A Tribute to Musicians Who Are A Little Different (a.k.a., crazy!!)
Frank Zappa (The King of Weird)
By the end of the 1950s, music began to change. There was this wave of new artists, who by no means, were like Pat Boone, Teresa Brewer or The Platters. These new musicians were different, eccentric and plain weird. Chuck Berry and Elvis may have introduced rock and roll, but it was The Coasters, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Louis who introduced FREAKY, CRAZY rock. Freaky, crazy rock is obviously a term I’ve just made up, however, it perfectly differentiates the difference between Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis’s music. For instance, Elvis sang very melodic and harmonic songs, while Jerry Lee Lewis always improvised the rhythm of his songs, which in the latter sounded different compared to other artists and musicians at that time.
By the 1960’s, there was a bigger wave of crazy, freaky artists, who not only performed in a freaky style, but produced and created music that was so weird people literally thought that these artists came from another planet.
By the 1970s, freakiness and weirdness became quite popular in the music industry. However their freakiness was not accepted by all, especially adults.
Soon, freaky musicians were accepted by all in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today (2000s).
For my last blog, I am paying tribute to musicians who are a little “coo-coo ka choo.”
MGMT, “Kids.”
I’m not sure about this band. Apparently, their rise of fame is a big joke, because they have stated that they did not have any intentions of becoming famous or mainstream. From what I’ve read about this band, it sounds like they’re just a gimmick and that marketers from their record label are just capitalizing on their freaky and weird antics. If you notice in the video that I’m posting, the band is not playing their instruments, and it almost seems like the singers are lip synching to their song. Despite the fact that this band may not even be a real band, the members in the band are weird, and so is their music.
Beck, “New Pollution.”
Beck has always been known to be a little eccentric. Despite his freakiness, I enjoy his freaky tunes.
Bjork, “Human Behaviour.”
Bjork, everyone knows she’s weird. That’s all I have to say.
Devo, “Joko Homo.”
There are no words to describe Devo’s weirdness. The only suggestion that I’ll make is watch the video.
Barnes and Barnes, “Fish Heads.”
Barnes and Barnes is a band that creates novelty rock. Meaning, its not suppose to be taken seriously. Most of their songs are annoying and lame, but their song “Fish Heads” is truly a cult classic that will always stay dear to my freaky heart.
Bonde do Role, “Office Boy.”
This Brazilian band is well known for their freakiness. The leader singer for Bonde do Role is notorious for dressing up in the oddest costumes when she is performing live. For instance, I saw a picture of her dressed up as a crab while performing at some music festival. Anyway, Bonde do Role’s video “Office Boy” really shows how freaky this band is.
Well, Happy Holidays Everyone! I’ll leave you with a Jingle Cats video, enjoy!
Finally a Top 5: Stage Tricks!
I thought for my last post on this blog i would finally cave in and do a top 5 list! Keep in mind these are only the top 5 stage tricks that I have seen, I’m sure there might be better ones out there, but it’s my time to shine!
1. The Flaming Lips – Now I know that The Flaming Lips aren’t a specific stage trick, but let me be the first to tell you, their entire show is! Aside from being one of my favorite bands, they’ll put on a show you’ll never forget. They start out with lead singer Wayne Coyne (shown above) rolling out onto the crowd in a giant human hamster ball! After which random handpicked people from the audience come out in ridiculous Teletubby, sexy aliens, or Santa costumes and dance for the whole show! Meanwhile giant confetti cannons are exploding showering the crowd in ticker tape, Wayne also has some smaller confetti guns that he shoots off at random intervals. Finally, they will blow up hundreds of giant balloons that bounce up and down all night! Pretty much the most amazing spectacle I’ve ever seen at a concert!
2. Static Silhouette – When I saw the Nine Inch Nails at Pemberton Music Festival, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I definitely wasn’t expecting the greatest light show I’d ever feasted my eyes on. The coolest part of all was that they had a light curtain hanging in front of the band as well as a giant screen behind, so at one part the whole stage turned into the static that you would get on a T.V. You couldn’t see anything behind until, all of a sudden a hole appeared in the static, and there was Trent Reznor. The hole in the static followed him like a spotlight for the whole song, very cool!
3. The Cone of Silence – Anyone who used to watch the show Get Smart or has seen the new movie, knows about the cone of silence. Well I once saw a band called The Ultimate Power Duo (strange name considering it was a three piece) that had their own version of the COS. They started the song by playing a loud punk riff and screaming “The cone of silence isn’t working!” But then, all in one synchronized motion they kept freaking out and pretending they were playing, but turned off their instruments and stopped hitting the drums. So the cone of silence was back on! They continued to alternate having the cone on and off for the rest off the song, very original!
4. The Silent Solo – One of my favorite bands in the whole world are The Perpetrators from Winnipeg, Manitoba. These guys never fail to put on an amazing show! In fact, one time when i went to see them, me and some friends were sitting in the front row shouting out requests all night. Being an underground band, they were shocked and excited that we knew their stuff! So as a reward, when lead singer and guitarist Jay Nowicki got to the solo in the next song, he shouted out, “this one’s just for these guys!” So he walked out towards our table and the band got quieter and quieter until his guitar was completely off! He shredded silently on his guitar for a few minutes and only we got to hear the awesome solo! Yet you could hear a pin drop in the crowd!
5. Make me faint! – Robert Plant opening up with Black Dog while the lights are off = I almost pass out with pure joy! Only time that’s ever happened to me, best show ever, you’re my hero Robert!
That’s it for my list! Hope you’ve all seen as many cool things as I have, or even better ones! You never know when something crazy will happen at a show, so never stop going and supporting live music!
what do you do with 1,000 wrekkids?
Readers, this is my last post on Playing Spoons. Thanks to this damn blog, I’ve been neglecting my primary blog dedicated to Girl O’clock (my radio show on CKXU 88.3 FM). I use that blog to keep track of my playlists each week, talk about radio, music, etc etc etc. I’m glad that I’ll be able to put my blogging energy back there, but doing this was fun, and I think maybe I can come up with more interesting things to say after this Playing Spoons exercise. I’m gonna save my official goodbyes till the end of the post though. Now, for the topic on the table:
I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve received a buttload of used records as a generous gift from someone in the middle of moving. I’m not sure if I actuall have a THOUSAND, because I’m bad at turning visual information into some kind of number (it could very well be five hundred, or maybe two thousand, I have no clue even though I’m looking at all of them right now). All I know is they’re taking up a lot of space (something that I didn’t have an abundance of to begin with), so their presence is starting to fill me with anxiety (and my lungs with dust). So I have to do something with them.
Someone suggested I make tacky record bowls, which is completely stupid because I don’t have any banquets/receptions that require a mass amount of throw-away centrepieces, and because not only will I not have a place to put them but they will be even harder to get rid of (nobody wants record bowls–if they did they would make one).
Also, I have kind of been daydreaming about some wrekkid sculptures I could make. I’ve been daydreaming about these ever since CKXU found themselves in a similar position as myself; we inherited a bunch of purged records from other radio stations, which were top 40 and useless to us, and since we had no storage space we briefly considered donating them to the art department (until we realized we could just sell them and make money, duh).
HOWEVER, I’ve decided to embark upon a project much more ambitious and yet much more simple (and much more obvious). I’m going to listen to them all. I’m going to decide which ones are worth keeping, which ones are worth giving to friends, and which ones are worth selling to Blueprint. Now that the semester is coming to an end, I will have more time to invest in this. What I need is a list of criteria; what will make a wrekkid worth keeping?
no.1 – Is there at least one song that is Girl O’clock material? I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but my new years resolution of 2008 was to adhere to all-vinyl Girl O’clock nights once a month. Since then, the first Saturday of each month has seen me in the on-air booth at CKXU with stax of wax. The resolution has made DJing my show fun again, and even though CKXU has a pretty rad vinyl library I quickly realized that these nights would be a lot easier if I had a more extensive personal collection. The more stuff I can play, the better, and I’m sure I can find some gems in this collection, but I’m also pretty positive that as open as this criteria is, it will eliminate at least 75% of these records.
no.2 – Do I get more than an ironic pleasure from it? Because, like, I’m sure the Platinum Blonde records are gonna be a riot (judging the book by its cover), although I don’t actually know any of their songs from the top of my head. But I don’t intend to keep anything for the Enid Coleslaw logic of “it’s so bad it’s good”. I might keep some things that look like a joke, but I intend to stand behind my selections (i.e. I’m still really hoping to find some Hall & Oates, and I would even be excited to find some Kool & the Gang if it had “Jungle Boogie” on it).
Um, so I’m too tired and I’m expecting to pull an all-nighter for all this end-of-semester homework I have to plow through, so I can’t think of any more criteria. If you have any suggestions/criticisms, comment and let me know! I just want to let you readers know that I will be detailing some of my progress on the Girl O’blog. This ain’t over.
Readers, thanx for, like, reading, and commenting, and stuff. Even though some of you jerks only commented via twitter (what’s up with that?). It’s been a delight.
My New Obsession
Ida Maria Børli Sivertsen, (born July 1984) is a Norweigan rock musician known primarily by the stage name Ida Maria.
And she is awesome! Her lyrics are pretty simple, but the way she perfoms them totally makes up for their simplicity!
She won two talent contests sort of like American idol in Norway, and she has this rare the neurological phenomenon of synestheisa which, in her case, means she sees colours when she hears music. Her video I like you so much better when youre naked illustrates this conditon..check it out!
and my favourite…Oh my God
i think just by watching this videos you’ll get hooked too! She’s gonna be famous!
Joy Division and New Order = Classic
Man! So this is apparently my second last blog for playingspoons, and so far, I’m kind of relieved. I’m not much of a music fanatic, which is kind of evident in my blog posts. For instance, who listens to The Cure anymore, rather than dorks like me? As I was saying, I don’t really follow up on the latest bands, or artists. I tend to listen to music that was recorded 20 to 40 years ago. The reason to why I listen to music that was recorded and released before my time is due to the fact that the music of my generation is GARBAGE! Seriously, on the iTunes website, the top bands and artists that are frequently downloaded are Britney Spears, Nickelback and the Jonas Brothers. What the heck people, are you deaf? I can understand that music like Britney Spears and Lady GaGa are great to dance to on the dance floor, but I don’t think I could listen to either one on my own time. I think my ears might explode.
Therefore, on this blog I will talk about two old bands that I have been listening to a lot lately. Just to let you know or if you care, I tend to go in a cycle, where I tend to obsess on a band for a bit, and then once that cycle ends, I tend to obsess on another band. I guess, you can say “that’s how I roll.” Currently, I’ve been obsessing over new wave bands like The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division and New Order. For this blog, I’ll briefly talk about the music of Joy Division and New Order.
Joy Division & New Order
Starting from the left is Stephen Morris, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, and Peter Hook.
The band Joy Division formed in the mid 70’s. The line up the band had Benard Sumner as the lead guitarist, Peter Hook as the bass player, Stephen Morris as the drummer, and Ian Curtis as the lead singer. Before choosing the name Joy Division, the band was called Warsaw. The reason why the band changed their name was because it didn’t have enough pizzaz. So, Benard Sumner decided to change the band’s name to Joy Division, which was a name Nazi’s used for brothels. The band has been affiliated with the post-punk movement of the late 70’s. Their music style has often been labeled as goth, or new wave.
Joy Division has only released two albums, which are Unknown Pleasures and Closer, both albums were critically acclaimed and extremely influential. The reason to why the band has only released two albums was due to the lead singer Ian Curtis committing suicide. Apparently, the lead singer was suffering from bi-polar, a mental illness that was not well known at the time. The song that Joy Division is well known for is Love Will Tear Us Apart. This song is very commercial and upbeat compared to their other recordings, which are extremely somber and melancholic.
After Ian Curtis’s death, the remaining members of Joy Division reformed and became New Order. Rather than looking for a new lead singer for New Order, Bernard Sumner (Joy Division’s guitarist) decided take the role as the lead singer for the band. Throughout the 80’s, New Order became immensely successful with hits like Blue Monday, and Bizarre Love Triangle. Contrast to Joy Division, the music of New Order is very up beat, and full of rhythm.
Today, both the music of Joy Division and New Order are extremely influential. For instance, bands like Arcade Fire, Interpol (who suck now), Radiohead, The Killers (who have always sucked), and The Sharp Ends (ha!, take that and smoke it) are obviously influenced by Joy Division and New Order, because their music calls to mind to these two bands.
I’ll leave you with a Joy Division tune, and a New Order tune. Enjoy!
Joy Division, Disorder
New Order, Age of Consent
Guitar Hero & Rock Band
I know that we’ve all been to some party, or a buddy’s house and found ourselves beating on some pretend drums, or playing an epic guitar solo by clicking a few buttons. Sure, it’s all in good fun, but just to make one thing clear: this is not music!
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had fun playing these games. I even found myself getting addicted to improving my technique and getting through the ever difficult expert mode. But then I started thinking to myself: wait, don’t I have a real guitar? and shouldn’t I be learning how to improve at playing that instead of a tiny plastic controller? The answer is emphatically, yes!
As fun as guitar hero and rock band are, they are not real music! There are no creative aspects to the game, you can’t even put your own spin on the cover songs that the games provide. Yet more and more people are starting to be convinced of the ability of these games to create rock stars.
Nowadays, there are actually concerts for people to show off their guitar hero skills. 22 year old Freddie Wong mentioned in the article linked above, actually goes on tour getting paid to play guitar hero at different venues across North America. The video below is of Wong playing the song YYZ by Rush, on Expert mode. It has more than 6 million views on Youtube to this day. I mean, Really?
If you look carefully, you can see him playing the buttons overhand, playing the guitar behind his head, and my personal favourite, finger-tapping the buttons with his strumming hand. The grand finale consists of him smashing the guitar controller in true rock star fashion.
Not that this display isn’t impressive, but in the amount of time he’s spent playing this game and learning his ridiculous techniques, he could really be a good musician.
Maybe good music wouldn’t be so hard to find these days if people put down the controller and picked up a real instrument. I have a dream…
Breaking the fourth wall of blogging
Readers, I’m going to be honest with you, I am fully aware that I do not have what it takes to become any kind of music journalist. I’m terrible at talking about music, I have a tendency to develop emotional attachments to songs, albums, artists, whatever, and I lose my ability to discuss them objectively. As a rule, I avoid doing reviews unless one is assigned to me. I want a listener to make up their minds for themselves. I will also admit that because of this, I often find it hard to think of things to blog about (I shoulda joined the food group). This is why I usually blog about things like why I don’t like CBC Radio 3, the climate of our live music scene, or amateur record collecting. That way I can make snide remarks about Jay Reatard’s fake English accent without feeling like I have to actually discuss Jay Reatard’s fake English accent (which, in all honesty, would be a pretty boring discussion).
A friend of mine just asked me to make him a top ten list of my favourite bands so he can use it to discover new music or whatever. So I made a completely self-serving mix, and now I’m blogging about it because I have run out things to blog about. Readers, I hope you realize that now I’m forcing myself out of my comfort zone, and that you take it with sick, twisted pleasure.
Click here to listen to the mix.
The B-52s | Dance This Mess Around
The Smiths | London
Thee Oh Sees | Kingsmeat
France Gall | Laisse Tomber Les Filles
Jacques Dutronc | J’ai Tout Lu, Tout Vu, Tout Bu
The Velvet Underground | What Goes On
Yo La Tengo | Stockholm Syndrome
Kris Ellestad | We’re Not Dirty
The Inbreds | Derailleur
Eric’s Trip | Secret for Julie
Now, dear friend that I am pretending I made this mix for, allow me to explain my selections in one messy paragraph. I have complete un-ironic love for The B-52’s, and “Dance This Mess Around” is a perfect example of what’s good about them. I want every person who has only heard “Love Shack” or “Rock Lobster” to listen to this and to fall in love. The Smiths are another of my favourite bands, and I don’t feel like I have to explain why since a love for The Smiths seems to be fairly ubiquitous. I included Thee Oh Sees because they’re a band that I find myself coming back to a lot, it’s perfect music for the portable media player, their latest album, The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night in (which does NOT sound like the B-52s, Pitchfork Media) has been my most frequent pick for music to listen to while riding the bus. The song I chose is from The Peanut Butter Oven EP, and it’s not their best song but I find it especially compelling. I picked France Gall and Jacques Dutronc for some good ol’ 1960s French pop and rock et roll that I like to listen to and brush up on my Parisian accent. Love for The Velvet Underground needs as much explaining as The Smiths. Yo La Tengo is my favourite, I consider them to be “perfect” despite some of their flaws (like half of I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass). Kris Ellestad is a beautiful man who is capable of beautiful sounds/music. If you get a chance to see him live (typically at a five dollar-cover gig in Calgary), go! He’s on hiatus for now, but hopefully that won’t last long. My mom especially likes “We’re Not Dirty” from the album Third Person. Out of the whole Murderecords scene (like Sloan, Thrush Hermit, etc) my favourite of them all is The Inbreds, which may be related to my particular fondness of two-piece bands. I expressly consider “Derailleur” from their album Hilario to be the greatest love song ever written (which may be a good example of why I’m not a music journalist), and it has become a Girl O’clock classic. Finally, I like Eric’s Trip okay, but really I put that song on the mix because there weren’t any good Elevator songs, however “Secret for Julie” is one of my favourites from a pretty important album in CanCon history, Love Tara. Elevator, Elevator To Hell, Elevator Through, that’s the real good stuff and I consider them as “perfect” as I consider Yo La Tengo. These guys (in addition to The Inbreds and the rest of the Murderecords crowd) are the reason I feel like I was born ten years too late.
Thee End.
Hero of War and Ready To Fall – Rise Against
Rise Against’s fifth album On July 14, 2008, it was reported on Punknews.org that the album would be called Appeal to Reason. The album gets its name from the Leftist/Socialist Party of America newspaper from 1897.
I think Rise Against is a pretty cool band, although I seriously cannot stand the song “Swing Life Away,” and I have always been sort of critical of them. But I really like their new song “Hero of War” and I don’t feel like I even need to explain it. I started to explain what I was thinking and it would have pissed people off and I didn’t feel like having to justify it. so I am just going to let people look at the lyrics and think for themselves
He said “Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
Just carry this gun and you’ll even get paid.”
I said “That sounds pretty good.”
Black leather boots
Spit-shined so bright
They cut off my hair but it looked alright
We marched and we sang
We all became friends
As we learned how to fight
A hero of war
Yeah that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
Because it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust
I kicked in the door
I yelled my commands
The children, they cried
But I got my man
We took him away
A bag over his face
From his family and his friends
They took off his clothes
They pissed in his hands
I told them to stop
But then I joined in
We beat him with guns
And batons not just once
But again and again
A hero of war
Yeah that’s what I’ll be
And when I come home
They’ll be damn proud of me
I’ll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
Because it’s a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust
She walked through bullets and haze
I asked her to stop
I begged her to stay
But she pressed on
So I lifted my gun
And I fired away
The shells jumped through the smoke
And into the sand
That the blood now had soaked
She collapsed with a flag in her hand
A flag white as snow
A hero of war
Is that what they see
Just medals and scars
So damn proud of me
And I brought home that flag
Now it gathers dust
But it’s a flag that I love
It’s the only flag I trust
And lastly I figured I would have my last post with something very very important to me, Animal Rights. And Rise Against is the perfect band to highlight this passion of mine. All of the group’s members are strict vegetarians.Their video for the single “Ready to Fall” addresses environmental degradation and its effect on animals, as well as animal cruelty inherent in factory farming and sport hunting. The group has called the video the most important video Rise Against has ever made. The Director’s Cut of the video was first made available to a PETA website. Please Watch it!!!!
“every action is a reaction we have one planet and one chance” Tim McIlrath
Being an Outsider Insider
Going to live shows is a funny thing, it gets you close to other people who undoubtedly have some of the same tastes as you, while simultaneously showing you how little you have in common with them other than the music you like. In fact, you often learn that they aren’t even as good as you are at liking the same music. At least, that’s what I thought for years, because that was how I was often treated when I went to shows in Calgary, especially at the all ages venues.
As someone who went to private school (with a uniform thank you very much), I didn’t have a lot of exposure to the local music scene while I was actually in school, so I didn’t really start going to a lot of local shows until I had already graduated and moved onto University. This put me at a disadvantage to begin with, since all ages shows cater to the demographic of kids who are cool enough to have their parents buy all of their totally punk rock clothes.
On the subject of clothes; I’ve never thought that the music you like should have anything to do with how you dress. Yes, I used to love Hot Hot Heat. No, I didn’t feel obligated to rock an ironic indie moustache, or try to emulate anyone from the band. I was there for the music (and the girls).
Still, i was willing to be an outsider when i went to shows, especially small punkshows, because I didn’t have a vested interest in what anyone thought. That all changed when me and my ex-girlfriend started promoting shows, mostly of metal bands, at the Distillery. That’s when it started getting back to me that because I dressed like a normal guy, I couldn’t be a very good promoter.
Now, I certainly don’t think that I’m in any position to solve the problem, especially since I’ve been known to be just as guilty of it as anyone else. Even now, being one of the oldest people at almost any all-ages show I attend, I judge others who are there, but for the exact reason that I typically get looked at strangely; if people are too busy worrying about looking like they fit in, are they really enjoying the music?
So next time your’e at a show, whether you’re like me, or one of the people who stereotypically fits in with the crowd, just remember the reason you are actually there: the music. And most of all, remember that anyone else who is there is there for the same reason; you have more in common than you think.
