Small World

Good read over at Pere Lebrun.

The world he describes reminds me of something small yet somehow pertinent that I deal with every day. At work, I read email constantly. It is the preferred method of communication even amongst people who sit next to each other physically. With this much email, a "house style" has developed, and the most infuriating aspect of it is that, in an otherwise fully-typed email, the only words ever abbreviated are "please", aka "plz" and "thanks", aka "thx". Those are usually the only "nice" words in an email, so the fact that they are the ones abbreviated seems suggestive of the lack of real interest in or concern for other human beings.

So... please read the essay I linked to.

Thank You.

The Other Kind of B & B

I guess I have some readers and I am guessing some of you are here in New York so I am just going to throw this out there.

In general, I'm not looking to whine. I just want the world to be a better place.

And what would make my world a better place (dis-including the death of capitalism, the end of complacent bourgeois culture and having an apartment large enough for a cat to be happy in) is simple: a place I could go after work to get a good burger and two beers and not be fucking annoyed before, during or afterwards.

Given the expanse of Brooklyn, and the constant proliferation of "authentic" neighborhood bars, you would think that this would be an easy thing to find. But no, of course not.

What are the criteria?

1. The place should be on the 2/3/4/5 or A, C lines in Brooklyn not East of the Nostrand A/C stop.

2. The place should be usually not too full but not empty either. There should be two seats at the bar.

3. The clientele should not be too tilted towards any type of social group, including mine, whatever the fuck that is (seriously, I don't know).

4. The bar should offer a good, correctly-cooked burger that doesn't take itself too seriously.

5. The bar should have a few above average beers. At least Yuengling or Brooklyn Lager. Better and/or more esoteric beers are welcome but optional (I don't need an Orval or an Ayinger or anything like that with my burger).

6. Two beers and a burger with a generous tip should be less than $25. Less than $20 would be even better.

7. I should not have to order my fries separately.

Applebee's meets all of the above criteria. I don't want to go to Applebee's. But I am starting to think about it. Because I can name at least twenty well-reviewed places that can't even meet these basic standards, standards that are met all over the country every day. But, seemingly, not in Brooklyn.

Your ideas?

Don't say Dutch Boy, Franklin Park, Soda, Cornelius, Woodwork, Plan B, or any place in DUMBO. I have yet to explore the region between the Atlantic Ave subway complex and Grand Army Plaza (basically, Flatbush Avenue). Maybe there is something behind Atlantic towards Ft. Greene but not too far from the subway?

Thanks.

PS Anyone have any klew as to why there is so much space between paragraphs? I can't seem to fix. Thanks again.

Tolstoy on 21st century music...

... and its "critics"....

...from Anna Karenin:

He had a talent for understanding art and probably, with his gift for copying, he imagined he possessed the creative powers essential for an artist. After hesitating for some time which style of painting to take up - religious, historical, genre, or realistic - he set to work. He appreciated all the different styles and could find inspiration in any of them, but he could not conceive that it was possible to be ignorant of the different schools of painting and to be inspired directly by what is within the soul, regardless of whether what is painted will belong to any recognized school. Since he did not know this, and drew his inspiration not directly from life but indirectly form other painters' interpretations of life, he found inspiration very readily and easily; and equally readily and easily produced painting very similar to the particular style he was trying to imitate.

The graceful and effective French school appealed to him more than any other, and in that manner he began painting a portrait of Anna in Italian costume, and he and everyone who saw it considered the portrait a great success.

Mor(e)on Malaise

Since 1999? Uh-oH!

Hydrogen Hitz

Here's Simon on an article by Stefan Goldmann on Little White Earbuds.

What's most curious to me is the way these problems continue to feed on themselves. All the people reacting to the "fakery" of Beatport-b(r)(l)and-techno who have just bought themselves a few old synths towards doing something more "authentic" have already created their own overpopulated genre of Theo/Moodymann/Ron Trent-inspired deep house that is just as boring in its own way as yet another Mike Dehnert release. Where do all of these people come from, and what lies behind their compulsion to make music? The music itself sure doesn't explain anything.

Given the fairly accurate progression of events that Goldmann lays out, one would imagine that there would actually be less music out there as opportunists would be turned off by the low rate of return. But no. The less money there is, the more people are into it! I can't imagine that they are all pure in their motivation.

I think the most important part of what Goldmann wrote about is how it's not only artists who are suffering from the lack of income and the lack of having the possibility to really develop their talents (that has to be a major reason music sucks now - it takes, what, 10,000 hours to become expert at something - that's almost 5 years with 40 hours a week of work), but also distributors, record store owners, critics, etc. Some may describe these people as parasites. I disagree. But even if I did agree with that sentiment, I would still find them valuable for one reason: they are people who want to be part of the music scene who are, bless them, usually not making tracks.

That't the whole catch of the DIY thing, isn't it? If you are trying to actually build some alternative form of society, than that society needs to be a complete one. Which is to say, there needs to be people to perform all the different functions that makes that society run. If there is no way to participate in this alternate society except as an artist, than everyone who wants to participate becomes an artist; one who completely lacks any meaningful infrastructure of support. I hate to use the word, but this is unsustainable.

And, at least for me, it negatively affects the music. I can't be objective. I am a nobody in my little scene. I buy records once a week and try to check new stuff out sporadically, and yet, still, I feel like everyone is up in my face, you know? So much self-promotion. Bands make no money but they make music videos. And there is no rest from it. I dislike the music because of it. My respite is listening to old records. Which only means that new artists have to try harder to reach me. And so the cycle continues...

I always feel like

Depeche Mode are really one of the most underrated bands of the 80s aren't they (and the 90s to a certain extent)? At least, I always feel that way when I go through an intense phase of listening to them nonstop, which happens more than a few times a year, and is happening now.

It's not like they weren't popular. It's not like they still aren't. But, perhaps like a heavy metal act (and, from what I understand, THE heavy metal act, Black Sabbath, at least for a while), any critical respect for them is fairly begrudging. Once a band has millions of fans, and a critic has been enlisted to write about them for a national paper, their article usually must contain some acknowledgement, usually a backhanded compliment, that, yes, people like them.

But even with their millions of fans and millions of albums sold, they still somehow feel like perennial underdogs to me. They don't fit the narrative of rock music, of course, nor hip hop, and their influence on electronic music was to inspire numerous people to pick up synths and make music that didn't sound like Depeche Mode. They've only been "repaid" by spawning countless bootleg remixes of their tracks.

They only get a page in Rip It Up and Start Again. Christgau hates them (of course). But Daniel Miller signed them. They worked with Gareth Jones, Flood and Francois Kevorkian* in the first decade of their career, and hired Anton Corbijn to do what I think is some of the best work of his music video career. The worst you could say about them is that many of the lyrics are too straightforward. On the other hand, the composition is excellent, the arranging, especially during Alan Wilder's years with the band, is excellent, the sound design is outstanding, and Music for the Masses and especially Violator are some of the best-engineered albums I know (admittedly it's easier when the instruments plug directly into the mixer). They brought (admittedly post-experimental-phase) OMD and Wire to play the Rose Bowl with them. Most laudable of all, perhaps, is how well they balanced integrity and success. Their records got darker and less tied to conventions of pop songwriting and they got more popular because of it. When does that happen?

Anyways, today's pick:

*really, this group along with Alan Moulder were a big part of a sort of "texture-focused" branch of the music narrative of the 80s and 90s that I think will eventually be looked upon as just as fertile as the line one could draw around and through the Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, Eno solo and as producer, David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the 1970s. I mean, check the discographies!

Now that I am empty of thought...

... I have created an email address for this damn blauwg.

I think it a damn fine one, too.

Check it out over yonder ->