why are you bleeding?

i can't believe we haven't posted any iggy pop yet. here's a televised performance of the stooges playing TV eye at the cincinnati pop festival in 1970.

the announcer cracks me up. everyone in my office turned to see what i was laughing at when he says "that's peanut butter!"...

here's a great interview with tom snyder...

i think "if you toned it down a little do you think you'd have a wider audience...why are you bleeding?" sums up iggy pop perfectly.

this next one's a little on the long side and the video lags but it's interesting.

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.

checkerboard mountain

some interesting set design in this mudhoney video along the lines of the nirvana performance i posted a while ago.

there's something really intriguing to me about placing each band member on a different podium. it seems so divisive. the point seems to be to call attention to each member of the band individually rather than as a cohesive unit. the only other podium instance that came to mind was the final scene in that thing you do (shut up, i like that movie) so here's a crappy picture of that.

this design is an interesting idea to think about as a way to highlight the fractured relationship between me and thomas. mostly i just think it'd be fun to get worked up in the performance, jump off, destroy the set and start yelling "Low basic!"

I want my MTV

Avengers and Flipper

Here are three videos by the band The Avengers and one by Flipper, both are late 70s SF bands. I'm especially intrigued by Flipper's lead singer, the way he spends most of his performance wandering the stage, back to the audience, smoking and drinking a beer. Does he not give a shit or is that just his shtick? The Avengers on the other hand seem like they're having a grand ol' time.

p.s. Thanks to Max for the Avengers tip.


Avengers


Avengers


Avengers


Flipper

It's fuckingfrustrating because I always want the sweet graphics of the byrds with the energy of the live performance of husker du (who sound a lot like pearl jam here) all in the same serving. where is it?

8 Miles High

So I ignorantly thought that the song "8 miles High" was written by this band called The Index (download their album HERE), but it turns out that they're actually covering a song by the Byrds who I hate, or thought I hated. The Index's version is better, but the Byrds have this sweet video. Then I discovered the video below: Husker Du doing the same Byrds song at the Pink Pop festival in 1987. Those dudes play it fucking loud.