I have a new hero, and he hails from my home state of New Jersey. He goes by the name of NJWEEDMAN. Look at his website. It is a highly informative and fascinating read. I was quite shocked to learn about how the gover—just kidding. That guy is fucked up in the head. I love the steadily increasing font size that eventually becomes too large to read. Good going, NJWEEDMAN! Keep fighting the good fight!
It’s Friday, kids [note: Faithful reader Evan from KC has informed me that today is actually Thursday. I apologize profusely to you all for being such a retard]. You know what that means. Top ten! Unfortunately it’d be way too long if I posted ten of the following examples, so I’m going to cut this in half and offer a top five instead.
TOP FIVE WORST ARTIST BIOS ON THE ‘NET
– Cansei de Ser Sexy – From São Paulo, Brazil comes CSS, the first South American band Sub Pop has foisted upon the global marketplace. (Sub Pop, former ‘indie’ torchbearers who released wonderful records from the likes of Six Finger Satellite, Codeine, Earth, and the Wipers, is now looking overseas to try and break ‘the next big thing’. That doesn’t sound to me like a label keen on deviating from mainstream industry practices) Cansei de Ser Sexy, Portuguese for ‘Tired of Being Sexy,’ (gag) is improbably, unbelievably and nearly eponymously their debut. It is a thick, pulsating thing full of haphazard synths and a come-on of call and response that tears down any attempt at posturing. (Yeah, those non-call and response, non-pulsating, non-haphazard bands are all just posturing) It is equal parts rock mantra and throwback into something new, transcending boundaries of genre and geography. (It’s equal parts sexy and ugly, similarly slutty and prudish, at once polished and dirty) It careers [sic?] full speed into dance territory, into the unknown and untouched, to emerge all hot and bothered with wild electro-rock. Pretension? Absent. Friction? Probable. (Wait, you’re telling me the band with the utterly modern ‘electro-rock’ tag, who call themselves Tired of Being Sexy, who are synth-drven and haphazard and calling and responding are NOT doing something pretentious?) They are the un-pretension: unfinished, exposed, and throwing all they have right at you. It is quick, tightly-wound, unfastened and supreme. Not a sneer but a giggle. (I’m so confused. Almost every description you’ve written is the hallmark of a shitty, pretentious band. Why do they look like a fucking Gap ad in all their publicity photos if they are unpretentious? How can something be both ‘supreme’ and void of ego? That doesn’t make a lick of sense) To paraphrase from the Portuguese: ‘Not only music, but a new way to live with it. An unfinished group that, unlike preserving itself until getting to the point, was bravely showing off, turning everything into style.’ (Oh sure, they might bravely show off, but don’t you dare call them effete!) Fashion. Art. Design. Cinema. (Pretentious.) Panties thrown and received. Micro shorts and dirty legs. How does it happen? It happens like this…” (I’m officially sickened. Why didn’t you just write “American Apparel micro shorts. I think we all know exactly what you mean. I hate this stupid, pretentious band and their stupid pretentious biography.)
– Jesse Sykes – The Barsuk Records website has perhaps the worst artist bios I have ever read. Each one is more outlandish than the last. The one for a band called The Long Winters reads, “John Roderick writes songs that make you feel like you’ve been talking to someone really interesting in an airport for the last hour and, although you know you’ll never see them again, you just told them your whole life story and a part of you will love them forever.” Oh yeah, we all know what that’s like! Am I right folks? Anyway, here’s Jesse Sykes’: “The word ‘artist’ these days is used to refer to pretty much any musician, but few songwriters or performers approach their musical life with the degree of intense concern as does Jesse Sykes. (She’s a true artist, unlike all those other musicians who just skate through life proclaiming to be artists. You’d be shocked at how many people do this. Last week I saw a transient playing guitar on a street corner and then he had the audacity to tell me he was an artist. That guy and Jesse Sykes have nothing in common! She’s real, he’s homeless!) Although originally a visual artist (Am I supposed to respect her more now?) Sykes sings that ‘only music sets my soul free’. (She’s never tried mescaline, I take it) She’s always, however, brought a deep visual sense to her textually—and texturally—rich songwriting. Her new album was produced, recorded and mixed by Tucker Martine and Martin Feveyear, with additional recording and production by Randall Dunn. (So. The. Fuck. What.) Like, love, lust & the open halls of the soul is a musically deep piece of work, addressing themes of love, illusion, forgiveness, and the universality of the human experience. (Unlike every other songwriter who has ever existed, Sykes has somehow distanced herself from the rest of the pack by addressing heretofore unspoken—dare I say taboo—subjects such as love, illusion, and the human experience) Her band, The Sweet Hereafter, explore new sounds with a confident ease. Open halls‘ guitar solos and driving rhythms could easily be lost gems cut by Crazy Horse between takes with Neil, yet the record retains the atmospheric beauty of much of Sykes’ earlier work as well. (So, which is it? Is it Crazy Horse or is it atmospheric and beautiful? I hate when these bios say, ‘It’s as experimental as Throbbing Gristle, but it’s also really sonorous, like the Beatles) The band’s musical growth has been mirrored by the evolution and maturation of Sykes’ distinctive singing voice, which time has saturated with a weathered wisdom (read: tone-deaf) that connects to something beyond the singer and the song. And the visual aesthetic of Sykes’ songwriting has never been more evocative. Listen closely to her stark descriptions of isolation, sometimes-swaggering toughness, fragile human emotion, and the possibilities of love, and you’ll hear something that perfectly, tenderly, and surprisingly captures the feel of the 21st century so far—it’s the sound of vulnerability, and the sound of the best and most relevant piece of art Jesse Sykes has ever made.” (Yes, she really captures the essence of isolation with her wordless descriptions of it. She’s tough, yet fragile. She rocks, but she’s also tender and womanly. She’s every cliche I’ve ever heard about a female songwriter, yet she’s the complete opposite).
– Brightblack Morning Light – Nathan D. ‘Nabob’ Shineywater (Okay, I give up, you win) was raised rurally in Alabama by two older men who became known in the community for enhancement of the spiritual side of life. The eldest chose to be a rural preacher, who sang gospels. The other man chose to distribute a refined white powdered South American plant to anyone interested, in hopes to enhance the ‘party spirit’ side of life. (I hate you and your stupid background. Is there any other way to be raised in Alabama than rurally? Do you really want it publicized that you were raised by strange men? We’re you molested a lot? Is this why your music is so fragile and wimpy?) Between these two men, Nabob spent his weekdays singing along to Steely Dan. (This is important because…) The weekends however were spent with the aging community of peanut farmers in church, singing highly spiritual gospel. ‘Their voices were very diverse. All of them old, except mine (Good for fucking you, kiddo!). Some were missing teeth, adding percussion to the ‘SSS’ in S words. All the men and women sang with both sadness and joy, depending on their day, and they sang as prayer. Singing in that way is the only way to sing! It wasn’t Sacred Harp singing, it was straight ahead gospel that lent itself to the most common of people.’ (What a fascinating story. It all makes sense now. Your quirky backwoods upbringing inspired you to craft otherwise predictable ‘spiritual’ druggy hymns.) His best friend and music partner Rachael ‘Rabob’ Hughes was also raised rurally, in Montevallo, Alabama. The downtown area has a wonderful wooded park of cedar trees, some of them carved as huge faces. (And they all went “BOO!” whenever Rachel walked by them, and this haunted her, and then she grew up and wrote songs that tried to capture the scariness of the trees.) Within the town’s park Rachael’s father built an ornate waterfall. (Oh, okay. That’s relevant how?) The piano in their home was frequented by Southern Gospel as well. This is the crux of her playing style, which is solely released on vintage Rhodes pianos. (Considering Southern Gospel dates back to the turn of the century and Rhodes were produced beginning in the mid-’60s, I’d have a hard time saying that Southern Gospel and these “vintage” pianos go hand in hand. But, whatever, if you want to insinuate that her using a Rhodes is somehow enables her to capture the spirit of the Kingsmen, be my guest) Rural Northern California is where the two pitch tents in the warm months, and live communally in a small old cabin in the colder months. (Shut up. Shut up. I hate you.) Brightblack Morninglight in recent live settings have included newest member Elias Reitz’ complementory woven thunder of bells, tabla and other chiff-chaff-clap-boom percussions. Other members include Noah Wilson who has long been patterning his own drumkit beats with the shadows of invisible dew drops he found while photographing fields in Humboldt County, California. (I officially hate this band and their manufactured holistic sound) After 18 months of writing songs and playing & touring with bands like Bonnie Prince Billy, White Magic, Women & Children, Papa M, Joanna Newsome, Vetiver, Entrance, Gojogo, Daniel Higgs’ Magic Alphabet, Lungfish, and recently making their UK debut at the Slint-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties, Brightblack will commence recording their Matador debut later this Spring. (I heard it, it was okay, but I’d rather listen to dozens of other artists if I want to hear “meh” drug music)
– Microphones / Mt. Eerie – “In school one of the outlets I found was music. Making tapes and loud noise and staying up late and getting into coffee and cookies. (Cookies? Really? This is the first sentence of your musical autobiography, guy. I’m not interested in hearing about dipping Oreos in coffee or adorable little milk mustaches) Anacortes is, to me, in a beautiful place and I have always loved it here, and been creeped out in a really good way in the black forest at night (Oh, yes! Remember that one time we went camping, and we made s’mores and told ghost stories! Oh, Phil, you’re like an overgrown child. It’s so, so cute) Once (at band camp?) I realized that it was possible to make songs and books and pictures about this sweet creepiness, and not do any other ‘work’, my life got hyperactive. (like an overgrown child? Yeah, okay, I get the point already. You don’t want to grow old, you’re a Toys R Us kid who likes to make flipbooks and doodles and crap even though he’s pushing thirty) Beginning in 1995 I recorded tapes by myself on borrowed machines and got deeper into the world (Don’t go too far into the woods, remember what happened to Hansel and Gretel?). In 1997 I moved to Olympia Wash. and did the same thing and lived among friends who were all older than me. (Wow, a real child prodigy! I mean, you were 20 at the time so I guess is isn’t really any sort of monumental feat. The fact that you were living with ‘older people’ just means that you befriended other kids who didn’t go to college in Olympia, which, quite frankly, isn’t hard to do) For 5 years I stayed there, living in different houses (A real troubadour! Eat your heart out, Sordello!) and always recording at the Dub Narcotic studio in the K compound. The idea that I could also travel around and sing and dance in front of people, and get enough money to live did not occur to me. (So then I can assume it never occurred to you that singing and dancing is for hack musicians? You know who else dances around on stage? Morrissey. Good job, Phil. You’re the “indie” Morrissey) I traveled around a lot anyway, and I got enough money to live. I ate dinner with my friends every single night. (Oh man, what a life! Eating dinner with your friends every SINGLE night! No parents telling you to wash your hands first, or clean up and get ready for bed!) I worked on albums for 1 year each before releasing them, usually beginning work at dawn. (Your dedication knows no bounds. I don’t know anybody else who has ever woken up at dawn to a job ever) I did 4 albums in this way under the band name the Microphones, and also many other more marginal music projects and books and souvenirs. (You call them souvenirs, I call them worthless kitsch) This all culminated in the death-themed album Mount Eerie. In 2002 I went on an endless tour and stopped for the winter in northern Norway and died. (Wait, what? You went on an endless tour, STOPPED, and then killed off your persona so you cold do the exact same thing under a different name? Highly retarded) The next spring I returned (like Jesus, but with better songs) and pretended I was a different person and a different band and artist and singer and everything. (Which is quite vexing, because usually when you pretend to be someone else, you change something about either your appearance or musical output, but you’re doing the exact same thing the same way) I began calling my songs Mt. Eerie songs and working slowly on a new idea: dark mountain, mount eerie, cold songs, grandmother’s face, and so on (cookie face, milk mustache, daddy’s shoe, old cartoon, mommy’s eye crusties, mount doody…). I moved back to Anacortes where a renaissance had begun again, finally! (A second renaissance? Really? I don’t recall ever hearing about the first one) So Now I live here and I am enjoying it. I am still constantly traveling, playing weird shows everywhere (ooh! weird factor! gotta check these guys out on one of their endless tours before they stop and die again!), and making up songs. I also am recording and releasing records by my friends, whose music I love.”
– The Broken West – “The Broken West formed in Los Angeles in the summer of 2004, a group of friends from all across the country, coming together based on their mutual love of music. (It was just like in Steven King’s The Stand, when all the “good” people magically came together in Boulder, and all the “bad” people went to Las Vegas) Originally known as The Brokedown, the band changed their name in the fall of 2006 in response to concerns from another band out of Chicago with a similar name. Names may change, but great music still remains. (Tell that to Dave Pajo. What’s up with those last two records under the new moniker. Yeesh!) So far in their young rock and roll life The Broken West have already released a critically acclaimed EP–The Dutchman’s Gold–and criss-crossed the country several times, we’re assuming in a beat-up van. (Oh Merge, you know what happens when you assume! You give people the impression you’re not putting any money into a band when you clearly are!) In January 2007, Merge released their debut full length, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, wherein the lads craft their roughly elegant pop with infectious confidence that belies their relatively short career to date. (Their much-expected follow up, I Might Call Back, Okay I’ll Call is due sometime in the next five years) I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is a true power pop gem–shimmering and cool, with sharp edges and soaring melodies–recorded over the course of a year under the watchful eye and patient, insightful ears of engineer Raymond Richards at his Red Rockets Glare studio in Rancho Park, CA. The process was truly a labor of love (As opposed to the thousands of records that have been recorded by artists who could care less about the finished product), wherein the band grew by leaps and bounds as songwriters and musicians (They play their own instruments and write their own music). The results are captured on a record that ranks with the best of debuts, a mature and cohesive album. (It falls somewhere between Are You Experienced and The Velvet Underground and Nico) Like any great pop record, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On deals with eternal themes of isolation, distance and the longing for a center–a sense of place–in this topsy-turvy world. (I’m so anxiously awaiting the 12″ split between The Broken West and Jesse Sykes, I’m practically orgasming at the thought of all the potential songs about isolation) The Kinks, Big Star, and The Byrds are obvious touchstones, as well as more contemporary favorites like Spoon and Teenage Fanclub, but The Broken West’s triumphant songs stand strongly on their own. (We can’t quite explain their sound other than telling you exactly who they sound like, but it’s a sound entirely their own!) Over the last several years, LA has once again become a fertile proving ground for many young musicians and bands. Not since its psych-pop heyday in the late 60’s or the punk explosion of the early 80’s, has the volume and variety of great music emerging from southern California been this diverse. (Really? Name some. I’m been looking for some good bands to support out here) The Broken West hail from the Echo Park and Silverlake neighborhoods that serve as an epicenter of this new LA scene,’ … (Ugh. I give up.).
