St Vincent: Doll Rocker Ramblings

A porcelain doll with musical métier. Annie Clark AKA St.Vincent has been on loop in the car lately.

Very loosely related, I now have a Honda Accord, circa 2006. The sound system is pre-mp3 CD player or hook-up and post-cassette ipod converter. I'm stuck with only the standard CD player until I get the gumption to drill a hole in the console. To ease the withdrawal from the ipod, which is sadly on its last leg anyway, I actually bought a CD, in the real, in the physical, in the flesh, packaging and all. Just kidding. From time to time, when I like the packaging or want to support an artist, this happens. So short story long,  a few weeks back, I bought Actor by St. Vincent.

I'm impressed with how sophisticated her arrangements are. But then given her history, she's not a newbie like Lorde or even Grimes. She played for years with Polyphonic Spree, toured as a guitarist for Sufjan Stevens and has collaborated with a bunch of other artists, most recently and notably David Byrne, as you know former front man of the legendary Talking Heads.

Laughing with A Mouth of Blood is my favorite track on the album. It's kind of manic, weirdly happy and dark in a twisted balance, with equally catchy chorus and verses.

On the other hand, Marrow, one of the singles is my least favorite. Whenever that happens, I'm reminded that if I don't like the first single I hear from an artist, I should listen to some of the other tracks on an album, because the Record Company, specifically the A&R person, doesn't necessarily share my taste. In fact I'd wager a bet that sometimes A&R doesn't even like that track, but they vote with their wallet, thinking that it's probably the bread winner.

She studied at Berklee in Boston, which.. sorry folks... means there's a good chance she's pretentious and smug. (If you go to Berklee, you guys have a reputation to work on.) But I hope for the best.

It's like lightening, when such talent, intelligence, and beauty all strike on the same person. I can't help but wonder how many fiercely talented brilliant (non-photo ready) musicians are out there, struggling to get a leg up in the industry. Sadly it goes with out saying that this is much more of an issue for women.

I was debating with my best brainy friend about this. We were trying to decide between  mainstream music and movies, which industry would it be harder to get into if you weren't a typical young and photogenic woman. She said obviously acting, it's all about the camera. I saw her logic, but I say mainstream music.

For actresses, it's of course not easy, but though it may take time to find, there are parts for all types and all ages. Movies follow reality, to some degree. A role might not be the leading lady, but there are character actors who have made lucrative careers with plenty work and fame, who don't have the typical magazine-cover face and body. Take Helen Mirren, even though she has been around and active forever, it is just now as she's hitting her sixties that she has become a sort of pop culture goddess.

So back to my argument, in mainstream pop music there are no real niches for anything other than white teeth, hair, body and no wrinkles ala Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Rihanna, Gaga, Taylor Swift, et al. Even Adele, who doesn't have a dancer's body, is incredibly beautiful and photogenic. I heard her producer call her "disgustingly overweight," which just goes to show you how physically scrutinized these musicians really are, even by the people that are supposed to be on their team. That's not wanting to pose nude for Vogue, forget being older, when was the last time anyone other than a symmetrical girl in her twenties broke through in mainstream pop. I don't think it has ever happened.

What a hard road it is for an outsider to get their music out there to the masses.

Then of course there's St. Vincent.

Come on seriously. She's the perfect mix of unusual quirk and poise.

My mister was making fun of these lyrics:

"Paint the black hole blacker"

I actually really like the lyrics to this track, Strangers. One can surmise forever what a writer meant by lyrics, but to me these relate to how sometimes when a situation is bad, you have an eerie desire to make it worse. It's a self-destructive tick, that might just be your last vestige of control trying to take action, thinking that if a situation cannot be improved, then at least I have the control to make it worse.

"You showed up with a black eye looking to go start a fight"

As in the baggage that people carry into a relationship. They are already wounded from the pain of previous heartache, but are carrying that masochistic torch onward into another.

David Byrne is probably one of my top five all time favorite musicians, that said, his voice on this track lingers too long in the high registers and therefore kind of kills the song for me. But seeing him dance is still enjoyable, especially now that he has let his hair go completely white and taken on this roll of a kooky senior.

Black - Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi, feat. Norah Jones

Daniele Luppi,  Norah Jones, and Danger Mouse (with sneaky Jack White over there who appears elsewhere on the album Rome.

I like this shot, it kind of fits with the vibe of the album, like they are all travelers who happen to run into each other at this diner in Wyoming, one en route to New York, one en route to San Fransisco or maybe trying her luck in Hollywood, one was selling off his family's land before heading back to Louisiana, one works at the funeral parlor in this tiny town. It's the setting for a movie like Usual Suspects.

Grimes: The Next Generation

Goth-pop Electronica, Dark Wave, Witch House... I'm enjoying all of these genre names. I have increasingly gotten interested in Grimes, moniker for Canadian artist, Claire Boucher. Now that I've played through her catalog and joined in the internet's curiosity with her, I've come to like her...more than her music.

She's got a little impish grin, an endearing lisp, genuine humility that is so refreshing, tons of creativity and talent spread over many disciplines - singing, layered music composition, live shows, dancing, drawings, paintings, video concepts and directing and style - she reflects what I believe defines this emerging generation, more an any other artist out there.

"More than any other artist out there?" Those are big words and big shoes to fill. Well, not really. It's not the Hall of Fame, it's just a sign of the times. She reminds me a little of Tavi Gevinson.

This is the first generation that has grown up with the internet as part of their psyche. They know no world without this information depot a finger's length away at any second. They've spent their free time, their aimless teenage hours, browsing the net, finding bands, and clothes, and pop cultural movements, scrolling through infinite collections of pictures and snippets on sites like Tumblr and Reddit.

Elders like to point fingers and claim "today's kids have no attention span!" That might be true, but there are benefits and drawbacks to everything. The next generation has an unprecedented amount of information swirling around in their brains.

Intelligent ground breakers like Grimes personify this mix in the best possible way.

Represented in her style, music, and videos, there are shades of pop culture from every country, from every era, and from every angle: elements of Japanese anime, mainstream low-brow humor like The Simpsons and Family Guy, fringe Goth movements from the 90s like Marilyn Mansion and the ravers, beach and surf culture, hyper-sexualized Bubblegum pop from the late nineties, R&B divas like Mariah Carey, then there's Russian Literature and classic avant-garde film, underground hip-hop and noise bands, it goes on and on.

Her influences are so disparate that a decade ago she would've been a blip on the fringe of society, but today, because her experiences mirror so many of her information-saturated peers, the interpretation of these influences through her art is mainstream relevant.

She's able to funnel all of this into something new and creative. It is truly interesting, mainly because you can tell she finds it really interesting. Even though, honestly, I don't love her music, I find her style and videos like a black hole of goodies that want to be explored

According to an interview this video is supposed to be based on her interpretation of religion as she saw it as a child who was simultaneously watching loads of anime.

Lou Reed passing on

© Janet Macoska

Lou Reed finally succumbed to liver failure, despite a transplant back in June. I guess alcohol, drugs and Hepatitis had disintegrated his original one. With Basquiat, Warhol and now Reed gone, that era of music and artistic innovation feels further and further from our reach.

Lou Reed in one of the most influential rock groups ever: Velvet Underground.

The first time I heard this was on the Trainspotting Soundtrack. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of music. This song immediately takes me back to an abyss of nostalgic woes: unrequited love, seedy New York, and for some reason this book, which I imagined embodied the New York of Lou Reed's time: drugs, unscrupulous sex, close calls, and digging really deep into the possibilities of living and dying.

This would definitely be one of the albums I'd take to the deserted island with me. I know because it has a revival in my playlist every few years. I can pick it up and listen to it on repeat like it's new all over again.

The mix tape is not dead...

... it's on life support

This site, Share Tapes, makes nifty little cards that look like mixtapes with electronic information to direct you to the playlist for your amor or road trip or break up... a valiant effort.

What do you think? could this bring back the custom of giving mixtapes?

This blog is big in Latvia, just FYI

Everest - largest cathedral of Tibet, Nepal, India and the world

And now for something completely different: some Tibetan chants.

May 29, 2013 is the sixtieth anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest, or as the mountain is locally called Chomolungma. On the south side of this peak is the icefall in Nepal; on the north side, the Tibetan plateau.

In the Sherpa's Buddhist teaching, Chomolungma is home to a beautiful goddess called Miyolangsangma. She is a protective spirit that dwells high on the mountain. Many Sherpa have told of dreams where a beautiful young woman approaches them and makes her presence known before retreating to the heights of the mountain.

It was prophesied that a Sherpa would be the first to reach the highest point of the mountain and of the earth. In 1953 that prophecy came to fruition when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit. Hillary callously remarked that they, "knocked the bastard off." But one cannot completely blame the old chap. Though he failed to see the mountain for what it was, he did many good things for the people of the Khumbu community, building schools and medical centers in the decades after.

Following the historic climb, some of the Himalayan communities fought over the nationality of Norgay and the supporting climbers. Many porters were originally Tibetan, though the Chinese military had driven them out of their homeland. They settled in Darjeeling, India, the kick-off location for most climbing expeditions at that time. And then traveled through the heart of Nepal to reach basecamp and the summit.

The cultures and people in this area have their differences, but the Himalayan community all share one thing: the extraordinary backdrop of these mountains and their mystique. One day in the not too distant future, I hope to find myself at the base of these mountains. Anatoli Boukreev said it best:

"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion."