In the introduction to Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, a fascinating collection of academic essays (mostly translated from Japanese), Mizuko Ito defines keitai networks:
In contrast to the cellular phone of the United States (defined by technical infrastructure), and the mobile of the United Kingdom (defined by the untethering from fixed location) (Kotamraju and Wakeford 2002), the Japanese term keitai (roughly translated, “something you carry with you”) references a somewhat different set of dimensions. A keitai is not so much about a new technical capability or freedom of motion but about a snug and intimate technosocial tethering, a personal device supporting communications that are a constant, lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life.
Maybe, the relentless clicking of cell cams at shows constitutes part of what might be described as Western keitai. That is, along with mp3s both financially and corporeally devaluing recorded music, it is possible that concerts are slipping into the realm of the day-to-day. Taking pictures, then, isn’t an attempt to capture anything momentous, but to simply mark the occasion, like a diary entry. And, sure, maybe that’s a defiling of live music as sacred ritual/spectacle, yadda yadda yadda, but it’s probably time for a change, anyway. Wouldn’t wanna be late for the future, after all.
My first reaction to Tom Cox’s “Don’t film it, feel it” editorial in the London Times was annoyance. And, after thinking about, it still is.
I get Cox’s point: if people are spending the whole shows taking pictures on their phones, they’re not listening. Admittedly, it’s frustrating. A few months ago, I saw my friend’s band, the Rolling Stallones, play at CBGB. During the opening act, a gaggle of girls up front spent literally 20 minutes taking pictures of each other in front of the stage. I don’t think it was even for the purposes of documenting themselves at the soon-to-closed venue. It was just obscenely narcissistic.
But were the girls taking pictures of each other really going to be “listening” to the show, anyway? Going to see live music is about far more than just the music coming out of the speakers, otherwise you wouldn’t fork your money over and you could just stay at home and listen to the stolen mp3s. It’s a social act, with all the attendant relationships.
Though I’m a big proponent of cell cameras, I almost never take pictures at gigs. But that’s just me. Even though there are tons of differences, I associate their use at shows with the act of smuggling a cheap cassette deck in to make a bootleg. The content is different, even the action is different — cell cams being condoned, bootlegs being, well bootlegs — but I think it’s the same impulse. The resultant tangle of Flickr pages, MySpace and Facebook pictures is obviously ephemeral. But so is live music. That’s sort of the point, right?
It all seems like a way of engaging with the music. And by “the music,” of course, I mean everything besides the music itself: one’s friends, the rest of the crowd, the band, the club. In an age where one’s relationship with music is more complex than just listening to albums and going to shows, it’s sometimes good to be able to locate herself in the noise.
Of course I was annoyed by the girls at the show. It wasn’t because they were taking pictures, though. It was because they just wouldn’t shut up. But that’s a much older problem.
“Omstart” – Cornelius (download here)
from Sensuous (2006)
released by Warner Japan (buy)
(file expires December 14th)
I used to have this theory that Beck and Cornelius sounded like the zeitgeist. Odelay‘s junkyard pastiches sounded like 1996, Fantasma‘s fantasias like 1997, Midnite Vultures‘ neon disco like ’99, and Point‘s electro-acoustics like 2002. I’m not sure if that theory extends to Sensuous, Cornelius’s new album, currently only out in his native Japan. It certainly doesn’t sound like any 2006 I’ve experienced, anyway.
For an album titled Sensuous, “Omstart” is one of the few tone poems. With Point‘s alien organics (somewhat disappointingly) mostly supplanted by terrestrial synthetics elsewhere, “Omstart” is a stereo-panned palette cleanser. Keigo Oyamada’s voice rises, transforming into texture as if, owing to some mythological justice, it must become a bird. Besides that movement, the drama is spare, all branches empty. Maybe it sounds like 2007.
UPDATE, Thanks to the benevolent Dean, who has graciously offered server space, all things should be go again. Sorry again to any trouble I caused on other peeps’ servers.
Wilco has been playing an album’s worth of new material over the past year or so. Here they are, in no particular order.
My early favorites are “What Light” (mostly for the crystalline, Band-like sound of it) and “Rafters and Beams” (because I’m a sucker for ballads). Also, some people seem to be labeling it “Rafters and Dreams,” but I like “Beams” better so I’m gonna stick with that, until someone learns me good.
1. Let’s Not Get Carried Away (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
2. Side With the Seeds (25 November, Auditorium Theatre)
3. What Light (16 July, Pines Theater)
4. Shake It Off (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
5. Impossible Germany (9 October, Von Braun Center Concert Hall)
6. On and On and On (22 September 2005, Cain’s Ballroom)
7. Lullaby For Rafter and Beams (Tweedy solo, 27 October, Foellinger Auditorium)
8. Patient With Me (Tweedy solo, 27 October, Foellinger Auditorium)
9. Walken (24 November, Auditorium Theatre)
10. Let’s Fight (16 July, Pines Theater)
11. Is That The Thanks I Get? (Tweedy solo, 4 April, Hotel S ‘n’ S)
12. Maybe The Sun Will Shine (date unknown) (thanks, Fred!)
Thanks to netZoo and rbally and probably some other blogs. (Now that this has been picked up by Pitchfork & all, I s’ppose I should thank the original tapers/posters once again, apologize for the sexytime bandwidth explosion, give big ups to Wilco for their taping policy, and remind everybody that the complete shows are available by following the previous links.)
Hey, the Frow Show is back! Andy & the Ropeadope crew have a few more episodes ready to go.
Listen here.
Episode 09: Summer Salt!
A late summer mix burned for friends (with some modifications).
1. “Carl and Passions Radio Promo” – The Beach Boys (from Endless Bummer: The Very Worst of the Beach Boys)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Toc” – Tom Ze (from Estudando o Samba)
4. “Fille ou Garcon (Sloop John B)” – Stone (from Femmes de Paris, v. 1)
5. “Bat Macumba” – Gilberto Gil (from Panis et Circences)
6. “Dreaming” – Sun Ra (from The Singles)
7. “Think Small” – Tall Dwarfs (from Fork Songs)
8. “All Things Must Pass” – George Harrison (from All Things Must Pass)
9. “Singing to the Sunshine” – Cardinal (from Cardinal)
10. “It’s Up To You” – The Shop Assistants (from Shopping Parade EP)
11. “In Another Land” – The Rolling Stones (from Her Satanic Majesties Request)
12. “Some Clouds Don’t” – Fred Frith (from Cheap at Half the Price)
13. “Mr. Tough” – Yo La Tengo (from I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass)
14. “Magnolia” – Apollo Sunshine (from Apollo Sunshine)
15. “Panis et Circences (reprise)” – Os Mutantes (from Technicolor)
16. “Those To Come” – The Shins (from Chutes Too Narrow)
I spent part of my Saturday afternoon reading on my couch and part of my Saturday afternoon playing video games with the neighbors. The latter felt healthier. Part of this had to do with the fact that they just acquired a Nintendo Wii. We strapped on the little controller boxes and played. It was social and, if not exactly exercise, then not exactly anything else, either. And I certainly wasn’t alone in my own head anymore.
The baseball game was primitive. There is only batting and pitching. No fielding, no baserunning. In the bottom of the third, the last inning in this stripped-down rendition of the rules, with the score tied at zero, my friend hit a long fly out to left field with a man on third and one out. There was no option to tag, so no run scored. The game stayed tied, and there were no extra innings.
But the experience was pretty remarkable, especially bowling — which, when done in a group of four, strangely mimicked the group act of actually bowling. Even the gestures, mostly involving lining up shots and putting spin on the ball, felt real. I thought often of my college bowling coach.
Naturally, when playing these games, we all assumed the natural postures of what we would do when playing meatspace sports. In baseball, we held the controller like a bat. In golf, like a club. But we don’t have to. One can trick the game into thinking he’s made a full swing with just the slightest twitch of the wrist. But it is a precise twitch, subtler than the intricate hand-eye coordination required for traditional video games.
Until Nintendo releases boxes that attach to the ankle, to mimic the motion of running (or Dance Dance Revolution), the Wii probably won’t slim down the post-cherubic youth of America. But it could do something else. The first generation of home video games refined the use of the thumb: those of the rotary era still dial phones with the pointer fingers while members of the Nintendo generation are more likely to use their thumbs. Who knows what the Wii will really do?
o Should you have a mouse problem, I highly recommend Havahart’s mouse trap. My roommate set it up today. By the time I got home, Sparky (at least, I think it was Sparky) was waiting for me. I tried to release him into the vacant lot, but he skittered off in the direction of the cake factory. Hopefully, he’s in heaven right now, consuming mountain-sized puffs of cinnamon-flavored goo. Safe travels, Sparky!
o Two years old, but news to me: Gabriel Garcia Marquez is writing the script for the film adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera. Actually, I guess, he wrote the script, since the film is allegedly in production.
o Striking a bit too close to home is The Burg, a YouTube-era sitcom. (Thx, RG.)
o Gotta head up to the Bronx for the Tropicalia exhibition sometime soon.
o Lists of essential movies and whatnot are somewhat silly, though I appreciate the authoritative, core curriculum-like functionality of Jim Emerson’s 102 Films You Must See Before…. At any rate, it’s been kind of a fun project to check stuff off lately.
The summer before eighth grade, in 1992, I read John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley as an assignment for fall English. If I’m remembering correctly, that same English teacher — fresh out of college and new to the school that year — passed out an untitled/uncredited novel chapter on the first day of class. After a few days, maybe, he explained it was from a book called On the Road. Later, he assigned us Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. It is probably not a coincidence that, the same autumn, I discovered hippie music.
But when I read Travels With Charley, I was bored by all Steinbeck’s sightseeing (at least, that’s what I remember the novel being about). What completely enchanted me was the preparation for the journey.
Equipping Rocinante was a long and pleasant process. I took far too many things, but I didn’t know what I would find. Tools for emergency, tow lines, a small block and tackle, a trenching tool and crowbar, tools for making and fixing and improvising. Then there were emergency foods. I would be late in the northwest and caught by snow. I prepared for at least a week of emergency. Water was easy; Rocinante carried a thirty-gallon tank.
I thought I might do some writing along the way, perhaps essays, surely notes, certainly letters. I took paper, carbon, typewriter, pencils, notebooks, and not only those but dictionaries, a compact encyclopedia, and a dozen other reference books, heavy ones. I suppose our capacity for self-delusion is boundless.
I suppose I was in preparation myself, which is perhaps what appealed to me about it. It was a good summer, though, reading-wise. I also acquired my first Bloom County collection, Penguin Dreams and Stranger Tales, and, on a trip to visit family friends in Maine, a copy of Hunter S. Thompson‘s Great Shark Hunt.
POSTSCRIPT: After posting last night, I got into bed & finished off Jonathan Ames’ What’s Not To Love?. In the epilogue, Ames spends a paragraph talking about what he’s bringing with him to Europe, concluding, “well, enough of that, but packing isn’t talked about sufficiently in travel writing.” Pleasant convergence.
Song reviews:
“Wind on the Mountain II” – A Taste of Ra (PaperThinWalls.com)
“If You Rescue Me” – Gael Garcia Bael & co.
“Minute By Minute” – Girl Talk
“Naomi” – Neutral Milk Hotel (Joe Beats remix)
“Wizard’s Sleeve” – Yo La Tengo
“Alice’s Restaurant” – Arlo Guthrie
Album reviews:
Eisenhower – The Slip (JamBands.com)
Meek Warrior – Akron/Family (JamBands.com)
Modern Times – Bob Dylan (Relix)
Out Louder – Medeski, Scofield, Martin, and Wood (Relix)
The Eraser – Thom Yorke (Relix)
Colorado ’88 – Phish (Relix)
Live in Brooklyn – Phish (Relix)
Live reviews:
Beck at the Knitting Factory, 26 October 2006
The Music of Bob Dylan at Lincoln Center, 9 November 2006
Movie review:
Fast Food Nation directed by Richard Linklater (Paste)
Columns and misc.:
Looper in the Dark, wunderkammern27.com micro-fiction
BRAIN TUBA: War on War (What’s It Good For), parts 11-13
Only in print:
o December/January Relix (Les Claypool cover): album reviews of the Apples in Stereo, Norfolk & Western, and Phish.
o Paste #27 (Christopher Guest cover): profile of Nicholas Hytner
“If You Rescue Me” – the cast of Science of Sleep (download here)
from Science of Sleep OST (2006)
released by Astralwerks (buy)
(file expires January 22nd)
Hearing “If You Rescue Me” in the middle of Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep threw me for a loop. Like trying desperately to recall a dream, appropriately enough, I knew the melody that Gael Garcia Bernal and the cast were singing, but couldn’t place it until the performance was almost over: the Velvet Underground’s “After Hours” (one of the loveliest of the all-time lovelies).
I have no idea where the new lyrics came from, but I love the mood they create, of being lost in a grotesque adult world: “all the cars drive so fast, and the people are mean, and sometimes it’s hard to find food.” Like Cat Power’s approach on her Covers Record, the rewrite is something like a literal interpretation: a verbal articulation of the song’s emotional content that somehow happens to also fit the constraints of the original melody. Pleasant coincidence, eh?
