Anyone who's from Arizona, like myself, will most likely have the following reaction when they hear anything about Tucson: "Booooring...."
Normally I would agree. Is there really more to Tucson than U of A? And yet, this listless city is the birthplace of one of the most underrated post-rock groups I know of, Friends of Dean Martinez. Now, the indie community has plenty of post-rock/instrumental artists to wade through...Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think, The Album Leaf, Dirty Three, etc. And many of these groups have done very well, despite writing music completely antithetical to songcraft: prolonged, restrained, lyric-less and inaccessible opuses. For instance, Mogwai worked with Clint Mansell in scoring Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, Explosions in the Sky composed the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights, Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "East Hastings" was featured in 28 days later. I guess there's this trend of post-rock music being integrated into films. And it works very well.
That said, does Friends of Dean Martinez bring anything to the table in the face of these instrumental juggernauts? Absolutely. I wouldn't claim outright that they are better artists than the aforementioned groups, but Friends of Dean Martinez are by no means derivative or lackluster. And after 13 years and 9 LPs, they maintain that difficult balance of being innovative without compromising artistic identity. But they're still nameless, even within the underground circles of music enthusiasts. I don't really know why. Perhaps it's the cumbersome stage name they carry, which probably incites a "Who's on First?" scenario every time it's brought up:
"Hey, have you heard of friends of Dean Martinez?"
"Who? I don't know who that is. Does he have no friends or something? How sad."
"No, they're a band"
"Oh, what are they called?"
"Friends of Dean Martinez"
"No...like, what do they call themselves as a band?"
*slap*
But a lot of (in fact, most of them) post-rock bands have longwinded names. It might just be the misleading surname "Martinez," which initially made me think of a mariachi band (certainly not the case). Or it could be the fact that "Friends of Dean Martinez" sounds like one of those temporary support groups that play at local bars to raise money for a buddy in chemo therapy. Or it could be that Tucson stigma.
Maybe everyone else just thinks FODM sucks. But I'm still going to try.
Now, FODM does not have the operatic orchestration of Godspeed, the vicious dynamics of Mogwai, or Explosion's angelic guitar riffs, but they are champions of mood and sonic scenery. Their music is frequently described as evoking desert landscapes, but not in a pejorative sense. Some tracks may feel forlorn and desolate, but they carry an allure of tragic grace. Some songs are markedly sinister, while others are downright gorgeous. The group also has interest in hispanic culture, as evidenced by some of their more rhythmic songs and occasional, Spanish song titles. In addition, they clearly enjoy the retro feel (they have a whole album titled "Retrograde"), and as a whole, FODM can come off as ironic, but it's never destructive. Stylistically, FODM is pretty consistent. The tempo for most songs is pretty gradual; in fact, while some are rather sluggish and boring, the grave movement often contributes to an endearingly barren atmosphere. Instrumentally, acoustic and/or steel guitars are very common. Above all, a yearning slide guitar is usually center stage, stringing out a melody to tie a song together. In essence, most of FODM is pretty western sounding. Pianos and string sections are occasionally used, and FODM's later recordings feature more synth-work. On rare occasions, Friends of Dean Martinez demonstrate their versatility with a surprisingly disparate number, being either jarringly experimental or just mind-blowing.
However, as with most post-rock groups, they require patience from the listener. But they may not be for you if you don't like subtlety. Unlike Godspeed, Mogwai, or Explosions, abrupt changes and extremes in rhythm or dynamics are rare. Their stability in is more like The Album Leaf.
Anyway, if you have a hunger for more instrumental artists, or just feel adventurous/curious, give Friends of Dean Martinez a shot. Their latest album from 2005, Lost Horizon, which is on KSCR's new wall, was my gateway to their music. The latter half of the opener, "Landfall," is particularly phenomenal, but, like most of the album, is quite unlike the rest of their music. As of right now, their 2000 release, "A Place In The Sun," might be my favorite FODM album. It has good variety and some gripping, haunting tracks, although 2004's "Random Harvest" might be their most endearingly dark LP. I would suggest any of those three to start with.
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Here is a fantastic blog about the fall of OiNK and its prophecy of music industry revolution
It's a bit long, but a worthwhile read. There's a section in particular that I want to post below, for it yields understanding to the incentive and opinions behind many of us here at KSCR.
"Unlike newspapers, record companies own the distribution and the product being distributed, so you can't just start your own website where you give out music that they own - and that's what this is all about: distribution. Lots of pro-piracy types argue that music can be free because people will always love music, and they'll pay for concert tickets, and merchandise, and the marketplace will shift and artists will survive. Well, yes, that might be an option for some artists, but that does nothing to help the record labels, because they don't make any money off of merchandise, or concert tickets. Distribution and ownership are what they control, and those are the two things piracy threatens. The few major labels left are parts of giant media conglomerations - owned by huge parent companies for whom artists and albums are just numbers on a piece of paper. It's why record companies shove disposable pop crap down your throat instead of nurturing career artists: because they have CEOs and shareholders to answer to, and those people don't give a shit if a really great band has the potential to get really successful, if given the right support over the next decade. They see that Gwen Stefani's latest musical turd sold millions, because parents of twelve year old girls still buy music for their kids, and the parent company demands more easy-money pop garbage that will be forgotten about next month. The only thing that matters to these corporations is profit - period. Music isn't thought of as an art form, as it was in the earlier days of the industry where labels were started by music-lovers - it's a product, pure and simple."
Hopefully, the digital revolution will eventually banish money grubbing executives from recycling music as a disposable flavor-of-the-week. In addition, I suggest anyone who believes "indie snobs" are informed not by personal taste but by a self-righteous, just-for-the-sake-of-it rebellion to the "sheep" of pop culture, to read the above essay and then consider the common defense of mainstream music: "Popular music is popular for a reason. It wouldn't be popular if it wasn't good."
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I love boobies. I mean, who doesn’t?
Unfortunately for those of us who have them (or are avid fans of them), breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women.
This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Keep a Breast Foundation is teaming up with local LA music community, Kiss or Kill, to present a month of concerts aimed at raising awareness and money to go towards breast cancer research.
Kiss or Kill, a collective of local bands, has been bringing cheap, community-driven punk shows to the LA music scene every week for the last 5 years. This month they go pink, with every show featuring female artists and musicians (reminiscent of their former monthly “All Grrrrl Rock Riot!�). Proceeds from all the shows, as well as a limited release compilation album featuring all of the participating bands will go to benefit the Keep a Breast Foundation.
Additionally, each of the women (including members of Bang Sugar Bang, the Mullhollands, Underwater City People, and more) will be having a plaster form made of their torsos to be customized by artists and auctioned off to raise consciousness and funding for research and treatment at an event in early November.
Kiss or Kill is every Wednesday night at El Cid. Be sure to buy a "Boobies!" shirt! (Seriously, they exist!)
Check out this promotional video from the accompanying photo shoot with Jessy Plume and Love Rebellion
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Check out this promotional video from the accompanying photo shoot with Jessy Plume and Love Rebellion
A couple fridays ago, I attended the DJ Spooky Visions and Voices event at Ground Zero, primarily for a musical analysis assignment in one of my courses. Unfortunately, the event turned out to be more of a lecture than performance, but it sparked some interesting philosophical questions. DJ Spooky was clearly a very intelligent and educated individual, but I found myself disagreeing with some of his perspectives on art and ownership.Before continuing, I recognize that not everyone can DJ. Finding the right samples to mix together into a compelling track isn't a simple craft. And it can be impressive to hear two songs that, while seeming completely incompatible with each other in their original form, end up combined in an engaging, sonic latticework that makes you wonder: "How did he think of using those together?" And with an easier access to the world's music, globalization has opened up even more possibilities for DJs.
That said, being a DJ seems to have artistic limitations in terms of self-reliance, in that most his work is usually, albeit complex, an amalgamation of original creations by other musicians. The DJ, then, to paraphrase DJ spooky, acts like "a filter." Various works come through him and are uniquely filtered to form a mix. But he also consistently referred to himself as an artist, and I guess where Spooky and I differ is in the degree of innovative artistry involved in being this "filter." For me, unless a DJ uses mostly his own material, it is a preponderance of external sampling that compromises a DJ's artistic independency. And this is because I believe art is significantly qualified by it being exclusive to its creator. If Bach had never existed, would another composer have come along and written the Well-Tempered Clavier, note for note? You'd sooner see Jessica Alba act well. One could argue, of course, that with all the variables a DJ works with when sampling and mixing a track together, his final product is his creative brain-child; the artistic lens of his filtering is exclusively his. To an extent, I would agree, but without those other innovations that lens would have nothing, or very little, to work with. Going back to the Bach example, if a DJ has sampled Bach in his works, then deleting Bach's music from history would critically fracture that DJ's music as well. Yes, in general, musicians are inspired by other musicians, and are therefore subject to some artistic dependence as well, but this relationship usually serves (if one isn't a flagrant plagiarist) as a creative motivator, a catalyst. Original recordings may inspire a DJ as well, but it's also the medium they work with. Rather than carve a new sound sculpture, they segment and combine pre-existing ones, however interesting that may be. I'm not saying that DJ's are rip-off craftsmen masquerading as artists, but after listening to DJ Spooky I wonder if some DJs may be giving themselves too much credit.
What's peculiar is that DJ Spooky seemed to uphold a rather socialistic approach to music, in that it's more "of an exchange between people" than a stable item. In my opinion, this is rather inconsistent with labeling oneself as an artist, especially an independent one. I don't disagree that there's dynamism to pre-existing compositions, whether it be in interpretation, transcription, covers, etc. But there are also immutable characteristics that make "Bohemian Rhapsody" what it is: "Bohemian Rhapsody." And I don't recall DJ Spooky ever explicitly calling himself any kind of visionary or innovator (in fact, for the most part he was pretty humble), but it seems hypocritical to suggest individualism by planting your stage name on your oeuvre and then suggest collectivism by asking, as he did when referring to copyright law and the transfer of digital memory, "who owns memory?"
If one is to embrace both this perspective of personal "filtering" and no concept of intellectual property, can't I just edit the tags on my iTunes library to say they're my own? Unfortunately, this has already happened to some degree with common P2P file sharing programs like Kazaa or Limewire. Tracks are frequently labeled with the wrong information, and become shared so rapidly that the genuine data might be in the minority. Would we really want this to exacerbate to a point of complete musical solipsism? DJ Spooky said in the Q & A that copyright laws "stifle creativity," which is very understandable if you embrace his philosophy. But, while I don't at all advocate a totalitarian control of intellectual property, I think copyright laws give musicians some dignity for their creations. I may even go far enough to say that they can be helpful reminders of how special music is.
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I generally wouldn't consider myself an 'arty' person, being unable to sketch out any figure even vaguely resembling any object that belongs in the physical realm of reality. And I am most definitely incapable of distinguishing a Raphael from a Picasso, much less a Dali from a Magritte. So imagine my consternation when I learned that I had to visit an art exhibit at LACMA with my class, attendance absolutely compulsory.
I proceeded to take everything that happened on Thursday as a sign from the gods that I should feign fatal illness--even sudden death and swift resurrection, if need be--in order to avoid that dreaded trip. A broken nail, a wrong order of coffee at Trojan Grounds, our ride that refused to shift into reverse gear... believe me, I tried.
But I ended up at LACMA with my classmates anyway, along with throngs of other college students. (LACMA held a College Night on February 8, which offered free entrance to all college students from 8-10 pm along with a reception in their central court. Free food!) Large motifs of pipes and a man in a bowler hat greeted us everywhere, and before I knew it, I was slapped with a "See it at LACMA!" sticker and ushered into a room.
I'd been curious to find out what, if anything, lay behind that ubiquitous pipe and its enigmatic tagline, "This is not a pipe." What could it possibly mean? That the picture of a pipe, which clearly appeared to be a regular tobacco pipe, was not representative of a pipe? That it was a tobacco pipe, but not a plumber's pipe? That it wasn't a pipe, just because the artist labeled it so? Was it making a statement about meaning, labeling, impression, visualization... what was it about?
As it turned out, the answer surprised--no, delighted--me, and sent tingly sensations down my spine! Who'd have thought that I, the biggest art-moron on earth, would have found something of such intense interest in an art museum? The picture of a pipe is not a pipe, precisely because it is a picture of a pipe. It is nothing more than a visual representation of the object itself.
And... ...? So where's the punchline in that, I hear you asking. But that's exactly what Plato said about art, that it's an imitation of reality! And Aristotle! And Kant! And there was even an exhibit of Foucault's paper on Magritte's pipe! Do you sense how excited the philosophy-geek in me is! Viewing an art exhibit could actually be an intellectual experience for me, instead of the stumbling-about-in-the-dark-like-an-ignoramus that I'd anticipated!
For the rest of you who're interested in the very art of it, however, here's a brief overview. The exhibition features not only Magritte's works, but those of other modern artists that have been influenced by, or referenced his works. The layout is pretty cool as well, as the works by other artists (such as Martin Kippenberger, Andy Warhol, Vija Celmins, etc.) are interspersed among Magritte's, so you can visualize their similarities with the pieces placed side-by-side.
The exhibition also follows Magritte through his various changes in artistic style and content, ranging from his Surrealist works, which saw him juxtaposing random and often contradictory elements that defied the conventions of reality, to his later method of meshing together less-random objects in an attempt to highlight the relationship between them. He also explored the relationship between seemingly conflicting words and images, challenged traditional ideas of "good" painting during his vache period, and questioned social influences on the subject of individualism and identity.
No, it wasn't too bad after all, was it? In fact, it was even worth that half a minute of indignity when three of us had to hop out of the backseat to push the car out of the driveway of a parking structure, with the rest of the world watching and judging us for the stupid college kids that we were.
Lessons learnt:
- Don't fear the unknown! Plunge headlong into the unknown!
- Figure out how to drive stick before venturing out into the menacing streets of LA in your friend's car.
Magritte and Contemporary Art The Treachery of Images Los Angeles County Museum of Art November 19 - March 4
