BoogMusic

That was Mike Patton in March 2008.  Yet here we are, a short two years later and Faith No More is back out there playing to crowds of pudgy, balding thirty-something year olds.  This bothers me, way more than it should.  I don’t mean just Faith No More- I love Faith No More; I saw Faith No More at the American Theater in St. Louis on the Angel Dust tour with Helmet opening and it was a truly seminal experience in my life.  As was seeing Blur at Roseland in ’96, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in early ’92 supported by the then-unknown Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, and Rollins Band that same year with the totally unknown Tool opening.  Like countless other kids at other rock shows, I had the experience of, for just a few hours, not feeling like a total loser and that I was actually doing something cool, or at least seemed cool at the time.  They were awesome shows played in pretty small venues by acts that didn’t really feel the need for lasers and sets and all the trappings of “mainstream” music that all the square phonies at school were into.  These guys, as they said, cared a lot: big money stadium shows were for old fogies like the Who and U2; we had a scene based on awesome rock & roll, man, not your soulless suburban corporate nightmare.  Fuck Happy, man, Fuck Happy.

That, of course, is all total bullshit.  Every one of those bands that I thought we so above it all would’ve loved to not be broke.  Living on a bus for weeks at a time, eating Taco Bell, fighting with every two-bit promoter for money I’m sure gets pretty old.  If fifteen years later all those pimply kids you used to play for now have dough enough to see you again- no, have dough that they’re chomping at the bit to part with to see you again, why not?  Who cares if it feels a bit rote?  To quote Malkmus from a recent Spin article, “If the band likes hearing people cheer, and getting a check, as is the case with us… then it usually ends up working out, even if they’re just ham-and-egging out the same old chords.”

But therein lies the rub: none of us are thirteen anymore, and this time these guys are just in it for the money.  Even if they play great, it’s still just a money gig.  Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but how jazzed can you get for somebody else’s payday?  When you consider they probably don’t really like each other and they’re not working on any new music, it comes off as pretty soulless.  It’s worse than soulless, it’s exploitative and blatantly commercial, and I really can’t imagine myself having a good time after paying too much to stand around with a bunch of other pathetic 30 or 40 year old aging hipsters pretending we’re all back in college while listening to someone cynically cash in on our collective nostalgia.  I don’t know who to despise more in that transaction.

As I said earlier, this bothers me way more than it should, but it does.  The Malkmus Spin article makes me hate every band I liked growing up, or at least reminds me why I pretty much stopped listening to current music after 1996.  To claim that touring or playing out is “kind of weird” unless you’re getting paid and “if you’re doing it for the art, stay at home with your family” seems a little cold and calculating, and quite frankly, is a bunch of rationalizing bullshit.  I guess, as town-cryer for Gen-X zeitgeist, he really sums up what sucks about Americans today- more interested in maintaining the contrivances of their suburban existence than doing something decent and soulful, albeit painful.  Wait- haven’t I heard this before?  Isn’t this the kind of thing bands like Pavement used to rail against back in the day? Or was that all just a way of intellectualizing their lack of success in the face of Hootie and the Blowfish?  I guess if Stone Temple Pilots are elegant bachelors, then are Pavement very shrewd cultural politicians?  Spoiled children abound in the spotlight of public adoration.  I almost respect Kurt Cobain for killing himself.  At least he didn’t have to turn into his parents.

Unless, of course, his parents also killed themselves…

The xx seem to be pretty hot right now.  They’ve been touring pretty constantly since the release of their album last August, and in addition to playing multiple gigs at SXSW and an outdoor set at Cochella this past weekend, the song “Intro” was featured prominently in an AT&T ad during the Winter Olympics.  I don’t usually go for this type of music, but of all the recent synth-pop bands I’m really taken with this band.  Rather than using electronic music as some sort of trashy hipster gimmick, The xx is actually writing simple yet truly compelling melodies with electronic instruments.  Plus the vocal back and forth between Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim is absolutely adorable, as if the “Grease” soundtrack was reimagined by two pasty, misanthropic British teenagers.  They’re also the first band I’ve seen in a long time that I actually like that look so young they make me feel really old and uncool (isn’t that what good new bands are supposed to do to people in their thirties?)  Here’s them on French television, which also seems very fitting.

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize board has given a special posthumous citation to Hank Williams for “for his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.”  All that and he had a real purdy voice too.  Here’s a pretty good clip of him doing “Cold Cold Heart”, plus “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)” as a duet with Anita Carter.  Of course, singing to teenage girls was more Lefty Frizzell’s thing, but who could say no to that smile?

Erykah Badu has been charged with disorderly conduct by the Dallas Police for shooting the video below, where she walks into Dealey Plaza, takes off all her clothes, and pretends to get shot in front of the grassy knoll.  She said it was a commentary on group-think, and the boundaries it throws up around individual imagination.  I think I can follow: the artist in society strives to be more honest and open, bares his-or-herself before a seemingly uncaring crowd; delves into the rawly personal in the hopes of exposing the universal only to be castigated for their endeavors, shot down for showing us that which we don’t necessarily want to see.  Or something like that.

Whether guerilla acts of political theater are your cup of tea or not, more famous people should be willing to get naked in public places to make esoteric political statements.  Isn’t that the job of an artist- to engage and perhaps challenge our assumptions?  Whether you find it ridiculous or offensive or right-on or can’t get past the prurient interest in naked celebrities, it’s a conversation starter, and I’m sure Ms. Badu hopes that once that conversation gets started there will be some recognition of the point she was trying to make- that hopefully something will stick.  Or maybe not, maybe nothing can trump “naked r&b singer” in people’s imagination.  But you’ll never know by doing nothing, and at least she’s trying.  I especially like the dude running behind her picking up her clothes.  Here’s the video (sorry about the ad).