Richard Pryor Albums

Over the past few days, I’ve been voraciously downloading comedy albums by Richard Pryor and George Carlin.  I definitely prefer Pryor, but Carlin’s pretty good too.  Comedy albums are a great escape when you’re in the pits about the sorry state of contemporary music and bored of your old records.  Really, I would argue, there’s a sort of musicality to these albums too, especially Pryor.  My favorite thing I’ve downloaded so far by Richard is the 1974 album That Nigger’s Crazy.  It was Pryor’s breakthrough release, establishing him as the most controversial, most scatological stand-up in comedy at that time, and it’s a real gem.  Later albums that I’ve downloaded like Bicentennial Nigger and Live from the Sunset Strip are more polished than the ‘74 release, but to my mind, they’re not nearly as unpredictable and energetic.  Because the ‘74 performance seems to be presented practically edit-free, there is a much more spontaneous flow and consistency, just like an extended piece of music or poetry or rap.  The audience interaction is more poignant, most notably during Richard’s bit on “Pussy” when one of the audience members calls out, “You crazy!” and Richard responds with a deadpan “I know” (or something like that).  Reminds me a lot of the call and response on James Brown’s first Apollo album.  And for my money, the comedy on That Nigger’s Crazy is just better — more offensive, but better.  Live from the Sunset Strip is more articulate and touching, being recorded just a few months after Pryor’s infamous self-immolation (originally thought to be a result of freebasing cocaine, but probably a suicide attempt during drug-induced psychoses), but the comedy is more cerebral, more rooted in a folk tradition of sorts.  I’ll probably return to Sunset Strip more often in the future, but for now, the ‘74 album makes me laugh more.  Also, it ends on a sort of blue note that I’m still reeling from.  After an extended monologue on “Winos and Junkies,” the Wino character closes by telling the Junkie that he “Can’t deal with white man, like me.  I know my place in society” — harsh, sad stuff, and definitely blue, but also dissonant like Monk’s wrong note played at the right time.  A perfect end to a perfect set.  I want to write a fictional biography of Pryor called  The World Is a Motherfucker.

Innocence and the Oscars

In honor of the Oscars, I went to see a French movie from two years ago tonight called Innocence as part of the Francophone Film Festival that was held here at UVA this weekend. Wish I’d seen more of the festival films, but alas. Innocence was excellent — totally creepy and enigmatic — actually a lot like Pan’s Labyrinth, but also much better in certain ways. It reminded me a lot more of a long, projected video art piece than it did of a feature-length film really — like something Matthew Barney might do. It’s about a “girl’s school” of sorts in a forest where no one gets out and no one comes in. Impossible to tell what’s going on in the film, except for the fact that the girls are trapped there. A weird psychic tension permeates everything, which is increased by the fact that the girls are often put on semi-sexual, almost anthropological or biomorphic display, both for the viewer and for characters in the film. Also, they’re seen naked fairly frequently, which is pretty unheard of on American screens — these are very young girls. But none of it is salacious either. In fact, it’s quite beautiful, and it’s obvious, in one sense, that the movie is driving you to wonder whether this is not such a bad fate for the film’s characters. In other words, perverse viewpoints win the day, but the film is never exploitative, and it nevers goes for any easy shocks, which I’m usually quite vigilant about in a movie of this nature, viz. ungeneric, indie-type.

The Oscars were the usual sort of good fun that you’d expect. I’d had a party the past couple years, so it was kind of a bummer not to do that, but I still enjoyed myself. Of course glad to see Martin Scorsese win — really he’s the only real ‘artist’ that won anything tonight. Well, actually, that’s not true. I have respect for Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker and Ennio Morricone and Jennifer Hudson and a lot of other people too. So I guess I’m just talking shit. But Marty is in a class by himself, and it was great to see the cat finally win even if it certainly wasn’t for his best film (probably just cracking his top ten, actually). Or maybe not even . . . Let’s see. What’s better? At least No Direction Home, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Casino, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, The Last Waltz, Taxi Driver, and Mean Streets. So, being generous, that’s just top ten, not counting Last Temptation or King of Comedy, which are probably both way better, but neither of which I’ve seen in awhile. (Also Cape Fear and The Color of Money, which are borderline, and probably ten or so other flicks which I haven’t seen, but could be just as good.)

But anyway, it was good that Scorsese won. That shit with the scrim and the shadow puppetry was totally whack. Al Gore proved so many of my theses about American political life. And the singing contest between Beyonce and Jennifer clearly went to Jennifer. In fact, I found the whole evening a little embarassing for Beyonce. It seemed like the Academy was attempting to let her retain some of her dignity, but it really didn’t work. Poor woman. She’s still a pretty good singer with some great songs, but the personality just doesn’t work for me.  Does it work for her “public”?

www.fakejazz.com

Here’s a link to a music website, fakejazz, that I’ve been reading for awhile now, but which I’ve unfortunately never heard anyone else talk about. I was always somewhat mystified by it as it lists one of its homebases as Bryn Mawr, PA, right around the corner from my hometown of Springfield. I always wondered if maybe I would run into to one of the writers and have the mystery solved. Of course, I could just send them an e-mail and have all my questions answered, which I probably will do as soon as I finish this post.

Their coverage is sometimes inconsistent and erratic, and they often run distracting features, but a few years ago I didn’t think there was anywhere better to turn for coverage of psych music old and new, and interesting forays into the more experimental and avant-garde sides of ‘independent’ rock. Right now, I dig their newer feature ‘Cooler than You,’ which consists of mini-essays on the writers fav bands, some super-obscure, and the chance for the readership to rate and rank them. Last night, I unseated Camper Van Beethoven from the top spot by giving them an 8 out of 12 rating. I figure that any band ranked a 12 is a true classic, say, Syd Barrett-era Floyd, or Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, or Nick Drake or something like that. CVB was a great band for their day, and definitely cooler than most bands around today, but only slighter better than average over the great expanse of rock history.

A fun exercise, and it has also inspired me to codify some of my thinking on rock in a form that I had never really considered before — exhaustive essays on individual bands and artists, either currently working or in the past. Two that immediately came to mind for me, in order to gauge the state of pop/rock today were Animal Collective and Xiu Xiu, which I might do soon. My goal would be to compile them into book of sorts at some point. I’m also influenced in this effort by reading literary criticism from the 17th and 18th centuries for the class I’m teaching now, and stuff like Plutarch’s Lives and Emerson’s book on great personalities. I will keep the blog posted.

Lazy Saturday

Somebody found my blog yesterday by searching “can a housecat kill a squirrel.” Like the Animal Collective search a few days back, serendipity.

Today, it’s 3:30 or so and I still haven’t even cracked a book, which is awful, but I did spend a good chunk of my morning listening to the Australian Broadcasting Co. radio program The Philosopher’s Zone, which is always worthwhile. The past few weeks have been great, especially last week on “where philosophy is now”, which starts off slow, but gets really great near the end, especially when the guest claims that poststructuralism/postmodernism is dying or dead as a philosophical movement. While I’m far from wholeheartedly agreeing with him on this matter, I think that he puts things in great perspective and reminds us of how underdeveloped and faddish recent continental philosophy can be (especially if it’s being discussed in an English dept.).

Anyway, now I need to go grocery shopping.

TV This Week

OK, I took a nap after class today and didn’t get up in time for the French movie so I did watch The Office. It was a fair episode. The stuff with Michael and Jan was predictably awkward, but still funny, and the bits about Pam asserting herself were endearing even if she is becoming far more of a cartoon character than Dawn on the British version ever became. Dawn always maintained her mystique. But of course, comparisons to the British version are unfair . . . We must judge this Office on its own merits, right? The final scene with Roy and his brother in the bar I actually found pretty disturbing, but in a good way. When they started destroying stuff in the bar, it was hard to tell whether you were supposed to laugh at their barbarity and immaturity, or be impressed by their repressed anger. At this point, I feel like the season has gone too far with the back and forths between Jim and Pam. I mean, hasn’t their status changed about once an episode? It’s not even that annoying, just, like, bad writing.

I was generally OK with the Idol eliminations. The two girls were utterly forgettable and Rudy Cardenas was fucking annoying. As Paul Kim mentioned during his audition, I think that he was facing an uphill battle as an Asian-American contestant. There just haven’t been that many Asian-American male pop stars in the U.S., so I don’t think he had a strong archetype to fit in with. I mentioned a few posts back that I think that the show’s producers are largely open-minded when it comes to race, but this doesn’t say anything for the voting audience. I think that non-African-American minority candidates face a distinct disadvantage, which is troubling. But I also don’t think that the going barefoot thing helped at all.

As for LOST last night (spolier alert!), I really wasn’t all that impressed. The promos promised to solve 3 mysteries. I saw one, which wasn’t even a mystery. The kidnapped kids came back along with the stewardess tailie. I hadn’t been worrying about these characters since the tailies originally came on the scene. In fact, their return really seems to raise more questions than it solves. I guess the producers counted these appearances as two mysteries, right? The third was Jack’s tattoo, which I’ve admittedly been wondering about, but whatever was said and shown about it didn’t really tell us anything, did it? Certainly, patience will pay off here as I’m sure that more will come to light about the tattoo and Jack’s experience in Thailand, but I guess that I was also annoyed by the exoticism of the Thailand episode. I’ve been fairly well conditioned to be annoyed by Bai Ling by the girls over at gofugyourself, so I admit that that was a factor, too, but the stereotypes about the Orient into which the episode was playing are pretty obnoxious. But then again, who knows, Bai Ling could develop into a totally interesting, well rounded character.

Still, I’m looking forward to next week’s episode. I’ve been waiting for Sawyer and Kate to make it back to the survivors. Hopefully, sparks will fly.

Bummer Alert: Idol vs. The Office

This is why cultural markets/late capitalism suck:  While you have the pleasure of watching 5 hours of American Idol this week, the show is going head to head with The Office in its 8:30 timeslot, which makes for a difficult choice.  Since its an elimination show, which is usually drawn out, I will probably focus mainly on The Office with occasional forays back to Idol.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a remote for my TV, which makes this tough.  And NBC, don’t think that any of your viewers see this as anything less than a crass attempt at forcing us to download this weeks episode from iTunes, which I basically refuse to do.

Well . . . actually I just remembered that I plan on going to UVA Francophone Film Festival tomorrow, so scratch all that.  Cultural transcendence trumps administered boredom. 

Oh yeah, and by the way, somebody searched the terms “animal collective overwrought pose” and found my blog this week, which is my greatest blogging accomplishment yet, I think.

Volver Song

Probably the best scene in a movie last year.

And while we’re on the subject of performing, the American Idol performances tonight were, in general, pleasantly pitiful. I thought AJ Tabaldo was the best, really the only one that I would describe as quality, but I also don’t know his song, and from what I could tell from the judges comments, the original was much better. Sundance Head was the biggest disappointment. I mean, he just blew. “Nights in White Satin”? Are you kidding?

The Miracle of American Idol

As American Idol’s ratings continue to climb, I reflect ever more seriously on its long-range cultural impact.  The show is here to stay, is changing music, and will continue to change music.  And I think that these are all, basically, good things.  New technologies, distribution systems, economic conditions all enabled the great performers of the twentieth-century — Elvis, Frank, the Beatles, Broadway, Brill Building and Girl Group pop, punk, etc.  American Idol will have, indeed must have, its own Beatles eventually, unless the Frankfurt School (read: Adorno and Horkheimer) really were right about the culture industry but just jumped the gun a little.

I would wager not, though, gesturing towards the show’s Utopian aspect, viz.  No one gets killed on the show.  It is not violent.  And it is not really sexist either, if you ask me, at least not overtly.  Better put, it is sexy, and this is a good thing.  It is probably the most culturally, ethnically, geographically, sexually, and racially diverse show on television (at least style, clothing, and complexion-wise, i.e. the pop standards format is a little limiting).  Basically, it is, to my mind, something like a widely watched sports event that attracts a far more diverse audience, gender and sexuality-wise, than sports themselves do.  It is people coming together to watch people singing, and probably sing along themselves, or tap their foot, or maybe get up and boogie — a mass mediated instance of a primieval habit.  And if this signing and the songs generally suck (and they do) perhaps that tells us something even more dire about the human condition than even Adorno and Horkheimer were willing to fess up to.

The DJ Drama Controversy

Here’s a link to the lenghty NY Times article on DJ Drama’s arrest.  The article is painfully straightforward, but fills in most of the facts of the case.  This is probably the biggest musical development so far this year, far more significant than any actual music that has been released, which is a semi-tragic thing to say, but them’s the vicissitudes of the insane musical economy in which we’re living right now.

New albums I’ve been listening to this week

I got a few new albums this week that impressed me. Here’s a list and short reviews in no particular order:

(NB: When I can find a link to streams, MP3s, or bands’ personal webpages, I will post it to assist in listening and purchasing, but I will not provide links to large retailers, especially not Amazon.)

1. Jesu, Conqueror. Stream available here. This is the new one from ex-Godflesh and early Napalm Death guitarist Justin Broadrick. (He also collaborated on the 1998 album Bad Blood by Ice, which I’ve always dug, just having happened to have bought it in a punkier/hip-hoppier period.)

I really dig Conqueror too. It’s definitely throwback-y, sounding a lot like mid- to late-period Red House Painters with some serious Ride and My Bloody Valentine overtones. All these influences are very obvious and not necessarily surprising at this point, but I’m impressed by Broadrick’s fidelity and passion for his sources. He seems to “get” these bands in a way that few of their younger imitators really do. For instance, recognizing that Loveless would have been nothing but a nebulous, meandering mess if it weren’t for its innovative, iron-clad strong structures and the depths of personal feeling and group insight that Kevin Shields was harnessing. I think that Broadrick “gets” all these things here and it makes for a really pretty, listenable album that still seems to be touching on some dangerous and maybe frightening aspects of contemporary reality, viz. searching for faith and comfort in a fallen world. That may sound corny, like the plot to a shitty novel, but there’s also something novelistic and cinematic about this album. All of this makes it an entertaining listen.

2. Deerhunter, Cryptograms. Downloaded this one solely because pitchfork was creaming themselves over it. It’s a decent album, although I was not overly impressed. I only listened to it once and don’t see myself returning to it often. There’s some real songs here, but the’re buried under a lot of pretension, e.g. unnecessary sound effects and aural tangents, songs that are just beats, etc. Most of the problems that plague hipster-rock these days. Some of the atmospherics sound as though they were sampled directly from an Animal Collective album. Wandering around the blogosphere I learn that these guys seem to take a lot of the right drugs and hang out with sexy people. Good for them. Maybe I’ll listen to this again soon to see if my opinion changes.

3. Dexys Midnight Runners, The Projected Passion Revue. Yes, this is an archival recording by the band most famous for “Come on Eileen,” but it’s actually a very good CD. Again, pitchfork reviewed this recently. I was originally turned onto the depth of Dexys’ stuff by a review of the underrated final album by their original incarnation, Don’t Stand Me Down, in Uncut magazine. I had a copy of that one on my first MP3 player, but had kind of forgotten about them until the pitchfork review.

The Revue disk is definitely worth checking out. High energy, soul-punk, if there can really be such a thing. Really, the music leans much more towards the soul side of things, which is great, and definitely in keeping with most of my current listening interests. The cover of Aretha’s “Respect” is a little weak, but most of the rest of the stuff here is stirring, powerful stuff.

Also inspired me to pick up their debut album, In Search of the Young Soul Rebels, which is really the place to start. A truly fantastic debut album and something highly organic and neccesary that has rarely (if ever) been emulated since.

4. Lifetime, Lifetime (click the audioplayer link) and Lucinda Williams, West (this is a link to a review, but it has audio samples). Again, I’ve only listened to these’uns once through since acquiring them. The Lifetime stuff is fun and high-energy — the sort of poppy punk that people have a hard time categorizing and shouldn’t waste their breath labelling.  I think a lot of people would even describe this as ‘hardcore’ or ‘emo’ but I think those labels run the risk of turning people off of high-quality, workmanlike music.  Never got into them the first time around, but that’s fine. I can enjoy them now.

The Lucinda is what it is. About what you’d expect — rootsy, emotive, lush.  I expect to have more to say on it as I listen a little more thoroughly. Early impressions suggest, though, that it’s not the sequel to Car Wheels that we’ve all been patiently waiting for for so long. And her website suggests that she’s ever more rapidly transforming herself into a lifestyle brand. Unfortunate, although not much more unfortunate than all commodified culture, I guess.

Old things I’ve been listening to a lot: Jay-Z, The Blueprint; Incredible String Band; The Jam; Elliot Smith demos.