Heroes

When I first heard TV On The Radio’s new cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” I wasn’t too keen on it. It’s on the new War Child: Heroes album.

I love TV On The Radio, they’re one of my favourite bands at the moment. But I’ve always thought that “Heroes” is the perfect song and saw no reason to mess with it. But the more I listen to the cover now, the more I love it.

My take on cover songs in general is that if you can’t make it better or different, then don’t bother. I don’t particularly love the Scissor Sisters’ cover of “Comfortably Numb,” but it’s vastly different from the original and I respect how good it is. To make it different you don’t necessarily have to change the genre – sometimes the change is as subtle as updating it for a modern audience. Hole’s “Gold Dust Woman” brought a great song to a whole generation of grunge rockers that probably weren’t listening to Fleetwood Mac – and it was good. Courtney Love brought a dirtiness out of the song that Stevie Nicks could only hint at.

TV On The Radio’s “Heroes” somehow makes the song new while still remaining true to the Bowie spirit. It’s hard to match Bowie’s vocals, particularly on “Heroes,” but TVOTR’s version has a deep bass that pulls the listener inside the song and gives it a different kind of power to move.

Listen to the song on Pitchfork.

Sasquatch

I spent all of last weekend at the Sasquatch Music Festival. It was held at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington state. Whoever had the brilliant idea to set up an Amphitheater down there deserves a great big gold star. It was so beautiful it almost didn’t look real.

There was so much good music I can’t even begin to describe all of it. I can say that seeing The Cure play a live show was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Robert Smith is looking a little chunky and washed up — almost like a human version of his South Park character rather than the other way around — but he still sounded incredible and they played a very tight set. I wasn’t that excited about seeing R.E.M. initially. I was a big fan when I was in high school but I thought their more recent albums kind of sucked (except the newest one is pretty good). I was caught off guard by how much I enjoyed them though. They totally blew my mind, they were incredible. Modest Mouse started off a little shaky but ended up getting their energy going and doing a great job. M.I.A. rocked so hard I can’t even put words to it. Death Cab For Cutie was even better live than they are in the studio. Flight of the Conchords were hilarious. The New Pornographers were amazing. Everyone was amazing. The funnest set for me was definitely The Hives. Those guys know how to get a crowd going. And my favourite new musical discovery — Ghostland Observatory. I also really enjoyed Beirut and the Cold War Kids, neither of which I knew particularly well before I arrived. We also saw Rich Fulcher in the Comedy Tent. He plays Bob Fossil on The Mighty Boosh, one of mine and my roommate’s favourite shows.

Aside from the music though, I think what made the weekend so wonderful was the people I went with. I feel pretty lucky to have such amazing people in my life. We camped together for three nights and, despite the fact that we were all filthy by the end of it, we had more than enough fun to make it worthwhile.

The craziest thing happened on the second day as we were walking from the campsite to the venue. A big gust of wind came through and turned into a little twister. Then it picked up a tent that wasn’t pegged down and hurled it straight up into the air. Everyone watched in awe as the tent flew through the air, around and around, and eventually landed down in the bottom of the valley. Whoever owns that tent was probably pretty choked when they came back to camp that night to nothing. And the worst part is, they would have had no idea of the adventure their tent went on. They probably thought someone stole it.

My All-Time Top 5 Albums (for whoever may actually care)

While camping this weekend, we tried to sing through the entire Ziggy Stardust album. I love that album, there are very few out there that top it for me. Anyway, it got us talking about our all-time top albums, which is something I’ve thought about quite a lot, cause I’m a list-taker and that’s a particularly fun list to go through with people. My tastes shift a bit and I discover awesome music all the time, but there are a few things that never change. I occasionally have a hard time committing to all 5 — maybe cause I don’t like to close the door on the other choices — but I think I can safely say my all-time top 5 albums, in no particular order are:

David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Pink Floyd — Dark Side of the Moon
The Beatles — Abbey Road
Prince — Purple Rain
Radiohead — The Bends

Very close runners-up would be Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols; Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures; The Pixies’ Doolittle; and Modest Mouse’s Good News for People who Like Bad News. And if I were making a top 10, I think I’d feel conflicted if I didn’t add the Clash’s London Calling and The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty, both epic and amazing albums. I also feel compelled to mention The Wall — but really, although it is a great piece of work, I like Dark Side much better.

Jazz: Music for an Educated Elite?

Where did this stereotype come from that only “educated” people listen to Jazz and Classical? And what does that even mean? Who exactly qualifies as these educated elite? Does that mean surgeons are as likely to listen to Classical music as literary scholars, and that neither should be listening to Pop if they take themselves at all seriously? And how does that account for people like my step-sister in Alberta, who is “educated,” works in a Dentist’s office, and listens to Nickelback? Or my grandma, who barely finished high school but loves Beethoven? And what about me? Some people may consider me “educated,” and I sometimes listen to Classical, but I never listen to Jazz, and I have Britney Spears and Kanye West on my iPod. The whole thing makes me think of Howard Moon on the TV show The Mighty Boosh — the man who listens to Jazz and fancies himself an intellectual but, really, when you break it right down he’s just a socially awkward, pretentious geek. [It seems like everything in my life these days can be related back to the Boosh... scary.]

I got onto this rant because of a blog post by a friend of mine questioning the musical selection in book stores. I haven’t decided where I’m going to take it yet so I’ll return later with further ranting.

For the Love of God

I saw the movie Amadeus when I was 7 years old. It is based on Peter Shaffer’s play about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life and music, and his relationship with rival composer Antonio Salieri. At that point, I had been playing piano for 2 years already and Mozart quickly became an obsession for me. It was several years before I discovered just how much of Amadeus‘ plot was fictional, and several more years before I came to understand the power of that genre of storytelling. I suppose you could call it a historiographic metafiction, a sub-genre of postmodern literature, although I didn’t see this until yesterday when I read the play for the first time. Historiographic metafiction usually includes rewritings of historical characters and events and is written in a self-reflexive way that draws attention to the construction of the story and the apparatus through which it is being told. The best example I can think of is Jeanette Winterson’s fiction, but it is very common in all postmodern literature. Hollywood conventions necessarily rendered the film version of Amadeus as a biopic, but the structure and presentation of the play is entirely different. Salieri narrates the story directly to the audience as he is taking part in it, instantly making it a metafiction by drawing attention to the medium through which the story is being told. Although Salieri narrates the film as well, voice-over narration and flashback have become so naturalized in film that audiences barely notice them as conventions anymore unless the character speaks directly to the camera. Another major difference is in the structure. Shaffer wrote the play so that it would flow as Mozart’s music does. There are no scene breaks — the action is continuous and the sets are changed as the story is moving along. The dialogue is also very rhythmic and musical. Before I read the play I thought there would be very little I could take away from it, but it exceeded all my expectations and really drew me in. It was so powerful and beautiful and if I ever get a chance to see it produced on stage I would be ecstatic.

There were a couple of points that I noticed in the play that I never noticed in the film. Considering how many times I’ve seen the film I was feeling a bit stupid actually for not having seen them before. For example, there is a scene where Salieri writes a Welcome March for Mozart and Mozart unintentionally mocks him by playing several much more complex variations of it after only hearing it once. What I didn’t catch is that the final variation he plays is one of the movements from his Opera The Marriage of Figaro.

But the big thing I had missed is the title — Amadeus. It had never once occurred to me that there was a reason for calling it such and not Mozart or something similar. “Amadeus” means “the love of God” and the story is about Salieri’s battle with God through Mozart. And there’s another thing that had never really struck me before. Though I was aware in watching the film that Salieri was angry at God for making Mozart his instrument, it hadn’t really sunk in that that was the true conflict. Did I ever feel stupid when I finally figured it out. But then, I guess because the film comes across as more objective, I had never thought about the film as meaning anything beyond the obvious story it was telling.

If you have an hour to kill and you for some reason feel like reading a fantastic play, pick up Amadeus, it will be worth your while. And, even better, if you get a chance to see it on stage, GO! After reading the play yesterday I went to my parents’ house and played Mozart’s 12 Variations on A Vous Dirais-Je Maman (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) on the piano for 2 hours and I’ve never enjoyed it more.

If Only I’d Gotten There First!

Do you ever read something and think to yourself, “that was the book I should have written”? Or heard a song and thought something similar? I’m not just referring to things you really like. I mean creative output that is so close to home that, had you taken the time to make it yourself, it would have come out almost exactly the same.

Here is a brief list of things I should have made but I’m too lazy so someone beat me there (not to suggest I’m actually quite that multi-talented…).

The book I should have written: Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century by Greil Marcus.

The poem I should have written: “The Legs” by Robert Graves. (*see full text below)

The song I should have written: “One Two Three Four” by Feist.

The movie I should have made: Nowhere, dir. Gregg Araki.

The music video I should have made: “Here It Goes Again” by Ok Go.

Wow — that makes me sound really pretentious, doesn’t it? I don’t actually believe I would have done as good of a job with any of those ideas, but who knows cause I never tried!

—

“The Legs”

There was this road,
And it led up-hill,
And it led down-hill,
And round and in and out.

And the traffic was legs,
Legs from the knees down,
Coming and going,
Never pausing.

And the gutters gurgled
With the rain’s overflow,
And the sticks on the pavement
Blindly tapped and tapped.

What drew the legs along
Was the never-stopping
And the senseless, frightening
Fate of being legs.

Legs for the road,
The road for legs,
Resolutely nowhere
In both directions.

My legs at least
Were not in that rout:
On grass by the roadside
Entire I stood,

Watching the unstoppable
Legs go by
With never a stumble
Between step and step.

Though my smile was broad
The legs could not see,
Though my laugh was loud
The legs could not hear.

My head dizzied, then:
I wondered suddenly,
Might I too be a walker
From the knees down?

Gently I touched my shins.
The doubt unchained them:
They had run in twenty puddles
Before I regained them.

Most Definitely

I’m a big fan of Mos Def. I love his music, I think he’s innovative and his lyrics are tight and I respect his dedication to political and social issues. He’s also an awesome actor, something I’m especially more confident of after having seen him tonight in Be Kind Rewind, a movie I think all of you should go out and see immediately. It was funny, strange, interesting, and rather touching. Especially great for movie buffs like me, who experience a special kind of geeky pleasure in seeing how films reference and play with other films and arts.

His blatant disregard for proper grammar on his My Space page kind of broke my heart. But hey, who am I to judge? My grammar sucks most of the time. And I don’t know what I was expecting from someone named ‘Mos Def’ anyway. I’m sure I’ll get over it. My love for him is not that fickle.

Your Ex-Lover is Dead

Since I have little else to say today, I’ll take this opportunity to let you know that I am obsessed with music videos. It all started when I was in Edinburgh in early January. I was staying with a friend and every night before and/or after going out we would sit and watch the music video channel. Now that our North American music video channels are over-ridden with reality tv and celebrity gossip shows, it’s been a long time since I just watched music videos for hours on end. And you know what? It was awesome. It’s probably a good thing we don’t really have that here anymore cause I would watch it all day every day. As is I spend an inordinate amount of time watching music videos on youtube. A couple of weeks ago I was at a friend’s place before going out and he was playing music videos through a projector onto his wall. I definitely had a moment where I thought, “this guy might be my soulmate.”

So this morning I was poking around online, looking for some good music, and I ended up watching music videos again. And I was reminded of how completely amazing the video is for “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by Stars. If you have 4 minutes to spare today, go to the video section of their website and check it out.

What to do, what to do…

Last week, on Valentine’s Day, I went to see Hayden. He’s a great musician — one of those on-his-own-with-a-guitar-and-a-harmonica kinds of guys — and he played the Alix Goolden Hall in Victoria, which is a converted church. The show was fantastic of course but for some reason it left me with an unexpected feeling. As I was sitting there, listening, taking in the stained glass windows, I became overwhelmed with the desire to make something. My life has always been achievement-oriented. My career path has always been set. And now that I’m closer to making that all happen I’m having moments of doubt. I’m not traumatized by them or anything like that — in a strange way I’m rather enjoying entertaining the possibilities. I keep thinking, I wish I could make music or paint. I think I’d even be satisfied with doing something crafty like knitting or scrapbooking or something. Or even just growing a garden. As long as there was a product at the end of it all. Something that I had made with my own hands and that expressed something of what is inside. I mean, I guess I’m producing stuff all the time in the world of academia, but it’s just not that satisfying right now. The reading is still pretty satisfying — but I’d rather be making something out of it that is entirely different. And it would be nice if it wasn’t all about getting somewhere but rather about enjoying the material I’m working with, which is the reason I went into English in the first place. And the blog is, well, somehow not satisfying either. I’d like to do something more with it, I just don’t know exactly what yet. I guess writing regularly would be a good start.

Ziggy Played Guitar

Once upon a time I took a course in the History of Rock ‘n Roll. It was fantastic. I learned so much and I enjoyed myself immensely, and I even got credit for it! The only downside was the very annoying girl in the class who spent all semester trying to bond with me over rock music even though I couldn’t stand her. That doesn’t sound very nice, I know, but she really drove me bananas. She was a friend of my sister’s though so I had to play nice with her.

One day near the end of term she called me up and asked if I would comment on her final paper. She had written on David Bowie — who she didn’t actually listen to but my sister and I were big Bowie fans so she had been trying to get in on that. So we put her on speakerphone and my sister and I sat and listened to her opening paragraph. Turns out she had written an entire paper about the excesses of glam rock and how David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust had been competing with each other to produce bigger and better stage shows. I only wish I could have seen her face when my sister said, “honey, David Bowie is Ziggy Stardust.”

I was out for breakfast with a friend yesterday who had heard that story before. When we walked up to the counter to pay our bill we saw hanging there a giant black and white photograph of Bowie from the Ziggy Stardust days. I got into a conversation about my Bowie love with the server for a few minutes until my friend chimed in with “I hear Bowie was a huge influence on Ziggy Stardust.” I love reliving those moments.