Teardropcity - "Monophonic Afternoon"
The writing in your diary feels like it's things many people have written before. In fact, all diaries are basically the same. This song is no different, but this is where its strengths lie. It's sung as if there had never been a sad song sung before, which is really sweet. The drum is an overgrown dog; serious power contained in a huge silent body that doesn't realise its own existence. When the dog loses control and kills the man and the woman he was waiting for, we get to our next song. It's a lot more loose and punchy; this guy has a lot less to lose. He's pretending not to be afraid of dyin'. Do you believe him?
****
Gender is a social construct, but so is the building where I work. I get so much tingles listening to "Vicky". It's such refreshing anger, to me. But I can't decide if I'm seeing what's there, or if I'm being a misogynist. Do I like them because they're girls? Am I patting them on the head and saying "way to go, you made something I kind of like." My brain turns on itself, on its side, inside my skull, and that fucking hurts. I can never separate the two and they feel like one uncriticizable reminder. It's incessant, like the bottom half of this sandwich, I take on this psycho-scape, and once again I'm congratulating a "girl". For rubbing her hands in filth. Maybe it's their intensity that's intimidating, maybe I'm jealous. Drool mutherfuckin' fool..
links:
[teardropcity]
[headstones]
[pony da look]
[miranda july]
That "Pony da Look" song is sexcellent, the voice is so smooth and strained at once. Ou-est le website? CD?
Posted by JSS at July 25, 2005 3:20 AMoh, right, fixed. thank you.
Posted by dan at July 25, 2005 9:17 AMhaha, it's true about that first um sandwich. it's the same guy! well, they're both "guy", for sure. in the second song i miss the dog.
as for the second one... i somehow find both of the songs really immature. which i guess is okay, but it's not doing anything for me this evening, like dating someone who's only interested in insulting other peoples' haircuts and saying "voting is STUPID" and refusing to watch movies in black-and-white.
actually, that miranda july song is more like a Mad TV sketch (this is a bad thing).
Posted by Sean at July 25, 2005 2:17 PMyeah, the miranda july deserves more context. she's a performance artist, so it is a sketch, but it comes from a larger work called The Binet-Simon Test, which is a whole album of impressions of this one story (or so it seems, it's pretty grueling to listen to, so I'm not all the way through it yet) of an institution of testing, oppression. "immature" is the same conclusion that Matthew Perpetua and the commenters came to in his review of her new feature film. it's actually one of the most interesting comment discussions I've ever read, but the distinctions it makes are very tenuous, and I'll have to see the movie before I can decide, but I don't find this immature at all, I find it terrifying. She's torturing something helpless.
as for the Pony Da Look, again, I can't agree with you. Pony Up!, now that's immature. Dresden Dolls, even. But this, no. She's riding a horse through town in the morning, she's calling out the snags as she sees them. "the savage crossfire" in this song would be the "stupid bitches" and "no good dicks" of other songs. she's aware, awake, and can see quite plainly that she's dancing like a fool.
Posted by dan at July 25, 2005 2:47 PMI didn't mean that it sounded like a Mad TV sketch formally (because clearly it's a skit), but more in the way a) it grates, b) it riffs on this one idea ("oppression" is a little vague, but it'll do) for way, way too long. The same's true of tons of sketch groups, but Mad TV was a pretty specific reference - that crew will take one joke and run it into the ground, and then run it some more, and then keep running it. It's as if they have no sense of how humour works, even though they're humourists.
I find the track "immature" because July doesn't seem to realise how quickly we get the point, and that even if she wants to hammer home how truly awful it is, to make us distinctly uncomfortable, she STILL goes on for way longer than necessary. (It's also obviously "immature" because it's a childish character, but that's not what I meant.) An artist who doesn't yet know how to properly use her tools.
The comments on Fluxblog are interesting. I don't think I'll ever see the movie, as I suspect I would hate it; like the self-aware and undisciplined younger sibling of PT Anderson/Wes Anderson. (Ha! How's that for judging something prematurely!)
As for Pony - I don't like Pony Up or Dresden Dolls either, but whatevs. :) I hear what you're saying, that it's being gutsy and that it's self-aware, but while the impulses are universal (frustration, anger, desire for attention), they're manifested in stupid and adolescent ways. It's someone acting out at a party and then marvelling at how it gets her attention. Yes, I notice you, but I don't give a shit about your tiresome spasms.
It doesn't help that I don't find it a good song.
I don't say all this to shut you down, but to, uh, riposte! I'm happy to have this discussion.
Posted by Sean at July 25, 2005 3:27 PMi'm not judging, only noting that "teardropcity" added me on friendster and I accepted but I still haven't listened to him and his bowl cut either on there, or here....maybe it's time?
Posted by ro at July 26, 2005 1:58 AMooops. i meant myspace of course
Posted by ro at July 26, 2005 2:00 AMwhen i first listened to 'three angels' i was about thirteen, and it took many listens before i paid attention to the lyrics. he speaks of death flippantly, which scared me but also inspired a morbid affinity to the song. it was both peaceful and angst-y at once, and it's definitely my favourite headstones song. and i guess the fact that i even have a favourite headstones song is telling... thanks for the post.
Posted by Anonymous at July 26, 2005 11:26 AM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
