Fucked Up! Mission of Burma! Oh my!

LM and I will be taking off on our world tour beginning tomorrow, which means that I will not be in town to catch Fucked Up play a free concert this weekend (July 12, 2009) in Brooklyn. So, if you're in New York, please, please, please go see Fucked Up tear the roof (or, because this will be an outdoor show, the stratosphere) off the mother, and because you'll have the added benefit of enjoying indie-rock royalty in the form of Mission of Burma. College-rock nerds, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

If you want to see what the live Fucked Up experience is like, visit here and here, or read about their touring exploits (Nippon! China!) on their blog, Looking for Gold.

Son the Father,
[D | R]

A Racket Most Unholy

I should probably be writing about William Eggleston's show (Democratic Camera) at the Whitney, recently closed, or Alec Soth's latest presentation, The Last Days of W., at Gagosian's uptown gallery; instead, fair/weather reader, I will take up this space to talk about music, in the form of Canada's Fucked Up, that the kids have been talking (or "blogging") about lately. It's the least I can do for you today, whatwith my decision to withdraw my nomination to head the Commerce Department.

It's true, I admit, that I'm a little late to the wave of praise that has been bestowed upon a band so inclined to reject praise in the first place. After all, what kind of self-respecting punk band releases seventeen-minute long singles, some of which are adorned with potentially embarrassing/morally questionable photographs depicting Hitler Youth rallies and mass suicides? Well, Fucked Up, that's who, and what can be more punk than attempting to obliterate your chances for mass appeal?

The argument can be made that a band, any band, that chooses to purposely antagonize its audience by splitting a 7-inch with one song, "Baiting the Public," on both the A- and B-sides (so that it cannot be heard in its entirety straight through) is pushing to subvert the one-two-one-two-three-four! dynamic of punk rock used and overused since the Ramones' long-distant turn at the microphone. As I see it, Fucked Up are less a hardcore punk band and more a performance art troupe with slightly silly, off-kilter tendencies; in this way, Fucked Up remind me of Italy's artworld troublemaker, Maurizio Cattelan.

To borrow the title of the band's new album, The Chemistry of Common Life, Fucked Up's music is anything but common and ordinary; for a collective that respects its predecessors (such as Black Flag and the like) and holds no fear about starting off an album with the tenderest of flute solos (!), it's pretty clear that inventiveness is that chemistry, that elixir, so absent in here-today-gone-tomorrow outfits like Vampire Weekend. (I won't even bother adding a link to Vampire Weekend. I mean, a band that wants to sounds like Paul Simon circa 1986? You've got to be kidding.)

Can you tell how excited Fucked Up makes me? Maybe I'll get one of their snazzy t-shirts.

Links for the curious, bored, and marginally informed (ooh, a sing-song rhyme!):

a) Fucked Up at Matador Records
b) Fucked Up runs your new favorite blog
c) Fucked Up blows up right-wing televisions
d) Fucked Up owns you on MySpazz

[D | R]

Righteous Ruminations

The following may point to just how naive I am, but I find it wrong that Nissan, in all its corporate wisdom, has licensed a song performed by The Clash, a cover of the roots reggae standard "Pressure Drop," for use in one of its commercials. Given the nature of the products the company sells, including the SUV prominently featured in its latest advertisement, wouldn't it have made more sense for the carmaker to use, say, "Rock the Casbah" or "Bankrobber," instead?

Oh, the irony, the bitter, bitter irony.

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"The center is not the center." - Derrida

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I love quoting dead French philosophers because, in all frankness, the practice makes me feel closer to common folk.

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My Daddy was a bankrobber,

but he never hurt nobody.

He just loved to live that way,

and he loved to steal your money.

So we came to jazz it up,

we never loved a shovel.

Break your back to earn your pay,

and don't forget to grovel...

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The Grand Marquis Coterie "Song of the Week!" honors go to Teenage Fanclub for "Speed of Light." Yeah!

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One of the more curious headlines on the Internet: "Dating Advice: 'Help, I'm Falling For a Priest.'" Uh, is this supposed to be news?

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It must be pretty obvious to those who know me, but I am getting old. As in, I can see at least two gray hairs on my head, and that shit is pissing me off old. But if only that were the last sign proving that the ravages of age are upon me! You see, if I sit down for more than fifteen minutes, I end up having a dull pain in the left side of my hip. When I stand up to walk around, I feel as though someone had just place a two-ton slab across my body. Such is the terror that has befallen me, but I shall perservere through all attacks against my youth!

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We had chicken for dinner tonight. What did you have?