Coachella 2013 Lineup Is Good Enough I Guess

• The Stone Roses is one of those names that is always floating just outside my area of awareness. A headline spot though, so, good on those guys, whoever they are.
• Grrfggh Red Hot Chili Peppers. I don't even dislike them, I think they're one of the more likable parts of KROQ canon, but giving them another headlining spot when AMAZING RACE wins Best Reality Show at the Emmys. Probably warranted, but hardly worth celebrating anymore.
• As Coachella's popularity has skyrocketed as a thing that everyone in Southern California goes to, I can't help but feel like headlining RHCP again is throwing a bone to the party-goers that don't even like 90% of the performers at the fest. A big, unimaginative, arena rock bone.
• Font size is, as always, confusing! Observe: Portugal, The Man is bigger than Pusha T, Kurt Vile and 2 Chainz. For all his buzz, Alt-J should at least be a size up. Surely Grimes
• Then again, who cares about font size? Has it ever reflected actual billing or set times? Does it matter or make any difference other than a flier?
• I'm imagining a one-two knock out punch of The XX followed by Sigur Ros. By knock out, I mean put to sleep knock out.
• Although the strategy seems to spread acts of one particular taste across all three days, I always find that one day in particular pulls at my sensibilities far more than the others. In this case: Saturday.
• Yet, even though Saturday is some kind of Indie Rock Parthenon, I can't help but feel a little indifferent to it. There are definitely a lot of great bands, but nothing that feels like a only-here-only-now event (save for The Postal Service.) I would like to see many of these bands, but I don't need to see them, certainly not all at once for three bills.
• Let me put it this way: 90% of Saturday looks like a reasonable expectation for a 2nd tier festival like Sasquatch or Outside Lands.
• Perhaps we've just been spoiled by the big bombs of Coachella's past. They've conditioned us to expect special appearance bookings, even in their second or third billings.
• Imagine if they did group these things by genre. I know why they don't, but can you imagine if you could see Trash Talk, Cloud Nothings & Japandroids in one day? Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, El-P & Wu-Tang consecutively? Stars & The Postal Service?
• I don't know who or what Sam XL Pure Filth Sound is, but damn, that name has got to look good on a t-shirt.
• Moby???
• I feel like I've only been saying bad things. It's a perfectly acceptable festival, probably even a great one. But Coachella set its own bar so high in years past, it's hard to ignore.
• Jurassic 5 is boring.
• I liked Coachella before it was cool.
• I roll with FYF Fest now.
• Whatever, I'm already booked for 3 concerts in April anyway.

Reading Bad

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading the science fiction novel ESCAPE FROM HELL by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's pretty bad. (Sorry dudes.) The idea of a modern Dante's Inferno is cool and there are some decent moments, but on the whole, it's pretty bad. It reads like it wishes it was a movie script instead of literature. The craft of writing on display here is substandard with dry, meaningless prose. The characters are lifeless dialogue delivery vessels that, together, have all the expository context to point out every celebrity cameo in hell. There is no driving tension, it's more like standing on an airport moving walkway, except this one's in hell.

But I'm still reading it. I'm willing to chalk up my dislike of the book to taste. It may be that I was hoping for Douglas Adams for religion & history, and couldn't deal with what I got instead. The person who let me borrow it was pretty enthusiastic, and the book that preceded this one (which I have not read) seems to be pretty beloved in sci fi circles. So it's entirely reasonable to assume that this book is bad because it's not my style. It does not speak to my cultural field. I'm going to finish it.

As I write this, I am just past the halfway point of this miserable 324 page hardcover. I've had several people tell me that I ought to just quit, that my time is better spent on other things, and that if I haven't had fun at this point, it won't make an about face later on. I agree with them on all of that. But a few months ago, I read Carl Wilson's 33 1/3rd book LET'S TALK ABOUT LOVE: A JOURNEY TO THE END OF TASTE and that ruined how I go about these things. Now I'm convinced that even the things I don't like have some value to me. Maybe as a learning experience, or to better understand those who do love this stuff. The remaining half probably won't sell me, but I might learn something about my tastes in the process.

While exploring the adored/despised cultural standing of Celine Dion and attempting to give her an objective review, Carl Wilson wrote:

"A few people have asked me, isn't life too short to waste time on art you dislike? But lately I feel like life is too short not to. ... In retrospect, this experiment seems like a last effort to purge that insularity, so that my next phase might happen in a larger world, one beyond the horizon of my habits. For me, adulthood is turning out to be about becoming democratic. ... This is what I mean by democracy — not a limp open-mindedness, but actively grappling with people and things not like me, which brings with it the perilous question of what I am like. ... Through democracy, which demands we meet strangers as equals, we perhaps become less strangers to ourselves."

Now that book, I liked a lot. It's really the best 33 1/3rd book I've read and presents interesting challenges to criticism and fandom. I'm all-in. This enthusiasm only goes so far though, and it turns out it will always be tough to meet the vision of taste that this book advocates. 

If ESCAPE FROM HELL isn't my bag, I should be able to express why. My college indoctrination into "proper" literary fiction has something to do with it, I'm sure. Yet there are passages in this book that make me want to scribble, this is objectively bad all over it, because there is no way you can just copy & paste whole sections from your first book and call it a flashback. No way a published hardcover book, by TWO writers who seem to have a lauded pedigree, should read like really well-edited high school fiction. 

But this is what I've decided to do with myself. I don't have to like it, but I have to understand something about it.

New | Lovestreams & Youth Lagoon

Two artists dropped a song today, right in the middle of the work week. Conveniently, they're both named with bodies of water! Thanks for making this tie-in easy, you guys.

Lovestreams is the name of Will Sheff's new electronic side/solo project. I know, I'm surprised too. "I decided to do a project there I’d wanted to do for years and years, which is to make an album by myself and for myself, an album that doesn’t owe anything to music I made before," he writes on his website. That's no understatement. Other than the familiar voice, this is not Okkervil River at all; not in structure, flavor, style or in any of the other intangibles that makes that band great.

Usually I'm a little skeptical of the electro side project. It seems that when an indie artist needs a creative jolt, they either take left turn toward the synthesizer or a right turn toward the country slide guitar. I had my doubts, but Will Sheff manages to pull out a convincing song that's better than anything on the last Okkervil River album.

A big part of it is that he knows he's working with a different medium and adapts appropriately. A lot of other bands making the shift will write the song they normally would, but run their voice through a vocoder or something. "Shock Corridor" has no literary references, no fables about forgotten pop figures, no tour through the thesaurus. Sheff writes a barrage of laser-focused confessions as the song's fists clench tighter and tighter. He feels more personal here than I've heard him in a long while, and that's just as refreshing as the drum machine beat.

Check out that drop 3:25 in. More importantly, check out how his singing and writing turns into a stream of consciousness dropping of everything, like he's clearing everything out, or maybe it's all just falling through his fingers. Fantastic stuff.

On top of that, we have Youth Lagoon with the first single from their upcoming album, WONDROUS BUGHOUSE. "Dropla" is also a departure, but not as dramatic. THE YEAR OF HIBERNATION songs often went like this: a delicate soundscape, a fuzzy incoherent voice, then a cool beat kicks in and suddenly we're all bobbing our heads. "Dropla" foregoes the build up and kicks in from the first note. Any tenderness runs alongside the song's natural bounce.  Drums here sound more organic, without hand claps or crisp cuts, and Trevor Powers isn't obscuring his voice under nearly as much distortion. He wants to be heard, and the song is alive for it.

If you're familiar with Youth Lagoon, it might read like he's getting rid of everything that made him distinct. But the key is that it's not just change, it's growth. He's learned to sustain the climax of his old songs for 6 minutes, which is already his longest song yet. I don't expect every song on the upcoming album to sound like this, but it's nice to see him try some things out. Lyrically it's not a barn burner, but youthful idealism about mortality is always a powerful hook, especially if you make it sound like a plea from the bottom of the heart. It ends just as it began.

I'm really liking 2013 so far.

I Love A Good Ethereal Jam

So while I was exploring Tumblr tags, I happened to come upon The War on Drugs playing their amazing song, "Best Night" on KEXP. It's an old video, especially with the new year looming on us, but dang, what a cool band.

The in-studio live radio performance is a different breed from the concert performance or the album recording. It's a midway point between the two -- they're not responsible for making it more bombastic or engaging the way they would in a 1200 seat concert venue, but they don't have all the tricks of the studio to polish off their work. The changes from the original are pretty glaring. Adam Granduciel sings with an even heavier Dylan affectation at first, and he just plays with the weirdo vocal melodies. The song can't be a glittery, warping, kite in the wind in this environment, so they make up for it by just jamming. It's a great cruise.

They're due for a new album in 2013, right?

Let's Put Superman In Jail, Y'all

This is the recently released movie poster for Man of Steel, the forever incoming Superman movie reboot directed by WATCHMEN and 300 guy, Zack Snyder. The image of Superman subordinated, especially in cuffs as a reversal of one of Superman's most iconic poses, is an attention-grabber, but also a gimmick. It's the kind of imagery that could only be done with this character to acheive this level of intrigue. It wouldn't imply the same things if it were Batman or The Punisher or even Captain America, certainly not on the same level. It takes advantage of Superman's cultural place as the father of all superheroes, and yet, it's not an instantly cool poster.

My initial reaction was skepticism. People seem to love a powerless Superman, from the beatdown scene in SUPERMAN RETURNS to the 1990s comics event THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN. While the premise of a powerless Superman can create good stories, the reason people love a weakened superman is silly: they think his power is boring, or they think he doesn't face enough adversity. In short, the fans who feel this way aren't Superman fans. They're Iron Man fans that want Superman to be Iron Man.

It might seem like they're doing it again here, trying to make the boyscout appealing to non-fans by taking away what's great about the character. Instead of showing people why optimism, morality and hope are actually cool, they instead infuse the character with grit and weakness. If any character in superhero comics should be about daylight and saviors, it's Superman, and they no one wants to seem to be into trying that out. At least, that's the first impression, probably spurred on by the muted colors and kind of faceless soullessness of everything so far in MAN OF STEEL.

But upon closer inspection: It's a flimsy pair of cuffs. It's not so much Superman subordinated as it is Superman going quietly and willingly, deferring to civilian authority. It's a different way to display strength and morality -- still a quick gimmick about shifting the power dynamic, sure, but true to the character's 80 year history. Maybe it's an alright poster and maybe Zack Snyder won't go for the quick dumb gratifications he did with WATCHMEN.

I guess the worst thing you can say about it thus far is that it brings to mind that ridiculous body builder arrest photo that was big on the internet a couple years ago.

This Is A Line

For a long time, whenever I wrote something on this blog, I always had to include some kind of disclaimer that I didn't really want anyone to read this, I just wanted to put it out there for myself because it helps me sharpen my craft and distill some thoughts. It was petty, silly hand-wringing and the only way I could deal with the inherent arrogance of wanting to be a writer. It took a couple years of good writing teachers before I got over myself and wrote both because I wanted to, and because I wanted to be heard.

With that neurosis more or less resolved, I have decided to draw a line between the past and present and reinvest my efforts into blogging and less into maintaining a sparse personal essay depository. At some point, if you ever intend on taking your attempt at freelancing seriously, you are going to have to show people a body of work. A place for your tiny baby portfolio, proof of your consistency and evidence that you don't just write, you live like a writer. With the hosting help of Squarespace, I've finally sprung a few dollars at creating a blog I can build on more frequently, while being slightly more professional and indicative of how I am. At last, a place for me to type.

If this is the sort of thing that I want to have associated with my name, there are things on the old blog that I want to keep around. There is a sentimental history to the things I've put online since 2006 as a very scared college freshman with no writing knowledge, and I think that's worth preserving. They are far from masterpieces and might reflect poorly on me, but it's a big chunk of honest, wart-filled work.  Penny Arcade is a multimillion dollar comic & video game enterprise now, but they've never decided to scrub their earliest, most amateur works, and that's always been a point of endearment.

So there's that, and then there's this. I want to participate in conversations, even if my voice is small and sometimes talked stupid. My hope is to turn this into something constant and full of thoughts in the process of being built on the things we're talking about. Something I can grow to share with people without feeling like a total asshole. That starts with writing more things of substance, and less self-referential meta stuff like this.

Of course, the best way to actually go about doing something is to just do it. Not announcing it in a way as gaudy as this. But I like the idea of planting a flag. It doesn't have to mean anything to you, but it does to me. I've been trying to write here for 6 years, now. Maybe that's enough of a warm up.