I think the blog is really blossoming. There is some really great stuff here. One thing that keeps catching my attention is this juxtaposition between footage of live performances and televised ones. I know this is obvious, but the live ones are just explosive and the televised ones usually seemed contained, or neutered, even when the bands are trying desperately to bust through the screens.

I guess I've been thinking a lot about what does it really take to deliver a solid punk performance when you're trapped in a box with knobs on it, and there are a lot of guys who obviously don't understand you at all or have any idea how you work pointing lights and cameras at you, and some fat pervert has created these swirling checkerboard graphics on his computer to spaz out behind you, because he thinks it really captures what you;re all about. It just seems humiliating and likely knocks the musicians way the fuck out of their comfort zones.

I mean, I guess someone like Madonna or Dashbored are good at being on T.V., but that's sort of what they were made to do in the first place. How long can you go on like that and take yourself seriously? You'd probably have to be really good at denial. And then there are guys like Mudhoney who just look so uncomfortable it deflates whatever good music they make...it's just so insincere for them. There's this weird balance with performers between taking yourself too seriously and not taking yourself seriously enough. For example, the dude in Flipper, I get the impression he is trying too hard not to try, and he sucks because of it (in my opinion), but if you try too hard to look good on T.V. you also come off the d-bag, if you're Dashbored and you're talking about why it's so awesome working on Laguna Beach immediately nobody whose opinion is worth anything can ever take you seriously again, and you have to beg MtV to let you keep working on Laguna Beach for the rest of your life (incidentally I kept imaging a guy in a giant foam MTV mascot white gloves and all pointing a gun at Chris just off camera while he sweated and talked about why Laguna Beach rocks.)

What do you do in a situation like that? Do you turn down being on T.V.? Do you play along? Do you pretend like you are going to play along and then do your own thing? Sometimes seeing your favorite band on T.V. is almost like a subversive experience, the show is so contained and planned and well-rehearsed and then your band comes along and fucks the show hard in the ear so the brain squirts out the other side. This has only happened to me once or twice, and it's usually the first time of heard about that band (remember the days when you could learn about a band by watching the TV???). Usually watching your band play on T>v is a very deflating experience. What did that ant-semetic poet say, a whimper and not a bang or whatever...can you imagine deflating The Wipers of their bang, and reducing them to a whimper? I bet you T.V. could do it.

And what happens when the television comes at you wearing the skin of your friend, and convinces you that you can trust him? he controls everything, even reality, so even the truths you know inside yourself aren't true if he says they aren't.







Gonna start writing the latest draft tomorrow.

The Dark Knight is a masterpiece.