Battlehooch Does America
Every once in a blue moon a band comes into your life that makes you want to shout its praises from the rooftops. Here I go. “Yay Battlehooch!” Whew. Quickly gaining steam amongst those music lovers “in the know,” Battlehooch, a ridiculously fun, six-man band from San Francisco, will make you daaaaaance! Make you yell (apparently), and make you question your conception of music and its supposed theory.
“Death Runs Wild”, the second video in a series of “Desolation Shows” highlights the beautiful and barren landscape of America. This video, set in Arizona’s Red Rock Canyons, is merely one in an arsenal of yet to be released work that will pretty much blow your mind and rock your pants off.
Catch Battlehooch LIVE in San Francisco @ their homecoming tour!:
November 19th, 2010
Bottom of the Hill
9pm
Check out their sites and songs and discover the band that is undoubtedly going to change your life:
Revenge Porn by Cee Lo
By Mr. Brownsuit
Like many of you, when I’m hit with a friend’s all-too-frequent “Dude, you have to see this video!” excitement, I curse YouTube and settle in for 2 minutes of life I’ll never get back. Yet, every so often, the baton is passed and before you know it – you’re that guy. Today, that guy is me. Seriously, you have to see this video!
Quite possibly the best song ever written and sure to be a viral success, Cee Lo Green kills it for all us guys who have ever dated cold-hearted bitches (yeah Stephanie, I’m talking to you) by spinning the sophomoric “Fuck You!” into musical gold. Thank you Cee Lo for giving all us jaded men a voice in a song equivalent to the Mona Lisa.
The Inevitable Demise of the Pop Superstar
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
I recently browsed through Here Come the Regulars: How to Run a Record Label With No Money by Ian Anderson. No, not THAT Ian Anderson (godfather of hobbit-rock). THIS Ian Anderson owned an indie record label in 2003. He was 18. The book was published in 2009. To be honest, I didn’t get very far — it was in the bathroom, and my house-mate returned it to the public library later that afternoon. It’s informative enough, mostly about ways the modern recording artist can maintain a commercial identity without a lot of major-label money.
Anderson goes ass-over-tit wrong almost immediately, however – somewhere around page 2 – when he suggests that major labels still look to indie acts for the next Nirvana. He states this without a hint of awareness that he is writing from a 2003 mindset and is thus dangling an imaginary dinosaur dick in the faces of otherwise promising, aspiring musicians.
Later in the same page, he says something obvious but poignant: He acknowledges that the blueprint of modern super-stardom was defined and epitomized once and for all time by the Beatles.
A few weeks back, I went to see Paul McCartney (the cute one) perform to 40,000 fans at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Total bucket-list moment. A few friends and I threw our hands up and our heads back and paid for good seats. $250 each. Beatles don’t do comps. The show was amazing. In the 3 hours between note one and the final chords of the encore, I swear I grew a skirt. Pom-poms sprung from my hands where there hadn’t been pom-poms before.
photo by Helen Pogrel
It was sold out and the entire crowd was of one mind and heart. Somewhere between the singing along and the open weeping, I had a moment to recognize that in 2010, one kinda has to be a Beatle to pull that off. The guy who defined the medium and it’s bigger-than-life stature is among the few who can live up to the unsustainable business model — who can pay a staff of hundreds, finance the infrastructure, sell 40,000 tickets, park 20,000 cars, check 30,000 I.D.s, sell 150,000 Coors Lights (at $9 each) and 20,000 orders of plastic nachos and have everyone go home happy.
The superstar of the latter 20th Century is vanishing before our eyes. More will not be farmed from the indie world. We will try to manufacture a few in our lifetimes. They will not transcend. We will not remember them fondly a decade down the road. None will be as timeless as the volume that begins with Elvis, peaks with the Beatles and ends … where? No matter what I say I’ll get hate mail. Guns and Roses? Nirvana?
Its not important where or with whom the buck stops. We’re not speaking (directly) about a lapse in artistry. We’re discussing the phenomenon of the artist whose music spans generations, who “sells” untold millions of “records” to their fans who then flock to see them perform high-production concerts in arenas, stadiums and ball-parks. Their concerts sell out early because 40,000 people in every major market in the world will pay $50 to $1500 to see them in person.
Most of these artists are over 60. Some are dying off. Others have teamed up. Aerosmith AND Sammy Hagar. The Eagles AND Fleetwood Mac. The younger ones are canceling tours. The Jonas Brothers, Christina Aguilera, Limp Bizkit, Rihanna, and the American Idol summer tours are all canceled or scaled back and those are just the ones you don’t care about. The Lilith Fair considered changing its name to “Vagapalooza” as a marketing ploy but wound up canceling outright. U2, John Mayer and Mastodon? Also canceled.
To be fair, U2 would have pulled it off if Bono hadn’t hurt himself.
More pertinently, I include Mastodon — an example of a band that plays in smaller places AS IF it has packed an arena, which makes sense artistically and fiscally. The new rockstar plays smaller joints. A week after Paul, I saw Tool play to a mere 10,000 people in Sacramento and if they can keep that up for a while, they’re way ahead of the curve.
Photo by John Karr
Acts that can pack a 5,000 seater? They’ve got a good thing going. In my estimation, the band that can sell-out a 3000 seater (to we Bay Areans, that’s the Warfield, the Fox and the Paramount) in every major market has reached an enviable pinnacle of success. If you can make it happen in the 500 – 1500 seater (somewhere between the Independent and the Fillmore), good on you too.
A focus on smaller venues and a more reasonable level of celebrity has become the primary feature of live music’s evolution. It paints the artist in a more human and accessible light. It encourages more intimate and personal performances. It respects real financial issues — the fickle economy and the tendency on the part of the music industry to eat itself. It panders to certain cultural realities, to wit: we as a music-consuming people have grown too cynical to all like the same thing for very long, UNLESS its the Beatles or some other aging Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-caliber performer.
The Hall of Fame itself will become superfluous. It is only a matter of time before we run out of rock-stars to put in there. Madonna’s in. Talking Heads. The Police. They’re the YOUNG ones. The Ramones and REM. Prince and U2. Who then? Metallica? In there already.
Radiohead? Sure, someday. Coldplay? Do we have to? If there is justice, Motorhead, Ween, Beck, and the Flaming Lips will all be welcomed before we seal the Hall shut.
My friend, Nick, foresees Lady Gaga landing in the Hall. None of us know it now, he avers with a hint of 30-grit scorn, but she will matter and we will someday see her astride that Cleveland steamer with Paul Simon and Patty Smith. Honestly? Lady Gaga, taking her rightful berth next to Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Michael Jackson and AC/DC? Maybe my glasses are dirty, but I’m not seeing the longevity. I’m not seeing the deep catalog. I’m not foreseeing ground-breaking innovations or palpable cultural impact. I’m certainly not seeing a 3-hour multi-decade-spanning set performed by Lady Gaga at a baseball park in 2055.
I’d cheer her on every step of the way if I thought it was remotely possible. I’d make a documentary about her rise from over-hyped and disposable through her over-exposed years, and the dark period of excess and legal troubles (Amy Wine-who?). It might culminate in the unprecedented come-back, complete with sassy make-over and career-defining masterpiece. It could end with the super-slo-mo, teary-eyed fist pump that punctuates every unlikely triumph, and like “A Hard Day’s Night,” it would be a comedy, a drama, and a love story.
Read More Braincookies:
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Cocaine + Music = Genius. Duh.
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
Let’s talk a little about the longest lasting marriage in show business, shall we? I’m speaking, of course, about music and cocaine and the way they interact – for better or worse.
Cocaine-use, in my experience, turns up as a personality trait. This observation is glib and a little judgmental, but true. From a musical standpoint, I’m not convinced that this is all bad. Am I making a pro-coke statement in print? Is that a smart career move? Will my mom ever speak to me again? Answers: “No,” “No,” and “Probably” (she’d have plenty to say).
Maybe you do coke all the damn time so as to enhance every experience – which, btw, you actively pursue with your every waking moment: the magic, the transcendence, the wonderment, the pulse of the night.
Or MAYBE you tried it once (against your better judgment) after some show. Nobody wanted the night to end and your friend (who has a sweet gig in the industry) had a hookup. Quick text. Quick text back. Cab ride. Cash. Wait. Go to someone’s house after purchase of 12-pack and vodka from corner grocery that sells booze until 1:59 am (someone has lemonade).
It looked like a ritual you might wanna experience in this lifetime. You didn’t get high (maybe a little), but the process sure was dark and dirty and fun. Your personality was altered that day. The hang changed your life. Friends (new, old and not really) spilled poignant details of their lives with a rhythm approximating a Hanna-Barbera retrospective.
The thing that coke “does” for us (in musicland, in particular) is this: It allows us to think a moment we experienced made sense on simultaneous social and sonic levels. This moment respected everything we thought about growing up, through our adolescence, and touched vaguely on our so-called adulthood…indeed until this very evening. In a world characterized by degrees of disappointment, coke reminds us slyly and with bedroom eyes that another half hour might make all the difference. The only reason “we” do it is because the promise delivers — occasionally. For every seven disappointing nights that result in the Mount Rushmore of hangovers and 3 to 5 regrettable text messages, there’s a moment the drugs/music combo brought us momentary soul-mates.
I don’t do a tremendous amount of drugs these days. In the great tradition of funnyman, Bill Hicks, I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about them. BUT, I’m one of those guys who ‘used to smoke a buncha weed’ and ‘smokes really rarely now.’ It’s great fun – when the spirit moves, the music is good, conversation is a celebration and my inner rock-star wags its tail. I get really high. I’m not maintaining.
And yes, I’ve done some coke in my lifetime. In a society culturally reticent to express it’s immediate affections, coked out clowns who enjoy the same music bond in a way that allows them to express temporary love to the point of utter stupidity. And if THAT isn’t dangerous for the music-economy, I don’t know what is …
Again I’m paraphrasing Bill. He was discussing mushrooms, and how the spiritual clarity he derived from various fungus-oriented occasions made him realize we’re all one; Nature. Creatures, humans, that chick on the Progressive Insurance ads — all of us. He might have also discussed acid’s capacity to bring to light the fractal nature of the social universe.
If you’re still reading, you’re laughing. If you’re mocking me, fuck off. If you’re reading this, its because you’re thinking, “Hmmmm.. drug rant? This could be good ..” which means YOU have been that person, have spoken earnestly about the great patterns of our existence, have felt the heartbeat of the earth or have (at the very least) declared emphatically, in front of all present, that you love them and shall be their friend forever. No foul.
Read More Braincookies:
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
I hated calculus.
I aced math through junior high and high school. Given my adolescent awareness of life’s contradictions, math was comforting. There was an answer that was correct or not. There was proof. Math helped feathered-hair, acne-pocked me understand what was happening: how tall I wasn’t, the price of beer versus the pittance of my allowance, would she ever kiss me, when, and how many times?
Two eighths made a quarter and we could split it 3 ways. We would divide it in half until the end of time eternal. A negative number had no square root — or so we were told. Until…. Calculus!!! Calculus, for those fortunate to miss it, is a way of describing an unnatural obsession with the integer i, or the square root of -1.
NEGATIVE ONE!!! I had been HAD!!! Math was ambiguous! My reliable, black and white math world was no more! Never mind that calculus was the gateway to most major science. I wasn’t having it!
I failed that class. How could I excel at something I was mad at? It wasn’t the first time I had been the victim of the ol’ bait-and-switch, and it would not be the last, but I had trusted math. When I caught it with its hand in the imaginary number jar, I took it hard.
Its all bygones now. We talk, math and I, but it isn’t like the old days. We’ve grown up, and I’ve come to appreciate math in ways I never expected I would.
Music, for example; You’ve got your beats and poly-rhythms, time signatures, and so forth. There’s even a sub-genre of rhythmically complicated music referred to as math-rock. At its best, math-rock is music played very seriously to men who are not having fun (in any classic sense), but are repeatedly nodding in a fashion that indicates they understand what is happening musically. This appears to please them a great deal. At its worst, it is as cumbersome to hear as it is to dance to.
The Independent, San Francisco 5.24.10
I spent last Sunday and Monday evenings working with Caribou at the Independent in San Francisco. Caribou is the artist name of Daniel Snaith. Much has been made in the music press about the fact that Snaith has a PhD in mathematics and has (in interviews) cited abstract math as a conceptual inspiration.
In the shadow of a psychedelic video-jam, Caribou played a 90-minute set that careened wildly from electro-dance party to noisy, epic space-rock explorations.
The sold-out crowd was an amalgam — burners, early-20′s dance-club kids, and fixed-gear bike-hipsters in full regalia. One pie-eyed gentleman was fully dressed as a leopard. By my estimate, roughly half the room was tripping balls. They were in love with this band, themselves and each other.
There was this level of abandon that is, in my experience, reserved for raves and jam-bands, which is compelling because Caribou is a jam-band for folks who grew up in a culture where the DJ is king. Go ahead and laugh. In the same way the Grateful Dead synthesized bluegrass and jazz into electrified sound-scapes for the ecstatic, Caribou borrows aesthetic cues from electro, techno and break-beat culture and jams it out so the psychedelically-inclined feel alright. Its not a ho-down with a noodley guitar-solo. It’s a remix, performed by human beings who are near you, playing instruments a few feet away.
The sum of parts is more metaphysical than mathematic; Snaith plays with our expectations, worries us, extending noisy or dissonant passages for as long he can before relieving us with a satisfying da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, that encourages us to breathe.
Band and crowd connect. They agree on a lexicon of sonic touchstones and an arc of musical drama. It is interactive and nerd-sexy. It speaks to the cultural role of music in a way that might make DJ and hippie-rock cultures both blush.
Snaith and bassist, John Schmersal sing the word “sun” repeatedly for 5 minutes. Their voices disappear in a synthy lightening bolt. The snare drum rolls and cymbals swell. The writhing mass awaits the climactic corner where dedicated drummer, Brad Weber, and Snaith (on 2nd drum-kit), break-beating in unison, bring it to the next level. By the time they return to the “sun” chorus for another 5 minutes (5 minutes is a long time, btw), eyes are closed and arms are raised.
Smiles are downright goofy. Band and audience have discarded any concern with looking cool – They are 5 and it is Christmas. Snaith is drumming, hunched and squinty, like an accountant changing a tire in the rain (the way nerdy guys express joy). The room is a celebration.
They arrived at this place as a result of a group effort of soul and spirit, hope and faith, toil and sweat. There are enough variables to make ridiculous the question of how this formula fits neatly into an equation. In fact, it suggests Snaith has less in common with Isaac Newton than he does with Jerry Garcia.
Say what you want about Jerry. He was a guitar craftsman on a par with George Harrison, Curtis Mayfield, and Joe Pass. Jerry heard a sound that he chased for a lifetime and was fortunate to play for a devout audience that searched day in, day out for that same sound. He played on an empathy for desire typical to the human condition, to wit: We all desire a journey wherein comfort is threatened by chaos which is eventually conquered by joy itself.
Jerry was also the driving force behind the highest grossing concerts of the 90′s. Go ahead and laugh.
There are few creatures as idiotic and misdirected as the 17-year-old American male. I have no recollection of why I felt so cheated by a concept so tepid as predictability. After my breakup with math, I came to realize that a world we can count on to behave consistently isn’t just impossible. It is hopelessly over-rated and boring.
The Quadratic Equation isn’t funky. We don’t revel in the expected outcome or dance to the absolute value. We require the bravado of the incongruous. We pine for the algorithm of transcendence.
We invite the feeling of falling, that we have then been caught, and that we subsequently saved the world together. The idea that one of us, individually, arrived at a repeatable, correct answer is not only joyless. It is as imaginary as the integer i.
Read More Braincookies:
To Do: Buy Kneepads
By Erin Feher
Remember when you were six and you had a list of incredibly cool things that you wanted to do when you grew up? Well, that list worked out pretty well for me (live in California, write a book, marry someone who hails from a sketchy South American country, own one of those one-piece bathing suits with the stomach cut out), so I never really abandoned the habit. And now I have a new item that has pretty much taken priority: dance like Ciara.
This idea came to me like many brilliant ideas do: coming home too late after too many drinks one night and watching MTV. Her newest video “Ride,” is the hottest fucking thing I have ever seen. And there is no reason—like being white, or thirty, or without access to a mechanical bull—that I cannot be just like her. So, being a woman of action, I told my yoga instructor to peace out for a while, signed up for three-months worth of dance classes, and most importantly, bought some expensive sneakers with metallic accents. It is SO on.