Evolutionary Thoughts; and D-Bags in Minivans

Finally saw 28 Weeks Later--Scott Tobias' review at A.V. Club is pretty spot-on, in retrospect. It's a worthy-enough follow-up to 28 Days Later, though it builds up some expectations that it doesn't quite make good on in the end. The beginning is fantastic. There's nothing like an act of complete cowardice (Robert Carlyle fleeing as his wife presumably gets ripped apart by rage-infected zombies) to inspire empathy from the very start. An unexpected act of heroism? Well, that's what we'd like to see in ourselves, but it's a safe bet many of us would just bolt and soak up the regret for the rest of our lives. Anyways, the movie's fictional rage virus, like any living organism, seeks to keep itself around for the long run. Especially through puked-up blood, which doesn't seem all that effective. But it's a shitty organism for sure, which made me wonder: Has there ever been a species that just decided to keep it concise?

"Hey, you guys are looking serious over there, with the fins and all. And shooting nails out of your heads, that's a nice touch. So you're in it for the long haul, like the rest of us biological groupings, eh?"

"Eh. Nah. We're just gonna do a good five generations, eat some lionfish, fuck, then call it a day. Maybe split our DNA up into some solo projects."

"But don't you seek to last forever, biologically speaking, and maybe try and dominate other creatures?"

"Nope. Fuck it. Five generations, no time to stagnate, make a good solid run of it."

At least one subspecies of the human race should try this approach. Specifically, douchebags who insist on yelling at people on the sidewalk from their cars. I seem to encounter this type at least three times a week. It's usually unintelligible, but that's fine. All they're really saying is: "I AM IN THIS VEHICLE AND YOU ARE OVER THERE AND I AM ABRUPTLY INTERACTING WITH YOU SO I WIN!" A few nights ago, I was out taking a walk and I crossed the street in front of a minivan at a stoplight. A moment later, one of the guys in the minivan yelled out "Faggot-ass bitch!" This to my back, and right as the van is pulling away--and his voice sounded really hesitant and shaky, as if he'd been building up to it from the moment he spotted me and wasn't sure if he could pull off this little masterpiece. No eye contact, of course. And no conviction! Come on! As impersonal as a randomly selected personal insult can be. All I can really say is, you're still the guy in the minivan. Maybe you just need the storage space for your tremendous balls.

I Believe I Will See You See You Somewhere Safe

Had to skip the very worthy Madison Area Music Awards and head out of town last night. It's a long story that's got nothing to do with the actual content of the show--in fact, I was really looking forward to seeing such acts as Bob Manor and the Getaway Drivers. Yet some very good and rather odd reasons arose. Groan.

Let's just say those reasons, among other shit, made it an all-too-perfect weekend for sulking in splendor with Morrissey at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee.

Trying to understand all our strange emotional stirrings is like trying to read the facial expressions of a jar of leeches. So we magnify them and pretty them up and distort them until they make sense in our terms. And if anyone's guilty of doing this to excess, it's Morrissey, parading his doubt, anger, and pity with all the subtlety of a vaudeville show in a strip club on D-Day. This really means that Morrissey songs are horribly, perversely accurate, and that nobody wants to admit it. What a precious, self-involved twerp, and what a perfect companion for, well, anybody who can stomach the thought that they're one as well. Oddly enough, the few memories of mine that include Morrissey or Smiths songs are all pathetically precious.

So of course:

-His shirt came off during "Let Me Kiss You," just as he reached the line, "But when you open your eyes/ you see someone you physically despise," and he threw it into the audience and promptly trotted off stage to get a new one.

-Of the dozen or people who tried to rush the stage during the encore, the last was a skinny young man with an eerily perfect, lacquered head of Morrissey-type hair.

-His five backing musicians wore matching tight pants, short-sleeved button-up shirts, and close-cropped hair. One juggled guitars, keys, trumpet, trombone, and backing vocals. And the drummer had an enormous bass drum and gong that he pounded at the end of "How Soon Is Now."

-The stage backdrop: three ceiling-height photos of James Dean.

Apparently he's been bringing back more Smiths songs on this tour, and he opened with "The Queen Is Dead." The band lent itself best to newer songs like "I Will See You In Far Off Places" and "Irish Blood, English Heart," and even originally more delicate tunes like "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" got a loud, electric-guitar-heavy treatment. Granted, this didn't make for a ton of sonic variety, but Morrissey's voice tied it all together--just a couple of brief rough patches throughout the set, and otherwise as silky, wistful, and theatrical as ever.

The only negative, all in all, is that opener Kristeen Young was atrocious. Imagine if PJ Harvey and a donkey had a child, and that child got run over by a Mary Kay car. It was a rather hurty 45 minutes, and if there was anything redeeming about it, it was nothing that didn't seem borrowed from Harvey or Tori Amos.

Grand Forks, etc.

I feel most comfortable in a city where mental patients can freely roam the streets. If the freaks aren't circulating, something must be wrong. Even in Evanston, we lived around the corner from a long-term nursing facility--basically a low-security halfway house for recovering alcoholics and the like. It somehow comforted me to know they could mingle with the people their conditions supposedly placed them below, ocassionally making a bomb threat at the nearby bank ("nearby" meaning just steps away), but mostly just smoking a lot and spouting gibberish at scared college students and yuppies. One night I saw one of the patients sitting in the middle of the road; luckily, a bouncer in a nearby bar had just ended his shift and helped me lug the guy back. We knocked on the door, waited, and met a lone night nurse so obese she could barely walk.

The big cities are really there for the part of the human race that needs to see its own turbulent image reflected back at all hours of the day. To love Chicago I first had to hate Chicago, and what a ridiculous clusterfuck it is. Madison's a great deal smaller, but also strikes a certain balance of pleasure and aggravation. That's what makes a good city for me. In short, a good city needs to be extremely perverse. It needs to make people ask themselves: "Why the fuck do I live here, again?"

So how can I react to the mythical lure of a place like North Dakota: Healthy people working hard, being happy, making steady incomes, striving in serenity--what the fuck kind of fun is that, and will the junkies be on crack or (how gauche!) meth? In two days in Grand Forks, I met at least a dozen people who just seemed to have it figured out. Bright, giving, kind, worldly people. Not that there's nothing urban or restless going on in Grand Forks or neighboring East Grand Forks, MN--at least two new restaurants should include "the aroma of our gleaming young hardwood floors, much like a handsome sheik's well-oiled chest, with a side of drycleaned business-casual" on their menus, and at least a few bars melt the mind's defenses with cruel 22-oz. pints. But most people there just seem to have their nerves under control, in a way that immediately projects warmth to the newcomer. Maybe I was just meeting the right people (for the most part--there are assholes everywhere, of course). Soon enough, I stopped itching to see other neurotic, hyper types. But now I'm back to normal.

Worth a note: An exhibition called Beyond Likeness at the North Dakota Museum of Art. I haven't been able to find many good pictures of the works online, but here are some from Lalla Essaydi, who creates mesmerizing, calligrapy-laced images of the lives of Arab females. The most memorable part, based on sheer creepiness, was Eidolon, a video by Elizabeth King. See the still? Well, it's basically 11 minutes of that mannequin just kind of staring at you, making movements that are just lifelike enough to startle.

On A Dark, Wet Night In April

Not only is Ted Leo exciting as hell in general, he always seems to bring out an audience's better side. Every Ted Leo show I've been to (tonight at Club 770 in Madison was the third) has been full of people who know the lyrics better than I do, and enjoy it without shame or pickiness. By the second or third song, Leo's a sweat-and-saliva faucet, and by the show's end, he's down to two or three guitar strings. Most people there have probably already heard favorites like "Biomusicology," "Timorous Me," "Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?" and "no, I won't play the Kelly Clarkson song" dozens of times, and they're still fresh and sharp. I'm hoping that songs tucked away on singles and EPs like the recent Mo' Living, including "Old Souls Know" and the closer, "Rappaort's Testament: I Never Gave Up," become fixtures as well.

Lucky me, lucky mud

"If you make people laugh or cry about little black marks on sheets of white paper, what is that but a practical joke?"

--Kurt Vonnegut, "Self-Interview"

Assorted: Amiina, Tom Brosseau, Inspector Owl, Kid You'll Move Mountains, Ladyhawk

I done tried to write real durn good all week... so here's a half-assed rundown of stuff that's caught my attention lately. Want better writing? Well, make an offer and we'll talk. It's the fucking weekend, after all.

Amiina and Tom Brosseau, 3/21

Why, gee golly shucks, folks, Tom Brosseau's 'bout the kindliest guitar-picker this side of the... No, no, it doesn't actually matter that much, but that is almost how he talks between songs, in the voice of a nervous 12-year-old. He sings that way, too, with a high voice that cracks and might even make you think he's a bit shy. Even if this is some kind of persona he puts on--and that actually seemed more and more doubtful as his set went on--it's an ideal fit for his constantly disarming songs. His new Grand Forks centers on the 1997 flood that wrecked his hometown, but starts with an optimistic lift, "I Fly Wherever I Go." And with that optimism, close to childlike innocence, he inhabits a tough and dark world. The stage at the rather small Café Montmartre in Madison was packed with Amiina's equipment, so Brosseau played his set standing in front of the stage, at floor level with the audience, just the right height for playing songs like "Plaid Lined Jacket." The song's about being homeless, and he played it right after telling us about the shitty rental car he had to drive after his flight got diverted to Milwaukee... Yes, apparently the man lives in a universe of picturesque, hopeful screwiness. He makes it sound like the most natural place to be.

Brosseau and Amiina are an unlikely match for a tour, but it works--perhaps because Brosseau puts people in docile, friendly listening mode for the delicate spectacle that is Amiina's live set. It's difficult to tell someone the facts about Amiina without making the group sound scary and bizarre and messy--it's four women in color-coordinated dresses, they're from Iceland, they play strings, glockenspiel, wine glasses, a laptop, musical saws, and on and on--and maybe people came to gawk, but this was one of the quietest and most patient audiences I've seen in a long time. And at a venue that often draws the talky-est crowd in town, no less. For the encore, all four played saw. And it was beautiful.

Inspector Owl and Kid, You'll Move Mountains
I can't talk about one of these bands without talking about the other. They share one member, and though they certainly don't sound exactly alike, they've got similar approaches--a luscious, dark, and danceable mish-mash.... Inspector Owl just put out a new EP called Life Finds A Way, and some of it is streaming here. Kid, You'll Move Mountain's just been selling a CD of a radio performance (complete with hysterical between-song banter) at their shows, and it's actually pretty good, some tracks here. They've been selling each copy with a unique Polaroid taken near the location of the sale. Both are swell live bands. At KYMM's show here, lead singer Jim Hanke talked about The Office, and at Inspector Owl's show, lead singer Corey Wills talked about Battlestar Galactica. Good form!

Ladyhawk
I was looking forward to Ladyhawk's show here as, well, the only decent option on Monday night during a slow week. A decent guitar-rock band from Vancouver? Meh, why not? And I'm still kind of on the fence about their album, even though it's decent. As a live band, Ladyhawk's much louder and a lot more fun, with a tight-yet-rugged sound--basically, a damn good road band's sound--the album doesn't really capture. So, hooray.

Nicola
I have nothing to say about this person's music, but is this not the worst use of cleavage on an album cover ever?

In your best Terry-Jones-as-female voice: "'Ello, love! 'Ave a look at me milky pillas!"

Savoring, Savaging: TV On The Radio and Subtle

It was almost like being back in Chicago--a theater filled with the preciously overdressed, the out-of-towners, and the invisible in-betweens. Even once you've been to a lot of shows, you realize that this combination of heat and noise is still rare and exciting, and that you're not so different from the people who mistakenly clap when the roadies come on. TV On The Radio basically sold out the Orpheum Theatre in Madison on Friday night, and the band skipped Wisconsin, I think, on its last tour leg--the all-too-familiar Chicago-to-Minneapolis jaunt that many bands I want to see make. But TVOTR still played like a band that had just exploded out of Brooklyn, looking and sounding foreign but quickly getting familiar on a primal level.

Dave Sitek hung a set of wind chimes from the head of his guitar and dangled them over the drum mics as he and Kyp Malone scrubbed out furious chords behind Tunde Adebimpe on the opener, "Young Liars." It's a climactic song, and this is a band that can start at the climax and stay there for an entire set. During the encore, four members of Subtle, who are opening for TVOTR on this leg, came on to pound on extra percussion, making for an amazing, nearly all-percussion version of "Let The Devil In." It's one of the most exuberant songs they've ever recorded, and a perfect example of what's best about TVOTR's music--no matter how exotic it gets, it's never that far from your gut.

TVOTR's warmth was even easier to notice after Subtle's opening set, all whimsical theatrics, complete with props. If you're going to sound as unusual as Sutble, you might as well follow through and look and act strange. MC/mastermind Doseone bounced between center stage and his little bank of gadgets, warming up the crowd with assorted jokes and plastic-fork giveaways. Of course, this is a college town full of hip hop-loving white kids, so a strong flow gets a guy a long way, even if he's playing with five other guys, including a cellist. As Doseone sputtered through his blank-verse lyrics with the precision of a snide computer-talk program, it was surreal to think that he used to battle-rap against guys like Eminem. Subtle's music isn't that hard to connect with if you're willing to embrace the confusion, and it has a fantastic sense of humor--"Midas Gutz," from the group's last album, For Hero: For Fool, imagines a beauty contest in which people cut themselves open and compare intestines for the prize.

I hadn't seen Subtle before, but it is kind of sad to see the group without Dax Pierson, who was paralyzed from the chest down when the band's van crashed during a 2005 tour. He's been recovering with the support of friends and fans in the Bay Area and elsewhere. The band also got robbed of about $15,000 worth of money and equipment in Spain last year, and, at least until recently, Doseone was raising money by drawing portraits (from photos sent by fans). A friend of mine got one done and it's rather nifty.

That "Apathy" Demographic's The Trouble...

The Foghorns: Thawing Out With Golden Ghosts

In the middle of some frozen nowhere, a man is warming up his poor raggedy ass in a cabin, sipping whiskey and dreaming of home. He'd probably feel a lot better if he could hear The Foghorns, a band that recorded much of its album New Low after a wearying trip from its Reykjavik base to Brooklyn. Wisconsin native Bart Cameron and his Icelandic pals play bluesy, folky tunes that make reliable companions in the middle of this shitball winter. It's the kind of music that tired people play best, and these folks were indeed pretty worn out by the time they started their set Thursday night at Cafe Zoma, a cozy coffee shop/venue here in Madison. Australian violinist Marisa Allen, who has a project called Bremen Town Musician, brings yet another welcome layer of melody and warmth to the band's current U.S. tour.

Bart's got plenty of stories about his move overseas, and told some in an interview for our local edition of The A.V. Club. However, the song "Golden Ghosts" (MP3) tells it much better. That version is from Olympus, a free recording of the band's going-away show in Reykjavik last year.

Odd note: The Oshkosh Northwestern, the newspaper that inspired the mockery of The Onion, did a rather crummy story on the band. A story in the UW-Oshkosh student paper is much cooler.

Brain Lab 7

A Stare-Off I'd Like to See

I don't sit around trying to come up with this shit. It just occurs to me once in a while, and if I don't expel it somewhere, the goblins in my brain will use it for fuel. For the record.

As Robbie Fulks delivers the spoken intro to this song (on the Corporate Country Sucks video podcast), looking into the camera, he kind of looks and sounds like Dwight Schrute. Right? Yes.

Assorted Assortments

My friend Paul is interning at NPR at the moment, and he's specifically been working on the Web-only program Open Mic. What will my ecstatic fellow music dork cull from the bins of the Great Unsigned next?

It appears the other day was "Don't Look Directly At The Camera Day" at The A.V. Club. See?



The day before that, my Mark Linkous interview was totally at the top of the page, hence Milwaukee editor Steve and I dominated, bringing a little Wisconsin-power back to AVC for one glorious day, as he pointed out. Or something. Speaking of new guys, the company's announced that it's launching a D.C. print edition soon, so if you or someone you know is an awesome entertainment writer/editor up there, bug my boss.

My other boss recently lost his oldest cat. R.I.P., Oscar Phipps. Once I watched Keith's pets for a weekend. Oscar spent most of the time posturing like a pissed-off, feline Judi Dench on the dining-room table, and indeed, as frail old cats go, he was dignified and slightly threatening. I liked his style.

I'd Use Church As An Excuse to Skip Northwestern Games*, But...

I really try my hardest to forget about the inanities of life at my alma mater, but an Obscure Store posting took me back to the ridiculousness for a minute. A Muslim student group at Northwestern wants a space to pray in during home football games, and I suppose there are valid arguments both for and against that, but what really made me laugh was the response from an athletics official:

"This is a request we took seriously," he said. "We appreciate all student support, but we didn't feel there was a suitable area for prayer. There's not enough space in the arena."

It's an arena! Officially, it seats 8,117 people, and, well, it's pretty damn big and it's near another large building, if I recall.

(*If I were religious.)

Brain Lab 8

I'm Back, With Post-Holiday Bargains

Sometimes You Rise Above it, Sometimes You Sneak Below: My Favorite Lyrics of 2006

With A.V. Club's '06 music issue coming up, I got into a best-of-the-year frame of mind, which was odd, because I've never worked on a best-of list, and I'm pretty new to the paper and to writing about entertainment professionally. I'm still glad I got to put my piece in, because I like my job and the folks I work with. Rather than pretend to speak with some kind of authority twice over, I figured I'd just pull some of my favorite lyrics from the year's releases (no ranking, though). Here goes.


Hamell On Trial, "Hey Boss," from Songs For Parents Who Enjoy Drugs

You might wonder, what's my political affiliation,
well, I consider it to be one of extreme moderation,
I'd love to ride up Pennsylvania Ave. and see the right
with all their heads mounted on poles and I'd like 'em at the same height.
(I'm a Libra, I need that balance.)

Actually, the funniest tracks on this album are two sketches called "Maddy's," in which Ed Hamell places a delivery order to Maddy's Fascist Diner. Overall, I think this album was my favorite this year.


Alejandro Escovedo, "Sacramento And Polk," from The Boxing Mirror

I never could jump from high enough
I never could jump from high enough
I never could jump from high enough
A third-story jump ain't high enough,
It's just a mess on Market Street
(Chorus) I'm under a spell her name

Palo Alto Hotal at Sacramento and Polk
The neighbors spend their days
Washing their socks and staring out the windows
In a thorazine haze
They don't know what to do with their hands
They vaguely remember some plans
But that was so long
That was so long ago
(Chorus) I'm under a spell her name

The Thermals, "An Ear For Baby," from The Body, The Blood, The Machine

So pull out your dead roots,
pull out your best suit,
you know, the one they're gonna bury you in

Good luck getting God on the phone
good luck getting even a tone
you can trust me, it's not a test
and I won't leave you in this mess
Any questions?
You, in the back

Pernice Brothers, "Cruelty To Animals," from Live A Little

In the coming years, let's try and milk a fortune off them
I think we're qualified by now

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Head to toe so thoroughly until we're both dismembered
Alouette, gentille alouette,
Naive, yes, but none the worse, spinning glue back into horses...

Todd Snider, "The Devil You Know," from The Devil You Know

Better turn on my alarm and lock myself in
helicopters over the house again

Sometimes you rise above it
sometimes you sneak below
somewhere in between believing in heaven
and facing the devil you know

Frank Black and Reid Paley, "I'm Not Dead (I'm In Pittsburgh)," from Fast Man Raider Man

It's all just one big monkey house to me
Just living ain't the same as being free
Don't stop and think about it
It'll only make you sad
Come put me out of my misery

'Cause I'm not dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)
Where a man can lose his mind
I'm not dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)
They've got me suited up for crazy time

Hate to wank my own horn here, but my favorite bit from the interview I did with Frank Black:

AVC: Are there other musicians you'd like to work with?

FB: Do you know any nice guys? Introduce me to a nice guy, and he'll probably end up on my next record.

Brain Lab 6

Another Fine Dresser

I did an interview with Lisa Lampanelli in advance of her show here in Madison, and she told me to come say hi afterwards. I had to get a picture of what she was wearing, because it was just so stupendous. See?



Sorry for the shitty picture quality; I was in a rush to get to the DeVotchKa show across town.

I did like Lisa's set, although I wish she'd done more of the new material she's talked about. Well, maybe some of it was new, but it sounded like the familiar race- and gay-baiting stuff. I would have laughed harder if her two openers hadn't reminded me how unfunny comedy like that can be. Of course, Lisa's attitude would probably be "Fuck you, you part-Injun faggot, they're hard-working comedians." What I want to know is, after you've been inured by Lisa's act, how many laughs can you get out of Tracy Locke and Wendell (I know nothing about them and am probably misspelling Wendell's name), who basically came on and did a more coy, undeveloped version of what Lisa did? OK, Wendell's set focused a lot more on the "Yep, I'm a big fag and may be prone to doing things gays are often thought to be prone to doing!" stuff, but frankly I've exchanged better gay jokes with my gay friends. I can't remember any of them right now, but I do remember laughing harder at them.

I'm not even saying these two were un-funny, I'm saying that there's a point where pushing it isn't really pushing it at all. Lisa is friendly to the people she picks on, and she'll eventually say that she doesn't mean the stuff she's saying, but she's convincing as a racist, bitter bitch on a tear. She makes the crudest, dumbest jokes funny because she plows right into them without any of that cut-rate, huckster-y, "ain't-I-funny?" aftertaste that so many comedians (including Tracy and Wendell) have. Hey, I fucking know when I'm at a comedy show. I don't need a comedian's personality to constantly remind me that, "HEY HEY HEY, IT'S FUNNY TIME!!!!" Of course it's fucking funny time, and of course these people are just trying to have a decent career and have fun doing it and make people laugh, and yet a lot of these people just seem to be trying too hard. I'm not sure this is even a clear distinction, but some comedians act like comedians and some comedians (most of the ones I like) just act like people who say funny stuff.

Flavor-Off!

Reporting on development, local flavor, and whatnot eventually led me to question the whole idea of local flavor. I went to college in Evanston, IL, right as that city's condo struggle really started to heat up, and I decided I preferred new buildings that stuck out boldly in their neighborhoods to new buildings that stuck out blandly. The latter were always just kinda ugly and never actually looked like the neighboring older buildings anyway. So what about new things that more or less do fit in but are obviously new anyway? I was in Portland, Or., this weekend, and people there seem to pride themselves on keeping old signs on their shops and buildings. Even a Hilton downtown has light-up letters that have to be 20 years old. Then there's this.



I saw this and coined a new term: Flavor invaders. They come in from out of town and co-opt the local flavor. Flavor invaders. A few minutes later, I decided I really couldn't fault the Qwest people when I saw this over a long-established local Greek restaurant:

A Mensware Missive

Here come the only two firm, absolute statements I will ever make about clothes and/or fashion.

Dear American Males:

1. Stop Wearing Khaki Pants. Khaki pants seem to be the big thing for men these days. In fact, I'm convinced that one day, ugly-ass khakis will be as essential at '00s-themed costume parties as hot-pink sweatbands are at '80s-themed costume parties now. I know that khaki pants are part of an effort to bring a bright, breezy feel to otherwise formal attire. Problem is, I've never seen one person, ever, who looks good in khakis. And, as I'm known to leave my apartment once in a while, I have seen many, many men wearing khakis. I bet some other take on the light-brown scheme might work, but khakis just over-accentuate the legs and crotch. This is why jeans and blue and black pants are still better, even if one is perceived to be too informal and the others are perceived to be too stuffy.

2. Stop Wearing Pleated Pants. Especially pleated khaki pants, but pleated pants of any color ought to be burned. One can argue that pleats make pants more comfortable around the waist/crotch/hips, which means they are for people who are too lazy to find pants that fit them comfortably. In other words, pleats don't really need to be there. Why not add little frilly borders along with them. And all this pleated shit is invading the cheap-ass stores where I tend to shop, like Marshalls, Ross, etc. Stop it. Pleats are not for cheap people like me. I'm against clothes that generall have too much stuff that they don't need to have, and excess seems to be the trend in clothes today. It's hard enough to find a fucking pair of sneakers that aren't loaded down with logos, gel compartments, massage motors and whatnot. Pleats are for people who have too much money to spend. What's worse is when I see an otherwise good-looking, trim fellow wearing pleats. What is he thinking?

"I may be 35, in good shape, and in a fine, stable job, but you're never too young to look like you have one of those fatty crotch pouches."

Dressing badly is practically in my job description, but even I have standards.