No Radio

The radio is on and I hear a bunch of nonsense. Reviews and diatribes by a guy named Mitch.

John K. Samson- Provincial

John K. Samson’s unique brand of folk, rock, and punk is something that drew Prophaghandi fans to The Weakerthans (Probably? I’m not entirely sure on that, don’t quote me on it), and both to his solo material that’s dotted the last few years.  Provincial is an honest effort that combines so much of the last two Weakerthan’s records B side songs and Samson’s folkier tendencies.  It feels a little wrong to constantly compare Samson’s solo material to the Weakerthans catalog, but, without Samson, the Weakerthans would be a far different band.  Samson makes those songs shine (Considering he writes most of them), Provincial sounds like Weakerthans outtakes.  And I’m all the more happy to have them.

From start to finish, we see a slow shift from the later to the former.  ’Heart of the Continent’ is distinctly different from the Weakerthans’ sound, but retaining all of Samson’s lyrical structures.  Situated between ‘Highway 1 East’ and ‘Cruise Night’, ‘Heart…’ is the perfect bridge between the stripped down bareness that let’s the lyrics shine and the hook-y, power pop-esque nature of Reunion Tour era Weakerthans.  The same feeling resides between ‘When I Write My Masters Thesis’ to ‘Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette Sun’.  What makes these mood shifts so tolerable is Samson’s knack for poetry.  Some of the most fantastic lyrics I’ve ever heard have come from John K. Samson songs.  

Songs like ‘The Last And’ and ‘www.ipetition.com….’ are more shining examples of what makes John K. Samson such a good songwriter.  The constant changes in tone of the record, between these deliberate, slow songs like the album’s closer, ‘Taps Reversed’, and songs like ‘Cruise Night’ or ‘When I Write…’ isn’t out of place, but leaves more desired.  It walks a line between the Weakerthans brand power pop and Samson’s folkier tendencies.  This is not a disappointment in the least, it just leaves us (Or just me…) wanting more.

Out now on ANTI-.

Hello everyone!  It’s been a busy and quick 20 days since the new year… And my deepest apologies for more or less neglecting this.  While I’m sure most people didn’t notice… I did.  And it then encouraged me to make the following commitment: I’m going to post something of substance in addition to the random re-blogging and links to pertinent articles/essays.  With that being said…

I’d like to tackle another overblown catastrophe of a debate that is Lana Del Rey.  I’ll also probably delve into yesterdays Megaupload/Megavideo take down as well, as relevant to the current grievances.  I’m sure by this point, everyone’s seen, or heard of, Lana Del Rey and her awful SNL appearance (If not…. here and here).  Yes, they were awful.  Yes, having a three song demo tape out and the love of Pitchfork behind you will get you far and will get your name thrown across the Internet you’re destined for fame and riches.  Apparently, all it’s gotten Lana Del Rey is a big old steaming pile of hate. 

Del Rey’s aesthetic lies between fifties nostalgia and glamour and…. trailer chique?  It’s an aesthetic that relies on being as disengaging and numbing as possible.  She clearly has some sort of talent, she’s been singing since her childhood and spent time in a choir (According to her statements.) But this is a perfect vehicle to look at pop music, pop culture, and the way we consume both of those things.  Her debut single, ‘Video Games’ (Video here) is (Like most her music and visuals) an extension of a persona and the persona’s imitation of life.  The video is a hazy wash of people falling in various iterations of the word ‘falling’.  The take away is that, her voice is soothing, oddly deep and calming, over a wash of dreamy orchestra and a steady beat that anchors us back to our seats.  It’s something you either hate or love.  What comes to question is the sincerity.  Is what we’re listening too an honest artistic outpouring or something manufactured and false?  

In a time and place in which our attention spans are boiled down to three and a half minutes, Del Rey’s hazily glowing music requires too much attention.  Without the four-on-the-floor bass (A musical term referring to the kick drum keeping time by hitting it every quarter beat accenting the beat which makes dance music highly danceable) keeping time for us, we’re at a loss and can’t seem to make heads or tails of the song.  Look at songs like Katy Perry’s ‘Friday Night (TGIF)’, or anything from 2011’s Teenage Dream.  The songs all clock in at slightly over three and a half minutes.  All of them: danceable.  The radio format doesn’t do well with 4 minute songs.  Three minute pop songs are back.  It’s what made Motown and Phil Spector era Doowop so successful.  But here we are, on the verge of her record coming out (I’m pretty sure it’s leaked this morning) and the entire Internet is divided into Pro or Anti- Lana camps.  It’s like Twilight.  But with a lot more “adult” arguments.  

We’re looking at this phenomenon and wondering ‘Why?  WHY?!’.  But that is art, if you break it down.  Reis and Trout talk about in their groundbreaking work on brand positioning, the seven “docks” in which we store information and how that relates to our memory.  Del Rey and her music fit into non-recognizable “docks” and thus we spend most of our time rejecting what she represents and ‘creates’.  Those who support and understand her music and video projections clearly are ready and have “dock” space available.  As we ready to reject, or accept, we don’t quite understand what we’re looking for and therefore we have no clearly established ‘brand’.  That is what Del Rey represents.  A brand.  A brand of music and art and all those things that come with it.  Does that validate her choices and inability to relate to those who like her while she preforms?  That’s not up for me to decide.  But, think back a paltry five years to the aforementioned Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’.  Did we not have similar, if not the exact, same reactions?

A little food for thought this Tuesday morning.

nprmusic: This week, alternative rock’s bible, SPIN magazine, announced that it would eliminate the standard short album review from the magazine (and web site) in order to “reinvent the album review.” 21 staffers and freelancers will assess 1,500 albums over the course of the year, exclusively via single 140-character posts on Twitter. If Tweets replace blurbs will people start believing there’s nothing more to say? We wanted to test whether 140 characters could substitute for, say, 200 words. So our critic, Ann Powers, performed what we’re dubbing a “magic capsule” test: she picked two of the nine tweets @SPINReviews has published so far and let them marinate in the watery environment of her brain to see what they’d look like as conventional short reviews.—Jacob Ganz Compare for yourself.  via Are 140-Character Reviews The Future Of Music Criticism?

nprmusic:

This week, alternative rock’s bible, SPIN magazine, announced that it would eliminate the standard short album review from the magazine (and web site) in order to “reinvent the album review.” 21 staffers and freelancers will assess 1,500 albums over the course of the year, exclusively via single 140-character posts on Twitter.

If Tweets replace blurbs will people start believing there’s nothing more to say? We wanted to test whether 140 characters could substitute for, say, 200 words. So our critic, Ann Powers, performed what we’re dubbing a “magic capsule” test: she picked two of the nine tweets @SPINReviews has published so far and let them marinate in the watery environment of her brain to see what they’d look like as conventional short reviews.—Jacob Ganz

Compare for yourself. 

via Are 140-Character Reviews The Future Of Music Criticism?

thedailywhat: Getting The Band Back Together of the Day: Influential post-hardcore legends At the Drive-In will reunite this year after an eleven year hiatus. An official website has been launched, along with a Twitter account which confirms the band’s reunion. The announcement comes two days after Mars Volta frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala — the man responsible for ATD-I’s 2001 breakup — announced that his band’s sixth studio album was nearly done and would be released this year. TMV’s other At The Drive-In alumnus, guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López, previously stated the band’s next album would be their last, but added that an ATD-I reunion was not forthcoming.  Shows what he knows. [altpress / nme.] WOAH.

thedailywhat:

Getting The Band Back Together of the Day: Influential post-hardcore legends At the Drive-In will reunite this year after an eleven year hiatus.

An official website has been launched, along with a Twitter account which confirms the band’s reunion.

The announcement comes two days after Mars Volta frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala — the man responsible for ATD-I’s 2001 breakup — announced that his band’s sixth studio album was nearly done and would be released this year.

TMV’s other At The Drive-In alumnus, guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López, previously stated the band’s next album would be their last, but added that an ATD-I reunion was not forthcoming. 

Shows what he knows.

[altpress / nme.]

WOAH.

epitaphrecords: New music from John K. Samson premiered today at Brooklyn Vegan! Listen to “Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San” off of the upcoming album Provincial, out January 24th.

epitaphrecords:

New music from John K. Samson premiered today at Brooklyn Vegan! Listen to “Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San” off of the upcoming album Provincial, out January 24th.

(via antirecords)

It’s probably a little cliché right now, but I’d like to wish everyone a (belated) happy holidays, and that 2012 is even better than 2011.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and I know it’s been slow here, but I am one man.  I hope that you continue to read and make this more and more special for me.  Thank you!

xMitch

The battle of the Internet, music, and SOPA.

There’s not a lot that really, really gets my blood boiling, I’ll be honest with you.  Especially when it comes to politics and all that other corruption filled bullshit.  But SOPA and the current climate of an industry that I’m attempting to have a career in and would be a totally different person witihout, is something I will absolutely 100% fight for.  

If you’re out of the loop, which I would hope that you are not, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill proposed by Congress that would essentially censor the Internet.  Not to mention, ruin the only thing that would and possibly could save the music industry.  I don’t think I need to really beat a dead horse over this, but we live in a digital world.  Our lives are encompassed by artifacts that at the same time enhance and distress our lives.  Without our computers, digital libraries, the Internet, e-mail, instant messenger, cell phones/smart phones, Skype/VoIP, and even Wikipedia, we would be a drastically different culture.  If it wasn’t for those things, I wouldn’t be able to do this, share my music (That I record at home, for free), keep in touch with my family (easily), or my friends from other states in different time zones, or other countries.  At the same time, our social lives and day to day routines depend on those things, which a lot of people view as bad, it really depends on how you approach the subject.  Twitter is an unfiltered, no biased news source, Facebook lets us keep track and tell every single one of our friends the moment something great happens to us (Or we take a poop…), and Tumblr fills our love and addiction of cats and artistic nudity (Or porn.  Either or.).  

I have no doubt in my mind that the Internet was created for the transmission of ideas and information.  The exchange and essential learning concept is crucial to humans and our developments in science and technology that’s improved our lives and quality of living.  And yes, there is a part of this quickly written hodge podge that sort of, and quite possibly, misses the point.  But, in the light of employees of major movie studios and the labels that support organizations like the RIAA and MPA that can’t even abide by their own laws and regulations, yet cover it up with statements like ‘Those are IP addresses controled by proxy servers.  We can’t track those’ is frankly bullshit.  You can’t control your own task force members but you’ll sue and ruin the lives of middle American mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in overwrought legal documents and lawsuits so they can never live normal lives again?  Let’s be honest, that’s bullshit.  

That doesn’t even include the outstanding number of government officials do don’t even understand the basic principles of how the Internet works, yet abuse it during their own debates by tweeting their boredom?  That’s a brand new low.  Fearing and not understanding how something works and wanting to censor it and shut it up sets us back as people, and in the information age, back a long, long way.  

Please, take this in whichever manner you want.  But, this is a very serious matter and I hope that you after reading this, do take the time to learn more about your freedom of speech and how it will be affected by SOPA.