Ian Rogers is currently enrolled in the first year of a PhD at the University of Queensland in their English, Media Studies and Art History Department. His research centres around narrative and ideology in guitar based rock music. He is a giant nerdy nerd but this has not stopped him playing in Brisbane indie-rock band Iron On. In his spare time, Ian likes to whinge about how busy he is.
One of my favourite albums of the year thus far is Low's most recent outing 'Drums and Guns'. They're a pretty slow moving unit but in recent years they've shaken things up a bit: recording with David Fridmann (who made - amoung many other things - the glorious racket that was the last Sleater Kinney record). Anyway, Drums and Guns is sparse, minimal and mainly composed of things one less often associates with Low, namely drum machines and noisy loops. Which brings me to this link. Here, careful interneter, you will find some live, totally free and legit versions of the Drums and Guns material that sounds a bit more like...Low, I suppose. If you're an old die-hard, you might find these versions more to your liking. I didn't - they're really great (especially the reworking of 'Breaker') - but I think the album is amazing for the most part. So if you don't yet own it, let these MP3s be your entrée.
Weirdo Rippers by No Age :- Most of the times I like music. Sometimes I hate it and try to concentrate on other things (anything: books, work, TV, sleeping). A sure-fire to gauge where I'm at on the rock-music = shit-to-gold continuum is to monitor how much Sonic Youth I'm consuming. Or alternatively, how many bands I'm listening to that are somehow reminiscent of Sonic Youth. At the moment rock-music and I are on the same page and thus I'm listening to No Age. They jam free like the Youth, they sing like they're bored or (at one point) like they're in early Fugazi, their lo-fi sounds remind me of The Thermals and Guided By Voices. Anyway, rock and roll is pretty fucking great isn't it !!!
Era Vulgaris by Queens of the Stone Age :- An honest band is always in trouble. The Queens of the Stone Age are an unapologetically 'rock' band in an era when so much is demanded of bands (and authors and film-makers) by so many different people for a million different reasons that it's actually near impossible to remain popular if a band has an honest bone in their body. I'm not being pessimistic here - these aren't the secrets of the music industry. It's just that doing 'whatever the fuck you want to do' (i.e. what we demand that rock bands do - even though we don't really mean it) doesn't always translate into critically and commercial successful recordings. This one is pretty good. Not truly great, but certainly not rubbish. It is certainly troublesome, not a lot of hit singles even by the Queens own standards. But as Uncut magazine said: "They continue to find some clever ways to do a pretty dumb thing." Here, here.
The Reading Room:
The 2007 Music Issue of The Believer :- I told Alex I was reading this and he said, wow I've always wondered who read it. I can understand that wonder. This reads like an issue of academic journal Popular Music And Society but sans references and plus zingers, illustrations and a killer compilation CD. The article on Nine Inch Nails is mind-blowing; who doesn't want to read something precised as 'How the Gothic novel, British Romanticism, and Freudian psychoanalysis helped sell many, many Nine Inch Nails records'? It almost made we want to listen to NIN. Almost. But that alone is a testament to how well written said article is.
Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurty :- Lonesome Dove is easily one of the best books I've ever read, so I was initially a bit hesitant to take this on. (a) I didn't want to overdose on McMurty - once I discovered him I planned to stretch his backcatalogue over the next decade and (b) what if it wasn't very good? Thankfully, it's very, very good. And I don't care about overdosing now, in fact reading this (vol 1 in the Lonesome Dove trilogy but written after the title volume) has actually made me think that come the end of the next book I may just dive into the whole 800+ pages of Lonesome Dove all over again. Why? McMurty makes extraordinary events, incredible detail and great characters read effortlessly. It's like exercise that doesn't hurt. Or great food that's also good for you. It's a joy to read someone so confident in his own writing - page by page, he's just letting it out with swagger.
Idiot Box:
I've given up on television. Now I just watch DVDs of television.
Seasons 1 & 2 of Twin Peaks :- The ladies in my band were watching this a while back and it sparked my interested. I hadn't seen it since it originally aired on free-to-air. It's almost needless to say but it's incredible television. How it ever got made considering how incredibly dark it is, how odd it is and how good it is - this is as much of a mystery as who killed Laura Palmer. We are living in a golden age of television but even my HBO's current high standards, this just in an entirely different league. Go and watch it again right now.
Season One of The Wire :- Put simply, this is the best cop show I've ever seen. I've never been able to handle your Law & CSI Cold Case tidy police dramas where crimes get solved, order is restored and justice is served all in an hour w/ad breaks. I've been reading hardboiled noir fiction since I was 15 so I'm not easily pleased by crime tele or movies. But The Wire doesn't take any easy outs: 13 episodes, 1 case, believable characters. It's slow, it's complex and it's dark at times but damn it's also incredibly smart and has a lot of heart.
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The whole point of this post: Please leave some suggestions in the comments, I'd like to hear what everyone else is hearing and seeing.
I just need to put this on public record. I've told my friends - many of them looked at my like I was a crazy person - but judge for yourself. Open your minds: AND REALISE I'M RIGHT !
Ready, just be cool, deep breath:
This guy, Paul Banks of Interpol:
SOUNDS JUST LIKE:
This guy, Jim Morrison of The Doors:
Don't freak out. It's okay. The Doors were a bit lame at times - yes, it's true - but they were also a bit awesome at other times. And Interpol are a lot awesome - yes, it's true indie-snob - but they are also a bit lame. AND SO: It just means that YOU TOO are little bit lamer at times - yes, it's true - than you thought. Sorry. I don't want to rub it in but YOU kinda like The Doors by proxy - whoops.
With: A story I read once of The Jesus Lizard frontman David Yow stopping a show to ask an entire crowd of New Zealand Big Day Out goers to get down on their hands and knees and look for his wedding ring (and them finding it!)
I love David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz from At The Movies but their reviews really don't come across all that well in print. From the website, here's what they had to say about Hot Fuzz:
MARGARET: Yeah.
DAVID: I think he knows his movies. MARGARET: Yeah.
DAVID: And I think he's a really good film maker, and it shows.
MARGARET: Well, no wonder he gets the cast that he does.
DAVID: Yeah
Yeah? I'm sure David said something more like 'Meh' in the broadcast. Also, I know I'd really appreciate some dramatic instructions to go along with these scripts. Something like:
DAVID (exasperatedly): Yeah, well I disagree Margaret.
Or maybe something like this:
MARGARET (annoyed): David! Did we see the same film?
Exhibit A: 2007 - Thomas Mars of Phoenix in the crowd at a Sydney show:
Exhibit B: 1970 - Iggy Pop of The Stooges in the crowd at a Cincinnati show:
Ruling:
Almost 40 years after Iggy jumped into that Cincinnati crowd, rolled around, smeared peanut butter on himself and freaked everyone out (watch the video here), Thomas Mars shows the world a new way to connect with one's audience. Look at him! He's not even sweating. He's all "Arh, look I am in zar crowd, pretty farny huh!" I love it. Progress is a fascinating thing - I have no theory to share about it, I'm just watching with interest.
When a former NBA all-star talks homophobic trash ("maybe the most homophobic series of comments ever uttered publicly by a major pro-sports figure" - here), who is there to speak out? The president? NO ! Think bigger, think Helmsman SULU from Star Trek:
Thanks to stimpson for the heads up, sorry 'bout the repeats.
I'm especially suspicious of this idea that MP3s will destroy the commercial music industry. I've heard it, read it, thought it and then decided...nah, I don't think so. Things will change, sure, but the people who own all the records ('The Big Four' recording labels) I've always imagined them doing one of three things:
(1) Short-term down-sizing and moving investment into more lucrative parts of their organisations...like, say, DVDs;
(2) Becomingthe dominant, uber-alas rulers of the market once again when the technology after MP3 is launched.
(3) Step (1) than (2), so both.
And to bore you with another list. I think there are two reasons for this:
(1) MP3s are pretty shitty. They sound awful. They look like: nothing. They're stereo, not 5.1 Surround. They don't play on everyone's players. No one wants to buy them or sell them (except Apple - at present). Stealing them is cheaper and just as easy.
(2) Some of the recording companies currently at the top of the food-chain, they've owned the means to play music since the means to play music were invented, going back a long, long way (the late 1800s). So yes, they panicked when MP3s happened - but their core business is finding ways to own and exploit music for profit. They ARE better at it than Apple, in the long-run. And MP3s are only just beginning [see (1)].
So when I read stuff where Steve Jobs is talking about some product modifications (DRM-Free MP3s) and mentioning the holy grail of music industry: MORE MONEY, I think sweet, everything is probably headed back to whence it came. And everyone wins: Apple sells a crap-load of hardware, the industry get out of a pickle and we can all get on with the business of buying some MP3-digital-spy-camera-phone-palm-pilot-calculator-watch that plays Loveless by My Bloody Valentine at 8 million kps.
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One label probably less likely to give a shit about all this is Touch and Go (home to Shellac, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Pinback + nearly every good art-punk band in the 90s). They still seem pretty fond of putting out records. So what? Well, they celebrated 25 years of doing just that recently with a huge block party. Over at their website, they're posting one new video each week from the celebrations. I've been watching them, they're really great, so hop to it.
The first taste of the new Steve Albini engineered Stooges record has arrived. It's called 'My Idea Of Fun' and can be downloaded here.
What do I think? Hmmm. It's growing on me. It's pretty concise, it's not an approximation of the jammed out Funhouse, something the reformed Stooges drew a lot of their set from at last year's Big Day Outs. Albini's production suits. That MP3 is a shitty 128kps version and there's no bass to speak of, so I'm hoping that Mike Watt comes through a little clearer on disc. But that aside, it sounds great; nice and to some extent 'loose' (read: not Pro-Tooled half to death), so just like the original records.
Overall, this photo sums up my feelings on My Idea Of Fun (and the reformed band):
There's a lot right with it. Mike Watt is everyone's dream Dad. He is - STILL, it appears - the man in the van with a bass in his hand. God bless him. Iggy looks like a wasted old wreck, which is great - wasn't he just a wasted, young wreck last time round, I'm not one to get all ageist on this. But there's something uneasy and discomforting about it. It is, despite the BEST efforts otherwise, still a bit ... uhmmm ...embarrassing.
Last night I watched 'The Hours' (as it was titled in An Horse's pirated copy: 'The Hour').
I had moderate expectations. I figured NINE academy award nominations + Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore + disfigured Nicole Kidman = at the very least passable. And in a way I was right, it was just passable. It got across the line by 'a bee's dick' as we used to say in the public service (probably when preparing litigious statistical data).
I have two main problems:
(1) The nose was not enough. Nicole Kidman was just fucking crap in it. She could have been wearing a prosthetic head and I could still tell that she was hamming it up. Watch it again, she's a piece of lumber.
(2) The ending. Jesus. I mean, this is where it all comes together or where it all falls apart. It did the latter. You've got the two A-list actors, they're obviously destined to have this confrontation and then when it happens, on this beautiful set...well nothing happens. To my mind, it should have been something like this:
But ended up being just the crappy end of the movie.
Here is a fascinating blog entry on how a bunch of famous creative people (everyone from Autechre to Virgina Woolf) do what they do on a day-to-day basis. My favourite, predictably, would be James Ellroy:
"Don’t follow that bullshit of 'Write what you know.' Write what you like to read. Write what you want to read but no one else is writing."
It might be my day job where it seems nearly everything I read is at least momentarily considered for inclusion in my notepad or EndNote or underlined before it is actually enjoyed or comprehended. Or it might be that I’ve been a book dork all my life. I dunno. But strange as it is, I am pretty interested in reading lists. I do all sorts of things with mine: get annoyed at how short it is on a yearly basis, think 'oh that's right, I DID read that' and the like. One time I worked out that at my current rate of consumption I may read only as few as 1,500 books in my lifetime; it bummed me out for weeks.
I keep a reading list in Del.icio.us at present. Today (through del.icio.us funnily enough) I stumbled across an online application that is specifically made for keeping an up-to-date list of books you have either read or plan to read or are reading. It’s called Reader2. It’s not exactly bug free but I gather that it’s still in development and could turn into something amazing.
Happy compiling. My new reading list is now suitated here.
Say there's two guys who play in bands talking about music around my
kitchen table last night (don't assume their identities - it's not
that important (and yr wrong!) - and I'm paraphrasing to the maximum so
it's kind of irrelevant):
Dude A:
There is no community really, there's just 15 people who will always be
there and 35 people who will be there til the next thing, which is
usually a real job, a house and children (all outside of music). That's
fine. But a community is self-sustaining - what we have a group of
people where not a single one of them is meeting their basic survival
needs from their art or their involvement. Which in one way is TOTALLY,
TOTALLY okay and probably good for music, zines and radio in a lot of
differnt ways. On the otherhand...I dunno...in another way it's a group
of people where not a single one of them is meeting their basic survial
needs from their art or their involvement.
Dude B:
That is not a long-term proposition for anyone involved..So say if one
of our bands or our friend's bands were to sign to a major label there
would really be no one to leave behind. No one of any real integrity
would ostracise them, ie. refuse to play alongside them.
Dude A:
Anyone who has been playing music in Brisbane for a while knows that.
It's small, we're kinda all friends outside of music as well as inside
of it.
Dude B: So there's nothing to sell out?
Dude A:
Not really. Not sub-culturally speaking. You are not going to hurt the
band scene, not going to disconnect one of it's resources. You might
annoy 35 people who won't care in 5 years. There is no political danger
involved in getting into bed with a major, in Australia, is purely
musical. They will fuck your band up if you let them. That's why people
in this country hate major labels - it's not 'Oh you fucked up my
community, it's you've fucked up my band, now they sound like all the
other bands'. Beyond that, it's just too small here....
Dude: B: Too
small and too singular in focus. It's as if independent music has
punk-metal as a default setting at the moment. Anyway, back to
your point essentially we've adopted a whole bunch of American ideas
about how music is. We have independent VS mainstream even though we've
never had a Slint or a Minor Threat...you know, an independent band
that has sold hundreds of thousands of records. So these are
unrealistic, irrelevant ideas. In a way it's almost colonial. We should
all be on the first major label to swing into harbour, at least its
active, at least it recognises the situation.
Dude A: But they'd never let us do what we wanted, that's the problem.
Say the conversation went something like that. Any thoughts?
I don't think I'll be lowering sales of the upcomming LadyFest zine by posting my Top Five Songs (At The Moment) here:
+ War Machine by Part Chimp. This is a band of angry monkeys. The only time they're not dragging their knuckles along the ground is when they're smashing your face in with a guitar. It feels really good.
+ Desert Island by The Bites. The Bites are all finished now; two months ago I would have told you they broke up because there is no fucking justice in the world. Today I just accept that they were important to me for a reason and it's better to think about that, and use what they brought into my life, than it is to walk around like some cynical asshole.
+ Peace Attack by Sonic Youth. The world has felt like it's gonna end lately; not in an emo kinda way, I mean literally with all the choas in the streets and peak oil and us being all alone without proper leaders. So I went and visited my parents, they were fine, and I listened to this Sonic Youth song as I was driving along.
+ 14 Cheerleader Coldfront by Guided By Voices. I love this band unconditionally and accordingly their music makes me unconditionally happy almost everytime I hear it.
+ All The Other Times by Screamfeeder. The new Screamfeeder EP is fucking tops and no one but my room-mate and I seem to care. Which sucks because I'm too busy dancing to this song (like Elina Löwensohn does in Simple Men) to change everyone's mind.
There are positives and negatives to every job. Some days, I hate
researching music because I feel I'm 'brainworking it to death'. As
someone pointed out to me recently (and it's telling that I never
stumbled across it myself), what I like about music is its chaotic
element. Comparatively, everything else I seem to do has methodical
logic to it. All that goes out the window when it comes to writing
songs and playing them in a live setting. And I quite dislike the point
where rock music requires a degree of performative control: the studio.
So some days, I feel like I'm thinking all the fun out of music; doing
exactly what I shouldn't be doing.
I've been forever trying to get the time, motivation and inclination required to set up a research blog for my PhD study. Here it is, finally. Feel free to link up to the journal if you're a fellow LiveJournal user but be warned: this blog is going to get a little more rigorous than yr average emo-blog. It is also going to get a LOT more boring. I'll do my best to make appropriate use of this platform's 'cut' feature.
Readers of my previous blog 'We Burned The Whole World And It Was Warm For A Little Bit' should note that this is now my primary LF portal. I'm pretty much sick to death of my old blog and feel like a new start. In recent months I've had less and less time available to post on that blog (especially the more personal posts that make LJ interesting) so I'm mixing a little of the old (LJ, kicking around) with my new life ( nerd, over committed). I hope everyone gets something out of it, be it at least some idea of what I do on a day to day basis at the U of Q.
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