Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, May 22, 2008
He, Monster Blue
Meet Hugh Macleod - the Blue Monster's daddy
Meet his website (www.gapingvoid.com) - where art transcends purpose and something less significant
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Gloom and doom in my room
Billie Holiday’s voice is both dangerously alluring and beautifully morose. Her rendition of Strange Fruit sounds like pain drinking itself to a quiet state of mind at a smoky jazz club. Like Nina Simone, this wonderfully talented lady often grabbed racism by its throat and crushed it beneath a song. Her version of Gloomy Sunday is…hmmm, kindly insert your adjective of choice here…quite frankly I foresee my failure to choose an appropriate one, considering how immersed in sound I feel whenever I hear this song.
Scary thing happened a few hours ago. I downloaded the original version of Gloomy Sunday orchestrated by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress in 1933, and heard it over a cup of coffee. The song was called Szomorú Vasárnap, and it sounded just like it was intended to, an ode to the dead. Upon its release, this song faced a terrible controversy when allegations arose that it caused star-crossed lovers to commit suicide. There has been neither substantiation nor documentation of this most vicious rumour. One thing’s for sure…after three minutes; you will have all the evidence to substantiate the fact that Szomorú Vasárnap is a stunning piece of art.
Two for the price of none
Games children play...insert reggae beat
As a child, I must confess, I had a slight affinity for packing my bags and bidding adieu to reality. It wasn’t the sort of imagination that inspires children to grow up and metamorphose into bylines, regularly found on science fiction magazines. It was more of an unabashedly absurd sort. The kind that many times coaxed me to make up silly games during roadtrips with family. I used to imagine that the telephone wires on the highways were in fact deadly iron wires, designed for the sole purpose of barbarically cutting through the landscapes. I stared out of the window, watching endless sheets of razor sharp wires slicing through large trees, often pausing to take a shot at the blue skies too. It was breathtaking. Not the fact that this constituted to any sort of visual poetry, but no one could deny that it was an exceedingly strong attempt by an 11-year old to crawl out of drudgery, kicking and screaming. More kicking than screaming.
Mom's Mom Almost Ruins Love For Mangoes
I remember my first trip outside Chennai. It was a drive down to Kancheepuram. The place where my ancestors originated from. I cringed back in horror as the car whizzed past St. Thomas Mount, my last known destination. It was both scary and exciting. Much similar to how I felt when I discovered that the flesh inside mangoes was tastier than the skin it hides beneath. You must know, as a kid, soft and supple objects sent shivers down my spine. The only possible explanation I could think of was that I had a nasty experience, watching my grandma hopelessly battle lunch. Dinner too. Alaska has more tanned people that she had teeth. Thank god, she skipped breakfast for the last decade of her life.
As a child, I must confess, I had a slight affinity for packing my bags and bidding adieu to reality. It wasn’t the sort of imagination that inspires children to grow up and metamorphose into bylines, regularly found on science fiction magazines. It was more of an unabashedly absurd sort. The kind that many times coaxed me to make up silly games during roadtrips with family. I used to imagine that the telephone wires on the highways were in fact deadly iron wires, designed for the sole purpose of barbarically cutting through the landscapes. I stared out of the window, watching endless sheets of razor sharp wires slicing through large trees, often pausing to take a shot at the blue skies too. It was breathtaking. Not the fact that this constituted to any sort of visual poetry, but no one could deny that it was an exceedingly strong attempt by an 11-year old to crawl out of drudgery, kicking and screaming. More kicking than screaming.
Mom's Mom Almost Ruins Love For Mangoes
I remember my first trip outside Chennai. It was a drive down to Kancheepuram. The place where my ancestors originated from. I cringed back in horror as the car whizzed past St. Thomas Mount, my last known destination. It was both scary and exciting. Much similar to how I felt when I discovered that the flesh inside mangoes was tastier than the skin it hides beneath. You must know, as a kid, soft and supple objects sent shivers down my spine. The only possible explanation I could think of was that I had a nasty experience, watching my grandma hopelessly battle lunch. Dinner too. Alaska has more tanned people that she had teeth. Thank god, she skipped breakfast for the last decade of her life.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Riders of the doldrums
The stillness of a city sometimes gives birth to music. Wordless compositions that float in the breeze and awkwardly land on treetops and apartment terraces. Riding around the city on s Sunday afternoon can give you a headache during summer, but winter brings along a melancholic blanket that smears itself on the blue skies. Piano notes, guitar strings, and drumbeats rise up nowhere and threaten to pierce through the helmet and into your ears.
The rhythm is soft and disjointed, often depicting what a nightingale might sound like if somebody coaxed her to sing beneath the sea. The kind that startles seahorses by dismantling their fragile minds and putting them back together with the sweetest of intentions.
The kind that would be perfect to listen to while watching chestnuts crackle in the fireplace.
Perfect for a conversation over black coffee.
Most of all, perfect for getting over the silliness of genetic evolution for not already setting in motion a series of biologically complex sequences that would eventually result in future generations being born with in-built music boxes in their skulls.
That would be neat.
Hmmm.
The rhythm is soft and disjointed, often depicting what a nightingale might sound like if somebody coaxed her to sing beneath the sea. The kind that startles seahorses by dismantling their fragile minds and putting them back together with the sweetest of intentions.
The kind that would be perfect to listen to while watching chestnuts crackle in the fireplace.
Perfect for a conversation over black coffee.
Most of all, perfect for getting over the silliness of genetic evolution for not already setting in motion a series of biologically complex sequences that would eventually result in future generations being born with in-built music boxes in their skulls.
That would be neat.
Hmmm.
Rant, i think
I have been hooked on to reality shows. Despite having harboured a quiet hatred for most things that fall under the umbrella of Caucasian entertainment, I must say, I have taken a liking to these seemingly (but not quite!!) choreographed programmes. For the past few months, I have sat in from the television, watching chefs berate each other for adding too much pepper and not enough love, amateur boxers weeping while reminiscing about the Civil war, and most of all, stranded Americans playing politics and mind games with each other while wondering what could be the quickest cure for spider bites. Survivor, Top Chef, American Inventor, Contender, UFC, just to name a few, or perhaps all of them since time is against my side for most of the day and a few hours is all I can spare for such mind numbing entertainment.
I don’t particularly enjoy seeing winners of these shows bathe themselves in televised glory. No, no, no…that would be akin to falling prey to the televison networks’ devious marketing techniques. In fact, the only time that I was happy for such winners was when an African American beat seven shades of shit out of an Asian guy in a general knowledge quiz to claim a 50,000$ cash prize. It was fun because the Asian guy wept like a sad monkey in a desert after realising that the banana tree was just an elaborate mirage.
That’s what fascinates me about reality shows. The way they showcase human misery in an unintentionally funny light. On this show called American Inventor, a number of participants (amateur inventors) are asked to create offbeat products that are either trashed or moved to the next round by a panel of judges. During one particular episode, the judges ridiculed a man’s invention to the point that he broke into tears and told them about how he had even sold his wife’s wedding ring to pursue his dream of being the next big American inventor. All the judges could offer at that point were nervous giggles and guilt trips. The expressions on their faces were priceless. The misery of that sad, old gentleman televised across millions of homes in America and debated upon by every George, Mathew and Anthony ( I don’t know anyone called Tom. Dick or Harry…to refer to these names, as being the most common of the lot is sheer ridiculousness) was even more priceless, in case value is being judged on the merit of its absurdity, of course.
I don’t think I am a particularly mean person, but I am just captivated by the extent to which Americans would go in order to portray their own as being in-bred, retarded and self-destructive mules. In politics, their stupidity reinforced them to vote for that baboon Bush. Now in entertainment, they are thrusting their culture to the fore and painting it ugly green.
The stupider they become, the funnier television shows are going be. I, for one, won’t raise a hue or cry for \nde-evolution.
I don’t know anyone called Tom. Dick or Harry…to refer to these names, as being the most common of the lot is sheer ridiculousness) was even more priceless, in case value is being judged on the merit of its absurdity, of course.
I don’t think I am a particularly mean person, but I am just captivated by the extent to which Americans would go in order to portray their own as being in-bred, retarded and self-destructive mules. In politics, their stupidity reinforced them to vote for that baboon Bush. Now in entertainment, they are thrusting their culture to the fore and painting it ugly green.
The stupider they become, the funnier television shows are going be. I, for one, won’t raise a hue or cry for de-evolution.
I don’t particularly enjoy seeing winners of these shows bathe themselves in televised glory. No, no, no…that would be akin to falling prey to the televison networks’ devious marketing techniques. In fact, the only time that I was happy for such winners was when an African American beat seven shades of shit out of an Asian guy in a general knowledge quiz to claim a 50,000$ cash prize. It was fun because the Asian guy wept like a sad monkey in a desert after realising that the banana tree was just an elaborate mirage.
That’s what fascinates me about reality shows. The way they showcase human misery in an unintentionally funny light. On this show called American Inventor, a number of participants (amateur inventors) are asked to create offbeat products that are either trashed or moved to the next round by a panel of judges. During one particular episode, the judges ridiculed a man’s invention to the point that he broke into tears and told them about how he had even sold his wife’s wedding ring to pursue his dream of being the next big American inventor. All the judges could offer at that point were nervous giggles and guilt trips. The expressions on their faces were priceless. The misery of that sad, old gentleman televised across millions of homes in America and debated upon by every George, Mathew and Anthony ( I don’t know anyone called Tom. Dick or Harry…to refer to these names, as being the most common of the lot is sheer ridiculousness) was even more priceless, in case value is being judged on the merit of its absurdity, of course.
I don’t think I am a particularly mean person, but I am just captivated by the extent to which Americans would go in order to portray their own as being in-bred, retarded and self-destructive mules. In politics, their stupidity reinforced them to vote for that baboon Bush. Now in entertainment, they are thrusting their culture to the fore and painting it ugly green.
The stupider they become, the funnier television shows are going be. I, for one, won’t raise a hue or cry for \nde-evolution.
I don’t know anyone called Tom. Dick or Harry…to refer to these names, as being the most common of the lot is sheer ridiculousness) was even more priceless, in case value is being judged on the merit of its absurdity, of course.
I don’t think I am a particularly mean person, but I am just captivated by the extent to which Americans would go in order to portray their own as being in-bred, retarded and self-destructive mules. In politics, their stupidity reinforced them to vote for that baboon Bush. Now in entertainment, they are thrusting their culture to the fore and painting it ugly green.
The stupider they become, the funnier television shows are going be. I, for one, won’t raise a hue or cry for de-evolution.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
THIS IS ALSO THE SHIZNIT
Whomadewho
For the last time, techno should not make you want to dance. Techno is painful. Borderline torturous. Hell, our government should be utilizing it to ward off potential terrorists. As for disco…well, Motown’s coloured folks discovered it. Later, George Clinton and James Brown put it on the radio. Hell, even Tom Jones caught a glimpse or two of it. As for Whomadewho…well, this Denmark-based band whacks it right in the disco balls.
Jose Gonzalez
After hearing Damien Rice’s version of When Doves Cry, I decided to give ‘the hollow acoustic sound’ another go. A few days later, I stumbled upon Jose Gonzalez on YouTube. His rendition of Massive Attack’s Teardrop is awesome. Er…at least good enough to drown memories of post-grunge rockers sitting on barstools, strumming on acoustic guitars and singing about how their dads had too many bills to pay and not enough hugs to give. Forget them. Try this chap.
Dinosaur Jr
During the mid-Eighties, Dinosaur Jr unleashed the alternative rock genre upon unsuspecting masses. In essence, this genre was the next step in the evolution of college rock. Some even took it to be the unholy matrimony between hard rock and punk. Whatever the hell it was, these guys managed to make it sound more intriguing and viscerally edgier than anything else that dared to broadcast itself on MTV. Fiction: Nirvana gave birth to the sonic blueprint that made modern rock music a better alternative to popular music. Fact: Dinosaur Jr’s sophomore album You're Living All Over Me packs more punch than the shotgun that blew Cobain’s head off.
Opeth
What’s life without a little metal to whip one’s earlobes into frenzy? For nearly five years, I watched as my Panasonic music system got continuously assaulted by the likes of Sepultura, Pantera, Six Feet Under, Sabbath and Crowbar. By the summer of 2000, Radiohead’s OK Computer launched an attack so intensely alarming upon my aural inclinations that I could no longer appreciate bands that preferred ferocity to subtlety. It’s difficult to lug Opeth into the metal category even though they sometimes consciously channel the spirits of black metal legends. But their calmer and more introspective side lets them escape any such classification. Let me just say that Opeth is what heavy metal should hope to evolve into by the next millennium.
For the last time, techno should not make you want to dance. Techno is painful. Borderline torturous. Hell, our government should be utilizing it to ward off potential terrorists. As for disco…well, Motown’s coloured folks discovered it. Later, George Clinton and James Brown put it on the radio. Hell, even Tom Jones caught a glimpse or two of it. As for Whomadewho…well, this Denmark-based band whacks it right in the disco balls.
Jose Gonzalez
After hearing Damien Rice’s version of When Doves Cry, I decided to give ‘the hollow acoustic sound’ another go. A few days later, I stumbled upon Jose Gonzalez on YouTube. His rendition of Massive Attack’s Teardrop is awesome. Er…at least good enough to drown memories of post-grunge rockers sitting on barstools, strumming on acoustic guitars and singing about how their dads had too many bills to pay and not enough hugs to give. Forget them. Try this chap.
Dinosaur Jr
During the mid-Eighties, Dinosaur Jr unleashed the alternative rock genre upon unsuspecting masses. In essence, this genre was the next step in the evolution of college rock. Some even took it to be the unholy matrimony between hard rock and punk. Whatever the hell it was, these guys managed to make it sound more intriguing and viscerally edgier than anything else that dared to broadcast itself on MTV. Fiction: Nirvana gave birth to the sonic blueprint that made modern rock music a better alternative to popular music. Fact: Dinosaur Jr’s sophomore album You're Living All Over Me packs more punch than the shotgun that blew Cobain’s head off.
Opeth
What’s life without a little metal to whip one’s earlobes into frenzy? For nearly five years, I watched as my Panasonic music system got continuously assaulted by the likes of Sepultura, Pantera, Six Feet Under, Sabbath and Crowbar. By the summer of 2000, Radiohead’s OK Computer launched an attack so intensely alarming upon my aural inclinations that I could no longer appreciate bands that preferred ferocity to subtlety. It’s difficult to lug Opeth into the metal category even though they sometimes consciously channel the spirits of black metal legends. But their calmer and more introspective side lets them escape any such classification. Let me just say that Opeth is what heavy metal should hope to evolve into by the next millennium.
THIS IS THE NEW SHIZNIT
Hot Springs
The answer to the question no one bothers to ask. What would happen if Janis Joplin attacked The Strokes with a broken microphone? You could say that these good folks from Montreal are jumping onto the garage bandwagon. Oh well…same wine, sharper sound.
The Outlines
Soul music sticks to the brain like jam on bread. Not long enough to cause hemorrhaging, but just barely enough to induce your mind into a serene slumber. Having said that, The Outlines are not soul purists. They also do funk, R&B improvisations and hip-hop that doesn’t stop until it crashes headfirst into jazz territory. Wikipedia calls them “experimental”. I think they’re cool.
LCD Soundsystem
Punk rockers who love to shake a leg or two often pledge their allegiance to James Murphy - the overlord of the disco punk genre. Murphy’s pet project, LCD Soundsystem, make music that is perfect for brightly lit pubs. Throw in a few cocktails and you have a goddamn party that makes you want to dance after getting that first spiked haircut.
The Gasoline Angels
During the Seventies, weak production gave rock music a raw edge over its pop counterparts. Fuzz, feedback and distorted basslines urged our dads to salute all those who vowed to rock and roll. The music exploded with the frantic urgency of an out-of-control ambulance. These guys are channeling the ghosts of hard rock giants who could not step out of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s shadow. Give me a time machine and I’ll show you how to rock out with Gasoline Angels.
The answer to the question no one bothers to ask. What would happen if Janis Joplin attacked The Strokes with a broken microphone? You could say that these good folks from Montreal are jumping onto the garage bandwagon. Oh well…same wine, sharper sound.
The Outlines
Soul music sticks to the brain like jam on bread. Not long enough to cause hemorrhaging, but just barely enough to induce your mind into a serene slumber. Having said that, The Outlines are not soul purists. They also do funk, R&B improvisations and hip-hop that doesn’t stop until it crashes headfirst into jazz territory. Wikipedia calls them “experimental”. I think they’re cool.
LCD Soundsystem
Punk rockers who love to shake a leg or two often pledge their allegiance to James Murphy - the overlord of the disco punk genre. Murphy’s pet project, LCD Soundsystem, make music that is perfect for brightly lit pubs. Throw in a few cocktails and you have a goddamn party that makes you want to dance after getting that first spiked haircut.
The Gasoline Angels
During the Seventies, weak production gave rock music a raw edge over its pop counterparts. Fuzz, feedback and distorted basslines urged our dads to salute all those who vowed to rock and roll. The music exploded with the frantic urgency of an out-of-control ambulance. These guys are channeling the ghosts of hard rock giants who could not step out of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s shadow. Give me a time machine and I’ll show you how to rock out with Gasoline Angels.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
STOP KIDDIES, WHAT'S THAT SOUND
It has turned out to be quite a fad to trash the current sound. During the Sixties, music fans found love, lust and LSD inside electric organs. They drank whiskey and left their women back home when the Seventies dawned upon them. The Eighties witnessed these poor souls paying more attention to clothing and accessories than on a steady drumbeat. Kurt Cobain ripped their hearts out with a shotgun blast, just as the Nineties was proving to be quite eclectic. Now as this generation hits midlife crisis, the music fans have decided to stake a claim in history by portraying themselves as whiny bitches.
They moan and groan about how pop music has degraded from Paul Simon goodness to Shakira’s bile-inducing shenanigans. The long-haired folk have decided that all attempts made by Metallica to recapture former thundering glory shall therefore be treacherous. Hip-hop apparently sucks nowadays, as does Rock n Roll.
I don’t fully understand all this negativity floating around. If you look inside bull’s arse, the odds of seeing anything else other than bullshit are pretty slim. If music enthusiasts keep switching channels on TV, or buy music from their local store, the chances of them hearing the sound of garbage writhing with itself are pretty fucking high.
And stop telling me there you are unsure what to download, and that there is nothing out there to capture your fancy. Ever tried Mulatu Astatke or The Greenhornes? You can't find good music by typing the same damn keywords on Google and then being disappointed that 50 Cents, Akon and Snoop Dogg are the only downloadable options in the rap category. 50 Cents isn’t worth 2 cents and everyone knows it. Stop bitching about this and start looking for alternative options. Blackalicious are rhythmical gold. Prefuse 73 and Count Bass D throw out some great hip-hop tunes every now and then.
Also rock is not dead. It has gone into hiding, that’s all. Look deep enough and you will discover Decemberists, Tiger Tiger, Racoquenters and guys who call themselves Queens Of The Stone Age. Don’t look down upon what music has evolved into without paying at least a moment’s attention to bands like The Outlines, Zero 7, Belleruche or Brant Bjork.
This decade’s sound does not suck. It’s just no longer to be found where it once was.
They moan and groan about how pop music has degraded from Paul Simon goodness to Shakira’s bile-inducing shenanigans. The long-haired folk have decided that all attempts made by Metallica to recapture former thundering glory shall therefore be treacherous. Hip-hop apparently sucks nowadays, as does Rock n Roll.
I don’t fully understand all this negativity floating around. If you look inside bull’s arse, the odds of seeing anything else other than bullshit are pretty slim. If music enthusiasts keep switching channels on TV, or buy music from their local store, the chances of them hearing the sound of garbage writhing with itself are pretty fucking high.
And stop telling me there you are unsure what to download, and that there is nothing out there to capture your fancy. Ever tried Mulatu Astatke or The Greenhornes? You can't find good music by typing the same damn keywords on Google and then being disappointed that 50 Cents, Akon and Snoop Dogg are the only downloadable options in the rap category. 50 Cents isn’t worth 2 cents and everyone knows it. Stop bitching about this and start looking for alternative options. Blackalicious are rhythmical gold. Prefuse 73 and Count Bass D throw out some great hip-hop tunes every now and then.
Also rock is not dead. It has gone into hiding, that’s all. Look deep enough and you will discover Decemberists, Tiger Tiger, Racoquenters and guys who call themselves Queens Of The Stone Age. Don’t look down upon what music has evolved into without paying at least a moment’s attention to bands like The Outlines, Zero 7, Belleruche or Brant Bjork.
This decade’s sound does not suck. It’s just no longer to be found where it once was.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Rite to information
Much like the mind, words can also be set fire to. Making sense is its perfunctory function. Again, drawing similarities with the mind, words too can be harmful when wielded without a touch of grace. I can’t even begin to tell you how embarrassing it sometimes feels to see countless atrocities committed upon language. Words are being dragged through dirt right about now - right from the fecal matter that masquerades as soft stories on newspapers to the blatantly stupid ad-slogans found on every other billboard. Don’t even get me started on text messages that revel in its retarded brevity. For the sake of every dead author who ever meant anything to you, please set aside your obstinate ignorance while jotting down thoughts on paper, and consult someone who can give you the liberty of sounding like less of an idiot than you probably are. It’s both disrespectful and ungainly to ignore grammar, and what a horrid thing it is to actually take pride in such.
Monday, November 12, 2007
IDIOCY, IDIOCY EVERYWHERE
Sometimes the mind shuts down for the sake of self-preservation. The brain puts it to sleep and throws a blanket over it for good measure. My mind does the same when I witness something so spectacularly stupid that it has the propensity to set in motion a series of events that could possibly spark off World War III, or at least cause internal brain hemorrhaging. Today morning, one of colleagues thought aloud. Thinking aloud is an activity better left handled by people who are placed relatively high in the food chain. Having said that, this particular colleague was mentally handicapped enough to let slugs have their way with her over breakfast. I began theorizing that her ancestors were in fact clouds of dust and if my calculations were anywhere close to being accurate, her grandparents would have been water-borne algae and a couple of days ago, this simian-esque lady would have evolved into a monkey. Luckily, I wouldn't be here at this office when she eventually becomes human, which I gather would take place sometime in the year 2134.
Anyway, this colleague asked me how come water doesn't drip around the earth's core. Dazed by the question, I gathered all the strength I had to put up a quizzical grin. "The earth is round, na?" The water should keep spilling all over the edges na?"
Apart from the fact that she thought that circular objects have edges, this ignoramus also took the liberty of assuming that I would gave a shit about what swirled around in her mind. I was led to believe that retarded hamsters running on broken wheels managed the functioning of her thought processes. Looks like a few of the hamsters died this morning.
After the dazed expression on my face wore off, I turned my mind inside out and desperately lunged forward to hit the pause button.
Calm.
Composed.
Not thinking.
Exit idiocy.
Anyway, this colleague asked me how come water doesn't drip around the earth's core. Dazed by the question, I gathered all the strength I had to put up a quizzical grin. "The earth is round, na?" The water should keep spilling all over the edges na?"
Apart from the fact that she thought that circular objects have edges, this ignoramus also took the liberty of assuming that I would gave a shit about what swirled around in her mind. I was led to believe that retarded hamsters running on broken wheels managed the functioning of her thought processes. Looks like a few of the hamsters died this morning.
After the dazed expression on my face wore off, I turned my mind inside out and desperately lunged forward to hit the pause button.
Calm.
Composed.
Not thinking.
Exit idiocy.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Stop by and kill the roses
The potency of people's peculiarities is often tipped with enough poison to send the Tin Man scurrying to the nearest psychiatrist. Some of them may seem cute to delightfully callous observers. Of course, the vilest of things can look digestible when looked at from a considerable distance. So I decided to kick back and generally observe the people in my office while paying great attention to even the most microscopic of behavioural patterns. A few hours later, and for the millionth time, enlightenment dawned upon me. I realised that idiocy runs rampant no matter how intelligent or productive the people you see everyday are. Let me rephrase that…everybody pisses me off sometime or the other.
Sure I could swallow the normalcy of this constant irritation and continue to gel with society without sniffing glue and putting hexes on random colleagues. But that just wouldn't constitute to having fun. I like things to be colourful inside my head. I prefer it when people give me reasons to hate them; working hours ostensibly turn out to be funnier for my friends and I, whenever this happens.
As far as I am concerned, this has presumably been a strange and boring decade to be a member of the working class category and more importantly, this has definitely been quite a torrid century for us all. So why bother hating the bigger picture of life and all that it promises and threatens you with. You would be better off hating the little things in life. Next time you wake up feeling messed up about the future, don't forget to stop by and smell the roses. More importantly, don't forget to pluck the little bastards out of their stems and stomp on them until they bleed.
You will feel better. And if you don't, you seriously need help.
Sure I could swallow the normalcy of this constant irritation and continue to gel with society without sniffing glue and putting hexes on random colleagues. But that just wouldn't constitute to having fun. I like things to be colourful inside my head. I prefer it when people give me reasons to hate them; working hours ostensibly turn out to be funnier for my friends and I, whenever this happens.
As far as I am concerned, this has presumably been a strange and boring decade to be a member of the working class category and more importantly, this has definitely been quite a torrid century for us all. So why bother hating the bigger picture of life and all that it promises and threatens you with. You would be better off hating the little things in life. Next time you wake up feeling messed up about the future, don't forget to stop by and smell the roses. More importantly, don't forget to pluck the little bastards out of their stems and stomp on them until they bleed.
You will feel better. And if you don't, you seriously need help.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
AND ALL THAT JAZZ
Jazz purists can be slightly annoying with their elitist take on music. I would think twice before sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of whiskey with any of them. At one point, I thought jazz music was just as annoying as its fans. I took sickly sweet pleasure in berating the genre for being unfocussed and pretentious. The George Bensens and John Coltranes of the world could not convince me to give it a second listen.
When I joined college sometime in 1999, I cultivated a habit of buying tapes of musicians unbeknownst to my ears. In one such fit of madness, I bought Digger Deeper: Roots of Acid Jazz. The inclusion of Ray Barretto’s Pastime Paradise gave me the chills, mostly because it was an improvised version of a Stevie Wonder hit single. Hell, even simian rapper Coolio covered it and renamed it as Gangster’s Paradise.
Motown’s most renowned blind man crooned about ‘dissipation’ and ‘world relations’, while years later Coolie rapped about ‘educated fools’ and the social ignominy of walking ‘through the valley of the shadow of death’. As for Ray Barretto…well, he stuck to his jazz artillery and let loose a sound so effortless in motion that even dewdrops would turn green in envy while trickling down window panes. This was the first jazz song I liked and for years, it would remain as the only one too.
And then came Thelonious Monk. Through my speakers and into my life. Before listening to his chilling compositions in the 1962 album Monk’s Dream, the word ‘bebop’ meant little else than its resemblance to the sound made by Roadrunner just before scooting away from Wily Coyote. After listening to the last song Sweet and Lovely on this record, the genre bebop took shape inside my mind. It was wild, challenging and proudly incapable of being confined within a singular melody. The album was on rotation in my stereo. I couldn’t stop listening to it. But also, around that time, my impulsive purchasing spree was reaching an all-time high and it was just a matter of time before I stumbled upon a tape that heard a picture of a three-legged dog on its cover. Alice In Chains’ self-titled album choked out everything else on my shelf…the withering chords of Frogs along with singer Layne Staley putting the world to shame “for being this way” got me hooked. For the next few years, grunge music was all I wanted to hear. And jazz lost its way in my life. Abandoned and left to wallow in its obscurity.
Yesterday night, I was browsing through floodwatchmusic.com, a really worthwhile mp3 blog that talks “swimmingly” about vintage soul, hip-hop and jazz. One such song up for download was Générique by Miles Davis. Two minutes and a few seconds later, I was convinced that I have heard fewer sounds out there more alluring than Miles Davis’ trumpet.
It would have been the perfect theme to witnessing a sunset. Or making love.
I have re-discovered jazz and am in love with it, for now.
When I joined college sometime in 1999, I cultivated a habit of buying tapes of musicians unbeknownst to my ears. In one such fit of madness, I bought Digger Deeper: Roots of Acid Jazz. The inclusion of Ray Barretto’s Pastime Paradise gave me the chills, mostly because it was an improvised version of a Stevie Wonder hit single. Hell, even simian rapper Coolio covered it and renamed it as Gangster’s Paradise.
Motown’s most renowned blind man crooned about ‘dissipation’ and ‘world relations’, while years later Coolie rapped about ‘educated fools’ and the social ignominy of walking ‘through the valley of the shadow of death’. As for Ray Barretto…well, he stuck to his jazz artillery and let loose a sound so effortless in motion that even dewdrops would turn green in envy while trickling down window panes. This was the first jazz song I liked and for years, it would remain as the only one too.
And then came Thelonious Monk. Through my speakers and into my life. Before listening to his chilling compositions in the 1962 album Monk’s Dream, the word ‘bebop’ meant little else than its resemblance to the sound made by Roadrunner just before scooting away from Wily Coyote. After listening to the last song Sweet and Lovely on this record, the genre bebop took shape inside my mind. It was wild, challenging and proudly incapable of being confined within a singular melody. The album was on rotation in my stereo. I couldn’t stop listening to it. But also, around that time, my impulsive purchasing spree was reaching an all-time high and it was just a matter of time before I stumbled upon a tape that heard a picture of a three-legged dog on its cover. Alice In Chains’ self-titled album choked out everything else on my shelf…the withering chords of Frogs along with singer Layne Staley putting the world to shame “for being this way” got me hooked. For the next few years, grunge music was all I wanted to hear. And jazz lost its way in my life. Abandoned and left to wallow in its obscurity.
Yesterday night, I was browsing through floodwatchmusic.com, a really worthwhile mp3 blog that talks “swimmingly” about vintage soul, hip-hop and jazz. One such song up for download was Générique by Miles Davis. Two minutes and a few seconds later, I was convinced that I have heard fewer sounds out there more alluring than Miles Davis’ trumpet.
It would have been the perfect theme to witnessing a sunset. Or making love.
I have re-discovered jazz and am in love with it, for now.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
THEY ARE THE UNKNOWN
Mainstream art seems to have slipped into comatose. Literature is dangerously close o writing itself out of poetry. Writers like Kiran Desi seem to ve getting recognition for verbally masturbating, even if it’s for a goddam social cause. Jodie Foster can currently be seen falsely fostering anger and doing a Walt Disney version of Robert De Niro’s Cape Fear persona. That takes care of movies too. Most scarily though, in music, the lack of decent bass lines are so alarming that even Timbaland’s looping bass note on… er… Timberlake’s Sexy Back doesn’t soon half-bad as it rightfully should.
Not too much there even for those who go underground and lurk for rare B-Sides of 70s retro bands and Indie rock songs remixed by people who lose their mind long enough to name themselves Architectures In Helsinki or Hadouken! (The exclamation mark is part of the band’s name…sigh). Remixes sure are groovy sometimes. So are B-sides. Maybe for six months. After that, you start getting pissed off with self-prophesized darlings of the Indie circuit and their brand of semi-furious but mostly ‘too laidback to even be classified as cool’ guitar music. Even belligerently progressive minds such as Belleruche, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble or TV On The Radio always fell pray to time. Their virtuosity unfairly kept fading away for no apparent reason.
Lately a few musicians have coaxed by ears to bleed with delight. Superb stoner metallers Angry Gods On The Radio and their song Iron Horse did just that. Lupe Fiasco’s hip hop tune Daydreamin’ lets my mind do a little melancholy dance whenever it comes through my headphones. Of course, Johnny Cash never tires me. His brooding version of the old time number ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’ sends icicles down my spine with its slowed-up jackhammer blasts and Mr. Cash’s ominous crooning.
And do you know what happens when bluegrass walks the mile on death row and gets saved by gospel? Well, Bill Landford & The Landfordaires’s Run On is what happens. Cash’s version sounds like a funeral march on a rainy day; Landford’s original sounds like your soul just got saved.
Three-fifty eight words later, let me get to the point. Nothing I have ever heard before sounds anything like The Aliens. These psychedelic garage rockers belt out rhythms like the Seventies never occurred. I stumbled across their single – I Am Unknown - on some random mp3 blog and three minutes later, I played air guitar after two long years.
Imagine The Who in a particularly improvisational mood. Or perhaps The White Stripes or The Strokes with more balls and less pretentions. Screw it, just download it and take a listen. If the first solo doesn’t get your feet tapping or your head nodding, something is seriously wrong with you.
This is the soul of rock music.
The Zombies had it during early Sixties. The Jefferson Aeroplane felt it once after a barbaric act of racism at a Stones’ concert bothered them enough to sharpen their sound. Even The Great White Band toyed with it during the summer of love. More recently, Wolfmother almost found it with the tremendously fabulous ‘Mind’s Eye’.
As for The Aliens. With their single ‘I Am The Unknown’, they fucking nailed it.
Not too much there even for those who go underground and lurk for rare B-Sides of 70s retro bands and Indie rock songs remixed by people who lose their mind long enough to name themselves Architectures In Helsinki or Hadouken! (The exclamation mark is part of the band’s name…sigh). Remixes sure are groovy sometimes. So are B-sides. Maybe for six months. After that, you start getting pissed off with self-prophesized darlings of the Indie circuit and their brand of semi-furious but mostly ‘too laidback to even be classified as cool’ guitar music. Even belligerently progressive minds such as Belleruche, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble or TV On The Radio always fell pray to time. Their virtuosity unfairly kept fading away for no apparent reason.
Lately a few musicians have coaxed by ears to bleed with delight. Superb stoner metallers Angry Gods On The Radio and their song Iron Horse did just that. Lupe Fiasco’s hip hop tune Daydreamin’ lets my mind do a little melancholy dance whenever it comes through my headphones. Of course, Johnny Cash never tires me. His brooding version of the old time number ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’ sends icicles down my spine with its slowed-up jackhammer blasts and Mr. Cash’s ominous crooning.
And do you know what happens when bluegrass walks the mile on death row and gets saved by gospel? Well, Bill Landford & The Landfordaires’s Run On is what happens. Cash’s version sounds like a funeral march on a rainy day; Landford’s original sounds like your soul just got saved.
Three-fifty eight words later, let me get to the point. Nothing I have ever heard before sounds anything like The Aliens. These psychedelic garage rockers belt out rhythms like the Seventies never occurred. I stumbled across their single – I Am Unknown - on some random mp3 blog and three minutes later, I played air guitar after two long years.
Imagine The Who in a particularly improvisational mood. Or perhaps The White Stripes or The Strokes with more balls and less pretentions. Screw it, just download it and take a listen. If the first solo doesn’t get your feet tapping or your head nodding, something is seriously wrong with you.
This is the soul of rock music.
The Zombies had it during early Sixties. The Jefferson Aeroplane felt it once after a barbaric act of racism at a Stones’ concert bothered them enough to sharpen their sound. Even The Great White Band toyed with it during the summer of love. More recently, Wolfmother almost found it with the tremendously fabulous ‘Mind’s Eye’.
As for The Aliens. With their single ‘I Am The Unknown’, they fucking nailed it.
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