Pitchfork Festival 2008

With the Pitchfork Festival coming up, I (and hopefully my fellow authors) feel it is appropriate to start reviewing the bands playing this year. The line up is certainly a site to behold.

We here at ASAH will be making the ten hour drive to Chigago in BetaCarotine's air-conditioning-less car to see the festival, and hope to see you readers there.
Also, I believe we'll be making mixes for the ride, so expect updates about those (maybe with links?)

-ElmArches

Scale

"Prometheus Bound (whose Aeschylean authorship has been disputed) is about the result of Prometheus's gift of fire to the human race, in order to save them from extermination planned by the tyrannical Zeus. We find Prometheus chained to a rock upon the Caucasus for evermore, as a divine punishment for what he has given to humanity. Addressing Io, Zeus's mistress condemned to wander the world, he prophesies that in the distant future a descendant of hers will free him. And the rest of the trilogy, which is lost, apparently led to his liberation, after thirty thousand years."
The Founders of the Western World- Michael Grant

Aeschylus pounds out his ideas with an aide:

"We've got to put Prometheus somewhere far away."
"Somewhere epic."
"Yeahhh."
"Ooh! I got it! How about... the Caucasus?"
"Damn! Isn't that where Miletus's colony is? That is pretty far away... That's gotta be a good couple hundred miles."
"OK, now how long should he stay chained up there?"
"Um, let's not make it too long. We want to finish this story off in a trilogy, you know."
"How about, say, thirty thousand years?"
"Thirty thousand? Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable."

Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant EP

I must confess, when I first heard of Fleet Foxes, I was tempted to dismiss them as just another baroque-pop Decemberists/Sufjan Stevens clone. Upon listening to their new EP, Sun Giant, which was released nationally, my perceptions of this band were immediately shifted. Rather than the quirky, mandolin-and-harpsichord-infused pop I was expecting, what I instead found was an exquisitely crafted blend of vocal harmonies that are so perfect they make you want to cry, and varied, melodic instrumentation that was more folk-influenced than anything else. Fleet Foxes sounds similar to what I would imagine Grizzly Bear covering Neutral Milk Hotel would sound like.

While the production quality of the Sun Giant is excellent, I can't help but feel that the album sells the band short of their full impact. For one thing, in order to reach the more accessible tracks on the album, listeners must first grapple with the first song, the title track "Sun Giant", a nearly a capella chant of uninspiring content. I'm not going to lie, that song is pretty terrible, and sets a completely wrong tone for the album. Another complaint I have is the overall length of the album. Clocking in at just under 2o minutes, it barely lasts any time at all, (especially if you skip the first track) leaving you wanting more. Otherwise, the other aspects of Sun Giant are pretty much all positive. The remaining four tracks are all rich, melodic tracks, with just enough of a hint of old-timey folk. They work well together and round out the album nicely.

Fleet Foxes @ Myspace
This album plays well with: Grizzly Bear, Neutral Milk Hotel, Beach House, The Sea and Cake

Juno: annoying

Sometimes when I think back on how I acted in middle school all I can do is cringe. I guess it would be right to keep in mind that children are children and not adults; that there are behaviors appropriate to children and then different behaviors appropriate to adults. Since all these childish actions are in the immovable past I am helpless to change them, and this is embarrassing, since it is impossible to simply disown my former self. It's the same reason that I cringe at memories of drunkenness. Being drunk is not really a sufficient excuse- I still have to take responsibility for my asinine antics. I'm helpless to control the actions of the past (and in fact I was semi-helpless, let's say help-impaired, to control my actions at the actual time of occurrence.)

Well, even despite these analyses and justifications, I still can't review my younger years without the groaning realization that I thought that was funny, and I thought that was cool, and I acted towards people like that. The things I did were in fact annoying and stupid. They were annoying and stupid, and it would be self-flattery to insist otherwise. It would be downright dishonest to claim that the things I did were, say, quirky or whimsical.

This is why I don't like the movie Juno. Juno is not quirky or whimsical. She's an annoying little girl whose stupid conversation made me want to punch her in the eye. No annoying high schooler talks like Juno; however, many annoying high schoolers wish they could talk like Juno. If you gave a bunch of stupid schoolkids Matrix powers to slow down time so that they could come up with bratty comebacks after every sentence, they might be able to talk like Juno. Unfortunately for them, they would still be spouting stupid, annoying piffle.

Tiberius

"During his stay at Rhodes a professor of literature named Diogenes used to lecture every Sabbath - and, when Tiberius wanted to hear him some other day of the week, sent a slave out to say: 'Come back on the seventh day!' Diogenes now turned up at Rome and waited at the Palace door to pay Tiberius his respects; Tiberius' only revenge was a mild message: 'Come back in the seventh year.'"
-Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars: Tiberius: 32

Oohh, sick burn on Diogenes.



As opposed to our modern style of biography, in which the subject's life is told straightforwardly from birth to death, Suetonius arranged his biographies into sections based on category. Due to this method, I initially had a very positive view of Rome's second emperor. Perhaps he seemed a bit impotent and waffly, and Augustus certainly did not think too much of him; but Tiberius was effective as a general, respected the Senate, was not overly power-hungry, and was always ready to dash off on self-imposed exile.

Unfortunately, Suetonius left the worst part for the end. You have to wait until section 43 to discover that Tiberius was a disgusting sex-pervert with a taste for pædophilia. It's always worst when you are familiar with someone before finding out these things. "Such a filthy old man he had become!" interjects our author, while listing crimes "almost too vile to discuss." Suetonius was probably such a gossip.

"Even as a young officer he was such a hard drinker that his name, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was displaced by the nickname 'Biberius Caldius Mero'- meaning: 'Drinker of hot wine with no water added'.

Does anyone need a new nickname? It's a mouthful, but it's also a hilarious Latin pun. And if anyone recognizes its source, you'll know them to be tremendously intelligent!

"He was dining at a country-house called 'The Cavern' , near Tarracina, when some huge rocks fell from the roof of the natural cave which served as a banqueting-hall and gave the house its name, killing several guests and attendants close to him."

That must have been the most terrifying dinner ever.

Pelle Carlberg

Lately I have been enjoying Pelle Carlberg's album "In a Nutshell". It's a pleasant and happy little album, a real delight to listen to.

Plenty of objections could be raised to "In a Nutshell". The album begins with an odd clip of a man singing a ditty in Spanish that is in a totally different key than the song it introduces.

The lyrics are far from poetry, full of trite little love-song-phrases ("All I want is you") and contrived rhymes. Occasionally they are marred by especially terrible lines: "If I ever get happy, my songs will start to suck. But if I ever get happy, I wouldn't give a fuck," Mr Carlberg sings in "I Just Called To Say I Love You". As if this line were not bad enough, he echoes himself in a little falsetto: "faahh-uck."

Neither is the music especially innovative. The instrumentation is fairly standard folk/pop, with guitar, keyboard, harmonica, bass, occasional violin and banjo, drums, tambourine and handclaps.

But the simplicity of this album is what gives it its character and what makes it so good. This music is not orchestral or epic, and never relies on electronics or production to make it what it is. It is simple, happy music that reminds one of familiar things, people and places; full of expressions of happiness, bitterness, love, and resignation. We've already noted that his someone looking for great poetry should not choose Carlberg's lyrics; his lyrics find their weight in the fact that they are clearly personal and identifiable.

My favorite track of the album, "Middleclass Kid", has a catchy, lovely chorus.

"I can hear you in the first row,
I can hear you in the second row too.
Tell me, do you feel it too?
I can hear you in the third row,
I can hear you in the fourth row too.
Tell me, do you feel the way I do?"

This is what makes this album wonderful. To the listener, the whole album seems like a personal message from Pelle Carlberg. The simplicity and brilliant clarity of the emotions expressed makes you feel like Carlberg and his band could be sitting in your living room singing about how you feel and the people you know.

The standout track, "I Love You, You Imbecile", is the only song that I've run across that really makes me wish I were in love. And after watching that, how could I ever again disparage the line "All I want is you"? Most of all, I love how this song's lyrics avoid hyperbolic platitudes and instead go for the specific and hilarious: "I can live with vanity and puns..."

So, give this album a listen! You will not regret it.

Helvetica

Fonts can be a mundane thing. Most people don't think twice about what font they're using.

The font used most is Helvetica. It is the standard for everything typed on a computer, and the standard font on your system's settings.

Helvetica, a lovely documentary by Gary Hustwit, explores the font Helvetica from social, historical, and design standpoints.

Now I know, "A film about a font? For reals?" It's hard to process any subject matter that could potentially be duller. Yet my fellow audience members and I were enraptured by this film.

They interviewed personalities were typesetters, graphic designers, historians- designers from every era, and each had a passionate stance on Helvetica. The modernists, who are staunchly pro-Helvetica because of its "neutrality", were met with postmodern typesetters/designers (like the wonderfully quirky Erik Spiekermann.) The likes of which saw Helvetica as the so called "McDonalds of fonts. It's crap, but you use it because it's there."

Yet the enthusiastic opinions on the world’s most popular sans serif font are not the only things that make this movie captivating. The cinematography is stunning. It is as beautiful to watch as Across the Universe, the vintage Eames/Henry Miller commercials, or Drum Line. As a photographer, there are stills and shots in this film that make my heart go a pitter-patter. There was a particular shot of a New York City subway sign that was one of the most beautifully composed shots I have ever seen. I spent much of my time during the film wishing that I had taken the shots.

So already the audience is met with compelling characters, and amazing film making. Yet, Helvetica continued to get better. The soundtrack was absolutely flawless. Featuring the likes of indie darlings The Sea and Cake, Four Tet, and The Album Leaf- their laid back instrumental works make the film that much more interesting, with audiences only noticing the soundtrack when they need to, and the soundtrack doing a wonderful job of conveying the needed mood for the film.

One of my professors (who, while not exactly square, is certainly not Mr. Hip-and-with-it) declared his love for The Sea and Cake, after seeing the film. Now, I give mad props to any film that can make a person like Ted Morgan try out something new (it also made me appreciate this art school just a bit more that I did before).

Of course, I would like you to be somewhat wary of this review. I am a bit of sucker for documentaries. One of my favorite films is a documentary called WordPlay about crossword puzzles, and an annual crossword competition.

However, I strongly recommend that everyone see this movie.



http://www.helveticafilm.com/

Juno, and the confusing popularity of the Moldy Peaches.

If you had told me four years ago that the Moldy Peaches would be popular, I wouldn't have believed you.
Now, I don't mean popular like Wolf Eyes is popular. Not the sort of popularity that only extends over a certain fan base, with a few fringe members. I mean popular like, a middle aged housewife knows the song, and so does her kooky neighbor's 10 year old son. So does the hippy and the garbage man, and the sailor.
I sat in my art history class the other day and watched an awkward looking engineering professor waddle by, and he was whistling g g g g g g g g c c c c c c c c g g g g g g g g. Those are the chords, incedentially, to "Anyone Else But You." Coincidence? Aging Hipster? Someone who saw Juno and thought that song that Juno and Paulie played together at the end of it was cute?

Your best bet, hands down, is it's the last option I mentioned.



It seems that damn near everyone (at least in my neck of the woods) has seen Juno. For those of you that haven't, It's a film where a teenage girl gets pregnant from a one night stand with her "adorkable" best friend. The film follows our heroine, Juno, through her pregnancy and the adoption of her baby. Depressing stuff? Not really. It's surprisingly heart warming.

However, this is not a review of Juno. This entry is me being surprised that the band who wrote "Downloading Porn With Davo" (which includes the lyrics :

"Sleepin' in a van between A & B
Suckin' dick for ecstacy
Paid a 70 year old hooker to make out with me
Now the "get high shack" is just a memory")

has gained mainstream-ish popularity.

When I stumbled across the Moldy Peaches in 2003, I was primarily listening to Linkin Park and Godsmack (Cthulhu, save me...) I grabbed the CD on a whim, along with this other one that has some fierce cover art called "Fever to Tell." I listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and was like "Fuck yeah (yeah yeah)!", my reaction to the Moldy Peaches however was "What the fuck?" I remember passing the CD onto a boy I dug at the time. He dismissed it as "a standard indie line up of a boy and a girl who can't play their instruments and decided to go lo-fi"- or something like that. Anyways, he'd always been a pretentious queerbag, so I took that review with a grain of salt. A common friend of ours had heard me talking about it with him, and asked to borrow the CD. I can confidentally say that it created the foundation for our friendship. When we wanted to be "shocking" 13 year olds, we would cry out "Whose got the crack!?!" with what could only be described as adolescent mirth.
Our fellow bus riders probably found us to be most irratating.
So here with have this gender bending, possibly drug addicted, certainly perverted, genius-ly avant garde (or possibly completely talentless) band.
Under normal circumstances I don't think anyone but fringe hipsters and 13 year olds would like this band.

So I guess I just find it weird that a movie about a pregnant girl and her tic-tac addicted lover made this band (possibly) popular.
And in a weird way, I guess it makes sense.


...but I still want to see that soccer mom's face when she picks up a Moldy Peaches Cd and hears the lyrics

"Mardi Gras came and went
All my money has been spent
How am I gonna pay the rent?
Sitting on your face (sitting on my ass)
Who mistook the steak for chicken?
Who am I gonna stick my dick in?
We're not those kids, sitting on the couch."

Understanding Mark Wood

Throughout middle and high school I played cello in a youth orchestra. Traditionalist that I am, I always hated playing those sickening poppy songs that always seemed to surface around the Christmas season. I didn't mind occasionally playing movie themes, or even saccharine radio carols, but I soon learned to flee anything with a name like "holiday hoedown".

So imagine how I felt when I learned we would play in concert with a certain Mark Wood, an electric violinist. Like you, I had never heard of him before, but I was assured by Wikipedia that he raped little boys every day. Perhaps all that you need to know is that Time magazine described him as "funk metal violin at its very best." To me it seemed that Mr Wood suffered from an unfortunate mania for modernizing. Those poor baroque composers must have been looking down from heaven in dismay as he strutted across the stage to the accompaniment of "Vivaldi rocks" and "Bach to rock". (This modernization trend, of course, can be seen all over. Think of those stupid rewritings of Shakespeare for illiterates, your school textbooks that try to reference popular culture, and worst of all, church praise music that sounds like an inferior copy of the worst songs on the radio. How relevant!)

(To the right- Mark Wood on stage with my orchestra. To my relief, I am off the right side of this photo.)

Mr Wood's fascination with ruining classical music wasn't the end. His real love was rockin' out to classic 70s hits. Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix among others provided the fuel for him to strut about stage waving his long greasy locks and to perform his signature move, which involved crouching and quickly transferring his weight from one leg to the other, bobbing about like a pigeon.

At the time, I was extremely unenthusiastic about the prospect of performing with him. Most of all I was confused by the presentation of Mr Wood as a cool rock n roll dude. Maybe other younger, more innocent members of the orchestra were convinced, but it seemed to me that a single look at a photo of this man would reveal him as an absurd buffoon. I was perplexed by Mr Wood's ensemble of open dress shirt, clinging leather pants, high boots and mirrorshades. Was it possible that he had even fooled himself? What, I wondered, could possibly inspire Mark Wood?

Now, unexpectedly, I find myself answered.

I saw the video for Europe's "The Final Countdown" for the first time this week. After my first incredulous viewing of the Final Countdown, I found myself irresistibly drawn to watch it over and over. In fact, I would be embarrassed to admit how many times I watched that video this week. Even writing this made me go back and watch it again. It's an unstoppable reflex reaction, like yawning when someone else does. Although it would have been easy to dismiss this song as the apotheosis of ridiculous eighties rock, the emotion it conjured for me was (false) nostalgia for the days when this was the very embodiment of coolness. As my friend remarked, "I can imagine that this song was the shit back then."

And it is the shit. The initial fanfare of the beginning of the song bursts into pyrotechnics and the fervent playing of the long-locked Norsemen. The crowds pulse up and down in slow motion. I could describe it further, but my words won't do it the justice it deserves. Go watch it!

(I can't help but think that the members of Europe would disapprove of a lot of the cutesy stuff coming out of Scandinavia today. They would massacre "I'm from Barcelona" using their guitars like Thor's hammer. I'm cool with that as long as they share some of the looted cardigans with me. Besides, who am I to disagree with Mjölnir?)

Now, Mark Wood and his aesthetic sensibilities make complete sense. He must have had a life-changing experience with the band Europe during his university days. Petty dismissals like mine mean nothing to Mark Wood because he serves this beau ideal. Yes, my vapid criticism was based on a definition of cool that did not factor in The Final Countdown. What a fool I was!

(I just watched that video again.)

Unfortunately for Mr Wood, this does not mean that he lives up to the standard. All that it means is that I now am able to understand him. If he met up with I'm From Barcelona, he would probably try to make them play a nasty syncopated version of "Eleanor Rigby". And then scream, "Whoo! Let's make some NOISE!"

The Sweater Vest

Kids, take to your grandfather's closets. The sweater vest is about to be big. It is a highly useful item in this whole layering trend that's arisen. Pair it with a great big shawl, skinny jeans, and boots, and you have yourself a nice "arctic hipster" du jour.

Of course the sweater vest falls into one of my favorite fashion genres-
Granny chic.
However, our friend also falls into the ever popular outlet of geek chic.

I guess it depends on if you pair your sweater vest with pearls or thick rimmed glasses.

The button up sweater vest is better for women, because it accentuates your boobs, and if the waistband is positioned carefully, can show off your waist and hips.

Of course, the pull over is better for the men folk. It broadens your shoulders and seems more formal than the button up. And let's face it guys, ladies like dashing men. Not a sluff.

So, sweater vest ho! Happy hunting!

Xiu Xiu: Women as Lovers

The first time I ever heard Xiu Xiu was in October 2006, in a small club in my hometown, Rochester, NY. I went to the show because my friend had won free tickets from one of the local radio stations, so the only thing I knew about the band was what little information I could gather from Wikipedia in the 5 minutes before I left my house for the show. The show was fun, and the band played well considering that they were dealing with a somewhat combative sound technician who wouldn't turn the vocals up high enough, and that multi-instrumentalist Caralee McElroy poked her out with a drum stick (I saw pictures of her with a black eye from it later). I picked up a copy of their 2005 album La Foret at the show and later got my hands on a copy of their 2006 album The Air Force. I quickly became a fan of Xiu Xiu's experimental sound.

Recently, Xiu Xiu released their sixth studio album, titled Women as Lovers. At first listen, it is pretty clear that this album continues in the trend of previous releases, with ample amounts of both rich melodies and cacophonous noise, along with singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart's confessional style lyrics. The fact that this album is stylistically similar to previous albums is not to say that this album is bad; this may be some of the best material that Xiu Xiu has ever produced. Xiu Xiu has simply found a unique musical niche, and they happen to do pretty well at "making it work". Tim Gunn would be ever so proud.

Perhaps the best part of Xiu Xiu's new album isn't their unique, experimental sound, but Jamie Stewart's vocals and lyrics. Not quite spoken, and not quite sung, Stewart's vocals are at times overwhelmingly emotional. Stewart's lyrics also deal with some pretty heavy subject matter, such as suicide, abusive relationships, government abuses of power, and socially taboo experiences. The lyrics often make you want to feel repulsed, but you can't stop listening. Sort of like how it's impossible not to look for mangled bodies when you drive by a bad traffic accident.

My one complaint with this album is the questionable cover of Davis Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure" that falls right in the middle of the album. While, I admire Xiu Xiu's ambition for attempting to pay homage to two legends, they should know better. The song sounds like a sub par cover that might be played by the generic college cover band the "Elements of Style" that I heard last weekend at some lame party. Not only is the song just average, but it's placement in the middle of the album breaks up the flow of the album. Poor song choice, even poorer placement.

Overall though, another quality album from a quality band. Check them out at their website, they have a pretty cool daily blog.