Here’s a clip of Laurie Anderson’s classic deconstruction of the National Anthem [runtime: 1:50], with thanks to Richard Metzger:
Strategy vs Tactics: Dave Allen Interview
Though he said that he shouldn’t go on camera after we’d been up all night (this was during SXSW after all), he makes a lot of sense (as usual): Dave Allen’s interview with Brian from CD Baby on musicians and the internet Continue reading “Strategy vs Tactics: Dave Allen Interview”
Spike Jonze’s Twizzler Lakai Commercial
Directed by Johannes Gamble and Federico Vitetta, this one-minute clip of Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, and Spike Jonze quickly captures the spirit of skateboarding with your friends. Its handful of brief vignettes illustrate how sessions out on the board are as much about clowning on each other and dorking around as they are trying to land genetically enhanced, “molecular” kickflips — even though the latter is what people will be talking about. Continue reading “Spike Jonze’s Twizzler Lakai Commercial”
Black Metallic: Until the Light Takes Us
Described as “the most widely demonized and vilified music scene in rock history,” (O’Hehir, 2009), the Norwegian black metal scene of the late 80s and early 90s took Black Metal to new extremes. The bands and fans all wore head-to-toe black leather, wrist- and arm-bands and boots with spikes or nails, and black and white “corpse paint.” Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s Until the Light Takes Us (2009) tells the story of the scene in stark tones and up-close interviews.
Members of the bands Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Immortal, and Emperor provide more than a full cast of characters. The major players involved in the scene include Øystein Aarseth (a.k.a Eronymous) of Mayhem, Per Yngve Ohlin (a.k.a. Dead) of Mayhem, Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh) of Burzum and Mayhem, and Bärd Eithun (a.k.a. Faust) of Emperor, among several others. “Dead’s name was an ever-looming portent of his destiny” write Moynihan & Søderlind (2003, p. 58). Very much into self-mutilation, often on stage, Dead eventually shot himself in the head with a shotgun. His band-mate Euronymous found the body, took pictures, and reportedly took pieces of his skull and brains. One of the pictures ended up as the cover art for a live Mayhem record (Dawn of the Black Hearts; 1995), and Euronymous supposedly made stew out of Dead’s brains and necklaces out of his skull.
The sometime bass player for Mayhem and full-time one-man-band Burzum, Grishnackh, paranoid of an alleged plot by Euronymous to kill him, beat him to the punch: One late night in Oslo, Grishnackh stabbed Euronymous to death. Euronymous had been the figurehead of the Norwegian black metal scene. His record store in Oslo, Helvete, had served as a central meeting place for bands and fans, as well as a place to buy records and paraphernalia. It was darkly lit and Euronymous wanted it to be kept completely dark and to make customers use torches to see the records and their way around.
Underwhelmed by what he saw as posturing without action by Euronymous, Grishnackh allegedly set about burning down churches. Grishnackh’s philosophy is one of nationalism. He sees Christianity as colonialist, having moved into Norway and displaced the native Norse religion. His intentions did not keep the church burnings from being seen as “Satanically motivated” by the media. The heavy metal magazine Kerrang! ran a cover story that read, “Arson… Death… Satanic Ritual… The Ugly Truth about Black Metal” and the spread bore the quotation, “We are but slaves of the one with horns…” across the top of its pages (Moynihan & Søderlind, 2003, p. 100-101). “Copycat church attacks followed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, often accompanied with spray-painted pentacles and 666’s and so forth, and whatever had once been distinctive about the Norwegian scene just became, in Vikernes’ [Grishnackh] words, “a bunch of brain-dead, heavy-metal guys.”
The image of the black metal scene at large was one of darkness and evil. Hebdige (1979) writes, “In most cases, it is the subculture’s stylistic innovations which first attract the media’s attention. Subsequently deviant or ‘anti-social’ acts—vandalism, swearing, fighting, ‘animal behaviour’—are ‘discovered’ by the police, the judiciary, the press; and these acts are used to ‘explain’ the subculture’s original transgression of sartorial codes. In fact, either deviant behaviour or the identification of a distinctive uniform (or more typically a combination of the two) can provide the catalyst for a moral panic” (p. 93). The moral panic that followed the church burnings illustrates how easily such a scene is vilified and labeled “Satanic.” Subcultures are largely imagistic and operate on the level of surfaces: Never mind that half the members of the bands involved are or were serving prison terms for their actions. A movement as such quickly becomes regarded as exclusively stylistic. Attaching Satan to a movement that was largely nationalist in nature is a move that occurs on the surface of the phenomenon.
In order to get under the skin of this scene, filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway and hung-out with Darkthrone’s Fenriz, Hellhammer from Mayhem, Frost from Satyricon, the guys in Immortal, and visited Vikernes in prison, among others. Throughout the film, it is the stalwarts of the scene who tell the story. Aites and Ewell make no appearance. Their placement in situ gives the film an immediacy that many narrated documentaries lack. If you’re at all interested in the Norwegian Black Metal scene or the chaos thereof, this film is indispensable.
Until the Light Takes Us is currently making its way around the country. Keep your eyes open.
Here’s the official trailer [runtime: 2:07]:
References
Aites, A. & Ewell, A. (Directors). (2009). Until the light takes us [Motion picture]. United States: Field Pictures.
Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style. New York: Routledge.
Moynihan, M. & Søderlind, D. (2003). Lords of chaos: The bloody rise of the Satanic metalunderground. Los Angeles: Feral House.
O’Hehir, A. (2009, December 6). Sympathy for the devil worshipers: Until the light takes us movie review. Retrieved on December 7, 2009 from Salon.com.
Jawbox on Jimmy Fallon
No time to do this properly at the moment, but I have to post this: My old friends Jawbox reunited to play “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to celebrate the reissuing of their third full length (and major label debut) For Your Own Special Sweetheart (1994). The remastered record is now available from Dischord and Kim and Bill’s DeSoto Records. (Go get it.)
I’ll follow up on all of this properly when this semester is over, but for now, here’s “Savory” from “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” [runtime: 5:00]:
Dossier: Brian Reitzell
So, I was watching the Kevin Spacey movie Shrink (2009) yesterday, and I couldn’t help but notice that the score sounded very similar to the one for Friday Night Lights (2004) that Explosions in the Sky did. I opened up my laptop and found out that the movie Shrink was scored by Brian Reitzell… type, type, type… enhance… type, type, type... who produced the Friday Night Lights soundtrack… and used to play drums for Redd Kross. He is also credited with coaxing Kevin Shields out of hiding to do work on the Lost in Translation (2003) soundtrack (subsequently reuniting My Bloody Valentine). Hmmm…
More typing and enhancing later and I learned that Brian Reitzell has been making badass film music for a decade now, not to mention providing the beats for one of my favorite early-90s pop bands. His unique approach to sound has abetted Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette (2006), as well as Stranger Than Fiction (2006). He most recently — before Shrink — scored all of 30 Days of Night (2007), for which he built an instrument out of a potter’s wheel.
“I got a pottery wheel because I am obsessed with Doppler, things spinning around your head,” Reitzell told Chaos Control Digizine. “I took this black tube that I got at Home Depot and I affixed it around the pottery wheel. The pottery wheel looks like a turntable, it spins. This particular one cost me $800 so I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to get it to work. But you can put 150 lbs of pressure on it, and it can extend from 0 to 280 RPMs, and you can control it with a foot pedal. So I suspended the tube with bungee cables affixed to cymbal stands, sort of around the circumference of the platter. And then I affixed a felt palette in the center of the pottery wheel using some rigging gear that cinematographers or grips use on film. The mallet would sort of rest on top of the tube, and the tube has ridges on it so when the mallet was spinning around, it would rub on those ridges and create this very eerie sound. The faster I would spin it, the higher the pitch would be. I shock-mounted microphones onto either side inside the tube, and lo and behold, I had the perfect doppler.”
Reitzell, along with Jellyfish alumni Roger Manning Jr. and Jason Faulkner, also scored a non-existant sequel to Logan’s Run (1976). Dubbed Logan’s Sanctuary, the soundtrack without a film was released by the late Emperor Norton Records in 2000, who’d also released The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. “The head of Emperor Norton asked me specifically to do that,” Reitzell explains. “It was his idea. He wanted me to do a real score to a fake movie. And that movie was to be the sequel to Logan’s Run. To do that, I enlisted my friend Roger Manning, who I’ve known for years. He played with Jellyfish, and was playing with Beck at the time. Roger and I set out to do this, but to do it I had to write a plot. So I sat down and wrote a storyline with the help of a friend, and then we started scoring scene by scene. Originally, we weren’t going to use our real names, it was going to be a hoax. But then when we turned it in, the record label was so happy with it that they wanted to exploit it.”
So, while I wait for the Shrink score to be released, I’ll be spinning Reitzell’s other soundtracks and listening to “The Lady in the Front Row” over and over. It’s good stuff.
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Here’s the video for TV Eyes’ “She’s a Study” [runtime: 4:52]. TV Eyes is/was (details are sketchy) Reitzell’s band with Roger Manning and Jason Falkner (ex-Jellyfish).
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Read the complete interview with Brian Reitzell at Chaos Control Digizine.
The Power of a New Idea by Jelly Helm
Here’s a really short but really great film prepared by Jelly Helm and Grow Films for Oregon Humanities (watch for my good friend Dave Allen). [Runtime: 1:03]
Grandmaster Roc Raida R.I.P.
Famous people have been passing with an alarming pace lately. It’s weird. It’s weirder when it’s someone you met or hung out with.
I’m not going to front: Roc Raida didn’t know me from anyone, but we did sit down and chat a couple of times. The first of those times was on July 27, 1997 at The Crocodile Café in Seattle. Just before the X-Men’s sound check (during which I took the photos here), I sat down in the Crocodile’s back bar with Rob Swift, Total Eclipse, Mista Sinista, and Roc Raida. I was wearing a Deep Concentration tour t-shirt that had a picture of Roc on the front. San Francisco’s Om Records had put out a compilation of Turntablists — including the X-Men — and the subsequent tour (made up of a rotating cast of beat jugglers and scratch masters) had come through Seattle the night before. As we settled in to chat and I turned on my tape recorder, Roc Raida was noticeably distracted. I asked my first question anyway, but he ignored it, saying, “I want that shirt.”
Roc Raida worked with everyone from O.C. (on the classic Word…Life LP from 1994), Big Pun (R.I.P.), Big L (R.I.P.), and Immortal Technique to Linkin Park, Mike Patton, The X-Men/X-Ecutioners (of course), and, more recently, Busta Rhymes. He was known for his innovative body tricks and lightning-fast yet super precise scratch moves, and they won him countless DMC and ITF competitions. He was dubbed “Grandmaster” by the O. G. Grandmaster himself, Grandmaster Flash. He was, simply put, one of the best doing it.
My thoughts go out to his family, friends, and all who knew him. Hip-hop and the world have suffered a great loss today.
Rest in peace, Anthony Williams.
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Here’s Roc Raida’s winning routine from DMC 1995 [runtime: 6:20]:
Shane Acker’s 9
Shane Acker’s computer-animated feature 9 (2009) stitches several well-worn themes into a unique commentary on agency and afterlife.
9 is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia where a world war between humans and machines has left the earth decimated and dreary. The “stitchpunks” (1 through 9) and “The Beast” (a dog-like machine-thing) are the only signs of life, until 9 inadvertently awakens a maniacal mechanical monster. Each of the numbers seem to have his or her own way to deal with the dangers of the world they find themselves in, but cooperation seems to be the only way to avert imminent doom. 1 (Christopher Plummer) rules the reluctant with fear and the brute strength of 8 (Fred Tatasciore), 6 (the inimitable Crispin Glover, pictured above) is the “crazy” seer, 2 (Martin Landau) is the industrious explorer, 5 (John C. Reilly) is the fearful follower, 3 and 4 (who are voiceless) are the researching, collecting archivists, 7 (Jennifer Connelly) is the warrior, and 9 (Elijah Wood) is the level-headed logician with a heart to boot.
Without giving anymore away (see below for that), I just wanted to give props to Acker and company for taking what could have been cliché and making it fun and fresh.
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Here’s Shane Acker’s original short film, 9 (2005) [runtime: 10:38]:
The Lies Are All True: Alien Workshop’s Mind Field
In the late 80s and early 90s, skateboarding started a transition from a five-company economy to an independently-owned, skateboarder-run, hundred-company industry. All of the sudden everyone had a company, a brand, a team, a video. Most of them are long-gone, but for a few years there, it was difficult to keep up (Foundation’s Tod Swank tells the story best).
Alien Workshop was one of the original skateboard companies to emerge from the cacophony of skateboarding’s new-found independence, and for twenty years hence they’ve maintained a uniqueness that sets them apart from the changing trends of the SoCalcentric skateboard industry at large. This uniqueness manifests itself in all aspects of their existence. Their team and their videos are no exception.
Mind Field (2009) is a reminder of everything Alien Workshop stands for, a reminder less like a post-it note and more like an atomic bomb. While one might describe Alien Workshop films as “artsy,” it never gets in the way of the skateboarding. Besides, artful clips of J. Mascis noodling around at home on his guitar, writhing plastic robot bugs, twisting weathervanes, high roaming clouds, interesting buildings, and flocking birds all ultimately coalesce into what Alien Workshop — and indeed skateboarding — is all about: individual artistic expression.
And what about the skateboarding? Well, Omar Salazar’s part, which emerges seamlessly from the clips of him strumming along with Mascis, is pure four-wheel fun. Whether it’s the over-vert full-pipe 50-50 or his huge hippie leaps, Omar just looks like he’s completely enjoying himself the whole damn time. It’s infectious.
Arto Saari’s part (my favorite here — embedded below) proves he can combine tech with gnar like no one else this side of Chris Cole. He peppers his part with subtle flips and shoves here and there without a single slippage in style or steez — and most of his tricks are big-man burly. Do not sleep on the boy.
Self-styled enigma Jason Dill keeps skateboarding weird and wild at the same time. His parts in Feedback (1999) and Photosynthesis (2000) are two of my most-watched, and his part here is hereby added to the pre-session playlist.
One can’t help but think of the mighty Jason Jessee when watching Anthony Van Engelen’s part, but he also channels some old John Lucero (the tailslide to noseslide ledge switchers). He skates mean like the both of them used to, but his update is all AVE. Where others hesitate, Anthony just monster-trucks it.
All of the rumours
Keeping me grounded
I never said, I never said that they were
Completely unfounded — Morrissey
Heath Kirchart’s closing clip doesn’t just make me want to skateboard, it makes me want to put my head down and go hard for everything I’ve ever dreamt of doing. It takes more than talent to make top-notch street skating look this clean. From the opening BS 360 and FS allie-oop lien boosters (ten feet up?) to the motorcycle tow-in street-gap BS flip, Heath just slays everything in sight, and he does it all with style and smoothness not seen since Ethan Fowler’s heyday. Determination is evident, and his thanks list in the credits says it all (“Nobody.”).
I don’t want to geek and gush much more, but let’s not forget the rest of the team. Grant Taylor kills is with big tricks and stamina to match. Steve Berra and Rob Dyrdek turn in short but impressive parts. Kalis keeps it gangster as usual. Dylan Rieder’s opening montage ollie impossible is the cleanest execution of that trick ever committed to video. His part — as well as those of Tyler Bledsoe, Jake Johnson, and Mikey Taylor — illustrate why The Workshop has one of the best teams out right now.
There’s plenty more to say — especially about the parts I just yadda-yadda’d — but the last thing I want to mention is the soundtrack. It’s mostly a solid mix of current Pitchfork-rock (Animal Collective, Battles, Elliott Smith, etc.) and individual style (Dyrdek’s Traffic, AVE’s Adolescents, Heath’s creepy Morrissey song, and you know Kalis skates to the Boom-Bap: “Boom Box” by Bullymouth). Aforementioned Workshop friend J. Mascis and his skate-video stalwarts Dinosaur Jr. contribute several songs (“A Little Ethnic Song” and “Creepies,” and “Almost Ready,” “Grab It,” and “Crumble,” respectively), and original Workshop pro Duane Pitre contributes two pieces (“Music For Microtonal Guitar And Mallets” and “Study For ‘Sun AM'”). The Workshop is a family.
Skateboarding is about pushing yourself and having fun with your friends. Mind Field may lean a little more on the former, but it’s still fun. If nothing else, it proves that Alien Workshop and solid skateboarding are here to stay.
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Here’s Arto Saari’s part in Mind Field [runtime: 3:57]. The hyped kinked rails are only a fraction of the story.