Happy Merdeka Day!!!

It's Independence Day in Malaysia, so let's take a moment to give some props and repost the video of our fave Malaysian power pop band, Couple.



If you're in KL or Singapore, they've got some gigs coming up: check them out!

OT: Holy God.

Just watch.

Midweek Videoblogging: Brimful of Asha

It's easy to forget what a startling discovery this song was, and the buzz surrounding this band. I was really sad we didn't hear too much more from Cornershop, as I loved this tune.



Oh, it looks like they're in the studio now. Interesting....

Hasta Luego, Sleater-Kinney

via Pitchfork:

Sleater-Kinney's Last Show: A Retrospective
Story by Julianne Shepherd

Sleater-Kinney settled their 11-year career on bittersweet chords: "One More Hour", the iconic break-up song from Dig Me Out, whose lyrics encapsulate the moment just before a departure. "In one more hour, I will be gone..." sang Corin Tucker, wistfully. "In one more hour, I leave this room…" Their departure was imminent and, it seemed, reluctant. As they played the final tones, the final song in the second encore of their last show, tears streaked each of the three women's faces. They dropped their instruments, hugged each other, and walked off stage.

In retrospect, Sleater-Kinney's final show-- at Portland's majestic Crystal Ballroom, where stage lights cast the band in giant hazy shadows on the wall behind them-- emphasized exactly how many of their lyrics were, in fact, about breaking up, leaving, and saying goodbye, a not unlikely foundation for a band comprised of a former couple (Tucker and guitarist/singer Carrie Brownstein dated for a time). The fulcrum lyric of their opening song, "The Fox", had Tucker screaming, "THERE'S NO LOOKING BACK!" and there wasn't: They weren't retrospective or nostalgic, picking most of their set from more recent albums The Woods, One Beat, and The Hot Rock and sparing selections from career-kickstarting records Dig Me Out and Call the Doctor. Though they played as meticulously and as passionately as ever-- call it the high of the runner's last lap-- it would have felt like any other show, were it not for the psychic weight. As they barreled toward the end, their squalls gaping, chasmal, somewhere between the atonal grind of "Night Light" and the downturned yearning of "Stay Where You Are", the show's mood deepened with its finality. The tumult of chords expanded. Energy converted to discomfort. When Brownstein began murmuring the soft melody of "Modern Girl", there was a bit of sour dread in the air. They had sandwiched a handful of tensely minor-keyed songs into their setlist-- "Not What You Want", then "Steep Air", then "God Is a Number"-- maybe on purpose? You don't choose the setlist of your last show lightly.

For reasons yet unknown, Sleater-Kinney have disbanded. Like separating from the ones you most love, it clearly wasn't an easy severance.

***

From their 1995 origins in the feminist wilds of Olympia, Washington, Sleater-Kinney's purpose was twofold: to make music, and to make the world better, insofar that any band can better the world. They never attempted this by making grand gestures or megaphonic statements, but by quietly doing: Responding to politics because they were smart and their surroundings-- the localized liberal enclaves of Oly and Portland, Oregon-- demanded it. When Tucker and Brownstein started Sleater-Kinney, they were students at Evergreen College-- aka "Evergroovy," the kind of hippie-holdover liberal arts school that is rigorous and righteous yet has no set curriculum-- studying film and politics (Tucker) and sociolinguistics (Brownstein). The fire of Oly riot grrrl had already begun to wane in intensity-- in 1997, Bikini Kill were on their last legs-- and each had logged time on O.G. R.G. bills in Heavens to Betsy (Tucker) and Excuse 17 (Brownstein), zygote bands which, in retrospect, sound like two parts to a whole. The ladies had seen the young feminist surge of riot grrrl deflate from media exposure, backbiting, and tragedy, and so the politics of Sleater-Kinney were leveled more deliberately and cautiously-- the "personal is political," versus "the roof is on fire."

Sleater-Kinney were named practically, after the road that housed their first practice space in Lacey, Washington (an Olympia suburb known for its appearance in Bikini Kill's "Carnival"). And like many feminist bands since, at first they were heavily influenced by the holler of Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna. For parts of their first album, with drummer Lora McFarlane (who Janet Weiss replaced in 1996), both Tucker's and Brownstein's voices are imbued with the imprint of Hanna's impetuous scrawl. But there were also seeds of the gripping Tucker-Brownstein vocal/guitar interplay that gave the band one of the most distinct sounds in rock. On "The Day I Went Away" (whose verse intones, "Do I always have to leave for you to want me to stay?"), McFarlane anchors Tucker's unhinged quivering vibrato, a role Brownstein would take on subsequent records. On that record, their roots showed, but the promise was audible.

By 1996, when Call the Doctor dropped on Donna Dresch’s anarcho-lesbo punk label Chainsaw, Sleater-Kinney were running with the post-R.G. torch: the album was a collection of their most insurrectionist songs, channeling their social unrest and feminist quandary. "Anonymous" lyrically echoes Bikini Kill's first album and captures Oly's restless mindset-- "feel safe, inside, inside those well drawn lines/ Boyfriend, a car, a job, my white girl life." But "Stay Where You Are" is probably the first song of their career where they knew what they would sound like, what worked for them as songwriters-- the indelible interplay!! They were all virtuosos at something, and on Doctor-- and Dig Me Out-- were the seeds: Tucker's distinct vibrato, Brownstein's agile guitar playing, Weiss's subtle bombast. And here, they first exposed their aspirations to become rock icons.

"I wanna be your Joey Ramone," Tucker demanded. Brownstein's hiccuped swagger evoked the sexual narcissism of iconic boy-rockers. "Pictures of me on your bedroom door." Distortion. "I'm the queen of rock and roll."

Long, but there's lots more at the link. Also, see their hiatus notice here. And, of course, a video.

OT: Grrrrrr......

I have a lot of pet peeves, but this is a big one.

With this particular couple, the situation was even worse. Their sex life had died completely, and one of the main causes was the mother's obsession with breast-feeding well into the child's eleventh month. The baby was attached to his mother like a limb, and he even slept with her every night, consigning her husband to a different bedroom.

I told the mother that in being so devoted to her son, she had committed the cardinal sin of marriage, which is to put someone else before her spouse, even if that someone is your child. Furthermore, I said, her obsession had turned one of her most attractive body parts into a feeding station, an attractive cafeteria rather than a scintillating piece of flesh.

In my book "Kosher Adultery," I make the point that infidelity is primarily a sin of omission rather than commission. It is not the bad thing you do that destroys a marriage, but all the good that you fail to do, preoccupied as you are with a sinful relationship that diverts your attention away from your spouse. Similarly, with the example of breast-feeding, a wife who spends a year giving all her emotional and physical affection to the baby has left her marriage a barren wasteland, bereft of romance and affection.

Obviously, breast-feeding is not the same as carrying on an extramarital affair. But when a mother gives her breasts to her son and takes them away from her husband, the effect on the marriage can feel the same.

I am surprised that when scientists discuss all the benefits of breast-feeding, they neglect its most negative consequence. If breast-feeding gets in the way of the marriage—if it means that a husband and wife never go out on dates, or that the mother is so tired from always waking up with the baby that she has no energy to ever be intimate with her husband—the child will probably end up worse off, however many colds or bouts with diarrhea he now avoids.

What. A. Dick.


As one of the commenters asks: "Should a man stop urinating, and, say, install a colostomy bag, so as to not "desexualize" his penis in the eyes of his wife?" No? Then STFU.

Remember that Mick Jagger Sitcom?

I blogged about it here.

Well, Doctor Pop has seen it and reviewed it here. It has a new name--Knights of Prosperity--but looks more or less like it was described initially.

This was originally titled Let's Rob Mick Jagger, and I'd have a LOT more confidence if they'd stuck with that. The deal's very simple -- Donal Logue's not happy with his life, sees Mick Jagger on MTV's Cribs or something, and gathers "the finest men the city has to offer" (cabbies, guys he finds on the street, etc) in order to concoct a plan to rob Jagger in order to finance the bar he wants to build and, in general, make their wildest dreams come true.

It's a whole sitcom about robbing Mick Jagger -- who plays himself, yes.

I mean ... come on! That's the kind of thing I would write a journal entry about saying I wished someone would make this show.

It's not a parody of a heist, but it plays with heist conventions the way My Name Is Earl plays with the conventions of shows like Early Edition, Pandamonium (okay, you don't remember that one, but here's a hint, it isn't misspelled), and other "we have an ongoing mission conveniently divided into discrete episodic sections" shows. So far its funniest moments are the ones that are the least parodic, because they aren't skewering the genre, they're just using it. The weakest are, well, the others -- Donal Logue doing a horrible British accent is only funny in that "oh someone's being unfunny on purpose" way, and we already have a cab driver character, so we already have accent humor.

And I like Donal Logue, so there. It's just my Irish lout thing, what can I tell you? (Besides, he used to roadie for The Lemonheads--how nifty is that?)

A word of warning: I will have nothing to say about the Gene Simmons reality show.

New Loud Family

via fluxblog and asap

After spending most of this decade in retirement, '80s college radio icon Scott Miller has finally returned from his self-imposed exile with a new Loud Family album recorded as a collaboration with fellow Californian power pop songwriter Anton Barbeau.

The record kicks off with a relatively straight cover of the Rolling Stones' classic "Rocks Off," and then settles into the delicately melodic "Song About "Rocks Off"," a clever, self-aware track. It's typical of an artist whose best instincts have always been informed by a combination of inspired song craft and thoughtful postmodernism.

After indulging himself with a favorite song from his teenage years, Miller ruminates on his history with the song, especially his strange, vicarious relationship with its lyrics as a young man, and the way rock lyrics can become sacred texts to teenagers.

Scott Miller is undoubtedly one of the powerpop standard bearers, and it's nice to see he's still on the job. Hear the song here.

And some video from the beginning of this month:

Videoblogging: Slowly, Slowly (Live)

Magnapop from the Mercury Lounge, 2005.



And a dopey lovesong for all you romantics out there (up there?)

Ain't That a Shame?

I'm always struck by the fact that, in going through my site meter, that people still find me when they search for the Nazi Twins, Lynx and Lamb Gaeta. I even got a comment recently with a link to porn site with girls who vaguely resemble them. So, it's a story I've been following somewhat desultorily.

I find these girls amazingly creepy, and see them as creations of their nutjob mother rather than independent actors in their own right. If you want your adolescent daughters to provide wanking material for the Stormfront boys, I guess that's your choice, but in my humble opinion, it's a poor parenting decision.

Well, it turns out that the turmoil isn't over for the poor benighted, racist Gaetas.

After ABC first aired a story on Lynx and Lamb in October 2005, the music duo got worldwide attention, becoming fodder for television talk show hosts like Bill Maher and Joe Scarborough. The publicity evoked a lot of outrage and chatter on Internet message boards.

But no one claims to be more outraged than the girls' estranged father, Kris Lingelser.

"Do they know how many people out there will look at [them] and just go — I mean I get angry, just angry," Lingelser says. "And they don't deserve that anger. They don't deserve that hate. That's not them."

--SNIP--

Lingelser, who says he is not a racist, also points the finger at the girls' mother. ABC News played him the girls' responses to interview questions, including the girls' statement that Adolf Hitler was "a great man" who "had a lot of good ideas."

"It's just horrible," Lingelser says. "How do I feel? I want it to stop. I want them to not say 'Heil Hitler.'"

--SNIP--

And that's why Lingelser went back to court to try to regain custody, which he lost when he and April first divorced because, he admits, he had a problem with drugs.

"I had a drug issue, and you know, I was not always the most responsible parent," Lingelser says.

ABC News uncovered a troubling letter in which Lingelser threatened to kill April and the twins if she told police of his drug abuse.

No idea why a mother who pimps her daughters out as racist porn would be preferable as a parent to a guy who used to have a meth problem, but, as Thers noted, it probably has something to do with drugs and mandatory sentencing. The judge may not have had much choice in the matter.

Note, too, that this story copies word-for-word, paragraph-for-paragraph, the stories from last year about these two. Is this common in the news biz? Aren't you supposed to, you know, write a new story, even if it's on the same topic? (Both stories are uncredited productions of ABC News.) This would just annoy me as a writer, except that there's a serious edge here too: AOL is still not addressing the real meaning of the term "Prussian Blue," preferring, I suppose, the sunnier version in the band's press release. ("Well, I know they call themselves "Die Jews, Die," but their press release says it's German for "The Jews, The," and we believe them.") (with apologies to Sideshow Bob) That's just careless reporting: once the truth has been discovered--even by a (gasp!) blogger--there's no reason to keep repeating the lie.

Midweek Videoblogging: She's Tight!

One of my all time faves.