MONDAY

200fine

2009 In premature media remembrance.

Before the perfunctory lists - I don't know what I was doing in 2009 but apparently reading, watching and listening wasn't part of it. My film watching in particular dropped off compared to 2006-2008 while my reading migrated to blogs (not working at a bookstore anymore didn't help). Music, on the other hand, "left me." It has become a black hole. We live in the most slashed-and-burnt musical landscape of the last 50 years (excising the late 90s). If you do not agree, if you think the Democratic Party that is indie music is captivating, please write an argument about what you think vital, intriguing music is and compare that to the forthcoming end of year lists. I think the discrepancy will be apparent. Perhaps I am just bitter about the impotent husk my generation is leaving - one split down the middle between soundtracks for camera parties of the self absorbed and soundtracks for romantic comedies aimed at high school art students. Any idea that any of the indie bands on any type of "national" stage are anything other than the Stone Temple Pilots / Franz Ferdinand ethos updated for 2009-10 is misguided at best.  Also, DIY is stale and is in need of a paradigm shift - most, if not all, of the political planks in DIY during the Bush era have been mainstreamed and both the content and presentation lack real oppositional meaning. There is an absent center in music. I'm rather annoyed at my place in time. How else can I say this - music is boring.

The five books I most enjoyed reading in 2009.

1. John Porcellino - Thoreau at Walden
Found a copy of this in Shakespeare's on a particularly self-hating day of wandering and anonymity - made me happy.

IMAGES, moving and otherwise.

Some things I've been looking at. The Cult Ritual photos were taken by Jimmy Buttons of Lentil Nightmare. The mosh paintings are by Dan Witz, I like just about everything he's done - his current body of work is unsettling to say the least. I was going to make an 8 by 8 foot blow up of a picture of a mosh pit and hand color it for Marina's "Biggie Smalls" show until I saw Witz's paintings and gave up the idea. And there are some Dash Snow *(who is pretty dead now I guess) polaroids thrown in for everyone who loves VICE circa 2002-2006.
And this makes me laugh - the paper with the superheroes is actually DC Comics letterhead for rejection notices.

I LIED

It actually looks like this:




















Other Updates:

Cult Ritual blew my fucking mind.














Photo from How Much Art Can You Take's Photostream from a show in Dayton. I can't wait to see some shots from the other night. I think I rambled about this performance to over twenty people in the succeeding days. Mainly I was recounting the moment where dude was tracing circles on our floor with the mic, the solitary spark that was emitted, and the flash back into full convulsive fit of everything. An amazing sequence and there are mic scratches left in our floor to remember it by. Other than that, every band was legitimately good; body rot used feedback so nicely, Vile Gash was as emotionally stunted and temper tantrumy as the worst memories from childhood, and Times New Viking was Times New Viking. The post show proceedings around the house were replete with war on Vietnam drifters, alcohol poisoning, criminal mischief... and I saw Midori jump the roof gap. It was nice.

ALSO:

The Max Levine Ensemble just blew apart Ben Weasel to his own fanboys at the Baltimore Insubordination Pop Punk fest and released this seven inch to go down in HICKEY/VOODOO GLOW SKULLS infamy forever. The record is in retaliation for Weasel calling Max Levine "The worst band ever" on his radio show. And complaining, bizarrely, about the singing style and lack of musical cohesion in MLE... which coming from the dude from Screeching "I hate you" Weasel is a bit confounding.

Record Cover: