The Decline of Western Civilization

Today I revisited an old favorite documentary - The Decline of Western Civilization Part II - The Metal Years - yes, kids, I love rock docs, and I especially love rock docs about that magical time of music when hair, androgyny, cheese-laden power ballads, and sex, drugs, and rock and roll ruled the sunset strip.  I was not alive to witness the debauchery that came with the unhinging of the left coast metal scene, but I can't get enough of the retrospective flash and trash.
Penelope Spheeris, the director of both "Decline of Western Civ" documentaries is one of my idols because she always captured "the scene" in a way that everyone else outside of "the scene" didn't quite grasp.

 
Although, I could go on forever about Spheeris' cinema-graphic achievements - I will cut to the chase - that being the way that music, rock, "the scene" (used as a wide reaching euphemism for any music scene), the fans, the ideology, the raison d'etre behind it all - at least in my small world, and my small scene - is so different than that of the once rock-tastic sunset strip..
The eighties rock and metal scene was the epitome of sex, drugs and rock and roll - and shit, besides the OD's and STD's it looked like a damn good time - and the excess and reckless abandon that the sunset strip exuded is awe inspiring -

Yet as i look at the scenes that i have subscribed to, especially the scene that I currently subscribe to - where brooklyn is the new los angeles and bedford avenue is the new sunset strip - except instead of aqua-net and strippers, there's PBR and hipsters - it seems that the (idiotic and) innocent insanity has been replaced with a sense of (jaded and) ironic apathy. and it really makes me wonder - has music lost it's wild side?

With the dwindling need for the big wigs at the labels in hollywood to back the albums, these artists in brooklyn (and elsewhere) have assumed responsibility for the rights to their music, and with that added (and deserved entitlement) the hi-jinks have seemingly faded.

Paul Stanley of KISS, in the first ten minutes of The Decline of Western Civ Part II (while flanked by four ladies in lingerie)
says that, "rock and roll is made by people who were thinking with their crotches" and I wonder if that is the case anymore. Maybe the indie scene can't be filed under the "rock and roll" tab - perhaps it is more like punk scene, or grunge - where the fuel to rock was less about partying hard and banging a bevy of ho's and more about, um.........
 well, shit, i can't really speak to that right now - but it's something i definitely will think about
in the meanwhile - if you haven't watched the (in)famous Decline of Western Civ II - The Metal Years, I highly recommend you tease your hair, mix a stiff drink, and indulge in the awesomeness and idiocy of it all....

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II - The Metal Years

Also, some choice hair metal songs:
Poison Unskinny Bop

Alice Cooper - Poison

Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart

Vixen Edge of a Broken Heart

Oh No Ono - Oh YES YES YES!!!

 
Denmark breeds them well, I'll definitely say that. Oh No Ono is the newest batch of Danish broods to get hyped in the states and it's certainly understandable why. Besides being quite easy on the eyes, the psych-pop quintet delivers majestically synthesized rock, complete with the quintessential androgynous vocal (made popular by fellow Danes - Mew, amongst others), and juxtaposed instrumentals that blend airy flutes and bells with deep orchestral violins and drums.
Their fourth and latest effort, Eggs is a splendid smorgasbord of those styles -

Lucky for us, Oh No Ono is currently on tour in the US, and will be playing a set of shows this week in Manhattan and Brooklyn - WOOOOHOOOO!!!
Tomorrow, Tuesday January 26, 2009 Oh No Ono is playing a FREE SHOW at Sound Fix Records in W-burg at 7:00 pm.

Sadly, their Wednesday show at Mercury Lounge with Bear in Heaven is sold out - which I would have totally shelled out the whopping $10 to attend (had I formerly anticipated that the show would actually sell out) - Bear in Heaven is another psych-pop outfit from Brooklyn, with a different, yet equally awesome stylistic approach
Bear in Heaven - Deafening Love is a sweet track off their album Beast Rest Forth Mouth!

Anyway, the dapper Danes are playing a third show at Union Hall in the BK, on Thursday and tickets for that are still available.

I am most excited to see the band live - hopefully they will live up to all my hopes, dreams and naughty expectations....

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite Oh No Ono tracks from Eggs:
Oh No Ono - Helplessly Young
Oh No Ono - Internet Warrior
Oh No Ono - Swim

Goo in your Hand - Sonic Youth get "Fucked Up"

Cross-continental band brawls always cause for a bit of excitement and whether completely serious or not, inject a little humor into the wide world of genre music - last year it was low-fi favorites Wavves that took a proverbial beating from the oh so colourful Psychedelic Horseshit, by way of a hilariously candid interview with The Washington Post. Even though I have head frontman Matt Whitehurst's commentary on Wavves and the whole low-fi movement trillions of times, it never gets old. Granted, I think Wavves pretty much blows musically, and the whole low-fi movement (in my opinion) is drab and over-hyped - but that's all yesterdays news.

It's 2010 now and we have a new batch of band beef to giggle at (thank god it's sans low-fi......)

This time it's Canadian punk/hardcore band Fucked Up taking a stab at label mates Sonic Youth - all orchestrated by Brit photog and raucous rouser Ben Rayner. Rayner has some history with Wavves as well - he succeeded in breaking up the band on stage last year at Primavera - too bad Whiteburst wasn't there to assist him with insults....






Rayner


This is this low-down on the haps:
Vbs.tv interviewed Sonic Youth for their program Soft Focus during the My Bloody Valentine ATP festival across the pond.
In some question/answer hodgepodge, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore ended up stating that Fucked Up's musical style should be called "dude-core" -
which Fucked Up thought was pretty fucked up and in response to being branded as bros, Fucked Up and Rayner recorded an EP bashing Sonic Youth.




The title track in the EP is "Cranking to Sonic Youth," which according to Rayner (and brit-speak), cranking means "crying and wanking simultaneously," while listening to Sonic Youth - which really sounds like a sad state of affairs.



Rayner, in an interview with Vice, detailed the lyrics to the song:
The verse: "Cranking to Sonic Youth/ Goo in your hand/ Goo in your hand"
The chorus: "You love Thurston and you love Kim/ You love art and you are thin"

Sonic Youth has yet to make a retort to the collabo - but here's hoping something awesome or equally spooge-tastic will come out of it.
You can check out the "Goo in your hand" track on Vice.

Foreskin Fashion: Etnies and Whale Cock(s)

Etnies recently paired up with Dave Carnie of Whale Cock Skateboards to create one of the most awesomely creative, and perfectly controversial ads that I have ever seen, displayed in Vice Magazine's 2009 Fiction Issue. The fictional ad boasts a new skate shoe made from the "softest material on earth," otherwise known as "the skin of a whales penis," and create the Aborted Baby Whale, Whale Cock Shoe. That shit must be madd comfortable! Anyway, the picture in the ad is indeed great, but the accompanying story of how the baby whale-cock skin is acquired is kooky genius. The story is so bizarre, it gets away with poking lighthearted humor at serious issues, and it works brilliantly.
Take a gander...

"As everyone knows, the skin of a whale's penis is the softest material on earth. Aristotle Onassis covered the barstools on his yacht with whale cock foreskin. Everyone who sat in them thought they were the softest barstools they had ever sat upon. Can you imagine, then, how supple the skin of a baby whale's virgin penis must feel? It is the softest material on earth. How much more softer can you get? The answer is none. None more softer. So ETNIES and WHALE COCK have contracted a number of Japanese whaling fleets (equipped with offshore abortion clinics)to acquire only the finest and most pregnant whales in the ocean. The Japanese abortion doctors carefully extricate the baby whales from the mothers' vaginas, and harvest their tiny baby penises. After the skins have been processed and brought to shore, the nimble fingers of tiny foreign orphan children fashion the smooth, malleable material into skateboard shoes. It requires at least 19 baby whale penises to make each shoe, but it's the softest, most comfortable skateboard shoe you will ever wear. Thanks to the tiny cocks of aborted baby whales" (Etnies, 2009)

Polar Bears Paralyze Poland Spring??

Various new campaigns have recently popped up, by way of culturejammers and other concerned individuals, urging consumers to be more mindful of their consumption habits. Specifically, a new one entitled "Polar Tears" that takes a well deserved jab at the bottled water industry, through a heart wrenching expose (by way of poster), depicting a sobbing polar bear atop a decrepit ice cap, which (not so) ironically is melting into a plastic bottle. The apropos phrases "98 percent melted ice caps" and "2 percent polar bear tears" flank each side of the image. They say emotion is the best way to foster a reaction and I must admit that pulling at the heart strings always works for me - so in an attempt to spread the word about eco-friendly water consumption and help the polar bear - I am printing out the poster and passing it along to spread the word. And, this is no Al Gore "save the polar bears BS either" - thus, I take it seriously and I suggest that you do the same. Buy a reusable water bottle, and stop purchasing the plastic - For the polar bears.....

HOLY AWESOMENESS

It's about time someone did 80's synth pop some justice - right when i was teetering on the edge of ad-nauseam, convinced that the next few years of electro were slave to tragic mash-ups and formulaic remixes - i saw the light, and it's name was Holy Ghost!
"I Will Come Back" is a super sexual track that evokes the most dancerific grooves, and the video truly does justice to what this whole 80's resurgence should be about.
I highly recommend listening to this track on heavy, heavy rotation and prepare to get d-floor nasty.
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Laugh Till You Cry

 I'm not one of those celebrity blog enthusiasts - I have never really cared what Lindsay Lohan or her psychotic "I want to be 21 again" mother are doing and what drugs they are snorting. Brit-Brit used to garner some interest I suppose, just because her antics were so wacky and tasteless, you can't avoid looking - kind of like a six-hundred pound man in a neon orange thong.
I want to see more six hundred pound men in chartreuse thongs and seemingly "normal" girls and boys who are really fucking bizarre. The non-celebrity who should have some status just for taking the cultural fashion risks that they do - because these people are legitimately trying to look cool. It's an earnest effort to do something different, and more times than not, this doing something different ends up in kid idiot looking like a fucking jack-ass - but that's the beauty of it.
FINALLY, someone has began to document the truly heinous atrocities of human existence - that make living on this planet worthwhile.
These are the druggies, drunks, fat-asses, fags, hipsters, bitches, japs, normals, etc. that make you want to quit your shitty nine to five and jump on the weirdo wagon with them. And please, don't forget to read the captions.

http://www.viceland.com/int/dos.php