on the wall.

"And then we sat down to destruction. Around the table, glazed and perforated, magnetic attraction to disperse freely amongst friends and the most trivial of acquaintances. Do you remember when we could open each other’s eyes? Did you remember the wind that scattered the scraps to the dogs and pulled lurid colours to our cheeks? We felt the tinge of frostbite and other maladies that would only garner us the attention we desired; on hospital beds we might feel loved. And then we remembered. And sparks rained on our consciousness; our minds opened. Books with the attraction of dust.

Chairs made holes in the floor, under such a focusSed pressure, with iron and wood and the remnants of ancient lacquer and liqueurs and Hosts."

Holy God. Led Zeppelin Reunion Show. For serious.

Has anyone heard about this?

RS article
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/09/12/led-zeppelin-to-play-ahmet-ertegun-tribute-concert-on-november-26-in-london/

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/09/12/the-story-behind-the-led-zeppelin-reunion-is-a-tour-next/

Show website
http://www.ahmettribute.com/main.php?show=prereg

Unreal.

Tokyo PoliceClub/Ra-Ra Riot Live Review

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/Tokyo-Police-Club-Ra-Ra-Riot-The

Okkervil River - The Stage Names

I wrote this up about three or four weeks ago, but, due to a conflict of interest issue, it wasn't able to make it into the paper. Anyway, the album has been out for a while, but it's certainly a good one, so even if you don't read through this...go out and buy it. Now.

Music is under the knife. Engineers like plastic surgeons. Clip, snip, splicing the sound, enhancing and crafting the whole into something perfect and perfectly different. The best of modern technology, the scalpel at it’s finest. And there’s more than one person to whom it seems a travesty to leave the likenesses of Magnum and the former lo-fi minds on the floor of the operating room. Normally, I tend to agree – and then I heard “Stage Names,” the newest release by Okkervil River.

While long-time fans will immediately find the production of “Stage Names” rather disconcerting even as the first notes come tumbling from the speakers, the whole of the album, while it may be polished and bears heavily the effects of the engineer’s touch, is something exceptional that maintains the darkness of the previous discography.

Once again, Sheff rises to that established position as a artisan with his words – the rampant and unabashed nostalgia that has become characteristic of Okkervil appears once more, driven by lyrics macabre and reminiscent, images of violence and prolonged suffering of both Sheff and those portrayed in song.

On “Title Track,” Sheff moans of a seedy underground rank with vice: “And with her morning shoot / Her evening clothes / Don't call her a prostitute / Well, she ain't one of those / Just call her a proper little statue / Come unfroze.” While on the final track of the album, “John Allyn Smith Sails,” he recounts his own self-destruction, “I tried to make my breathing stop…So when my mom and John came in I would be cold.”

Yet, regardless of the tragic, the grisly, the overall feeling of each one of these tracks is hardly one of threat or peril; rather, one of a prolonged remorse and that longing for the shattered stability once possessed.

On “Black Sheep Boy,” we heard the raw moans of Okkervil front man Will Sheff, the content hardly manicured, raw emotion reflecting the doleful words. And while the emotion of Sheff’s lyrics has scarcely been tampered with, the overall sound has shifted along with the production, taking a decidedly poppier sound on the first few tracks of the album.

On “Unless It’s Kicks,” though Sheff laments, “What pulls your body down, that is quicksand / So, we climb out quick, hand over hand / For your mouth's all filled up,” the uncharacteristic upbeat feel and poppy guitars and soaring combinations of horn synths and tambourine compliments almost lead in two different directions that despite their contrast are natural.

(But that’s nothing next to the bell tones, shining bright in major keys, dulcimer resonations that stand alone before the entrance of Sheff’s lamentations.)

That is not at all to say there is nothing left of the original Okkervil. The second half of the album (and certainly the section that fans of the band will enjoy most), there is a regression to the sound of classic Okkervil, to the soft-spoken Sheff and dark folk-indie-pop (you probably didn’t expect that genre, did you?)

The most noteworthy tracks of the album burnish side-by-side at the onset of the second half of the album: “Plus Ones,” and “Girl in Port.” There’s not entirely too much to be said of these two tracks except that they exemplify the best of Sheff’s qualities as a wordsmith and the talent of the whole of the band to fit together seamlessly.

To be quite frank, there is little to nothing wrong with the album as a whole with the exception of the seemingly mismatched musical styles of the beginning and the decidedly polished quality of the album as a whole (if you really want to hold that against them).

Record Review: Mice Parade - Mice Parade

An exceedingly pretentious review (trust me, it's written to be as such) I wrote up (in about 1/2 hour) about a month ago for an "unpublished writing sample." Why post it, then, you might be asking? Well, mainly because I can.


It’s the idea of form. Care not to rupture the fine skin composed of the flexing tones, rhythms and patterns swarming below the surface, and the overall integrity of the musicianship. It’s the idea of an organized structure that blends unique parts effortlessly. And Lord knows it’s damn hard for any musician to accomplish. Still, in the latest effort Mice Parade (AKA James Pierce and assorted co.), it’s done quite well with only minor setbacks.

“Last Ten Homes” pumps out layer upon layer, one following the next out the floodgates. And yet, regardless of the complexity, between the desperate repetitions aching to be heard just one more time and the cryptic drawling of Pierce, all that have passed are two minutes. It’s absolutely gorgeous, the standout of the album.

And in the end, there surfaces the sounds of a honky-tonk piano/keys with the plunking of guitar strings that sound like the strumming of a harp all amid the distant stomps and claps that echo throughout the whole. Breaking into a choir of the same voice, bass and treble, pipes on the organ follow the dual drum sets and the immediately ascending and descending lines of the keys.

“Double Dolphins on A Nickel” follows with haunting whispers with the nearly androgynous inflections of a lone female voice rasp above and contradict with the full and vibrant colors of the acoustic. Pierce’s voice is introduced to the mix, a foreigner, and continues the pattern of refined conflict.

The element that exists throughout the album, the intertwining of similar patterns and rhythms, pushes the album forward relentlessly, most notably between keys/piano and guitar on “Circle None.”

There is really nothing that this album actually does wrong – it maintains the cohesion of a quality record while its musicianship and innovation never fails to impress. However, there are a few elements that are notable in that lack of strength among a very strong album, a few white spaces noticeable because of their lack of content.

The first track, “Sneaky Red,” rather than build as the rest of the album does, bursts in uninvited with both the laments of a girl and the powerful rock sounds that hardly flow into the rest of the whole. It seems out of place with the whole, despite the fact that it flows nicely into the following track. Whether the first track in its standoffishness is intentional is no doubt impossible to gauge, yet in either case, it almost stages a downfall for the structure of the subsequent whole because of the tone assumed.

Still, and here is the paradox of the comparative structure, because of the fact that the album finds itself similar to such a degree, at times it becomes a monotonous and rather repetitive listen. And even if that similarity had been intended, it cannot save the fault from infecting itself.

To My Fellow Atlantantananians:

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but it is indeed hot outside. I know, trust me, I didn’t believe it either – and then I went outside at 8:30 A.M. this morning and died.

Something is dreadfully wrong with this weather, my brothers and sisters (family for just another week, praise the Lord, amen) – it simply isn’t natural, much like cockroaches, Twinkies and various other snack cakes made out of sponges.

And really, would someone mind filling me in on what in the hell is a smog alert? In Chicago, we have wind – I assume "smog" may be a Southern term for wind? Or does it perhaps refer to that nasty gray blanket that may have well come from your grandmother’s attic that appears to have substituted the clouds and blue stuff?

I don’t actually care, but I know that it makes me hot (in every sense of the word) and rather angry to boot.

Anyway, to get to the little substance that this blog will have: in my quest to not die in the heat, I was browsing through some releases and happened across a little tidbit of information on CNN.com just a few minutes ago. Apparently, an earthquake with the magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale has just hit, “the Indonesian island of Java, shaking tower blocks in the capital of Jakarta and causing people to run from their homes in panic. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from the quake…”

So, this is how I like to think of the heat: it may be hot, but it’s not a 7.5-massive-building-crumbling-behemoth-of-an-earthquake. Does this make me a bad person for drawing this conclusion? Yes. But that’s all right. Mainly because I'm pretty sure I'd prefer the rampant chaos to your goddamn "smog."

The Darjeeling Limited

Oh, Wes Anderson, I adore you.

Study Abroad Essay

The following is my submission for Abroad View (some study abroad magazine whose information was sent around on the J-School listserv) that I finally got around to finishing/submitting. Any feedback/reflections would be greatly appreciated. (By the way, I'd like to mention that, unlike the majority of stuff written on here, this is actually to be taken seriously).




The Power of Stereotypes

One fleeting glance is all that is required to form an impression, rekindle an unconscious image perpetuated by a media unfamiliar and unfriendly, and cause the rest of the world to take one step back.

And behind those unwavering eyes sits the crucible of the mind, blending the essence of images we think varied, diverse in their characteristics. For them, we all look, act, and think the same: we are the purveyors of wealth and misfortune; we are the operators of novel technology, wielders of cameras to take pictures of what they consider the mundane and the great heaping monoliths we will call our own. And as the carousels spin, everything great will be forgotten, as effortless as it had been to take the initial photograph.

In their country, we are sanctioned to act without thought, without caution, without prudence. We vomit in their streets. We abuse their hospitality. We are the tourists.

The movies depict us as men, Hawaiian shirts on our backs, sunglasses and cowboy hats protecting pale faces from recognition; they depict us as women, aged well into forties, canvas shorts and tube tops, topped off with a visor, green and transparent.

If only they exaggerated. As a student who has studied abroad on two separate occasions, I have seen the men and women of our films and their respective stereotypes more times than I would care to admit. Prior to going abroad, I believed them to be myth, dreams dreamt by Hollywood executives to entertain. Now I know them to be reality.

Yet, the fact remains that the stereotypes are only one version (and typically a minority) of a vast population of world travelers. Why then is it that the rest of us suffer the unkind effects (the glaring eyes, the countless entreaties of the street vendors that peddle pirated goods of every nature) of the one segment who has erred in their ignorance?

Because one image can change the world. Though the native people may see a thousand decent tourists, once they see the one that spits upon their land and their culture, that throws money about as if it were sand, that is all they see.

While studying in Mexico, I traveled with three girls and a guy. Two of the girls had blonde hair – one bleached, the other natural – and no matter where we went, no matter the time of day, those two girls received countless whistles and catcalls, flypaper for the spewing hormones and testosterone.

When I asked my host brother about the reasons behind this phenomenon, he said that when people in his country see American girls on TV at Spring Break, wild, uninhibited, and imbibed with amounts of alcohol that would kill the normal person, an image is formed. And from that moment on, they think that all girls from America are “easy.”

Mirthful and boorish, the tourists are among the easiest to pick out of a crowd, like discerning black from white; but for those of us who would like to blend in and find refuge abroad, all hopes are obliterated when we arrive, and all attempts to assimilate remain fruitless.

But now the question becomes, why is this stereotype continuously perpetuated? How is it possible that despite all the negative images projected onto tourists, they continue to act in a fashion that ensures the cultivation of a sentiment (culture) of hate and ignorance that will only do harm to both themselves and others?

Is it from the excitement that takes hold in the first steps from the plane? Perhaps an excitement that goes hand-in-hand with the idea of beholding that which the neighbors can only hope to see in dreams?

No, the ignorance that afflicts us stems from another font. It pervades the river of our collective consciousness, a plague, and we can only look on as the infection spreads though the body.

Our ignorance finds its origins in the desire to know something more. The tourists desire experience; temporary stays and an eagerness to pile the experience that only years can bring into the span of a few short days.

And though the intentions to know something more may be decent, the manner in which they are executed is faulted, bringing forth the resulting stereotypes and abuse.


The Desire to Blend

The line between the student and the tourist is often slight, as students often take the study abroad period for granted, incorrectly assuming that they are not there to learn and be educated, but to run wild where no one will ever remember their face or name; solely their actions make a print upon the eyes of the native.

But for most of us who have tried to blend in with the places we stay, there are other problems that we must face: the realization that one doesn’t simply have an identity in the place they stay, but a label as a tourist.

The recognition that one is thought merely as a foreigner is one of the worst realizations that can echo through the mind of an individual who desires acceptance. To be exhibited as an outsider, someone passing through with no right to be present: that is the fear of all who seek admission to a place not originally their own.

One instance in particular of such an experience comes to mind. When staying over for a few days in Madrid, a fellow American student and I went out with some friends to a nightclub. We were each dressed in a similar fashion, hardly any radical distinction could be made between persons in the group with the exception that the American and I were both a bit taller than the Spanish. At the door, each person in line was asked for his or her “billete” (or “ticket”). Yet, when the American student with me made it to the bouncer, he was asked for his “ticket,” and I for my “billete.”

For the next few days, that was all that he could talk about, that the bouncer had assumed (correctly) that he was a foreigner, an outsider, without the slightest bit of prompting. Although this might seem rather inconsequential to the outside observer, to the student, it is nothing short of devastating.

There goes along with being a study abroad student the desire to be one with the culture, to be outside the population of the tourists who stand before monuments and snap photos to send to the folks back home.

Although we may act and dress as the rest of the population, we are often singled out and our identity discovered and the façade unmasked.

The Student v. The Tourist

At times, the student begins to hate the “tourist.” He begins to think of himself as an entity outside of a population that he belongs to.

What is needed in every case is no doubt the need for acceptance on all accounts. Though it may be a lofty goal, impossible in the eyes of so many, it is entirely necessary.

But here comes a terribly precarious situation: to ostracize his or her own is easily accomplished, yet the fact that he or she must eventually return is disregarded and, upon reentry into their own country, there is a complete loss of cultural identity and the person becomes hollow. They despise their own and long for a return for that brief period when they were almost accepted by a culture outside of their own.

And here is the point that must be accepted without condition, without quarrel or rejection:

The student must accept the tourists, and accept that they too have the same right to be abroad as he himself. The foreigner must accept that there will always be people who have a desire to travel, that in doing so, peoples from other countries want to learn and not abuse. And the tourist must accept that there are standards different from their own, and that they are guests and so must act as such.

It's reassuring to know that with all the heated concern of terrorism, prejudice and other such fun subjects, that we (and our media) have managed to keep our priorities straight when it comes to the subjects of headlines and the bestowment of the ever-creating-and-destroying spotlight.

On another, completely different note (you may already be able to tell where this is going), this past week, seated in the hotseat of Larry King Live with her picture plastered all over the frontpage of CNN.com was none other than the (supposedly) reformed Ms. Paris Hilton, heiress, socialite-extraordinaire and a human phenomenon (in that she is able to become fiercely intoxicated with simply one beverage down her plastic gullet).

All during the time of her confinement, Ms. Hilton claims she did a great deal of soul searching, finding within herself the power and determination to change. Hell, she even found religion - citing her favorite bible verse as "I don't have a favorite, but...". But what purpose does all this serve? It is to show the American public that anyone can be imprisoned (for a few weeks), disciplined with the firm hand of the court system (without being temporarily released for claustrophobia" or eating problems), and become a decent human being -- Hilton is a stellar example, there is simply no doubt about it.

Of course, only time will tell as to the effects of the "hard time" that Ms. Hilton has served will have the proposed impact on her already flawless lifestyle (she claimed that she was neither a user of alcohol, nor of drugs), but I have a good feeling about this brilliant young woman, the future entrepreneur and representative of the up-and-coming young and wealthy. Not only has she taken steps to reveal her "true self" to the public (among other things, of course), she's providing a great service to both our children and an archetype for other heirs/heiresses to follow.

As for predictions of her following behvior: She'll probably get an award. And then author another book (about her taxing adventure in the "big house"). And then release another CD (a la gangster rap/"you don't know me"). And then finally return to her native "hood" with a special "Simple Life" featuring "inmates" played by Britney and Lindsay. It's going to be a good year for entertainment - both intended and not.

Back in the Country, Shoved into the Heat

If it takes boredom and inactivity to post - so be it.

I'm presently at my summer internship/endless amounts of drab work, (but it's what's to be expected, I suppose). The server that I use to enter data and local happenings is presently down, so I'll take this opportunity to post a very delayed and postponed update while I'm waiting for it to be restored.

As far as my personal life is concerned, I got back from Spain, leaving Madrid at 12pm and getting into Chicago at about 2pm of the same day, which after 9 hours on the plane (without sleep due to the fact that my feet were constantly being stepped on) was a pretty odd feeling.

I arrived in Atlanta about a week and half ago, got settled in a house built in 1892 and started burning alive in the mid-ninety degree heat/working almost immediately. But to be honest, I've enjoyed it (minus the four mile walk everyday).

So, there you have it.

Brief Update

Ok, so it's been a devastating last few weeks since my last entry – a period of time saturated with preparations for exams, papers, Morocco, Rome, Florence, London, classes, etc – hence the reason that it has already fallen into a state of semi-disrepair.

And unfortunately, it won't be getting any better for at least a couple more weeks.

Really this is just an update to let you all know that I'll be heading back to the U.S. earlier than I had originally planned (on June 9th, as opposed to the 24th) due to my finals schedule.

On/In/Ensnared by Insomnia

"Sleep is a mere illusion; rest, a trick of the mind; but insomnia (and those blessed by its presence) knows reality and the untainted experience of restless bliss."

Self Destruction, Cadillacs, and Publicity

Publicity and I have a love-hate sort of relationship. On one hand, I find it disgusting that the marketing elite of the United States have such a firm grip on the minds of their country’s citizens; they say buy, and the people run to do their bidding.

On the other hand lays the interest of progress and a pursuit of a greater understanding of the human condition that stems from research on the effects of publicity. There is so much to be understood from merely observing people’s mental and physical reaction to advertisements that it would simply be blasphemy to ignore its presence.

Of course, there is no doubt that far more people will agree with me on the former than on the latter. And therein lies the distrust of publicity, the unkind Big Brother of marketing; a behemoth with the firm belief of the ignorance of the public, a conviction culminating only in results of the most self-destructive nature.

The reason behind these thoughts on publicity stems from a lecture on an advertisement that has been named one of the greatest campaigns in the history of marketing: The Penalty of Leadership written by Theodore F. MacManus for Cadillac in the early 20th century.

"In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone - if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountback, long after the big would had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy - but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions - envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains - the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live—lives.”

(At the time, Cadillac had been assaulted with accusations of fault with its 1915 V8 Touring model and though the ad ran only once, it carried the company into a great prosperity.)

That such a straightforward idea could carry a company to the forefront of a notoriously brutal market is nothing short of fascinating.

When compared to the ads we are assaulted by on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis, it’s somewhat discouraging that the marketing firms of today have since lost so much faith in the intelligence of the consumer.

We are no longer assumed to understand (or to have the patience to read), but seen as lemmings that will laugh at, buy and consume anything that moves – we are driven by explosions, technology, and talking cavemen whose fabricated disgust with prejudice and stereotypes elicit hours of unrefined laughter.

I hate to advocate a return to simpler times, or play the part of the sandwich board toting “prophet,” but it does seem that if we are not given the benefit of the doubt in regards to intelligence, there will nothing stopping us from rejoining the ranks of the Geiko cavemen.

(Sorry for the rather longwinded and erratic commentary, but I needed to get this off my chest.)

Vices of the "Underground"

So, the trip to Portugal was certainly a success. Many memories were made, a plethora of pastries consumed, and countless hours of sleep lost (due in part to an oven-like train compartment and a hostelmate with the snoring volume of a chain-saw orchestra). But all in all, it was certainly worth it.

The following is the article I made mention of in the previous post. It's a satiric piece written from the perspective of a hipster that feels the music - a terrible fault/sin/whatever. Unlike the things that I write for the paper, this isn't available online and I'm not entirely sure what it looks like after editing, so here's the text in it's original form. (Supposedly in the next few weeks Move - the name of the magazine - will be online and I'll post the website at that time). Enjoy.

(Also, it should be kept in mind that it is indeed satire, and a sense of humor should be kept when reading it):

You’re only cool if you sway. Dancing, jumping, drinking, smiling, heaving, vomiting, passing out, smelling, smelling good, smelling bad…and breathing (unless enriched by a cigarette) are all strictly off limits.

It’s not that it’s an addiction. It’s an image. You all think this facial hair comes naturally? That these pants come this tight? That this hair comes this disheveled through powers of the divine? Man, you don’t even know.

It takes hours to get this outfit together. Each stitch carefully chosen from among the threads of Goodwill and Salvation Army; hours spent diving in piles and breathing dust balls, risking the devastating “dust-lung.” Belts with colors not known to man, clove cigarettes six years old, pin stripes that go beyond the coat into infinity.

Feel that beat. Feel its pulse. It’s alive and breathing, thumping, beating. Hit the bass and lash at the snare. Oh God, do it man – I feel it. It’s a part of me now. But I am a stone.

You never move, that’s the cardinal rule. Movement only serves to disturb the beautiful flow of rhythm that circulates through the air. Those of us who don’t move, speak, or give any signs of life are the saviors of the show among heathens; messiahs, if you will. You move, you die. That’s all there is to it. We’re also quite a bit better than you. At life.

The guy with two pitchers of beer belting out incoherent lyrics, covering the dance floor with movement; the girl sitting alongside the opener on the piano bench, her head thrown back and howling to the smiles of the crowd and security alike – do you think that they’re having fun, (no matter how many times they say they are)?

Psh, the animated don’t even know what their missing. I bet they can’t even hear the atonal 12-tone patterns this guy on stage is totally rocking, or the feeling of blood rushing to the feet due to the 20 minutes of complete inactivity.

Sure, I could quit. But someone’s got to represent the music virtuosos and connoisseurs. I mean, there’s really not that many of us. But I can feel it. There’s no one out there like me. I’m an individual.

But despite my all my incredible hip-ness, I feel that I’ve betrayed our Code, unspoken and beyond the ears of the proletariat. I have a confession that not even God (Steven Malkmus of saintly Pavement) can forgive: I’ve begun to feel the music in such a way that my muscles have begun to contract against my will.

At first, I believed it to be spasms brought on by the imported beer Belgium “bier” with a label weathered with age – perhaps the hops had mutated into some sort of stimulant?

But then I realized the worst, that these muscles pulsed evenly, mediated by the beats of the stage…and I realized that I was moving in such a way that it could be interpreting as “danc-ing.” I passed them off as epileptic fits, but I think some of the guys/girls have begun to talk (most have such donned an amount of clothing that sex has disappeared within the plaid and tweed that it’s simply easier to avoid distinction).

Recently, I’ve taken to filling my shoes with concrete to stave off hints of movement. I’ve got three compound fractures in my right ankle and it’s totally worth it. I’ve also been stuffing my ears with bad album art – I can’t hear the music and pus has saturated the areas around the plugs, so I should be all right. It’s an image.

The “ear plugs” have worked better than I could have ever imagined. Not only do I not have to worry about my limbs spontaneously moving, when people question me about music or why I have four inches of paper sticking out of my ears, I don’t hear them and can totally dig the music (or lack thereof).

But still there pulsed the movement – I could feel it in the vibrations. But now, thanks to my utter ingenuity and brilliance and sheer mind power, I have devised another option: I’ve decided to put myself in a coma with the assistance of a brick, and then be wheeled to shows. Not only will this kill the potential for movement, but it will also destroy any festering element of “lameness” that I might have been infected with by the surrounded “lameness-carriers.”

I’m about as indie as they come.

Portugal

So for the past few days I've been working on a humor piece for the section of my paper (for our entertainment "magazine" to be precise) entitled "Vices." Although it's already been completed and submitted to my editor, I can't put it up till Wednesday (the day when it will be actually be published).

As a side note, I'm heading to Portugal until Tuesday for a weekend trip, so there won't be any new posts until that time; however, I've been playing with an idea about travel that I think a lot of you will enjoy, so check back early next week.

!!! - Myth Takes Review

I wrote this album review last week for my university newspaper, The Maneater, as a "foreign correspondent." To my amazement, somewhere between my computer and their copy desk it picked up a couple of errors (something that I suppose should be applauded because the process is typically reversed). But such can be expected, so it wasn't so much as a surprise as it was a bit of an annoyance. It's all good.

Anyway, the errors that I caught have been fixed (and one or two sentences modified that have been marked with []), but if you want to see it, the original can be viewed on the website.



"[PAMPLONA], Spain — It’s music that can be enjoyed any number of ways. It’s bobbing heads on the dance floor, tripping hands that reach for nothing and decipherers of music who pick it apart piece by piece to find the gooey nougat center to explain the whole.
The diverse elements of sound blend well on Myth Takes, !!! (pronounced chk chk chk)’s newest album, and offer up an infinite amount of interpretations and prospects for delight. And though it remains a sporadic and hyper aural manifestation of ADD, it comes together as one progression in the pursuit of the psychedelic and the dance floor.
Because of its rather eclectic and dynamic nature, the best way to understand the musical development of Myth Takes would be to envision it as a dance party ([which also happens] to be the ideal place to play this album).
Everyone shows up at once, excited and muscles-spastic in the anticipation of [a night of] dancing. The album vaults into action with “Myth Takes,” driving with Nic Offer’s vocals, the pulsing drum set and an effervescent squealing that soars. It maintains an overall rigid structure until roughly halfway through the album when we hear “Heart of Hearts,” which begins a gradual and uneven descent into the obscure.
The party moves beyond physical presence into a state of musical and aural euphoria, and it becomes its own entity. The album becomes fluid and free moving, the music begins to breakdown foundations of structure and repetition that had chained it in the beginning, and it assumes a consciousness of its own.
The themes of parallelism and repetition keep the album strong and pulsating. Ideas find themselves repeated throughout songs, sometimes broken apart and reassembled. There are even times when they cross the restrictions of track definitions, jump borders and escape to hear themselves just one more time.
“A New Name,” the fifth track on the album (and one of those that possesses a defined structure), begins with a brief punctuated mallet line, soft in volume, complimented by a growing percussion element that eventually leads into vocals and the bulk of the track. [The mallet line is almost forgotten, however, it reappears in the end and serves to remind us of that initial theme.]
On the other side of the spectrum is “Break in Case of Anything” that sides with mutability of sound and experimentation, and is essentially the best track on the album — though there are several worthy contenders. It’s a beauty and the epitome of the final part of the album, disregarding the form of the previous half, dipping into the psychedelic, playing with synthetic and percussive sounds and mixed with horns and voices.
In “Must Be the Moon,” Nic Offer’s words of lust and alcohol go flying with a blend of '70s disco and hip-hop, all the while sidling among contrasts of high and low pitched vocals. Although the track gradually dives into a droning of earlier themes, the underlying snare beats easily maintain the movement of the listener’s head but grant rest enough to allow respite from heart attacks and angina.
Also, it should be mentioned that the melodic line of is unmistakably similar to that of “Name,” another display of the repetition of ideas.
Although the album as a whole relies on rhythmic and synthetic elements, Offer’s vibrant rhyming voice and the piano lines that often accompany it give the album a very dark and enigmatic feel. But when he drops into the lower registers, there is a loss of energy and it takes the listener out of the music, only to be dragged — blistering and pleading for more — back into the bends and pulls and beatings of the rhythm.
Myth Takes can be enjoyed any number of ways but trying to understand the sheer complexity of it will probably cause aneurisms. So your best bet is probably to relax and let it carry you on the dance floor. It’s only natural."

Admission of Submission, or a Stereotypical First Blog

How I desire to say that I was an unfortunate soul, left on the banks of obscurity with eyes shut tight against the technology of the previous few years – that I knew nothing of the blog until now.

Yet, I’d be lying if I said anything other than I had simply never had an interest in starting a blog, the global phenomenon that had reached my ears a thousand times before, but had been left to rot a thousand times over. It was only a few days ago when an Argentinean professor, José Luis Orihuela (ecuaderno.com/europe), was lecturing about the greatness of the almighty blog that I even contemplated the prospect of beginning one.

There was nothing entirely too spectacular in his presentation that would make lead to an epiphany of, "Oh! That's why people love blogs!" or, "Wow, my eyes have been opened! I had been blind, but now I see," and so on and so forth with a plethora of over-dramatic monologues and revelations; it was simply a PowerPoint presentation with a few slight grammatical errors that pointed out new media scenarios (“audience to user,” “one way to interactivity,” etc).

What made this presentation remarkable stemmed from the man’s identity rather than simply the content. Here was a man from a country completely foreign to me, speaking about the wonder of blogs as something completely commonplace and ordinary. Here was the extent of the blog looking me right in the face.

Although I had known it to be widespread, I had never really understood that it had gone that far – that literally anyone in the world with a computer could write in a blog. It was one of those revelations when one finally understands that although they might know about something, they really know nothing of it.

(And, to be more precise, the look in the face would probably be described better as a bitch-slap.)

Now, cue the epiphany: I realize now that the blogosphere is not simply a small collective of techno-savvy individuals bonded for the sake of spreading opinion and information; I realize now that there is a world here.

The endless possibilities of the blog are certainly more than enough to blow the mind of any non-blogger. But with a blown mind comes the potential to rebuild and start anew - the purpose of this first entry.

[With this blog, I intend to write about international communication (as it seems fitting seeing as I’m currently studying abroad), but also music reviews (because my editors at the university newspaper have asked me to continue to write them) as well as personal opinions.]