Some Unexpected Motivation.

Dear Internet,

Though it's (hopefully) common knowledge among all y'all dearest Readers of mine that my musings here are purely recreational, casual, not meant to garner fame or fortune—hence the sporadic posting, ample ampersands, & ubiquitous use of terms like "fuck" & "donkey balls"—I do still enjoy, on occasion, perusing my viewership statistics. Blogspot is kind enough to provide this feature—"Stats"—that tells you your number of views, search terms through which people have found your page, even from what country & operating system these hits originate (in my case, a bizarrely high influx from PC users from Denmark).

More often than not, the information is banal, perhaps worth a giggle, but today—well—let me just say this: you know you're doing something right when your three most-searched terms to date are, in order, "gigantic breasts," "famous serial killers," & "Iggy Pop bleeding from chest."

So, in conclusion, thank you, Danish porn surfers. You love me. You really, really love me.

Hearts, donkey balls, & truly gigantic breasts,
Ann-uh-lee-suh.

P.S. Stay tuned for some reckoning on two upcoming TV series...


Today's Headphone Fodder:

Superheroes—Ruth's Hat (Rocky Horror Picture Show cover).

It's no secret that Richard O'Brien (AKA, the guy who comes out of the toilet in Spice World—or, for those not living in my brain, Riff Raff) wrote a number of Rocky Horror's songs prior to the play's inception, before Brad & Janet & Transylvanian transvestites—which means that, though they work seamlessly enough within the musical, they also sound especially fantastic when performed by a band, stand-alone & punked out. (Please, for the love of all that is holy, check out The Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show—mentioned previously here.) "Superheroes" is definitely one such song—that two-step wail of the guitar, lyrics brimming with neo-Nietzchean angst—&, at least in my mind, the shouting of "stumble, stumble, fall!" after each line of the second verse, as besooted Janet can't quite keep her footing in the post-rocket mansion ruins. What the cover does so brilliantly, though, is bring this sentiment to a boil—implicitly beg you to dance through the bleak pronouncements, thrash to the bitter end—to stumble-stumble-fall, hard, with intent.

A Decision.

So. Here's a decision I've made: Henceforth, this Blogling will be comprised of its standard verbose rambles, interpolated with more immediate, "Here's This Cool Thing"-type smatter-entries.

Recently, I've been frustrated with my ever-increasing inability to finish one of the 7 posts I've collected, half-written (& already perilously lengthy) in the Drafts section. Moreover, I've been almost exactly repeating the phenomenon I mocked of my wee LiveJournaling self: I'll sit around & think, "Damn, I have to think of something to write about, so I can post this song at the end!"

This exact feeling is why, I think, many of my contemporaries have chosen Tumblr: it's specifically, aesthetically designed with the expectation that you will let your various videos & pictures simply tumble, free-form, without necessitating commentary. Still, it's nice to have a place to ramble—& that is sort of the point of this outlet anyhow, to keep me writing—so those 7 half-posts will surely make it to light in due course. But, in the interest of staying vital, I predict that there will also be a fair few non sequitur blips.

With that in mind: here are four songs. (Consider it retroactive quota-filling.) Apparently, my taste these days is half live late-19s altrock, half upstart LA rap EPs. Who knew?


Add It Up (Live, 1983)—The Violent Femmes.
Quite simply, one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Wild & impatient, like the best of things.



Buena (Live, 1993)—Morphine.
"I started with one string, so... Progress."

(Apparently, when I was younger, I choreographed a dance to this song—something involving jumps in a very distinct pattern—which I would perform, with grave intensity, every time it played. It still sounds smoothed over sometimes—round bass lines blurred, like nostalgia.)


Luper—Earl Sweatshirt.

This is one of those songs that draws you in immediately, like undertow—that you love, instantly, then more & more—until, without warning, it gets really & suddenly objectionable. If there's one thing that I want to strangle about modern rap music, it's the canonizing & normalizing of really heinous violence-against-women imagery—because, really now. Just stop it. Still, the first 1:45 of this song are so deeply likable, so damn skillfully put together—&, before it gets murderous, it's tongue-twisting, bittersweet, lovelorn. (One might even argue that the violent end serves some artful purpose—but still, I protest, don't.)

Oh, right, also: this kid is 16. Six-teen. !!!


Today's Headphone Fodder:

Yonkers—Tyler, the Creator.

Tyler is part of the same group as Earl—Odd Future, or OFWGKTA—& this is the preview single for their newest release, Goblin. It's also one of the best music videos I've seen in quite a while. Really, artfully disturbing, all the more so for its simplicity; palpable nerves when he can't catch up to his own lyrics. Predesigned chaos with a heart-squeezing backbeat. Yes, please.

May-June Round-Up.

Today, I was searching for a good birthday video to send a friend, while also basking in the glow of a Friday paycheck & thinking somewhere in the back of my brain about the beginning of a new month—&, somehow, the elements coalesced: I decided to do a Music Round-Up of this Blogling's recent backing tracks, while also adding a new (transcendent, brilliant, I'm jittering just thinking about it) song. So, here goes:

1. Animal—Miike Snow. (5/18)

2. I've Seen Enough—Cold War Kids. (5/20)

3. The Nomi Song—Klaus Nomi. (5/21)

4. Search & Destroy—Iggy & the Stooges (Live, Atlanta, October '73). (5/22)

5. Epoch—HUMANWINE. (5/27)

6. Wisdom—Gran Ronde. (5/28)

7. World Destruction—Afrika Bambaataa ft. John Lydon. (6/3)

8. Debaser—David Bowie (Pixies cover). (6/7)

9. Half Jack (Live at the Paradise, '05)—The Dresden Dolls. (6/8)

10. Nancy Boy—Placebo. (6/9)

11. EVERY COVER EVER. (But, for our purposes: I Wanna Be Your Dog—Émilie Simon (Iggy & the Stooges cover).) (6/10)

12. Paris—Hans Unstern. (6/14)

13. Wuthering Heights—Kate Bush (specifically, as danced by Zac Efron). (6/16)

14. Icarus—Jason Webley. (6/20)

15. Succexy—Metric. (6/21)

16. Tranny Chaser—RuPaul. (6/22)

17. Enter Telephone (DJs From Mars Remix)—Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé vs. Metallica. (6/26)

18. Sleepyhead (Wallpaper. Remix)—Passion Pit. (6/27)

19. Rock 'n' Roll Never Looked So Beautiful—Semi Precious Weapons (Live, Bowery Ballroom, 4/26/10). (6/29)

& now, 20. All the Young Dudes (Live, David Bowie's 50th Birthday Party)—David Bowie ft. Billy Corgan.

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't bore you."

Words to live by, indeed. God, I love him so much.

Someday (soon), I'll do a Bowie-gush entry—but until then, I hope you can sate yourself with the May-June 2010 Mix. Enjoy.

Today Miike Snow, Tomorrow the World.

Remember LiveJournal? I'm guessing that if you were a (pre)teen in the burgeoning internet age (late nineties, early aughts), the answer is yes, even if you won't admit it. Well, for those either actually unaware or in repressive denial, a LiveJournal was somewhat like a Blog, but even more like a technological sieve that made sure only the most ridiculous, overemotional, this-will-read-badly-in-print aspects of your personality were broadcast into the universe (or, more likely, a small circle of LiveJournaling friends). However, there was one feature that I liked: at the top of every post, right below the drop-down list that let you characterize your mood with an adjective & corresponding smiley face, there was a "What Song I'm Listening to Now" box. That was something I took to like a spastic, speed-crazed duck to water; I would write entire entries just so I could post a song title. (Actual example of a full post: "I took my toe ring off.") Why I didn't catch on & just write about music, we will never know. (Give me some credit—I was 14.)

Anyhow, I've decided to resurrect this feature in the Blogosphere, only now it'll go at the end of the entry (or on its own, as needed; the addition of this whole explanation bit proved too much for my lengthy forthcoming diatribe). See, I don't think I have the savvy / time / disposition / wherewithall to write a "music blog," but since a sickening amount of my time is taken up with the wearing-out of CDs & mp3s & endless pairs of headphones, I figure music merits at least a bi-weekly-or-so written tribute on my part. That said, the latest track gracing my speakers is:

"Animal" by Miike Snow.

I know—I know. It's unlike me—& therefore a potentially weird choice to kick off this series—because it's a prime example of that annoying kind of song people mention when trying to pretend they have better taste in music than they actually do. (Read: I got it on a free download from SPIN magazine, "SPIN Presents AUSTIN POWER: Best SXSW Bands 2010!") But try not to judge; really give it a listen. Or, if the blipping, fading, dream-techno thing isn't your favorite, here's an acoustic (piano) cover by Sky Ferreira. For my part, I prefer the original. But I also like the cover. & here's why:

The reason this song has catapulted above the rest, why it seeps through the crack under my door at 3 AM despite my best-suppressed strums (E, A, C#m on a loop, for my fellow amateur guitarists), besides the fact that it's wonderfully catchy, is because its chorus is one of those sets of simple words, strung together, that are somehow more right than anything else. Previous examples include: "Look at this tangle of thorns"; "Let's dress up & be stars tomorrow"; "Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels"; & now,

I change shapes just to hide in this place,

but I'm still, I'm still an animal.

Nobody knows it but me when I slip.

Yeah, I slip: I'm still an animal.

Because, in my mind, this is a descalingly human notion: I'm the admissions mistake at my big, fancy college; I'm the lame, ignorant one in my group of friends; I'm the anomaly, the broken-brained, the dirtier—& when will they all find out? You might recognize it as the favorite trot-out of every middle school guidance counselor: "All of those popular kids, they're just as insecure!" No one really knows what they're doing; everyone thinks themselves wrong sometimes. & I really do believe, having caroused with (& been) people on both sides of most lines, that this is true: "Everyone has their cross to bear," as Mama used to say.

So, when Sky Ferreira—who is gorgeous & über-cool in that kind of cocaine-chic, ripped-up, polaroid camera way—sings this song, it's easy to think, "Well, yes, in the context of those without a running tab at American Apparel, you might be out of place"—but more than that, you wonder if this beautiful little slip of a girl feels like the odd one out in fast-spinning L.A., like a projection of what she thinks we want, somehow not quite right.

This is why I like the "mainstream" version even more: I imagine all the beefcake jockboys bopping & fist-pumping in the clubs, the spraytanned, bleach-brained fembots gyrating—all singing along, secretly thinking, "Yes, it's me, I'm the wrong one here. I'm the one that doesn't make sense—I slip—I'm still an animal."

For the debut of a feature sprung from my adolescence, here's a song that brings out the adolescent hiding in all of us. Bon apétit.