Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1204
Headache progress. Just a ridiculous amount of commentary on Youtube music videos with a Glastonbury focus. Daddy School arrives at slavery.
Hey there. What is up. Busy morning. Well, not busy, but I don’t have a headache. Now, look, I will even admit I had some wine last night. And I still don’t have a headache. Well, not a migraine. Not a bad one. Not a headache that will make me cranky and impact my mood, family life and work. I am not saying that it was the stevia, but I am not not saying it’s the Stevia. And I took my Zepbound shot yesterday. Zepbound is you, my readership’s leading suspect in the trigger for the migraines, despite no documented side effects to that effect. But, then, Stevia doesn’t have any either. And look, I don’t blame you for thinking when I say “I’ve always had them I’m just more annpoyed about it now” that you think “eh, I bet they’re getting worse and there’s a new trigger,” because I think that too, but also… I’ve had them forever, and I’ve been drinking Stevia forever. Well, since 2001 or so. Stevia is how I met Kellianne on Livejournal (Hi Kellianne, “We Belong” came on the music the other day and every time it comes on it reminds me of you singing it Karaoke in that Karaoke bar in NYC in like 2004 or so).
So. Cautiously optimistic.
We are listening to Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert this morning, because there was a Why is This Interesting about it this morning and the story of it was very compelling: an improvised concert on an unexpectedly broken piano. Gotta love it. I guess this is “Jazz” but it sounds more like Copeland-esque modern classical to me, but mainly because I do not “like” Jazz. Unless it is wildly experiental, bordering on post rock (see Pat Metheny’s Zero Tolerance for Silence and that last Pharoah Sanders/Floating Points/London Symphony record).
Music music music. Gonna be a lot of music talk today. I dig music.
Last night after Jane bedtime I watched Youtube alone all night, because Emma is still taking care of mother-in-law from shoulder surgery and I decided to just watch music videos all night. It was great!
Chappell Roan at Bonnaroo: pretty solid, but seeing it so close made me realize there’s no keyboard player on stage which is really weird because there’s so much keyboard. She played a couple new songs, they sounded promising.
Watched The Indigo Girls’ Tiny Desk concert and it fuckin ruled I love the Indigo Girls so much. I always liked them but I have really come to embrace them in my 50s. They are just two middle-aged lesbians out there playing awesome folk harmonies with great earnestness. Fuck yeah.
Adrianne Lenker doing Sadness As A Gift on Jools Holland. Omg Too much, she is too much! She is raw pain and beauty! How is she alive??
Watched a 1988 Nirvana concert at a Radio Shack that was mostly terrible and just a kind of nice historical document.
Watched part of the Spiritualized And Nothing Hurt LA live show with a gospel choir and orchestra, Orpheum Theater, 2018. I don’t love that record, but I do love the song “On the Sunshine” so I focused on that. JUST occurred to me I should have checked if there was an encore of non And Nothing Hurt songs. Nope.
Watched the video for the new The The, “Cognitive Dissent.” It’s a month or two old now. I like the music but I am worried about Matt Johnson I think he’s a hairs breath from becoming a COVID denier and whatnot and it is making me very, very nervous. The new tour hasn’t had a concert yet so I can’t check the setlist, but the 2018 European tour, he played most of the hits, so hopefully this won’t matter when he comes to town and I can just enjoy his old stuff without worrying that the dude outsmarted himself into Republicanism because my god, humans love to do that these days, don’t they?
New band called Heartworms. Don’t know anything about them. They did a KEXP set. I liked it a lot. Will investigate.
Sleater Kinney doing the classic All Hands on the Bad One on KCRW. Bloom is off the rose with me and Sleater Kinney I am sad they fired Janet Weiss. Had an impact on my appreciation for the band.
Flock of Dimes, don’t know them, live in a back yard in Cambrige, courtesy of Bradley’s Almanac. Liked very much. Will investigate Flock of Dimes.
Muna live in LA. Great audio, too impressionistic arty video. Was hoping for a normal live video cuz man I love Muna.
New Empire of the Sun video, tons of production values, a bit of cultural appropriation and camp and anima and particle VFX and it all kind of works. The song is instantly catchy and recognizable as Empire of the Sun without sounding exactly like their old tracks. 1.1 MM views in a few days. People still care.
Watched three or four of my friend Nick’s daily morning music tracks. I particularly like June 6. Made a note that when my studio is up and running to make a big metal post rock version of this.
Watched a ton of live stuff from this year’s Glastonbury, which in addition to the usual de-rigeur livestreams, posts a lot of single-song clips to its channel. (I’m not going to link to all these doing the links in this edition is exhausting they’re all on the Glastonbury Youtube channel). This is exactly how I want to experience Glastonbury at the age of 52. Eh, maybe that’s not true, I would love to go one day. There is a sort of earthen beam hill you can sit on waaaaaay in the back that no one really seems to sit on, or not many people anyway, and I would totally sit there, in the back, and watch the flags and balls bounce and the big screens.
Glastonbury is so fucking confusing from a cultural perspective. There are giant crowds for everything. It is pretty easy to convince yourself every band ever is supremely popular. That every old band is still super popular. But, then, if you start to pay attention, the big giveaways are: 1) which stage they’re on and 2) how dark it is. So, that being said, of the old farts, here is what I can ascertain:
James: still ridiculously popular. Inconceivably so. And they are all obviously just some random old people who have lives and every once in a while the entire nation of England decides it needs more James, so they stop teaching Yoga or whatever it is they do in their day life, and go play the largest concert on earth. It is so weird. I am not just making this theory up, I read a book that was nominally a book about one hit wonders, though to call James a one-hit wonder is absurd. But it did have a chapter on Tim Booth, who was, in fact, a Yoga teacher in suburban LA or something like that. And he’s the popular one in the band! It’s just nuts. Get up there, do Glostonbury, a 5 or 6 date stadium tour of a small island nation, you’re good to go from an income POV for another 5 years. Also I love the clothes old musicians wear. Like, they know they need to get up there and look like rock stars and not the old punters who spend too much time in their garden, but they don’t really know how to it anymore.
LCD Soundsystem: Sort of like James, but not near as popular in the UK, daytime slot, the clip Glastonbury showed was “All my Friends,” and even that one, the crowd was not signing along. Weirdly most of the crowd seemed to be there just to see them. Sartorial choices similar to James in the old person department. There is something about the gear. So much gear. I mean, LCD has always had a ton of gear but it is more noticeable on a Glastonbury stage for some reason. The volume of gear is, like, a signifier. A signifier like My Bloody Valentine’s volume. Evidence of gritty reality. That they are the opposite of someone like, I don’t know, Chappell Roan, I guess, who doesn’t even bother dignifying the synth parts with a human. Also I love their custom home-made plywood audio racks. I love Nancy being front and center. And James — and I think the whole band maybe? Is on Ozempic or somthing because Fat James era is over, whole band looks so, so trim.
The same can not be said for the Streets. Well, the main guy, Mike Skinner anyway. What a character. Did not take the James, LCD, and every other old punter approach to Glastonbury and go to the “rock star clothes for old people” shop in London. Just wore his normal kit. Pot belly. Did not give a fuck. Great set. Three tracks from A Grand don’t Come for Free, which is, of course, a masterpiece. You would walk right buy Mike Skinner in London and not have an inkling he was capable of playing a main stage slot at Glastonbury, albeit daytime. Crowd knew his lyrics. He did a whole song from the crowd which is “cool” but does not look good on the video monitors so it maybe didn’t exist.
Cyndi Lauper’s voice is weak and that is a shame and I would not pay $400 to see her but she looks great and she was wearing a giant froofy Cyndi dress and that was awesome.
Mannequin Pussy was so, so good. They were so good I had a dream last night that I was in London and I called up Missy Dabice and said we should hang and we did and we went to see Versus together as the Eventim Apollo, where they cut up my credit card for some reason. She was not quite sure why were hanging, but was game. I did not hit on her. In my head it was a business trip. Maybe I was going to sign them or something ha ha. Anyway I love that band more and more every year and their Glastonbury set was great.
Idles were majestic and amazing and I was listening to them in the car earlier too, that line about “raise my pink fist and say black is beautiful.” Main Idles dude got some guff for a while because, I dunno, apparently he grew up rich, but I for one am always willing to welcome a class traitor into the ranks of the proletariat so long as they don’t try and take over and they do not seem to be trying to take over, they are just trying to be the new Rage Against the Machine and they are doing a great job and you cannot fault that moustache one iota. Man. Idles rule.
Fontaines DC I used to group these two bands together but they are sort of diverging, huh. Fontaines guy was wearing two barrettes in his hear, roundish classes and I swear to god he was aping my 90’s look. But more power to him, more dudes need to be vaguely adrogynous in the rock scene. I’m noticing a slightly more louche/sexy vibe to their lyrics lately (witness: “Favorite”) but yeah, I still like them a lot.
Housemartins. Well, it was not a Housemartins gig, it was a Paul Heaton solo gig and he brought out his former bandmate, Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim (still one of the weirdest reinventions out there, up with Joy Division into new Order) for a single old Housemartins song. It was fine. This is chiefly relevant because it happened.
Artists fucking LOVE wearing eye makeup at Glastonbury. All festivals, I suppose. Makes them more expressive from far away. Makes everyone look like geisha dolls on the HD.
Orbital worked around this by doing their thing with their lights on their glasses. Looks great. Mel C from the Spice Girls showed up and also wore Orbital glasses. And they did Halcyon and it was beautiful, majestic, serene. Have they ever done “Halcyon” live with Kirsty Hawkshaw of Opus 3, the woman who sings the samples, I wonder? I would like to see that. Orbital look old, but they are smart with the glasses and the backlighting and the amazing visuals, you can barely tell. Great track.
James Murphy and his $1 million of gear on stage is probably an artist statement (not artistic statement) about live music and synths and authenticity, but the other way to do this is to do what Beyonce and Taylor do, which is hire some of the best band members in the world, let them play everything live, but put them in the wings of the stage and barely visible because why would anyone want to see a musician play and yes I can afford these beautiful, talented, amazing musicians but they are mine and you don’t need to see them, much like you don’t need to see the Twombly in my bedroom. This is the approach Dua Lipa took, though we are unsure of Dua’s access to these caliber of musician, thus we are not sure if they are really playing. She is almost definitely not singing (but, then, neither were Cyndi Lauper and Chappell Roan half the time so whatever), but.. I mean, so? Do you think Dua Lipa casts her very attractive dancers to make sure none of them are as attractive or as tall as her? Do we think Dua’s butt is really the star of the show? Cuz.. I mean. Anyway, she’s great. None of this is criticism.
Noses keep growing, huh? This is a thing that really hits home in your 50s. Noses keep growing. Everyone’s nose just keeps growing.
That was a segue into PJ Harvey who’s nose has gotten bigger is that a terrible thing to say? I do not mean it in a terrible way, she looks good and she has clearly not thrown money at a vain attempt at nose size management. I chose the “Dress” clip to watch because I am old and I like old, rockin’ PJ Harvey and last time I saw her on the “White Chalk” tour she didn’t rock much and it bummed me out so I wanted to see if she could still rock and YES SHE CAN. And now I want to see the new tour real bad. Also her band is four old dudes and they all also have big noses now but I can’t tell if they are the same old dudes from “back in the day.” I know that awesome drummer who sang the “lick my legs I’m on fire” refrain on Rid of Me is gone, god, that tour ruled, but, I was literally sitting there with John Parish’s Wikipedia page open trying to figure out if any of those old dudes were John Parish but I couldn’t tell because all old white dudes look alike is that racist?
Also John Parish was old when they did that album together like twenty years ago so, yeah.
Also Polly’s dress was amazing for “Dress” so that worked out.
Robyn came out with SBF-lookalike Jamie XX (really. So weird.) and she was wearing a Carhartt jacket and looked like he just grabbed her off of the boat or something but then the jacket came off and she had some sort of black neoprene body suit on and it reminded me of the Cult of Personality video by Living Color except it was just black I don’t know, very Body Glove. But the song is great and it is good to see Robyn out in the world I get the strong sense she might just disappear at any time. Jamie XX is fine I give all his albums a listen but they chiefly make me miss the XX. Were they a couple? Broken up? Siblings? I have never dug into their story but I loved see them and wish I could again, though I would definitely go to a Jamie XX and Robyn show.
The National did their thing, I never like the National on giant rock stages I don’t like it when the National rock I like it when they are sad. Matt Berninger has to walk around back and forth and move his hands and “act like a rock star” when they are playing big stages and I don’t like that. I like six hours of them playing “Sorrow” over and over, yes, I listen to that whole album with some regularity I have problems. They sure looked sharp, though, just very sartorially hip in an understated, all black kind of way. They did mention the Afghan Whigs so that was nice.
London Grammar, beautiful, perfect, just perfect moody pop music, they make it look so easy, they are this weird mix of (maybe?) manufactured and just haunting and beautiful and England kind of has a knack of making music like this: Everything but the Girl, Portishead, Disclosure (hey look I’m not defining merit here just a vibe), Two Door Cinema Club, Manchester Orchestra, etc. I would put London Grammar on the higher end. No Portishead but almost an EBTG? I like them a lot weirdly. But I always forget about them.
They did make me think that one day Cindy Lee should headline Glastonbury I think the world needs that.
I also watched last night this Neil Diamond live concert from the 70’s when he was about thirty years old. The Youtube player in Apple TV lets you read comments while watching a video now and it’s like, kind of satisfying for long live videos? So many thirsty comments from people who lust after Neil Diamond. And a ton of “the kids don’t get to have music like this anymore” comments, which, yeah, just not true.
Also had the comments on for Orbital, where the comments were “the kids don’t get to have music like this anymore.”
And LCD soundsystem where the comments were “the kids don’t get to have music like this anymore.”
All of these are not true. You would be shocked what kind of music the kids get to have anymore, because the kids listen to new music. They search it out. They expose themselves to new things: manufactured pop, yes, but also Cindy Lee and Sonic Youth and shoegaze – my god, kids love shoegaze – and moody singer songwriters and and and.
When you make a comment about the kind of music kids listen to, you are not making cultural criticism, you are making media criticism, about what gets “big” about what makes it on your radar, about what “the media”chooses to shove into your face.
But it is not commentary about “the kids” because they are listening to everything. Just a hugely omnivorous, bottomless artistic appetite.
And I love it.
Do we think the “senior discount” is going to survive into the mid 21st century, because I hear some of that shit starts at 55 and I am so ready, I am so into the idea of a discount just for being an old fart, and 5%! man! that’s like an inflation adjustment! Amazing!
Daddy school last night was about Slavery, it finally happened, it sucked. I have taught my daughter that America was founded on colonialism and slavery, which is, of course, true, but now I am trying to go back and tell her about the good things, like Democracy. But she’s no fool, she knows about female disenfranchisement and the hypocrasy of “all men are created equal.” I should be proud of what I have done, and I was right, it’s best to get this in her now when she can handle the injustice, but I am not. I just feel sad. I did my best to really drive home the spirit of democracy that America’s existence instilled int he world and its contribution to the overthrow of monarchies but, well, neither one of us was buying it.
There is no point in doing a Media of the Day after an issue like this, is there? Anyway, back tomorrow where I’ll probably rant about the Supreme Court or something.