After a long, cranky-pants day at the office, my partner and I threw together dinner tonight. As is custom in our house, a record was spinning during meal prep. My partner is deejaying our friends’ wedding at the end of the month and scored a Motown anthology on vinyl at Half-Price. The Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” came on and while we don’t think its self-destructive lyrics are wedding-appropriate, we danced anyway. Irresistible pop songs can have that effect on people.
This got me to thinking about Roseanne, a show I previously earlier intimated a love for on this blog. I was specifically thinking about a moment in season three’s “Scenes from a Barbecue” when the titular heroine invited folks over for a BBQ. At some point, her husband Dan (played by the incomparable John Goodman) breaks out the guitar and the group starts singing “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.” One friend in attendance is Bonnie Watkins, Roseanne Conner’s partner in crime from waiting tables at a mall restaurant. It’s established that Bonnie is in a relationship with struggling musician Duke, played by David Crosby. But she’s a musician in her own right too, even if she’s not slugging it out in buses and bars. She proves as much when she belts out the classic song, leaving the gang slacked-jawed. Let’s see how you feel about her performance.
That’s some whisky-throated alto, innit? For good measure, let’s see the TV couple tear up Danny Sheridan’s “Roll On Down” in season four’s “The Bowling Show.”
I couldn’t remember the name of the actress, but my partner did a little digging on IMDB and was like, “you know, Bonnie Bramlett? From Delaney & Bonnie? They were in Vanishing Point? Why don’t we have any of their albums?”
Then husband-wife musical duo Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett in concert circa 1970; image courtesy of nytimes.com
A fair question and a worthy investigation. Because I’m clearly going to need more Bonnie Bramlett in my life. Maybe you will too.
Cover to Electrelane's Axes (Too Pure, 2005); image courtesy of betterpropaganda.com
Recently, my friend Ivan posted a clip on Facebook of the late, great Electrelane playing “Bells” off their penultimate Axes at a Portuguese music festival in 2007. Since I’ve been mentioning the album’s influence on my feminist development for a while, let’s get into it.
"Don't let our British dandyism fool you -- we are Electrelane and we will melt your face off" (top row, clockwise from left: vocalist/guitarist/pianist Verity Susman, guitarist Mia Clarke, bassist Ros Murray, drummer Emma Gaze); image courtesy of blogs.villagevoice.com
I was already a fan of the group when Axes came out. I reviewed The Power Out for KVRX, perhaps helping in some small way to make “On Parade” a college radio hit.
I only had the pleasure of seeing Electrelane in concert once, but I really couldn’t ask for a better experience. They opened for erstwhile Mr. Lady labelmates Le Tigre at Emo’s right after my birthday in 2005. Le Tigre were fine, but Electrelane were a lightning bolt into my being. Simply put, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a band so much in control of the chaos they were making.
One thing Electrelane demonstrated for me was the power that emanates from women playing music together. I’m not referring to the novelty of it, as I wish all-female bands and female instrumentalists in mixed-gender bands were more commonplace. I’m talking about women coming together collaborate on a creative project. I believe it to be a decidedly feminist act.
Collaboration is important and should not be devalued. Often women are singled out in music culture and are expected to work alone if they choose not to work with men. I’d argue that this is true in other professions as well. In their seminal book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards mention that several women discouraged them from writing the book together, as it would not be taken seriously. I think much of this is to do with the privilege given to sole (male) authorship, and having women abide by it — if we are to follow liberal feminist principles — ensures professional advancement. I also think it’s bullshit. There is nothing weak or compromised about working with someone on a project. In my experience, it only adds depth and nuance to whatever I’m working on. I also think it helps prove that women and girls can, in fact, be civil and work together rather than tear each other apart for individual advancement. Thus, female collaborations can be politicized acts. Modeling these working strategies in public is a politicized act too. It’s why Kristen at Act Your Age and I do it whenever we can.
Cover to Manifesta (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000); image courtesy of brooklynmuseum.org
Though I do think there’s something distinctively female about Electrelane, I don’t think it’s their sound so much as their approach to creating that sound. There’s muscularity to it, which is bolstered by precision. Being precise may not seem a rock ideal, but it’s how they work together as a unit, even when it sounds like they are in discord or riding musical tangents. It’s the sound of work. To my ears, it’s the coiled fist and dexterous fingers of women proving they can rock even harder and tighter than the men.
And there’s just something so empowering about seeing women work together so well. And while I love Sleater-Kinney and have seen and heard some of their remarkable concert footage, their shadow may be cast over bands like Electrelane who I feel don’t get as much credit for being such a tight musical unit. Lead singer Verity Susman doesn’t have Corin Tucker’s golden wail. Neither Susman nor Mia Clarke channeled Pete Townsend’s showmanship the way Carrie Brownstein did on stage. But that doesn’t mean that these women aren’t their peers. I mean, Emma Gaze is just as mighty a drummer as Janet Weiss. As far as I’m concerned, we should link these bands together more. Maybe put them on a bill together. That’d be a hell of a reunion.
Reunite, Sleater-Kinney! Share a bill with Electrelane!; image courtesy of pitchfork.com
At the time of its release, many critics noted that Axes was largely instrumental. This only seemed exceptional against The Power Out, whichoffered lyrics written in English, French, German, and Spanish. Indeed, their debut album Rock It to the Moon was scant on lyrics as well. Apparently Susman told the NME that this was much to do with lyrics making their compositions sound predictable and too resolved. While band members considered themselves feminists, they tended not to address their politics through lyrics (though “On Parade” is absolutely about same-sex desire, and their cover of “The Partisan” is meant to be read as a protest against the Iraq War). By creating the songs as instrumentals actually gave the band more room for sonic exploration. I’d concur and often think about how dispensing with lyrics can be used toward political ends.
Sure, lyrics convey information. They also give listeners easy, sometimes profound points of identification with artists. Lyrics can be mounted as evidence. They can also be ignored, though they shouldn’t be. But as valuable as words are, they can also be limiting. They can demystify. They can be too exacting, and therefore obvious. They can fall short of delivering the message they’re attached to as well. And sometimes putting them into verses and choruses and bridges can take away the words’ charm. Instead of telling the joke, they explain it.
Some vocalists have bypassed proper lyrics, opting for gibberish, lists, scat, sloganeering, or free association. Some musicians, like Electrelane, forgo words altogether at times, and I don’t think the decision to do so should be conceptualized as a devaluation of their verbalized ideas. Rather, I think we might be able to argue that systems of language can fail women and girls, both in their musical compositions and in the larger world of cultural interaction.
Also, sometimes talking about being feminists isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to lead by example. Show, don’t tell.
Electrelane showing, but not so much telling; image courtesy of myspace.com
Thus, they turned toward their instruments — which abide by the conventional, masculinized rock set-up, particularly channeling bands like Neu!, Can, and The Velvet Underground — to make loud, abrasive, abstract music that evolves and builds but never tends to arrive at full resolution (or “climax,” to use a masculinist term). Their compositions, and the deliberate stylistic choices they made toward repetition and dischord bring to mind Susan McClary’s seminal Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality, which argues against the traditionally masculinized values of structure and resolution in canonical classical music and champions the hypnotic, dissonant, unresolved tonal quality of many female composers’ work.
In Axes,there are no proper choruses or verses. Some songs don’t even reach a proper theme. Others do, either to repeat it at length or vary it slightly with each refrain. A song will stumble upon a melody as if by accident, and then deny the listener a chance to re-engage with a familiar tune. The band has already moved on and will not be returning unless they feel like it. Nothing is fixed. It’s not taking the master’s tools to dismantle his house, but it feels pretty close to me at times. Re-enlisting veteran engineer Steve Albini after his work on The Power Out and recording together in one room domesticates their sound in surprising ways, and roughs up staid notions of female domesticity. Having Susman stab at her piano – once a symbol of proper female socialization — probably helps too.
This lack of emphasis on lyrics and hummable melodies can be really frustrating for casual listeners, especially those looking for the one single to latch onto. Electrelane doesn’t really provide it on Axes, requiring that you listen — and feel — the entire album as a total experience. This is a pretty audacious thing to ask a listener to do, particularly when an album can get cut up into mp3 files. It’s also music that doesn’t make for easy participation. There’s no place to shout “words and guitar, I got ‘em!” and thus no easy site of identification either alone with your headphones or with the crowd at the gig. The band doesn’t give many nods of recognition. But I think if you spend time with the album, you’ll find it. Maybe start with “Two for Joy” and work your way through “Gone Darker.” After that, stretch past to the end and let it play to the beginning. That way, you can listen to “Bells” over and over again.
However, I do propose a listening tactic for people struggling to get into this album: play along. If you have a guitar, pile it on top. If you have a flat surface to bang on, tap out a rhythm. And if you have a voice, sing along. Just because the songs are instrumental doesn’t mean they have to remain that way. Remember the feminist possibilities in collaboration and join in.
Earlier this week, Caitlin at Dark Room posted a couple of mixes from her college radio days on Facebook and asked for her friends to contribute some of their playlists. This seemed like an interesting project with findings worthy of disclosure here, especially since I often make casual reference to my tenure as a deejay at KVRX.
I started in the fall of 2002 at the beginning of my sophomore year. A fan of Allan Moyle’s Pump Up the Volume, the urge to have my own radio show was planted during my freshman year of college. My friend Brooke had a show at KANM called “Weakdays” and knowing she could program a show inspired me to give it a go. We both liked The Dismemberment Plan, we both could read PSAs aloud, and I felt confident that I could master the switchboard too.
A few days before the semester began, I filled out an application and secured a timeslot for Saturday mornings at 9 a.m. As KVRX shares its frequency with KOOP and switched over from FM to RealAudio, I felt better knowing I had the entire first semester to iron out any kinks my show may have without being able to get picked up in someone else’s car. The Internet still felt very private at the time, even though RealAudio could get picked up in another part of the world instead of inside the condensed hub of Central Austin.
I named my show “Hang the DJ,” a reference to The Smiths’ ”Panic.” As the song was a modern rock radio staple, the program title should be an indication that I was half-hearted in my attempt at becoming a fan. A year later, I’d acknowledge that I just couldn’t get into them as I was developing my show. Come spring 2003, I changed the name of my show to “Cheesecake or Fugu,” a title that came to me in the shower when I was remembering a review I’d read in high school of Cibo Matto’s Viva! La Woman! that compared their sound to the Japanese delicacy.
Listening to tapes from that time, apart from their lo-fi charm and developing fluency with related technology, two things strike me: 1) I wasn’t yet comfortable talking into a microphone and 2) I don’t listen to a lot of that stuff anymore. Listening to a November 2002 broadcast, it’s surprising to me how many dude singer-songwriters and indie bands I played. Clem Snide, Death Cab for Cutie, and Richard Buckner? Pass. Belle and Sebastian and Okkervil River? Not against it, but wouldn’t fight someone to defend their merits. Some of these acts were indicative of the buzz they generated, as well as the mercurial nature of being of-the-moment. Remember when we were supposed to care about Ben Kweller and The Warlocks? You don’t? Me either.
Of course, that these broadcasts seem foreign to me now is largely the point. During the first six months at KVRX, I hadn’t locked into what I liked yet. I was trying to fit in, catching up to just how much music I now had at my disposal. In all candor, the first six months at KVRX were terrifying to me. The office itself was scary, as it was usually peopled with oft-bespectacled dudes huddled together and volleying well-considered, often incendiary opinions about obscure music. It was full-on High Fidelity. Several of these guys would later become my friends. But at the time I was 19 and not ready to share that I had just heard of the Mountain Goats. So I kept quiet.
Incidentally, KVRX was something of a meet market that seemed particularly inclined toward heterosexual activity. Lots of hook-ups, some of which resulted in marriages or at least amicable splits. It makes sense, as obsessive, esoteric types tend to gravitate toward one another. Young girls can be especially vulnerable and I was no exception. I dated two deejays during my first year at KVRX. Looking back on that time with a more nuanced understanding of feminist politics, I feel weird and more than a little embarrassed about the gendered power dynamics of romantic pursuit. But I also found my partner there, who I formed a relationship with on more egalitarian terms.
I’d like to think that dating fellow deejays had less to do with setting me apart than the talent I developed during my time at KVRX: writing reviews. As deejays needed to log four hours of volunteer time each month in order to keep their shows, drafting reviews for new releases was a great opportunity, especially since the station would receive hundreds of new albums each month. A review for one full-length album translated into a volunteer hour. I averaged about three reviews a week, thus gaining awareness of several artists as well as the output of the labels they were signed to. Through this, I fell in love with artists like Broadcast and Electrelane. As a journalism major, this acclimated me to a constant writing schedule. Through reviews, I developed my musical preferences and found my voice as a writer. And people started noticing my reviews, even occasionally printing them in The Call Letter, KVRX’s ’zine.
But nothing got me better acquainted with music than putting together a weekly show. And while many deejays had specialty shows where they focused on particular genres like death metal, hardcore, or the blues, my show was decidedly free-form. At KVRX, free-form shows abided by the following requirements: each hour of free-form programming had to feature artists from five genres, two Texas artists, and five selections from the new bin, where the most recent reviewed offerings were kept. In addition, KVRX maintains a strict “none of the hits” policy. During my time, that meant that any artist who received even moderate success on any mainstream music network or radio station within the past ten years could not be played. Some deejays found these sanctions to be restrictive, but having these limitations motivated me to dig deeper and listen more broadly.
I also learned how I wanted my show to be perceived conceptually. I made sure the music was continuous, even going so far as to select instrumentals to talk over while I ran through my playlist, which I’d update after a three-song set. I also tried to vary songs from genre to genre, pairing Tom Zé’s ”To” with Deerhoof’s “Milkman.”
I was also fond of layering songs into one another, overlapping the final moments of Sack and Blumm’s “Baby Bass Buss” with the intro to Le Tigre’s “Hot Topic.” I made sure that song selection went with the time of day, which once I got on FM was always in the evenings, particularly during safe harbor so I could play hip hop and Gravy Train!!!!. I also tried to bridge the content of my show with promos, tags, and the programs that bookended mine. Before I got to Raymond Williams in graduate school, I was familiar with the concept of flow.
I also became aware of my voice as an on-air talent. Though some deejays mumble or try to take focus away from themselves, hearing my voice bandy words about (often to myself) made me cognizant of articulation, elocution, and tone. There was also a performative quality to presenting an on-air persona as I intoned an idealized version of my natural speaking voice. It also skeeved me out when some dudes would call in to inform me of the supposed sexiness of my voice. I got really good at telling strangers to fuck off and hanging up on people mid-conversation. Unfortunately, these instances were fairly common amongst my female peers and some endured more serious harassment.
BTW, kudos to the dude callers who were supportive and respectful. Thanks to the nice lady callers as well.
Oddly enough, this awareness did not lead me toward doing a female-only show. I dabbled in it occasionally. I did a women’s issue news program one summer with a girl named Kelly I met when we were cast in The Vagina Monologues. I briefly took over a friend’s female-only show when she quit during her first semester in the UT American Studies master’s program. At the time, I found doing a female-only show limiting. Now I think I’d have to do a free-form female-only show. Why not pair Umm Kulthum with Dessa?
I started graduate school in fall 2006. I thought about returning to KVRX after about a year off from undergrad. But I felt like it was another group of kids’ turn. Also, I simply didn’t have the time to devote to a weekly show and its related responsibilities. When I applied to PhD programs, the schools’ radio stations were a determining factor and will continue to be when I reapply.
In the meantime, a podcast series is appealing to me, especially after I started listening to Veronica Ortuño‘s “Cease to Exist“. Rest assured that when I do start another radio program, all broadcasts will be well archived so I can dig ‘em up and tune in again.
B driving Gaga toward another item on her rap sheet; image courtesy of focusonstyle.com
I guess I should care about Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s nine-minute music video for “Telephone.” Gaga created the concept with director Jonas Åkerlund. Gaga and B are lesbian partners on the run. But . . . ugh. Okay, I’ll briefly outline my thoughts.
1. Since Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” many pop stars have attempted to make lengthy, elaborate, concept music videos work. I can do without all of them, including “Thriller.” Yes, it’s one of the most popular music videos of all time. But I think Jackson’s transformation and the dance routines could stand alone without the slasher movie date night plot, although it’s worth it for his intimation that he’s “not like other guys.”
2. The lesbian jailbird subplot seems subversive but it doesn’t play out that way to me. Most of the actresses are normatively feminine, which plays into the long-standing heterosexual male fandom of the women in prison film genre that the video is hailing. In addition, they’re ornamental, meant to bolster Gaga’s edgy pop star image. If you need any further evidence, witness the “butch” that makes out on (not with) Lady Gaga in the prison yard.
3. I love Gaga’s yellow dye job, which I first saw at the Grammys. As if her platinum blonde tresses and black eyebrows weren’t enough to reveal the hair color of conventional white femininity to be unnatural, she takes its fakeness to a more lurid extreme.
4. Also, Gaga’s telephone headdress is pretty sweet.
5. I think all the product placements speak for themselves.
6. Supposedly, Gaga and Beyoncé are in a romantic relationship here. And this is somewhat interesting in terms of Beyoncé’s career trajectory, as there was a rumor several years back that she was considering starring in a screen adaptation of Sarah Waters’s Sapphic Victorian romance Tipping the Velvet. But they don’t seem like a couple to me. There’s no shared intimacy, no easy rapport. In fact, apart from them joining hands at the end of the video in a clear homage to Thelma and Louise, they really don’t interact at all. Oh, except when Beyoncé feeds Gaga or chauffeurs her criminal girlfriend to their next crime seat. B may sit behind the wheel, but she’s driving Miss Gaga.
7. Also, Beyoncé looks like a real girl doll here. A real girl doll abiding by white people’s notions of what “good” hair looks like and what make-up palettes are flattering. She moves like a robot too. In fairness, both pop stars do, but I still think that B is following Gaga’s lead.
8. I’m not sure about what to do with Gaga and sandwich-making. Perhaps it’s getting at the grotesqueries of processed foods like Wonder Bread and condiments. Perhaps it’s a commentary on the soul-deadening routinization of feminized domestic labor, thus why she’s situated in what looks like a prison kitchen.
9. Thinking back on processed foods, note that Gaga and B’s mass murder takes place at a diner. For one, the diner is a site of fetishized Americana and thus a symbol they might be attempting to destroy (or at least reconfigure, as evidenced by Gaga’s stars and stripes hippie chick get-up). But also notice also that B is Gaga’s decoy and that B snares a black man with her feminine wiles. This man, like many other patrons of color, is killed because the perpetrators slipped poison in his food. Note the racial connotations of what was on his plate too: biscuits, gravy, grits. In other words, highly caloric Southern cooking that often gets associated with particular African American communities, perhaps of which Houstonians like Beyoncé might associate.
Apparently this saga will continue. Let’s hope Beyoncé makes Gaga her driver in the next installment.
I'm makin' it with a Mako; image courtesy of gamespot.com
When I attended the recent screening of Radical Harmonies, someone asked if I was a musician. I instinctively said “no.” Then I immediately remembered my roughly fifteen years in various choral ensembles and countered aloud, “actually, yes I am. I’m a singer.” Duh, Alyx. You only argue the singer as musician on this blog all the time.
Indeed I am a singer. I started singing in my church choir when I was around ten. In the seventh grade, I worked up the nerve to audition for the junior high treble choir. I got in on the merit of my performance of Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” which I swiped from the Forrest Gump soundtrack. Introduce him to the Monterrey Pop Festival crowd, Mama Cass.
By the end of the school year, the girl in the back of the alto section auditioned for the fall musical, The King And I. I was cast as Lady Thiang, an icky instance of yellow-facing. I got to sing “Something Wonderful,” one of musical theater’s many paeans to patriarchy. Things fared better at the end of eighth grade, when I played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz and had secured a spot in the varsity treble ensemble for fresh(wo)man year.
Throughout my teens, choir and musical theater were my life. I was in chamber choir from sophomore year on, and also served as an officer. I loved singing, but it didn’t mean success came easily to me. Basic music theory was hard to process, as was sight-reading. I lacked proper breath support and often went instinctively into my chest voice or put my voice in my nose. I never starred in the school musical, though I did garner two supporting roles. I bombed my Region Choir audition junior year, which broke my heart but also gave me a goal.
I started taking voice lessons with a family friend during the summer before senior year. I practiced scales, sight-reading, and built my repertoire. I logged about three hours of practice every day outside my duties as section leader during school rehearsal. You see, I was going to make All-State Choir my senior year. And I ended up being first chair to the Alto I section of the Treble Choir, who killed it at the concert performance. I had a wonderful choir director and voice coach, but there’s really no mystery to how it happened: I worked for it.
That said, these accolades don’t really matter. What counts is that I finally figured out how to read music and locked into my voice. It’s a full-bodied mezzo-soprano when I get it going, and I love how it feels when I do. I also love hearing my voice blend with an ensemble, bolstering chords and enriching my section’s tone, disappearing and reappearing when it needs to. It’s a strong thing, and it lives in my throat. I own it, though sometimes it owns me.
But I never seriously considered being a professional singer. I had fantasies of becoming a Broadway actress or a music journalist, but went to college with no real grasp on who I wanted to be when I grew up. People, I’m still working on it.
Being a singer seemed like a risky, unstable endeavor. Most people don’t get the chance and either train or compromise into becoming a voice teacher or choir director. And there’s nothing wrong with that. My mother decided to become a middle school choir director during my junior year of high school after decades of avoiding a professional career in music. She was happy to funnel her training in piano into being the church organist. I’ve dabbled with choir directing myself, conducting the odd sight-reading clinic for my mom when I’m back home. And I like teaching, but prefer getting up in front of a room or in a circle and breaking down hegemony.
I sang intermittently in college in UT’s Concert Chorale, conducted by the formidable Dr. Susan Pence. I had to quit during my junior year because I didn’t have the time for six hours of rehearsal each week with school, KVRX, and my emerging interests in feminist organizing. I got into Choral Arts Society some time during my senior year and kept that up until I started graduate school, as my screenings always seemed to conflict with Thursday rehearsal. In addition to that, I worked full-time until a month before I got my MA, so it’s not like I had the time anyway. Man, did I miss it.
I finally got back in an ensemble earlier this year as a member of the Austin Civic Chorus. Much to my surprise, my voice held up after years of neglect. But not to my surprise, I find that traditional choruses don’t possess the excitement they once did. I like singing in an ensemble, but my ambivalence toward the canonization of sacred music, the preponderance of male composers in that canon, the ingrained idea of needing to balance an ensemble’s sound so that the bass section is most audible, and the classed nature of concert attire and ticket prices has evolved into full-on discomfort.
So, I decided to pick up a guitar. It seemed overdue, you know? My partner’s father’s Mako was propped against a wall in its case, so I figured it should get some use. Plus it’s only fair that if I teach girls who are brave enough to learn how to play instruments and start bands, I could learn from them too. It’s time to practice what I preach.
Though I’m a singer, I’m embarrassed to not be proficient in any instruments. My dad forced me to take piano lessons one summer against my mother’s wishes, as she didn’t want me to feel that I had to follow in her footsteps. Thus the vast, boxy instrument became a burden, resulting in my rudimentary ability to poke melodies and fetch chords.
In addition, I never liked how a piano tends to disengage a musician from its audience. As Michel Chion points out in “Mute Music: Polanski’s The Pianist and Campion’s The Piano“, there are some interesting filmic elements in this removal and the artist’s inward focus in his assessment of The Pianist and The Piano. But I always liked singing to and at someone. This isn’t to say that a piano can’t be a performative instrument. We just haven’t found a rapport. I feel like I’m talking to a wall. Its physical heft only exacerbates matters.
Tori Amos making the case for the piano as performative instrument; image courtesy of mtv.com
But the Omnichord is a friend. It’s portable, light, and user-friendly. I’ve been playing with it and singing chords at it since my partner bought it for me two Christmases ago. But it has limitations too. It only has so many programmable functions and it’s too easy to play. Hence the guitar, which brings in tension. Like the voice, the sounds made on a guitar come from the player. Specifically, they come from their fingers, arms, shoulders, back, torso, and pelvis. Actually, it makes complete sense why singers often accompany themselves on guitar. With the two in tandem, you can embody your music. Once I acquire a theremin, I’ll be a continuous loop of sound.
Yet I never really considered the guitar until well into my 26th year. I sing. My mom’s a pianist. My stepbrother plays the bass, trumpet, guitar, and drums, but somehow I never thought about it. I know as a teen I was singing and rehearsing stage plays, but picking up a guitar never occurred to me. In fairness, I never really went through a guitar god phase. I never fell in love with the Jims (Page and Hendrix). I didn’t even notice Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker’s contributions to the instrument until I was well into college, after which point I fell in love with the conversational approach and harsh angularity of the post-punk guitar sound.
Since that time, I’ve grown to love electric guitar and listen for it exclusively. Recent offerings from The Dirty Projectors, Marnie Stern, and Noveller really opened me up to the possibilities of the guitar’s dexterity and tone.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve only completed three lessons with my neighbor, David (of DFI, RATKING, and Moonmen on the Moon, Man). In that time, I’ve learned the open A, C, D, E, and F chords. I’m starting to get chromatics and the C scale down. A and E barre chords are starting to make sense in my hands. I’m learning chord changes and alternate picking. Surprisingly, my hands and ears understand one another pretty well.
But let’s get ahead of ourselves again, because that’s how progress occurs. While I don’t want to be a professional musician, I want to play. I’m planning my summer project and it’s a musical one. I’d like to do it with someone, but may have to get things started on my own. I won’t reveal the name, but basically it’s going to be scary dance music. In my head, it would sound somewhere in between John Carpenter’s film scores and Erase Errata, with the space of Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” and the minimalist dread of Suicide’s “Johnny” and ESG’s “UFO.” Ever the choirgirl, there would be room for cacophonous spurts of female voices. Ultimately, I’d like to record and make some music videos and play some shows.
But in the present, I’m still figuring out my guitar. I’m not sold on the sound of my Mako yet. But I’m not discouraged by this process of becoming. Indeed, all of life is that process. I remember that when I feel my age and realize that I’ll be 30 before I’m really good at playing. In truth, a large part of why I’m involved with GRCA and Cinemakids is to heal the psychic wounds of not engaging with media-making as an adolescent and thus spending my adulthood writing criticism upon others’ artistic endeavors.
That doesn’t mean I can’t make music and write about it as both evolve. Strumming a guitar, syncing it to my voice, and typing it out is a start.
"Lick my injuries, bitches" -- Kathryn Bigelow has an Oscar for each gun; image courtesy of chroniclejournal.com
When I originally decided to do an entry on Juliette Lewis covering PJ Harvey’s “Hardly Wait” and “Rid of Me” in Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, it was to be written about in the spirit of righteous indignation. You see, Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker was nominated for Best Picture. Bigelow herself got a nod for Best Director. This is noteworthy because a) The Hurt Locker is awesome despite some minor problems and potential commonalities between it and the Lethal Weapon series, b) it was made for a pittance, and c) Bigelow is one of four women to be nominated for Best Director. And while Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola preceded her, none of them won. So I was certain that James Cameron’s Avatar was going to take home those coveted Oscars.
But it didn’t! Bigelow won both awards last night. Cheers! Suck it, Cameron.
So, I haven’t seen Strange Days yet, as I didn’t get to it before the Oscars. Of Bigelow’s movies, it seems one most people are pretty “feh” about. All my friends seem to love Point Break and many critics champion Near Dark. I’ll get to all of these when I have the time. And from what I can gather from these scenes, Lewis’s Faith is very much to-be-looked-at by Ralph Fiennes’s protagonist Lenny Nero, a criminal who yearns to reunite with his ex-girlfriend. And she’s vulnerable to further objectification as the bad object I always try to problematize: the female singer shimmying about on stage without an instrument.
But I’d like to consider two other things about Bigelow and Harvey.
1. The foreboding attitude behind “Rid of Me” is somewhat poignant in the context of Bigelow’s career. Prior to The Hurt Locker, the last movie she made was 2002′s K19: The Widowmaker, which garnered disappointing reviews and box office returns. Though several other male contemporaries continued to work in that time, Bigelow couldn’t get a project greenlit. And she was only given $11 million to make The Hurt Locker, but clearly didn’t need billions of dollars to create the movie’s taut, gripping, visually spectacular action sequences. You may wish you never met me, but you’re not rid of me, Hollywood.
2. The discussion of Bigelow’s brief marriage to Cameron and how masculine her movies are suggests further kinship with Harvey. Harvey briefly dated Nick Cave in the mid-90s, and people draw comparisons between the two. People have also magnified the masculine quality of Harvey’s sound and lyrical approach, particularly early in her career. And like Harvey, Bigelow really wishes you’d stop focusing on her sex and gender in relation to her work.
While I can’t take emphasis away from these things, I can get excited at the influence these women may have on future generations of musicians and filmmakers. As Kristen at Act Your Age points out, director Emily Hagins may be a sign of things to come. Like Bigelow, who plays with conventionally “masculine” film genres, Hagins makes horror movies, which tend to be a dude’s game. I can’t wait to see and hear what is to come.
When I was young, my parents stopped going to church for a while. My mom returned to her Lutheran roots sometime when I was in the sixth grade and I joined her. But several of my Sunday mornings were spent watching PBS. And as I don’t attend church as an adult, I thought I’d post a couple of music videos that honor educational programming’s aesthetic and spirit. Enjoy!
Georgia Anne Muldrow (thanks for telling me about her, Chi Chi)
“Run Away” Early
Directed by Distrakt
The Jimmies (thanks to my friend Kit for telling me about them)
“Spanimals” Make Your Own Someday
Directed by Michael Slavens
Jean Craddock "interviewing" Bad Blake; image courtesy of filmreviewonline.com
I caught Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart earlier this week, along with the underwhelming Bright Star and heavy-handed Food Inc.. Unless I sneak in a matinée viewing of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, I should be done with my Oscar viewing for tomorrow night’s ceremony, which I will watch with a few friends at home. Pile my plate with helpings of “A Single Manicotti,” I’m uh, serious, man.
So, back to Crazy Heart. As I mentioned in a comment I left on Caitlin at Dark Room‘s Oscar round-up, I thought this one was pretty boring. Very “for your consideration,” but with ultimately low stakes. Washed-up country singer Bad Blake has a chance at redemption, if he can just manage not to forfeit it all for another bottle of booze. Will he turn “Good”? Who cares really? It’s a victory lap for Jeff Bridges, who is predictably great as Blake. He’s a lock for Best Actor, though I really want Colin Firth to win for his devastating performance in Tom Ford’s A Single Man. If they gave Oscars to comedic performances, I’d have elected for Bridges to win for The Big Lebowski.
One actor I was pleasantly surprised about was Colin Farrell, who plays Blake’s more successful protegé Tommy Sweet. In a part that could have been one-dimensional, Farrell mines a lot of pathos for a character caught between his artistic integrity, conscience, and responsibilities as a career artist at a major label. My only complaint with Sweet is that his music is too similar to Blake’s. The lack of differentiation makes sense, as Ryan Bingham, the late Steve Bruton, and T-Bone Burnett wrote the songs for both characters. Yet if Sweet is meant to represent Nashville’s commercial sensibilities, I’d like more of a musical contrast between the two. Keith Urban is closer to how I imagine Sweet really sounds.
But my real problem is with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Jean Craddock. It isn’t to do with her performance, which is nominated for Best Supporting Actress. It’s purely a screenwriting problem, one I sensed would be there going in. I hate when my suspicions are confirmed.
Craddock plays a music journalist who is trying to get an interview with Blake. But her occupation is of little concern, as she’s in bed with him after their second meeting. We know very little about Craddock besides her profession, her residence in Santa Fe, her status as a single mother to a young son named Buddy, and that she’s made some bad decisions about men. We never learn what led her to music journalism. We actually never learn what music she might like beyond a passing comment about Lefty Frizzell that’s meant to prove to Blake that she’s knowledgeable enough to interview this particular fallen country legend. And we never get a sense of what being a music journalist means to her, though we do discover that she moves on to another publication at the end of the movie. Basically, she’s just Blake’s love interest, regardless of how Gyllenhaal tries to spin it.
Being cast as the supporting character to the male lead is de rigueur for actresses, and Gyllenhaal is no exception (see also The Dark Knight). Quality pictures are vulnerable to this trap. Contrast Gyllenhaal’s Jean with her leading role in Laurie Collyer’s 2008 indie feature Sherrybaby, where Gyllenhaal also plays a single mother. However, there she’s the protagonist and struggling to overcome addiction and earn back the custody of her daughter. I haven’t seen Sherrybaby yet, but I wonder if it does a better job developing Gyllenhaal’s character than the rushed, sketchy Crazy Heart.
But my biggest problem is with Craddock’s lack of professional integrity. Now, I’ve never worked at a publication. Thus I can’t say for certain whether journalists have engaged intimately with interview subjects. Assuredly, some have. But my journalism degree and sense of ethics assure me that it’s a clear breach in conduct. It could have been avoided or at the very least should have been made by Craddock with more internal conflict toward her personal life and professional aspirations. This isn’t to say that Craddock doesn’t value her job. Rather, I think it’s that screenwriter/director Cooper doesn’t value Craddock’s characterization. It’s all about Blake, and that’s too bad.
Aretha Franklin making a strong case for staying in both a marriage and the food service industry; image courtesy of photobucket.com
I finally saw The Blues Brothers a few weekends back. Even for someone who hasn’t seen the majority of SNL-related movies from the 1980s, it’s pretty weird that I haven’t seen this one. My parents were moving from Chicago to Houston around the time it was shot. They actually lived near the mall that got demolished by one of the movie’s many car chase sequences.
Barring my parents’ living situation and my interest in music, it’s also strange that I’ve been in a relationship with someone who notes John Landis’s 1980 Dan Akroyd/John Belushi vehicle as a childhood favorite and hadn’t seen it in our six years together. It led one of us to a lifetime following the blues and launching KVRX’s “Blues At Sunrise.” In addition, Briefcase Full Of Blues has always been go-to cooking music at our house. So when Wax Fax decided to devote a category to the movie for last month’s game, it seemed like the perfect time to bring me up to speed.
As for the movie itself, I liked it fine. It had been talked up so as to fall short of expectations, but I like car chases, black suits, Steve Cropper, and shit getting blowed up as much as the next girl. I still don’t get the appeal of Akroyd or Belushi, but I’m not a Chevy Chase fan either. Bill Murray is another story, and a welcome second season replacement for Chase on SNL.
For me, the movie’s appeal was the music, particularly its musical cameos. Cab Calloway as Jake and Elwood’s mentor? Sure. Ray Charles as a gun-toting music store owner? Sign me up. James Brown as a gospel minister? Of course.
(Note: Do seek out James Brown’s short-lived Future Shock. My friend Evan brought it into my household before he moved to Baltimore with his partner Kit, and we’re all the better for it. Basically, it’s an Atlanta-based public access version of Soul Train hosted by Brown around the time he released Body Heat. In other words, it’s amazing. Tim and Eric can’t make this up.)
But ya’ll know why I really wanted to see The Blues Brothers. Her name starts with an “A.” Before she wore the most amazing hat ever to sing at Obama’s inauguration, she’s was doin’ it for herself with Annie Lennox. She built Atlantic Records. She was young, gifted, and black. She demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Franklin at Obama's inauguration -- even the Clintons can't compete with the hat and the voice; image courtesy of huffingtonpost.com
Aretha Franklin has a cameo in The Blues Brothers. The general premise of the movie is that Blues BrothersJake (Belushi) and Elwood (Akroyd) are reuniting their band upon Jake’s release from jail for shoplifting. One member being brought back in the fold is guitarist Matt Murphy. Trouble is, Murphy is manacled to his wife (played by Franklin), who runs a diner. She doesn’t want him back out on the road, and explains why with “Think,” a Franklin classic.
Rousing, right? Fuck yeah, I’ll stay home and fry chickens and toast white bread for your customers. Why would I ever leave when I’m married to a goddess? Better yet, why don’t we put our own project together because you have those pipes? At the very least we can make room for a Blues Sister.
But the scene ends with Murphy handing in his apron, a symbol of his emasculation, to split with the Blues Brothers. In doing so, not only does Murphy abide by the conceptualization of musicians as feckless nomads, but he also plays into the stereotype of the noncommittal heterosexual black man.
I feel like Franklin is totally cheated here. In addition to playing a supposedly unsympathetic character, employing one of Franklin’s own songs in this way seems a way to cuckold both the character and the actor, who is also the singer. It bums me out.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen the sequel. I know that Franklin reappears with a cadre of ladies in some snazzy duds. I also know that Erykah Badu also makes a cameo and am curious about her involvement. Until then, I’ll cross my arms and hope Mrs. Murphy gets the last laugh, or at least her own Dr. Feelgood. For now, Franklin can play herself off.
