The other day, a friend was over and I had music from the iPod playing. A weird song, that I love, from a Believer compilation came on. "What is THIS?" my friend asked. It occurred to me that even though I love this song, I'd never looked up the band, CocoRosie. They're two sisters who make very unconventional but strangely beautiful music. Their first album was recorded in their apartment bathroom in Brooklyn. You only have to watch this video to see how bizarre and yet wonderful they are:
I got feedback from several people that they liked my posts on music and one reader offered, in response to my claim that humans don't actually make anything, that we create music not from nature but from our imaginations. I have to give him that. I think I would die without music. Here's what I'm digging at the moment.
Albums that I love every song on are:
Spoon, Gimme Fiction
The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers
Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, Welcome To The Monkey House (I still don't have their latest)
I listen to this Dandy Warhols song every time I go running and it makes me laugh my ass off. It's fantastic, especially if you're a "struggling artist."
I recently got the KT Tunstall album. She had two very mainstream songs playing all over the radio ("Suddenly I See", "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree") so I got this one for my mom as catchy and easy to get into usually becomes irritating to me. But this is a great album! KT is half Chinese, adopted, grew up in Scotland and is actually musically educated. You can hear in her voice that she's a spirited and passionate person. I prefer listening to her rich voice without seeing her face but to get a taste, here's the video for one of my favorite songs "Another Place to Fall."
If you were into the English Beat in the 80's, check out The Futureheads' News & Tributes. If you were also a fan of early Talking Heads and Devo, give a listen to Maxïmo Park ("Apply Some Pressure" is their radio hit.)
Oh and this is really fun! I've been a fan of Natacha Atlas, an Egyptian musician, for ten years. I have every album starting with Diaspora. A couple of years ago she put out an album, Something Dangerous, that expands on her traditional sound by incorporating rap, jazz, R&B, pop and dance. I was supposed to see her in concert at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of summers ago but they announced that her Visa was denied on suspicion of terrorism. Nice work America! Here's a song from it:
ENJOY!
Showing posts with label The Believer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Believer. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2007
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
It took me 5 years, 7 months and 4 days to read The Believer
Several years ago, while visiting a friend in San Francisco, I stumbled upon a pirate store in a hip district. Inside you feel like you've discovered something truly bizarre and authentic. There are trunks to look in, bureaus with lots of drawers and fun things inside all of them. Glass eyes, hooks for where hands used to be, eye patches, gold coins, maps, pirate flags and just about anything you think an aspiring pirate might need. In the middle of the store is a huge vat of lard - I think there's something in it you're supposed to look for in there.
It was the 826 Valencia store. The story is, author Dave Eggers wanted to start a place where writers could tutor kids after school and wanted it to be right in the city where the kids who needed it could have access to it. But as it was in a retail district, there had to be a store. Thus the first of many 826 locations and stores was born.
Today there's an 826 in Seattle that sells supplies for astronauts (above). 826 in Brooklyn sells superhero supplies, 826 Chicago sells spy supplies at The Boring Store (ha ha ha), and 826 Michigan provides monster supplies. (I still have not yet volunteered for 826 LA and we don't have a store. Bummer.)
Anyway, Egger's accompanying publishing company, McSweeney's, has long put out literary journals and other writings. A few Christmases ago, I bought as a gift, a book called Your Disgusting Head published by McSweeney's. With a made up PhD and hilarious illustrations, it was a spoof on kid's books except strange, gross and nonsensical. I bought a subscription of The Believer for a friend and bought myself the music edition of The Believer for the CD of interesting music but I never read the magazine. I thought everything in the world of McSweeney's was beautiful nonsense.
Then a few months ago I ordered for very cheap, ten old issues of The Believer just for the heck of it. I thumbed through them but the unorthodox layout and odd headlines baffled me again. They sat in an attractive pile in my house, untouched, while I read my other magazines. Then a friend came over, someone I didn't expect to know McSweeney's and excitedly told me how great Wholphin was, another one of their pubs. Really? Someone actually reads this stuff?
So one day I opened one and started reading and I absolutely love it. The articles are unique and completely fascinating, the kind of material I wish I was writing. Ginger Strand describes Virgil's epic, Aeneid, about the Roman empire, to illustrate how imperialism drives the absorption, destruction and use of natural resources as a way to shock and awe the enemy and those that they annex. Sailing a fleet of ships that each require 300 adult trees to build is a way of claiming ownership of land far beyond those of the ruling city. The empire she compares it to is of course, the United States.
In our quest for and refusal to reduce our dependence on oil, our leaders are saying "we claim all of the world's natural resources for ourselves." It made me wonder if environmental balance is possible as long as there are imperialist nations with as much power as the US and China. Consuming natural resources is a way of life in the States. It's what we do. Look at the cars we drive.
The largest SUVs are named after large expanses of land, mountains, huge trees, powerful rivers - Tundra, Sierra, Yukon, Tahoe, Sequoia - that will and must be conquered. Driving one is a display of that power. Look out, here comes an Avalanche! Durango is a coal mining town. Explorer, Expedition, Navigator, Mountaineer, and Trooper are the names of the types of people who conquer nature. An Armada is a fleet of warships! The favorite of Los Angeles, though, is the Escalade which describes scaling the walls of a fortress to attack. CHARGE!!!
It was the 826 Valencia store. The story is, author Dave Eggers wanted to start a place where writers could tutor kids after school and wanted it to be right in the city where the kids who needed it could have access to it. But as it was in a retail district, there had to be a store. Thus the first of many 826 locations and stores was born.
Today there's an 826 in Seattle that sells supplies for astronauts (above). 826 in Brooklyn sells superhero supplies, 826 Chicago sells spy supplies at The Boring Store (ha ha ha), and 826 Michigan provides monster supplies. (I still have not yet volunteered for 826 LA and we don't have a store. Bummer.)
Anyway, Egger's accompanying publishing company, McSweeney's, has long put out literary journals and other writings. A few Christmases ago, I bought as a gift, a book called Your Disgusting Head published by McSweeney's. With a made up PhD and hilarious illustrations, it was a spoof on kid's books except strange, gross and nonsensical. I bought a subscription of The Believer for a friend and bought myself the music edition of The Believer for the CD of interesting music but I never read the magazine. I thought everything in the world of McSweeney's was beautiful nonsense.
Then a few months ago I ordered for very cheap, ten old issues of The Believer just for the heck of it. I thumbed through them but the unorthodox layout and odd headlines baffled me again. They sat in an attractive pile in my house, untouched, while I read my other magazines. Then a friend came over, someone I didn't expect to know McSweeney's and excitedly told me how great Wholphin was, another one of their pubs. Really? Someone actually reads this stuff?
So one day I opened one and started reading and I absolutely love it. The articles are unique and completely fascinating, the kind of material I wish I was writing. Ginger Strand describes Virgil's epic, Aeneid, about the Roman empire, to illustrate how imperialism drives the absorption, destruction and use of natural resources as a way to shock and awe the enemy and those that they annex. Sailing a fleet of ships that each require 300 adult trees to build is a way of claiming ownership of land far beyond those of the ruling city. The empire she compares it to is of course, the United States.
In our quest for and refusal to reduce our dependence on oil, our leaders are saying "we claim all of the world's natural resources for ourselves." It made me wonder if environmental balance is possible as long as there are imperialist nations with as much power as the US and China. Consuming natural resources is a way of life in the States. It's what we do. Look at the cars we drive.
The largest SUVs are named after large expanses of land, mountains, huge trees, powerful rivers - Tundra, Sierra, Yukon, Tahoe, Sequoia - that will and must be conquered. Driving one is a display of that power. Look out, here comes an Avalanche! Durango is a coal mining town. Explorer, Expedition, Navigator, Mountaineer, and Trooper are the names of the types of people who conquer nature. An Armada is a fleet of warships! The favorite of Los Angeles, though, is the Escalade which describes scaling the walls of a fortress to attack. CHARGE!!!
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