Despite my noticeable absence from the halls of Yo Stevie these past few weeks, I have done some writing. Here’s a blog post I wrote for our friends over at The Beat of Young Los Angeles on House, one of two truly dirtbag movies I’ve seen this year, the other being Akira. More on that one later.
New York is stuck in that shitty zone between winter and spring, and even though I hate when people complain about (or even talk about) the weather, well...I'm complaining about the weather. Everything just feels like it needs a kick in the ass right now.
Clinic are creepy. Way, way creepy. I hadn't heard them for years until the other day, when "Walking With Thee" crept (fittingly) into my head. What a song! What a paranoid, offputting song. Their first album, Internal Wrangler, is probably their best, though I loved Walking With Thee also (and, admittedly, I haven't heard their more recent work since then)--so really what I'm saying is that Internal Wrangler was my favorite.
In any case, it's weird, interesting stuff, and genuinely unique. Making their way to me in my junior year of high school, they were certainly the odd men out among my general rotation of Radiohead, the Strokes, the White Stripes, and the Vines*. But looking back now, they were probably the first in my continuing obsession with music that creeps me the fuck out: Ade Blackburn's strained, sneering voice; their obsession with surgical masks and odd costumes; the heavy, churning guitars; the eerie melodica lines that float over almost every track.
It's pretty easy to draw the line from Clinic to other bands I love that possess this same creeping dread: Joy Division (a clear influence on Clinic), The Knife/Fever Ray, Xiu Xiu, Liars, and even, to a lesser extent, bands like TV On The Radio or Sunset Rubdown. It's a difficult thing to express, but one that is instantly recognizable.
I hauled out Internal Wrangler and uploaded it to my elder statesman of a computer; it's currently in heavy rotation. Highly recommended.
*Hey, give me a break, it was 2002. Also, I later saw the Vines play the Bluebird Theatre in Denver, CO, and it was legitimately awesome. What's-his-name, Craig something, the lead singer, freaked out at the end of their set, took his shirt off, and proceeded to break every piece of equipment they owned.
~ The esteemed FreeDarko has a killer guest article up about basketball in the Philippines. Check that out, and make sure not to skimp on the YouTube clips (otherwise you might miss the mighty, virile mustache of Samboy "Skywalker" Lim).
Why is it that we don't have award show performances like this in America? I mean, yeah, this is, in some ways, typical bombastic fare for your Grammys etc. But you've got to admit, when on a US award show have you seen a crazy-ass mash-up featuring two interesting, groundbreaking artists (well, at least one anyway), with a shit-ton of harps and confetti? The best we got at the Grammys this year was Elton John singing with Lady Gaga, Stevie Nicks singing a Taylor Swift song, and Beyonce singing Alanis Morissette. What the fuck?
It's a little more than just the glory of this one performance, isn't it? Why isn't Dizzee Rascal big in the U.S.? After his latest album, I'm hardpressed to tell you why--it's dancy, it's club-ready, it's funny; it's just generally way more interesting than something like the aforementioned Gaga (sorry, Lady G; you may dress like a cowardly lion that lives in the house from the end of 2001, but your music is still boringsville), and Dizzee has got tons of what we blue-blooded Americans love: chutzpah, some would call it (and rightfully so). So again: what the fuck?
And seriously, if you haven't checked out Tongue N' Cheek, you're doing yourself a fucking disservice. It's funny, it's "Bonkers," (har-har), and Dizzee is better than ever. It's probably his best album to date, in my opinion; the weird, Euro trance/house production actually suits him really well. On reflection, the super brittle grime stuff of his early albums could never fully support the bulky fluidity of his rhymes. The hyperactive clubby shit works to his advantage, though I never thought I would enjoy this sort of thing until the album dropped. Dizzee's rapping seems to recontextualize what I would generally consider to be shitty.
Sometimes my writing takes on this clipped tone. It's when I'm at my best. Ideas flow effortlessly and concisely. At once. It's when I don't feel like a fraud. When I feel like writing is what I'm supposed to do.
I get a few minutes of it a week and I keep them like a secret.
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I was working on a mini-profile/interview of cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt and I realized that all my favorite young cartoonists are girls. Besides Hanawalt this list includes Matsumoto-esque Helen Jo (who I've written about here before), tough and violent as shit Michaela Zacchilli and the oh so cute Ines Estrada (Mexico!). Not that it means anything but it happened without me realizing it. I have always gotten along well with girls.
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Do you think Brandon Jennings cares that we talk about his hair so much. I sure as hell hope not. And if he does, can you blame us.
