Plastic Passion

Sunday night I went to see a show at St. Andrew's (Detroit). I went out of curiosity and boredom, because it was free, and I hadn't heard much from either band. So, the first band was Morningwood. Never heard of 'em, and my friend didn't expect them to be anything special, so we skipped it. Next up was Kasabian. I had already heard some of their most recent record, but didn't think it was anything to get excited about. The headlining act was The Music. I haven't heard their latest, but I heard their previous record, and again, nothin' to really get me going. But it was something to do. I will say this about Kasabian...they put on a good light show. When the lights were shining on the band, and not just the crowd, you could see that the singer copped most of his moves from Primal Scream. Or the Stone Roses, or Happy Mondays, or Inspiral Carpets. Pick a Manchester band from the late '80s that emerged from the original rave scene to play party music. That also happened to be Kasabian's sound. I talked to a few people who slightly agreed, but felt that this band is more rockin' than those other ones. Maybe, I don't know, I think Primal Scream around the time of their second album were a seriously rocking band. Kasabian tried to prove how much they rock by covering one of the more mediocre songs from the MC5's last album (sorry, I can't remember the name of the song right now...I know Eli, it's killing you to not know). They did a mediocre cover of a song that was already mediocre, so does that make it complete crap? Yes, yes it does. They were entertaining, don't get me wrong, it was just too derivative in a way that I couldn't get into. A good artist borrows, a great artist steals, right Picasso? As for The Music, it was more about The Hair Farmer. The singer for The Music happens to be a hair farmer, and seems very proud of it. He also likes to hold the mic with two hands upside down high up in the air and look to the ceiling when he sings. How emotional. That's all you really need to know about them. That, and they need to keep in mind that while Oasis are a great band, they are aware that if you're gonna steal, you should be able to do it well.

The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise

Somewhere out there is a parallel universe. In this universe, women like short, balding, somewhat overweight men. George Costanza found it, and I know I can too.

Next Wave/Wake Up

Okay, I just watched the movie Garden State. Finally. I think that may have been a bad idea. In the same way that it would be a bad idea for me to sit down and watch Lost in Translation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

My friends are turning 30, and soon I will too. They all own houses, or at least they're talking about wanting to own a house. Some have kids, or worry about it. Yesterday at the grocery store, I was buying beer, and the cashier noticed on my ID that I'm almost 30. He said it's a good age because you spend your 20s doing a lot of stupid shit and having fun, but by the time you're 30, you know how to have a good time without doing the stupid shit, and you're still young.

Wow, two paragraphs into it, and this already sounds like a self-serving livejournal entry. No apologies.

I wish I couldn't see through people. I wish I could feel like I don't know what everyone's all about. I wish I could just stop and not have an explanation for everything. I don't want it to be so simple, because it really isn't. I want to be less contrived, even though I'm doing it right now. I need spontaneity.

Right now, I'm seeing patterns where there are none. I wish my brain wouldn't do that. Okay, I always see patterns that aren't really there, but right now, I do happen to be staring at the stucco ceiling in this room, and at first, it looks like the ridges of plaster form concentric circles starting at the middle. But then I look again, and there really isn't a pattern. Somewhere in there is a metaphor for how I go through life, but I'm not sure what it is.

Okay, maybe there really is something in that stucco ceiling. I just got lost in it for about five minutes.

I wish I could make this stop. No more introspection, no more self-analysis. I need more accidents. More serendipity.

Upon Remembering February 23rd

Notes to self:

• Bogle makes a pretty good petite syrah. Drinking a half bottle of said wine before 9pm knowing that I have to go to work at 10 makes it bad
• When DJing, if customers want to buy you shots, accept the first one. After the fourth, reconsider the first three.
• When ordering salad with bleu cheese dressing and clam chowder, try to remember that you're lactose intolerant and take into consideration the pain you will endure later. Is it worth it? Probably not. The chowder wasn't that good anyway.
• Falling asleep (read: passing out) on top of your cell phone probably isn't a good idea. Especially when your phone is your alarm clock and you work a day job.
• Mixing red wine, Boddington's Irish Ale, Leroux Blackberry Brandy, El Toro Tequila, and Leroux Rock & Rye equals bad things. Mostly in the stomach region, but also in the oh-shit-I'm-two-hours-late-for-work region as well.
• Falling asleep on hand is also not very useful. You really miss pre-hensile strength when you don't have it anymore. My right hand is still numb.
• Remember to thank everyone who came out last night.
  

Save the Baby Seals!

Bored at work...the fluorescence above and the computer monitor in front of me are flashing at a rate faster than I can detect, but I know they do it. That's why I get headaches at work. This shit ain't stressful. I'm not dehydrated, it's just regularly interrupted cycles of light - flashing, flashing, flashing - on/off on/off on/off on/off. I was checking out Technorati, where you can look up any URL to see what other sites have linked to it. Call me vain, but I don't care, I wanted to see if anyone who hides behind HTML has been droppin' my link to their readers. There were two. Unfortunately, one of those is my other site,Dead By Christmas. But...the other was a site that sounded familiar. It's my friend J-Dub. His site is called The Baby Seal Club. Definitely worth checking out. Kind of in the same vein as this site with the occasional dry sarcasm.

The Bleach Boys

In case you don't get out much, here's a sample of what's waiting for you in the men's room at The Painted Lady in Hamtramck, MI (near Detroit - okay, Detroit surrounds it, so it's in Detroit).

Bad Web Art Created For the Sake of Boredom

Roll your mouse over the photo and keep it there for a few seconds

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die (Down and Out at Owl Farm)

I can't even believe it's true. I just read the headlines for today, and saw on the AP Wire that Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. Just like Hemingway. Going out in such a dramatic and tragic way isn't the surprising part, it just seemed like he would live forever. I have no idea how young I was when I first read "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas," or "The Rum Diaries," or "The Great Shark Hunt," but it was either late junior high or early high school. I had to read "Fear and Loathing" at least twice before I understood what was going on. Actually, now that I think about it, my first exosure to Thompson was via his (too) rare articles in Rolling Stone magazine, so that had to be early junior high. Sixth grade, probably. If any author influenced me to write at all, and made it feel easy, it was him. His 'fuck-you' lifestyle and writing style were the ultimate influence. He put the author directly in the journalism, even if the writer was drunk, high on ether, and doing lines while barrelling down the highway to Las Vegas. You will be missed, brother.

New Dawn Fades

I'm driving south on Woodward Ave, there's six inches of icy slush on the roads. Snow keeps coming down. The 'Enhanced Traction System' on my Pontiac Grand Am truly provides "Driving Excitement." Skiing down M-1 in a car is fun. I keep hitting the gas and cranking the steering wheel to try to skid around a bit. It's not easy with that ETS. I was driving way too fast considering the ice and snow, but there was hardly any traffic. Something got to me. I was playing Joy Division's album Unkown Pleasures very, very loudly. It was one of those moments. I see them in my head all the time when listening to music. There are these little movies that just pop into my mind sometimes. It's like I create a music video everytime I hear a song that strikes me in just the right way. Ian Curtis' screaming at the beginning of "Interzone" along with the punk guitar just pushed me. I didn't scrape enough of the snow off my car, so I could barely see where I was skidding around. It was a rare time when I felt like I was living the movie in my head. Okay, that sounds odd. What I was hearing, and what that was making me see in my head was what I was doing. My vision was obscured, I was driving recklessly, I was on my way to see friends, and I really felt what I was hearing.

I walked through the city limits,
Someone talked me in to do it,
Attracted by some force within it,
Had to close my eyes to get close to it,
Around a corner where a prophet lay,
Saw the place where she’d had a room to stay,
A wire fence where the children played
Saw the bed where the body lay,
And I was looking for some friends of mine.
And I had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.
The cars screeched hear the sound on dust,
Heard a noise just a car outside,
Metallic blue turned red with rust,
Pulled in close by the building’s side,
In a group all forgotten youth,
Had to think, collect my senses now,
Are turned on to a knife edged view
Find some places where my friends don’t know,
And I was looking for a friend of mine,
And had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.
Down the dark streets, the houses looked the same,
Getting darker now, faces look the same,
And I walked round and round.
No stomach, torn apart,
Nail me to a train.
Had to think again,
Trying to find a clue, trying to find a way to get out!
Trying to move away, had to move away and keep out.

They're Not Monkeys, Dammit!

At Home He's A Tourist

I think I've made it clear in the past on this blog that I am a Joy Division/New Order fan. What first drew me towards them was a t-shirt. I was in seventh grade, and there was this kid who was a junior in high school who rode my bus. He wore this New Order t-shirt all the damned time. I finally asked him about it, and he made me a tape. It was 1988, the year their album Technique came out. I liked it, so he made more tapes for me, and eventually a Joy Division tape. The only source I had for buying music was the K-Mart when my mom would go there. The world wide web was barely existent, and not as full of information as it is now, so that wasn't an option. We wouldn't have a computer in the house for another three years anyway. So, I had to rely on the information I saw on the tapes in the racks at K-Mart. Being a small town...and K-Mart, there wasn't much. But, New Order's singles compilation Substance came out the previous year, and that was kind of a big seller, so that was there. Wanting to get all the info I could about this stuff, I would scan everything in the liner notes, but I didn't learn much.

There was just something about the graphic design of all their stuff that really pulled me in. It was so simple and minimalist, but appropriate and ironic, and occasionally silly. I needed to know more. I learned a little bit from watching MTV's "120 Minutes," but not much. I really wanted to know more about 'The Factory', whatever that was, and any other bands that were related to all of this. It took me years to put all the pieces together. Did you know that techo pioneers like Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Kevin Saunderson were all heavily influenced by New Order? Oddly, in the early days of Detroit techno, the only clubs that would play their music were located in Manchester, UK. That happens to be where Joy Division, New Order, Factory Records, the label they co-owned with a few others, and The Hacienda (the Hacienda must be built), the dance club owned by Factory were located. But all of that is for another time. What I want to talk about is the graphic design.

Tony Wilson, the ringleader and founder of Factory Records was very particular about the public perception of the label. That meant that all visual representation had to be well controlled. This was easy considering that the graphic designer he worked with from the beginning also happened to be a partner in the label: Peter Saville. Many of you know his work whether you realize it or not. This one has been on two album covers, t-shirts, and many, many posters.

That was the album cover for Unknown Pleasures from Joy Division, and then when the original recordings were re-issued under the original band name (Warsaw), they used the same artwork. This next one is kinda weird. At a time when my friends were drawing the Van Halen symbol on stuff, I was trying so hard to write in the font Saville created for the green typeface on the 'greatest hits' from Joy Division (titled Substance, just like the New Order singles comp).

It's just so unique, yet simple. I love it. This next one was die-cut. To this day it is still the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time, yet they lost money on it because it cost more to make the record than what they were selling it for. The cover for New Order's "Blue Monday" single.

There was some sort of theme running through all of this, and I couldn't put my finger on it. In fact, I really couldn't at all until just a couple days ago when I was reading some essays about Saville on his studio's website. He never had to answer to the label or to the artists, because as far as Factory was concerned, his artwork was yet another piece of the catalogue. Appropriately, almost everything Factory did had it's own catalogue number. For an example, their club, The Hacienda, was FAC 51. All of their designs for company stationery had it's own catalogue number, festivals put on by the label had their own numbers. Everything was a piece of the puzzle. Joy Division's first album, Unknown Pleasures was actually the first full length record put out by Factory, yet it was FAC 10. The first item, FAC 1 was the flyer that Saville created for the weekly dance night Wilson put on at a small club in Manchester.

I'm starting to think that I developed my own interest in graphic design from Saville. I've always liked things to be minimal. I also like to combine high art with lowbrow whenever I have the chance. That's also a Saville characteristic. If you'd like to know more about him, check out the site that I linked to above. Even if you're just a New Order/Joy Division fan, you'll find some interesting things to read. The movie "24 Hour Party People" is a good start, but there are essays on that site that fill in a lot of holes. Plus, he has all of the fonts he created for the two bands' artwork available free for download on the site.

Is There Life On Mars?

I don't know anything about Mars. I know it's the Red Planet, but that's it. It's up there, in the sky, but that's really all I know. But, this damned David Bowie song runs through my mind. Plus, every morning, I wake up, and in my line of sight is a large globe that's set up on top of one of my stereo speakers. But the globe isn't earth, like normal, it's Mars. When Tim's parents came to the house to clean out his room, they asked us if there was anything we wanted, and that was what I wanted. He used to get so irked when I cracked jokes about the globe, that's why I needed it.

It's been a little over two months since Tim passed, and he's still everywhere. I hope he never goes away. I hope that when I'm 40 years old, I'll be having a computer problem and wish he was there to help. I hope that next year, when I turn 30, I'll remember that Tim would've been 25 next year. His birthday will be celebrated. I hope that isn't too strange.

I've intentionally placed myself in a situation that will always keep him on my mind. I'm on my computer often (obviously). Now that he's gone, we don't want his bedroom to be used as a bedroom anymore, it wouldn't be right. So, now Aaron and I have our computers in Tim's room. It's not the computer room, or at least we don't always refer to it that way. It's Tim's room. The desk where my computer is set up is exactly where he had his computer desk. The half burned-out Christmas lights that he had strung up around the windows are still there. In fact, out of 25 lights, only four of them worked. That's the way they were when he first hung them there months ago. We asked why, and he just said he liked it that way. It's kind of funny, because he used to tease me so much for having a laptop computer that I never take anywhere, and now that same computer is exactly where he used to have his desktop computer.

I really don't need any of that to remember him. I'm confronted with something every day, in fact almost every hour that makes me think of him. Also, we're still getting mail for him. It started the day after he passed and that was over two months ago. Every day, we get at least one catalog of some sort for medical research supplies. Usually supplies that deal with immunology or DNA/RNA research or biochemistry or some other area of medical science that we don't know anything about, and he never mentioned. But it's all addressed to him. Some of them are addressed to "Dr. Van Esley," which we think is kinda funny. It's almost like he had to say he was a doctor so they would send him free catalogs. What really bothers us, though is that we can't figure out what he was up to. I know I've brought this up before, but the catalogs keep coming.

I don't know, I guess that's all for now. We'll come back to this, I guarantee it.

We Are the Solution

Here's some cultural history for you. John Sinclair, the Minister of Information for the White Panther Party wrote this in 1968 in Detroit. At the time, he was the manager for the Detroit proto-punk band the MC5. I don't completely agree with it, in particular their agreement with the Black Panther's 10 Point Program, mostly because I think it's slightly irrational. I also don't agree that all prisoners should be freed, but the rest is interesting nonetheless. It's a bit reactionary, but still resonates today just as much as it did with the kids back then.

White Panther Statement

Not to be confused with any white supremacist or white power groups- quite the contrary. Our program is Cultural Revolution through a total assault on the culture, which makes us use every tool, every energy and any media we can get our collective hands on. We take our program with us everywhere we go and use any means necessary to expose people to it.

Our culture, our art, the music, newspapers, books, posters, our clothing, our homes, the way we walk and talk, the way our hair grows, the way we smoke dope and fuck and eat and sleep - it is all one message, and the message is FREEDOM!

We are the mother country madmen in charge of our own lives and we are taking this freedom to the people of America, in streets, in the ballrooms and teenclubs, in their front rooms watching TV, in their bedrooms reading underground newspapers, or masturbating, or smoking secret dope, in their schools where we come and talk to them or make our music, in their weird gymnasiums - they love it- We represent the only contemporary life-style in America for its kids and it should be known that THESE KIDS ARE READY !

They are ready to move but they don't know how, and all we do is show them that they can get away with it. BE FREE, goddamnit, and fuck them old dudes, is what we tell them, and they can see that we mean it. The only influences we have, the only thing that touches them, is that we are for real. We are FREE. We are a bunch of arrogant motherfuckers and we don't give a damn for any cop or any phony-ass authority control-addict creeps who want to put us down. For the first time in America there is a generation of visionary maniac white motherfucker country dope fiend rock and roll freaks who are ready to get down and kick out the jams - ALL THE JAMS - break everything loose and free everybody from their very real and imaginary prisons - even the chumps and punks and honkies who are always fucking with us. We demand total freedom for everybody! And we will not be stopped until we get it.

We are bad.

There's only two kinds of people on the planet: those who make up the problem and those who make up the solution. WE ARE THE SOLUTION. We have no problems. Everything is free for everybody. Money sucks. Leaders suck. School sucks. The white honkie culture that has been handed to us on a silver platter is meaningless to us! We don't want it!

Our program of rock and roll, dope and fucking in the streets is a program of total freedom for everyone. We are totally committed to carrying out our program. We breathe revolution. We are LSD driven total maniacs of the universe. We will do anything we can to drive people crazy out of their heads and into their bodies.

ROCK AND ROLL music is the spearhead of our attack because it is so effective and so much fun. We have developed organic high-energy guerrilla bands who are infiltrating the popular culture and destroying millions of minds in the process. With our music and our economic genius we plunder the unsuspecting straight world for money and the means to carry out our program, and revolutionize its children at the same time.

And with our entrance into the straight media we have demonstrated to the honkies that anything they do to fuck with us will be exposed to their children. We don't need to get rid of all the honkies, you just rob them of their replacements and let the breed atrophy and die out.

We don't have guns yet - not all of us anyway - because we have more powerful weapons - direct access to millions of teenagers is one of our most potent, and their belief in us is another. But we will use guns if we have to - we will do anything - if we have to.

We have no illusions. Knowing the power of symbols in the abstract world of Americans we have taken the White Panther as our mark to symbolize our strength and arrogance.

We're bad.

White Panther Party 10-Point Program

1. Full endorsement and support of Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program

2. Total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock n' roll, dope and fucking in the streets.

3. Free exchange of energy and materials -we demand the end of money!

4. Free food, clothes, housing, dope, music, bodies, medical care - everything free for everybody!

5. Free access to information media -free the technology from the greed creeps!

6. Free time and space for all humans -dissolve all unnatural boundaries.

7. Free all schools and all structures from corporate rule - turn the buildings over to the people at once!

8. Free all prisoners everywhere - they are our brothers.

9. Free all soldiers at once - no more conscripted armies.

10. Free the people from their "leaders" - leaders suck - all power to all the people freedom means free everyone!

--John Sinclair Minister of Information White Panther Party November 1st, 1968

You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

I'm almost at a loss for words. I don't know how or exactly when (maybe a week ago?) I looked into this band, but I'm definitely glad I did.

Back in November, there was a show at the Lager House in Detroit. I can't remember who was headlining, but it was a local band, and I wanted to see it. The opening band was not local. They were Death From Above 1979. I read a blurb somewhere that made them sound appealing, but in the end, I didn't go to the show. I'm reluctant to go out to a show on a weeknight. Especially when it's at a place like the Lager Show where everything goes late. I'm a 9 to 5 cube-dweller, what can I say?

So, about a week ago, their name came up again, and I went and got their latest full length album, "You're A Woman, I'm A Machine." Ho-ly crap! Seriously. It wasn't until after I had listened to the whole thing several times over that I realized it's only two guys. TWO! Plus, it's only bass and drums with the occasional keyboards. Unbelievable. The bass player plays it like a guitar, and it ends up sounding like the guitar tone in War Pigs or Paranoid or Supernaut from Sabbath. Or maybe something from Deep Purple. Either way, this shit is so hot. The thing is, their sound at times is like Deep Purple or Sabbath. Or maybe Queens of the Stone Age? I could even throw out the Rapture in a way. That's the thing, this stuff is swaggering and danceable at times. But not in a cheesy dance way. It's just so simple, yet metal, and stoner rock, and punk at the same time.

Now, I know this isn't anything new, the idea of a duet with only drums and bass playing metal. There's the Ruins, for an example. Or GodHeadSilo. As far as non-metal, but similar duets, there's also the Inbreds, and the White Stripes, and the Soledad Brothers (originally a duet, but now a trio), and the demonically rock as fuck Bantam Rooster. There are more, too, like Low, but that goes outside of the idiom (they're a numbingly downbeat indie-rock band).

There are eleven songs on the album, and the sound always rocks, but it slightly veers in different directions. It really is stoner rock (like Blue Cheer, or Deep Purple), but with these little nuances like new wave (like on "Romantic Rights"), and soul on "Black History Month." "Blood On Our Hands" actually has a dynamic similar to a White Stripes song, but I can't think of which one. It's one of the many songs on the album where both are singing. The drums and the bass are so perfectly syncopated with the vocals, I don't know how else to describe it.

There seems to be a little bit of a theme on the record, too. With song titles like "Romantic Rights," "Going Steady," "Go Home, Get Down," "Little Girl," the title track, "Pull Out," and "Sexy Results" (which happens to have a tambourine line in it), sex is all over this record. Hell, it's dripping off "Sexy Results." It's that good.

Oh, by the way, they're Canadian, and this is their site. Check it out.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

Help me get free stuff. In turn, you can get freestuff. This is real, and legitimate. Just choose something easy like the Blockbuster offer. All you have to do is join, complete an online offer, and refer friends to do the same. That's it! Here is my referral link. To help me get my iPod, click this exact link to join, or copy and paste it into a browser: http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=14783064

I know, this is a little annoying, but it's real, and it's easy, so why not? You just have to get five friends to do the same thing. Help me? Thanks.