skirblog

blogs will tear us apart

i've gained control

As if my job wasn't dead enough, I found myself drawn recently to three death-themed entertainments: the Fiery Furnaces (of course) song, "Duplexes of the Dead;" the book, "A Brief History of the Dead"  by Kevin Brockmeier; and the film Control about the short life, the suicide of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.  Where to begin with so much happiness?

Well, "Duplexes" is a great song, and still holding up well on the skir-charts. It has worried some due to a lot of backward-sounding guitars in it, as if we're still maybe concerned about "subliminal" messages?  I'm not gonna worry about it so you shouldn't either. The backwards guitar stuff on this is nicely done, and you'll want to hum along, but unless you can hum backwards you're outta luck. I'm practicing though...

The song has a bit of the same vibe as the book Brief History, as it visions an afterlife more mundane than supernatural. The book is a mixed bag. Its one of those "great idea" books, that unfortunately fails on the level of a novel. Here's the cool idea: there is an afterlife where people (or souls) live very normal, everyday lives, living in cities, eating in diners, working jobs, falling in love. The catch is that they only exist as long as a person is alive on Earth who remembers them. Cute, huh? Until some kind of germ warfare breaks out on Earth and wipes out the entire population of the planet -- except one woman, who's memories populate the afterlife. Sounds pretty good, but I was very disappointed with the execution of it. There was a LOT of filler, and a lot of quasi religious boring stuff. Sorry, but I can't recommend it.

The film, Control is the bleakest of the bunch, shot in black and white (being a tragedy of course), nobody's expecting it to have a happy ending. I'm going to claim an especially close and long affiliation with Joy Division, having been floored by them back back back, (but easily five years after Unknown Pleasures was released), around 1984.  At the time I was heavily into heavy music like Birthday Party and learning about American abstract expressionist art of the 40s like Mark Rothko. Joy Division seemed a manifestation of austere, gestural art that flirted with the sublime. The sound of Unknown Pleasures, thanks in large part, we've learned, to producer Martin Hannett, was to me (and my pal Vinny,) the aural equiv. of Rothko or Clyfford Still. I know pretty damn high falutin, but perfect for the 20-something art history, punk rock student. Still sounds that way too. The suicide of Ian Curtis, as has been often noted solidified JD as important "art" complete with its own mythology. There's a very well written article on Pitchfork about them here.

The film Control does dispel a lot of this haughty shit for me. Based on a book by his wife Deborah, Curtis is portrayed as  a kid, a young, moony poet, one with a regular job, and strong, kinda normal, immature teenage feelings. This kind of counters the mind's image of that low, cryptic voice as older, confident, and dark.  The film implies for instance that the song "She's Lost Control" isn't so mysterious, but a direct reference to a woman with severe epilepsy Curtis encountered at work and later learned she died of her seizures. He's horrified because he is stricken with epilepsy himself, in a time when no good treatment seemed available.  His struggle with epilepsy is central to this film and is information I didn't have back in the '80s when I wondered where this music was coming from. Curtis saw himself reflected in the epileptic woman and she scared him to death. Maybe even literally.  Knowing his suicide was coming became rather ponderous at times, like "is this it? is this?" The acting though is uncanny. The actors actually look like their counterparts and do actually play and sing the music, so its a dual triumph. Seeing 24 Hour Party People, a film which re-tells parts of this same story, yet from different angles, is a fun exercise in what is included and what is omitted.  For instance Control dramatizes the perhaps apocryphal story of Curtis being struck with stage fright as the band is playing their opening number, and the singer from Crispy Ambulance (remember them?) is enlisted, or coerced for money, into singing. Party People makes much more of the Sex Pistols/Buzzcocks show in Manchester that spawned JD and so many bands.  Both films seem to denigrate drummer Stephen Morris, who cannot have possibly been as ditzy as both films imply. Could he? I mean is almost invented an entirely new way of post-punk drumming, and married Gilligan Gilbert to boot. How ditzy could he be? There's an interesting scene where Morris is in Hannett's recording studio spraying an aerosol can in time to the music on "She's Lost Control," presumably to get that cool sssh sssh effect. A close listen to the track though leaves me wondering if that happened either.

The movie is a downer, but a good downer. Can't say I liked Samantha Morton's role as the fishwife-y Deborah Curtis, again weird since she's based on the woman who wrote the damn thing, plus I usually like Morton (see Minority Report, Morvern Caller); and also made me wonder what's become of their daughter, Natalie, who was 1 when her dad died. And here's her myspace page. Crazy.

A pleasant and unexpected surprise comes during the credits of Control when the Killer's cover of "Shadowplay" comes up. Its a great decision, as wrong as it is right, it speaks volumes about doing an Ian Curtis biopic in 2007. The song itself is a great cover, re-inventing "Shadowplay" in the Killer's own mold, as a good cover should do, while paying homage to the orig. I nabbed their "Hot Fuss" from lala and can't say their other work is as impressive. But its only been one listen.

This also came on the heels of seeing the documentary, Moog on cable. (I never really believed "Moog" was somebody's name. But there's no denying it now). The film is packed with Moog enthusiasts like Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman (two fallen heroes of mine), and sports a weird little soundtrack with some Stereolab, and a great one-off song by someone called "Electric Skychurch" called "Endless Horizon." Now this band, or guy, or whatever is almost strictly new age ('newege' coins Penn Gillette), but this song was worth a .99 iTunes download.

Wait. I'm not done with Joy Division! They may have been the second most important band to me after the Who. In college I was completely obsessed with them and their mystique. Didn't we just hate/love that Joy Division famously offered no information at all about them, their songs, their label, on their records? only the austere, Peter Saville covers, beautiful and completely appropriate to the music? You could stare down "Unknown Pleasures" for weeks, hoping some clue would pop out of those wavy lines, yet there was none.  You knew this was the right move, applauded them for it, but were frustrated.  Who were they? What did they look like? Who played what? Lyrics? Forget it. Few bands have this kind of committment to an aesthetic idea.

After "Unknown Pleasures," the 12" single "Atmosphere" did the most damage to me. That song, that slightly desolate, slightly beautiful cover art, crystallized a perfect moment in time, more emotional than can be written about coherently -- by me anyway. But there were others like me, Joy Division adherents in Pittsburgh, (PA's own Manchester) and four of us decided to take matters into our own hands and "form" our own Joy Division.  We arranged a one-shot concert at the Electric Banana. Not a tribute band mind you, not a cover band, just our own Joy Division, with yours truly on vocals. I know, hilarious.  But apart from me, instrumentally, it was a super group: Mark Miller on drums, Steve Heineman on bass, and Vince Curtis on guitar. If these names don't mean anything to you then you didn't live in Pgh during the famous "second wave" of punk rock.  A heady time indeed.

It was not easy covering these songs.  We only gave ourselves a short time to learn a dozen and play them well enough to perform. I, as a chubby, wrong, Ian Curtis was the weakest link. My voice, if you've ever heard it, may be low and scary, but is a far cry from listen-able. Sometimes given the right material it works, but I have certain regrets about the way I handled my end there. I did however parse the lyrics on my own, having no Internet back then (what?!?) or CDs for that matter (are you kidden?!?) Just needle on record over and over again. I came pretty damn close, too, looking back. Anyway, as a concept it was great fun. We made Factory-esque posters announcing Joy Division -- no explanation of course, and there were people out there who thought it was somehow real. We got a big crowd at the Banana, some of whom were pretty damned disappointed I showed up in front of the mic, and that the real Ian Curtis hadn't come back from the dead to play the show. But we had no sympathy for stupidity on that level. Tapes do exist!

I also fooled around with the song "Transmission," cutting it up and splicing in other songs, for no good reason really. I tried to create a band for this song, "Frank Lloyd Wrong" but myspace deleted it due to its unoriginality. However the song, or piece is BACK on the always entertaining DRILL site, HERE. You can also hear how badly I sing on "Your Pollution."

I also own, apart from my coveted "Atmosphere" original Factory 12" single (with its heartbreaking snowy landscape) and the Factory 7" Love Will Tear Us Apart,"  a rather anomalous copy of their 7" "Ideal for Living" which was printed under their first name, "Warsaw." From what i can gather it is a bootleg of sorts, issued post mortem in 1981 from tapes owned by a Manchester label called Chaos Cassettes and "sanctioned" by the band's management (although if you've seen these films, you realize that means nothing). It is a reference to the real 7" from '78, pre-Factory that looked the same but had the name Joy Division instead of Warsaw. The tracks are different too, so it does qualify as a boot. There were only 2000 of them pressed. I seem to remember a dude at Jim's Records in Bloomfield selling it to me for about $3, cause he didn't know what it was, a rare occurrence at Jim's.  The next time I was in, Jim himself gave me a disapproving look but to his credit, didn't press the subject.  For me it was like discovering a Rothko at a yard sale. Sublime.

hold the duchnovies

Hold the duchnovies?

Strike that. Reverse it. X-tra Duchnovies all around. This guy has gone far and wide to shuff off the character chaff he amassed during the x files – at least at skir-central where enjoyment of the film, The TV Set  and the Showtime series, “Californication” abound. Both entertainments sport variants of the same character, the disgruntled WRITER who sells his soul to Hollywood with disastrous personal results. So what’s not to like?

Both Duchnovies flirt dangerously with cliché, but manage to pull out of it, maybe to Duchovny’s credit as an actor. He can manage a complicated ironic performance that, in the reverse of what is often the case, seems real and has weight, knowing of its own irony, as we all often do, yet living in the real world with it. I know, I’m still out there in post-modern land, but forgive me.

TV Set is more comic than “…fornication,” and has a good set of supporting actors including Signorney Weaver’s as the network boss. Usually this role is super cliché, the aggressive, type A++ Ari Gold asshole, right? Who else could head a tv network? but Weaver plays it strong, yet almost naively oblivious, kinda ditzy and likable, yet still manipulates people and gets her own way. Same with his agent, Judy Greer, an actor we liked a lot from the short lived Love Monkey, she too plays it much softer than we expect now from agents. No dis on Ari, we love the Ari.  There’s some great TV satire in it, including a couple of fictional shows called things like “MILF Island,” and “Slut Wars” which get big ratings for the network. Also the line from Weaver that “sex beats gross food any day,” about why Slut Wars is higher rated than “America’s Grossest Meals.”

Californication put me off when it debuted. I wasn’t in the mood(y) for the swaggering ultra-disgruntled, hard drinking, womanizing, smoking, speakin’ da truth to the peoples who don’t want to hear it, writer, named of all things, Hank Moody. The name Californication also had me doubting it initially. Seems like that one would have been used already no? Isn’t it a Chili Peppers disc? Plus does it mean “fuck California?” Of is it just come to Cali and get fucked? Or fuck a lot? Turns out its all those things, and it pretty dang cool. F. was into it from the start, says Hank Moody “is a bad ass.” Well that put me off as well, jealous f’er that I am. Anyone who tries for unknown reasons to write, knows how soon you will be jack shit nobody if you act like Hank Moody. Hey, I wanna go around getting into fights with cell phone talkers and dumb asses, drink and smoke to excess, attract all the wrong beautiful women and say all the wrong offensive (yet bitingly true) things and be admired and loved for it. Fucker.  I ignored half the episodes, and listened to the other half as F watched them while I tried to sleep. Then the last episode came on and it promised to be the most cliché and hateful of them all. Yet it wasn’t. It was f’n hilarious and a bit surprising and I had to sit up and say, what was that?

So now I have to retract my smug, jealous dislike and go back through the entire series on demand. Or on-on demand to be correct. Confusing also is the appearance again of Judy Greer (see above) as a Hoe Orr in one episode.  But she seems to have a heart of gold, so what the hell.  Less confusing is my admiration for the actress Natasha McElhone who had the hard job of floating around Soderberg’s Solaris, looking great, and looks even better here. Again her character is at the edge of cliché, the once had, once lost, unattainable Object Woman, a role that would be extremely irksome if not for this character’s predilection to do dumb, impulsive things, including the whopper of a season ender she pulls off, which I won’t spoil for you if you haven’t seen it. I’m about half way through the re-screening, but this time I’m paying attention, not hating and I’m gonna have to recommend it to you alls.

Some Halloween chaff here:

Pumpkin. The word has a freakin’ “M” in it folks. M. em. Like the word “pump” with a kin on the end. When the fuck did it change to “punkin?” Like a small, cute punk?  Like a kid sneaking into CBGBs? I don’t think it did, yet I hear professional TV types saying “punkin” and seemingly normal, educated peeps out there saying punkin so please stop it in time for next Halloween.

My pumpkins this year had lots of seeds. That is a good sign. Last few years were kinda stingy on the seeds. Fond childhood memory number 14: digging out tons of pumpkin seeds and the folks would roast them and put them in this special glass jar we had for that purpose. I have never been able to recreate those seeds either. I’ve tried a dozen different methods of roasting them too, drying first, not drying, olive oil, no oil. None taste like my memories. But I roasted a big batch while the kid carved and it was fun. They were close, the seeds. Perhaps it was the green glass bowl…

It’s fun to notice the themes the kids choose to represent with their costumes when you see a lot of them in one place. Last year there was still a preponderance of that Edvard Munch-ian elongated ghost face from the Scream Movies.  Those had a good two-year run. But this year, (cue Dream Syndicate) (or Donovan if that’s your bag) it was clearly season of the witch. Hands down, witches ruled. Why? Harry Potter? General witchiness? Hard to say.  I also noticed a mini theme of mutated/decomposed/alien sports ghouls, various sports figures like football players who looked liked they’d been dug up after a few years, or had spent a day or so with the Borg. Why this theme? The Balco scandal? Shaq on TV? Again hard to say.

Also funny I thought were adults’ reactions to other adults in costume. You get your handful of people who dress up on the day before Halloween, and the day of, and go about their business dressed as ‘70s disco dancers, or witches, or mutated sports figures. I like this. Makes the world look as dumb as it really is.  Also dumb is how people try to ignore them. Why are we afraid of people having fun, flaunting their silly side in public one day a year?  We avert our eyes, cast glances downward, shuffle newspapers higher to block the view. Kinda like we act in the public bathroom no? What is the connection?

Still in a bad sway of the Fiery Furnaces. Can’t be helped. There is something somewhat sci-fi about their work, backwards guitars, blips and beeps, surreal narrative. Two years ago I had no defense against Blueberry Boat, and suffered the consequences. Thankfully his year I have an antidote, the great Obliterati. Jeezus. C’mon “Donna Sumeria!” It don’t get much better. What is it about Mission of Burma? Beside the fact that they rule the earth? When I’m mired in the Furnaces’ underworld, MOB brings me out with freshly quarried rock (cliché metaphors .89 a pound at www.skirblog/typepad.com. The music sounds simple, yet flickers with complexity, maybe even defying analysis. Can anybody cover them? I’m still in awe of P. Prescott as a drummer. Thanks to a DVD that came with the disc, we can see four classic songs performed, including the ultra-seminal, one of skirblog’s dessert and desert island tracks, “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate,” played live, after all these years, and still kickin’ ass. As one dude on a promo for their documentary sez:  yes they were ahead of their time, in fact they’re STILL ahead of their time.

So much so it made me wanna pound some drums again, maybe in the company of others. To that end I ran an ad on craigslist which has since been deleted, but believe me it was a riot. And strangely, a bunch of South Bay dudes were brave (dumb) enough to take the bait. They had two really major things going for them: 1) a name I didn’t immediate hate: The Atomic Love Bombs, (unlike half of these ad posters and answerers; and 2) they were pretty flippin’ good! (unlike the other half…) So we got together for an audition. While we decided not to make a go of it, I still have to send a you to their myspace page, ‘cause the dudes have it, Black Rebel MC – ish type  of stuff: check them out here, and wish them well. They’ve already shown astute decision making prowess by not having me sit at their drum kit, disturbing their rhythms.

Question: is there a coffee shop in the East Bay without flies?

My association with Lala.com has been paying off rather nicely lately. Apart from the Obliterati, I just got discs by the Breeders and the Amps, remember them? two Kim Deal projects from back in the dark ages, that I’ve been enjoying here now in the really dark ages. Also one of Roger Miller’s Birdsongs of the Mesozoics came, (I think there are a good dozen or so of them) and its quality good stuff. I gotta say I love that Breeder’s song, Cannonball, and, as is now traditional, got over to Yinztube to see the old viddy for it.  Its there. Here. You’ll remember that Kim Deal makes herself look as unglamorous and nasty as she possibly can, yet she has beautiful eyes and an attractiveness that is in there somewhere, sometimes echoed in her sister, Kelly, sometimes not. And she does make this one tiny move for like just a second in the video that kills me every time, watch for it, she’s dressed in a dumb costume in front of a mirror and during the chorus goes hips side to side in what can only be described as, sorry Kim, cute.  I will also rememberize now that magic time we got to see the Pixies at the Decade in Pgh, a small, small bar that had no sightlines or sound or good beer or food –  exactly what you want from your rock estab., and was kinda hypnotized by Kim Deal and her eyes. So much so that the music (Pixies first tour) ($3 to get in) got into my head without my permission, and stayed there for a fuck of a long time. Eyes.

So I have asked several questions here: do you want Duchnovies with that? Why is Mission of Burma so good? What is the connection between Halloween costumes and public bathrooms? What’s the deal with Kim? (get it, deal...) And more importantly, is there a coffee shop in the East Bay that sports internet, hopefully free, is worth hanging out in, and is without flies? Rhetorical of course, all of them.