Year One That Coulda Been.

-  Art and Superheroines: When Over-sexualization Kills The Story.

“What does this image actually tell you about the story at hand? The art is undeniably suggestive, with Wonder Woman’s breasts front and center, Vixen in a position that could be most charitably described as “aggressive doggy style,” and Black Canary’s breasts and butt on display simultaneously. Oh, and in the background to the left is a bisected robot, and nearly hidden off to the right are four more members of the JLA, three-fourths of which are male. But the focus of the page, the first thing your eyes go to when turning the page, are Wonder Woman’s breasts.“

-  Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Batman: Year One’ Starring Clint Eastwood.

“Bruce’s first act as a vigilante is to confront a dirty cop named Campbell as he accosts ‘Mistress Selina’ in the cathouse, but Campbell ends up dead and Bruce narrowly escapes being blamed. Realising that he needs to operate with more methodology, he initially dons a cape and hockey mask — deliberately suggestive of the costume of Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th films. However, Bruce soon evolves a more stylised ‘costume’ with both form and function, acquires a variety of makeshift gadgets and weapons, and re-configures a black Lincoln Continental into a makeshift ‘Bat-mobile’ — complete with blacked-out windows, night vision driving goggles, armoured bumpers and a super-charged school bus engine. In his new guise as ‘The Bat-Man’, Bruce Wayne wages war on criminals from street level to the highest echelons, working his way up the food chain to Police Commissioner Loeb and Mayor Noone, even as the executors of the Wayne estate search for their missing heir. In the end, Bruce accepts his dual destiny as heir to the Wayne fortune and the city’s saviour, and Gordon comes to accept that, while he may not agree with The Bat-Man’s methods, he cannot argue with his results.”

-  Byron Eggenschiler, without a doubt the ARTIST OF THE DAY:

-  This is real?

-Sonny

Channel 53 Introductions.

-  Two new bands I’ve discovered via the power of satellite radio (XM/Sirius’ ‘Chill’):

Brothomstates-  This guy is unreal.  He’s a Finnish composer and programmer.  Doing a little research on him, it seems most of the praise lobbed his way is aimed squarely at his melodies.  Which are catchy and unpredictable, but I think he really excels at making beats.  His beats are very technical, tricky little things, still head-nodders though.  Very very inspiring stuff.  Apparently the last album he made though was in 2006.  So I don’t know if he’s started a career, does more commission work for things like commercials, or what.  Head over to his official page, you’ll be as perplexed as I am.  Still though, if you can find this shit on the Net anywhere, I’d recommend it.

Grimes - Little more uptempo than I’m used to, and maybe more uptempo than the average “Chill” listener is used to, but the female vocals really pop.  This stuff is kinda like Cults but more dreamy and the music is more outright Electronic.  Okay apparently this is this project of the singer, and the singer alone: a Vancouver born musician named Claire Boucher.  The story of her and her then boyfriend renting out a house boat from Minneapolis to sail down the Mississippi to New Orleans is batshit crazy enough to like her.  Relatively new, her debut came out in 2010.  Her newest album, “Visions”, just recently released and is on the top of my list for electonic albums of these first couple months of 2012.

Gotan Project - This group is French, based outta Paris.  It consists of three major members, all of whom came from a variety of other projects.  This stuff is the most trip-hop of everything I’ve posted here.  There are vocals, but it’s essentially talking/story-telling.  You can really hear the French influence: the accordions, the notation and scales used, even the subtle production style.  I haven’t heard a ton of French music, but from what I have there seems to be this thing going on where they let things play out quite a bit, no over-producing.  This band particularly does that; it almost kinda reminds me of a Jazz LP, where the producer is trying to hit that sweet spot of a live, carefree sound with an organized batch of songs we call an album.

Washed Out - Layers upon layers of ambient synths and waves of sound, this Georgian musician (Ernest Greene) almost sounds European, both his production style and voice.  He’s relatively new, with only one official studio album under his belt, the 2011 SubPop release “Within and Without”.  Not sure how everyone slept on that, including me; I don’t ever remember seeing anything about it last year.  Interesting going from Gotan Project to this, the levels of monkeying with the sounds are on opposite sides of the spectrum.  Not that it’s over-produced, that’s not what I’m saying… but it certainly is more Phil Spector wall-of-sound than a lot of other Electronica going on today.  Definitely worth looking into.

(There’s soooo much good music out there worth checking out.  You’ve just got to put the time in nowadays.  It isn’t brought to your front doorstep anymore the way it once was.)

-  I also came across a “Chill” mix on the net by a guy who calls himself Hard Mix.  This is his Tumblr.  He’s a musician and designer.  He did a chronological order chart of the events in “Pulp Fiction” that’s downright brilliant:

Here’s the mix he made for Sirius/XM.

-Sonny

Old Model Composites.

-  Holyshit holyshit holyshit… El-P posted the first finished copy of “Cancer For Cure” tonight:

-  A new Tumblr by some guy depicts literary characters via a computer based Police composite sketch machine.  Except instead of using witness testimony, he’s using descriptions lifted straight from classic novels.  My favorite so far is the celestial and creepy “The Judge” from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian:

Yep, creepy as hell.

-  Warren Ellis recently thought aloud via social networking on the idea of Podcasting/making DJ mixes and including artists’ work without asking them.  I don’t think it’s a big deal, and I’m a musician.  Obviously if you’re making money off it, then that is a whole ‘nother can of worms.  But if one makes mixes, posts them to a blog or website with no advertising what’s so ever, I really don’t see the harm.  And yes, I am even of the opinion that this applies to podcasts which are downloadable (again, as long as the podcaster isn’t making money off it).  It’s called marketing.  In the 21st century — now well into decade 2 — marketing and publicity have morphed so much, I’m not sure if a marketing executive from 1995 would recognize them.  To apply the Old Models to the New World is foolish and naive.  Artists of all kinds, but especially musicians, need to get examples of what they do out to the buying public through as many alleyways possible.  Hell, even corporate backed artists use Twitter and Facebook.

This reminds me of a situation I ran into about a year ago.  2010 was wrapping up and I was scraping together a batch of my favorite music of the year.  I thought it might be cool to do songs as well, since I never really do.  So I made a DJ mix — where I tied the songs together as seamlessly as I could — ripping through 10 of my favorite songs that came out in 2010.  It was all one track, about half an hour long, available for download on my Soundcloud.  It was up for a while (maybe 4 or 5 months?), then all of a sudden it disappeared; the same day I got an e-mail from Soundcloud.  The e-mail talked about how one of the bands I included in the mix saw it and asked Soundcloud to remove it (I think threatening legal action?) immediately.  Ironically enough, the band in question turned out to be probably the second least famous band of the bunch.  I won’t say who they are, but they’re local and probably have to work day jobs on the side.  The way I see it, I put some amount of money in their pocket: there’s no way at least one single person didn’t buy one of their CDs, attend one of their shows, or tell a friend about them at the very least as a result of listening to or downloading the mix.  As I said, the Old Model is trivial at this point.  Adapt or face natural selection.

-Sonny

Five-Hundred Collabs.

-  At least 50 people are dead in the latest batch of violence in Iraq.  The attacks targeted mostly Shia neighborhoods, particularly police in those towns and cities.  Dictators suck ass.  But the lesson might be: democracy and freedom are not as important as tolerance and liberty (in this case, as they pertain to religion).

-  I’m watching the Simpsons’ 500th episode right now.  It’s pretty awesome so far.  One of the better episodes I’ve seen in some time.  I like the exchange between Lisa and Homer that goes:

Homer: Jeez, Lisa… why don’t you pick up a book once and a while?

Lisa:  I pickup books like you pickup beers!

Homer:  Then you’ve got a serious reading problem.

The opening couch gag was great, a summation of all their couch gags.  I wish Fox allowed that kinda thing on YouTube, I’d post it.  And here’s all of Bart’s blackboard writings.

-  That new Gorillaz song with Andre-3000 and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem is just okay.  It’s the only way a Gorillaz track could possibly sound with the likes of those two collaborators, and on an LP it would probably have it’s place and serve the album well.  In this case, though, as a stand alone track, it’s just alright.  [Not really digging the Gorillaz Chuck Taylor's either; for which the track is a promotional tool.]  However, I did only recently get into “The Fall” (for whatever reason) which is wonderful.  I can’t believe it was recorded exclusively by Damon during touring.  That’s using your tools (in this case his iPad) to the best of your abilities.

-  WHAT THE FUCK?!?  I just got done talking about how awesome this Simpsons episode has been and what do those bastards do??  They put this at the end of the show (and, it’s super quick so it’s hard to read):

THANKS FOR 500 SHOWS.

[smaller print]  All we ask is that you go out and get some fresh air before logging on the internet and saying how much this sucked.

That’s… I dunno.  It’s off-putting to say the least.  Especially when you’re logging onto the internet to praise it (and you live in MN, where going outside in February isn’t exactly fun).

-  I went and saw Atmosphere at their one and only First Ave. show of this brief tour.  It was great: excellent and varied setlist, cool re-workings of songs, Sean was in a great mood.  I’m waiting for some kind of review so I can see the official setlist.  Atmosphere fans are really, really strange though.  Some of them don’t even pay attention to the music.  At all.  There was two girls and two guys next to me who were more interested in hooking up than anything.  If that’s why you’re going out, maybe just go to a bar?  So that people who LOVE that band (and there are a lot of them), who will actually go and pay attention, can have an opportunity to go?  Also, it saddens me a ton that no one really cares about Kill The Vultures, cause they are boss.  And that was probably one of the more clean-cut concert crowds I’ve been amongst in some time.  Those people last night made me feel like a dirtball. Which I’m fine with!

-  Pretty eye-opening article from The Onion’s “AV Club” on the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture.  The title?  “How All 9 Best Picture Nominees Reassure Us About the Scary Future”.  I thought it was a pretty weak year for movies.  If anything, the Best Pic noms this year just aren’t as varied as they have been for the past 4 or 5 years.

-Sonny

Three Act Hamburger.

-  I’m about to dig hard into a couple songs I’ve been working on.  One for the 50th Black Lantern Music release, which should be a pretty cool thing when all is said and done.  The other for my wedding: a song I wrote a while ago for who turned out to be my future wife.  I had never written a song for a girl before, and this one turned out sounding pretty special.  It’s simple and catchy, the way a love song should be.

-  Also I think I’m getting the concept down for my next LP, but who knows when it’ll be finished.  Hopefully by the end of the year.  I want to tell a story with an album.  Cut into three parts, the way dramatic structure is.  Three acts.  I’m not only going to use these devices for the story, I’m also going to use them musically as well if I can.  The introduction of characters (sounds/instruments), the first turning point, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, etc.  I’m going to — I think — break up the album very literally into three parts: 3 long tracks clocking in around 20 minutes a piece (give or take), with “Parts” embedded into each track and also listed in the track-listing.  Step two is what setting to tell such a story in, that could take time.  I’m sure this has all been done before by someone somewhere.

-  I got my Polica vinyl in the mail yesterday.  I just downloaded the digital copy it came with (which really is something everyone should do for people willing to buy brand new vinyl) and am running through the album for the first time right now.  It’s darker than I thought it would be, considering what I’d heard of it.  Mostly the second to last track “Wandering Star”.  Which is a patient reflection on troubling times.  But dang songs like “Violent Games” bring the hammer.  Cover:

-  This news came out a couple days ago, but is still worth mentioning.  It has, of course, massive implications in terms of global hunger and environmental protection.  Scientists have successfully created beef in a lab.

“Speakers said they aim to develop such “meat” products for mass consumption to reduce the environmental and health costs of conventional food production.

Conventional meat and dairy production requires more land, water, plants and disposal of waste products than almost all other human foods, they said.

The global demand for meat is expected to rise by 60 percent by 2050, said American scientist Nicholas Genovese, who organized the symposium.”

-Sonny

They Are Missed.

-  Kurt Cobain would have turned 45 today.  Probably still living in Washington, hopefully still making music.  I’m confident that is the case.  It’s amazing how different the industry would likely be now if he were around.  And especially throughout the late 90′s/early 2000′s.  If you listen to “You Know You’re Right”, you will find quite a different shade to Nirvana under the surface.  Upon first listen it sounds like an above average Nirvana song, but bubbling under the surface lies noises running on a loop, fairly progressive drumming, and a surprisingly cleaner gain.  I love that song; and it bums me out to no end because I’m certain that’s the direction they were heading.  Granted, if Kurt were around it’s highly unlikely Nirvana would still be making music.  There’s just no way that could last after they’d been received the way they were.  But that doesn’t mean each member could not still be pursuing music.  Perhaps Kurt would be making solo albums the way Mike Doughty does.  Perhaps he’d be collaborating with any number of people (Danger Mouse?).  Who knows.  But I’m sure it would be something.  Such a waste.  Happy birthday Kurt.

-  Also missing someone I lost 2 years ago today.  Her favorite color was blue… I found this:

-  Mars Rocks Indicate Relatively Recent Quakes, Volcanism.

“With High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) imagery, the research team  examined boulders along a fault system known as Cerberus Fossae, which cuts across a very young (few million years old) lava surface on Mars. By analyzing boulders that toppled from a martian cliff, some of which left trails in the coarse-grained soils, and comparing the patterns of dislodged rocks to such patterns caused by quakes on Earth, the scientists determined the rocks fell because of seismic activity. The martian patterns were not consistent with how boulders would scatter if they were deposited as ice melted, another means by which rocks are dispersed on Mars.”

-  My monthly list of awesome things from the “Around The Net” Whitechapel thread:

• Multiple exposures of takeoffs at Hannover Airport in Germany.  Wow.
• How much would it cost to build the Death Star conversation.
• Advice for musicians from the great Thelonious Monk.
• Abstract Art Generator.

-Sonny

 

Micro-Comic Reviews, 2/19.

Few micro-reviews from my pull list here:

-  FATALE #2

I’m a huge fan of the Brubaker/Sean Phillips combination.  Of course, as many are.  They’ve had a wonderful history together, growing into one of the better writer/artist teams in the industry.  When I heard they were taking a stab at a Lovecraftian horror/Noir book I thought it a little insane, but I dug the fact that they were willing to step out of their pre-established Criminal/Incognito boundaries to try something new and exciting.  Then I read the first issue of Fatale and thought, “well, this is eerily similar to something these two have done before…”  It’s no slight on them as artists, as creators.  When one has such a singular voice — even as a team, or especially as a team — that voice probably transcends almost all things like genre, setting, characters and the rest.  But it’s hard to read Fatale and not feel like I’m reading a Criminal arc with Chutulu worshipers embedded into it.  Again, damn fine comics… but more of a change of pace from these two could only help their cause.  They’ve already made gold, let’s see what they can do with coal.  Because there’s that small chance it may turn to diamond.

(Jess Nevins, who writes post-script articles after Phillips/Brubaker’s comics, writes an interesting blog.)

-  PUNISHERmax #22

I’ll Never Rant Like This Again On Here.

-  I’m rolling through Guided By Voices’ nearly 10 year return for the second time now.  It is definitely low-fi.  Sounds like a 4 track alright; a non-digital 4 track.  It ebbs and flows nicely, from these mind-bending, trippy valleys to giant peaks of noise rock.  There are horns from time to time, which is nice.  The album is over 20 tracks and I have a feeling this was only the tip of the iceberg from the recording sessions, considering the band is already readying the release of Class Clown Spots A UFO.

-  One album I forgot to mention when listing hip-hop releases of 2012 is Cecil Otter’s Porcelain Revolver.  Which I believe will be disturbed by Strange Famous Records (Sage Francis‘ company) in addition to DTR.  His music has grown more sophisticated yet simple (re: No Kings) since his last solo release, so I’m interested to hear where he goes next.

Oh and POS, who’s gonna wreck shit with his next CD… this grimy, Industrial, percussive sound that’ll make you wanna dance and mosh at the same time.

-  I’m not one to rant — uncontrollably — but there’s something I need to get off my chest.

No… no I’m not interested in your Rap group.  Sorry.  I know you want to be supported and I do too and so does everyone who makes anything for nothing but I’m just not interested.  And I never will be, for a multitude of reasons.  First thing’s first: actual music.  You and your “DJ”, though the term here should be used loosely, need to spend time in the basement — just like I do, and everyone else does who takes their craft seriously does — practicing.  Don’t even master your individual crafts… first just get the gist of it for fuck’s sake.  Being an MC doesn’t mean shouting out obscenities and hardly rhyming this with that for the sake of praxis.  Get some flow, just a little tiny bit is all.  Once you do, think about what you’re writing before going to your friend’s house to drink 40′s (even though I know you can afford some IPA) and smoke terribly rolled “blunts” before hopping in the “booth” and laying it down.  Put some thought into it.  But then again… I’m not a rapper and I never have been so maybe I should shutup and move onto your tunes.  Where… to…. begin.  What a mess.  No, it isn’t even a mess.  A mess is when someone puts one too many ideas into a beat or lays down sloppy turntablism (which, I admit, I’ve done) or cannot find the identity of the sound.  These things are the least of your problems.  I’m standing up now, in defense of all the producers out there who put a ton of time and effort into making quality, unique beats who get a bad name because of you.  There’s people out there who take this shit very seriously… it’s an artform to them the way an artform to you is doing a beer-bong.  For the sake of them, and their reputations, please… please try to find your own voice.  Do something that comes from inside you, not plastic-made stock loops stacked one on top of the other until you get the musical equivalent of Barbie’s Dream House.  Cause maybe you don’t think people care, but inside, subconsciously, they do.  And they notice.  They can hear it a mile away, and if you want people to like you, you’re going to need to put more effort in.  You’re going to need a quarter of a teaspoon of originality otherwise the show’s over.  But beyond the music… the painfully assembly line beats and awful lyricism, it’s really the image you’re shooting for that disgusts me to no end.  Homicide?  You wanna talk about homicide??  I know where you grew up you fucking poser.  I’ve known who you were since before either of us laid down with a girl.  I’ve seen death, and I know other people who have, and they don’t behave the way you do.  So either you’re putting on a front or you just aren’t as mature at dealing with it as other people are.  Either way you need to grow up.  This perpetuation of what you think a “rapper” is, this image churned out by the machine… the man, is a stereotype of the worst kind.  See… hip-hop, or in your case rap music, started as a black artform.  And you ain’t black.  So when you present yourself in a way that is a caricature of what you think a “rapper” should be, you’re essentially perpetuating stereotypes, division, and passive racism.  And the very worst part about it is you don’t get any of this.  You think you’re just being a rapper.  A terrible… terrible rapper.  No man, I’m not interested.  Sorry.

[/RANT]

-Sonny

The Meaning of Growth.

Work day = Link dump.

-  More trouble for Apple?  Last year a company called Proview won a case in a Chinese mainland court against Apple alleging ownership of the name “iPad”; it has been appealed by Apple.  In the meantime, Proview is asking customs to block all iPad exports and imports to and from China.  Apparently a huge portion of iPads are built in China.

“Local media reports said that several dozen iPads were taken from shelves in the city of Shijiazhuang just south of Beijing.  In a statement Apple said: “We bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago.  Proview refuses to honour their agreement with Apple in China and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter. Our case is still pending in mainland China.”

While this dispute continues, it is widely anticipated that Apple will announce the launch of the next version of the iPad in March.  The speculation has not been confirmed by Apple. The company is notoriously close-lipped about future releases.”

-  The Hadron collider at CERN will run experiments at an even faster rate this year, in preparation for a temporary shut-down.

“The LHC’s excellent performance in 2010 and 2011 has brought tantalising hints of new physics, notably narrowing the range of masses available to the Higgs particle to a window of just 16 GeV. Within this window, both the ATLAS and CMS experiments have seen hints that a Higgs might exist in the mass range 124-126 GeV. However, to turn those hints into a discovery, or to rule out the Standard Model Higgs particle altogether, requires one more year’s worth of data. The LHC is scheduled to enter a long technical stop at the end of this year to prepare for running at its full design energy of around 7 TeV per beam.”

-  To win “Best New Artist” at the Grammys, shouldn’t the album you’re winning for have to be your debut album?  Also, what the fuck?  Kanye won “Best Rap Album” for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy??  That shit came out November 22nd, 2010.  Unless I’m reading this Forbes list of 2012 Grammy winners wrong?  It’s not even about how they pick terrible music… it’s about the fact that they can’t even get simple things like what a “new” artist is or when a goddamn album actually came out.  Why does anyone care about the Grammys?

-  Relatedly, two people I’m incredibly sick of: Adele and Jeremy Lin.

-  An economist arguing that bigger (growth) maybe isn’t better:

“What is growth? Is it a temporary process to arrive at a state that we will then want to maintain? Or is growth a process which is itself desirable and is supposed to go on forever? Right now nobody defines a state of sufficiency. For example, in a recent growth report financed by the World Bank, experts took great hope from the fact that several countries had managed to grow at 7 percent for 25 years. Their goal—7 percent growth for another 25 years—will lead to a quintupling of the global economy and all that flows into it. And come 2033, will we be satisfied, or will the goalposts move once again? The idea of steady-state economics is that growth really should be a temporary process to arrive at some level of sufficiency.”

-Sonny

A Break In the Exploration.

-  I’m taking a break from studying to write this, but I’m also watching the first episode of Game of Thrones.  It’s been so well received by critics and viewers alike I figured I had to at least give it a try.  I’m not too big into the medieval fantasy stuff, but it’s certainly not something I would shy away from.  The first thing that struck me from the opening episode is how nice it looks, probably on account of Tim Van Patten (he directed the first 2 episodes; he’s also done a bunch of Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire) and whomever he hired as a DP.  It’s a beautiful looking show, if anything else.

-  An analysis of why Blue Velvet is so fascinating:

“Watched again over 25 years later, Blue Velvet looks even more bizarre than ever, a disorientating palimpsest of moods and eras and genres. It’s an intensely 80s film in many ways: MacLachlan in his white jeans and shirt looks as 80s as Michael J Fox in Back to the Future. But perhaps only the tape-deck playing In Dreams signals this period explicitly. The rest of the time it could, of course, be a Forties noir. His small town is quaintly known as Lumberton, on account of the local logging business, and perhaps we are supposed to assume the lumber is transported via the hugely wide river that we see in one shot – it looks as huge as the Charles in Boston. This little place is nonetheless sufficiently cosmopolitan to support a smart night spot called, enigmatically, The Slow Club, where a live band and singer perform ballads.”

Here’s a watercolor I found on DeviantArt of Isabella Rossellini’s character from the film:

-  Unfortunately, Obama’s new budget is putting Mars exploration out of reach (far, far out of reach):

“While the overall proposal is to give NASA $17.7 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent or $59 million less than 2012, the steepest cuts — a near 39 percent decline — hit plans for robotic exploration of Mars.

The budget did not specifically mention the ExoMars collaboration with the European Space Agency, which was to send an orbiter to the red planet in 2016 followed by a pair of rovers in 2018 ahead of plan to return samples to Earth in the 2020s.

However, scientists familiar with the proposal have said the level of financial cuts would likely spell the end of the NASA-ESA deal.

The president’s budget said that “support for robotic exploration of Mars is reduced following the launch in 2012 of the multi-billion dollars Mars Science Laboratory,” a sophisticated rover nicknamed Curiosity that should land on the red planet in August.”

-  There’s an excellent collection of poetry (among other things) at Guernica.  Here’s one from Daniel Bourne called “The Last Bestiary”:

When all animals have died
even the ones in books

grow frightened, their eyes
like wormholes. Their spines

not so much broken, but the hide
abraded and peeling. The gutters

filled with debris,
plucked feathers, old yellow tape.

No one was there
to hear their last song.

And in between the last pages
were two old brown leaves

speaking in a language
only other brown leaves would know.

-Sonny