Her Morning elegance by Oren Lavie

Such a beautiful video, and a good song. Now back to work.

Pump and dump: CocoRosie and Tha Pumpsta

Full disclosure: I was going to start out writing a post about CocoRosie given their slobbering review in the NYT Mag. I was all set to hate it, and I wound up liking it especially songs like "By Your Side" that reminded me of a mix of Bjork, Ani DiFranco and Cocteau Twins. Then I listened to "Jesus Loves Me" featuring the lines:

Jesus loves me
But not my wife
Not my nigger friends
Or their nigger lives
But jesus loves me
That's for sure

Do I get the irony in that? Yes. Do I get the Christian imagery in said irony? Yes, but I can't really get behind it. Nigerian Boy says it better about a different song of theirs, "Armageddon":

I get irony, I get reverse psychology, I even get shock for shock sake, but I don't get this; and what sucks is I enjoy them otherwise, and now I can't listen, I just can't. I'm not even trying to be poetic with this entry, I tried trust me to understand this song, but it always hit me the wrong way, as a person of color it's pretty hard to find any value in those lyrics, it leaves me cold and lost and alone, particularly because of the song's musical setting.

And now that I have all that off my chest, I finally figured out who Bianca Casady sounds like - it had been bugging me for a while. Yes, it might be shocking to folks that Bianca Casady's voice might grate. But, SHE SOUNDS LIKE ADAM SANDLER!!!!!

- - - - - - - -

I just had a collective brain shudder reading about and subsequently listening to the so-called music of "Tha Pumpsta", a 25 year old kid originally from Atlanta who now runs dances in Williamsburg (where else?) Brooklyn marketed under the name "Kill Whitie!"

It's all in the name of ironic hipster fun, though you hear? And even though the parties are promoted on flyers featured headless big-bootied black women, saying things like "free admission to anyone with a bucket of chicken," well, I had to go check out this guy's music and website. And it is all terribly bad.

Really bad music - just noise signaling nothing. If you don't believe me, check out the video on his site. It features him grinding an African American woman and closes with him gnawing and gobbling fried chicken in a very disturbing gut-churning fashion that matches the lyrics. And yes, I went to his myspace page. I listened to 3 songs, which was as much as I could bear. I listened to Sallie Mae out of interest, thinking that it might at least be an ironic yuppie take on foreclosures but "Sallie Mae, I don't wanna play . . . . You can't play you can't play you can't play, you can't walk away" is technically accurate and yet a third grader's understanding.

Basically, his schtick reminds me of these guys who started up a "humor magazine" that later crashed and burned because they tried to write satirical pieces about race. These were white boys who were mega wealthy and rather poor writers. As with everything, it's in the execution. If they had been really great writers, they might have gotten less flak.

(If you're waiting for the connection here between CocoRosie and Kill Whitie, Bianca enjoys going to Kill Whitie parties and was interviewed by the Washington Post:

Bianca Casady, a multiply-pierced woman with a scalp divided between long dark hair and a buzz cut, grabs her female friend by the hips and shakes her like a blender. She steps outside, catches some fresh air and talks about the party.

"It's about being nasty, people come to grind on each other," said Casady, 23. "It's like friends being sexual with each other."

Casady was raised in Santa Barbara, Calif., but quickly notes her worldliness by listing the cities where she has lived along the trail to Brooklyn. A regular Kill Whitie partygoer, she tried the conventional (that is, non-hipster) hip-hop clubs but found the men "really hard-core." In this vastly whiter scene, Casady said that "it's a safe environment to be freaky."

Brainwashed has the takedown at CocoRacist, You're so Worldly, How's Mom's Audi?)

Talking about anger and hope

My last post was on whether we've just been too angry for too long that it's caused us to turn on ourselves.

Please don't take it as a sign that I mean that we should give up the struggle, but rather that we have to change the discourse so that progressive values are no longer the extreme or maligned, no longer left in a corner as "other." One of the things that Obama does an extraordinary job of is sidelining the GOP haters as extremists and building a popular consensus that progressive values are middle of the road values - family values if you will. He is an incredibly skilled communicator, and Republicans are already calling him our "Reagan" - someone with the innate ability to connect with and to draw voters from the opposite side of the aisle.

We need to include all Americans under the auspices of hope, because at the end of the day, the girl growing up in rural Alabama who is not receiving a quality public education is being denied equality the same way that a boy growing up in Harlem is.

Anyway, here are two songs that I treasure deeply that represent both anger and hope, and how we need both.



I've blogged the Dixie chicks' "Not ready to make nice" before, but I really think that this is a masterful video that powerfully demonstrates the black and white feelings that we have, the pent up anger and frustration that so many progressives have had these 8 years - "shut up and sing or your life will be over?!?!" We're not okay with being told that we are on the fringes that our opinions don't matter because it's not okay. So I and many others ask, "Where is the love?"



We wonder where the love is, and we want people to join together, to reach out to their neighbors, to build something new, something special. But in order to get people to hear us, even people who agree with us, we can't always shout through a bullhorn. We have to inspire them, move them, give them a reason to believe. Give them a solution that can work. Give them the tools to build their new dream home, to fix the schools, to learn the skills needed to find a new job. Sometimes we just have to speak or sing softly, croon our vision.

Bright Eyes - First day of my life


You thought I was going to post the Yes We Can video, didn't you?

Oh, okay, here you go.



*Thanks, youtube, for helping me express what sometimes cannot simply be written.

Vampire Weekend - updated

Sounds like what I frequently pull, but no - it's in reference to a movie that the lead singer once made about vampires invading Cape Cod, like the setup of some perfectly arched WASP joke: "wolcott, All the way to New Jersey, All the way to the Garden State, gotta get out of Cape Cod tonight/ wolcott, fuck the women from Wellfleet, fuck the bears out in Provincetown, gotta get out of Cape Cod tonight." Vampire Weekend sounds like a very young Belle and Sebastian, with quirky upbeat notes and prim almost-Oxfordian diction. They're young men at the intersection of privilege and class, armed with a little knowledge of the world, looking in from the inside of a WASP-controlled life where protocol is key ("I Stand Corrected",) where movements are stiff and malice is callous. Think of OK Go's "A Million Ways" for the Upper West Side prepster crowd, but infectious as the energy that Vampire Weekend brings. It's also a fitting soundtrack to the awkward inter-class pissing matches that sometimes go on in relationships - shades of Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr, anyone? (Speaking of which, apparently the intrepid young jackass is now at some kind of evangelical Christian media company.

I have to say at first I hated Oxford Comma but now I can't stop finding and playing Vampire Weekend vids on youtube. Why? Because the Afro-pop allusions are pretentious and the white boy embraces the natives' music thing has been done to death. Salvation and filtration through a young Ivy League graduate's world lens is not always the prettiest thing you've ever heard. But Vampire Weekend makes fun, easy listening music that I can get up and dance to. Plus, how can you hate a bunch of college guys who say they're influenced by Kate Bush?!?

The guys are fully in on the joke - they filmed Mansard Roof on a boat in the Atlantic, with full on 80s style graininess and cheesy sunglasses. If there was a 2008 remake of the Graduate, Vampire Weekend would be the soundtrack (and the lead singer looks not a little unlike Dennis Hoffman as Ben Braddock.

Think of it as a very fine freshman effort, that will grow and develop. read this Last.fm user's rant on why Vampire Weekend is merely puerile, it also contains part of my core unease with the music and sums up some of my ambivalence. This cover of Radiohead's Exit Music shows how thin their chops can be, granted that it's incredibly hard to cover Thom Yorke's voice and moods. (And yes, if they don't evolve, they could be the next John Mayer, x4, and yes, they look just like the guys I went to college with.) So hopefully I'm not just obsessed for a weekend, but we'll see.

Nonetheless, my favorite song?
The young-sounding Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, about the awkwardness of courting. What is Kwassa you ask? Wiki has the answer: Kwassa kwassa (or kwasa kwasa) refers to a dance rhythm from Congo (DRC), where the hips move back and forth while the hands move to follow the hips – that was very popular in Africa in the late 1980s.

UPDATE: So on more listening, I like A-Punk best - it sticks in my head. The video is only so so. and their Letterman performance was painful. I'm no music critic but it looked like they were trying too hard to look cool and to "rock" plus the lead singer and the music were off time, so that it all seemed rushed and very tepid. Greg Kot of the Chicago Trib has a pretty good review of Vampire Weekend as essentially one hit wonder. Or perhaps in my case, a one weekend wonder. I can already sense my interest waning. . .went and listened to some Belle and Sebastian nonstop recently and well, these kids can't match up.

On the other hand, I am still loving The Slants.

Musical musings

Hot track that I found on Fred Wilson's new tumbler player. (It's on the left hand sidebar and it rocks!) It's the hidden track on Nux Vomica by the Veils and the lead singer's got a misty, ironic voice paired with some jangly coffee-fueled beats. Think of a revived Morrissey crossed with Erasure's DNA.

I've felt like this about some campaigns. . .

The yahoo sample.

Here are the lyrics: Night Thoughts of a Tired Surgeon

I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real

Take the scalpel, Miss Ivonne
Time of death is 1 am
The blood is going to my head,
By God, I’ll never touch another’s heart again

I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real

Pass that ashtray, Miss Ivonne
I’m gonna stick it into his ear
Let’s dance the night away in peace my love
Come in we’ll flee like hounds in search of something [lessen sincere](?)

I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real

But this is all I’ve ever known
No one does it like I do
There must be something in my blood
‘Cause all I know right now is that I love you still

I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real
I’ve been brought back to life so many times I don’t know what’s real

And here's another track from Fred Wilson's player - Apartment Story - The National

The singer has an amazing just-past 4 am voice that alternately caresses and alienates with a distant fuzz as if broadcasting from our inner radio hearts. This one is perfect for a movie soundtrack.

Music moving me

I guess I'm temporarily in a mood to write or link to music that's moving me, versus my favorite haunt of politics. Something about politics not being a game or lacking the fun or perhaps its a peaceful mood that doesn't want to get all jarred up by intramural battles.

Sea Wolf's I Made a Resolution is great soul-searching music, which is appropriate for the contemplative mood I've been in. I recently decided to make some resolutions in advance of New Year's and hopefully I can stick to em. Sometimes I just get all caught up in the heat and the lights and the votes and forget about other things that aren't news or politics. Sometimes politicos forget that it's not just numbers of votes, but that these are actual people with actual problems and stories who are trying to make their lives better. This song is all about being stuck, even a whole family or community being stuck and needing to shake themselves free. Sometimes our parents are too busy with the burdens and it's up to our generation. This song and especially the timbre of his voice reminds me of Eddie Vedder in his heyday. Guess I'm in an 80s and 90s mood.

(I hope I can stick to at least one of them. Wish me luck.)



Lyrics here.

SEA WOLF - I Made a Resolution
well I woke up this morning
and I made a resolution,
I said "never going to sing another sad song again."

I decided I'd admit it,
I'm not an intellectual,
though the words never come easy unless I'm singing them,
and the hills that I was born in will never leave me no matter how hard I try.

and then my brother was murdered
while my father was in prison,
and the girl that I sometimes loved up and moved away,
and my body filled up with blackness, and the darkness it wanted to drown me, and I heard my father's footsteps catching up to me,
and he took me by the shoulders and he said "son, my hands are strong, but I hope you have the strength to shake us free, shake us free boy, shake us free my son, you better shake us free."

(breakdown)

and now I'm lying in the van,
chicago in the springtime,
and the rain outside was falling sounds just like popcorn,
but before I open my eyes I think I make this resolution, "no I'm never gonna sing another sad song for as long as I live"

and the light coming through the windows is making everything glow
and he took me by the shoulders and he said "son my hands are strong, but I hope you have the strength to shake us free, shake us free, shake us free, shake us free my son."
I made a resolution
I made a resolution
I made a resolution
I made a resolution

Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts

OMG, I have been unable to get the Slants' Kokoro out of my head and I have angryasianman to thank for it. Their latest album Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts is like New Order for 2010, with a deadly beat that reverberates and makes me dance, and the drumming is fast-paced and frenetic, powering a music that speaks of illusions and delusions. It's like they're spinning Kate Bush's Red Shoes onto me, with thudding, irreverent and crystal grooves reminiscent of Depeche Mode.

Confession time: I normally shy away from most "Asian American" artists that Angry Asian Man has promoted for competitions (although Rachael Yamagata was a delicious find), because well . . . sadly, some of them really suck. But The Slants rock really hard, filtering candy synth pop through a edgy, cynical dreamscape of love lost, won, like vibrant hearts of glass shattered on a wooden floor painted with a fiery kaleidoscope of colors and emotions. Imagine the heat in each of the facets of the broken hearts burning right back into your eyes and ears, and trying to jump around the lasers, and then you'll have an idea of how such morose music strangely makes me happy, even giddy.

It's really hard for me to name my favorite, but Capture Me Burning might hold the honor. But Love Within My Sins has an opening beat and vocals channeling Robert Smith on Charlotte Sometimes cut with a bit of the Psychedelic Furs and Love and Rockets. The Slants have the crazily memorable grinding beats like The Killers with the same kind of frenetic energy, if it were a postmodern mashup of the aforementioned bands with the ambivalence, distance and isolation of the protagonist in Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker. I had the same immediate "recognition of self" response to their music that I did to Native Speaker. And I gotta ditto this amazon reviewer who says that they are actually much more American and European than Asian, regardless of their billing it as "Chinatown Dance Rock." Which is what I guess a hyphenated identity means. For me, their pan-AAPI identity is actually a very far second to their sound - I'd be proudly rocking this noise out of my stereos if The Slants were green and purple as opposed to yellow and white. So it wouldn't surprise me if they hit it big soon cos their music resonates with anyone who's felt hopeful despite alienation.

It's hard for me to describe why this band hooked me immediately, except that as someone who grew up listening to white artists making 80s music, and then realizing how much of my identity I had perhaps subconsciously tried to erase by wearing overly pale or dramatically dark makeup, well, The Slants feels like the acceptance and melding together of my adolescent identity with the Asian American activist that I am today. The Slants' music feels like coming home.

Labor Day music

Brilliant. M.I.A. is subtle, haunting, and wicked smart with or without Diplo. This song is like Bjork meets the rhythms of the so-called third world, served with a healthy dose of spice in your eye. Blocked from getting a visa to the United States, M.IA. traveled the world instead, jamming with fellow travelers and music lovers: "I put people on the map who've never seen a map."

The song: $20 (buy the album for half that.)