Memories of the White Lodge
Growing up without a father was – hell, still is – oddly paradoxical. There was no big gaping hole where Dad should have been. While my mother had two subsequent husbands and a long-term boyfriend, none of them were filling (or were asked to fill) that particular role for me. On the other hand, father-son relationships on TV, although never in real life, really got to me. The most striking example I can remember was in an episode of Twin Peaks. Major Garland Briggs, played by Don S. Davis, recalls a vision he had to his rebellious son Bobby. His character's mixture of Adult Seriousness and the incredibly sincere, even wide-eyed, show of emotion buried itself in my heart like a hot stake. The reaction of his son, who is usually a colossally unrepentant bastard, made it hit all the harder.
Don S. Davis died 2 years ago today.
Now, I don't want to drag you down too much, so here's everyone's favorite Russian surf rock/psychobilly/whatsit band Messer Chups with “Twin Peaks Twist.”
Drunk On Your Awe
Co. Stereogum
Just this May, Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel played a set at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. I missed it. I don't remember why I missed it, but I'm almost entirely sure there's a good reason. It may have been having no idea he was playing a show. I sincerely hope that was it. The set was part of a benefit for musician Chris Knox, who suffered a stroke in 2009. A benefit album was cut, which included the following cover of Knox's “Sign the Dotted Line” by Mangum. This is the first Jeff Mangum release since the 2001 concert at Jittery Joe's in Athens, GA:
As far as the concert goes, there were no cameras allowed. Fortunately, we live in the future where everyone's telephone happens to have one built into it. To the best of my ability, I've cobbled together Mangum's set (sans the encore, consisting of "Engine") on YouTube. Enjoy!:
Just Because You Can
Co. A Softer World.
Last summer, I took some time off work and spent a couple weeks in Copenhagen, visiting a pair of friends. One evening, while I was having some quiet time, a neighbor decided to start blasting Gary Jules' version of “Mad World.” You know, that song from the end of Donnie Darko. Now, I can't stand hearing that song and tend to evacuate whatever space it is being played in as fast as possible. Certainly, this wasn't as egregious as the time I heard it mixed into a set at a New Year's Eve drum and bass party, but the heartless bastard had the audacity to keep the track on repeat for at least twenty minutes. After a few extra seconds of silence at the end of a replay, I realized the torture had come to an end and immediately took my revenge. I plugged my computer into the house speakers and turned the volume up just high enough that I knew he could hear it from his apartment. For the next twenty minutes, neighbor-guy was subjected to the one song I can listen to on endless repeat, for just as long as he forced me to listen to his jam:
I Will Always Be Against (Pt. 2 of 2)
On May 9th 1991, 24-year-old poet and singer Yana Stanislavovna Dyagileva (Яна Станиславовна Дягилева,) known then to her friends and now publically as Yanka (Янка) left her Novosibirsk country home. On May 17th, Her body was by a fisher man found in the Inya River. The investigation revealed absolutely nothing with regard to the cause of death, but who knows how it was affected by her publicly anti-government sentiments and association with the underground Soviet punk scene (not to mention her marriage to Grazhdanskaya Oborona’s Yegor Letov.) Yanka was no stranger to retribution by the Soviet government.
Yanka’s albums were released posthumously, although a number of them were recorded. During her life time, she would play underground festivals and in very small, intimate shows called kvartirniks (Квартирник, “apartment gig.”) Fortunately, there is a very comprehensive tribute website. Unfortunately, for most of my readers, it is entirely in Russian. Here are dozens of photos taken of Yanka and Grazhdanskaya Oborona during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Here is a (legal) archive containing all her albums and recordings. I suggest starting with Prodano! (Продано!, Sold!)
Her lyrics were full of pain and injustice, both personal and to the country as a whole. As far as “punk” goes, she was more in line with Patti Smith – no overtly shocking image, but songs full of razorblade insights. In “Po Tramvaynim Rel'sam” (“По трамвайным рельсам,” “Down the Railroad Tracks,”) a song of prison/gulag escape, she sings: “We have to be able to, in two seconds, dive into the ground,/To stay and lay there when the gray cars go after us,/That drive away with them those who couldn't or wouldn't lay in the filth.” Here is her performing it live at the Cherepovets Rock-Acoustic festival in 1990, just a year before her death. A friend and I translated the lyrics here, albeit they retain nothing of the original poetry.
From the same concert, here is "Rizhskaya" (“Рижская,” a street in Moscow.) A few years ago I had written a MetaFilter post about Yanka and a very kind user has translated the lyrics.
He also translated the lyrics to "Ot Bolshogo Uma" (“От большого ума,” "From Being Too Smart.")
So that is the legacy left behind by Yanka. You can read more about her here and listen to more of her music, streaming, on her posthumous MySpace page. YouTube user Faustua has a number of videos of her and Grazhdanskaya Oborona both. Unfortunately, there are very few actively-written translations of her songs, but you can always throw the Russian lyrics into Google Translate (or ask me directly.) Enjoy!
I Will Always Be Against (Pt. 1 of 2)
Photo co. nmm.ru
This is the Soviet Union's first punk rock band, Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Гражданская Оборона, Civil Defence) also known as GrOb (ГрОб, Coffin.) Most punk bands across the world had to dodge censors and obscenity fines while withstanding the the occasional token arrest. GrOb spent their time dodging the KGB and releasing illegal bootleg recordings. They survived well into the post-communist years, regularly releasing albums and becoming hugely popular (there are plenty of their stadium concert videos on YouTube.) Unfortunately, the lead singer and Soviet punk impresario Yegor Letov (Его́р Ле́тов) died in his sleep two years ago. Below is a video of their song “Ya Ne Veryu V Anarhiyu” (“Я не верю в анархию”, “I Don't Believe in Anarchy,”) taken during their still-illegal days in 1988. I've reproduced a translation of the lyrics as well, although they're slightly different than the video.
All that is not anarchy – that is fascism!
All that is not anarchy – that is fascism!
All that is not anarchy – that is fascism!
All that is not anarchy – that is fascism!But you want to be the Fuhrer
He wants to be the Fuhrer
I want to be the Fuhrer
We all want to be the Fuhrer!I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!Who doesn't like the new order?
Who doesn't believe in the new order?
Who is not eager for the new order?
Who is building a new order?I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!
I don't believe in anarchy!
Kings of the Street Scene
It was around seventeen that my friends and I developed drinking as a hobby. My character being what it is was, I also decided to talk about drinking with everyone I knew. Incessantly. One of these people was Josh, who had somewhat-recently returned from Australia. It was there that he had encountered the comedy musical group Doug Anthony All Stars. Josh introduced me to “Broad Lic Nic,” a drinking song done as a rough pastiche of the Proclaimers. I promptly memorized the lyrics and ended up singing it every time I got a good bit of liquor in me. I'm not sure what it was that reminded me of it today, but listening to it I realized that I still remember all the lyrics. And all I can think is, sweet god, I must have been annoying as all get-out, wandering down a deserted Brooklyn street at 3 AM, belting the fucker out. Enjoy!
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In other news, awesome comics artist and all-around great gal Nikki Cook is having a big ole art sale, all originals. She's also taking commissions, so if you've always wanted a piece of, say, Big Barda a rollerderby girl or Thor, Loki and Beta Ray Bill as a black metal band, now is your chance.
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Kshhh
Of the myriad permutations of electronic music which exist, the anarchic breakcore is one of my all-time favorites. Something about the musical equivalent of a loosed jackhammer appeals to the same part of me which fell asleep during all those orchestral events I was taken to as a child. Thanks to YouTube, I can show off a few breakcore-based delights I have found over the years.
For instance, here is some emerging from a bored teenager's face, in the back of a car somewhere in Canada:
Or perhaps ironically mixed into an odd old synth demo:
Or the ne plus ultra of mashed-up absurdity – used to remix a Godspeed You! Black Emperor track:
Expect Me To Be Outrageous
I saw Xiu Xiu and Zola Jesus at the Bowery Ballroom on Friday night. Well, I actually saw Twin Sister, Zola Jesus, tUnE-YaRdS [sic] and Xiu Xiu, but I was only there for one group. Fortunately, the concert was a delightful surprise. Twin Sister was forgettable. Well, the music was okay but much like every overtly twee opening act I've seen in the last few months - and by "every" I mean every opening act I've seen in the last few months has been overtly twee - they were nothing special. Zola Jesus was wonderful. I have listened to her on record and, much like WOODS, it doesn't compare to the energy and ambience of seeing her live. Her set was an unfortunately short 20 minutes, but she packed a mile's worth of improvised stage acrobatics and the entirety of her glorious and operatic-influenced voice into them. One of the funnier moments of the show happened between two of her tracks:
Zola Jesus: "It's a very important weekend for me. It's my birthday weekend..."
Audience: CHEERING
Zola Jesus: "...I'm turning 21."
Audience: SELF-CONSCIOUS SILENCE
tUnE-YaRdS - may I briefly call attention to how much I fucking hate creative casing in band names? - was an odd act: a young woman with two drums, a modified ukulele, a looper and a bassist, blasting out West African and Carribean-influenced indie pop. Think Vampire Weekend wearing their influences on their sleeve (well, moreso, anyway) crossed with Final Fantasy and that's a rough approximation. If anything, her sense of rhythm was dead-on and her scat-like vocalizations, looped over into one another with the drum beats created a genuinely original sound. I located a video of her doing "Gangsta", my favorite number from her live set. The video is a good approximation of what I saw, down to the hand motions:
Now, the topper was Xiu Xiu. If you watched the above video and have ever even heard about Xiu Xiu - from my repeated posts about them, if anything at all - you may rightly assume that a bunch of people split about halfway through their first track. Their stage presence is now minimal: Jamie Stewart on electric guitar (and occasionally Nintendo DS or percussion) and newcomer Angela Seo on synths and a very complex percussion set-up that may resemble a drum kit if you squint hard enough. Jamie's energy on stage is inversely proportional to his incredibly shy persona in between tracks. He becomes a waterfall of sweat, shredding the hell out of his guitar and singing as if attempting to exorcise a demon from the depths of his gut. The tempo and feel of every song was utterly different, some infused with a nervous energy the original track never had - their rendition of "I Luv The Valley OH!" for instance. Below is a video of "Muppet Face" from the show I attended.
...and here is a photo I took of Jamie Stewart playing a Hello Kitty branded Nintendo DS Lite (complete with Hello Kitty charm):
Identity Game
Malcolm McLaren died today. I originally thought to post some Sex Pistols music, but I realized I have never particularly enjoyed the Sex Pistols. I can honestly say I have never been in a “Hey! Let's put on God Save The Queen” mood. My attitude toward punk in these last few years - especially after spending a year and a half peddling punk-rock merchandise - hovers somewhere around disaffection and uninterest. I'll voice some more sacrilege and state that it has come to the point where I prefer tracks off Jeff Lewis' “12 Crass Songs” to most of the originals.
Maybe I'm in a mood right now, maybe my previous professions of adoration for both the genre and the lifestyle were the words of a poseur seeking acceptance. Who knows. What I do know is that most stuff I have which is classified firmly in “punk” finds itself put on more out of nostalgia than a genuine desire to listen to the stuff.
The Dead Kennedys (and, to an extent, the Ramones) will continue to be wholly exempt from everything I have just written.
Back In Class Again
Rather than write a blog entry between classes, as I usually do, today I spent the free campus hours hanging out with a bunch of new school chums to get my mind off the issues which ended with me beginning this blog entry at eight minutes to midnight. Now, due to my Johnny-come-lately college career, these folks are all, on average, about five years younger than me. No big deal, except for the fact that hanging out with people younger than me has been the exception and not the rule for most of my life. So, in the spirit of this previous post, I'm going to have 20-year-old Griph put some of his circa-2005 music choices (NB: 20-year-old Griph is usually far too drunk to actually write anything, sadly.) Enjoy.
“Sweet Little Sixteen” - Silicon Teens
“Engine Driver” (Live 2005) - The Decemberists
“Can't Go Wrong Without You” - His Name is Alive
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