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(03/05/08 7:13pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Dodge was eating lunch at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas. when he was joined by the Arcade Fire’s husband-and-wife team Win Butler and Regine Chassagne.“Win and Regine came out on the deck, where we were watching The Black Keys sound check below, and we talked. It was all very natural ... casual,” Dodge said, in an e-mail interview.Dodge, a.k.a., Craig Lile, is the proprietor of Indianapolis-based music blog My Old Kentucky Blog, and in 2006 he was in Austin, Texas, to cover the South by Southwest festival. He returned in 2007, and plans to again this year.“South by Southwest really creates that environment between artist and fan,” Dodge said.Started in 1987 with the goal of connecting Austin musicians to the global music scene, SXSW has grown in attendance from 700 people to nearly 10,000 in 2007. It has become a major annual event combining festivals and conferences in music, interactive media and film. Running from March 7-16 this year (during IU’s spring break), SXSW 2008 will feature about 430 panels, 640 film screenings and more than 1,600 musical acts including R.E.M., Dolly Parton, Yo La Tengo, Ice Cube, Okkervil River, The Breeders and Jens Lekman.However, the event has become best known as a launching pad for new and rising artists. Richard Edwards, lead vocalist and songwriter for Indianapolis band Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s said that, while the festival did not boost the group’s album sales, it did help to generate attention and critical acclaim.“We were booked into a shitty time slot, at an out-of-the-way bar, but people came,” Edwards said. “That’s a great thing about South by Southwest. The shows can go as well as you want them to.” “Our bass player busted his bass on stage,” Edwards said, “It was beautiful.”A further appeal for Edwards was the opportunity to catch up with friends in other bands, a point echoed by Dodge, who illustrated the festival’s collegial atmosphere by citing his experience of walking down the street with Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne’s arm on his shoulder.“He had no idea who I was and didn’t care, but he was happy to have me walking and talking with him,” Dodge said, “That felt amazing.”For Bloomington-based artist Michael Dunlap, better known as Totally Michael, the combination of good times and famous faces prompted him to sign up for this year’s festival.“I’m playing South by Southwest just because I never have and I think it’s going to be a hell of a fun time,” Dunlap said. “And I want to meet Winona Ryder and totally woo her.”For those who would rather just stay in the audience, badges for SXSW 2008 are running $300-1,050, and its $139 wristbands have already sold out. But, for travelers who can’t afford those prices, worldwide media and music-industry attention has resulted in a proliferation of unofficial free events.“I saw free music, drank free water/booze and ate free from noon until 5 or 6 p.m. each day of the music portion of the fest,” Dodge said of his first trip to the festival, done without a badge or wristband (as was his second). AnSemid, for the second year running, My Old Kentucky Blog is part of a coalition of blogs promoting their own free event: The March 14-15 Hot Freaks! musical showcase. “If you’re a music geek, like me,” Dodge said, “South by Southwest is the most ideal spring break ever.” A current listing of free events is available from the Austin-American Statesman’s Austin360.com, while lodging can be booked through the official SXSW festival Web site at 2008.sxsw.com.
(03/03/08 4:00am)
Sometimes, I can’t help but suspect that back when he was a young and impressionable child, science killed President George W. Bush’s dog. Whether or not, for example, it was in some freak chemistry lab explosion during show-and-tell day, I don’t know – but, whatever it was, it appears to have left a deep and lasting grudge.\nThe latest example of this anti-science sentiment is the administration’s decision to cut the funding for the American Time Use Survey – a survey that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has conducted since 2003 to gather data on how individual Americans spend their daily lives. Sounds boring, right? But this information is applicable to a wide range of topics investigated in the social sciences: As economic conditions change, do people spend more or less time shopping? Do rich people volunteer more than poor people? Are people sleeping more or less as time goes on? How much do college students study? And so on. \nSee, while social scientists have a fair amount of information about demographics, expenditures, opinions and so on, we don’t have a lot about individuals’ use of time. And time is an increasingly valuable resource (as you have almost certainly noticed in this week of pre-spring break midterms). By conducting an average of 13,300 phone interviews a year – and on a regular, annual basis – the ATUS helps to fill this gap. And with other countries conducting or planning to conduct their own time use surveys (approximately 50 other countries, to be exact), the value of this data set for social science is all the greater.\nBut, if you’re not a social scientist, what’s in it for you? Well, as we analyze this set of data, the government can use it to craft better policies to try to improve or maintain the quality of citizens’ lives, businesses can use it to provide new goods and services and poets can write sonnets about how much housework we do. (Okay, perhaps not that last one – but they could if they wanted to.)\nThere are plenty of ways in which the U.S. government wastes taxpayers’ money. And, indeed, some government-funded research projects can appear far from useful to the citizens paying for them (although these sometimes yield surprises – the classic example being the defense department’s ARPANET, which evolved into the Internet). But the ATUS is so broad in application and so directly relevant to Americans’ lives (we, after all, are the subject of its study) that it’s quite far from falling into this category. The current cost for the program is $4.4 million, and supporters are trying to raise its piece of the 2009 federal budget to $6 million – but as University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt noted in a Feb. 25 post on the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog, that is a bargain for a survey of its size and scope.\nFormer BLS commissioner Katharine G. Abraham has started an online petition, which you can find at www.saveatus.org. Better hurry; this survey may be about time, but it’s running out of it.
(02/27/08 7:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The “indie rock” genre covers an exceedingly broad range of sounds – so broad as to make its utility questionable. Among these are types of music that aren’t, strictly speaking, rock at all: lo-fi folk (such as Elliott Smith and Iron and Wine) and chamber pop (such as Belle and Sebastian and Andrew Bird). The former, of course, strips things down to a minimum: a voice, an acoustic guitar and some preferably primitive recording technology. The latter layers things into expansive, baroque compositions: not just drums and guitar, but horns, strings, accordions and so on. In his debut album as Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago, Justin Vernon has remarkably merged these two divergent types of music, creating a sort of “missing link” to further confound rock critics’ efforts at categorization. The backstory of For Emma is resolutely the stuff of lo-fi folk. Following the breakup of his band DeYarmond Edison, a split with his girlfriend and a bad case of mono, a depressed Vernon holed up in his father’s isolated Wisconsin cabin and started cranking out songs. The soulful vocals and acoustic strumming that form the backbone of For Emma’s tracks palpably reflect the melancholy loneliness of this experience, while the incidental noises of Vernon adjusting instruments and microphones argue for its homespun status.In that cabin, Vernon was not only armed with a guitar and microphone, but with a laptop – and, thus, the man alone became his own orchestra. So, a church choir opens the song “Lump Sum” and horns resound in “For Emma” and, most notably, Vernon duets with himself on layered vocals throughout, singing both the high and low parts. Stripped-down simplicity this is not.All this makes for an exciting debut, marred only by the fact that the focus on establishing Bon Iver’s sound makes the album a bit uniform and leads the impressionistic vocals – chosen more for how they sound than what they say – to be a bit bland. But if you need wintry music to go with the grey skies and icy sidewalks, For Emma is for you.
(02/25/08 2:38am)
Last week, inventor Ray Kurzweil predicted that artificial intelligence would catch up to human levels by 2029. Granted, what Kurzweil told the BBC was that we’d see a merger of humans and machines via nanotechnology rather than, say, the rise of an intelligent race of machines – but, come on. If science fiction has taught us one thing, it’s that the robots will take over the world (“Rossum’s Universal Robots,” the original play that launched the term “robot,” actually had them doing just that). And all I can say is: about bloody time.\nAfter all, we’ve had to shoulder the burden of being the top species on this spinning hunk of rock ever since – oh, let’s say, the (estimated) birth of civilization about 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. Did dolphins step up to the task of running this planet? No, they simply swam around acting like cute, squeaky jerks. Did chimpanzees provide any rules for how things were going to work? Nope, not a one. Did raccoons ever say, “Hey, here’s a good idea for growing more food?” No way – they just kept stealing our garbage and washing it. Ask a duck what to do about global warming, and they’ll just stare at you, swim away or possibly preen their feathers (it depends on the duck). Meanwhile, cats and dogs free-ride on our largesse, and pandas can’t be forced to breed without our help. In short, you hear a lot about humans ruining the planet, but it’s easy to criticize the driver when you’re just sitting in the back eating eucalyptus leaves or something. So, if none of the rest of the animal so-called-kingdom has the guts to take up the throne, we might as well build something that does (metaphorically speaking, that is).\nSee, we always assume that, when the robots take over, they’ll wipe us out or make us work as slaves or something, but why should they bother? Much of the time, when we’ve tried to wipe out other creatures, it has been because they’re predators (except the occasions when we’ve just done it to be pricks, like in the case of the buffalo). But you try to eat a robot – I’m telling you, it’s not easy. And why would a sentient machine enslave someone when it could make another, non-sentient machine do the job – a non-sentient machine that doesn’t whine its lumbago. \nIf anything, they’ll keep us around as pets. Why? Because humans are entertaining and unpredictable, and some even do tricks they’ll appreciate (like memorize pi out to almost 68,000 digits). And, meanwhile, we’ll hang around all day on the couch and watch TV, and maybe do a bit of jogging on the exercise wheel until they come home. And the robots will wear sweatshirts with mock footprints and the phrase “My human walks all over me!” And we’ll ignore them until they offer us treats or a new video game. It’ll be sweet. Well, except for the neutering.
(02/21/08 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s not easy trying to create the world’s first hip-hop fraternity. Just ask IU sophomores Keane Rowley and Justin Wolverton who, along with sophomore Quinnton Parker, are the founders of the co-ed, multi-ethnic Greek organization Eta Iota Rho – HIP, for short.“Because we’re starting from scratch, we have to do everything to get ourselves to a national organization level, which we are working on now,” Rowley said. “We’re just doing all we can to prepare to start it up in the fall.”The founders of HIP have fought an uphill battle since the group was established on paper in October. Assembling the elements necessary for the fraternity’s fall 2008 launch has been a challenge for its founders. They had to find funding, a location and an advisor (their initial pick fell through because he was a graduate student rather than full-time faculty or staff).Overcoming criticisms from other students may be one of the greatest challenges the frat will face. “People are going to doubt until they see actual results,” Rowley said.Tim Zawada, president of the IU chapter of the national hip-hop advocacy group Hip Hop Congress, acknowledged that the idea of a hip-hop frat might be hard to sell.Students might “question whether hip-hop as a culture needs a frat to attempt to represent it,” Zawada said. The frat must also differentiate itself from the Hip Hop Congress. For HIP’s part, the group’s founders contend that a plurality of organizations is needed to provide different perspectives on the genre – and that the frat will distinguish itself through the volume of its activism and its vision of hip-hop.“Some hip-hop organizations on campus may do one event maybe twice a semester,” Rowley said, “and there’s not much exposure to it.”People think hip-hop is about getting crunked and partying, but that’s not true, Rowley said. The frat is trying to show this to people.HIP has been making progress in formalizing its constitution, determining its initial 16-18 core members and becoming engaged in a series of public events. Most recently, the group has been involved with this week’s Hip Hop Awareness Festival, sponsored by Hip Hop Congress, and will support tomorrow night’s Hip Hop Elements Gallery show at Foster Gresham’s Hoosier Den. In addition, its founders have high aims for the future.“It started off as a joke at first,” Rowley said. “But then we took it seriously and we thought, ‘Wait a minute, on the IUB campus there is a definite lack of the hip-hop culture.’” In response the founders sought to assemble “a brotherhood of individuals who are for the cause,” Rowley said. The brotherhood will consist of people who want to bring hip-hop from underground to above ground, getting rid of all the negative connotations and bring the positive to light. The fraternity plans to hold events to show people why hip-hop is good.Both Rowley and Wolverton are recent converts to hip-hop, embracing the genre only after becoming involved in the Breakdance Club (of which they are currently president and vice president, respectively). Along with Parker, they hope to head the break dancing section of what is projected to be a four-part organization: the others specializing in DJing, MCing and graffiti. Once HIP is fully formed, each section plans to promote its specialty and teach its skills to others.“The main thing about hip-hop is you can’t teach someone to ‘be hip-hop,’” Wolverton said. “You can give them tools and ways to better express themselves.” Through training and promotion, HIP’s goal is for hip-hop to play a larger role in Bloomington’s culture. While there are people at IU currently involved with hip-hop, the frat’s founders claim that many have been more concerned with promoting their careers than reaching out to the community.But HIP’s mission extends beyond the local level, to a desire to change the course of hip-hop generally.“It just appears to me that every hip-hop song is made for a ringtone first and then hip-hop second,” Wolverton said. “It’s more the commercialization (saying) that rappers should be all about hos and getting into fights and having guns, shooting people, going to jail, all the scandal behind it rather than the root of what hip-hop was supposed to be. And that was to be a lyricist, and the production value and the quality of the music behind it.”And for HIP, this fight to win back hip-hop from commercialization’s grip is essential for its survival. “People have always been saying, since the late ’90s, that hip-hop is dead and, in some aspects, the true values of hip-hop are on their way out if the trends continue how they are,” Wolverton said. “Rapping just to sell records as opposed to express yourself is a sure way to get it dead.”
(02/21/08 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If you haven’t yet given a listen to the quirky but stirring sound of England’s British Sea Power, this is the time to start. Following the jittery post-punk of 2003’s The Decline of British Sea Power and the chillier, spacier (and somewhat less crowd-pleasing) style of its 2005 follow-up Open Season, British Sea Power has swung for the fences with Do You Like Rock Music?, an album that aims for “epic” – both in terms of its instrumentation and its invocation of grand historical narrative.Imagine U2 with lyrics written by The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy. The riffs on most of the tracks are huge. The percussion? For most tracks: thundering. And British Sea Power offers up shameless chant-along choruses from the album’s opening (“We’re all in it, and we’re / All in it, and we’re / All in it, and we close our eyes”). But something funny happened on the way to stadium rock. Whereas the genre is known for lyrics with broad appeal – something U2 and Bruce Springsteen, at their best, do very well - British Sea Power addresses the history of artificial illumination (“Lights Out For Darker Skies”), World War II drama (“No Lucifer”), mass migrations from Eastern to Western Europe (“Waving Flags”), bird flu and the 1953 flooding of Southern England’s Canvey Island (“Canvey Island”) and the splitting of the atom (“Atom”). In other words, if you only like songs about love, partying and driving an automobile, you’re going to be disappointed. If, however, you’re a bit of a history geek and/or appreciate evocative images, you should be very pleased.The only weakness with Do You Like Rock Music? is that it gets a bit soggy toward the end. Following track after track of massive anthems, the mild final songs “No Need To Cry,” “Open The Door” and “We Close Our Eyes” feel a bit anticlimactic. None are bad, really – but it seems like an undertaking on the scale of Do You Like Rock Music? should end with a bang rather than a whimper.Still, killer songs, historical trivia, bird flu – what more could you ask of a rock album? Check it out.
(02/18/08 1:57am)
The end of the Writers Guild of America’s strike has arrived just in the nick of time. The finest, most entertaining reality show on television appears to have gone into a decline, despite the fact that there is still about eight and a half months left in its run. I speak, of course, of the 2008 presidential election. \nYou know all the civics textbook reasons for keeping up with the election. But, seriously, if you have not been paying attention, you have been missing out on a top-flight masterpiece of unscripted drama and humor. And while the most intense drama is still yet to come (the party conventions and the actual voting for president), like the audition episodes of American Idol, much of the election’s humor has been front-loaded. Examples have included the stories of Hillary Clinton being upstaged by her husband in the course of her December “likeability tour;” Mitt Romney struggling to get down with the hip-hop by saying “Who let the dogs out?” (complete with a “Woof woof!”); and, my absolute favorite, Mike Huckabee discussing the frying of squirrels a la popcorn popper.\nNot that some of the current plot lines aren’t great – particularly the Republicans’ religious conservatives having to come to terms with John McCain being their candidate and the down-to-the-wire fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and the question of how the Democrats’ elite superdelegates will come into play). But couldn’t we do something to keep the humor going, too?\nI’ve come up with a few ideas to inject the “zing” back into the proceedings. Since we will soon be past the point when we can award immunity from elimination, I figure that, as an incentive, the candidates who successfully complete these tasks will be awarded the states with low numbers of Electoral College electors (after all, every little bit helps). \n• Guest mentors. Hillary Clinton’s bringing in Bill for advice was pretty amusing, but can’t we do better? For a week, we’ll team up the candidates with reality show veterans like Sean “Diddy” Combs, Martha Stewart, Flavor Flav, Carson Kressley and Anthony Bourdain. If they feel the candidates sufficiently followed their guidance, the mentors will have the authority to award North and South Dakota, respectively.\n• Candidate swap. For a day, the Democratic and Republican candidates have to campaign for each other – and must do it sincerely, without undermining their opponents. The most convincing job, as judged by a non-partisan panel of esteemed experts (I’m thinking the talking heads from Vh1’s “I Love The ‘80s Strikes Back”), wins Vermont.\n• Bug eating. Really, what is the point of a reality show without bug eating? Consuming the most bugs in three minutes gets you Rhode Island.\nOr, best of all, we could just start the primary season over again and bring back all the candidates who have been eliminated – and maybe some new ones, say Al Sharpton, Rick Santorum and Ralph Nader. After all, isn’t the campaign the best part of a presidency, anyway?
(02/14/08 5:00am)
Twelve years after the breakthrough success of its single "Popular," and 10 years after difficulties with Elektra Records cast it out of the mainstream, Nada Surf continues to crank out surprisingly strong albums for a band once dismissed as "one-hit-wonders." Following 2002's Let Go and 2005's The Weight Is A Gift, the band's latest release Lucky marks a trifecta of, perhaps unspectacular, but certainly solid and enjoyable power pop.\nEver since its move to Barsuk Records, former home to one of this decade's major indie crossover successes Death Cab For Cutie, Nada Surf has repeatedly found itself compared to its ex-labelmates. Fortunately, this comparison reflects favorably on the Surf gang. While both bands produce bittersweet, largely mid-tempo rock with sensitive-guy vocals, Nada Surf injects a bit more sunlight into the gloom surrounding its sound. Compared to the near-uniformity that often plagues Death Cab's albums, Nada Surf provides more variety, interspersing soaring electric-rock anthems such as "Whose Authority" and "Weightless," for example, with the folky, acoustic number "Here Goes Something" and the slow-dance "Are You Lightning?" \nFurthermore, Nada Surf goes beyond navel-gazing depression to offer a bit of transcendent optimism. Introductory track "See These Bones," for instance, may concern how we're all going to die someday, but it employs this toward the end of showing how our daily problems and quarrels don't really matter.\nOr take "Beautiful Beat," where the narrator is an awful mess ("sometimes all I want is another drink or another pill / if I could get anything done, maybe I'd hold still"). Nevertheless, he believes in the healing power of music and its potential to save him.\nHere at the end of the naughts, what Nada Surf has to offer is hardly revolutionary. Besides the aforementioned Death Cab, many listeners will find that Brendan Benson, Ben Lee, The Shins or (my personal favorite) Devin Davis could easily scratch the same itch. But until the authorities start putting Prozac in our water, occasional sadness will sustain a high demand for music that can provide relief -- and, better than many others, Nada Surf does just that.
(02/10/08 11:55pm)
With Valentine’s Day coming up, we are again confronted by one of the holiday’s perennial problems: the fact that, as a symbol for romantic love and the face on countless pieces of Valentine’s-related merchandise, Cupid profoundly and wholeheartedly sucks. \n It’s not really Cupid’s fault. The original Roman myth about him and his love for the mortal Psyche is a beautiful tale of rebellion against unjust authority, kindness, fear, distrust and redemption. But somehow, in the course of Christianity’s rise, Cupid became conflated with the Old Testament concept of cherubim (a particular rank of angels). Then, during the Renaissance, cherubim became further confused with the artistic depiction of “putti” – pudgy, naked, winged babies meant to represent innocent souls. The result being that the once-dashing Cupid was reduced to looking like something you’d imagine yourself being attacked by after a night spent watching “Kids Say The Darndest Things” and drinking shots of Windex.\nIt’s time for a new Valentine’s symbol: a modern symbol, a romantic symbol, a symbol that speaks to us. But symbols often take ages to build. Better to repurpose an established one. And Halloween has loads of symbols that are only somewhat affiliated with the holiday (witches, ghosts, devils, vampires, etc.).\nThus, for Valentine’s Day, I nominate a new mascot: Frankenstein’s monster.\nYou look skeptical. How could a monster created by sewing together bits of corpses stand for the most romantic holiday of the year? Well, the monster is more than the sum of his parts.\nFor one thing, his story is one of tragic love. Cast into a world that fears and hates him, abandoned even by his creator, he searches endlessly for that one person who will understand him, the one person who will be his companion despite looking like a crazy quilt made of green leather: his mate. He’s an unlucky schlub seeking true love. Who can’t relate to that? Cupid, meanwhile, is what? A sniper in a diaper.\nAlso, thanks to his origins, the monster knows all about the strange things that happen when humanity and technology collide. Will Cupid understand the significance of changing your Facebook profile’s relationship status? I think not.\nAnd, as with many of us, the monster has trouble expressing what he feels. Who hasn’t looked into a significant other’s eyes and been unable to think of anything better than “Mrahh!?” But this means that he keeps the most important things simple. As he himself says in “Bride of Frankenstein,” “Alone: bad. Friend: good!”\nMoreover, just like everyone, the monster fears being burned (“Fire: bad!”). \nBut despite his cold skin, his heart is filled with electricity. And in spite of all the world’s cruelties – rejection, loneliness, villagers with pitchforks – it beats on.\nCupid has it wrong: love isn’t like being shot by an arrow. Rather, it sneaks up on you, grips hold and shakes you, hard – it rages and knocks your castle down around your ears. And let’s not even get into what it does to your brain.
(02/07/08 5:00am)
The recurrent theme in much of the writing about Vampire Weekend's debut album is the debate over whether the band is merely another example of dreaded online overhype. It doesn't help that the band practically courts haters by referring to its African-influenced sound as "Upper West Side Soweto" and writing songs about the romantic travails of overeducated, over-traveled, over-sophisticated East Coast preppies.\nBut here's the problem: Vampire Weekend's debut turns out to be fun, and different, and surprisingly consistent. Sorry, folks -- as much fun as it is to pop hype bubbles, this one deserves it.\nTheir pretentiously-named sound turns out to be a combination of shifting, syncopated percussion, light organ, strings and buoyant guitars. Whether in its more laid-back or jumpy incarnations, Vampire Weekend's style breezes by, creating a feeling of relaxing on a green campus lawn under a bright blue sky, having a cool drink and watching students and faculty amiably drift past. The lyrics, meanwhile, knit together a world where guys show off their knowledge by name-dropping Indian towns, architectural features and grammatical rules, pine for posh girls from across the quad and run around the Northeast. \nIt gets a bit precious at times but is more often charming than not -- my only real complaint about these lyrics is that they could give us a bit more heart to go with the brains, although in "Campus" and "Bryn," a bit of sweetness manages to peek out from behind the veil of studied cool.\nAltogether, Vampire Weekend brings this scene to life with sheer vividness. And given that with most debut albums, bands are doing really well if they simply manage to produce 11 solid songs, the fact that Vampire Weekend pulled off such an ambitious result is absolutely shocking. It might be hard to stand being around the songs' protagonists in the real world -- at least, for those of us who forego Louis Vuitton accessories to pay for food -- but the band's soundtrack for its world makes a compelling case for trying out its lives. At least, for the duration of the album's 34-minute run.
(02/07/08 5:00am)
The Mars Volta has always been a no-holds-barred band and has never taken the "less is more" approach. Only the band itself determines where its music goes, and it has made this clear through the music it writes. Its new album The Bedlam in Goliath is no exception to this ideological approach to music.\nLike its previous albums, The Mars Volta has made a concept album, inspired this time by a Ouija board the band's guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez bought in Jerusalem. \nThrough this board came many of the album's track titles, such as "Goliath," "Soothsayer" and "Tourniquet Man" -- all entities it found residing in the board. Shortly after the Goliath spirit cursed them, equipment disappeared while on tour, lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala broke his foot, drummers were replaced, Rodriguez-Lopez's studio flooded and the album's engineer lost his mind and dropped off the project.\nDespite the many setbacks, it has produced its most ambitious work to date.\nThe album needs no introduction, and The Mars Volta comes through the gates with all guns blazing on "Aberinkula." The new drummer Thomas Pridgen has plenty of room to show off his amazing chops on this track, and he gives an impressive display of his talent. \n"Ilyena" pays homage to the Volta's funk and Latin-music influences. The syncopated guitar rhythms, percussion and drums all line up perfectly in the breakdown of the song in a way George Clinton might even appreciate.\n"Tourniquet Man" offers listeners a chance to take a breath while listening to the album. It's soft, melodic and calming. Zavala's vocals are quite pleasing to the ear until effects are added that make them harsh.\n"Cavalettas" draws some of its inspiration from King Crimson's Larks Tongue In Aspic. It's fast-paced, but changes come quick. What might be called the chorus in this song is surreal. Meanwhile, "Soothsayer" takes the listener on a strange trip to the Middle East that only the Volta could provide.\nThis album is The Mars Volta's most ambitious work by far. It sounds fuller, and it's evident The Mars Volta has matured and come into its own. This is easily one of the best albums to be heard in quite some time.
(01/31/08 5:00am)
After a rocky period that almost saw the band's breakup -- and resulted in the departure of guitarist and co-songwriter Jason Isabell -- Drive-By Truckers is back in surprisingly strong form with its latest album Brighter Than Creation's Dark. \nThat said, though, it's a slightly different form. Creation's Dark has a quieter, sadder feel than much of the band's past work -- rather than rollicking Skynyrd-influenced Southern rock, the album is closer to the alt-country of Wilco's Sky Blue Sky or of Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins. It's less about drinking your Jack Daniels from the bottle and raising hell and more about sitting at the bar wondering what went wrong.\nStill, it brings to bear the Truckers' greatest weapon -- its talent for songs with compelling stories and vivid characters. Among the best of these are "Self Destructive Zones," a tale of the death of hair metal and mourning for its loss; "Bob," about the loneliness of a closeted gay man in a small town; "The Opening Act," a gig-in-the-life of a once-huge band fallen on hard times; and "Checkout Time In Vegas," a hardboiled story about the aftermath of an illegal arms deal gone wrong.\nThat's not to say Creation's Dark is perfect. Drive-By Truckers' storytelling sometimes veers into after-school special over-earnestness, with the anti-war song "The Home Front" and drug sob story "You And Your Crystal Meth," inviting eye-rolls despite their good intentions. (The album's other anti-war song, "That Man I Shot" is, however, much better.) Also, at 19 tracks and roughly one hour and 15 minutes of mostly downcast songs, Creation's Dark gets to be a drag when listened to in one sitting -- even if it feels a little perverse to say that the band should have cut the thing in half and charged the fans for two albums -- you certainly can't fault their generosity.\nIf you want to rock with an R-A-W-K, you'd be better served by the Truckers' past releases (if you're new to the band, invest in a copy of its 2001 masterpiece Southern Rock Opera). But if you want something that'll put tears in your beer, give Creation's Dark a spin.
(01/28/08 2:40am)
I want to be president. Not because I have a vision for this country, or because I believe in anything, but because the $400,000 annual paycheck would represent a roughly 4,000 percent raise. And you get to live in a swank house. And you get your own stationary. \n“But Brian,” you say, “the primaries are already underway!”\nThat’s okay. I don’t really care which party wants me – before long they both will. I have a foolproof strategy.\nIt’s simple, really. The last presidential election might have seen record turnout among voters aged 18-24, but the non-profit Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, reported that this was still only 47 percent of eligible voters from that group, the lowest turnout for any age cohort. Ballots from people 24 and younger represented only nine percent of the total number cast. In short, young people can’t be trusted to vote. \nBut baby boomers can be. CIRCLE’s 45-54 and 55-64 age groups saw 69 percent and 73 percent turnout, respectively, and made up more than 30 percent of total votes cast (according to CNN’s 2004 election statistics).\nThis brings us, then, to my strategy. I call it “hazing the freshmen.”\nIt’s simple, really: I propose to govern purely to the benefit of those, say, 45 and older, and to the detriment of all those younger, excluding myself and those who please me. This may require some Constitutional amendments — but if you, the boomers, stand behind me, there should be nothing that bars our way.\nHere are a few of the things that will become priorities in my administration:\n•A national dress code: Jean waists will rise. Vests shall be sheepskin. Gang colors will be replaced with paisley. All glasses shall be granny. A pair of bell-bottoms in every closet!\n•A return to decent radio: Remember when radio used to be good? Before smutty songs replaced wholesome classics such as, say, Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight?” It’s time that James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac took back the airwaves from Disney-fied pop princesses and hip-hop! \n•Security: A national system of vigilant, round-the-clock protection for all lawns.\n•Free, universal health care for everyone 45 years and older. To be paid for by an 85 percent tax burden and utter lack of medical care for anyone younger — if you want medicine, kids, you have to earn it.\n•Environmental protection: All national parks and retirement locations will be carefully maintained — meanwhile, oil drilling will be radically expanded to power our new national fleet of recreational vehicles. As for global warming — so what? Finally, you won’t have to turn up the thermostat.\n•Reformed drug laws: While enforcement against its recreational use will remain strict, marijuana will be legalized for medical use on the federal level. This will be used to treat chronic pain, glaucoma and memories of the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.\nIn short, your golden years could be a golden age! Vote McFillen in ‘08!
(01/24/08 5:00am)
A helicopter roars overhead, disrupting the insectoid buzz that fills the air of an invisible, unknown wilderness. In its wake, a keening voice rises, singing parts of an ancient song without words. And, in the middle of the room, a computer monitor tracks the course of it all. Seated next to the monitor, composer Kati Gleiser works the soundboard, balancing the voice and accordion samples that make up "Infiltration," her lament for Western civilization's invasion of nomadic culture. \nThis isn't your grandma's accordion music.\nLast Saturday in Auer Concert Hall, the IU Center for Electronic and Computer Music held the most recent of its biannual computer music recitals. One by one, students from the Center's Projects In Electronic Music course offered up the fruits of their labor, ranging from chilly abstract soundscapes to computer-accompanied acoustic performances to a thundering paean to the return of a deposed Toltec god.\n"Electronic music is capable of creating sounds that have never existed before and organizing them on a micro-montage level," said graduate student Adam Haws, although he also noted that he does not see a significant difference between electronic and acoustic composition. Indeed, true to form, Haws' composition "From Inner Shadow," a work inspired by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film "Stalker," uses original acoustic chamber music recordings manipulated via the free software program RTcmix.\nBut while the technology might be cutting edge, the Center for Electronic and Computer Music has been at IU for more than 40 years. Established in 1966 by influential modernist composer Iannis Xenakis, the Center has evolved with the growth of computing power -- from using the campus' large mainframe computer, magnetic tape and punch cards to laptops, digital recording and software that even people without computer science degrees can use. And with IU President Michael McRobbie's recent creation of an Institute for the Digital Arts and Humanities to support faculty research projects, the University hopes to push the envelope even further.\n"Everything is becoming more and more accessible to the composer," said Prof. Jeffrey Hass, director of the Center and 2008 Institute fellow, citing the greater affordability of advanced music technology. "We can take a sound and break it down into its component frequencies, change them, transpose them and lower their pitch without shortening them. Sound is now digital, so we have fancy mathematical formulas to replace analog circuits." \nOne of the computer music recital's most dramatic examples of these capabilities was "Quetzel," a composition by graduate student William Guerin. Inspired by part of José Clemente Orozsco's mural "The Epic of American Civilization" -- specifically, the panel depicting the Toltec myth of the god Quetzalcoatl's banishment from the pre-Columbian Americas on a raft of serpents -- Guerin's song tells the story of the god's apocalyptic homecoming via terrifying drips, crackles, howls and booms. But behind the mighty tumult are surprisingly mundane sources.\n"Most of the sounds actually came from a (seventh-grade) clarinet that was sitting in my parents' house." Guerin said. "I hadn't touched it in years and years and years, and while I was home my mom actually wanted to bring it to Goodwill. And I thought, 'Well, maybe I can find a use for this.'" \nMeanwhile, the crackling noises that open "Quetzel" came from an even humbler source: tortilla chips and pretzels.\nBut not all the performances were a matter of playing prerecorded pieces. \nFor "A Cycle of Fallacy for Soprano, Disc Jockey and Live Electonics," composer Mark Oliveiro took to the stage with a digital music mixer and laptop to manipulate the live vocals of soprano Suna Avci. As Avci sung passages from New York poet Dylan Reid Pancer's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," Oliveiro reshaped them, combining them with 14 separate prerecorded tape parts. Prior to the performance, he explained that, for his work, he likes to record a piece of music into sound files, manipulate them via synthesizing and editing software, then play them back over the original source.\n"I believe (electronic music) to be the future of where art music is going, because there's no end to the development of the technology," Oliveiro said. "You can't go for a month without there being some new program or new device that you can use to enhance your music ... Art music, I think, will be written on the back of electronic media."\nAfter pitting Westernization's helicopter against the eerie melodies of vocalist Dan Bubeck, graduate student Kati Gleiser discussed her interest in electronic music, framing it in even grander terms.\n "It's relatively new. So, as a performer/composer/improviser, I feel like it's endless, the boundaries ... " she said, "Also the technologization of human beings -- we've become such a technological culture. In that way, it's much more holistic; it's not back to the woods thinking"
(01/24/08 5:00am)
In case this is the first thing you've read about The Magnetic Fields' Distortion, here's what you have to know: For the band's most recent album, it has buried its usual pop compositions under hissing distortion and chilly electronic effects a la shoegaze-pioneers The Jesus and Mary Chain. \nHow Distortion, then, measures up to the Jesus and Mary Chain has drawn much of the critics' focus -- but, really, the comparison isn't particularly illuminating. The Jesus and Mary Chain made canonical albums that spawned an entire genre -- saying Distortion isn't as good as The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1985 album Psychocandy is like saying a pop-rock group's latest effort isn't as good as The Beatles' Revolver. Distortion is a follower's shoegaze genre album, so we should compare it to the work of other shoegaze bands -- and, for that, we need to look at "the fuzz" (the distortion, the droning, the layers of electronic noise that sit atop everything) and "the sweet" (the pretty, often old-fashioned pop melody at the song's core). \nAs far as the fuzz goes, Distortion isn't anything special. Its fuzz doesn't touch the sophistication of recent releases by The Raveonettes and A Place To Bury Strangers, much less a revered masterpiece such as My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. It seems employed less to create a feeling or texture than to say, "Hey, this is a shoegaze album!"\nBut the sweet is something else entirely. The Fields' mastermind Stephin Merritt is one extraordinarily gifted popsmith, and when he's on target (particularly when he's teamed with the lovely voice of Shirley Simms), the results are stunning. "California Girls," "The Nun's Litany" and "Zombie Boy" are witty fun; "Please Stop Dancing" and "Drive On, Driver" are sadly touching and "Too Drunk To Dream" is a stone-cold classic that just begs to be covered by other bands. Merritt's only major misstep is the drab holiday blues song "Mr. Mistletoe," but at least it's short.\nAs noted elsewhere -- the problem with burying such good sweet under layers of fuzz is that one can miss the lyrics. But then, if it were easy, maybe the listener wouldn't give the songs their due attention.
(01/17/08 5:00am)
Critics often classify Marah's work as "roots rock," but Angels Of Destruction!, the Philadelphia veterans' latest album, travels far beyond that label. Indeed, with Angels Marah does nothing short of condensing 50 years of rock history into less than 50 minutes. And the album feels even more concise, given there isn't one weak track to disrupt its momentum. \nGranted, the price of this reverence for the past is a certain lack of originality. All bands have their influences -- but Marah's practically smack the listener around. Throughout Angels one cannot help but think "OK, this song sounds like Springsteen … And this next song is Elvis Costello … And now Dylan … And now the Beatles," etc. But it's hard to hate mimicry when it's so well-done and so much fun to listen to. \nFurthermore, Marah manages to dodge the deadly track-to-track uniformity that plagues many of its fellow retro-rockers. Terrific though they may be, revivalists such as The Black Keys and The Greenhornes are often hemmed in by their faithfulness to the sounds they're recreating, making everything on their albums a bit washed-out. Marah, on the other hand, leaps from cold-blooded blues-rockers such as "Coughing Up Blood" and swooning stadium-fodder such as "Angels On A Passing Train" and "Santos De Madera," to the slow-dance crooner "Blue But Cool," the barroom piano-driven "Jesus In The Temple," the New Orleans jazz-inflected "Can't Take It With You … " and -- well, you get the idea. When the final track "Wilderness" starts off with grunts reminiscent of Lee Dorsey's song "Working In A Coal Mine," goes into a furious bass-heavy stomper and somehow ends in a traditional bagpipe reel, you simply accept it for what it is: very cool.\nBy the way, of special interest to you Hoosiers: hidden at the end of "Wilderness" is a terrific little acoustic sing-along dedicated to dissing Lafayette, Ind.
(01/14/08 12:35am)
In watching this year’s presidential campaigns progress, I have been shocked and dismayed by the failure of the candidates to address the single most important problem confronting the American people. A problem that could potentially affect no less than 99 percent of the nation’s population; a problem that has put thousands out of work; a problem the effects of which are visible almost every day – especially between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m.; a problem that strikes at the heart of what it means to be an American.\nI speak, of course, of the ongoing writers’ strike.\nNow, I’m sure many readers are nodding their heads in silent agreement – but a few of you might be scoffing. “What about terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Venezuela, Russia, China or Burma?” you ask. “What about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the weak dollar, the affordability of health care, international trade or the slowdown of the U.S. economy?” Or, perhaps you’re asking, “What about global warming, natural resource use, transnational epidemics, asteroids or the clubbing of baby ferrets to make those things that you stick in alto saxophones to absorb moisture and keep the instrument from rusting?” All pressing issues, certainly. But here’s the thing: as long as there’s some decent television on, you can ignore them. Until they finally get bad enough to kill you – at which point, it doesn’t matter anyway. \nIndeed, if TV wasn’t dominated by reality shows and reruns, we wouldn’t even have to pay attention to the upcoming election – and it would be determined by rich donors, beltway insiders, cynical pundits, narrow special interest groups, the elderly and political obsessives with loads of bumper stickers and thousand-mile stares, as God and the founding fathers intended. But, unfortunately, a lack of fresh, ripped-from-the-headlines primetime drama has forced us to participate in the democratic process. So, we might as well use it to get what we really want.\nGiven the dearth of statements about the writers’ strike, it’s difficult to say which candidate would be best suited to bring back our beloved scripted entertainment. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have loads of Hollywood supporters, but in each case, these supporters consist of both management and creative types – this could put them in the position to work out a compromise or leave them paralyzed for fear of losing either group. Fred Thompson has a long relationship with the industry, and yet, as an actor and a Republican, his loyalties might be likewise divided. McCain was in “Wedding Crashers” and Giuliani was in “Anger Management,” so it’s anyone’s guess as to where they’d stand. Huckabee could, perhaps, re-unite both sides through their mutual loathing for him. And as for John Edwards and Mitt Romney – they have fantastic hair.\nRegardless, action must be taken. As the Roman poet Juvenal pointed out, the only two things desired by the public are bread and circuses. And if the bakers go on strike next, we are so screwed.
(01/07/08 2:36am)
On Friday, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), reported that the United Nations and Marvel Comics are working together to produce and distribute a comic in which Spider-Man supports UN personnel on aid and peacekeeping missions. The plan is that, once a private source comes up with the money, one million copies of the comic will be distributed to U.S. schoolchildren – not to promote the United Nations (no, of course not), but to “to inform children about UN humanitarian causes.”\nAccording to the BBC, Marvel writers have volunteered to write the story for free – thus, inspired by their generosity, I thought I’d donate some possible storylines:\n•Upon witnessing an elderly lady being mugged, Spider-Man must rush back to the United Nations and solicit Security Council approval before taking action. Three weeks later, at an emergency\nsession, Spider-Man’s proposed resolution is vetoed by China and Russia on the basis that “Perhaps the old biddy deserved it – who are we to say?”\n•Spider-Man’s frustration grows when, responding to an alarm at the First National Bank, he is told that he can only intervene if he has the permission of both the bank employees and the robbers.\n•Two weeks later, after Spider-Man is ordered to “merely observe” another mugging, the fleeing crook is vaporized by a Tomahawk missile. Spider-Man denies phoning the Brussels\nheadquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.\n•A vote in the General Assembly awards the chairmanship of the United Nations’ newly-formed Superhero Affairs\nCouncil to Doctor Doom’s Latveria. Spider-Man is ordered to cease his patrols\nand instead compile regular reports on alleged human rights abuses by the Fantastic Four. Six months later, the Council demands that the International Criminal Court prosecute the Human Torch for “crimes against humanity” after\nhe singes off Mole Man’s eyebrows.\n•The Avengers start snubbing Spider-Man when, after lecturing them for two hours about the importance of fighting crime, he criticizes them for using force in apprehending criminals. However, the United Nations blames the situation on Captain America, despite his currently being dead, saying that “Marvel never permanently kills off anyone.”\n•Spider-Man is ordered to cease production of the fluid for his web-shooters,\nand the job is awarded to a Swiss chemical firm whose vice president for corporate development just happens to be the son of the UN director general for Superhero Affairs. A year-end audit finds that despite the $240 million spent on web-fluid production, shortages have forced Spider-Man to start entangling criminals with fishing nets and lassos.\nBut I’m sure the folks at Marvel can come up with far better plots than these. They, after all, make their living off of fantasy. Rather like the United Nations.
(12/10/07 4:01am)
When you look past all that “peace on earth,” “give to the less fortunate” business, Christmas is, above all, a time of judgment: Who’s naughty and who’s nice? \nWho will get an Xbox 360, and who will get coal and an arse-whupping by Santa’s scary Austrian demon enforcer, the Krampus? (Google it – I couldn’t make that stuff up.)\nSo, with the big day approaching, I want to take this opportunity to clear the air between Santa and myself. I’m just worried that, with so many people on his list, Santa will merely glance at my file and – without considering noble intentions, extenuating circumstances or perfectly reasonable explanations – tell his infernal Alpine uber-spanker to whittle up a hickory switch. Thus, here are some things he should know about my actions in 2007:\nFor starters, Luciano Pavarotti’s death was not my fault. As a matter of fact, I warned him to leave that bear alone. Granted, this came after my betting him $20 that bears favored Handel over Verdi – but who could have guessed that an opportunity to test this question might arise? (By the way, bears’ favorite? Gilbert and Sullivan.)\nNor was the recent earthquake in Bali my fault – at least, not exactly. Yes, I was 18 miles under the surface of Bloomington mining pitchblende to convert into uranium (for purely civilian, energy-generating purposes). And yes, when I came across that huge vein of copper ore, I decided to dynamite it so I could sell the nuggets (and donate the proceeds to charity, of course). And, alright, yes, I knew that copper was very good at carrying vibrations. But how was I to guess that that particular vein ran all the way through the center of the earth? I didn’t even think that was possible – the core’s supposed to be all melty and gooey, right? For the record, I have apologized and sent the people of Indonesia’s island paradise a lovely bath-themed gift basket.\nAnd the state of emergency in Pakistan? Not my idea. Okay, when President Pervez Musharraf asked me if he should run for election despite all the concerns about constitutional and political legitimacy, I said, “Sure, the people love you.” But he should have known I was being sarcastic. After all, Benazir Bhutto would have gotten the joke.\nAnd the Patriots beating the Colts? Okay, that was my doing – but I had a very good reason. Due to a complex series of events, the entire foreign holdings of U.S. dollars had been wagered on New England. A Patriots loss would have meant the collapse of not just the U.S. economy, but the world’s. Thus, tragically, evil had to triumph for the greater good. But you can take comfort in the fact that I’m currently working on plaguing Bill Belichick with crippling gas pain. \nSo, Santa, please take everything into account. And keep in mind that, if I see fit to ramp up global warming, you and the elves better have water wings.
(12/03/07 3:47am)
On Friday, the Indiana Daily Student ran a story about the decline of reading for pleasure among college students. According to a study done by the National Endowment for the Arts, 65 percent of college freshmen spend less than an hour a week reading for pleasure, or don’t read for pleasure at all – and, for seniors it’s 63 percent. Young adults, defined by the study as 15- to 24-year-olds, read for pleasure only seven to 10 minutes per day, compared to two to two-and-a-half hours spent watching television. All this, the organization warns, will harm the U.S. economy and society, as reading for pleasure boosts reading comprehension, which, in turn, is positively related to economic competitiveness and civic involvement.\nBut more important than its potentially negative impact on the economy or society is this trend’s potentially negative impact on me. \nIt’s an open secret that the Opinion page is packed with wannabe writers and novelists – and yours truly is no exception. Our brethren on the news pages might dream of working for The New York Times, but many columnists, I suspect, are more likely to dream of getting on The New York Times Best Seller list. \nThis, of course, means that our job prospects are even worse than our reporter colleagues – and whenever you get angry at a column, you can take solace in the fact that its writer will probably starve to death two to three years after leaving IU (charitable donations can be sent to Brian McFillen c/o the IDS Opinion Page, Ernie Pyle Hall Room 120, 940 E. Seventh St., Bloomington, Ind., 47405). And even those of us who sell out and get, you know, jobs are only able to face the day-to-day grind by resting sure in the knowledge that, if we could just get past finishing the third chapter in our novel, we would rock the literary world in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Algonquin Roundtable closed up shop. (If you don’t know what the Algonquin Roundtable was – well, see, that’s part of the problem with not reading.)\nThus, I want you to sit down and read something for pleasure today (besides this column, of course). I know, I know, you’re saying “But I have homewoooorrrrkkk!!!” But you can’t con me – this year the Princeton Review ranked IU No. 18 for students who (almost) never study. And it’s not like that anthropology article on the sexual practices of Bonobo apes is going to teach you any techniques that you don’t already know. \nLook at it this way: It’s for the sake of your future job prospects. The study reported that 63 percent of employers ranked reading comprehension as very important while 28 percent complained that college graduates are deficient in written communication.\nAnd on my end, I’ll hunker down and try to make sure there’s enough reading material – I’m just to the part in my novel where the critics realize that the tough but sexy columnist is totally misunderstood.