' When I said, 'Don't Stop Believin',' people went, 'What? Oh my god!' I said, 'I know, I know, just give a listen,' and little by little, people started coming around."

Chase accomplished a miracle far above and beyond his accomplishments with The Sopranos itself: he forced millions of people to think about the lyrics to a Journey song. Does Tony delusionally imagine himself and Carm to be the hard luck couple in the song? If the movie goes on and on and on, does that mean the stunted, betrayed and warped American dream we breathlessly bore witness to for six seasons will simply repeat, with Tony always forced to look over his shoulder whenever a mook in a Members Only jacket gives him the hairy eyeball?

However you choose to interpret it, David Chase undid decades of associations between "Don't Stop Believing" and unfortunate hair and even more unfortunate decisions made in the back seats of Trans Ams, and replaced them with a fresh batch of far more provocative ones: family, doubt, alienation, and onion rings. Always the onion rings.

"Layla" in Goodfellas
Growing up when I did, Eric Clapton was never the inspired, wild-eyed shredder he was in his youth. He was that old blues man wannabe boomer who desperately sought credibility by leeching off of older, more talented bluesmen (seriously, Clapton, did you have to use both known pictures of Robert Johnson to establish your worship of him?). I'd listened to a couple of my dad's Cream records and liked them enough, but there was no way those records could overpower the AOR juggernaut of "Tears In Heaven", or the blues adaptation of "Layla" from Clapton's "Unplugged" disc, with audience members mewing their approval at Slow Hand the whole way through.

I might've heard the original version of "Layla" at some point previous to watching Goodfellas, but that's besides the point. Eschewing the "main" portion of the song completely, Scorsese jumps straight to the clarion piano chords (which might be playing on the radio of that bullet-ridden pink Caddy). Bittersweet, the refrain repeats and repeats as body after body is found, as Henry realises that his friendship with Jimmy is the only thing keeping him from the dumpster. Years later, it's impossible to hear the song and not imagine Carbone's body in the meat locker.

Hey, whaddaya know? Some quick research indicates that Clapton had nothing to do with the piano coda portion of "Layla", which was actually composed by Derek and The Dominoes' drummer, Jim Gordon. I guess in closing and with a clear conscience I can say: fuck Eric Clapton.

The Prodigy, "Omen"

Oh my... well, the verdict is in: The Prodigy are trying to be Pendulum. If you thought the first single from the forthcoming album 'Invaders Must Die' sounded like Howlett and company trying to jack the mighty Australian D&B juggernauts' steez (which, I certainly did), peep the new single "Omen". Moreso even!

The Prodigy, "Omen"


Also, sampling horror movie themes? Not a good look in 2009. I expect that sort of rich, smelly gouda from someone like Combichrist, whose new album is also pretty lacklustre by the way.

At the very least The Omen single offers a fun remix of "Invaders Must Die" by UK Dubsteppers Chases & Status.

The Prodigy, "Invaders Must Die (Chase & Status remix)"

Are we Human, or are we Dancers?

The Killers have released their fourth album titled "Day & Age", which I picked up at London Drugs, since I was there to get my Cold FX for this lovely disease-filled holiday season. I popped the little disc into my computer and dragged my sick ass under the covers to listen to the new CD and close my eyes.

After the first listen, I wasn't overly thrilled about the CD, as it didn't really have anything of substance that jumped out at me. I had been anticipating a disc from them that was reminiscent of their debut album "Hot Fuss", which was filled with stand-out songs that were danceable rock tracks - meaning I could drop them in a DJ set at the club and not fear an empty dance floor, while still providing an alternative track list.

The opening track on the CD "Losing Touch" pretty much sets the tempo and style of the disc. It has a steady beat with an 80's sound to it that each song on the disc adopts in its own way. Even though the only standout is the title track of the CD, "Spaceman" (which totally rocks my world), the CD still has enough songs on it that make you want to listen from start to finish. What I am saying is, just because 99% of the songs that make it onto the charts these days are pop songs with a rock/hip hop/country appeal, doesn't mean songs that don't have an annoying chorus can't be on best selling albums.

Another track I really enjoyed on this CD was "Joyride" - and it wasn't a Roxette cover either! It did bring me back to "Rio" by Duran Duran with its sax solo in the middle of it, and I was hoping that I would open my eyes to a phone being delivered to me in a pool while I lay in the sun, but of course it was just the Vapo rub on my feet mixed with the electric blanket that was giving me the tropical fever. Mix that with the Caribbean drum beat in "I Can't Stay", and maybe if I took a bit more cold medication I really would have thought I was on a deserted island.

Of course if you are a Rock Band freak, you will also be excited to know that "Spaceman" is available for download, and I am happy to say it was one of the best $2 I spent this year. Remember, we are only 12 days into this year, and most of the money I have spent has been to keep myself from coughing up everything inside of me.

I voted this as one of my top five albums of 2008, because I do judge my albums on how much of the CD I actually listen to, and in this case, it's the whole thing!