Current adventures in pop music: "Silence like the wind overtakes me..."

Dan Deacon is coming back to Australia, in support of his new album Bromst and that's pretty exciting. It's actually kind of amazing now that I think about it. Ever since being introduced to the video for his song The Crystal Cat (directed by Jimmy Joe Roche) by a friend of mine last year, I've been a tremendous fan of Deacon's warped electronics and squirrel vocal stylings. Should you be able to find a retailer in Sydney that stocks it, his album Spiderman of The Rings comes highly recommended as it is the ideal soundtrack for most things.

Whilst his recent live shows have incorporated many numbers of musicians, this run of Australian shows will apparently see Dan Deacon playing solo. As the above image by Mick Ø and this video show, this will not necessarily be a bad thing.

If you would like to hear Get Older from Dan Deacon's new album Bromst, you can do so here.
If you would like to download almost all of Dan Deacon's back catalogue, you can do that here.
If you would like to hear or download an interview with Dan Deacon on The Sound of Yound America, where he discusses things like his history in composition and the evolution of his performance style, well, you might want to do that here.

Today's new discovery.

It's about money.*

Who would've thought it?

[* yes yes it's about other things too.]

Current adventures in pop music: You're going to reap just what you sow... and you may not like what that is.

Aside from some interesting choices in hair and spectacle fashion [you may have realised I notice these things], Lou Reed is a pretty cool guy. Heck, I'll go so far as to say it's a given. If nothing else, he's earned his place amongst the list of rock stars who somehow managed to live through 70's. However, he does like to test the friendship it seems.

In 1997 Reed approved the use of his song Perfect Day for use in a campaign by the BBC to promote the diversity of their music programming across their various radio and television stations. This took shape in the form of a cover of said track with various musicans and performers being enlisted to perform various segments, with Lou opening and closing the number . Apparently it was quite successful, so much so that a single was released, which hit the number one spot in the UK for two weeks. The proceeds of the single were donated to the BBC charity event Children In Need [possibly in line with Reed's belief that the BBC requested to use the song for charity purposes, as opposed to self promotion].

As tends to be the case, my interest lies with the video. Originally designed to be screened in cinemas and on television, the clip became a music video in its own right due to the popularity of the advertisement. While the wikipedia article on Perfect Day contains the full list of who appears, the little details one may notice if they take the chance can provide minutes of amusements. Should you choose to look, you will find:

1. Lou Reed wearing a leather jacket that doesn't quite fit him.
2. Bono, circa U2's album Pop along with the well trimmed haircut that came with it, looking immensly soulful.
   
3. David Bowie in a white room, in a white suit, looking thin [get it, get it?] and experimenting with designer earings.
4. Boyzone playing the "we're what the kids are in to" card.
5. Opera singers performing the lines "I'm glad I spent it with you" and "You just keep me hanging on" with the intent of re-contextualising them to a level of contemporary relevance, but just looking humourously juxtaposed.
6. Huey from the Fun Lovin' Criminals being only trusted with two words, and being unable to contain the urge to stick the word "Yeah" on the end.
7. Brett Anderson from Suede doing what he once knew how to do really well and look sleazy, as opposed to just desperate.
8. Tom Jones putting in way too much effort. This might not seem like much of an oddity, but you kind of have to see it to get the true scope of it.

Use this list as merely a starting point. If the weather turns grey on you one dreary afternoon, formulate your own compilation of cynicism to pass the time. Much amusement to be had, I promise. The weird thing of it all is that somehow through all this the song is somehow strangely compelling, as big a car crash as it is. I'm going to credit Reed with this more than anything else, though maybe on some level it's because it reaffirms my theory that the 90's were worse than the 80's. I can't prove this of course; you're just going to have to go with me on that one.

Current adventures in pop music: Can you DJ slowcore?

In the midst of the world's craziness, I've found myself listening to Low's album Drums and Guns a great deal over the last couple of months. Definitely one of my favourite albums of the year thus far [no, I can't believe I said that either... let's move along...]. There's lots to like; it's brooding, minimal and epic all at once. It's also mixed in a really strange way that has the majority of the vocals coming out of the right speaker... crazy!

One of the things that has me most interested however, is the video for the song Breaker (which along with the clips for Belarus and a remix of Hatchet, both from Drums and Guns, can be downloaded from their website). A simply designed scene; we see guitarist / vocalist Alan Sparhawk sitting in a kitchen, with drummer / vocalist Mimi Parker and bassist Matt Livingston standing either side of him. In front of a Sparhawk is a piece of cake, the rest of the cake and a glass of milk. A minimal drum line begins, and the band members at the rear begin to clap in time. Once the organ kicks in Sparhawk makes for the uncut portion of the cake, ignoring the slice, and proceeds to make a large mess of things.

Given Alan Sparhawk does all this wearing some sort of military uniform, one could be forgiven for thinking Low are making a none too subtle statement about the political state of their homeland. Sure they might just like cake, but something tells me it's a little bigger than that.

[For the record, despite being so-called pioneers of the slowcore genre, it's a term the band themselves aren't very found of. I'd quote them, but you might as well just read the wikipedia article and be done with it.]

Linkin Park are unbelievably lame.

Perhaps the fact that Linkin Park are terrible doesn't need to be raised. Heck, it might even be a given. At the very least, they're plenty stupid. Case in point; the video for their new single "What I've Done". Being a Linkin Park track, I'm sure the narrative revolves around some kind of inner-hardship mixed with layers of self-loathing. As mundane as this is [leave it to Trent; you're obviously fans, just let it go], it's the montage of the video that disturbs me most. The whole thing seems to be some sort of musing on important events in American history in the last few years. So we have scenes of bombs dropping, firemen carrying people to safety, petrol bowsers ticking, and then mixed in is stock footage of Castro, Stalin, and the Klu Klux Klan for good measure. Because it's all the same in the end really.

And in the middle of this we have the band, our heroes, doing whatever it is they're doing; but at least they're making a stand right? Well, when you want to make to make point about the current state of things, perhaps the best place to start would be anywhere other than in the middle of the desert, surrounded by amplifiers and enough lights to illuminate a small suburb. Unless of course you're powering all this equipment on bio-diesel, in which case I'll retract my statement.

I'm sorry Al Gore and Dan Ashcroft, but it really does look like the idiots are winning.

The words "Completely," "Freaking" and "Amazing" are something like what I'm after.

Rage have a competition running where you can program a playlist of 20 videos. Wow. Ten kinds of wow even. The fierce competitor within me is quite upset that I'm posting this; as if I had control of some incredible secret that could change the world, as long as I don't tell anyone else about it. But this is too important to keep to myself... plus I'm sure you would find out anyway.

Do me a favour though. If you win, please program "Babe, I'm On Fire" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; making sure that's it's the full 15 minute version, as opposed to the 3 minute single edit. That thing needs to be seen by as many people as humanly possible.