Rolf de Heer - Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Note: Its 5am and I'm kind of writing this half asleep so bear with me...I'll probably come back and edit tomorrow. Pardon the ranty wall of text...

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT A BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT FILM. I don't even know where to begin. This is one of those movies whose title and trailer might make it out to be not as shocking or soul-destroying as parts of it actually are, and I know that somewhere someone rented this with their family and was in for a huge surprise. I guess I should talk about the "one scene" (although there were many). But one in particular, was executed in such a casual manner I couldn't have prepared myself for it. I knew it was coming, reluctant, yes, expecting, yes, just waiting for it because it was inevitable and only a matter of time before ***** **** ******** and gets ***** ** ****, and I grimaced like I knew I would. This is by far the most touching, wonderful and inspiring movie where a mentally handicapped man takes off on a desultory trip in the world for the first time and **** ***** ** ****, ***** *** ***, **** * *** that I have ever seen. But despite all those fucked up spoilers that I don't dare expose, holy shit, this was good. There are so many pitfalls for a movie like this and Rolf de Heer avoided all of them commendably. The depravity of the films' focus was made bearable by the many hilarious moments through out, some of them laugh-out-loud hilarious. Near the end there is one of most joyous + depressing + memorable scenes I've witnessed in some time. So whether or not you want to take it as one big dark, yet humorous metaphor on Oedipal complexes or even life itself, or just at face value as a bizarre character study, keep in mind that Bad Boy Bubby is not just one of the most fucked up films ever (which it rightfully gets credit for), but a damn fine one to boot. I smiled, laughed, cried, and by the end I was exhausted from expending so much emotion. Nicolas Hope should've won an Oscar. The ending....dear lord, the ending! Monumental. Superb. Phenomenal. Marvelous. The best Australian film ever made.

Be more like Bubby. Cling wrap ignorance and hatred.

Greg Dulli and the "rebirth of the cool"

For those unfamiliar, Greg Dulli was the front man of the 90s rock band, The Afghan Whigs, and has a current project, Twilight Singers. I'm sure you've heard of one or both of these bands, because they are fairly well-known and appeal to both indie and popular circles. However, despite that popularity, Dulli has been defecated on undeservedly more than any other indie musician, and many people who share similar tastes as mine tend to write him off as being 'lame' (just one of the many vague descriptors I've heard used to describe his music)

Here is a recent short exchange I had regarding Dulli with a newly made internet buddy of mine:

Friend: Matt. I never thought of it before, but Dulli really is one of those outliers that can both demand AND defy explanation.

"Outliers can occur by chance in any distribution, but they are often indicative either of measurement error or that the population has a heavy-tailed distribution. In the former case one wishes to discard them or use statistics that are robust to outliers, while in the latter case they indicate that the distribution has high kurtosis and that one should be very cautious in using tools or intuitions that assume a normal distribution."

I think Dulli is a sign of both a measurement error AND a heavy-tailed distribution.

But it would take a serious stamp of approval from some current rock divinity to introduce him as the anti-clsasic classic he is (Maus can't do it, yet, but maybe Chris Owens? or some pitchfork douche like twin shadow? anyway it's all too gross to think about but I would want it to bring Dulli some much deserved recognition. Wouldn't it be funny if Hedi Slimane did a "rock journal" photo session with an actually FAT guy for a change, instead of all those NAMBLA shots of precious brooders?

Me: I don’t get it why a band like, say, Sonic Youth, or any number of countless others who try to exemplify 'cool' ARE considered cool, while Dulli isn’t. I mean I get it from (sub)cultural standpoint, I just think its silly and it irks me.

Dulli’s sexuality (or sex appeal or whatever) is perhaps the best (or worst kind…I don’t know, it’s at least fun/interesting) . If I had to call it something I’d call it ego or hero sex – sex that’s far more human than animalistic. Anyways, yeah people call him cheesy and lame and shit (and fat, apparently, which I don’t think he is, and even so, this is kind of douchy/tasteless)…but a) I find his music to be fatally and drippingly sexy and b) isn’t everything fraudulent/acted to some degree? So fuck the haters.

I would definitely consider him to be an outlier. Interesting word, also because I tend to be drawn to those kind of artists (Lawrence of Felt is another, there are plenty). I’m also quick to dislike something based on associations…for example if a group of people I typically loathe enjoy something, I’m partial to dislike it for that reason alone. But, not always. So if Twin Shadow's fans suddenly started swooning over Dulli’s music because it became trendy to do so, I’d probably still like it, it'd just sour the whole affair a bit for me, if only a little. [I think it's this very mentality that cause people to overlook his music, because many of his fans are not cool, rather they are the type of people who think they know what 'cool' is, but in reality haven't a clue and these fans give Dulli himself a bad rep. Guilty by association. Also the fact that he is a cocky asshole, isn't that the archetypal rockstar personality? I will say that his latest T-shirt designs aren't helping the cause much, either]

Music for cold weather, day five

3. For Against - December (1988)



If someone asked me what being a depressed outcast teen in the late 80's sounded like (and I'm speculating here, because I was born in '85), I would recommend them one of three albums:

Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation
REM's Dead Letter Office
For Against's December

Remember the coolest kids at your school, who weren't quite lame enough to be in the goth crowd, but smoked pot before anyone else, and read Nietzsche and shit, and hated everything maintstream? You were either friends with them or they scared you or both, but they were there in almost every school. These are those kids, and this is their soundtrack resonating from a transient point in the past that seems so long-gone in modern times.

For whatever bizarre, obtuse reason, this band, along with some others such as Dif Juz, get described as being "dream pop." When I think of the term dream pop, I think of bands like Cocteau Twins or Lovespiralsdownwards, Cranes, or music you can get high and make love with your steady girlfriend to because its actually 'dreamy.' For Against is very un-dreamy, discontent and confused, lucid in the most depressing way.

To me For Against sounds like a more melodic early 80s emo group inculcated with The Cure's proto-coldwave sounding guitars. The album itself is named after the most barren month of the year; the last month, the dying month before rebirth, and that alone should tell you the mood of the album: it's a brooding, loveless, hopeless one, drenched in the emotional despair of youth. This is purely subjective of course, but with the exception of the album I'm going to post tomorrow, December is the most 'nostalgic' sounding music I've ever heard. I feel like I have some memory of having heard these melodies before, feeling a certain way: sleepy, naive, curious and taken back by it all, riding with my mom on the way to school at 5am, her in her flight attendant uniform, even though I know it was probably silent except for the familiar drone of the car engine and the road ambience sneaking through tiny crevices in the rolled up windows. Every song on this album is so overflowing with feeling and I can't stress enough how much it's like stepping into a time machine from an era of days past, a niche moment in a niche corner of America in the late 1980s. Even if you were not, like myself, actually there, this record will still make you feel nostalgic for that period, and its one of those bestirring, evocative ones which conveys the kind of rich, darkened sentiments that begin when childhood ends, are strongest during our teen years, and gradually evaporate as we get older. Imbibe and appreciate it while it lasts, because it won't last forever.

Rating: 10/10

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Music for cold weather, day four

Where lies sorrow lies holy ground there
but where lies heartbreak, neither god, nor Jesus, nor angels dare.

-Me, just now, playing on Oscar Wilde

LN - Novel (2003)



















This band is called LN and this album is called Novel. Neither of these names divulge much information, and outside of the vague cover art which slightly resembles early Red House Painters or shoegaze, there is still a lot of ambiguity as to what lay inside if you were to come across it on a non-existent display shelf somewhere. So if I were to describe what it sounds like I'd say a mix of slowcore and shoegazy dream pop, however, the heart and soul of a work of art, are not so easy to describe in a few paragraphs or reduced to genres.

I should also mention that this is the most obscure record I've ever posted. There are no songs on youtube, no discographies anywhere, no other blogs writing about it, and naturally none of his music is available for purchase or download anywhere. If you don't believe me go ahead and look for yourself. Now, a big reason for this extreme level of obscurity for such a wonderful album is that LN doesn't really have an audience. Gary Murray is considered to be a Christian musician and his work as LN is under a Christian label. The Christian music community is more often than not a very insular and segregated one. I would also have to assume that his music has been ignored because the Christian community doesn't jive too well with themes of drug addiction and debauched fornication (“This motel room smells of sex and the angels/That danced on your tongue the minute you took the pills”) set to music that sounds like it was made on heroin, during the kind of depressive episode that stems, not because the person you've been dating for a month broke up with you, but when you've obsessively and secretly loved someone for years and years and you finally get the courage to tell them your feelings and you find out they're fucking some metal head, the kind that often ends with a neighbor finding your bloated body in a bloody bathtub.

Here is something Murray himself wrote about his music:

"Remember that house in the old neighborhood, the one that was slowly falling apart brick by brick? We swore the damn thing was breathing, that there was a face behind every window, torn nails and rust colored stains on every shutter, broken words and violent poetry etched into every burned-in shadow, that the walls were whispering to themselves. There was always a real stillness in the air, and we felt as if we were intruding on sacred ground; there were stories there, stories buried underneath the pale dirt in the backyard near the rusting swing set, stories burned into the wallpaper in sickly yellow stains, stories reflected in every single shard of glass left on the front porch. Of course, we never approached that house any closer than we had to, keeping our steps light and straying as far as the cracked sidewalk would allow. We never knew why; perhaps it was out of respect, or fear, or some vague, indefinable sense of something both quietly sad and unassumingly ominous.

We left the quiet streets and strangely discontented air of our childhood grounds, losing ourselves in the veins and arteries of this land’s secret anatomy. Some of us left for various cities, hiding amid the darkened archways and high-rise towers left rusting in the broken skyline with its buildings gone missing like teeth; some of us left for wide-open spaces, wandering alone on empty beaches and fallow fields. But the ghosts from that old house still came to visit us, instilling us with the same odd feelings of delicate unease as before, manifesting themselves as broken memories swooping down from every street light that went dark as we passed, or riding on the hoods of our cars as we careened wildly down interstate highways.

As we grew older, the ghosts began to fade away, until all that was left of their once ardent protestations (Against what? We never did suss that out) was a gentle, yet oddly discomfiting, sense of nostalgia. The once-constant feeling of fragile dread finally gave way to a small sense of loss, like we accidentally threw away something that was only really important in our youth. Some of us found loves, got married, settled into a life of quiet repetition and easy contentment; some of us found jobs in our own comfortable nooks, hidden away from the rest of the world behind glaring screens; some of us wandered ahead, looking for some vague framework that we could call home. And yet, every once in awhile, we would look outside office windows, peer through darkened doorways and into empty closets, looking for something that none of us could define, and we’d sigh when we realized that there was nothing there.

The nostalgia finally gave way to a hushed and inexpressible sadness, which could only be described as the feeling of someone tenderly but persistently pressing against your chest. We learned to live with that feeling, and soon we grew very fond of it, and none of us really knew what we’d do if it left us. It gave us strength; for some of us, it became a close and cherished companion.

No one really knew who heard the songs first; perhaps one of us heard the delicate guitar lingering in some smoke-filled club, perhaps another heard the warm and comforting baritone voice calling from across a busy street. I would like to believe that we all had a hand in crafting these songs, cobbling together our own memories of old homes sinking into disrepair, creeping into abandoned factories lying on the outskirts of once-bustling industrial cities, running freely through those golden fields that seemed to stretch on forever beyond the horizon, wetting our feet in still lakes on the ends of rotting docks; nevertheless, whether we heard the soft crackle of vinyl in the background, or the gentle wash of guitar, or those strangled notes that recalled an older rural America that we never knew, we recognized these songs as our own.

It was the soundtrack for that strange and beautiful childhood we tried to hard to forget, when every coincidence was fate and when our surroundings bordered on the magical. It was the music we heard whenever we passed that old vacant house, and we realized that the walls actually were singing to each other, repeating our stories before we ever really knew them to be ours. It was the sound of contradictions and paradoxes, of happiness and regret, of gain and loss. More importantly, we could finally define those strange feelings we felt, the ones that teetered between regret and sadness and inexplicable nostalgia. And at that moment, when we firsthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif heard these songs swirling through crackling speakers, when we heard them resonate against the walls of a room that was never really meant for music, we realized that we never really lost anything at all - we just weren’t looking in the right places."

Rating: 9.5/10

DOWNLOAD (file also features some very very hard to find bonus tracks from some of Murray's other albums)

Edit: there is one other review I've found for Novel and it can be found here. Far more in depth than my own, which relies largely on metaphor and imagery, so check it out if you're still not sold.

Music for cold weather, day three

David Thomas Broughton - The Complete Guide to Insufficiency (2005)




Folk is a very perennial genre, maybe the most perennial genre I can think of. Many people consider a good folk album to be one which sounds like it could have been written in the 60's because that decade was a very prominent era for the genre and there is a misconception for many that the style itself was birthed during those years. However, the 60's folk explosion was merely a revival, and this 'folk' was actually 'pop folk.' The term 'folk' has been around since the 19th century, and its styles have been around for much longer as well, well back into the 1600's. So in my opinion, a good folk album, is not one who is chameleonic of a half century ago, but precedes that, and sounds even more antiquated, which brings us to David Thomas Broughton....

If it weren't for various effects, and if recording technology had been invented a hundred years prior, The Complete Guide to Insufficiency sounds like it could have been written sometime in the 1850s. The civil war era mythos, the use of archaic language ("cacodaemonaical"), the deep, howling, haunting vocals, and the various structures of the songs themselves all create a very convincing sense of artifice, which brings to mind times of the distant past.

I know very little about musical composition, as my academic background was in visual art, however, I know enough to understand that the two ideologies occasionally overlap. Broughton puts to use various principles such as repetition, progression, and contrast to create a seamlessly fluid work. The songs begin with simple chords, sounding innocuous enough, and develop organically, with new layers introduced, clashing and making love with one another, sometimes chaotically into rich, thick harmonies. They begin to swell until each song feels so giant it just might POP, and then, by the time you're so drawn in and hypnotized, end abruptly and transition naturally into the next. These transitions are very central to the album as a whole, and it's perhaps one of the most continuous collection of songs you'll ever hear in a folk record, sounding more like one long track divided into five sections rather than five separate, individual pieces. By the end of the entire affair, you're in such a stupor, you really don't know time has passed (which, I might argue, is the very function of music itself), nor do you realize that you've just been listening to songs about death, self-loathing, and live sex shows because you were so mesmerized by the soulful dance of the chords and the entrancing beauty therein. Such are the soothing sounds of any good folk musician, and despite being lost amongst a sea of revivalists and band-wagoners, Broughton is unquestionably one of the best you will ever hear, old or new. Do listen for yourself.

Rating: 9.5/10

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Music for cold weather, day two

6. Smog - Wild Love (1995)



It's Christmas Eve, 1995, and you just had your heart really broken for the first time and you're snowed in with your entire family, all the lame cousins and insufferable second cousins you wouldn't talk to if it weren't for familial obligations and aunts and uncles who get obnoxiously jovial after having one too many cocktails, and you can't get that fucking night out of your head and you can't talk to any of them about it because they are so far fucking removed from reality that you want to puke, and talking to them would make you feel even more alone because they wouldn't understand, because they are the people you are supposed to feel closest to, but they feel like total strangers instead, ones you're forced to associate with every year around this time. You're drinking from a water bottle filled with siphoned Dewer's you stole from your grandparent's liquor closet when no one was looking (and maybe a couple muscle relaxers from the bathroom cabinet, if you're lucky), and now you're sitting outside listening to Smog on shitty headphones at 3AM on the back porch watching a cloudburst of snow trickle down in waves, reminding you of him/her because everything does, because that's how heartbreak is. You're wrapped in layers, coats, jackets, scarves, winter gloves, and chain-smoking, hoping no one comes out and discovers you. You're freezing your ass off, but it beats the alternative which is being warm and listening to that goddamn spinning carrousel on the mantle playing a MIDI loop of "Silent Night" because it would be too much to bear and you might just off yourself if you had to deal with that on top of everything else. Finally, the albums ends and you feel like you may have hypothermia, but you don't care because the numbness from the freezing air, the scotch, and the music makes you feel a strange sense of catharsis and you stumble inside into bed and as you drift off to sleep, you can't quite remember what his/her eyes look like, and you take comfort and solace in that, if only for those few minutes before you lose consciousness.

Rating: 9.5/10

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Music for cold weather, day one

7. Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You (2001)



There has been a lot of buzz recently about the reformation of a couple of late 90s / early 2000s 'punk' bands that I don't feel the need to mention here. When asked to guess who it was who had reformed, I replied with a question of my own: is it Unwound? And really, as far as I'm concerned, given the parameters of the genre, it's really the only band I would care to see reunite. Sadly, however, it wasn't Unwound, and they don't seem like the bunch who would likely get back together anyways. Wishful thinkers will think wishfully, however.

Leaves Turn Inside You (the kind of conveying title well-suited for this type of music) is the final studio release by Unwound, an epic double album of sober, somber, Sonic Youth-y guitar rock. It just sounds like teenage 'misery' feels, the kind of romantic misery where you wallow in it, the kind that almost feels good because it isn't real misery, the kind often existing parallel to the fatalism of youth. This album is angry, but not the kind of vapid anger often seen in metal or grunge, rather the anger that stems from love or loss of the love, or on the contrary a general lethargy towards life, which can spark emotion in itself. This big bad mother is a post-rock masterpiece and one of my favorite albums to listen to when I'm feeling 'under the weather.'

Rating: 9/10

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That soughing soughing sussurus of Stygian sentimentality:

Music for cold weather - a week-long feature of sorts

After the holidays, winter can be a pretty dismal time of the year (with the exception of Valentine's day, which for many is a more wretched day than any non-holiday). Outlooks on life can become bleaker than usual, routines blander, relationships more bitter, etc. Apparently January is the new October, however, and I did not get the memo, because I've been waiting patiently for the first cold front to hit north Texas for several months now and it has only finally arrived.

In those barren lifeless months of January through March, there is a certain intimacy between us and decay, decline, and death, the part of life's cycle we at once fear and are fascinated by. At the same time, maybe winter wasn't so magical as a child, maybe you were just transferring parental love into the environment around you so you reminisce accordingly. Or maybe all the flickering colored lights and huddling around hearths of fireplaces possibly, on some subconscious level, elicit memories of prenatal warmth of the womb, with the cold weather of nature representing the 'coldness' that exists outside the protection and comfort of your fleshy cave of nascence....which are also inextricably linked to sex and all forms of.....wait, what were we talking about again?

The point is that cold weather is evocative of many things and for whatever reason it has always reminded me of my 'jeunesse' and music that typically reminds me of cold weather also reminds me that time as well.

I'm going to post seven albums (one per day for the next week) that try and encapsulate this sensation. Melancholy will most likely be dealt in dense doses, because winter, more than any other season, is generally when most people feel down and out. Some of the stuff is raw and noisy, capturing the electricity in the air of the first cold days of fall, and teenage angst, while other albums will be sparse and solemn, more evocative of those later, barren months of winter when the numbing chill begins to affect our moods and the type of music that brings to mind earlier times of youth. There is also the whole sadness/beauty dichotomy but that's enough explaining for now. Onto the albums themselves, which hopefully will be explanation enough...

Vermin Supreme

Western world capitalism and American 'democracy' have been at a rubicon for some time now. In any situation which could be deemed absurd because of its inherent futility, the only logical response is to make humor of it. This man, aka Vermin Supreme, is doing just that: becoming an act in the travesty of American politics, and undermining it with an absurdist parody and various levels of irony/humor. Beyond that, his performance is nearly perfect. His outfit speaks for itself, and much like the politicians he is mocking, he is a good, relaxed speaker giving him the presence of an actual presidential candidate, which is the basis for any quality impersonation, exaggerated or otherwise. For all these reasons this video is an ore of comedy gold and the best youtube clip I've seen in some time. VOTE VERMIN SUPREME!

BSFBPG

I finally gave in and made a FB page. 'Like' if you feel inclined:

HERE

xo

Dominant Legs - Hoop of Love

Dominant Legs - Hoop of Love from Eugene Kotlyarenko on Vimeo.

and one more from director Eugene Kotlyarenko. Watch if you're feeling gloomy.

Glasser - Treasury of We (Delorean Remix) - UNOFFICIAL from Eugene Kotlyarenko on Vimeo.

Weird movies I've watched this week

Bad Biology was hysterical and absurd, 0's and 1's was an event to behold, and Maximum Shame was pretty dumb and reinforced my general dislike for drama majors.

David J - I'll Be Your Chauffeur

A few little things

As far as music is concerned, BS is based around a fairly singular aesthetic (undiscovered quality music from years past, with the occasional exception). If you're ever in the market to discover some newer tunes, my good friend Ryan Ellis runs a gracefully written blog of his own centered around undiscovered quality music of the present, Weekly Tape Deck. His 2011 year end list had some amazing things I hadn't even heard of before, so give it a check.

Also, I've been meaning to post some cold weather albums I've had sitting around for a few months now, but considering it's still 60 degrees here in North Texas, I'm gonna hold off until we at least get some sleet. In the meantime I have some more mixes coming later this month. If anyone has any requests, feel free to email me and I'll happily oblige.

-Matt

MIX - From Auschwitz to the Ritz

Genre: Post-punk-meets-pop-punk

01) Erstaz - Smile in Shadow
02) Strutz - We are so Fine
03) I'm so Hollow - Distraction
04) The Mudhutters - Page 41
05) Shiny Two Shiny - Through the Glass
06) Mariah - Shinzo no Tobira
07) Silicon Teens - T.V. Playtime
08) Tone Set - Living in Another Land
09) Groovies - Boys Ride Bikes Girls Want to Dance
10) The Freshies - Fasten Your Seatbelts
11) Honey Bane - Baby Love
12) Mark Beer - Pretty
13) The Digital Dinosaurs - Amy Turtle
14) The Cubs - A Dance to Forget
15) The Scrotum Poles - Pick the Cat's Eyes Out
16) Cleaners From Venus - I Can't Stop (Holding On)
17) R. Stevie Moore - Too Old (To Fall in Love)
18) Television Personalities - The Crying Room
19) Greg Vandike - Final Scene
20) Rexy - Perfect Day
21) Max Splodge - Bicycle Seat

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When we dead awaken

we find that we have never lived

YMO - Wild Ambitions

Pedro Almodóvar - The Skin I Live In (2011)

It's a shame I'm just now getting around to this, because it would have ended up in my top 5 of 2011 had I seen it sooner. By far, Almodovar's most bizarre and beautiful film yet. Whether or not he is a better writer or director remains unknown, the only thing certain is that he is excels at both. His latest features some of the finest cinematography I've seen all year alongside a wickedly genius plot that if I was feeling bold, would describe as 'Shakespearean' (maybe even more intricate and original than Talk to Her, which was previously my favorite story of his). Last but not least, 100% guaranteed to sexually confuse many straight men.

The Tyde Discography

Once, Twice, and Three's Co. (appropriate, unassuming titles for such a trifecta), are three of the finest modern pop albums you will ever hear (and will never hear on the radio). I stumbled across these gems last summer and I knew from the moment I heard the opening chords to "All my Bastard Children" that these guys would be all I was listening to for months to come, and I was right. Shimmery production, catchy riffs with Felty-sounding guitars, and sun-and-marijuana baked rhythms, blend together to create some old-fashioned good vibrations. Unmistakably Californian, this is the kind of music you want blasting full volume in your beat up convertible when taking a trip up or down highway 1 to go surfing in Malibu or Orange County with some good friends and a big bag of pot. A modern soundtrack for tan-lines, bleached blonde hair, the smell of surf wax, sandy toes, and heavy eyes, but also the exhaustion and interpersonal disruptions that arise from this kind of bohemian lifestyle, as seen in some of their slower, more sincere songs such as "Best Intentions," "Separate Cars," and "Breaking Up the Band." It's what you'd get if Lawrence, Comet Gain, and Mojave 3 collaborated at the end of a blurred, sun-washed summer in Southern California. I'm totally posting this band at the wrong time of year, but as they say, summer's always just around the corner.

Apparently, Darren and co. are in the process of writing the fourth Tyde album, and there's no doubt that it will be one of my favorite albums of 2012. Be on the lookout for it later this year.

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Jens Lekman at Skybar, Mondrian Sessions