Some Suggestions:

Good afternoon all, this will just be a quick post with a few suggestions for your listening/watching/reading pleasure. I might pop by to drop a few of these nuggets a month for anybody looking for something to read/watch/listen to. So here goes:

Listen: I just picked up the soundtrack to the movie "Shutter Island" that is comprised entirely of modern classical music, assembled by none other than the great Robbie Robertson. Saw the movie a couple weekends ago and really enjoyed it. Part of its greatness is the soundtrack, which is at times jarring and abrasive, but always perfect for the film. All in all, this is a pretty good entry into modern classical music, but its not exactly an easy entry.

Watch: Well, I recommend "Shutter island" which was pretty fantastic, but I don't really want to make this a two-for, so instead I will suggest the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs. As I actually have no idea whether anyone reads this or not, and I definitely don't know if my potential readers are hockey fan's, this suggestion could be pointless. But if you are not a hockey fan, I highly recommend you start watching the playoffs. San Jose with a stranglehold on Detroit? Pittsburgh/Montreal in one of the more entertaining series I've seen? And with Vancouver/Chicago and Boston/Philly looking like they are going to get real ugly, real quick, there really isn't much more you could ask for. So if you aren't already, start that playoff beard and see if Detroit can come back from impossible odds, or if it's finally San Jose's year, or if the Canucks can get it done, or if Sidney is going to repeat. Either way, it will be entertaining.

Read: Already recommended "The Rest is Noise" but it still stands. But right now I am going to suggest you read the journalism and books of one Dan Gardner. He is a Vulcan-like logical thinker, and has gone a long way to influencing me and the thought process I would like to have. At the very least his writing and overall style have taught me to look at anything, regardless of how certain I am in it, from all sides to measure the actual evidence in its favour. Very good, and very challenging stuff. Also, I have used some of his arguments multiple times when arguing for marijuana legalization (and all drugs, for that matter) with friends who would trend more towards the "we can win the war on drugs" mind set. Definitely worth the read.

Alright, so that's it for now. Enjoy these suggestions, and feel free to leave me some feed back. The only comments I get appear to be from Chinese Spam Trolls, and I don't think they are commenting on the finer points of Mahler.

Quick Thoughts:

New worst artist making music right now: Kei$a.

Good God is she fu*king dreadful. Just absolutley terrible.

Leaving Your Comfort Zone

Since I was last posting, I have done quite a bit of thinking about why I like the things I like, and how I am exposed to new things. Generally, I use a small group of websites for pop culture, especially movies and music. My first and foremost source is The AV Club (http://www.avclub.com) which is a fantastic site with all kinds of goodies. It has definitely introduced me to a lot of great music that I was either too young or too clueless to discover on my own. If you share some of my proclivities, you can definitely lose yourself in it for hours. Pitchfork, of course, because I am obsessed with what other people think of me, and its the number one site for people who like music for that very reason (I kid, mostly).

But what I got thinking about was how these sites reflect music that skews towards my established tastes anyway. I don't listen to music radio much (I'm more of a CBC guy), so I don't get whats new and popular from there, so I really rely on the web and friends to find new things. And as I said, these sources tend to skew to my current tastes. There's been a lot of talk about how the Internet will create tribalism and epistemic closure, that people with access to infinite information will only seek out that which confirms their existent biases, beliefs etc.. There may or may not be some truth to this, I'm not really sure, but I do know that pop culture in general and music more specifically definitely trend towards tribal closure. Genre addiction is definitely the number one illness that afflicts music fans. Look no further than metal, punk and rap. I would argue that 90% of people who identify themselves as fans of any of the above genres, or even belonging to their sub-cultures, will only listen to music that belongs to that category. I always think of myself as someone with an expansive taste in music, because I listen to 1930's blues, or 60's garage rock, experimental noise rock, and any other number of styles, but at the end of the day, I'm sure that if I took enough time, I could draw a fairly straight line connecting all of them, and not in abstract, or stretching ways. People tend to like sounds that are similar, which makes Woody Guthrie and the White Stripes easier for me to digest than, say, Michael Jackson and R. Kelly (bad examples?).

In politics, I consider myself "left-of-center" but I try and read predominantly conservative writers and commentators. I could sit around agreeing with 80% of what Paul Krugman has to say, but I find it more enriching to see what someone like Mark Steyn or Kathleen Parker has to say, and seeing how that affects my world view. Thinking about that, I have been trying to apply this to my pop culture intake, and especially music.

In a book store a few weeks ago, a volume caught my eye. "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross (http://www.therestisnoise.com), which is a great book about classical music in the 20th Century. This is a subject I knew next to nothing about, aside from the "Rite of Spring" riot legend, and some stuff I picked up at University about Aaron Copland and New Deal music. Having gotten about halfway through the book, I can definitely say it is an engrossing subject, and I recommend everyone who hasn't already pick up this book and read. But the best thing I am taking from it is the music itself. This is a perfect example of a subject outside my comfort zone, that I knew nothing about, and that I am now slowly enveloping myself in. Its a bit of a slow grind to pick up all the music, a lot if it is hard to find (although the Toronto Public Library is a great resource), but it's definitely helped me expand my musical horizons. Right now, Stravinsky and Shostakovich are what I have, but I am looking forward to getting some Strauss and Mahler, some Gershwin, Copland and Messiaen, and countless more.

Listening to 20th Century classical music will be an obvious gateway to classical in general, which will give me a further understanding of where music has come from. I think this is the best part about discovering new things, new ideas, new genres. Understanding (or at least appreciating) 20th Century Classical music has definitely given me an understanding of a lot of trends in 20th Century music in general. Listening to Strauss or Stravinsky not only gives me an appreciation of their work, and of classical music in the last century, but I think it gives me a better appreciation of music in general. Listening to Shostakovich can make make Animal Collective that much more interesting. Or that much less. And that's the best thing about leaving your comfort zone.

............and we're back

After over a year of silence, I have returned. Due to unintentional, but much appreciated influence of an honest to goodness writer, I have decided to resurrect good old Possible Side-Effects. There is going to be a fairly major stylistic change, however. I am not going to be reviewing the record collection in total, per se. I will still write about the albums I love, but I am also going to start focusing on many of my other obsessions, such as books, films, the odd current events story, you name it. Hopefully I can be a little more focused (by expanding my focus) and maybe even attract some actual readers. Keep on checking the blog, I'm going to try and post a couple of times a week.

Until Next Time,

Titus Andronicus – “The Airing of Grievances.”

Everything I have read so far about this CD, which is as close to an actual review as this site gets* (it’s only been out for a week), talks about the singers screaming style and the deep nihilism that pretty much encompasses the whole record. That, and the fact that it’s a hell of a fun album, consistently described as something akin to standing at the end of the world chugging beers and screaming Clash tunes at the top of your lungs. Or something like that. No matter how you word it, all of the stuff written so far about these New Jersey indie-punks in this manner is true. “The Airing of Grievances” is a loud, nihilistic album, and Titus Andronicus’ lead singer does sound like Kurt Cobain channeling Shane McGowan while funneling nails, and it is ultimately a fun, exciting record. So what else is there to say about it? Well, for those of you who don’t obsessively read music journalism, congratulations, you have now had about 50 reviews from various reputable music publications condensed into one paragraph. You’re welcome. And secondly, all I can really do is try and explain to you, my loyal reader, why you should immediately pick this album up. It is awesome. The Cobain/McGowan hybrid is a good comparison, and the whole band sounds like it is getting out a lifetime of pent up anger, sounding for about 3 seconds like typical inde rock before whipping their songs into a frenzy. Constructing and de-constructing their sonic landscape, while painting a strangely celebratory picture of a grim, meaningless world (these guys are from New Jersey, so they probably couldn’t write about much else) is what this album is almost exclusively about. From the opening track “Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ” which is pure bombast and probably sounds amazing live, to the track “Joset of Nazareth’s Blues” which may be the new record holder for drunkenest song on CD, Titus Andronicus attack their songs as much as they play them. The self titled "Titus Andronicus" is pretty much a blueprint of their sound, and isn't a bad place to start and see if you dig them. Pick up this CD if you get the chance, or download it. It is definitely worth a listen, and is on the short list for best album of 2009 so far for me.


*also coming soon will be an almost review of Animal Collectives new album, whenever I manage to pick a copy up. Which reminds me that I should probably write up “Strawberry Jam”.

Worst. Song. Ever.

Is:

"Honky Tonk, Badonkadonk" by Trace Adkins.

No contest. Not even Kiss has made worse music.

The Conet Project- Obscurity, Snobbery and the Difference Between Being a Dick and Being a Fan

This post is another theme post, because I kinda like writing them more than the reviews, which I also enjoy, but the themes let me wax a little more. After talking to my buddy Matt who is a friend of the blog, I have been informed that I can frequently come off as a bit of a ranter. This, I must admit, is probably true. It is difficult to write an opinion piece that you assume few people will read, about a subject you have drunkenly argued about for your entire life without sounding like a ranter. So, in the spirit of New Years resolutions, I am trying to make this posts less ranty and more thoughtful. I have a post in the pipe right now about music and politics, but it definitely requires some touching up to sound less, well, asshole-ish. So today, I thought I would try and take a concept in music that has always interested me, by way of the Conet Project.



A brief explanation of the Conet Project- The Conet Project is a collection of recordings of short-wave radio transmissions recorded across Europe that are assumed to be spy transmissions. These recordings are weird. They tend to be creepy loops of children's songs, followed or joined by disembodied female voices reciting off numbers, letters or nonsensical groupings of words. It's assumed that these recordings, which broadcast on short wave radio frequencies, and so can be picked up by anyone with a short wave radio, so it is assumed spy's in the field can hear the transmissions and theoretically interpret them based on some pre-determined code scheme. Needless to say, a group of short-wave radio enthusiasts (nerds) recorded these, and a music company called Irdial put them up for free download on their website. Check it out, download a few and listen to see what I mean, just Google Irdial, or the Conet Project. So what does this have to do with, you know, music? Well, a couple of things.



Firstly, the Conet Project has become a bit of a pet obsession with several musicians and film makers, including my personal favorite Jeff Tweedy, who used the Conet Project in his magnum opus Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The title is taken from a Conet sequence, that plays at the end of the song "Poor Places" in which a female British voice chants "Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot." What does this mean? Who the hell knows? But the point is, Tweedy is enamored with the Conet Project, and found in it an excellent source for sampling that fit with the overall atmosphere of the whole Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. Which brings up the question: the Conet Project is a relatively unlistenable, creepy, random, weird collection of 1-5 minute recordings of, well, creepy, random, weird messages. So is listening to it (as I occasionally do), and integrating it into music (as Tweedy and others have done) being a musical experimentalist, a music snob, or simply utilizing something that sounds interesting when interspersed throughout an album? Or is it none of the above? Well, I'm not sure, but what thinking about this question did do for me was raise another one that has been tossed around in musical criticism: when is a musician making unlistenable, snobbish music, and when is he pushing his creativity and art into a new, interesting direction?



Well, this is the big question. I have been accused in my life of being a musical snob, because I dislike most mainstream music, and a lot of stuff considered essential (see my post about disliking Bob Marley for an indication of my musical douchebaggery if you doubt me). But I don't necessarily see it as such. Without launching into a rant defending my taste in music, which is relatively normal if you ask me, I will defend myself by saying there are two big qualifiers for me to like something, other than whether or not it is ascetically pleasing. The first is whether or not the artist is actually putting something of themselves into it. I am not suggesting that all music must be heart on the sleeve, confessional, or deeply personal, but my biggest complaint against a band like Nickelback or some such thing, is that their songs sound like they simply figured out how to write something catchy, and have since decided to repeat the process, ad nauseum. I do find some Nickelback stuff catchy, but its totally empty to me. When that "Hero" song was being played every 30 seconds a few years ago, it got stuck in my head a billion times. But I dislike it because its clearly just a catchy song, nothing more. Empty. Listening to artists like Nickelback is what I imagine sleeping with a really good looking prostitute would be like. Sure, she's gorgeous, and you are sleeping with her, but you cant kiss her, and she's thinking about her nail appointment or something, and when its all over, you just kinda want to strangle yourself with your belt. Or at least that's what I imagine it's like. I could be wrong.



Conversely, I will actually listen to something like, say, Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" which is just non-stop guitar feedback, because as tongue-in-cheek as he is about it, he really was experimenting with the whole form and idea of the song, ripping it apart to be nothing but noise. To me, this is a much more interesting, albeit almost unlistenable, album than anything by Nickelback or Theory of a Dead Man or some such nonsense. But it does raise the point- is it snobbery to feel like this, or just an appreciation of artists who push the boundaries of their art? It's probably a little of both, an argument in which I would say I am not a snob, I just have a different take on music, and in which someone else would say no, you are in fact a snob because you prefer unlistenable noise to, you know, actual songs.


The second thing I look for in an artist, generally, is really just a sub category of the "meaningful" idea. I like my music to be relatively evolutionary. Like I was saying about bands like Nickelback et al, they are just repeating a formula. They don't expand on what they started as, but simply grow static, re-making the same song, album, you name it, over and over again. This, I feel, is nowhere more embodies than U2. I love U2, which not a lot of people will say anymore because their last albums were absolutely dreadful. But listen to their first works, October, War and especially The Joshua Tree. Those are great albums, and you can hear the band growing, expanding on their sound, trying to perfect their musical vision. Then....stasis. Achtung Baby is a good album, but really, U2 have been banging out the same old same old "anthem," with all the atmosphere etc.. you expect from U2. But it's not new, or interesting, or even different. Its just.....the same.

So what am I saying about musical snobbery? Well, the point I am trying to make is that something like Metal Machine Noise, or to a much less abrasive extent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (its a great album, one of my favorites), that utilize noise and bizarre, short-wave radio transmission samples, or deconstructs the traditional song structure, is not a musician trying to be a dick. It's an artist advancing the vision they have for their craft. I doubt there is anyone left alive who would admit to ever having said "Well Picasso, its alright, but what if you just painted the guitar the way it looks?" In all other art worlds, experimenting and innovation are generally seen as essential to keeping the art form fresh. In music, at least in the short term, experimentation and innovation are often seen as something negative, or at least as something that doesn't belong in the mainstream (which is a sentiment I can sort of agree with). But what I don't agree with is the sentiment that this is somehow snobbery. While not for everyone, without this kind of experimentation, music doesn't evolve. Think of the Beatles, or Elvis, or really any band that made a drastic change to the world of music. With all of the legends and innovators, there are countless lesser known bands whose contributions to music are almost as influential. Not many people can name a Sonic Youth song, and they definitely embody the "snob" wing of the music world, but without them, there may not have been a Nirvana, or even the "indie" rock world as it is today. That's just one example, but its the one I like to use the most. While there are tons of people who would dismiss Sonic Youth as noise, or worse, the same people probably have at least a few songs or albums by bands that would site them as a direct influence.

So after all of that, how can I sum up my point in a nice, concise conclusion? (It's like University all over. But I'm sober). The main point that I hope you, the reader, takes from this is that while snob's and dicks certainly exist in the music world, the music itself is rarely snobbery. Because something is not immediately recognizable and familiar musically doesn't mean its some artistic "fuck you" to the mainstream. To me, even if its terrible, or can't be listened to for more than 2 minutes, I can respect an artist who is experimenting with his or her craft, and trying to push it in a new direction. To me, snobbery is a relative term when it comes to music, which is why I think I can listen to The Rolling Stones '80's output and Mission of Burma on the same playlist. But that's just me, I'm sure I'm in the minority here.

Well, hopefully that wasn't too long winded for everyone, and let me know what you think of the new, less ranty Possible Side Effects.