Electronic-Music Epiphany

See Dave Segal's post at Line Out.

I've been thinking about this off and on for the past twenty hours or so, and I think I sorted out a rough chronology on my walk home from work, though the earliest parts may be a little incomplete. I'm sure I heard stuff on commercials and whatnot, but given the music I read about and listened to on the radio (I've probably watched less than 10% as much MTV as the average member of my generation or "cultural cohort" as they say) I don't think I actively listened to anything electronic until around my eighteenth birthday.

• Nintendo, etc.
• The modem sound
• The Dr. Who theme
• Ben Folds' Fear of Pop*
• Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral, esp. "A Warm Place"
• Radiohead Kid A
• Brian Eno Another Green World, esp. "Big Ships"
• Belle & Sebastian "Electronic Renaissance"
• Moby's journal
• Fischerspooner "Emerge"
• Mark Richardson's "Resonant Frequency" columns at Pitchfork
• Keith Fullerton Whitman Playthroughs
• Postal Service Give Up
• Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton (book)
• Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works
• Plastikman Artifakts [bc]
• New Order "Blue Monday"
• LCD Soundsystem
• Kompakt Total 6
• Dave Segal
• Philip Sherburne

* Not necessarily good, but still relevant

The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

A few thoughts on Talladega Nights: I found Will Ferrell's petulantly childish character, which he alters from film to film but never discards, more palatable here than in, say, Elf. I usually enjoy his supporting roles (Austin Powers, Zoolander, etc.) and he was probably my favorite part of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He of course did terrific stuff on SNL, but he often seems to me either one-dimensional or too satisfied with doing what seems to always work so well, thereby satisfying the large and seemingly rabid cult of Will Ferrell (eg. the bizarre and not very interesting Chazz in Wedding Crashers). Of course, that could have something to do with directors who don't want to ask him for anything more (I don't even have any idea of whether or not there are any brilliant American comedy directors right now), but it disappoints me that everyone is okay with Ferrell as a moronically immature character succeeding at life despite or rather due to his obliviousness to the complexities of the world around him.

I suppose my alternative proposals must be either genuinely dark comedy (not just creepiness) or something more adventurous than gross-out gags. Of course, it's often and widely lamented that major Hollywood films are directed toward the generic adolescent male, so perhaps this kind of complaint has nothing to do with Will Ferrell in general. I was struck even in (the very funny) Talladega Nights by how clever the commentary on marketing/branding/product placement was, making use of NASCAR's history of absolute advertisement saturation, although in the end the commentary was overwhelmed by the actual marketing/branding/product placement itself. As in almost every comedy since forever, I think, roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the pacing and the tension are destroyed by the introduction of emotional/romantic/heroic themes, which is bizarre because they tend to be so shallow and uninteresting compared to the comedy they replace. TN doesn't get as heavily bogged down as some (although the use of music during the final race is almost unbelievably gratuitous, and I even enjoyed most of the selections) I'm baffled by the notion that the movie or the audience or somebody needs a reprieve from the screwball world of the first half of the script so that we can reassure ourselves that the onscreen world is still as basically sitcom-saccharine as we've come to believe.

Nobody is a real person in the movie, but I found it kind of disturbing that the people became less real or potentially respectable as we moved away from the main characters. The wife and children were hilarious caricatures, but the father-in-law, perhaps the most marginalized, was near frightening in his non-humanity. Kind of like in Bad Santa or probably a lot of other movies. Not that lunatics aren't funny, because they are, but I don't think it would be as unsettling if everyone was similarly totally deranged. Perhaps a sort of egalitarian-totalitarian craziness: everything and everyone crazy, all the time. I don't know, I've got more thinking to do on the subject.

Late Evening, 25 Aug 06

Dave Alvin "Surfer Girl" (Beach Boys cover)
My Morning Jacket "Sooner (Acoustic version)"
M. Ward "Fuel for Fire" (ft. Jim James)
Devendra Banhart "The Body Breaks"
Richard Buckner "Firsts"
Nick Drake "From the Morning"

Fawlty Towers

I was extremely delighted today to find the complete Fawlty Towers on the shelf at the library. I'm not sure when exactly I first saw most of the episodes, some time in high school on Friday or Saturday nights on IPTV I suppose. While the show itself is still unbelievably funny, insanely manic and intense, what I'm most interested in is recalling what the show meant to me back when I was first watching it, or rather what certain television programs meant to me in those days, particularly on weekends with nothing else to do. It's been rare in the intervening six-eight years that I've relied on something like TV for companionship or needed to for any length of time, but my reacquaintance with the show feels somehow providential or serendipitous what with good friend Charles relocating to the East Coast and housemates moving away and the possibility of living really alone for roughly the first time, at least for a while, which in most ways is an enticing prospect, but will necessitate different strategies for living than I've been used to.

Casablanca

If you've got a keen eye and happened upon this blog at the right time recently, you will have noted that I rated Casablanca one step below greatness. I guess Max also saw it recently and failed to find it truly great, so here's something from an email.

Charles and I saw Casablanca outdoors in the Seattle Center (home of the Space Needle) a couple weeks back. We were both surprised at I think the same feeling you had, which was that it was obviously good, but not exactly on the same level as, say, AFI lists seem to place it. Among various nitpicky things we or I found:

Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo is far too beautiful. It seems that he should have been strident and uninteresting as a character in order to reinforce Ilsa's preference for Rick. Instead he's both the morally preferable hero and the better-looking one.

Bergman and Bogart's scenes are sappy and maybe the least entertaining parts of the movie. The much more interesting relationship is between Rick and Capt. Renault, the "romantic" pairing that survives the movie. I think Bergman has definitely had better roles.

Michael Curtiz is never satisfied with a simple cut or movement when he could use a crane shot to swoop around and make everything seem gallant and terribly heroic. It makes sense given the types of films he's otherwise known for but maybe not for all parts of the script.

That said, the black and white photography is gorgeous and I doubt it would have looked anywhere near as good in color. Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, and Peter Lorre are all terrific actors in their own ways, and I really think the story is a clever allegory of US isolationism/involvement via Rick's character, whether or not it's morally sufficient or complete.

Also note that, for whatever reason, at #5 Casablanca is the lone film from the classic Hollywood era (pre-1948 Paramount Decree) in the IMDB top 20. Beyond that you've got Citizen Kane (#21), It's a Wonderful Life (#30), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (#52), and The Maltese Falcon (#57) rounding out the top 60. I think people must just attribute a lot of the good characteristics of Hollywood movies of that era to the single film they've actually seen or saw first (Casablanca, of course) and thus tend to immortalize it without any sort of rational judgement.

Comets on Fire/Kinski

Kinski was as powerful live as I'd hoped they might be. There was less development in the songs than on the record I'm most familiar with, Airs Above Your Station, but more brute force.

Comets on Fire's music was a little more scattered and freeform than I'm used to. They certainly didn't adhere to any sort of verse/chorus structures most of the time and even the playing was much more free than the riffing or melody-based stuff most bands play live. I felt a little disoriented, especially at the beginning, but the lack of traditional structure allowed for unfettered, joyfully explosive grooves (jamming?) that distinguished most of their songs. It wasn't exactly a heavier version of Phish or anything, although you could hear the Grateful Dead influence. The instruments and vocals sounded kind of like Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, but the end result was wilder and more ferocious. I've rarely seen musicians so elated to be playing (especially guitarists Ethan Miller and Ben Chasny) or so effectively communicating that to the audience through their instruments. Exciting stuff.

Cranberry Portage, Pt. 2

Okay, here's the officially approved and revised version of Side 2.

Cranberry Portage

I assembled and edited the promised mix today (yes, titled Cranberry Portage), with one copy going out by mail order on Monday or thereabouts. Originally I'd planned to include Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, and Afrika Bambaataa*, but wasn't able to fit them in as seamlessly as I'd liked. I put the M83 Superpitcher remix in the place the hip hop was meant to occupy.

Side 1
38:10

01 Junior Boys "Like a Child"
02 Lindstrom "I Feel Space"
03 Junior Boys "Count Souvenirs"
04 M83 "Teen Angst (Luciano Remix)"
05 Junior Boys "Double Shadow"
06 Futureheads "Skip to the End (Digitalism Remix)"

Side 2
37:20

01 Death from Above 1979 "Better Off Dead (3/4 Speed)"
02 Justice "Waters of Nazareth (Erol Alkan Re-edit)"
03 M83 "Don't Save Us from the Flames (Superpitcher Remix)"
04 Asobi Seksu "New Years"
05 Susanna and the Magical Orchestra "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
06 Six Organs of Admittance "Wolves' Pup"
07 Minilogue "The Girl from Botany Bay"

* Whoops, apparently I saved and uploaded the wrong track.

August Tracks

I'm thinking about putting together a new mix, possibly consisting of some of these things and possibly based around whatever I might put together for our party coming up this Saturday.

1. Junior Boys So This Is Goodbye

I get the same sense listening to this that I get when listening to Marquee Moon: this would be the perfect soundtrack for time spent reminiscing on a solitary space voyage away from Earth for someone with conflicted feelings about humanity and little chance of returning to figure things out anyway.

2. My Morning Jacket "Where to Begin"

I'm not sure this is really a great song, but I'm not entirely sure that I care. It's My Morning Jacket working in a non-Z style (from the Elizabethtown soundtrack) with the reverb turned all the way up. I feel it would be churlish to ask for more.

3. Animal Collective Sung Tongs & Feels

Not sure if it has to do with the weather, my feelings about life or logistics regarding the next few months or what, but this is really working for me right now.

4. DJ Khaled "Holla at Me"

Based on Bambaataa's "Perfect Beat," I don't really know how this could have failed. I personally most prefer the thick, rich sound of Paul Wall and Rick Ross, though the actual rapping abilities of the latter may be questionable, but Pitbull and Lil Wayne certainly have their charms. For some reason, I am constantly unable to remember Fat Joe's verse.

5. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again"

I don't think I had any idea what the lyrics were to the verses in this song until I heard Susanna sing it. What strikes me is that despite a gentleness not to be found in the original (though not inappropriate either), or perhaps because of it, this recording just wears on the listener emotionally. I don't notice anything for the first four minutes, the track just seems to be sliding by gracefully, and then nearing the end I realize that I'm practically distraught--in the best of ways, of course.