Top Hats and Monocles

DC, July 2011

1,488 words

In London, England there is a colossal modern art gallery housed in a converted power station by the side of the Thames called Tate Modern. The building is a monument to human artifice and maximalism, with every one of its vast external surfaces covered in details and embellishments that you normally wouldn’t find on walls that were built to have very specific, functional purposes: to keep sound and dirt in, to keep foreign objects out, to make sure that the turbines could keep spinning whatever the weather. Before you even get inside to see the art, you can happily spend an hour or two studying the lines and patterns and mouldings and tiling and veneers applied to the brick and stone of the structure. It’s a testament to the fact that many of us, when it comes down to it, really do believe that more is more.

Inside the gallery, however, in its main exhibition space, a very contradictory lesson is being taught. The Tate’s splashy summer exhibition this year is a blockbuster career retrospective of the 20^th century Spanish surrealist painter Joan Miro. The majority of Miro’s work was completed using quite traditional materials – although he made some sculpture, his primary form was the ages-old old on canvas painting - but his progression as an artist tells a fascinating story. He started out painting in a relatively conventional way, completing still life studies and portraits that were quite bright and trippy but otherwise very ‘normal’. He painted objects as they were, so that his depictions of people were clearly people, oranges looked like oranges, the sky was clearly our earthly sky. Soon though he started doing something different with his paintings, attempting to boil things down to their essence rather than depicting them in detail. Miro tried to evoke as much emotion and feeling as he could while presenting as little of an object as possible, reasoning that people can have a more intense, personal reaction to art when being asked to use their imagination to interpret forms than when the artist presents a detailed picture that leaves little room for interpretation.

As a result of this, his paintings became more simple and surreal – for instance, in his paintings of Catalan peasants from the area where he grew up, Miro didn’t paint their faces and clothes and tools. Instead, he portrayed the peasants in shorthand, with four objects representing them: two disc-like eyes, a distinctive red hat, and a wispy beard. Through that simple depiction, he evoked a wealth of feeling, with observers of the art coming away with a sense of the wisdom of the simple man (from the beard), the pride that the peasants took in their local heritage (from the Catalan red hat), the hardness of the peasant existence (from the grey colouring of the wisps of beard), and the constant need of the peasant to observe the world to gauge weather patterns and the state of the soil (from the gazing eyes). Miro realised that he didn’t need to paint any more than that to say what he wanted to say, and that sometimes a simple formula holds true: simplicity plus imagination is greater than detail and overproduction.

That same formula can hold true in the music world too, both when it comes to business and in relation to the creative process. On the business end, the dominant construct at the moment seems to be that the best way to build a stable, successful band is by deploying a huge range of complex tools. You need a 360-degree revenue sharing strategy to leverage your merchandising sales to offset declining income from recorded music. You need a dynamic branding strategy to harness new and old media to turn your band from simply one of thousands of wannabe’s to a viral sensation. You should still sign with a label and a promoter rather than going it alone because that gets you access to chains of corporate-controlled venues that allow for optimal tour routing and cross-promotion opportunities. In short, for all of the stories proclaiming that the “old music industry is dead”, the new model being promoted by a lot of industry experts looks a lot like the old one, just with corporations taking an ever-increasing share of a broader range of spoils. You buy in, because you’re told that it’s still the best way forward…

…or you don’t. You do a Miro, and boil things down to their essence. What are the tenets of how to build a successful career, when you get down to it? What are your equivalents of the beard, the hat and the eyes? Well, you need to create great music. You need to put it out online, and then tour like crazy. And you need to sling some t-shirts to make some money, as you’re not going to do that by selling records. If you do those things well, you might well succeed. If you don’t, then no amount of leveraging your brand synergies to create dynamic co-vending opportunities will bail you out. This is exactly the approach that punk rockers evolved in the 80s and 90s, to the extent of creating their own touring routes by setting up relationships with VFW halls and community venues, and then sharing the details of those locations to other aspirant bands. And it’s exactly the approach being taken now by a range of underground acts, and expressed most articulately by rapper MC Lars, ex Coheed and Cambria drummer turned hip-hop artist Weerd Science, and their acolytes in the independent rap scene.

On his mixtape “Indie Rocket Science” and most recent album “Lars Attacks”, Lars attempted to sketch out the principles of his Miro-esque approach to the business. First, don’t assume you’ll make money by selling records (as expressed articulately by Lars guest rapper MC Frontalot: “you try to sell music, and they’ll look at you funny / it’s not a transaction that necessitates money”). Next, before you do anything, make sure that you have created some art that you’re proud of, and that you’ll feel proud of performing every night. After that, don’t be too proud to try to sell merchandise and related products whenever you can, as that’s the only way that you’re going to make enough to be able to carry on recording and touring. Lars and Frontalot expresses this bluntly using the terminology that other rappers have used when talking about the hustle, albeit with a rather more retro frame of reference than the usual talk of Frank Lucas: Lars notes that “part of the job, I mean the other part from caring / is taking t-shirt money like we’re modern robber barons” while Frontalot puts together what may be the modern thesis on musical money-making:

“We know every fabric weight,
every drop ship price,
every line screened density,
and Designs are precise…

And we savor all your savvy
as it leads you to our wares,
up in the gilded age of geekery
we’re so sneakily prepared.
This fool-proof method -
Making just the shirts you want:
With my top hat and my monocle
and your money I abscond”.

Bands are also realising that mimicking Miro artistically can sometimes pay dividends. Critics have frequently alleged that the beloved punk band Alkaline Trio lost some of their appeal when they moved away from the rawness of their earlier material and began experimenting with glossy production and layered instrumentation. In 2011, however, the band have sought to put the focus back onto their song writing and ability to create dark, sexy, moody music by releasing a record called Damnesia for which they have re-recorded some of their finest songs in a simple, acoustic-led style. Basically, it’s is four object theory in action: strip back the overdubs and layered recordings, and go back to simple drums, acoustic guitar, a touch of piano and some beautifully hoarse vocals. The resulting record works wonderfully, summoning a mood of gloom and smoke but leaving room for your imagination to fill in the gaps around the skeleton sounds.

In the gallery next to the Miro exhibition, there is a show by a New York-based photographer called Taryn Simon. Simon presents her simple portrait-style photos with a huge amount of supporting material, from artist-written explanations of their content to other, related photos to extracts from documents and archive material. For her, this works, as the extra explanation adds richness and insight that the photos on their own cannot offer. But it’s not the only way of doing things, as Miro proves – his work would lose some of its tremendous power and emotional weight if he felt the need to explain each abstraction, to append photos of his source material, to fill in all the blanks for you. And so it is in music, where sometimes detail and front can be the way to go, but at this particular moment in time simplicity and reduction may be even more effective.

Four Scenes of a Pop Song

DC - June 2011

1,425 words

“If you’re listening, woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh,

Sing it back, woah-oh-oh-oh-oh”

(Opening lines of Sweetness by Jimmy Eat World, from the album Bleed American)

Scene 1:

In the late summer of 2001, I was feeling extremely carsick. I was trying to hang my head out of the window of the rented Buick Regal that my family and I were travelling in, because the cooling sensation of wind rushing past always made me feel less nauseous. Unfortunately this already complicated operation, which was making me consider whether it would be preferable to throw up into a paper bag or be beheaded by a passing Winnebago, was only made more difficult by the fact that my mother was shouting at me to close the window before the rain started coming in. We were in the middle of the desert in Arizona, and about to be treated to the mother of all storms.

The reason why I was enduring sickness, shouting and soaking was that I had spent the previous twenty minutes reading a Rolling Stone magazine review of a record called Bleed American by a ridiculously-named band called Jimmy Eat World. I hadn’t intended to browse through it, as I was fully aware that reading anything at all in the back of a moving car would only result in illness. The review intrigued me, though, with its mentions of spiky guitars and soaring melodies and a song called “Sweetness”. It sounded like something I needed to hear.

A very short time later my dad had to pull the car over to the side of the road, I regretfully closed the window, and we sat for forty minutes as the car was buffeted by winds, bombarded by raindrops that sounded like shotgun buckshot, and shaken by thunderclaps rolling across the plain. While lightening crackled around us, I resolved that I would track down Bleed American when we got to Las Vegas or Los Angeles at the end of our desert drive, and if it wasn’t out there then I would order it when we got back to London. It might not be great – Rolling Stone reviews are always hit-and-miss – but I was willing to take a risk on it.

Scene 2:

A year or so later my brother and I were lounging in the upstairs ‘study’ room of the farmhouse that our family lived in. I say ‘study’ in inverted commas because what had started out as my dad’s office and computer room had slowly been converted into a den for two grumpy, argumentative teenagers who had been drawn there by the appeal of playing video games on the clunky desktop computer and listening to music through the huge speakers that my Mum had owned since the seventies. In fact, just about the only things that stopped Adam and I arguing and fighting were video games and music. The games made us shut up and concentrate on something other than how annoying the other person was, and the music... well, one of the few things that we agreed on was that guitars were awesome, and the louder the better.

While we bought new music as fast as we could save up money for it, we had a rotation of favourite CDs that were never far from the player. Americana by The Offspring. The Blue Album by Weezer. The self-titled album by American Hi-Fi. So Much For The Afterglow by Everclear. And Bleed American, which I had found on our return from Arizona and rapidly and completely fallen in love with. Every song on the record was great but Sweetness, the song namechecked in the review, was the one. We put it on all of our mixtapes, we knew most of the words, and when we were at our most energetic we would listen to it while climbing the worn green corduroy sofas in the study, brandishing our air guitars. And you know what? Every time we did that, it made us wonder whether the other person wasn’t quite as much of a jackass as we thought, that maybe we did have something in common after all.

Scene 3:

2002, 2003, 2004, in fact pretty much every year between Arizona and now. The Scala, the Islington Academy, The Astoria and Brixton Academy and Reading and Leeds and Give It A Name festivals. A revolving combination of our friends Dusty and Shirley and Robyn and Nini and Mike and Johnny. But always Adam and I down at the front, right in the centre until we got too tall and worried about blocking people’s views and stood off to the side, by the front right stage speaker stacks. We loved pretty much the entire catalogue of the band, from the early scratch of Static Prevails to the spacey majesty of Clarity to the dark pop of Futures and the pop gloss of Chase This Light. But still, standing just above all else was Bleed American, and Sweetness was the crown jewel.

We knew every drum hit, every scratchy and discordant guitar part, just how much echo Jim Adkins put on his voice to make the opening “woah-ohs” seem skyscraping. And when the song kicked in, we and the rest of the faithful knew exactly what to do. You sing the first two lines as loud as you can, fingers pointing in the air and ecstatic looks on your faces. Then you brace, and when the guitars kick in you mosh and jostle and dance. Repeat that throughout the first verse, then bend the knees, and when the “I was spinning free” line heralds the start of the chorus you leap into the air, bouncing along. More singing and moshing through the second verse, more jumping in the second chorus, with just a touch of air drumming thrown in, and a yell of the “stumble ‘til you crawl” line. Then heads back and wail like wolves for the “woo-oooh-ooohs” of the bridge, some air keyboard. And finally, the key moment. Everything cuts out except for some twinkling guitars and a quiet drum fill, and that signals preparation time. You have about five seconds to take a deep breath and tense yourself up before absolutely exploding into the repeated “if you’re listening” line, singing it with absolutely everything you’ve got. The most wonderful thing about all of this was that repetition never dulled its impact – it was still as much fun the fifth or tenth or twentieth time as it was the first.

Scene 4:

The lounge of the new apartment that I’ll be living in with my wife now that we’re back from our honeymoon still looks too empty, like it ate all of our furniture and is still hungry. Still, we have a sofa and a TV and, crucially, a record player and some speakers. I say crucially because I have just unwrapped a four-disc vinyl release of Bleed American released to celebrate its tenth anniversary, and it needs to be played. All of the songs still sound magnificent, with the pop perfection of The Middle set against the low-slung violence of Get It Faster and the sheer beauty of Hear You Me. Still though, ten years in, Sweetness remains the most majestic of all, be it the studio version on Side A or the blistering live version on Side [x].

I’m digging into the album again, listening to Sweetness for what must be the thousandth time, for two reasons. On the one hand, the song has been popping into my head with increasing frequency since we played it at our wedding a month ago, when it held its own as one of the few wild card songs in a playlist that was otherwise all wedding singalong classics. And on the other, for what must be the 25^th or 30^th time, I’m getting ready to see a Jimmy Eat World live show in a few days time. This time around Adam is on holiday and Dusty is busy so I’m going with the lady, for what will be her second of their shows, to hear the band other things play Bleed American in its entirety. While I’m sure that the show will be outstanding and that I’ll fall in love with some new songs and be reminded of how good the old ones are, I’d put money on Sweetness being the highlight of the night once again. I still get shivers from hearing it, even after I have been listening to the song and singing it back for then years – and I have a feeling that I will do for many years to come.

Stay True

Author: DC

Date: April 2011

Word count: 1,148

One of the great challenges for individual human beings is growing up. There is no established roadmap for how to develop as a person, and so we’re left scrabbling around for guidance on how to manage it. Typically, it seems that we try to find clues in two ways: by comparing ourselves with other people or by comparing our perceptions of ourselves now with how we felt about ourselves days or months or years before.

The first approach is always challenging for the simple reason that it’s very difficult to actually truly know and understand another person to the extent that you can use their beliefs and actions as an example. The result of this is that we tend to mythologize people that we admire, creating exaggerated standards of behaviour and character that we can never hope to achieve, or we over-stress the character flaws of anyone who appears merely to be a normal person, destroying their value as a role model.

The second approach is even more tricky, as it seems almost impossible for someone to form a genuinely balanced and ‘correct’ perception of what they themselves are like, and whether on balance they have redeeming qualities or not. Do you know anyone who you would say has managed this, without erring towards either unwarranted self-admiration or overly harsh self-criticism? We all tend to have warped views of ourselves, and we all struggle to work out what about our characters we want to hang onto and what we would prefer to throw away or change.

As a result of this uncertainty and lack of clear perspective, people often make two mistakes when it comes to self development. We either plunge ourselves into periodic programmes of total personal reinvention, remodelling ourselves to such an extent that we risk throwing out or deleting the parts of ourselves that may make us better people. Alternatively, we can end up stuck in a rut of recreation, trying to copy someone else or to recapture that lightning in a bottle moment when we thought that we were at our best, or when others have told us that we were. The bottom line is that growth is just difficult. Successful evolution is hard.

As difficult as it is for individuals, it is even harder for bands. After all, bands are collectives of people who are all struggling to grow and develop in terms of personality and taste and desire as individuals – and then on top of that they are being asked to synchronise that growth with that of two, three, four, five other people. It’s like trying to coordinate the most complex of Cirque Du Soleil routines, but with the added pressures of a lifestyle that gives none of the individuals any free time or alone time to think and reflect.

This personal challenge is reflected in the way that bands approach the act of creation. When they are trying to write and record a new album, bands are trying to balance a desire to maintain what was unique or exciting about them in the past, and that in some cases made them successful, with a craving for growth and evolution. As Dan Campbell, singer of the Wonder Years, has said to AbsolutePunk this week when talking about their new record “I remember how shitty it was when your favourite pop punk band went from putting out a record you loved to putting out a weird jazz fusion record. I also remember how shitty it was when your favourite pop punk band released the same record twice in a row”.

The honest answer may be that, unless you are Charlie Sheen, there is no such thing as an absolute win when it comes to growth. You may not be able to recapture who you were or what you created before without risking creating a sense of diminishing returns. And you may not be able to move forward without accepting that the cost of growth may be that you disappoint the friends or audience members or even bandmates who liked you the way you were before, or that you become an acquired taste rather than the best friend of everyone in the bar. We have all seen bands struggle to come to terms with this. How many times, for example, have bands released great early albums and then over the rest of their careers flip-flopped between releasing records that they claim represent ‘artistic growth and challenge’, and others that are ‘a return to what we do best’?

One of the rarest things in music, as in life, is a person or a band that manages to chart a steady evolutionary course, free from grating stylistic lurches or obvious artistic compromise. A band to cherish, who seem to be navigating that course in the most graceful way possible, is Thursday, the second-wave emo pioneers from New Jersey. This week they release their new record No Devolucion. Make no mistake, this record will almost certainly sell fewer copies than any of its scene-defining predecessors. It may well reduce Thursday’s draw as a touring proposition. In spite of or perhaps because of a willingness to embrace that, however, what it may lack in commercial impact it makes up for in integrity and as a statement about growth it is almost flawless.

There is a core to the record that is undeniably and recognisably Thursday, from the guitar tone to the dynamics of the songs to Geoff Rickley’s vocals to the sly nod to much-loved old song Five Stories Falling during new number Sparks Against The Sun. Around that core, however, the band have pushed the boundaries of their art, blending in Explosions In The Sky soundscapes and the windswept dynamics of Envy and the sad sweetness of The Cure. They have moved forwards while not forgetting the greatness that they had to start with. For an undeniable statement of this, listen to the driving, majestic Turnpike Divides, with its frayed screamo heart and graceful melodic carapace.

Indeed, in making No Devolucion, Thursday as a band and Geoff Rickley as a lyricist may also have helped sketch part of the roadmap to growth we’ve been lacking all along. In the epic song Stay True that closes the album, Rickley has proposed a reference for the rest of us. Written primarily for his friends in new band Touche Amore, this advice, first sung in a hushed voice and then proclaimed more stridently, is a simple but wonderful and real guide to growing up:

“Disregard those clapping hands,

They turn to punches when you’re down.

Disregard the critics’ praise,

They’ll be the first to tell the news that you sold your soul.

Disregard those dollar sings,

They’ll buy the biggest house in hell where you’ll live alone.

Just keep your head down,

Just keep your friends close,

Hold fast to your beliefs,

Whatever else you do.

Stay true.

Stay true.

Believe me when I say, it’s the hardest thing to do.”

United By Fate After Ten Years

Author: DC

Date: March 2011

Word count: 1,060

When I go back to my parents’ house to visit, I often end up sleeping in the bedroom that used to be the Hobbit Hole where my little brother could be found. When Adam lived there it had all the signifying marks of the late-teenage bedroom, with its blackout blinds, Rage Against The Machine “burning monk” posters, unwashed clothes on the floor, and an inhabitant who was extremely grumpy to be disturbed any time before three in the afternoon. Now that he has moved out my parents have redecorated the room, with the gloom and disorganisation replaced by Swedish furniture and halogen spotlights. The only real reminder that it used to be Adam’s lair is a single bookshelf which my mother has never tidied.

The shelf contains mementoes and keepsakes that Ad gathered during our formative concert-going years. Many of them evoke strong memories; the signed Taking Back Sunday setlist from the first time that we ever saw the band that went on to become one of our favourites; the Hiding With Girls sticker from the show where we were the only paying customers to turn up; the AFI drumstick that Adam was so thrilled to collect at one of their rare London headline shows. If I could only keep one item, though, it wouldn’t be any of those objects, as fond as I am of the feelings that they bring back. Instead, the thing I would choose is a slightly battered, bent plastic Frisbee, embossed with an instantly familiar logo of a stylised boy and girl running.

We snagged the Frisbee in 2002 at the huge Reading Festival here in the UK, on our second or third trip there. I was 18 and Adam was about 15, and we participated in the full festival experience. We camped on ground that was either rock-hard or sodden and muddy, we drank too much, but most of all we saw as many bands as we could in the three days that the festival lasted. That year we saw Hell Is For Heroes and Biffy Clyro go on early on a tiny stage and blow the crowd away, we saw Finch and Thursday stun with the complexity and energy of their post-hardcore, we saw Jimmy Eat World as their star began to go supernova. The band that left me reeling was another new band, though its members had been around for a while, playing in several influential New York hardcore bands. The weekend of the festival they were celebrating the release of their second single, a driving but uplifting song called “Good Things”, and at the end of their set they threw promotional material into the crowd. Things fluttered down from the stage, a shimmer of stickers and flyers and, yes, white Frisbees.

The set that the band played that day was the perfect blend of harmony and fury, with swathes of slashing guitar and brutal drumming playing against the keening vocals of Walter Schriefels and odd flashes of sweetness in the sound. Even though their album had only been out for a few weeks, and the seminal single “Used For Glue” a few weeks more than that, a dedicated group within the audience knew the songs backwards, and the rest of the crowd were soon engrossed by the heart and energy that the band put into their performance. They made a cavernous tent feel like a small club show, and the 40 minutes that they were allocated by the organisers was over before people were ready for it to be.

The Frisbee has served to remind of two things since that day – first of all, that it is possible for a concert to be cathartic and transcendent even in the most unlikely of circumstances. The setting for the show was relatively inauspicious, with a new melodic hardcore band playing in the middle of the day to a crowd of tired and hung-over people who hadn’t even had time to build up a hair of the dog buzz yet. In spite of all of that, it was at the time and still is one of the best shows that I have ever seen. Secondly, the Frisbee has reminded me that sometimes you only get one shot at things, and after that have to make do with memories and remembrances. Rival Schools never released the second album that they promised in 2005 and 2006, I wasn’t able to see them on their next UK tour, and then they broke up. What I had to remind me of them was a fantastic album, a single brilliant live show, and a white plastic Frisbee.

All of this goes some way to explaining why my reaction to the announcement that a new Rival Schools album was to be released in 2011 wasn’t as joyful as I thought it would be. I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t more excited that one of my favourite bands was coming back, making a record, playing shows. It took me some weeks to figure out that I was worried that it would underwhelm, that it would erode and undermine the memories that I had of the band. That the Frisbee would come to mean less to me than it does at the moment.

I shouldn’t have worried. As the sports commentators say, form is temporary but class is permanent. Rival Schools have come back with a 10-track record called “Pedals” that is different but no less excellent than their debut “United By Fate” album. It is different, to be sure, with songs of a more reflective nature and a greater emphasis on atmosphere rather than angst and anger. But it is another intelligent, wonderful collection of songs that will stay with me. To complete the circle, I am going to see them play live in a month’s time, and I can only hope that they have the same effect on me in 2011 as they did when we were all much younger men in 2002. If they do, it’ll be easy to spot me on the way out of the venue after the show. I’ll be the man looking for a poster, a drumstick, a flyer, a ticket stub, or anything that I can take home and put on the shelf next to the Frisbee. After all, I need something to keep me going for the next ten years.

Packing Boxes

Author: DC

Word count: 820

March 2011

Three weeks ago my fiancée and I finally managed to buy what will be our first house together, once we decorate it and move out of our current rented apartments. I’m moving in first, with the lady following several weeks later, and my date to leave the tiny one-bedroom place that has been my home for the last two and a half years is rapidly approaching. Given that, I’ve been doing all the usual things that we’ve all had to take care of when moving – packing boxes, finding utilities suppliers, working out where in my new house my life-sized plush cuddly sheep is going to live. The important things, you might say.

Last weekend, I had a 24 hour blitz, trying to do as many move-related things as I could in a day, so that it wouldn’t eat up all of my evenings during the next week or so. There turned out to be one recurring theme that dominated that 24 hours: it quickly became clearly, visibly, and possibly scarily apparent just how major a part music has come to play in my life. During that day I took down record sleeves hung from my kitchen walls, rang people to change the delivery addresses for my Rolling Stone, NME and Alternative Press subscriptions, boxed hundreds of CDs and vinyl records, unplugged speaker systems and record players, backed up the iTunes library on my computer to avoid move-related music loss, put some signed concert posters into tubes, donated to charity a Phil Collins record that my friend Dusty had ‘hilariously’ bought me as a birthday present, filled bags with band t-shirts and took down from shelves concert DVDs and Behind The Music documentaries. I ordered the shelves that will be the new home for those CDs and DVDs, I planned to have the posters professionally framed, and I tried to work out whether I could buy some replacement, more powerful speakers without annoying our new downstairs neighbours.

All in all, I realised that music has come to dominate not only what I listed to but what I read, what I watched, what I decorate my house with, what I allocate space to, what I wear, and what I annoy my fiancée with. This left me thinking, and by now I’ve identified a number of possible things that this music overload could mean. Option One: I’m one of those people who are going to end up on a TV show called something like “Hoarders: Extreme Tales of People Who Have Died of Asphyxiation While Buried Under Piles of Accumulated Junk”, or “Stories Of My Divorce: The Husband Who Loved Vinyl More Than Me”. If that turns out to be true, please address all letters to my rehab centre, and don’t give me money to buy magazines with, it will only feed the habit.

I don’t think I’m quite in Discovery Channel territory yet, though, for one simple reason. So many of the emails that I’ve received from you, readers and commenters and friends, during the last few years suggest that many of you have a similar level of immersion in all things musical as I do. Sure, we all have different tastes and preferred formats, but it seems that the vast majority of people reading this column don’t just have a casual, transactional, “something to listen to on the metro on the way to work in the mornings” relationship to music. Which led me to Option Two: that for a certain kind of person, music becomes something much bigger than a soundtrack. It becomes something much bigger, oddly, than music, than that song you put on when you get home from work in the evening. Instead it grows, it shoots tentacles through many different aspects of our lives, and in doing so it becomes both a part of us and something else as well, something external.

Music, when you love it this much and are this interested in it, actually becomes a character in your life. It takes your time – time spent reading music magazines or searching for downloads or fixing the names in your iTunes. It can’t be neglected, as you wouldn’t want to miss the new song by your favorite artist. It can’t be put in a corner when you consume too much and become sick of it, as it’s on your walls and your clothes. It’s a part of who you are, and it’s part of what you have to do every day and what you see. And this may be where I cross the line back into Option One territory, but for the last week it has felt like music is a third person moving into my new apartment, putting its stamp and its personality on our space. I don’t love it as much as my lady or in the same way, but I adore it, and I have a feeling that many of you feel

Super Lupe Raps

Author: DC

February 2011

Word count: 1,241

It seems very odd to criticize anyone for not talking enough, for not expressing his or her personal feelings enough, in this era of Fox News and Facebook. The world in the early 21^st century is defined by externalization, by the way in which it has come to be acceptable for anyone to express their innermost thoughts to everyone else, or to take a personal perspective on events rather than buying into a narrative defined by anyone else. The ultimate expression of this was the perception held by George Bush and his regime that there is no such thing as fact, that every situation is open to individual interpretation.

The result of this trend, when applied to politics and the way that people relate to society, has resulted in the outward expression of feelings that would previously have been kept private, out of deference or a sense of what was proper. In the United States, Europe and most recently throughout the Middle East, the public have been expressing a simmering anger about individual politicians or political systems, societal structures and the way that people are being supported by institutions, and corporations and perceived corporate greed. Discontent and rage has been expressed via Twitter and online protest, via mass gatherings and demonstrations, via organizations like the Tea Parties, and via the actions of artists like authors and filmmakers. Notably, however, this wave of dissatisfaction has not been supported to any great degree by the graft of songwriters.

Musicians have, for the most part, stayed away from discussing politics and social sentiments, or have discussed them in an abstract and depoliticized way, or have spoken out but only in relation to issues of such gigantic impact and relative party-political neutrality that everyone can agree on the sheer fucked-upness of it all[1]. Few musicians have had the courage to express rage and disgust and ill-feeling, and of those who have very few indeed have combined an expression of their frustration with intelligent criticism and a constructive, anti-nihilistic approach to how things might be improved.

One major exception to this is the Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, who about a week ago released a single called “Words I Never Said”. “Words…” has been put out just a little over a month before the release of Lupe’s next album “Lasers”, and is supposed to be the single that crashes the charts, that sets up big first-week sales for the album, that makes people forget the tortured history of the record. The need for a song to do this usually results in simplicity – to appeal to as many people as possible, artists strip things back to simple, easily-relatable and easily-repeatable constructs. Usually, this means talking about sex (think Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop”), broad motivational statements (think “Lose Yourself”) or how awesome the artist is.

Not for Lupe Fiasco, however, will things be about the licking of lollipops or the sexing of ladies. On his single he wants to slay some dragons, and he sets this up with the hook, sung to start the record by Skylar Grey, which acknowledges how difficult what he’s about to do is and what it may cost him. However, he comes to terms with the fact that the alternative to speaking out – staying silent – is ultimately more corrosive for you than risking incurring the wrath of others by voicing your feelings. However, even at that point thigns could go either way. Yes, Lupe has claimed that he’s going to be bold, but lots of rappers and musicians have said that but come up short. Yes, he has chosen a bassy, thumping, ominous Alex Da Kid beat that bangs but is also unshowy enough to provide an unfussy base for some fierce lyricism. But will he really go in, or just express the same watered-down sentiments that some many other artists have been peddling?

Verse one, line one. “I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit”. Okay, so we’re not fucking around here. American sacred cow being address – check. Strong word choice – check. But interesting word choice, with Lupe’s use of “think”. He’s not making a broad or knee-jerk statement – instead, he’s reflecting his considered thoughts and inviting you do to the same, to contribute to the dialogue, whether you agree with him or not. In any case, regardless of your personal opinion, it’s undeniable that Lupe is spitting the sort of blunt speech that popular music has been running scared of lately, is showing a courage and boldness that others have been lacking.

The lyrics are particularly bold relative to the prevailing attitudes, values and forms of hip-hop in 2011. Hip-hop at the moment seems to be about battling and being tough, as typified by Jay-Z and Kanye West’s collaboration “H.A.M.”, or about valuing the struggle of the individual over anything collective, as seen in the lyrics of Young Jeezy and Lil’ Wayne. In contrast Lupe, as you’d hope given his quasi-conscious background, is unafraid to be different. He acknowledges that he isn’t hard as a motherfucker, recognizing his own weakness and uncertainty (“So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you / sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to”) and pointing out the inherent limitations of an approach to life that is based on violence, thuggery and rugged individualism (“I’m part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful / and I believe in the people”)

Throughout the song Lupe demonstrates both his courage and his intelligence, taking on major social and political issues in a thoughtful way, with nothing that could be pigeon-holed as superficial sloganeering. He confronts phony wars, corrupt politicians, the poor education system in the United States, sub-standard nutrition, pharmaceutical dependency, and the financial crisis. However, he doesn’t just vent his range, directing it upwards and outwards while denying personal culpability and responsibility. He questions his own motives and those of his family, friends and followers, inviting people to “walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the kush went”, before blasting abnegations of responsibility with calls to arms like “complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for? / complain about the gloom but when d’you pick a broom up? / just listening to ‘Pac ain’t gon make it stop”.

Even religion, that most taboo subject and an issue that is rapidly becoming a no-go zone for discussion and commentary, does not escape his focus. Most notably, Lupe takes on the extreme fringes of his own Muslim faith, perfectly expressing the views of moderate Islam by stating that “Jihad is not a holy war, where’s that in the worship? / Mudering is not Islam, and you are not observant / and you are not a Muslim”, before pointing out that other faiths who might be quick to agree with him might need to look at their own failings first.

Occasionally Lupe goes too far in confronting conventional wisdom, as when he repeats tired 9/11 conspiracy theories about the intentional blowing up of the Twin Towers. This sort of reference isn’t helpful to those who are trying to construct a more open and responsible political dialogue, as it blurs the line between appropriate cynicism and anger and outright fringe thinking, making it easier for people to disregard the entire message. However, given how things are should we not applaud informed and passionate speech, even if it is wayward in places?

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[1] Think Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistan cyclone, the incarceration of Lil’ Wayne.

Personal Training

Author: DC

January 2011

Word count: 990

When I joined my current gym I was given as a “free gift” [#1 Free gift! With every purchase of an insanely overpriced gym membership!] a single half-hour session with a personal trainer. When the day came to have my session, I very nearly didn’t go because I assumed that the person I was about to entrust half an hour of my physical wellbeing to would be like the caricatured drill-sergeant trainers that you see in movies. Usually played by a guy in very tight shorts, and altogether too much spandex. You know the type, the “quitters never succeed! Are you a quitter? Are you a man or a mouse” breed of psychological bully who harass you into doing “just one more set”, their sole achievement being that you never want to go anywhere near a rowing machine ever again. But eventually I convinced myself that they couldn’t all be like that, and when I got to the gym I was relieved to look around the room and see several very friendly-looking trainers offering helpful advice and not yelling Kanye tweet-style ‘motivational messages’ at people. Then my trainer turned up. Jason. Tight shorts, spandex and shouting. Within five minutes he’d come out with such gems as “when you come hear you have to leave your tired at the door” and “you must be mentally stronger than your body is physically weak”. His defining moment, however, came ten minutes in. I had just finished stretching in ways that my body will never forgive me for, and as I moved off the mat I smiled at the man who was about to take my place, and wished him good luck. At which point Jason turned to me and said “focus. There’s no place for friendship at the gym”.

I never had another session with Jason, who spent six months glaring angrily at me whenever I went near him. But his words stuck with me and I thought of them again this week. I was bored of stationary-bike cycling, and thought I’d put my iPod on to distract me (I have a small, pink gym-only shuffly. Manly, huh?). I’d forgotten that, just after Christmas, I had wiped my usual mix of sugar-rush gym music from Pinky, and instead loaded her with an end-of-year mix that my friend Dusty had made for me. He has been making mixes for years, from the themed (I currently have mixes called “A Bit Gruff”, “For The Summer” and “Early Emo”) to the you-have-terrible-taste-if-you-don’t-like-this-band (my protestations that I just don’t get Morrissey didn’t stop Dusty making me a complete Morrissey mix), but his best are always the annual best of the year compilations that he puts together. I’d only recently received the 2010 version, and for some reason I sort of thought that I might not enjoy it as much as I had done the 2008 and 2009 versions. I figured that I knew most of the good albums and great songs that had come out during the year, and that while it was nice to have lots of them on the same tape it would all feel a bit familiar.

Within two minute, I had to stop the bike, move away from the TV blaring out “Ministry of Sound Running Trax 2011”, and go stand in the rarely-used and therefore blissfully quiet fitness room in the gym, just so that I could have another listen to the first song on his mix, without background noise or sweating middle-aged men distracting me. I’d never heard the song before. I’d never heard of the band. I’d been half-listening while trying not to die of post-Christmas exercise overload. And it was great enough to grab me straight off. [# that song was “I’m Gonna Change Your Life” by The Thermals. Just a kick-ass, dark, snarky, sexy song]. A couple of tracks later it happened again. And then again. The mix was dotted with songs that I’d missed, or that were by bands I’d never heard of, or that I had downloaded but for some reason not appreciated. I must have looked like I’d gone crazy, sitting there on a bike, sweating and dishevelled, but smiling to myself while skipping back to repeat these great songs.

It made me realise that Jason was wrong, and that there was room for friendship at the gym. In fact, that there is room for friendship, and for actual reminders of that friendship to appear, pretty much anywhere these days. A huge number of people now carry digital music players of some form or another – iPods, cellphones which can handle music files, laptops with iTunes. Some people even play it retro, continuing to rock the Discman or Walkman or Minidisc player long after most people have moved on. As a result, most people have access to songs wherever they are or whatever they are doing. And while a lot of people put together their own music collections, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of people have at least one or two tracks in their collection that they have been sent via email by one of their friends, or that they’ve ripped from a CD that someone lent them, or that they have downloaded from a blog or from iTunes based on a recommendation from their brother or sister or that creepy guy who hits on your every time you go into Starbucks. Each one of those recommendations or transfers or lendings is a minor act of friendship, an indication that someone has thought about you enough to let you know about something that they think will make you smile, or make you rock out. And as long as you’ve got those songs with you then there really is room for friendship anywhere – at home, at work, even at the gym.

Happy New Year to all, and I hope you have a wonderful, musical time of it all in 2011.