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Friday, September 20, 2002 -- 09:55 p.m.
I like the Strokes. I also like the White Stripes. Quite a bit, actually. And the Hives? Not much different than any number of crazy yellfest garage-nootch Estrus records from '94 that I've heard over the years, but fun enough.
And seriously, is that so damned wrong?
I'm assuming that four out of every five rock blog hipster indie kids and probably three out of every five happy shiny pop types shudder in revulsion when confronted with at least one of these bands. And it's always the same arguments: "They're media darlings! They don't do anything new or innovative! Their [rich-kid scenester/fake sibling/Swedish] gimmick is obnoxious! I'm a humorless loser sitting alone at a desk cluttered with homemade Mission of Burma action figures*!" I'm guessing they still have post-traumatic stress syndrome from the Wonderful Funderful Flanneltastic Grungacade of Altrokk Arglebargle that was the early '90s. Poor bastards, waking up in a cold sweat at the devil's hour of somewhere between midnight and dawn, chest hairs all on end, hyperventilating and staring at the wall for half a minute so they can reassure themselves that yes, they are safe in their bedroom and the terrifying experience just moments earlier where they were being chased by an axe-wielding Scott Weiland was but a nasty fever dream. Well okay so yeah, Spin and Rolling Stone and Blender and Time and Newsweek and Ranger Rick have all been "rock is back and being saved, hooray" for about a year now, and Jack and Meg are cold chillin' up in the VMA's area with the Olsen hell death Twins ferchrissakes (somewhere Busta Rhymes is all "Boy I know that feeling") and you know what? To quote master thespian Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, IT DOESN'T MATTER. I'll tell ya why:
You know all those people saying "YAYAYAYAYAAYYY the Whive Strokes are here to SAVE ROCK"? Well you and your limited-edition Kill Rock Stars compilations are unimpressed seeing as how you've officially heard stuff that pushes the envelope way the hell more and is more deserving to be popular. Well, I agree -- I mean Is This It, decent and bouncy and enjoyable as it is, doesn't deserve a third of the hype that the BellRays' Let It Blast does, and yeah it's kind of a shame that Lisa Kekaula isn't able to enjoy large cash advances and full-page magazine ads. But you know what we've been subjected to when it comes to mainstream rock in the last ten years? Warmed-over toothless grunge, quickly pushed to the side a few years later by asshole mook-metal. When you're a rock journalist, you damn well cling onto any hope that something's going to come along to kill THAT nonsense, and if it's unchallenging post-punk garage stuff then hey why not? It beats "ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN'".
Well, beats it aesthetically at least. But oh hey guess what? The Strokes aren't exactly setting fire to the charts. Neither are the White Stripes or the Hives. Matterofact, most of these nu-garage types are just barely cracking the top 40 albums for a week or two before falling down to the 50s and 70s. ("Well that just proves that the media is stupid in trying to promote bands that nobody wants to buy into," says Mr. Indiepants. "Like Sleater-Kinney?" says me.)
So they're not especially obnoxious musically, they're not putting a stranglehold on the album charts or radio, and in a few months (at the most) they'll be shuffled to the sidebars as the media goes all googly-eyed for mall emo or eleqtroclarsh. So does this mean people can come out and say that these bands are ridiculous big stupid fun without getting things thrown at them? Please?
I mean, at least they're better than the Vines.
*actually Mission of Burma action figures would be kinda cool. "Mighty Roger Miller, with Super Sonar Hearing Action and Laser Guitar Accessory!" Then Moby could make cheap knockoffs, sort of like what the Go-Bots did in an attempt to cash in on Transformers.
-Nate
Friday, September 20, 2002 -- 05:36 p.m.
Two comic strip notes:
1) Huge thanks to Tom Tomorrow for linking this blog on his site (though I should come clean and mention it's probably because I sent him an e-mail on the whole J.R. Taylor thing and this blog's address is in my sig). I've been reading "This Modern World" faithfully for more than eight years and it's pretty cool to see him giving me props of a sort. Of course this does mean that dozens of new readers are going to stumble across this and will be subjected to some superficial ridiculous nonsense so I'm going to have to get around to adding more meaningful content. Yeah.
2) Earlier this month I mentioned the return of Achewood from hiatus and that the comic that day had amusing mouseover text. Unfortunately that text has since been changed -- it originally read something like "The worst thing about Europe is that nobody listens to the Cars" but now merely says "curry-wurst". Well crud. But at least now I can go around using the word "rude" as a superlative.
-Nate
Friday, September 20, 2002 -- 04:29 p.m.
Stuff:
I turn 25 today. I found a good quote in an otherwise laughably full-of-itself book by John Strausbaugh, Rock 'Til You Drop, one of those obnoxious angsty-boomer tomes griping about how all the rebellion's been sapped from rock and how Bruce Springsteen is a big phony and how ELO is vapid pap and gee whiz look at Mick Jagger, he's old! (Yeah, this is "Talk Smack About New York Press Columnists Week" here at Hipster Detritus.) The good quote in question is not from the actual author but from M. Doughty (of Soul Coughing), who appears at the end of the book as a sort of rational counter to Strausbaugh's bile to mention that when you reach 25, your urges to listen to abrasive rebellious break-stuff music subsides -- and it's a natural thing that shouldn't be looked down upon. I can't see myself listening to the Dead Kennedys ten years from now, but I don't think that has anything to do with "selling out". The media may in fact be lying when it says that acting like a crazy rebellious teenager is the most important thing in the world. (Note: this does not mean I'm going to start voting Republican or anything so settle down.)
-I've thought this through a bit, and unless something else turns up that's even better, I've discovered my favorite album of 2002. (I used that link because it not only has audio samples and sells the CD for a mere $9.48, it also showcases the fact that Rolling Stone gave it a paltry three stars out of five, which is a pretty good reason for me to remain unimpressed with their recent ladmagification.) Everyone seems to be flinging around the Joy Division comparisons like mad but there's more to it than that, and if I hadn't taxed my mental reserves over the past week on an upcoming City Pages article on some Anticon rap group I'd go more into detail about how I hear this record. I do find it kind of amusing and odd that the leadoff track, which is one of the most breathtaking songs on the album and the reason I can fall into its depths so willingly from the get-go, is merely named "Untitled".
-"Jeez, Nate -- 'fire in the Taco Bell'? The hell does that mean?" Glad you asked! (1.03 MB download) The MP3 isn't complete so you might wanna buy the single here. Oh, and the squeaky backup singer guy singing about "kids startin' fires"? That's Jack Whatsisface from the Whatsisface Stripes. (Which reminds me, I've really been digging the hell out of their album De Sjomethingorother.)
-Nate
Friday, September 20, 2002 -- 09:43 a.m.
Looks like J.R. "Douchebags" Taylor doesn't like Tom Tomorrow either. At the risk of scuffing up this blog with an ultra-rare case of political foofaraw, why am I starting to get the feeling this guy is a dickweed?
-Nate
Thursday, September 19, 2002 -- 01:40 p.m.
---->MISSY ELLIOTT "WORK IT" LYRICS CLICK HERE OMG<----
-Nate
Thursday, September 19, 2002 -- 12:59 p.m.
I've figured out one of the reasons I am unimpressed and/or unmoved by the money-centric name-branding of mainstream rap: it's not the coveting of material items or large wads of cash that's the problem, it's the boring shit they boast about having. Am I supposed to be impressed by an Escalade or a Mercedes? Hell no -- anyone with a six figure income can have one of those. I wanna hear about Jay-Z cruising through NYC in an AMX-3 or some crazy-ass Barris Kustomized hot rod. I wanna hear about N.O.R.E. buying something completely ridiculous and ostentatious that almost nobody else can have, like a racing-tuned AMA Ducati Superbike or a three-story-high television or his own 10-acre video arcade with animatronic singing pimps and a go-kart track. Ghostface had the right idea as far as jewelry's concerned -- a forearm-length gauntlet with a humongous eagle attached is probably a good start, but a ten-times platinum MC should probably get a ruby the size of a martini olive embedded in his navel, too, and maybe look into having diamonds spelling out his name surgically implanted into his forehead. And hell, rich people have an excuse to wear all sorts of crazy crap so take the Busta Rhymes route and go completely ridiculous with gold silk samurai pants and kinkajou-fur vests and shoes made out of the leather upholstery from one of Steve McQueen's Porsches. I mean, hell -- if you're gonna be all bling-bling, then at least be over-the-top about it.
-Nate
Tuesday, September 17, 2002 -- 08:48 a.m.
Speaking of Beck, NY Press' J.R. Taylor thinks he (along with Kim Gordon and -- I'll spot him this -- Alanis Morrisette) are "useless creatures" and "douchebags". Whatever for? Why, for voting for acts for the Shortlist music prize that... gasp... people have heard of! Those fuckbiscuits! Fortunately, Taylor jumps at the chance to nominate his own choices for true representatives of struggling artists who deserve recognit -- wait, no he doesn't (unless you count the tongue-in-cheek headline).
-Nate
Tuesday, September 17, 2002 -- 08:33 a.m.
Well this is just wonderful: I scored a ticket to see Beck with the Flaming Lips in October, only to hear that supposedly he's into Scientology now. Assuming this is true, I hope he doesn't wind up like Cat Stevens or born-again Dylan and let his religion dictate his music.
-Nate
Monday, September 16, 2002 -- 12:23 a.m.
Ladies and gentlemen, the best music piece Salon has ever published.
-Nate
Friday, September 13, 2002 -- 02:38 p.m.
Teleport City is the very definition of -ploitation nerd chic, an altar to films that would be considered "b-movies" if they weren't so damned cool. And if there's one thing they know how to do (besides review films in a manner that REALLY makes you want to see them, whether for entertainment or mockery), it's put together a staggeringly funky/swankass net radio show. Come for Schifrin and Morricone, stay for Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera and Goblin.
-Nate
Thursday, September 12, 2002 -- 05:27 p.m.
Inspired by McSweeney's, here's a list I thought up.
TEN FAILED EXOTIC SPORTS CARS
The Ferrari 8,159,206.1269735 GT
The Maserati Ferlinghetti
The De Tomaso Metallica
The Lamborghini Impracticale
The Alfa-Romeo Spyder Duetto Midnight Cowboy Edition
The Aston-Martin Super Hoss 409
The Facel-Vega Camus Deathtrap
The Jaguar MF-Type
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Chickenwing
The Porsche 911 Swinger
-Nate
Thursday, September 12, 2002 -- 03:44 p.m.
In the last week my Sitemeter has proven that people come to Hipster Detritus looking for two things:
1) Lyrics to Missy Elliott's "Work It". I don't have them. A quick but hopefully mostly accurate transcription can be found here.
2) Billy and Chuck's Gay Rasslin' WWE Commitment Ceremony. I won't go into detail about what I thought about the whole thing right now since Smackdown doesn't come on for another few hours and I don't want to spoil it for some people. All I will say is that (a) it was pretty stupid for the most part and then (b) some crazy (albeit non-gay) shit happened that will be ridiculously difficult to explain to someone who hasn't been watching the WWE for the last three months. It came off pretty innocuous and mostly innoffensive, though.
-Nate
Wednesday, September 11, 2002 -- 08:54 p.m.
So what do I do? I spent most of my day writing or running errands or doing anything besides watch television. I didn't buy any newspapers or check out CNN's website or anything. I didn't even think all that much about the WTC attack today. Not because of apathy or memory suppression, but because after a year it's evolved into its own sort of odd mythos in my mind. 9/11 fell equidistant between my first day living in my new apartment and my 24th birthday, and exactly two weeks after it occurred I found myself unemployed, a stretch that would last several months except for the occasional temp job. The collapse of those two towers seems linked to a very strange period in my life, and a year later it's still strange and confusing and stressful. But that's not what I want to post about, really. Instead, I will make a passing mention of the fact that on the oblivious bus ride to work, the CD I was listening to -- the last one I'd hear before America was attacked -- was the Gorillaz album. And on the walk to the bus ride home later that day, all I would play were the two consecutive tracks near the beginning of the CD -- "Tomorrow Comes Today" and "New Genius (Brother)" -- that echoed with ghostly dub harmonicas and Damon Albarn putting aside all the pretense of singing for a band of Jamie Hewlett cartoons to deliver some of the eeriest, most beautifully sad vocal work he's ever done. I suppose there are stranger pop culture artifacts to have personally associated with 9/11, but I have yet to read about any.
-Nate
Wednesday, September 11, 2002 -- 10:36 a.m.
"Everybody's rappin' like it's a commercial/acting like life is a big commercial": yes, it's an oft-quoted-'cuz-it's-stupid line from the Beastie Boys, but clunky as the rhyme is, ten years later they're right. Yeah, "My Adidas" is one thing, but that came out of an NYC hip-hop tradition (like MC Shan name-dropping his Pumas). The latest wave of shills sounds more like blatant "pay me and I'll namedrop your brand" product placement, like Adam Sandler holding a sandwich so that its "Subway" logo wrapper prominently faces the camera. Pass the Courvoisier(tm)(R)(C).
-Nate
Wednesday, September 11, 2002 -- 01:52 a.m.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Nate
Monday, September 9, 2002 -- 05:33 p.m.
I enjoy professional wrestling, and I am not afraid to admit that. None of the music acts I've held a tremendous interest in over the past few years have been arena-filling flashpot-exploding types and I've grown apathetic towards professional sports (can't stand football, the Timberwolves are unexciting underachievers and the Twins are a great team in a depressing, ugly unfun venue) so I have to get my fix of ridiculously theatrical testosterone and athleticism somewhere. Yeah yeah it's fake I know blahdeblah. That doesn't mean it isn't breathtaking watching Rey Mysterio fly around like the world's most badass acrobat, and that doesn't mean it doesn't take extraordinary athleticism for Chris Benoit to suplex Rob Van Dam to within an inch of his life. And some of the character directions the WWE's taken since I started watching it three years ago -- making a huge fan favorite out of a bulky goofball named Mick Foley, a man who can beat an opponent upside the head with a flaming barbed-wire 2x4 on one night and indulge in vaguely David Cross-ian dork humor on another; turning '80s style rasslin' patriotism on its head by making Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle into a simpering, arrogant, Wonder-bread signifier of all that America's afraid other countries think it is; taking a longstanding "good guy" icon like Steve Austin and turning him into a crazed, paranoid, hateful yet somewhat loopy Robert Mitchum-meets-Leo Buscaglia character with a predilection for spontaneous hugs and atrocious singing -- has been bizarre and subversive enough to fascinate a media-jaded hipster like myself. And while Foley and Austin have long since vanished off the WWE radar, guys like Angle and the perpetually-pissed-off rudo Eddy Guerrero have managed to pick up the slack and shine in their own ways. Throw in a huge crop of quickly-improving 20-something rookies to keep things fresh (including big scary mofo amateur wrestler-slash-wall of meat named Brock Lesnar -- at 25, the youngest World Title-holder in WWF/E history) and split the roster into two shows to give the Cruiserweight division a chance to let those little dudes like Mysterio flip around and freak people out, and you've got enough incentive for me to drop $40 for a ticket for tomorrow night's "Smackdown!" taping at the Target Center.
There is, however, an odd development. On last week's "Smackdown!" (I feel like an ass for including that ! but bear with me) -- a month after I bought the tickets for this week's show -- it was announced that Chuck and Billy (the WWE's equivalent to Robert Smigel's "Ambiguously Gay Duo") were to have a "commitment ceremony" where they would be declared "partners for life". For the first few segments of the show it was played coy, but then the announcers started throwing around the term "same-sex wedding" and I started feeling pretty weird about the whole thing. There is a good chance that when I go to the Target Center tomorrow, I will watch some inane 15-minute segment filled with corny gay innuendo as the despised tag team and their manager/"stylist" Rico traipse through some poorly-acted "sports entertainment" comedy nuptials which will doubtlessly have the accompaniment of a couple thousand Durstite mooks chanting "Faggot! Faggot! Faggot!" Straight as I am, I ain't looking forward to that.
But here's where things could get interesting: rumor has it that the WWE is going to try and give Billy and Chuck a run as good guys ("babyfaces" or "faces" in the parlance). I have no idea how they'll pull this off -- I suppose they could be doublecrossed by their obnoxious manager (who I think the fans hate more than Chuck and Billy themselves), change their style of wrestling to involve less cheating and foreign object shenanigans (I don't think that sounded right in this context), and maybe downplay their own gayness until someone (such as the heel-ish pseudo-minister Reverend D'Von) harangues them for it and equates their "sin" with "the downward moral spiral that all these SINFUL EVIL PEOPLE HERE IN [city name here] ARE GUILTY OF! (cue boos)". And imagine the sort of great catty remarks they could throw at their opponents: "What, you're scared to wrestle us? Well it's not like we're gonna feel up anybody as ugly as you!"
So a gay tag team the fans can actually cheer isn't entirely out of the question -- with little change to his original "weird homo movie nerd" gimmick, Goldust (son of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes!) has managed to become a sympathetic character mostly by hooking up with ultra-cool dreadlocked superbad KRS-One-alike Booker T and fighting against evil America-hating Canadian whiteboys. Hell, if the WWE can make a guy in a red-white-and-blue singlet who won gold medals for our country into someone who gets people to chant "YOU SUCK" at him by his mere presence, then I think they could pull this off.
-Nate
Monday, September 9, 2002 -- 02:03 p.m.
Hopefully, you will never ever ever see Lemmy with one of these.
-Nate
Monday, September 9, 2002 -- 11:28 a.m.
Achewood's back and it's thankfully still funny -- though what really made me laugh in today's strip was the mouseover text.
I made such pains to change the header logo and emphasize the "pop culture" bit a couple months ago but I still talk about nothin' but music. Well that's gonna change now. Here's what I've been checking out on cable TV whilst folding laundry or eating dinner or relaxing after a hard day's work of serious productivity. Note that I only got cable recently and am only now discovering what everyone else was going batshit over two years ago:
Jackass. Gasp and mutter to yourself if you want to, but I've caught pretty decent-sized portions of MTV whilst channel surfing on a day far too humid to do anything but lie next to a fan and utter the occasional "oy" and this is probably the least corrupting and horrific thing on that network. "Dismissed" and "Undressed" and "The Real World" and that one show where they give someone $40 cash if they eat an entire bowl of coffee grounds? Those are depressing exercises in malevolent social engineering and leering satyriasis. Even "The Osbournes" has a whiff of "let's laugh at the aging rock star we never played the videos of in the last ten years". Jackass has no pretensions: it is a show featuring a bunch of skater types acting like slapstick morons. It's one of the only shows on MTV that actively discourages its viewers from emulating and aspiring to be like the people on the screen, a bit of real-life injurious lunacy airdropped into the midst of glossy vapidity. Almost everything is at the expense of the show's stars (except for a few "let's do crazy shit in public" stunts, like an impromptu boxing match in the midst of a sporting-goods store), and while they lack Jackie Chan's nice-guy affability and finely-honed martial arts skills, they have that same crazy adventurousness to them. (Come on -- if Jackie rode a little red wagon down a flight of stairs or let himself be swung like a human wrecking ball into a Port-a-Potty, people would be calling it genius.) A lot of it has this sense of curiosity too it as well -- "what would it be like to be run down by a trained police dog?", for instance -- and then it is made extra-absurd and entertaining for the viewer by having one of the Jackasses in question flee this dog -- while wearing a bunny suit.
Cartoon Network's Sunday Night "Adult Swim". I'm pretty sure there have been more postmodern, borderline Fluxus shows out there than "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" (which stars a crimefighting fast food Value Meal trio and boasts a theme song performed by old-school East Coast gangsta rap legend Schooly D) or "Sealab 2021" (which reimagines the cast of an innocuous "Seahunt"-style Hanna-Barbera cartoon as a bunch of complete lunatics constantly at each others' throats). But
Excuse me for a moment. SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN: P. Diddy kicked to curb by BMG/Arista. Maybe Def Jux can sign him. BACK TO YOUR ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING.
the fact remains that they're mighty damned weird, weird enough to make "South Park" look dangerously close to ordinary. Capping the whole block off is the classic "Space Ghost Coast to Coast", which is easily the most ridiculous talk show ever. (Willie Nelson, superimposed on a hanging TV screen, gets roared at by a cartoon bear. Willie: "How ya doin', Tex?" Zorak, the evil talking mantis bandleader: "That bear's a yankee." Willie: "Well f[bleep] 'im.") A recent rerun had Space Ghost sent off to the mailroom as a distraction while Moltar (an evil guy in a full-body radiation-suit-esque getup who acts as the show's director) coordinates Space Ghost's surprise birthday party. Meanwhile, a series of guests appears on the TV screen to be interviewed (including the Minutemen's Mike Watt, Ben Folds, Method Man, Les Claypool, Jimmie Walker and -- if I am not mistaken -- Maximumrockandroll's Rev. Norb), only to be zapped in rapid succession by Zorak's laser rifle. It's amazing and weird. That plus Simpsons plus King of the Hill=SUNDAY NIGHT TV IS BEST EVER YES #1.
VH1 Classic. When I'm in the right mood, the video for Scandal's "The Warrior" is the funniest four minutes ever put to film. And if you're lucky you'll catch an old-school Sabbath TV appearance where they play a ripsnortular version of "Iron Man" and Ozzy has his hair and clothes done almost identical to what the Strokes' Julian Casablancas has now. I wanna hear the Strokes do "Iron Man". I bet it'd be completely stupid and thus entertaining.
-Nate
Sunday, September 8, 2002 -- 12:32 p.m.
"'Lay It Down' concerns souped-up cars, wraparound sunglasses, techno and grunge music, modern teen lingo ("I guess you're the big dawg now!"), jerky Video Toaster-aided direction that approximates MTV -- and Christian conversion. "I don't want to go to hell," says street-racer Pete after his brother Ben, mocked for becoming a clean-living Christian, dies in a car crash after returning to the sinful world of hot rodding. "Then don't," gentle, denim-clad Pastor Gus tells him. "There's only one mechanic in the world who can help you. His name is Jesus Christ." So fundie film-makers are ganking material from The Fast and/or the Furious. I wonder if this will be on the soundtrack.
-Nate
Sunday, September 8, 2002 -- 12:02 p.m.
Somehow this site has made it into the top ten google searches for "Music Blog". Given this very important status, I should probably enrich the lives of all who visit this site with an acerbic yet even-handed view of the goings-on in the world of popular music today.
Hrm.
Boy, that Britney sure is gettin' kinda weird, isn't she? (via xrrf.)
-Nate
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