Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Ian Curtis contemplates suicide at traffic court:
Ian Curtis contemplates suicide in the hotel hot tub:
Ian Curtis contemplates suicide in Burger King:
Labels: ian curtis, pictures, reviews
Monday, October 8, 2007
I have a very grumpy review of the new Go! Team
at Flagpole. There's also
one of The Ladybug Transistor from a few weeks back. The latter asks some thinky-thinky questions regular readers might be interested in.
But to say something is cliché doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad. You can put on an old disco album today and hear all its overdone elements as glorious and electrifying, either because time allows us to appreciate the sound outside of its historical context or because it was really good all along. Could this happen with our modern indie music? Could, one day, its corduroy comfortability and its affectless pathology sound vital and important? Is the preponderance of its clichés evidence not of laziness but of quality replicating itself organically?
Labels: flagpole, go team, ladybug transistor, reviews
Thursday, April 26, 2007
-
Post will be up shortly--it'll be the EMP paper, but I'm working on some additions that may end up being longer than the paper itself, whoops. Stay tuned. Paper is now up, sans italicizing
and most music files, which will have to come later.
-
Please see the note at the beginning of the paper--can anyone covert Quicktime files so my 1-minute clip isn't 200+meg? Lemme know and I can give you an FTP login or something, it'd be a huge help. Thanks
Eric!
- I have some review
in Flagpole this week:
The Rosebuds, and an Athens band who I love to death called
Telenovela. Here's
their MySpace if you want to check out the toonz; three of their best songs are there.
- I also had
a review of LCD Soundsystem a couple weeks back that I think I missed, talking about the album in terms of sequencing, as well as
a review of Adult.
- And yet more reviews in the new issue of
Under the Radar, though I don't entirely remember of what. Cornelius and the Danielson DVD for sure; also Bang Gang and...uh...well, I can't remember. Anyway, they're not online.
- Great, broad post about EMP at
Dial M for Musicology:
So what looks like soulless professionalism to people outside of academia
is really just a way of keeping things interesting. Still, things have gotten to
the point where aesthetic advocacy (i.e., saying something is awesome) is
considered not only unprofessional but wrong. Saying Wagner is awesome -- or,
for instance, pointing to the opening contrabassoon E-flat of Das Rheingold and
discussing how all the exfoliating little figures that grow out of that one note
create a musical image for creation itself and then saying now that's awesome --
seems politically regressive. I've written about this
suspicion of aesthetic pleasure before. But what struck me about the EMP pop
conference was how most of its participants seemed to be pretty comfortable
geeking out on their topics, and that the fanboy tone that crept into the
sessions didn't make them any less intellectually stimulating.
"Suspicion of aesthetic pleasure"? Uh oh.
Labels: academia, emp, flagpole, musicology, notes, reviews, utr
Thursday, March 15, 2007
- There's an excellent article by Chris Hassiotis about the new Of Montreal album
in Flagpole this week. You should read it, if only to find out the name of Kevin Barnes' child, because that name should win some sort of cuteness award.
- Also, I have
three reviews in Flagpole this week:
Lily Allen,
Bloc Party, and
The Broken West. (You can probably ignore the last one, but the other two are worth a look.) I was totally wrong on Lily Allen last year, it's actually fantastic.
-
Todd has been nice enough to set up a LiveJournal syndication for this here site. You can find it at
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/clapclap_org/profile.
- I did a final, stealth post
at the old place that's relevant to this week's post. It's about the law in the context of DJ Drama.
Labels: bloc party, lily allen, livejournal, notes, of montreal, reviews, shitty indie, syndication
Thursday, February 22, 2007
- Due to some, ah, internal problems at the clapclap household, the above has not been edited as well as it should, so if you're one of the early birds, you're likely to see a different version later tomorrow. I'm sure there are any number of errors both factual and grammatical in there right now, but they'll be gone soon enough. If this bothers you, click your heels together three times and say, "It's only a blog..."
- Today's post was partially a reaction to a review of
The Sarah Silverman Program by Tad Friend, in
The New Yorker. You can
read it here. As a whole, it's good, but some of the the things he says along the way are absolutely baffling. For instance, he writes:
Sarah’s crowd punishes sexual indeterminacy: when she suddenly decides that she’s a lesbian, everyone scoffs. 'As a lesbian, I resent your laughter,' Sarah says. 'And all laughter.' Is the joke about identity politics? Lesbians? Or is it on us: So you think lesbians are humorless? At times, you wonder whether you’re laughing with Silverman or at her, and then you realize that she’s laughing at you.
The last point is good, but as for what comes before: dude,
it's a joke about lesbians. Trust me on this, I went to Oberlin. I've heard that joke before.
- I have
two reviews in Flagpole this week, of local Athens bands King of Prussia and The 63 Crayons. The latter will hopefully be interesting even if you haven't heard the band, but the former is actually about music, and it's very positive. I reference the New Pornographers, and that's quite intentional; it's baffling to me why bands are imitating other indie bands but not that one. Well, King of Prussia, intentionally or not, sound like the New Pornographers, and I couldn't be happier about it. Their CD, only seven songs ong, is absolutely wonderful, and I really hope they get some wider attention.
Here is their Myspace page, where you can hear two of their best songs: "Terrarium" and "Misadventures of the Campaign Kids." If you like the New Pornographers, or good guitar-pop in general, you should really check them out. (Ha, and I see they have now changed their motto. Thanks guys!)
Labels: critics, flagpole, king of prussia, notes, reviews, The New Yorker
