Chris Thrash and creative energy

A while back, I stumbled across the Youtube page of Chris Thrash, a guy who purchased a set of the animatronic equipment once used by Showbiz Pizza to entertain guests. There was a Showbiz near where I grew up, and I have fond memories of eating pizza there with my dad, watching the ultra-campy but pretty fun robot animals singing songs by the likes of Billy Joel and Cindy Lauper. Thrash has apparently set up the equipment in his house, and he programs the characters, via a very outmoded-by-today's-standard interface, to sing and dance to contemporary songs. For a while, his page had a video in which he explained the set-up and how the characters are programmed. For some reason, he's removed most of the videos from his original page, but there are many new ones on a new page that seems designed to accommodate viewer requests. In any case, my original discovery of the page led me to learn a lot of very interesting facts about Showbiz's entertainment: apparently the Rock-afire Explosion band was not proprietary to Showbiz, but was made by an independent company who sold it to Showbiz stores. More great info here.

Anyway, I was directed to a great new video he did, in which he programmed the characters to sing the Usher hit "Love In This Club." The programming is highly meticulous, brilliant almost, and I especially like the way the puppet performs Young Jeezy's rap part, while the puppeteer delivers Jeezy's famous ad libs.

Anyway, the point of all this: As I wandered over to Thrash's original page, I read this profile information, in which he described his "hobbies and interests" as follows: "I love coming home after work to my loving wife, my 2 cats, and of course my Rock-afire!" Something about this was touching to me. I remembered watching this very normal guy in the old "behind the scenes" video, taking us around his studio and describing with pride his very strange hobby. I thought about how great it was that he had found this outlet for himself, as odd as it may be, and poured his creative energy into it and produced something unique that people really enjoy. And he was able to maintain and enjoy this creative pursuit while also enjoying a healthy relationship with his family. 

This sentiment spoke to me, because I often struggle with my own desire to create something special that people will find touching and memorable. Over the years, I've invested a great deal of time and energy into various creative pursuits: filmmaking, writing music, writing short stories. I've done some things I'm proud of, and much of the music I've written has been at least good enough to impress my friends, but somewhere short of that level of special-ness that makes a song catch on with a large audience. The thing is, even though I fail again and again, I'm still possessed by this incessant impulse to create, as well as a strong desire to touch an audience and be appreciated for my work. But I also value my responsibility to my family and my community, such that I can't just "drop everything" and dedicate myself entirely to some work of art.

So I think it's great that Chris Thrash has stumbled onto something in which he can pour his creative energies and that others really enjoy. I'll keep looking for my own Rock-afire Explosion, and I hope very much that I can find it.

Ellen Allien's SooL is perfect headphones music

Some time ago, I bought an expensive-ish pair of large headphones. This is the kind with a 1/4 inch jack that won't fit into an iPod. The phones cover half your face and you couldn't credibly wear anything like them out in public (though the hipsters in Little Five try to pull it off, and don't). Anyway, the very best thing about having these things is that it has really opened me up to the world of electronic music, particularly dance and club-centric genres like house and dubstep. In my view, there are two ways to truly experience this music, which has, as its backbone, deep bass parts: (1) stay out late at underground clubs--primarily in London, Munich, and Berlin--where the soundsystems are designed precisely to handle this type of thing, or (2) buy an excellent pair of headphones with good low-frequency response and cerebrally absorb the sounds in some place comfortable. Given my choice of lifestyle, option (2) is really it for me. 

And that's OK, because, as the new Ellen Allien demonstrates, that's a pretty perfect way to listen. SooL is far less "in your face" than past Allien releases, toning down on some of the louder, high-to-mid-frequency synth parts, distorted guitar sounds, and vocal clips that drove many of the songs on her past works. This is the first Allien release that I would safely classify as "minimal," in that many of the songs go for bars and bars of nothing but spare drum sounds, light clicks-for-double-time, and a subtle bass line. For this reason, the big headphones (or the big club system) are a must, because its difficult to truly appreciate the ever-important low frequency parts otherwise.  The sense of subtlety on this release, something that is mostly absent on past albums, also gives one a sense of listening to an artist who has matured and grown more confident in her craft. Its a real pleasure to hear, and its great to know that an artist who you admire is growing and evolving as time passes.   

Oh yeah, and its probably worth mentioning that the cover art kicks ass. See above.

Santogold, M.I.A. and the pitfalls of music marketing

The new Santogold album is quickly becoming a personal favorite. Nowadays, I listen to a lot of hip-hop, electronic, and even classical music, but I grew up on hair- and then grunge-rock, so rock music lies at the foundation of my musical tastes. Funny, then, that I was drawn to Santogold by my more recently-developed tastes for eccentric neu-musics, but she's staying in my headphones largely due to my rarely-quenched desire for new, good rock music.

As well as I recall, the first image that I saw of Santogold depicted her in some large hipster sunglasses, possibly with a big afro-like hairstyle, with the photograph tinted by that edgy-gritty color effect you see on a lot of party photo websites. So, obviously (and by design, no doubt), the image led me to expect pure hipster-dom: dance beats, world music sounds, and ironic sonic references to early Southern hip-hop. You know, something like M.I.A. And if you just listened to tracks like "Creator" or the Switch remix of "Shove," you might be left with the impression that this pigeonhole is a fitting one.

However, the album is typified by guitar- and hook-heavy rock-pop tracks, albeit with an occasional reggae undertone (which perhaps suggests "world"?). The album's big single, "L.E.S. Artistes," is positively pop, and, with its conservative mixing and compellingly catchy chorus, it could easily find itself on top-40 radio, along with Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" or any slightly-interesting Timbaland hit. So the M.I.A.-style marketing is misleading at best, annoying at worst. What's more, I've noticed a trend in reviews of the album that, even though most of the reviews seek to distinguish Santogold from M.I.A., they nearly always begin with the premise that there is something presumptively similar about the two artists, such that noting differences between the two warrants at least a paragraph. (See here and here for a couple of random examples). No doubt, this has to do with more than just marketing, and is affected also by the fact that the two artists share common producers and collaborators. However, it makes one wonder: if Santogold's sound was unchanged, but she was a blonde girl from Southern California, and appeared in photographs with a guitarist and a drummer, would M.I.A. continue to be a constant reference point?

I'm reminded of a recent New York Times piece on emerging pop singer Ingrid Michaelson, who balked at music pundits' constant comparison of her music to that of Lisa Loeb, based principally on a similar wardrobe choice. Said Michaelson, "Apparently my glasses make me sound just like Lisa Loeb.” To be fair, those marketing music have the difficult task of efficiently describing to the music-listening public something as nuanced and difficult to pin down as the essence of a new artist's sound, and "this thing is like that thing" is, more often than not, the best way to achieve this goal. And those marketers are, in many cases correct: those who like M.I.A. probably will enjoy Santogold, just as those who enjoy the quirk-pop stylings of Lisa Loeb will probably enjoy Michaelson's coffee-shop folk-pop. It's just that, oftentimes, these comparisons are based primarily on superficial fashion indicators, rather than an attempt to accurately compare two artists' sonic qualities. As a result, those who listen to music primarily as a fashion choice gain the power to control the demand for music, and those looking for something sonically and artistically rewarding may be inadvertantly guided away from something that might actually be right up their alley. This is probably inevitable in a world in which music is a commodity, but its something at least worth thinking about.

Reading Stephanopoulos, avoiding McClellan (for now)

It's a strange personal coincidence that, today, on the day that former press secretary Scott McClellan's scathing expose of the Bush White House is released, I begin reading George Stephanopoulos's memoir of his years in the Clinton White House, All Too Human. I haven't gotten very far past the prologue, but, based on the book's introduction and several articles that I have recently read about about the work, there are some parallels between it and McClellan's new book.

All Too Human was written soon after the Monica Lewinsky scandal went down, and the tone is one of an advisor who once had great respect for his presidential boss, but who, after a series of shocking public embarrassments, is awakened to the corruption of which he had become a part. It's interesting to ponder whether either of these men would have written the same books had their bosses not become such public pariahs.

In any case, at this point, I'm far more interested in finishing the Stephanopoulos book than I am in picking up the McClellan one. During the Clinton years, the media was, no doubt, awash in talking heads angrily decrying the corruption in the White House, much as we see today with the Bush administration. But now that we've moved past the Clinton years, at least in terms of media coverage, there's some room for perspective, for space to think about the events and personalities that shaped those times, rather than to brain-bounce from one talking point to the next, rapid-fire style, as one tends to do when consuming coverage of any very recent political phenomenon.

As Bush's first term was coming to a close, and the Kerry/Bush battle was in full swing, I was back at my old college, visiting some of my professors, and one particular professor kept me in his office for nearly two hours, presenting me with one printed-off article after another, each decrying the Bush administrations evils. The thing is, he knew that I was already largely onboard to the anti-Bush position, so there was really no practical goal to be gained from showing me these things. He was just really angry about the administration, and he liked expressing that anger and sorting through all the evidence he had to support it. My desire to avoid this sort of fruitless internal re-cycling of my oppositions leaves me disinterested in the new McClellan book. I have read and listened to and watched so many convincing anti-Bush arguments at this point that I don't really see any need to read one more trope on the topic. I'm sure its interesting to hear it straight from an inside source, but I really don't need any more convincing, so the addition of an account by a very qualified source is really uneccessary at this point.

That's why I'm looking forward to reading the Stephanopoulos book, learning more about the mistakes and occasional triumphs of a president whose legacy is far less fresh on my mind than Bush's, and indulging my taste for modern American politics while at the same time escaping the stories that have oversaturated themselves in my mind.

Reading Richard Price's Samaritan

I don't read a lot of books. I started to write, "I don't read a lot," but that would be categorically untrue, as I spend most of my day reading cases and briefs for my work as an attorney. When I'm distracting myself from work, I usually do so by reading 1000 different blogs and online articles. In the evenings, whenever I go to the gym, I read at least 4 articles in either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal while I rest between sets. That being said, I hardly ever read a book.

I recently finished Jack Kerouac's On The Road, however, and, though I didn't think it was all that stupendous, I did earn a certain satisfaction simply from having finished it. This is a satisfaction that I've experienced often in the past, especially during my college years as an English major, and I missed it. As a result, I've made a conscious attempt to read more, and so far so good. I just finished reading a novel by Richard Price entitled Samaritan. It was really quite good, and I read all 377 pages in about a week.

I first heard about Price while listening to an NPR story on The Wire, quite possibly my favorite television program ever. I learned that Price was a writer on the show, as he and Terri Gross discussed his new novel, Lush Life. I went to our local library to look for it, and the computer screen told me that about 38 people were in a waiting line for the book. Not a surprise for our liberal urban-esque community, many of whose members probably heard the same NPR story as I did. But they did have Samaritan, so I figured, "what the hell," and picked it up.

Samaritan is basically the story of a very smart guy (Ray) who grew up in a poor neighborhood, and, primarily by luck, stumbles into a great job writing for a television program. After several years of writing on the show and making a lot of money, he decides to return to his old neighborhood to "give back" by teaching a writing class to poor kids at his old high school. He ends up getting deeply involved in the lives of several individuals and families that he knew from the old days, loaning large amounts of money to assist various people in their various life crises. He's possessed by this desire to help others out, which is really driven by a need to feel appreciated and important to others. His selflessness is driven by selfishness.

As the book opens, Ray is found severely beaten in his home, and the book takes us back and forth in time through the days prior to and following the beating, as we learn how Ray's inability to stay uninvolved with the desparate and instable eventually led to this event. The investigation is led by a street-smart, tough female cop who, despite her description as 40-something, is an unmistakable Kima from the Wire. Much like the Wire, Samaritan's characters are vivid and interesting, and the story is captivating and difficult to turn away from. It was a great re-introduction to the world of novel-reading.