Yup, Vampire Weekend

My friend Alex Klein and I have been arguing about Vampire Weekend for about a year. He thinks they're great, I think they're overblown amateurs. But in an interesting development in our debate, Alex was a bit peeved by a recent NPR review of the band's album, which he thinks ignored the inherent contradiction of a band that sells itself as privileged playing music largely influenced by punk. Here's a bit of what he had to say:

The reviewer emphasized the punk bit (did you listen to the audio version? she plays clips from their album where they're doing the whole "oi oi oi" schitck). But she also seems to celebrate the way this band is self-consciously pitching themselves as the next best thing since Rob Lowe started rocking Ralph Lauren. She didn't even think it was worth remarking on the fact that these guys celebrate richness and privelege by co-opting a musical form that came about as an attempt to celebrate the working class.

I thought that was an interesting point, but I surprisingly find myself (somewhat) backing Vampire Weekend. To play devils' advocate, one could argue that mixing working class musical forms with upper class lyrics is in itself an act of cultural discourse, not co-option. In the article on Vampire Weekednd (VW) in the latest issue of Spin, the keyboardist for VW mentions Jean-Michel Basquiat as a personal hero. Basquiat regularly worked with themes of image, class, race and perception. The interviewer also discusses the singer's experience teaching in Bed-Stuy. No middle/upper class white person teaches in Bed-Stuy without being knowingly forced to deal with class consciousness on a daily basis. I don't think VW take their privilege for granted. I think they are extremely self-conscious of it and of the cultural disconnect between them and their musical influences. I would even venture to say that the band purposely made musical choices in the hopes that these kinds of discussions of class and culture would occur,if for no other reason than it would produce press. But despite their class consciousness, VW still appear to be quite comfortable in their perch of entitlement and are not a "message" band (as opposed to their oft-cited influence, Paul Simon, whose Graceland album was made in part to address political issues in South Africa and the United States.) Politics for VW is a commercially beneficial by-product of the music, as it has been for other “co-opting” bands such as The Police, Talking Heads and The Beastie Boys. VW are simply an indie-pop band using African musical idioms as their mode of delivery and hype. As opposed to someone like Peter Gabriel, who used world music idioms as a means to bring awareness of international politics and injustices. Or a band like Dengue Fever, who are a hyped cambodian pop band using indie-rock idioms as their mode of delivery. But I digress…

An artist can draw from whatever sources they enjoy without feeling obligated to adhere to the source material's context. For example, if I want to sample recordings of slave work songs and put a beat over it, I don't need to add my own commentary on the nature of commerce and race. Likewise, Vampire Weekend do not need to be sympathetic to the ideology of punk or afro-pop in order use their forms. However, the musical technique used in incorporating these musical forms is critical in establishing artistic credibility and success. In other words, the musician (to an extent) must be able to play within the form and demonstrate an understanding of its aesthetic before recontextualizing it.

In the case of punk, I think VW is on solid ground. Contrary to the opinion of NPR and many music critics, most of the guys in VW cannot play their instruments. A lack of musicianship was pretty much the prime prerequisite for punk and was also a large part of its democratizing appeal: the fact that literally anyone could play it. Where VW falter is in their lazy interpretation of African music, and this issue is (ironically) almost entirely due to the drummer’s punk technique. For what I think is a fair comparison, listen to any mid-late 1970s recordings of Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Pete Thomas was by no means a reggae drummer, but he had enough pocket, technique and creativity to incorporate some of reggae’s rhythmic idioms into the songs written by Mr. Costello, which had a jerky punk feel. VW’s drummer doesn’t have the technical facility to successful pull off that kind of alchemy and the result is brutishly crass. The band’s acceptance of this less than academic approach to cultural rhythm speaks more to their entitlement and class than their more easily digestible punk influence. It’s the musical equivalent of watching “The Wire” in a beach house on Cape Cod: a self-serving act that allows for class sympathy while having no real investment in cultural dialogue or change.

The Need for Self-Criticism

My man Taylor Ho Bynum recently posted on some of the finer points of critiquing/commenting on criticism. It is indeed (as Taylor says) a very "meta" occupation. I would add that it's also a nerdy, self-absorbed and extremely subjective writing form.

In other words, perfect for blogging!!!

I say this because yet another recent article has piqued my interest. In this case, it is by infamous New York Press film critic Armond White. I say infamous because he is commonly known to have some, shall we say, unique takes on films. His summary of Joel Schumacher's tepid "Phone Booth" was "Colin Farrell, targeted by a sniper, suffers for our sins. Improper but important." Huh? And then in 2002, after including a Spielberg reference in literally every review that summer ( I was counting,) Mr. White rated "A.I." as one of the top ten films of all time. Like, up there with Citizen Kane and The Godfather.


Generally, any film Mr. White hates is one I (and many other people) will probably enjoy. There are exceptions of course. He gave a positive review to "No Country for Old Men" (as I did, with some reservations.) But he also said in the same review that the Coen Brother's best film so far has been "The Man Who Wasn't There." Again, huh?

Keeping this in mind, I was completely bewildered when I found myself nodding in agreement with Mr. White's article from last week's Press on the overpraise of film director Sidney Lumet. Now generally, I will not harp on this sort of thing (unless it's Vampire Weekend.) While I did not like Lumet's most recent film (also reviewed here,) I have enojoyed some of his past work, including "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Verdict" and "Q and A." But after netflixing Jane Fonda's 80's comeback thriller "The Morning After" (which Lumet directed,) I felt White was well within his bounds to take the director down a notch. Anyone who could helm such a travesty should be taken to task.


Now I know what you're thinking...Jane Fonda 80's comeback thriller, huh? Well besides the kitsch factor, I expected the man who directed the impenetrable "Network" to make a film with taut pacing, a tight plot/structure, good acting and Fonda in hot cougar mode. All I got was the Fondacougar.

After being set-up for a murder, Fonda aimlessly wanders around LA with Jeff Bridges for most of the film. They don't really look for clues or run from any baddies. The odd couple (she's a washed up alcoholic actress, he's a vaguely racist ex-cop) mostly just drive around, yell at each other and drink. In the last scene, a clue finally appears and the crime is solved. The casting of Fonda against type was promising and the Sunset Boulevard-esque subtext was very, uh, meta, but it was a miserable 96 minutes that didn't even have my desired 80's thriller sheen (as found in other flicks of the genre like Fatal Attraction, Black Rain, Year of the Dragon and Sea of Love.)


In addition to White's criticisms (which are more focused on Lumet's dubious rep as a quintessential New York City director) the problem with "The Morning After" and many of Lumet's films is his choice of scripts. When working with a solid writer like David Mamet (The Verdict) or Paddy Chayefsky (Network,) Lumet is a fine craftsman who handles the material with an unadorned efficiency that emphasizes emotional depth and intensity. But he seems to equally choose scripts with middling plotting and uninspired dialogue, perhaps because they contain the themes that he frequently explores (corruption, morality, the infrastructure of power.) In these instances, Lumet does little to edit the material or make stylistic decisions that can help the film. And the results ("The Morning After," "Famiy Business," "Guilty as Sin," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead") are serviceable at best.

In general, I don't understand how seasoned directors like Lumet, Spielberg (War of the Worlds, anyone?) and Brian DePalma can be so inconsistent after decades of experience in the industry. Perhaps it's an unfair comparison, but I don't think Elvis Costello or Roy Haynes will put out a bad record at this point in their careers. It may not be a great record, but it will certainly not be "The Morning After."

A Reflection on "Quirk"

Well here I am. Nice to be back. Been hibernating in the studio and home in Boston. Two eps in the bag which you can hear here and here. Two recent articles inspired me to take fingers to keypad once again.



An article by Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic this month discusses the concept of "quirk" and how it is employed by Wes Anderson, Ira Glass, David Eggers, tv shows like "Flight of the Concords" and other artists. He argues that these folks create a skewed but familiar world that unfortunately often skitters into the blandness that they are trying to undo. Thank-you Mr. Hirschorn! Ever since "Little Miss Sunshine," I have been irked but unable to articulate what it is about these "quirky" projects that bother me so much. Interestingly, a response to the article that (weakly) tries to defend "quirk" actually sharpened my opinion of why it is problematic. In his article "In defence of quirkiness," Phil Hoad writes

"Maybe because I fall smack-bang in the middle of the demographic that created it and I have a tendency to regard my life as a string of encounters that some unspecified observer (my peers, if I'm feeling particularly desperate) may or may not be taking a dim pleasure in, I find it (quirk) harder to condemn."

This is a sentiment that I find irritating with not only these aforementioned artists but many Gen X'ers and Y'ers in general. Hoad is alluding to "quirk" as the performance of detachment. Social interaction becomes a series of clever exchanges that play with convention (i.e. carrying themes through unrelated discussion topics, articulating contrarian points of view in the first person) and then resolve with an appropriate amount of sincerity. There is an unspoken determination of success in whether the exchange had every element (cleverness, detachment, sincerity) in the right ratio. This success is determined by the "unspecified observer" (an individual's malnourished ego or the inflated ego of the over-intellectualized peer group.)

The performance of detachment is then reflected in the work of "quirk" artists (Mr. Hirschorn explains,) as they self-consciously give a character an extra little funny personality trait, pick an odd location for a scene or choose a song whose emotional tone is juxtaposed against that of a sequence just enough to detach the audience from the proceedings but not too much to lose the "timeless themes" as they unfold. In essence, the artist is sharing his/her ego with you, allowing for a masturbatory exchange of intelligence and cultural sophistication. I recently watched a film called "10 Items or Less" which embodies everything that is wrong with this aesthetic.



The film is about a famous actor (Morgan Freeman, essentially playing himself) who is researching the role of a supermarket manager for a small indie film that he may agree to make. Through his research at a supermarket, he meets smart, feisty Paz Vega (stereotype alert) who works at the check-out counter and wants more out of her life. After some obligatory "quirk" (Freeman mirroring the glacial movement of the elderly store manager, a long shot of Vega and Freeman walking in a lot with over-sized, technicolor trash containers expertly placed in the background) there is an exchange of belief between Freeman's privileged optimism and Vega's working-class realism. The audience is supposed to be delighted by the films's exploration of class and dreams through it's meticulously framed, hand-held "indie" camerawork, primary location of a real East LA supermarket and self-conscious casting. Needless to say, I was not delighted. To add another layer of annoyance, the film was financed by Freeman's production company and given a strict 15-day shoot. Given Freeman's deep pockets and his studio connections, I'm going to assume this shooting schedule was a conceptual choice. Therefore, the whole project was predicated on the notion of artificially creating something small and personal with a script and cast to reference its own transparency.

And this brings up the ultimate failure of "quirk" - it is just too calculated to be emotionally revealing. To me, risk is crucial. Hirschorn is very critical of "This American Life" because despite its often unusual settings and subjects, the stories are always framed within a strict narrative of conflict and resolution, i.e "lessons learned." And this is true of most of the artists who use "quirk." The emotion of the work is often tempered and the structure is pedestrian. What is there to learn and/or absorb in the creative world of an artist who does not take structural or emotional risks? This doesn't mean that only strange or avant-garde art projects are valid. Rather, making a decision that will reveal something highly personal or uncharted in an artistic medium/genre is preferable to safely adding the clever texture of "quirk." If you're going to skew the world, why not just go all the way and turn it over a few times?

Discovery

Here are the results of my most recent expedition to the territories of new music:


Russian Circles

Solid instrumental heavy/dreamy rock in the vein of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky.

Standout Track: "Micah"


Maps and Atlases

These guys remind of those 90's math and spazz indie pop/rock bands like U.S Maple, Archers of Loaf and Polvo. There is an endearing, tight nervousness to Maps and Atlases that is accentuated by their occasional use of finger tapping. The vocals are strained but effective. There is also a hint of 1970's Yes in the clean, complex guitar lines played against simpler vocal lines.

Standout track:

"The Most Trustworthy Tin Can."


The Hellacopters

Underappreciated Swedish garage band that's been around for over 10 years. Their songs are beyond tribute to groups like MC5 and The Sonics. From the production (especially on their album, "Supershitty to the Max!") to the fearless bravado, they actually sound like forgotten heroes from another era.

Standout Track:

"Gotta Get Some Action Now"


Damone

Journey meets Joan Jett. Endlessly catchy. And they're from Boston, my friggin hometown.


Standout Track:

"You're the One" (mostly for the over-the-top key change and guitar solo at 2:50)

Western Promises

My friend Abby (with whom I had an absolutely wonderful dance-music performance tonight) says I've been musically flogging myself too much on this blog, so I will now recount my experience with the new Coen Brothers movie. But more flogging is always possible!



These brothers confuse me. I found "Fargo" depressing, "The Man Who Wasn't There" irritating and "Raising Arizona" delightful. I'll enjoy one of their films for awhile and then a new character, plot twist or set piece will be thrown in that clashes with everything else. They also often venture into emotionally twisted, dark corners that I don't necessarily want to explore for two hours. So I wasn't sure about seeing "No Country For Old Men," but figured I'd give it a shot, since I'm a sucker for contemporary westerns (Extreme Prejudice, El Mariachi, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) and their revisionist cousins (El Topo, Unforgiven, Dead Man.)

Surprisingly, I liked the film right away. There was no typical Coen quirkiness that I sometimes find distracting. The film, which basically outlines the trajectory of a desert drug deal gone wrong, took its time with each scene, but kept the characters and plot developing steadily. I could see with it's stark landscape and deliberate, yet unhuried pace,





"No Country For Old Men" had placed its dusty feet in the slow-paced, rural crime narratives and morally-ambiguous westerns established by films like Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Electra Glide in Blue, and The Wild Bunch. From the very first frame, the Coens were clearly and successfully continuing the genre play of these earlier films. In addition, the script and actors had just enough personality in the characters to give them all different shades of humanity and moral intention. And there was no musical score, which I actually thought was a great choice by the Coens. Without music, I was more interested in the minutae of character movement, body language and cinematography. So for most of the film, I was truly engaged in the experience of this quietly detailed, unfolding narrative.

But at the end, the Coen Brothers decided they needed to inject some greater "meaning" into their story. Which is something they often seem to unwisely do in their films. Without giving away any detail (don't worry, no spoilers,) it finishes with a rumination on the affects of choosing work on both ends of the law. A quick series of character scenes verbally and physically express ideas of duty, vocation, luck and violence that were better implied by the actions of the characters. To me, this ending not only broke the "show don't tell" rule of storytelling, but also disrupted the film's natural pace. The actions of the characters took me on a visual meditation from sand-drenched to beautifully benign scenery while encouraging a reflection on the ways in which the violence of men is dealt with by different generations. Those ideas did not need explicit explanation or further symbolic association. So while I enjoyed the slow and bloody burn of "No Country For Old Men," the Coens ultimately opted for a density of ideas over a clarity of vision.

Pre-Holiday Shred

Red Lights played last weekend at this weird bar in Tribeca. It was a decent size, but didn't seem to have regular customers and the sound was (as usual) crappy. Luckily Jared (the promoter and guitar player in Shrine of the Black Madonna) brought in some peeps. We played ok, definitely better than the Halloween show. But this line-up could use a few more gigs to really gel. I just wish we could hone our chops somewhere besides the bottom-feeder, NYC rock club circuit.

There was one nice moment of guitar wankery at the show, captured by my pal Alan Roth:




Right now I'm knee-deep in the world of recorded material. The Red Lights to Rio tunes should be mastered soon and I'm finishing up a solo ep of my Evan Patrick stuff. I'm also editing sound and performing live (along with cornetist and fellow blogger Taylor Ho Bynum) for a dance piece by my friends Abby and Pei Pei, which will be performed this Monday at Judson Church. And it's FREE!

Have a good Thanksgiving/stick it to the red man/nice family time/long weekend!!!!

The....Will Not Be Televised

I was just skimming the blogosphere (ick) and hit upon this hip hop/culture page that managed to irk me in less than a minute by connecting the world "texture" of MIA to the fourth season of The Wire. Ok, kinda of a neat idea, but...

Liberal Sheep "BAAAAA BAAAAA" ENOUGH of MIA and THE WIRE already!!!!!

Fake culture music and a lefty tv show on a major cable network do not make a revolution.

You know what's revolutionary...

Fugazi charging $5.00/ticket for every show they ever played, whether it was a basement or a 2,000 seat venue.

Not having a tv


None of which is to imply that I'm leading a revolutionary lifestyle. "Nip/Tuck" and "Prison Break" are staples in our household. But I will say there is a no MIA clause in the apartment.

Sorry, just ranting off again.