The Fresh Prints of Belair

 

We’re not heavy partisans of analog-over-digital here at DML. We think that you can take awesome photos with a smartphone (if you know what you’re doing) and that Instagram filters can make photos look even better (if you know what you’re doing). None of this “you have to get your hands dirty in the darkroom to be a real photographer” nonsense for us.

That said, we lurv, lurv, lurv the Belair X 6-12 Globetrotter, which looks like something Audrey Hepburn would have used back in the day. We’re even thinking of getting one for the office. Not to take pictures with—goodness, no—but to be seen holding, as if we were about to take a picture. You can’t buy that kind of authenticity.

lomographicsociety:

Embrace the possibilities of medium-format film and watch your creativity take off. With the Belair X 6-12 Globetrotter, you can create high-quality panoramas, regular and square photos, mix-and-match high quality lenses and much, much more. The camera is crafted from metal and wears a brown snake-style patterned leather coat. Pre-order your camera today and save 30% - Only 300 of this camera will be made available worldwide! http://bit.ly/T1DT58

Periods, Farts and Sarcasm

 

The Brits at Bodyform really hit one out of the park with this video.  Replying to a humorous Facebook posting from a customer’s husband, they provide a great example of how to interact with your social media community. With hilarious scorn.

Read about it and see the video here: http://bit.ly/R8u3R5 

BABIES SHOULD SLEEP THIS WELL

We don’t believe in coincidences. If we say “we’ve been working like a dog,” and then a dog barks, it is not just chance, but an event of extreme significance.

So when we saw this article about the Ostrich Pillow, we started to tremble with an almost religious fear.

Because earlier that day, we had read this article in the New York Times about sleep, and the growing practice of letting employees take mid-day naps to increase their productivity. Thus, we have the prospect of a post-lunch snore, and the perfect accessory to make that snore possible.

Do we care that the Ostrich Pillow resembles an enormous bug head? Or that it looks like it might suffocate you if you actually tried to use it?

No, we don’t care. Because the Ostrich Pillow allows us to sleep on the job. And that trumps everything.

Time is not always so mean.

The great rabbi Abraham Heschel once said that “time is sarcasm,” and he had a point. Time takes our dreams and our vanity and, in the end, renders both ridiculous.

But it’s not always so mean. Sometimes it throws us a nice surprise out of the past.

Take, for example, this long-lost photo of Tina Turner, part of a trove of equally awesome pictures found in the closet of Jack Robinson, a bitter recluse who—once—had been a photographer of the beautiful and the famous. (You can read more about him and see more photos here.)

Source: musicthatspeaks

A Sexy Beast

We love Iggy Pop. Aside from his amazing his body of work—particularly his seminal records with the Stooges, which only sound better as the years go by—we love his amazing body; the sinews, the wrinkles, the blood vessels the size of fat earth worms. He’s wildly attractive and wildly repulsive all at once—no small feat at any age, but a miracle at 65. He’s icktastic, grossexy and fuckusting: everything an old punk should be.

But a bobblehead? No no no. We’re sure Iggy’s head is big enough as it is. Besides, this one looks like George Bush, Senior in a wig.

(If you think you can design a better Iggy Pop bobblehead, send us a drawing and we’ll post it on our Facebook page. The winner will get a year’s worth of heroin.)*

* - Contest void in states where heroin is illegal.

Original post: http://tmblr.co/Zj5HrwSmXmSf

Twit Hit

The inner fan boy/girl in us was all a’tremble when we learned that someone at The New York Times had written an article about Carly Rae Jepsen and her monster summer hit “Call Me Maybe.” What juicy bits of gossip had the Times dug up? What dirt? Would she reveal whom the song is about? Would she offer any dating tips? Would she tell us what Justin’s really like?

Well, in our excitement we forgot this is the stodgy old New York Times. Turns out the article was about the music business, and how the success of “Call Me Maybe” represents a new paradigm for making a song a hit, driven as it was by Twitter and YouTube exposure.  Yawn. Motherfuckin’ yaaaawn.

Listen, we’re social media people. We spend lots of time on the web, and this just doesn’t seem like news to us.

The article is accurate:  Carly Rae’s song was just a minor Canadian hit until Justin Beiber and his friends did a lip-syncing video that went viral. Which in turn spawned other viral videos. Which in their turn made the original song and video blow up something fierce.

It’s just that this kind of thing has been going on for a while, though admittedly not on this scale. The main difference here is that radio picked up the song based on the Internet exposure, not the other way around.

We fully approve of this development, and we celebrate the democratizing effects of the interwebs. But we also kind of miss the good old days, when crafting the “song of the summer” involved midnight writing sessions in Laurel Canyon, out-of-their-head producers throwing chairs around studios on the Sunset Strip, and label execs snorting coke out of a stripper’s belly-button while trying to decide which DJ will get the most payola. God, what an innocent time that was!

Read the article here.

Original post: http://tmblr.co/Zj5HrwR_CIu1

Bill Gates vs. Poop

What’s the world’s greatest invention? We know the usual suspects: the wheel, the computer, sliced bread. But it’s obvious that the world’s greatest invention is actually the toilet.

Yes, the wheel allows us to travel great distances, and the computer allows us to communicate with each other from the other side of the world. But think about what the toilet does. The toilet takes our poo and moves it…away. It sends it some place where we don’t have to think about it ever again. Amazing.

Of course, as this article points out, things aren’t really that simple. The toilet has not changed much since it was invented over two hundred years ago: it still depends on the liberal application of water, and in these days, when the world’s fresh water is quickly being used up, we need a more comprehensive conservation plan than “if it’s yellow, it’s mellow/ if it’s brown, flush it down.”

Enter Bill Gates, who has thrown a tiny portion of his ridonculous wealth at the problem by funding a contest to reinvent the toilet. His motivation is pretty noble, we admit. He wants to cut down on diseases caused by poor sanitation in developing countries, which kills a distressingly large number of people every year—many of them children.

In theory, we applaud this effort. But, having once had to use a composting toilet during a high school trip to a clean energy farm, we know that we will never be comfortable with anything other than the traditional porcelain convenience. (And before you accuse us of being too spoiled and “First World” about it: we know what it’s like to lack adequate bathroom facilities. Have you ever worked in a Soho loft office? There’s one bathroom for about thirty people, and it’s right next to the desks. There’s no way we’re going to do our business there. We’ve had a hell of a time figuring out which local restaurant restroom we can sneak into without having to actually buy something. No, it’s not “possible death by exposure to raw sanitation,” but it’s damn inconvenient.)

But can we just take a minute to consider the power of the truly super rich? Think about it. Bill Gates says “I want you to reinvent the way people shit!” and hundreds of scientists hop to it. That’s juice.

Original link: http://tmblr.co/Zj5HrwRYJDQk

More Humiliating Than Those Conical Dog Collars

The relationship of Man to Dog is a curious one, Of course, there is lots of mutual love and affection, whether it is expressed as him wagging his tail or you rigorously scratching him behind the ears. But Man has come up with an enormous variety of instruments for keeping his “best friend” in his place—the collar, the muzzle, the leash, the argyle dog sweater—each seemingly designed to render significant humiliation while avoiding outright contempt.

Until today, we considered the worst of these instruments the conical dog collar, those white plastic contraptions veterinarians force dogs to wear so they won’t lick their anti-flea medication or pull out their stitches with their teeth. If you’ve ever doubted that dogs have feelings, just take a look at one wearing a conical collar. Like a medieval villager set in the stocks at the pleasure of the Lord of the Manor, the face of a dog so afflicted is one of pure pathos;  sadness and shame and bewilderment radiating from every pore.

We thought that was the worst thing you could do to a dog, until we saw the picture below. At least there’s usually a medical reason for employing a conical collar. But this…well, frankly we can’t find the words. Never mind the fact that you’re denying the dog the chance to do one of the few things he’s actually good at—running—but by demoting him to the status of a pannier bag, you’re denying him his heritage. His ancestors pulled the sleds that brought the first human explorers to the North Poll, for God’s sake! And now you’re bringing him to the local food co-op? That’s brutal.

MCFLY.

So this one—spotted recently on a SoHo wall—started a debate here at DML HQ.

One group—let’s call them the pop culture cognoscenti—saw this as a brilliant mash-up, a cross-textural blending of two iconic ’80s films (Jeff Goldbloom’s “The Fly” and Michael J. Fox’s “Back To The Future”) with cutting-edge 21st century street art.

Another group, the more cynical members of our team, said that this is part of a viral ad campaign for retro sneakers—another example of corporate interests co-opting an underground phenomenon.

And a third group—mainly the copy writers (nerds)—enjoyed it as a clever pun: “Get it? Marty McFly—and he’s an actual fly!” That’s what we love about New York City: even the walls are conversation starters.

Original link: http://tmblr.co/Zj5HrwLEjc-w

M.I.A.'s Guerilla Tactics

The following originally appeared in the August 2005 Central Park SummerStage program, written for people to read as they sat sweltering in the sun and waiting for the show to begin. M.I.A. was already pretty well known--though obviously not as famous as she would become after her single “Paper Planes” became a surprise hit three years later.

In terms of the highly unoriginal question at the center of this piece—would M.I.A. have to abandon her revolutionary ways to become a success?—I haven’t quite decided. Plenty of people would say she sold out years ago, but I don’t know too many sellouts who would dance around the Grammy stage literally hours before having a baby, or who would give the finger to several million people during a Superbowl half-time show.

  Underground dance star M.I.A. is a godsend for music journalists. Her back-story is so interesting it practically writes itself, and every article about her since she emerged last year has featured the salient points. The twenty-nine year old Sri Lankan—born Maya Arulpragasam in London—is the daughter of a major figure in Sri Lanka’s Tamil separatist movement. She spent her first eleven years in that increasingly violent country, before fleeing with most of her family and eventually resettling in one of Outer London’s most run down housing projects. Maya learned English listening to Public Enemy and N.W.A. An art school grad and filmmaker, she discovered the charms of the Roland MC-505 Groovebox (the drum-machine/synthesizer on which she writes most of her songs) while filming a tour documentary for Britpop band Elastica. With the encouragement of Elastica’s leader Justine Frischman and underground dance/punk star Peaches, Arulpragasam ditched the camera and started making music. M.I.A.’s fame spread over the Internet, where her single “Galang” was distributed via mp3 blogs and file-sharing sites. With its blend of nonsense rhymes and thick immigrant slang, “Galang” became a sleeper hit.

After tinkering for months on her debut Arular, she gave most of the tracks away to the American-born DJ Diplo, who blended in bits of Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, The Bangles, and Jamaican toaster Cutty Ranks to produce an amazingly enjoyable mix tape called Piracy Funds Terrorism. The two posted the tape for free download on the Internet, and threw copies into the audience at shows. Instead of sabotaging her debut, the stunt generated so much buzz that even relatively staid publications like The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and The New York Times took notice. When Arular proper finally came out in March, it was hailed as one of the best albums of 2005—and this only three months into the year.

So is M.I.A. worth all the fuss?  Well, yes, but not because of that bio (or her undeniable outsider glamour). Her music is fiercely creative and catchy, and there’s a homemade quality that sets it apart from polished commercial dance tracks. M.I.A. essentially makes 21^st century folk-music, which is to say she sticks sounds together with cheap electronics and a lyrical outlook that appeals as much to young South Asian club goers as to ironic Williamsburg hipsters. The beats come from everywhere: Indian bhangra, Brazilian baile funk, the theme from “Sanford & Son.” In one verse, M.I.A. can drop a line of perfectly credible Jamaican patois, then name check The Pixies and Lou Reed.

Of course, she’s not the only one engaging in this type of beat-driven border crossing. What sets M.I.A. apart from other post-modern, sonic collage constructing dancehall divas is a peculiar balance between pop frivolity and radical politics. While she’s trying to reach a wide audience (“I want people to listen to me while they’re playing bingo in Swansea,” she said last year in The New Yorker), she risks alienating that audience with some of her subject matter. Even when the music is at its sunniest, the lyrics simmer with  violence—violence not fueled by the outlaw fantasies of hard-core rap, but by the bleak realities of Third World poverty and the resentment of the West in engenders. M.I.A. incorporates these elements so artfully, you may find yourself dancing to a song about teenage prostitutes, racial profiling or, perhaps most troubling, terrorists. Arular’s opener, “Pull Up The People,” seems to flirt with suicide bombing with the same verve that N.W.A. once glamorized car-jacking. Though M.I.A. never endorses the violence she portrays, her songs have a nasty kick that can leave a listener off-balance, not sure how much to forgive. Certainly she is unabashed in her appropriation of rebel iconography, from the crude stencils of Molotov cocktails and rock-throwing youths that adorn the Arular packaging to the animated sticks of dynamite that usher one onto her website. Is she merely appropriating an air of danger in the same way that Joe Strummer of the Clash used to wear a Red Brigades t-shirt on stage? Or is she really ready to storm the barricades?

To be fair, only a few of her songs could be interpreted as being from a terrorist’s point of view, and one track, “Amazon,” is explicitly about a terrorist’s victim. M.I.A is estranged from her father and she apparently called her album Arular—her father’s nom de guerre—in order to mock him. In interviews, she has said she wants to provoke discussion, that it’s important to see everyone as humans first and political animals second. But pop music has never been about nuance, and if you’re going to promote yourself with images of bombs and jungle fighters, some people will take it at face value. M.I.A.’s rise so far has been remarkable, especially in America. But whether or not she’ll be able to ultimately break out of the underground may depend on the ability of western pop listeners to get past the guerilla imagery. Will she have to abandon the rebellion to reach those bingo players in Swansea?

The Awesome Insult, part 2

I just loaded the StumbleUpon app to my iPad and the first place it sent me was a list of Shakespeare's best insults. I'm surprised at how few of these I remember. Most are the kind of thing you might expect: "Out of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes," from Richard III or "You whoreson malt-horse drudge" from The Taming Of The Shrew.

But there are also plenty that would feel right at home on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "30 Rock:"

"Your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone." - Coriolanus

"I do desire we may be better strangers." - All's Well That Ends Well

"More of your conversation would infect my brain." - Coriolanus

"There is no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune." - 1 Henry IV

Not on this list, but one that often pops into my head when considering certain people, is Hamlet's aside to Horatio on the first appearance of the sycophantic courtier Osric:

Hamlet: Dost know this water-fly?

Horatio: No, my good lord.

Hamlet: Thy state is the more gracious, for 'tis a vice to know him.

See the rest of the list here.

Image by Alice and Martin Provensen, taken from the book Shakespeare: Ten Great Plays (1962, Golden Press, New York)

Feeding My 160: Listen to Some Sinatra

I have a friend who is usually either deliriously in love or desperately heartbroken. Everyone has their pattern, and that is his. When he’s on the downward spiral, I try to help, though I know that relationship advice is generally useless–it’s the most eagerly sought-after and most quickly discarded advice there is. The last time his heart was stepped on, I had only this to say: “Listen to some Sinatra.”

Once, I would have recommended “Unsatisfied” by The Replacements or some bitter little ditty from the first few Elvis Costello albums. But that kind of music has lost its ability to comfort. Now, when my heart is shattered, I want to be reminded that the world is not, in fact, coming to an end as well.

I could have been more specific with my friend, and said “listen to a couple of Sinatra’s Capitol albums.” The earlier Sinatra–the “boy singer” of the Tommy Dorsey band and the crooner of the Columbia years–possessed a voice of almost supernatural magnificence, a tone so pure that it boggles the mind. This is a period that deserves repeated listening, but it’s not the most helpful for my friend’s predicament.

By the time he started recording for Capitol, Frank Sinatra’s voice was a little rougher, his range more limited. The effect was to bring him down to earth. The idealized love songs of his bobby-soxer years gave way to the mature reflections of a man in his prime. All the passion was still there, but the performances were tempered with self-mockery and humor. Listen to the intro verse of “Glad To Be Unhappy,” from 1955’s In The Wee Small Hours, which includes the line:

Since you took it right on the chin/ You have lost that bright, toothpaste grin.

This is corny, but it’s also pretty reassuring, especially as Sinatra delivers it. “Toothpaste grin” is such a lovely way to evoke the happy obliviousness of new love. If your feelings are about as deep as a toothpaste commercial, maybe it’s not so bad that things have gone south.

Sinatra didn’t write these lyrics: he seldom composed the songs he sang (with the notable exception of the anguished “I’m A Fool To Want You,” which he wrote for Ava Gardner). Nor was he the only singer to perform this song—you can easily find dozens of other versions. But even the good ones—like Billie Holiday’s late-career recording—seem like completely different compositions. Like an actor, Sinatra imbued other people’s words with life, and he was so good at it, he effectively turned whatever he sang into his own song.

Sinatra’s Capitol albums generally alternated between two moods: the brash swagger of new love and the muted tristesse of romantic defeat. Think the infectious joy of Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! and the black melancholy of …Only The Lonely, the nearly out-of-control exuberance of ”I Got You Under My Skin” and the nearly cosmic despair of “Angel Eyes.”

This is why the Sinatra of the Capitol years is perfect for my friend. Few rock-era artists achieved the truly adult view of love that Sinatra mastered back in the ‘50s. In lesser hands, a song like Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “One For My Baby” might seem like dated schmaltz, the crap that the Beatles and the Stones supposedly banished for good back in ’64. But as performed by Sinatra, it trumps just about any love song either of those bands have done. The Beatles certainly never grew up enough to reach this level of maturity—even their greatest ballads are essentially boyish.*  Maybe the Stones got there once, with “Wild Horses.”

Most rock and pop songs are about wanting: wanting sex, wanting love, wanting money, respect and satisfaction. At its best, Sinatra’s music is about gracefully accepting that you’re not going to get what you want. Sometimes you have to swing your jacket over your shoulder, finish that last drink, and head back out into the night.

*An argument could be made for Harrison’s “Something,” which Sinatra himself performed in later years, invariably crediting it onstage to Lennon & McCartney. Poor George.

(This post originally appeared at vivoscene.com on June 10th, 2011)

John Lee Is Driving My Train

Ever since they improved the intercoms on New York City subway trains, I’ve become a casual connoisseur of different conductors, and the vocal techniques they employ in announcing the stops. Most just sound bored, while others express evident dissatisfaction with their lives through the hostile, resentful tone they take with the passengers. But there are a few who put some effort in to it, such as one guy who used to announce the 1 and 9 trains back in the ‘90s. He sounded like a cross between a carnival barker and an old-time department store elevator operator listing the shopping options at each floor. “You’re on the number 1 train, headed downtown to lovely South Ferry. This is Columbus Circle: you can transfer here to the fabled A train is you want to head up to Harlem, hop off to take a stroll in beautiful Central Park, or just gaze in amazement at the stupendous Trump Tower just above this station.”

My current favorite is usually on the C train, though sometimes he’s assigned to the 1. He plays it pretty straight until he gets to “stand clear of the closing doors,” which he always delivers in the same strange quasi-British accent, dropping the “o” sound in “closing” nearly an octave, then swinging back up to end with a prim “please.” I always crack up at this, no matter how many times I hear it.

But I may have found a new favorite this morning. He sounds like John Lee Hooker: specifically the slow-talking-blues Hooker. Low and mellow, but with an undertone of urgency. He sounds like a fellow convict whispering quietly in your ear, trying to talk you down from doing something foolish in the Yard. “Please move in to the center of the car. We need to get lots of people in. We’re coming into a crowded station. Lots of people trying to get on. We can get through this people, we can get through this.” It was one ofthe most reassuring subway rides I can remember.

Spoilers Ahead

My kids are incredibly spoiled. I don’t mean “spoiled” in the traditional child-rearing sense; they aren’t brats (at least not that often), nor do they expect to get something for nothing (at least not that often). But they are spoiled in a pop culture sense. Last fall, I started reading the Harry Potter books with my older son, who is just about to turn nine. After we finished the first book, he went over to the shelf, picked out the seventh book and immediately read the Epilogue, thereby defusing the suspense that gives the series much of its allure. It didn’t bother him in the least to know (spoilers ahead, if you’ve been living under a rock since 1997) that Harry defeats Voldemort and Ron marries Hermione and Professor Snape is a good guy after all. What’s more, he regularly asks me to spoil things for him. “Daddy, who kills Sirius Black? Does Hedwig die? Does Snape become headmaster in book 6 or 7?”

Certainly these are not the most awkward questions a parent gets asked, but the reader in me balks, and my answers are invariably shifty. “Ohh… we don’t know yet. We’ll have to see.” Invariably this produces an irritated response. “Just tell me!” he wheedles. I want to say: “Be patient. Savor the surprises and you’ll enjoy the experience more.” But I know I’ll sound like Andy Rooney (“Remember carbon paper? It was so much easier than this new-fangled Xerox thingamajig.”)

My son doesn’t want to wait for a story’s plot to unfold in the way the author intended.  He wants all the answers now. Not only is he immune to the charms of an unexpected plot twist, he actively hates surprises. My own attitude is exactly the reverse. I expend a great deal of time and way too much energy trying to avoid spoilers. Up until about five months ago, for instance, I had ignored Breaking Bad (“What’s that? Oh, like Weeds, but with meth? Pass.”). When I finally gave it a chance, I couldn’t stop watching, and I devoured the first three seasons on Netflix. Now I’m frantically trying to avoid any information about the fourth season, which finished airing in the fall. My success has been limited: the show’s getting a lot of attention lately. I now know the shock image from the season finale, if none of the narrative context that surrounds it.

Spoilage can leap across genres and formats. I decided to delay watching HBO’s Game of Thrones until I read the George R.R. Martin fantasy novels on which the series is based. Later, while idly skimming an IO9.com post called “The Most Undignified Deaths In Sci-Fi and Fantasy,” I stumbled across a paragraph that covered the HBO show and spoiled the end of the first book (and a good deal of the second book as well.)

Perhaps my son has the right idea. His disregard for—even distrust of—the traditional narrative structure fits well with the hyper-linked, everything-all-at-once philosophy of the current information age. Maybe one day soon it will be impossible to remain unspoiled—not only impossible, but beside the point.

(Image from BadtvBlog, via Sick Chirpse.)

The Awesome Insult

There's something extremely satisfying in reading a well-worded put down, even when you don't know much about the person being destroyed. The late Christopher Hitchens was a master of this particular art form. Among the numerous examples re-quoted in the week following his death: On George Bush:

“[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”

On Michael Moore:

“The laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious, and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities,”

In Hitchens' honor, I wanted to highlight this almost zen-like insult from one of his heroes, George Orwell, who in "The Lion and the Unicorn" surveyed Britain's pre-World War II leadership and found it wanting:

"...somehow the ruling class decayed, lost its ability, its daring, finally even its ruthlessness, until a time came when stuffed shirts like Eden or Halifax could stand out as men of exceptional talent. As for Baldwin, one could not even dignify him with the name of stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole in the air."

Pipe-smoking Stanley, you've been zinged!

Kubrick in New York

A recent tweet from @the99percent led, through a series of links, to this collection of photos taken by the young Stanley Kubrick in the late 1940s. As in the example above (kudos to the subject for wearing a shirt and tie to clean the windows, by the way), Kubrick's aesthetic is already evident. I wish I had enough disposable income to actually purchase one of these prints.

R.I.P Cesaria Evora

Just saw, via Brooklyn Vegan, the sad news that Cesaria Evora has passed away. Even sadder, in an altogether different way: the spasm of panic I felt when I first saw the headline, which I thoughtsaid "R.I.P. Eva Longoria."

The SMiLE Sessions

(Originally posted on NoExpiration)

Until the release of The Pet Sounds Sessions box set in 1997, I never had much time for The Beach Boys. I liked “I Get Around,” “Help Me Rhonda,” and “Surf City” (this last in an ironic way, due to its ludicrous falsetto chorus of “Two girls for ev-er-y boooooy!”), but not much else.

Once I heard the stereo mix of Pet Sounds, however, I started to realize what all the fuss was about. That mix, and the session tapes that accompanied it, made me appreciate the brilliance of Brian Wilson’s melodic gift. When it was announced that Smile—the legendary, unfinished follow-up to Pet Sounds—would be given the same box set treatment, I anticipated a similarly revelatory experience. Smile, according to the legend, was even better than Pet Sounds.

Well, yes and no. Mostly no.  

One of the strengths of Pet Sounds is the way its musical adventurousness is anchored by the professional craftsmanship of its lyrics. “Wouldn't It Be Nice” may sound like music from Mars, but the words are pure teenage yearning, as earthbound as you can get.  “God Only Knows” is Wilson's outstanding spiritual statement, but it can also be enjoyed as a simple (if breathtakingly beautiful) love song.

With the possible exception of “Good Vibrations,” the songs from Smile don’t have this advantage. Mike Love may have gotten a lot of stick over the years for objecting to Van Dyke Parks’ obscure lyrics, but it’s not hard to sympathize with him when confronted with lines like “Who rang the iron horse?” or “The crow cries undercover the cornfield” from “Cabin Essence.” As the careers of everyone from Little Richard to Michael Stipe prove, pop song lyrics don’t have to make sense—but they do have to deliver an emotional punch. Parks’ lyrics fail on this count. When sung to one of the most beautiful melodies Brian Wilson ever wrote, a line like the infamous “columnated ruins domino,” from “Surf’s Up,” is not just dumb—it’s almost an insult to the music.

But it’s not just the lyrics that are a problem here. Wilson famously called Smile his “teenage symphony to God,” and it shows in the songwriting, which strives for a symphonic effect by stringing together short “movements” in often unrelated musical styles. This pastiche technique works well on “Good Vibrations,” but less so everywhere else. “Heroes and Villains” goes from surf pop to barbershop quartet to piano ballad and doo-wop before finishing off with a one-two punch of cowboy ballad harmonica and English music hall trombone. It’s like a clip reel from The Lawrence Welk Show. “Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)” has a spooky rinky-dink piano section, a Hawaiian guitar interlude and vocal break that sounds like the awful “ooga chaka” song from that dancing baby video back in the ‘90s.* It’s all a bit precious—the kind of twee psychedelic experimentation that ruined a lot of music on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-‘60s.

After listening to The Smile Sessions, it’s hard to see how the finished album could have ever lived up to the hype it has accumulated over the years. Though it seems almost sacrilegious not to love this music, I don’t think Smile would have been the earthquake its fans dream about. Maybe The Smile Sessions is not the story of Brian Wilson’s creativity blooming, but a snapshot of the moment when it started to ripen and rot.

* - A search of the internets tells me that this song is Blue Swede’s mid-‘70s cover of B.J. Thomas’s “Hooked On A Feeling.” **

** - Two years after I wrote this, the song reentered public consciousness through its prominent use in Marvel's “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise. There were so many better songs that could have picked, alas.   

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

When Liam Gallagher released Beady Eye’s debut Different Gear, Still Speeding earlier this year, he seemed to reclaim the cocky rock star energy of the first few Oasis albums. If Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is any indication, all the older Gallagher got in the divorce was the meandering weariness of the last few Oasis albums. Anyone looking for a whip smart comeback to Beady Eye will be disappointed: Noel doesn’t get into a musical pissing match with his brother, despite the presence of such song titles as “The Death of You and Me” and “If I Had A Gun” (this last not—alas—a bitchy put-down directed at Liam, but a “Wonderwall”-style love song).

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds self-titled debut album is not a statement of artistic rebirth. It’s business as usual, hewing closely to the texture of late Oasis albums like Dig Out Your Soul and Don’t Believe The Truth. Perhaps that’s to be expected: Oasis was Noel’s baby, and as main songwriter and producer, he pretty much set the tone. The upshot is that most of the songs on High Flying Birds sound like they were written for Liam to sing. Liam has always been a better interpreter of Noel’s songs than Noel himself, able to convey the emotion behind even the laziest of his brother’s lyrics. Liam could deliver lines like “If I had a gun, I’d shoot a hole into the sun/and love would burn this city down for you” and make it sound kind of touching—as if a football hooligan were mangling clichés in an effort to express his feelings to his girlfriend. But Noel can’t quite pull it off. His voice is fine for backup singing, or the occasional ballad, but it lacks the inherent drama a lead singer needs to be effective. In his hands, the above lyrics sound awkward and tossed off, as if he couldn’t be bothered to write better ones.

Noel still has a gift for melody, and High Flying Birds offers its share of catchy pop hooks. But there’s nothing urgent here: this is music by a craftsman who mastered his formula years ago. Unfortunately, that formula requires the participation of his kid brother. If he wants to fly solo, Noel Gallagher needs to come up with something new.

(This review originally appeared at vivoscene.com)

Feeding My 160: Picking Sides with Sonic Youth

Most of the coverage of the recently announced split of Gen X power couple Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore concerned itself with the implications for their band, Sonic Youth. This is, I think, an example of music journalists trying to take the high road. I’ve no doubt that what most of them are really wondering is why Kim and Thurston are breaking up. But to come out and speculate would turn the story into something fit for Celebitchy.com or People Magazine, on par with Kim Kardasian and Kris whatshisname. It’s much more dignified to ponder the future of a pioneering noise-rock band than to imagine a tawdry scenario like Kim catching Thurston in bed with the cleaning lady.

One non-musical aspect of the story that people are commenting on is the unfortunate implication for the institution of Gen X marriage, of which Kim and Thurston seemed the archetype. Speaking personally, the announcement did cause me some vague anxiety. My wife and I celebrated our tenth year anniversary last year. Having reached this milestone unscathed, I’ve been complacently imagining that our marriage will just continue in the same amiable way until one of us drops dead. Kim and Thurston’s announcement is a disconcerting reminder that nothing is guaranteed. If this ultra-cool pair can’t make it work after nearly three decades, what relationship horrors await the rest of us in our middle age?

The future of Sonic Youth seems to me to be the least interesting aspect of this whole story. Unless the break-up brings a new element of danger to the music, I won’t really care if the band calls it quits. I like Sonic Youth, but their output has been hit or miss for nearly twenty years. After the nearly perfect late ’80s trilogy of EVOL, Sister and Daydream Nation, SY slowly lost its focus, tempering the experimental fury of those early years with a move towards accessibility that never quite seemed to gel. The first two major label albums–Goo and Dirty–were enjoyable, but tried a little too hard to match the muscular sound of bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden. Sonic Youth can certainly rock out, but their strong suit has always been their ability to create intricate oceans of sound through non-traditional tunings and the most creative use of feedback since Jimi Hendrix. Even on early noise epics like EVOL‘s “Expressway to Yr. Skull” that feedback was often quiet, no more than a light tapping on the side of the guitar.

After 1994′s Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star, I got off the Sonic Youth train, and only paid attention to a few tracks on subsequent albums, like “The Diamond Sea” from Washing Machine. My biggest problem with the band, I have reluctantly come to realize, is Kim Gordon. With a few notable exceptions (“Eliminator Jr.” from Daydream Nation for example), my least favorite Sonic Youth songs are the ones she wrote and sings on. Murray Street, from 2002, would be a perfect album but for the last two tracks, both of which feature Kim’s monotone sing-speak and both of which grate.

This puts me in a minor moral quandary. Gordon is clearly the coolest member of Sonic Youth–a pioneering figure in alternative rock, and a brilliant example of how a woman can find an enduring place in pop culture without turning herself into a cartoon. So am I a dick for hoping she goes away and leaves the boys to make music without her? Her departure wouldn’t solve all the band’s problems by any means, but it might help.

Someone once told me that no matter how much you try to be even-handed, when a couple breaks up you will inevitably pick sides. Kim and Thurston have always conducted the public aspect of their relationship with grace, and I hope they continue to do so. But if things get ugly, I guess I know whose team I’ll be on.

Expressway To Yr.  Skull (aka “Madonna,  Sean and Me”) – from “1991: The Year Punk Broke,” just re-released on DVD.

Rain On Tin, one of the standout tracks from Murray Street.

(This post originally appeared on vivoscene.com.)