ALL THE BAD '80s ballads VH1 can muster up have got nothing on this Aussie, a member of a songwriters message board I belong to. He's an awesomely bad music factory. Although not totally lacking in melodic flair, he tends to blur the line between "artistic" and "autistic," bringing to mind a geriatric Australian Wesley Willis with a fetish for blues, overdramatic vocals and 19th-century poetry. Some of his latest hits: "Thanks to Bagpipes and Poverty," "Death Watch Cat Blues" (about the nursing home cat that knows which patients will die), and of course, "Prostate Blues."
You gotta hear it to believe it.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 05, 2007
Max von Bush: New World Order
ANOTHER INGENIOUS VIDEO mashup from Tim Jones, loaded with subversive truths. Check it out.
(DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS CERTAIN "911 TRUTH" MEMES I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO, SUCH AS THE NOTION -- VERY CONTROVERSIAL WITHIN THE MOVEMENT -- THAT WORLD TRADE CENTER LARRY SILVERSTEIN WAS "IN ON THE PLOT" AND EVEN WENT SO FAR AS TO ADMIT I T ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. I, FOR ONE, DON'T THINK THAT THAT'S WHAT SILVERSTEIN MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE GAVE ORDERS TO "PULL" BUILDING 7. I DO, HOWEVER, THINK IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS THAT MODERN STEEL SKYSCRAPERS, SUCH AS BUILDING 7, DON'T JUST FALL DOWN -- AND THAT WE ARE STILL OWED A REAL EXPLANATION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THAT DAY.)
(DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS CERTAIN "911 TRUTH" MEMES I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO, SUCH AS THE NOTION -- VERY CONTROVERSIAL WITHIN THE MOVEMENT -- THAT WORLD TRADE CENTER LARRY SILVERSTEIN WAS "IN ON THE PLOT" AND EVEN WENT SO FAR AS TO ADMIT I T ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. I, FOR ONE, DON'T THINK THAT THAT'S WHAT SILVERSTEIN MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE GAVE ORDERS TO "PULL" BUILDING 7. I DO, HOWEVER, THINK IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS THAT MODERN STEEL SKYSCRAPERS, SUCH AS BUILDING 7, DON'T JUST FALL DOWN -- AND THAT WE ARE STILL OWED A REAL EXPLANATION OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THAT DAY.)
"Live"? "Active"?
YEAH, DUH -- I REALIZE the name "Live Active Culture" doesn't fit this blog. Originally I'd intended this blog to preview/review events happening around the city that I'd been to, or planned to go to. Of course, I strayed from that purpose very early on, finding it easier to just do pop-culture commentary. I've been looking for a new name, but so far on Blogger, all the names I want are taken by do-nothing blog-squatters. (Yeah, I know that sounds like a fictional Roald Dahl creature...) I'd rather stay here on Blogger than pull up stakes altogether. I'll come up with something soon.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Party like a mock star
WHO'D'VE THUNK THAT a stupid rap song would engender such controversy -- and not about promotion of drugs, or violence, or sex, but because it transgresses some imagined boundary between the "real" and the "poseurs"?
On message boards like this and blogs like this a lot of black punk-rock kids vented their indignation that a bunch of crunk-rappers would dare rip off, and thus cheapen, their social signifiers and costumes without understanding the profound meaning behind it all!
On a blog at "Unofficially Afropunk," Chachalila gripes:
"I just hate the fact that the samestyle that I really love is now being viewed as some crappy fashion fad."
Cinnamon_girl complains that because of this trend:
"What's the noticible difference between me and the average 'rockstar partying' hoodrat these days? Pretty much just my double 0s til I open my mouth."
BLACK*STAR*LINE says:
"F@$K posers and the Hot topic they came out of!"
It's amusing how 20-year-old kids are yelling about how “the mainstream” is going to “destroy our culture”! To a Gen-X-cusper like myself, this is the same hair-tearing that was going on back in the early ‘90s over the mainstream "taking over" “alternative culture.”
The funny thing (to an ancient 33-year-old such as myself) is the tremendous importance youngsters put on music and fashion choices: for all intents and purposes it takes on religious significance. Might I suggest that these folks are lacking something that bands and costumery can’t supply?
This is not to denigrate rock, or punk rock, or the afropunk community -- heck, I'm at least an associate member: I listen to punk rock, I've been to an Afropunk party, I joined the Afropunk message board. That's why I know about these sites to begin with. But this highlights the difference between people who view music as entertainment, and those who view it as identity.
BY THE WAY. As for the actual song "Party Like a Rock Star," well, I know one shouldn't expect too much artistically from crunk rap. But still, I can't be the only one to notice the half-assed way they try to signify "okay, now we're doing rock" by pasting a single looping electric guitar riff over an otherwise standard crunk beat. But the riff is one of those minor key, faux-classical things that have been R&B/rap cliche for the last ten years. In other words: the kids making this music are all mixed up; as one might expect in this subgenre, their musical vocabulary is trapped around preschool level; and they don't even know what rock 'n' roll sounds like -- they're just aping the sound everyone else in the rap game is putting out. They wouldn't know a blues scale from a coke scale. (Which might be appropriate, actually.) If you asked them, they'd probably tell you rock 'n' roll is a white music form and always has been.
On message boards like this and blogs like this a lot of black punk-rock kids vented their indignation that a bunch of crunk-rappers would dare rip off, and thus cheapen, their social signifiers and costumes without understanding the profound meaning behind it all!
On a blog at "Unofficially Afropunk," Chachalila gripes:
"I just hate the fact that the same
Cinnamon_girl complains that because of this trend:
"What's the noticible difference between me and the average 'rockstar partying' hoodrat these days? Pretty much just my double 0s til I open my mouth."
BLACK*STAR*LINE says:
"F@$K posers and the Hot topic they came out of!"
It's amusing how 20-year-old kids are yelling about how “the mainstream” is going to “destroy our culture”! To a Gen-X-cusper like myself, this is the same hair-tearing that was going on back in the early ‘90s over the mainstream "taking over" “alternative culture.”
The funny thing (to an ancient 33-year-old such as myself) is the tremendous importance youngsters put on music and fashion choices: for all intents and purposes it takes on religious significance. Might I suggest that these folks are lacking something that bands and costumery can’t supply?
This is not to denigrate rock, or punk rock, or the afropunk community -- heck, I'm at least an associate member: I listen to punk rock, I've been to an Afropunk party, I joined the Afropunk message board. That's why I know about these sites to begin with. But this highlights the difference between people who view music as entertainment, and those who view it as identity.
BY THE WAY. As for the actual song "Party Like a Rock Star," well, I know one shouldn't expect too much artistically from crunk rap. But still, I can't be the only one to notice the half-assed way they try to signify "okay, now we're doing rock" by pasting a single looping electric guitar riff over an otherwise standard crunk beat. But the riff is one of those minor key, faux-classical things that have been R&B/rap cliche for the last ten years. In other words: the kids making this music are all mixed up; as one might expect in this subgenre, their musical vocabulary is trapped around preschool level; and they don't even know what rock 'n' roll sounds like -- they're just aping the sound everyone else in the rap game is putting out. They wouldn't know a blues scale from a coke scale. (Which might be appropriate, actually.) If you asked them, they'd probably tell you rock 'n' roll is a white music form and always has been.
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