Dave’s a Person You Don’t Know, Too

Well, kind of – somewhat to my relief, it wasn’t the full-on interview treatment that Raina got, so I didn’t talk have to talk about myself much.  Instead, I participated as a guest on a Spotcast episode of Euge’s People You Don’t Know site, in which he talks with someone about a particular topic.  In this case, we talked about U2.  I’ve been told it’s interesting and that I’m speaking in “my nervous voice.”  I’m not sure what that means.

Give it a listen here.

Raina is a Person You Don’t Know

Well, you may know her, but she’s one of the first guests on our friend Eugene’s new podcast interview site, People You Don’t Know.  Here’s his explanation of the site: 

PYDK is a semi-professional interview show where I talk to normal, everyday people about their story, where they’re from, how they got to where they are now, and their views, opinions, and beliefs on politics, culture, media, art, or anything else that comes to mind. At the end of each interview, they recommend someone else I don’t know who’d be interesting to talk to.

To be completely honest, I was initially skeptical about how much entertainment value he might be able to squeeze out of semi-random people in this format.  But I’ve since listened to every one of these podcasts so far, and each is compelling in its own way, due in equal parts to the folks being interviewed and Euge’s engaging, creative interviewing style.  The guy’s cranking them out at an amazing pace, too.

Raina’s interview (about librarians, feminism, and the phenomenon of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl) is here.

Music Marathon 2008, Part 13 (Vampire Weekend – Wolf Parade)

And a sprint to the finish (which means I’m going proofread-free)!

Vampire Weekend – s/t
The members of Vampire Weekend just dare you to hate them.  They’re a bunch of well-educated, upper-class guys who look less “amiable, troubled Wes Anderson artiste wannabes” and more “obnoxious, privileged Whit Stillman bores”.  They dabble in African music that seems more derived from Paul Simon, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel than from any firsthand experience.  Then there’s that name… that ridiculous name.

Music Marathon 2008, Part 12 (Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – TV on the Radio)

My original intent was to finish this by the end of January, so I’m going to have to speed things up a little.  Forgive me if my reviews become a little… impressionistic from here on out.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash
One of the problems I have with iTunes and iPod technology is that it’s kind of a pain in the ass to maintain sort order by last name where it should apply.  So I ended up manually moving all of the albums in my master 2008 playlist into alphabetical order, and I missed this one.

Overkill River, Or ‘That’s an Awful Lot of Analysis for Some “Mid-Level Band”‘ Part 5

‘Not Sailing Just for Sport’:  The Biographical Songs and Transport

Not content to simply tell stories, Will Sheff injects an ongoing symbolic motif into his ruminations on fame and artistry.  The Stage Names and The Stand Ins are largely about transportion, whether on a personal or social level.  His characters aimlessly sail, take shore leave, and look back upon their bad trips with disdain. They also occasionally pull others along for the ride.  In a bit of inspired parallelism, both albums end with biographical pieces on doomed artists, but the respective journeys they embark upon couldn’t be more different.

Overkill River, Continued Again…

So if you’re actually wading through this series we’ve got going, part 4 is up at The Geek Prospectus.  Check it out. 

Overkill River, Or ‘That’s an Awful Lot of Analysis for “Some Mid-Level Band,”’ Part 3

Calliope in the Bleachers

We forget, at our own peril, what a Muse is capable of being. Granted, the waters have gotten a little muddy, as the Oxford English Dictionary nicely illustrates. On the one hand, the OED notes that a Muse is one of those nine lovely ladies, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, residents of Mount Helikon. Hesiod named them in the Theogony, heaped upon them stanzas of praise, acknowledging that “they breathed into [him]/a voice divine.” They are the sounds he makes; the very air that he breathes.

But, somewhere along the line, the job description shifted: “A person (often a female lover) or thing regarded as the source of an artist’s inspiration; the presiding spirit or force behind any person or creative act.” While it’s still a flattering position to be in, please note the shift from activity to passivity; from respiration to inspiration. The small-m muse may still be key to the creative act, but all she really has to do is sit there and look nice and/or make the artist miserable to achieve her aims. But even this is an overstatement, in that the muse has no aims to speak of. She lacks intention and autonomy, but, most importantly, she lacks a voice. As the OED tells us, the muse could be a person, a thing, or even an ephemeral spirit that is content to merely preside. Somehow, they have gone from having Hesiod by the throat to being little more than what is required to get the artist out of his comfy chair or off of his barstool. They have gone from being the prime mover to a pretty face.

Overkill River, Continued

Just a reminder to check out E’s terrific post at The Geek Prospectus for the second installment of our little cross-blog experiment series.  Raina’s contribution (part 3) should be up here later today.

Overkill River, Or ‘That’s an Awful Lot of Analysis for “Some Mid-Level Band”’ Part 1

So we’d been trying to come up with a project on which we could collaborate with our friends L and E from The Geek Prospectus for a while.  When we originally hatched this plan months ago, we were taking a cue from their excellent analyses of some Decemberists songs in their Daily Rec feature and the release of Okkervil River’s fantastic new album, The Stand Ins.  Well, work and graduate school got in the way, and The Stand Ins isn’t so new anymore, but it’s still fantastic – probably my favorite album of the year, in fact.  So I’m selfishly using this project to tie-in with my annual Music Marathon.

In any case, we decided to put together the thematic puzzles of The Stand Ins and its immediate predecessor, 2007’s The Stage Names, which may be an even better release, overall.  Originally conceived as a double-album, these works intertwine in fascinatingly specific ways, with multiple songs taking on different positions on the same theme and motifs repeating throughout.  This is our attempt at tying the whole deal together.

Music Marathon 2008, Part 11 (Ra Ra Riot – Sigur Rós)

In an effort to catch up, I’m resorting to a “clever” rating device for this post in honor of the new season of Lost (possible spoilers ahead).

Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line
Ra Ra Riot garnered a lot of acclaim and criticism on the idea that they’re some sort of Arcade Fire-Vampire Weekend synthesis.  The Arcade Fire comparison really doesn’t hold up aside from regular use of stringed instruments and death informing the release of their debut album (while Arcade Fire mourned the deaths of relatives on Funeral, The Rhumb Line is haunted by a recently-deceased bandmate).  The Vampire Weekend comparison, however, is apt.  While the spirit is far more melancholy, there’s a shared talent for melody, and the lead vocals that split the difference between the boyishness of Ezra Koenig (complete with what I think might be a regional accent – they share some odd vocal tics) and the aloof swagger of Spoon’s Britt Daniel.  Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend have done some touring together, so I’d be hesitant to pin either as the imitator, but they seem to have some shared aesthetic ideas.