Padd Solutions

I know I said I'd stop yelling about the state of music and indie rock or whatever, but there's something I need to get off my chest.

A couple of years or so ago I noticed a resurgence in loud, noisy guitar-centric rock in the fashionable pitchblogotumblster scene. I was hearing names like No Age and Jay Reatard. Casual initial listens were promising. Finally, to borrow a phrase, Indie Rock was no longer just a bunch of pussies afraid of amps. I was overjoyed.

And then things started to go horribly wrong.

It started with a series of glowing reviews of a band called Times New Viking. Intrigued, I gave them a listen. At first I though I had obtained a corrupted copy. A scratched CD, a garbled download, my computer was broken.... something. This couldn't be what all that fuss was about. I hate it when people call music they don't like 'just noise', because it never is, really. So I won't call this just noise. It's just a really bad garage band using white noise to disguise their inadequacy, which is worse. I prefer 'just noise'.

So, fine. Whatever. A bad band got overhyped and I fell for it. It happens, move on.

Then came Women. And then... The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. And then, then came Wavves (or Wavvves or whatevvvvver the fuck).

Then I heard the word 'shitgaze'.

So this is what it's come to. Pitchfork, the blogs, the tumblrs, they've all basically come out and admitted that they hate music, and this is all just one giant joke. A joke that is on us.

It's difficult to express just this is so much more infuriating than the Vampire Weekends and Teagan and Saras and Trail Of Deads, but it is. A bunch of awful, awful bands playing utter bullshit, and then covering up with distortion... what a bunch of fucking assholes. Distortion, and noise, and volume, they're supposed to enhance music. You're supposed to use it to make music better. Listen to a Jesus & Mary Chain record. Listen to ten seconds of a Sonic Youth song, or Shellac, or mclusky. That's some goddamned noise.

And the fucking scenesters lapping it up like they've never heard a fucking Guitar Wolf song in their lives. What the hell is wrong with them? I'm trying to work out who is being insulted the most in all of this, and I can't. I guess I'll have to go with the bands, since they start out by insulting themselves, then the critics who actually like music insult them, and then I (and I know I'm not the only one) come along and call them fucking assholes.


PS: I swear I started writing this rant before this video came out. I'm so glad I took so long over it.



HA HA HA.

Hello?

....Anyone?

Excellent, my plan to drive everyone away by feigning blog death is a success! Now I can once again write whatever the fuck I want without a care in the world. No more planning posts, no more filtering, no more writing a 2000-word review of a Brazilian fart-porn video I saw on the internet before realizing I could never post it because I know who would read it. Nope, from now on I can go back to pure 100% stream-of-consciousness diatribes to my hearts content. That sentence had like 20 different things wrong with it grammatically but who cares? Not me! You're MOM has 20 things wrong with her grammatically! In my pants! With like.... dicks and stuff.

You know what is bullshit? Everything. Except cupcakes.

I'm quite disappointed that nobody I know ever got the swine flu.

Brazilian fart-porn is some fucked up shit, let me tell you. Brazil is swiftly becoming the Japan of the western hemisphere.

That is all for now. Or IS IT?????

Yes.

Today I stumbled into work (actually I drove. Like a real grownup! Except I listened to the Powerpuff Girls soundtrack all the way in. Not that listening to the Powerpuff Girls soundtrack is not perfectly acceptable grown up behaviour. I digress) and as usual headed straight for the kitchen for my daily third cup of coffee, when I discovered that my favorite mug was missing from the communal cupboard. Now, this is not unusual, because it also happens to be the favorite cup of a coworker, who will be referred to as Horrible Mug-Stealing Girl. The fact that the mug is not just my favorite mug, but is literally my mug, hand selected by me for its perfectly sized handle, pleasing proportions and optimal capacity for my coffee-milk ratio, purchased with my own hard-earned money, is seemingly lost on HMSG. In fact, every time I inform her that that is indeed my mug, and she is defiling it, she thinks I'm flirting with her, and giggles. I can't seem to make it clear that I am doing no such thing, and she needs to stay the fuck away from my goddamn mug.

Where was I? Yes. My mug was gone. Not only that, but my backup mug was gone. This was unprecedented. My back up mug was specifically selected for its unattractiveness to the others. It had 4 cat-faces printed on it, depicting for different emotions. The cats pictured were those squishy-faced fluffly ones that evil masterminds keep on their laps. Of the emotions, I can only recall 'Grumpy', because the face was so horrific it haunts my dreams. It used to belong to a coworker who shall be referred to as Crazy Cat Lady, who left last year. However, it was of acceptable size, and more importantly the handle was perfect; tapering inwards at the bottom, just right for three fingers through the handle, and pinky supporting it from the bottom.

And it's nowhere to be seen. I am reduced to drinking from this horrible mug with a too-big handle that I have to cram all four fingers into almost to the knuckle just to get a firm grip on.

I am DISGRUNTLED.

A few weeks ago someone asked me what the 'new hotness' is this year, music-wise. It's a question I used to love to answer at length, flapping my arms like a fool, cramming burned CDs down peoples' throats. Alas, no more. I stared at her for a few seconds and muttered something about Neko Case. For the next few days I trolled the music blogs, the forums, the pitchforks and the tinymixtapes for New Hotness '09, just so I'd have something more substantial to mutter the next time someone asked me.

Nothing. Nothing but shitty rip-offs, atrocious buzz-bands, and that fucking incomprehensibly overrated Animal Collective album.

And so, I've started to accept the fact that I'm pretty much done with new music. No more finding out about great new bands just starting out, no more being blown away by some unheard of opening act. I like what I like, nothing new is any good. I am officially Murtaugh-ing being in the know about the New Hotness. It's actually quite a relief. Being in the know about the New Hotness is exhausting. You have read the blogs, subscribe to the 'zines, listen to the podcasts, not to mention keep in touch with fellow insufferable music nerds. Then you have to tell the difference between New Hotness, Momentary Warmth That Will Be Lame Before They Even Release A Single, and New Hotness Destined To Sell Out And Do A Car Commercial As Soon As They Release A Single Thereby Becoming Retroactively Lame. Then, you have to keep track of the New Hotness religiously so that you can call them overrated before the inevitable backlash makes them so Old and Busted that calling them overrated is passe. And no, before you ask, I never thought Animal Collective were the New Hotness, I swear.

I'm too old for this shit. Yes, the new Neko Case is great, as will the new Sonic Youth, and the new Decemberists is surprisingly decent (although I'm still enough of a insufferable music nerd to not be able to listen to it after seeing a Pitchfork writer recommend it on ABC News), but that's not the New Hotness, that's Good Bands Continuing To Release Good Music.

So there. I'm done. Time to be old and not give a shit. It's nice. One of the nicer perks is all the time I have for finding good old stuff. I have been happily indulging my obsession with Trance Syndicate (with a lot of help from my favorite music blog). So, with nothing else to yell about, I guess I'll yell about some of the amazing bands that have called this pillar of American independent music home.


Cherubs




Cherubs are perhaps a difficult band to love if you are not a noise-rock kinda person. They didn't quite have the kind of chops, or sense of melody, or the smart, bilious sense of humour that made bands like the Jesus Lizard and Mclusky so impossible to cram into that particular nook of the musical landscape. What they did have, however, was noise. Fuzzed out, ear-bleeding, buzzsaw-on-sheet-metal noise, and a singer who sounded like he was gargling woodscrews. And drugs. Lots, and lots of drugs.


Starfish




Oh Starfish. Easily the most overlooked of Trance's roster of bands, there is really no good reason they didn't get huge. They had the chugging guitar lines, enormous choruses, soul-snagging hooks and just the right amount of Nirvana-worship at a time when just the right amount of Nirvana-worship could sell you a million records, hell, their debut was recorded by Bob Fucking Mould. Starfish were the real deal, and they died young, forgotten and penniless, like a proper real deal should.


Monroe Mustang




Monroe Mustang are basically a group of indie rock monks, who live in a log cabin/rectory somewhere in the Texas hillcountry, and appear mysteriously every 10 years or so with a album full of the most somber, crushing, emotionally draining music you're likely to encounter. Then they buy 10 years worth of toilet paper and beef jerky from the gen'ral store and disappear as silently as they appeared.


Bedhead



Yes, Bedhead. No, I will never shut the fuck up about them. You may be familiar with my views on Bedhead. They were the best band ever, and the miniscule amount of posthumous attention they've been recieving in recent years are barely a half-feint towards their rightful place as one of the most seminal bands in independant rock music. While Slint may get most of the credit/blame for starting the whole post-rock thing, I can't imagine any of the kings of the genre (I'm lookin at you, Explosions in the Sky) existing without the creeping crescendos of the Kadanes, and the absolutely stunning drumming of Trini Martinez. Listen to Bedhead, you jerks.

How about that Barack Obama guy, huh? Is he a disappointment or what? It's almost as if we all got married to him or something, and then went on a honeymoon, and you know how honeymoons are all lovey dovey, and you're just all going at it like rabbits all day and night? That is basically what his first couple of months in office were, because of metaphors. But now it's like when you've been married for a while, and you're all just farting in bed and giving billions of dollars to corrupt banks, and then ten thousand reporters say 'the honeymoon is over' because they have all the insight of a constipated mountain goat. That is what the world is like now. And it's all his fault.

Some people blame the Bush administration for Obama's problems. And I'm like, "C'mon guys, what is this, 2008?" The answer is no. It is 2009. Blaming Bush now is like blaming the old lady who fell asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand and set her bed on fire, after the entire block is ablaze. Sure, it's technically 'her fault', but look at those asshole firemen all trying to put it out, and failing. Why don't they just put it out huh? It's because they suck. Fuck those guys. Just put out the fire, jerkfaces. God.

Other people say that Obama is doing the best he can, and if we just let him do his thing, and have a little faith, things will get better. Sure, it might take a while, but he's a smart guy, and we should all just shut up, let him do his job, and listen to him. To that I say "I'm sorry, I don't speak French. Parlez vous American motherfucker?"

Then there are those who say that really, despite all the recent outrage over bailouts and bonuses and private jets and that football player who didn't get to see his dying mum-in-law, things aren't really that different from when Obama took office. What's happened is that, with the recovery taking so long, and the political and financial maneuvering being so complex and esoteric, the public and the media have latched onto small, easy to understand chunks of it and are getting worked up into a lather over it just to feel involved. And blahblahblah, God, so many talky words, what the fuck are they even saying. Complex? Esoteric? I'll give you esoteric, I'll esoterically stick my foot in your ass! And not in a sexual way! Either! What is there to understand? I am poor, some douchebag got like eleventy-billion dollars, and I did not. That is bullshit. I want to shout. Shouting is fun, it makes people look at me. Shout shout shout. Shouty shouty. Shouty shouty shouty shout.

Shouty shouty shouty shouty shouty shout.

One of the things people tend to ask me when they learn I'm Sri Lankan is "So like what's the deal with you guys and those other guys? I saw that pregnant chick from the Grammys saying y'all are like all genociding folks and stuff? What's up with that?" And answering that question is always hard. I suspect it's hard for a lot of people in my position, because the answer, the right answer, consists of a lot of words, and the person asking the question tends to want answers in the form of an early 60's comic-book summary. "Well, you have your Nazis on the one side, doing bad things like killing puppies, and the daring pure-hearted heroes on the other saving those puppies with their laser-beams." If it took less than five minutes to explain, it's all a crock of shit, no matter which side of the story you're hearing.

I'm not going to seriously attempt to explain it myself because one, I have my own biases (seeing the results of a suicide-bombing first hand tends to hamper one's sympathy for the cause espoused by the bomber, as I'm sure you'll understand) and two, despite having been born and raised in the motherland, it's been almost 4 years since I was back. That is more than enough time to lose touch with the reality of the situation (More on that point later).

So why am I even writing this at all? Because of the pregnant chick from the Grammys saying that there's a 'genocide' going on in Sri Lanka. It's such a ridiculous lie that I feel obligated, not out of patriotism or anything but just out of general loathing of bullshit, to explain why someone would say such a ridiculous lie. At least, that's what I'm going to try. It will make me feel better.

So there is this country, Sri Lanka. Most of the people there are Sinhalese. Less people are Tamil. After becoming a semi-proper democracy back around 60 years ago, the majority Sinhalese began the standard democratic practise of giving the minorities the short end of the stick. Not nearly as badly as white America fucked over black America, I mean, we're not barbarians, but still there were some major disparities. So eventually, about 25 years ago, a small group of Tamils decided enough was enough, and made a fuss. A couple of soldiers died in the fuss. The Sinhalese population thought that was rather bad form, and rioted. Much chaos ensued, many Tamil-owned houses were burned to a crisp, and a lot of Tamils had to flee the country for their lives. No bueno, I know.


So here we are, 25 years later, and the country, like the rest of the world, has changed beyond all recognition. But those people who ran out of their burning houses and didn't stop running until they reached Canada haven't. Like a lot of Sri Lankan expats, and trust me, I've met a lot, they sort of froze after leaving. Never integrating with their new environment, never even thinking about going back, they're in a kind of stasis, a hemertically sealed bubble of brown-ness. There are these communities, Sinhalese or Tamil it makes no difference, that encountering is like stepping into a time machine. A few months ago I accompanied the parents to a Sri Lankan dinner party, and afterwards all the women went into the kitchen and the men sat around in the living room singing songs and drinking whiskey. Actual Sri Lankans stopped doing this shit in 1975. Basically, those grudges are never going to be worked out, that anger will never go away.

That's where the genocide talk comes from. It's sad, and sadder when you understand its source, but it in no way changes the absolute untruth of it. It's getting really rough up there, because it's a war zone, and war zones are rough. Just ask an Iraqi. So while I don't think Ms. Arulpragasam should shut up and stick to making music, I do think that she should hop a plane to Colombo, make the trek up to at least Batticaloa, and actually learn a fucking thing or two instead of making the 25-year-old-echo-chamber that is the Tamil diaspora even louder.

Just a heads up, the new Neko Case album is really friggin good. You should listen to it. She sings like the nicest banshee, and it has twangs in all the right places. The last song is actually 30 minutes of crickets chirping, I guess she wanted to be interesting, so you can probably skip it. Unless you are into that sort of thing. I don't judge.