#also his relation with contemporary jazz and early us pop music ? like for a guy frequently called an anachronism his music and

[6ebe]

has everyone listened to their daily rachmaninoff?

[wormmomma]

tyler, the creator: the very queer discography review!!!

Im bored of writing overly long threads on twitter so i wrote a look at tyler the creators discography and why hes gay and im gay and deserved to have his dick immortalized in gold when he dies. So tyler gregory okanma is a black man born in ladera heights california. He’s also my third favorite rapper and since he discovered my favorite rapper earl sweatshirt I guess he deserves goat status for that shit too. Tyler started his career around 17 years old as the ace the creator. He did features at the time with casey veggies and the inspirations in his flow to mf doom where already apparent even back then. From ace the creator mixtape you can already hear the very digital and jazz inspired pharrell production. Funny story if you look up any of his ace stuff now you'll mostly find some really old production that in the age of tyler the creator type beats doesn't really hold u all that great. From there Tyler went on to create odd futures and his first album bastard. He quite quickly followed up bastard with godlin. Goblin, bastard, and the OF tape vol.1 all feel pretty interconnected so im gonna speed round from worst to best. So odd future tape volume one is fun and punk and really crass, it's also completely eclipsed by odd futures other releases. I love odd future and the collective's ability too be both edgy teen skate rap garbage, and a risky artistic rap collective all at the same time. In odd future's first tape it seems pretty clear that tylers description of the groups early work as a bunch of niggas joking around in a studio is very apparent for better or worse. If you wanna get high with some friends can listen to some funny edgy and downright grimey tracks over left brains booking production skip this and listen to odd future's next mixtape but come back here to listen to some funny skits and a few proto mellowhype track with domo genesis. Goblin is Tyler's attempt to do a bigger darker more sprawling version of bastard but misses the mark. I like the album and I love singles on the album. Goblin the opening track is amazing and is a great look at tylers mental state attempting to live up to his newfound fame and anxiety about his infamy. I love yonkers and tron cat. Tyler says alot at this time that he doesn't make horrorcore and he's correct but the lack of emotional honesty and his immature deflections is really going off on all cylinders. If you dont wanna hear skits like “my bitch suck dick” and lines like “im not homophobic faggot” i would probably call it his worst album. Before i talk about bastard id like to go over his use of slurs and rape in his work. Tylers consistent lyrics about violence towards women and use of the lgbtq community really don't insult me. I feel like his lyrical content is filled with a clear look of how angry and insecure tyler was about not having a father or any way of processing his angst. Did he have to sound like a incel threatening to stalk and murder women who refuse to love him for over 3 albums? No, but i really enjoy looking at his early music. He doesn't shy away from how angry, sad and desperate he was at the time. That synthesis of need for fatherly love, anger from a lack of it and deteriorating mental state honestly makes the content more palatable. Also as a black trans women id rather hear tranny an faggot bars from a male rapper making intreeating music. Tyler at the time was being honest, angry and vulnerable not like eminem and action bronson who spit these bars with all the same rap bravado and violent anger toward women with zero pathos. Bastard is amazing, it's an intimate dark album. At the time it felt like it was tapping right into where I was at the time. The amount of mental anguish on bastards opening track really hit me. I was an angry kid with a lot of angst and bipolar disease so hearing a rapper yell about that same dysfunction really meant alot to me. The flows are amazing and it was a really good look at tylers ability to build a narrative. Wolf was tyler's next album. For a while wolf was my favorite album by tyler. His look at relationships and breakups on bimmer and ifhy are amazing and are expanded on his future releases. Find your wings and treehome are also a good look at his more melodic influence. It was such a good album I actually bought the mrech for and went to see Tyler at afropunk. Also hearing an entire song about the death of his grandma really hit me, my grandfather died around the same time. Cherry bomb was bad, now moving one. Ok im  joking i've listened to it two or three times but its really not worth going back to even though tyler put his all into it. The soul features and amazing production is worth listening to but even Tyler admits he rushed the album a little and that he needed to blow people away next time. Flower boy, is one of the most important albums in hip hop. That's it. Bar none. It was my favorite release of 2018. Flower boy is about tylers newfound isolation with his fame, and how he drives cars by himself in beautiful la vistas. Its also about how he’s gay (or bisexual). There are ALOT of stupid takes on this album. There is a contingency of tyler stans that think tyler has been “playing a character” since bastard. Now I'll admit that wolf haley and dr.teecee are clearly characters; they are also artists' representations of tyler's mental state. If wolf haley has adhd and no father that means tyler also has those issues. So whether or not Tyler is playing a character he has in fact “been kissing white boys since 2004”. I also have seen an insipid article that asks if “tyler the creator should be accepted into the lgbtq community” due to his homophobia? Much more controversial and actually homophobic and transphobic people are in this community hes tyler the creator, not milo yinnaoplous. I also dont think that it occurs to the reviewer that alot of gay men are very hmophobic before they come out and that self hate is very common. Lyrics like “im not gay i just wanna dance to some marvin” also has a much deeper context now. Listening to older releases you can see how in your face tyler was about his queerness. He even said he filmed himself kissing his friend Lucas to prove he wasn't a homophobe. I'm happy Tyler grew enough to make an album not only about being attracted to men but how lonely he felt in and out of the closet. As someone who came out as bisexual at the time it came at a perfect time. Being  gay is isolating and confusing and when you do you lose alot of friends and family. Garden shed, who dat boy, and 911 are real standouts. His collaboration with kali uchis was also so fucking smooth and she a born r&b star. Tyler gained a grammy nomination off the album and said he loved the feeling of finally making popular catchy music people wanna sing the lyrics too, so he followed it with igor. Igor opens with this addendum on the back of the physical album: 

This might be fiction, this might be about igor but it is fully about tyler okanga. The album is very hard to parse and barely has any rapping. It's more of a pop experimental album with a lot of lofi synth production. Tylers production chops are full force here. Igor is melodic, sad and full of the same anger and obsession from his previous albums. Its just more mature and really gay, and i fucking love it. Tyler was dealing with a tumultuous relationship with a guy and his refusal to be with tyler exclusively. Its about a breakup. A love tragedy that only becomes more depressing after the argument on a boy is a gun, the breakup in my love is gone, and the sad slump back into needing closure in can we be friends. The album is fun to sing to, and fucking devestating. I've dealt with a lot of similar issues with love and obsession so to hear it so clearly illustrated on igor really hit me. I think the album becomes even more depressing with the unreleased track best interest, about tyler being a side nigga. This is the kind of music that's sometimes made in r&b and pop but never in rap. There was an interview where Tyler says he hated his voice which is why he edits it so evident on igor. Tyler also said he wanted to send these songs to rihanna and Justin Beiber but they didn't want them, as cool as it sounds. I'm happy tyler was able to tell his own story. I would also recommend magic wand since it's my favorite track on the album and kicks you in the face with how angry and heartbroken Tyler was at the time. 

Tyler is an artist that talks and speaks about how he feels all the time, he's also a person who feels enigmatic and mysterious somehow. I think it has to do with how constantly he's put to the side of his other hip hop contemporaries. He always seems to be making music Tom weird, controversial and experimental to be treated like asap rocky, vince staples, or the late mac miller. A fact that feels ironic since he worked with all of those artists, lil wayne, and even kanye west. I'm as big a stan for tyler as he is for Pharrell, if it wherent forever I'd never take rap seriously and would never have chosen to make my own music. As a black trans woman I find a lot of tylers work really relatable. I've been in alot of the angry hopeless situations Tyler talks about in his music. I think he's the artist who hits me the most on a personal level and yeah when i was depressed i sat in my bedroom and listened to bastard in my low moments. I like riding in the car and listening to all of flowerboy. Igor is amazing as well for almost half a decade it's been amazing growing up and hitting the same emotional beats Tyler went through5 in his work. Hearing about him coming out as gay ajd dealing with very similar backlash mad me feel less alone if im being honest. Tyler has said he wants to take a more production heavy role in the industry moving forward but he says that a lot, i think as long as he has a story to tell he's always going to make music. His music feels like a diary and I'm happy to read it and sonnet to it in all its beauty and ugliness. 

Hi my name is lua o'reilly i make music on soundcloud.com/wormmother

If you liked this review let me know and I'll do a look into earl sweatshirt.

[blackkudos]

Taj Mahal

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, a singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments. He often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific.

Early life

Born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. on May 17, 1942, in Harlem, New York, Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was raised in a musical environment; his mother was a member of a local gospel choir and his father was an Afro-Caribbean jazz arranger and piano player. His family owned a shortwave radio which received music broadcasts from around the world, exposing him at an early age to world music. Early in childhood he recognized the stark differences between the popular music of his day and the music that was played in his home. He also became interested in jazz, enjoying the works of musicians such as Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson. His parents came of age during the Harlem Renaissance, instilling in their son a sense of pride in his Caribbean and African ancestry through their stories.

Because his father was a musician, his house was frequently the host of other musicians from the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. His father, Henry Saint Clair Fredericks Sr., was called "The Genius" by Ella Fitzgerald before starting his family. Early on, Henry Jr. developed an interest in African music, which he studied assiduously as a young man. His parents also encouraged him to pursue music, starting him out with classical piano lessons. He also studied the clarinet, trombone and harmonica. When Mahal was eleven his father was killed in an accident at his own construction company, crushed by a tractor when it flipped over. This was an extremely traumatic experience for the boy.

Mahal's mother later remarried. His stepfather owned a guitar which Taj began using at age 13 or 14, receiving his first lessons from a new neighbor from North Carolina of his own age who played acoustic blues guitar. His name was Lynwood Perry, the nephew of the famous bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. In high school Mahal sang in a doo-wop group.

For some time Mahal thought of pursuing farming over music. He had developed a passion for farming that nearly rivaled his love of music—coming to work on a farm first at age 16. It was a dairy farm in Palmer, Massachusetts, not far from Springfield. By age nineteen he had become farm foreman, getting up a bit after 4:00 a.m. and running the place. "I milked anywhere between thirty-five and seventy cows a day. I clipped udders. I grew corn. I grew Tennessee redtop clover. Alfalfa." Mahal believes in growing one's own food, saying, "You have a whole generation of kids who think everything comes out of a box and a can, and they don't know you can grow most of your food." Because of his personal support of the family farm, Mahal regularly performs at Farm Aid concerts.

Taj Mahal, his stage name, came to him in dreams about Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using it in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts. Despite having attended a vocational agriculture school, becoming a member of the National FFA Organization, and majoring in animal husbandry and minoring in veterinary science and agronomy, Mahal decided to take the route of music instead of farming. In college he led a rhythm and blues band called Taj Mahal & The Elektras and, before heading for the U.S. West Coast, he was also part of a duo with Jessie Lee Kincaid.

Career

In 1964 he moved to Santa Monica, California, and formed Rising Sons with fellow blues rock musician Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid, landing a record deal with Columbia Records soon after. The group was one of the first interracial bands of the period, which likely made them commercially unviable. An album was never released (though a single was) and the band soon broke up, though Legacy Records did release The Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder in 1992 with material from that period. During this time Mahal was working with others, musicians like Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters. Mahal stayed with Columbia after the Rising Sons to begin his solo career, releasing the self-titled Taj Mahal and The Natch'l Blues in 1968, and Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home with Kiowa session musician Jesse Ed Davis from Oklahoma, who played guitar and piano in 1969. During this time he and Cooder worked with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has performed at various times throughout his career. In 1968, he performed in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. He recorded a total of twelve albums for Columbia from the late 1960s into the 1970s. His work of the 1970s was especially important, in that his releases began incorporating West Indian and Caribbean music, jazz and reggae into the mix. In 1972, he acted in and wrote the film score for the movie Sounder, which starred Cicely Tyson. He reprised his role and returned as composer in the sequel, Part 2, Sounder.

In 1976 Mahal left Columbia and signed with Warner Bros. Records, recording three albums for them. One of these was another film score for 1977's Brothers; the album shares the same name. After his time with Warner Bros., he struggled to find another record contract, this being the era of heavy metal and disco music.

Stalled in his career, he decided to move to Kauai, Hawaii in 1981 and soon formed the Hula Blues Band. Originally just a group of guys getting together for fishing and a good time, the band soon began performing regularly and touring. He remained somewhat concealed from most eyes while working out of Hawaii throughout most of the 1980s before recording Taj in 1988 for Gramavision. This started a comeback of sorts for him, recording both for Gramavision and Hannibal Records during this time.

In the 1990s Mahal became deeply involved in supporting the nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation. As of 2019, he was still on the Foundation's advisory board.

In the 1990s he was on the Private Music label, releasing albums full of blues, pop, R&B and rock. He did collaborative works both with Eric Clapton and Etta James.

In 1998, in collaboration with renowned songwriter David Forman, producer Rick Chertoff and musicians Cyndi Lauper, Willie Nile, Joan Osborne, Rob Hyman, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of the Band, and the Chieftains, he performed on the Americana album Largo based on the music of Antonín Dvořák.

In 1997 he won Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues at the Grammy Awards, followed by another Grammy for Shoutin' in Key in 2000. He performed the theme song to the children's television show Peep and the Big Wide World, which began broadcast in 2004.

In 2002, Mahal appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot and Riot in tribute to Nigerian afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. The Paul Heck produced album was widely acclaimed, and all proceeds from the record were donated to AIDS charities.

Taj Mahal contributed to Olmecha Supreme's 2006 album 'hedfoneresonance'. The Wellington-based group led by Mahal's son Imon Starr (Ahmen Mahal) also featured Deva Mahal on vocals.

Mahal partnered up with Keb' Mo' to release a joint album TajMo on May 5, 2017. The album has some guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Joe Walsh, Sheila E., and Lizz Wright, and has six original compositions and five covers, from artists and bands like John Mayer and The Who.

In 2013, Mahal appeared in the documentary film 'The Byrd Who Flew Alone', produced by Four Suns Productions. The film was about Gene Clark, one of the original Byrds, who was a friend of Mahal for many years.

In June 2017, Mahal appeared in the award-winning documentary film The American Epic Sessions, directed by Bernard MacMahon, recording Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Mahal appeared throughout the accompanying documentary series American Epic, commenting on the 1920s rural recording artists who had a profound influence on American music and on him personally.

Musical style

Mahal leads with his thumb and middle finger when fingerpicking, rather than with his index finger as the majority of guitar players do. "I play with a flatpick," he says, "when I do a lot of blues leads." Early in his musical career Mahal studied the various styles of his favorite blues singers, including musicians like Jimmy Reed, Son House, Sleepy John Estes, Big Mama Thornton, Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sonny Terry. He describes his hanging out at clubs like Club 47 in Massachusetts and Ash Grove in Los Angeles as "basic building blocks in the development of his music." Considered to be a scholar of blues music, his studies of ethnomusicology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst would come to introduce him further to the folk music of the Caribbean and West Africa. Over time he incorporated more and more African roots music into his musical palette, embracing elements of reggae, calypso, jazz, zydeco, R&B, gospel music, and the country blues—each of which having "served as the foundation of his unique sound." According to The Rough Guide to Rock, "It has been said that Taj Mahal was one of the first major artists, if not the very first one, to pursue the possibilities of world music. Even the blues he was playing in the early 70s – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff (1972), Mo' Roots (1974) – showed an aptitude for spicing the mix with flavours that always kept him a yard or so distant from being an out-and-out blues performer." Concerning his voice, author David Evans writes that Mahal has "an extraordinary voice that ranges from gruff and gritty to smooth and sultry."

Taj Mahal believes that his 1999 album Kulanjan, which features him playing with the kora master of Mali's Griot tradition Toumani Diabate, "embodies his musical and cultural spirit arriving full circle." To him it was an experience that allowed him to reconnect with his African heritage, striking him with a sense of coming home. He even changed his name to Dadi Kouyate, the first jali name, to drive this point home. Speaking of the experience and demonstrating the breadth of his eclecticism, he has said:

The microphones are listening in on a conversation between a 350-year-old orphan and its long-lost birth parents. I've got so much other music to play. But the point is that after recording with these Africans, basically if I don't play guitar for the rest of my life, that's fine with me....With Kulanjan, I think that Afro-Americans have the opportunity to not only see the instruments and the musicians, but they also see more about their culture and recognize the faces, the walks, the hands, the voices, and the sounds that are not the blues. Afro-American audiences had their eyes really opened for the first time. This was exciting for them to make this connection and pay a little more attention to this music than before.

Taj Mahal has said he prefers to do outdoor performances, saying: "The music was designed for people to move, and it's a bit difficult after a while to have people sitting like they're watching television. That's why I like to play outdoor festivals-because people will just dance. Theatre audiences need to ask themselves: 'What the hell is going on? We're asking these musicians to come and perform and then we sit there and draw all the energy out of the air.' That's why after a while I need a rest. It's too much of a drain. Often I don't allow that. I just play to the goddess of music-and I know she's dancing."

Mahal has been quoted as saying, "Eighty-one percent of the kids listening to rap were not black kids. Once there was a tremendous amount of money involved in it ... they totally moved it over to a material side. It just went off to a terrible direction. ...You can listen to my music from front to back, and you don't ever hear me moaning and crying about how bad you done treated me. I think that style of blues and that type of tone was something that happened as a result of many white people feeling very, very guilty about what went down."

Awards

Taj Mahal has received three Grammy Awards (ten nominations) over his career.

1997 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues

2000 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Shoutin' in Key

2006 (Blues Music Awards) Historical Album of the Year for The Essential Taj Mahal

2008 (Grammy Nomination) Best Contemporary Blues Album for Maestro

2018 (Grammy Award) Best Contemporary Blues Album for TajMo

On February 8, 2006 Taj Mahal was designated the official Blues Artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In March 2006, Taj Mahal, along with his sister, the late Carole Fredericks, received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of their commitment to shine a spotlight on the vast potential of music to foster genuine intercultural communication.

On May 22, 2011, Taj Mahal received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He also made brief remarks and performed three songs. A video of the performance can be found online.

In 2014, Taj Mahal received the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement award.

Discography

Albums

1968 – Taj Mahal

1968 – The Natch'l Blues

1969 – Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home

1971 – Happy Just to Be Like I Am

1972 – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff

1972 – Sounder (original soundtrack)

1973 – Oooh So Good 'n Blues

1974 – Mo' Roots

1975 – Music Keeps Me Together

1976 – Satisfied 'n Tickled Too

1976 – Music Fuh Ya'

1977 – Brothers

1977 – Evolution

1987 – Taj

1988 – Shake Sugaree

1991 – Mule Bone

1991 – Like Never Before

1993 – Dancing the Blues

1995 – Mumtaz Mahal (with V.M. Bhatt and N. Ravikiran)

1996 – Phantom Blues

1997 – Señor Blues

1998 – Sacred Island AKA Hula Blues (with The Hula Blues Band)

1999 – Blue Light Boogie

1999 – Kulanjan (with Toumani Diabaté)

2001 – Hanapepe Dream (with The Hula Blues Band)

2005 – Mkutano Meets the Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar

2008 – Maestro

2014 – Talkin' Christmas (with Blind Boys of Alabama)

2016 – Labor of Love

2017 – TajMo (with Keb' Mo')

Live albums

1971 – The Real Thing

1972 – Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff

1972 – Big Sur Festival - One Hand Clapping

1979 – Live & Direct

1990 – Live at Ronnie Scott's

1996 – An Evening of Acoustic Music

2000 – Shoutin' in Key

2004 – Live Catch

2015 – Taj Mahal & The Hula Blues Band: Live From Kauai

Compilation albums

1980 – Going Home

1981 – The Best of Taj Mahal, Volume 1 (Columbia)

1992 – Taj's Blues

1993 – World Music

1998 – In Progress & In Motion: 1965-1998

1999 – Blue Light Boogie

2000 – The Best of Taj Mahal

2000 – The Best of the Private Years

2001 – Sing a Happy Song: The Warner Bros. Recordings

2003 – Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues – Taj Mahal

2003 – Blues with a Feeling: The Very Best of Taj Mahal

2005 – The Essential Taj Mahal

2012 – Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal

Various artists featuring Taj Mahal

1968 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

1968 – The Rock Machine Turns You On

1970 – Fill Your Head With Rock

1985 – Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed

1990 – The Hot Spot – original soundtrack

1991 – Vol Pour Sidney – one title only, other tracks by Charlie Watts, Elvin Jones, Pepsi, The Lonely Bears, Lee Konitz and others.

1992 – Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder

1992 – Smilin' Island of Song by Cedella Marley Booker and Taj Mahal.

1993 – The Source by Ali Farka Touré (World Circuit WCD030; Hannibal 1375)

1993 – Peace Is the World Smiling

1997 – Follow the Drinking Gourd

1997 – Shakin' a Tailfeather

1998 – Scrapple – original soundtrack

1998 – Largo

1999 – Hippity Hop

2001 – "Strut" – with Jimmy Smith on his album Dot Com Blues

2002 – Jools Holland's Big Band Rhythm & Blues (Rhino) – contributing his version of "Outskirts of Town"

2002 – Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III – Lead vocals on Fishin' Blues, and lead in and first verse of the title track, with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Alison Krauss, Doc Watson

2004 – Musicmakers with Taj Mahal (Music Maker 49)

2004 – Etta Baker with Taj Mahal (Music Maker 50)

2007 – Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino (Vanguard) – contributing his version of "My Girl Josephine"

2007 – Le Cœur d'un homme by Johnny Hallyday – duet on "T'Aimer si mal", written by French best-selling novelist Marc Levy

2009 – American Horizon – with Los Cenzontles, David Hidalgo

2011 – Play The Blues Live From Lincoln Jazz Center – with Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton, playing on "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Corrine, Corrina"

2013 – "Poye 2" – with Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba on their album Jama Ko

2013 – "Winding Down" – with Sammy Hagar, Dave Zirbel, John Cuniberti, Mona Gnader, Vic Johnson on the album Sammy Hagar & Friends

2013 – Divided & United: The Songs of the Civil War – with a version of "Down by the Riverside"

2015 – "How Can a Poor Boy?" – with Van Morrison on his album Re-working the Catalogue

2017 – Music from The American Epic Sessions: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – contributing his version of "High Water Everywhere"

Filmography

Live DVDs

2002 – Live at Ronnie Scott's 1988

2006 – Taj Mahal/Phantom Blues Band Live at St. Lucia

2011 – Play The Blues Live From Lincoln Jazz Center – with Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton, playing on "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Corrine, Corrina"

Movies

1972 – Sounder – as Ike

1977 – Brothers

1991 – Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

1996 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

1998 – Outside Ozona

1998 – Six Days, Seven Nights

1998 – Blues Brothers 2000

1998 – Scrapple

2000 – Songcatcher

2002 – Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

2017 – American Epic

2017 – The American Epic Sessions

TV Shows

1977 - Saturday Night Live: Episode 048 Performer: Musical Guest

1985 - Theme song from Star Wars: Ewoks

1992 – New WKRP in Cincinnati – Moss Dies as himself

1999 – Party of Five – Fillmore Street as himself

2003 – Arthur – Big Horns George as himself

2004 – Theme song from Peep and the Big Wide World

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Sun Sets On The Blasters

Hey, it’s the return of Sunday Interviews! This one is from some time in 2004? I don’t think this was actually the end of The Blasters. 

The release of The Blasters' Going Home (Shout Factory), a live CD and companion DVD recorded late last year, marks the end of the beloved SoCal roots-rockers' most recent chapter. "The reunion shows were great," guitarist/songwriter Dave Alvin said. "But by the end, it was starting to get a little bit like the old times. It was like, 'You know, this might be enough.'" 

The Blasters originally came together at the end of the '70s in the heart of Orange County, Calif., and along with the outsider punk bands of the L.A. area (Black Flag, X, The Germs) served as a much-needed antidote to the slick pop music of the early '80. The band was the brainchild of singer/guitarist Phil Alvin, whose love of raw blues, rockabilly, and R&B verged on the religious. He recruited Bill Bateman on drums, John Bazz on bass, and, as a last resort, his younger brother Dave on lead guitar. "All the other guitar players that were my brother's age had all left town or were dead or in jail," the guitarist recalled during a recent phone interview. "So it wound up being me. In the beginning, I was just hanging on to being in the band because they couldn't find anyone else! That was really it. At the time, I was studying poetry and creative writing and working as a fry cook." The band's sound was summed up succinctly in "American Music," the title track of their 1980 debut longplayer (originally a few thousand vinyl albums were pressed up on the small Rollin' Rock label; Hightone Records re-released the album on CD with extra tracks in 1997): "We got the Louisiana boogie and the Delta blues/ We got country swing and rockabilly, too/ We got jazz, country-Western, and Chicago blues/It's the greatest music that you ever knew." Dave soon became the band's primary songwriter. "When it became obvious that we were going to have to have original songs in order to get a record deal, I was the guy that started writing," he said. "And over the period of a year or two years, my view kind of changed. I went from doing the songs note for note to thinking 'How can I write songs that are maybe as good as some of the old ones, and yet are about things that are somewhat relatable to contemporary times?'" The Punk Connection The group was signed by L.A.'s punk-rock Slash label (also home to X), which helped position them as part of the new underground rock scene rather than as rockabilly throwbacks. The Blasters received many rave reviews. Its highlights included "Marie Marie," a new version of "American Music," and "Border Radio," songs that became cornerstones of the group's repertoire and earned Dave acclaim as a fresh songwriting talent. The band added pianist Gene Taylor, baritone saxophonist Steve Berlin, and Lee Allen on tenor sax, and proceeded to record four studio albums, all the while building up a loyal fan base on the strength of their blazing live show. Dave left the band in 1987 to pursue a solo career and production jobs, while Phil continued playing live under The Blasters' name with other guitarists and players. In 2002, Rhino Records released Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings, which revived interest in the original band. As a result, Dave  rejoined for a series of shows in the U.S. and Europe. "It was kind of ecstatic just about everywhere we went," Dave said of the reception the reunited Blasters received. "It was a real revelation to me. I knew there were fans of the band and all that. But I didn't realize how — I'll use the word — 'loved' the band is, or was, or whatever. You know, certain people just really connected with the band. Maybe it was because none of us were handsome and we weren't like big rock stars... We always seemed like we were somehow related to everybody. I think it meant a lot to a lot of people to see the five guys up there together again. But I didn't think it would be that way." The band's mastery over classic American musical forms remained firmly in place. Indeed, Dave thinks that the 21st-century Blasters are even better than they were in their early-'80 heyday. "I do think the last few records — the CD/DVD, and Trouble Bound, [a live album whose songs were drawn from the first series of 2002 reunion shows] — are the best CDs we've ever done." The key ingredient, he reveals, was having a "'we don't care' kind of attitude. [The reunion shows] weren't like a make-or-break thing with our career. And because of that we just played like we play." Guest Stars Going Home is further distinguished by the presence of several guest stars, including the vocal groups The Calvanes and The Medallions, rockabilly legend Sonny Burgess, and Chicago bluesman Billy Boy Arnold. "The thing that connected all of the guest musicians was that in the early days, we used to do songs by all these guys," Dave Alvin said. "These are people who had a direct influence on the way The Blasters sound." The guitarist is particularly proud of how these collaborations shine a light on the common blues roots of such diverse musical talents. "On the live CD, there's a Big Joe Turner medley. So you have four acts playing: you've got The Blasters from California, Sonny Burgess from Arkansas, Billy Boy from Chicago, and the R&B vocal quartet from California as well. And all of those acts were influenced by Big Joe Turner. They all sound different, but they all work within the blues form, and they were influenced by that one guy. So that was my idea with the guests — to show where the connection is." Alvin has never been shy in talking about the band's numerous influences. Indeed, The Blasters have been responsible for turning on countless fans to dozens of long-forgotten acts, either through musical tributes or cover versions. "We got together for three reasons: to play music at a time when there might be an opportunity to play the way we did, to quit our day jobs, and most importantly, to say 'Hey, you ever hear of this guy?' It was sort of a way to take your old beat-up 45s and play them for people. And then it branched out into other things." Dave sees Going Home as his farewell to The Blasters, at least for the time being. "You never want to say never," he said regarding the possibility of future Blasters activity. "Especially because all five guys, no matter what I say or my brother says, we're all related. We've all known each other since we were kids, and because of that you can't say 'Go to hell! I'll never talk to you again!' I mean, we actually say that all the time, but we don't mean it," he said with a laugh. "But I think definitely it's sort of a goodbye for the time being. I think there's no intention of going into a recording studio and doing anything like that. But we'll probably do some gigs sometime in the next 20 years." Then he laughed again. In the meantime, Alvin is keeping busy. "I have a new solo record called Ashgrove coming out on June 15th," he reported. "Greg Leisz [Lucinda Williams, Beck, Wilco] is producing, and it's basically just me and Greg playing guitars, and a bass player and a drummer. It turned out really well, it's all new, original songs." The album will be released on the fledgling North Carolina indie Yep Roc Records, an alliance Dave is excited about. "For years, I've been signing my records over to record labels, but since I paid for this record myself, I'm going to license the music from now on. They made me an amazing offer. Other labels made great offers, but this one was by far the best. They're very young and very proactive, and they're figuring out how the record industry is going to survive in the future."

[nimzzz]

“So, What’s Your Favourite Type of Music?”

A good question.

A classic icebreaker. A great conversation starter. A brilliant way to assess a potential new friend.

Except with me. Ask me this question, and expect silence – or expect to be pretending to look interested after 6 hours of me pondering out loud over the plethora of genres – with your eyes glazing over and regretting your decision to ever consider me a “potential new friend”.

I wish I was joking.

Now, I’m not just being pretentious; hear me out.

It’s just – I love all music. Music is such a universal language – a form of expression of emotions, a communication that transcends cultural and language barriers. It can be used as a political statement or to add an extra dimension to media in the form of soundtracks. And I love it all.

As you may have noticed, I love a good list on this blog. This one: it’s a big ‘un. Lists within lists of artists in the hope that you will branch out and listen to something different – or indeed recommend more music to me (please)!

(Unfortunately, because I don’t pay for WordPress Premium, I cannot embed videos or audio into the post – so for every artist I mention I have linked a music video of theirs you can check out. I have also got a spotify playlist of all the music mentioned here that you can listen to here while reading!)

Here goes.

Bands

I’ll start with bands. For the majority of my teenage years, I liked to listen to the stereotypical “emo” music – the pop punk and rock that stemmed from the garage/grunge revolution in the late 90s and 2000s. I refused to listen to pop music. I assumed none of it had musicality or the deep meaning that is offered in these bands. Some of those iconic bands, such as Green Day or My Chemical Romance, I no longer listen to, but the likes of Welcome to the Black Parade will always be nostalgic anthems.

Having moved to University, I am actually getting back into those old bands again, as I finally have the chance to see them live. You Me At Six were incredible at Leeds festival last year, Fall Out Boy‘s dystopian narratives are gripping (particularly notable in the album Save Rock and Roll), and I love the authenticity and full-on Northern-ness that is represented in Arctic Monkeys‘ music. The rawness of Foo Fighters as the modern(ish) equivalent to Nirvana is also fun to listen to. Lyrically, I think Twenty One Pilots are definitely worth listening to, even if you don’t like the duo’s musical style. They juxtapose hope and despair, and faith and existentialism in a clever yet sensitive way.

Mayday Parade, however, were my ultimate favourites out of the “emo” class. Their songs are just saturated with emotion and the sound itself is relatively musically complex.

I tend to go through phases with bands and music (such as my mad Mcfly phase when I was fourteen #GalaxyDefendersStayForever), but one band I will never grow tired of is Muse.

  If you were to take my personality and put it into a band, the end result would be Muse (and not just because I share a birthday with Matt Bellamy).

Muse Playing Live in 2012

Muse draw inspiration from classical music, philosophy, science, jazz, politics, social issues and even other popular culture and blend it together in a heavy, yet melodic, rock trio. They are also incredible to see live – they put so much thought and meaning behind the set that somehow relates to the songs and creates an intricate story. I love the use of the Benedictus of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcellis in their album Drones, and the fact that The Resistance is based off Orwell’s 1984, and that Origin of Symmetry was greatly influenced by Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto.

Muse are the definition of art in my mind – they are musically complex, versatile, challenge world views and make you think. Every thing they do is down to the last detail and tells interesting narratives.

Guys, if you listen to one band in your life, listen to Muse. Don’t just take my word for it. Listen.

2. Pop

If I told the fourteen year-old me that the nineteen year-old me would love pop, I would have scoffed. I actively didn’t listen to pop. I was adamant not to be caught up in One Direction mania. I had a hatred for Justin Bieber. (I was such a music snob.)

I have to say that my taste in pop music fluctuates more than any genre. In two months time, this post will be outdated. There is always so much music coming out that it’s impossible not to get new favourites all the time, if you ask me!

Dua Lipa

Staying at Tamara’s

Currently, I am loving George Ezra‘s new album: Staying at Tamara’s. It fits in so well with the beautiful summery aesthetic of last week. It has a light-hearted sound and all in all, the songs are bops. Dua Lipa is a current icon of British diversity and multiculturalism, and her self-titled album is well put together and catchy. She is widely becoming a global sensation, and for good reason. On a complete contrast to her dark sound, I will always love the funk and soul infused songs of Bruno Mars‘ music, as well as his unique voice and catchy tunes. Other notable mentions are Florence and the Machine, Jess Glynne and (call me basic but) Ed Sheeran.

Of course, I am a big fan of the cheesy oldies and one-hit wonders of the naughties. I am also a huge musicals and disney nerd.

The problem with many popular artists is that they’re really original and authentic until they’re overplayed. There’s a fine line between a well-known, catchy song and an annoying earworm.

3. Classical Music

(Or, to be more specific: Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century music.)

There is a plethora of subgenres and types in classical music. Maybe it’s because it’s my first instrument, but I’m particularly partial to solo piano music. For this, there are a multitude, my favourites including Liszt and Debussy. I believe Chopin, however, truly is the king. The Etudes complilation is stunning; his Waltzes are beautiful. My ultimate favourites on the other hand are the Ballades. I first came to love Ballade No. 1 through the Japanese animation Your Lie In April and, it’s just exquisite.

Your Lie In April character Kousei Arima playing Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G Minor

Favourite piano concertos of mine include all of Rachmaninov‘s concertos, Grieg‘s piano concerto, and Tchaikovsky‘s Concerto No. 1.

In general, I mostly listen to romanticism and early 20th century Russian music. I love that it can be used for political protest against the Soviet union without even using words – I mean, you can hear and analyse the rich emotion Shostakovich‘s Symphony No. 5, especially the third movement.

Although I am more likely to listen to relatively modern romantic and 20th Century music, we mustn’t forget the sphere of influence of the early composers. We wouldn’t have such vibrant and diverse classical music today if not for Bach‘s baroque genius, especially in his fugues. Mozart gets a little samey to listen to, but he really helped build the foundations of classical music.

In modern classical music, it’s often very atonal and avant garde, which at first I could not listen to. (Give me tonality!) But, being exposed to it more and more, I am beginning to see the genius behind the likes of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, even if I don’t particularly listen to them.

Modern classical music I definitely do listen to is soundtracks. They are often a gateway to classical music through other popular culture. John Williams‘ composed a library of amazing soundtracks, including Star Wars and Jurassic Park. Hans Zimmer‘s iconic works include Pirates of The Caribbean and the Hidden Figures soundtrack (one of my all-time favourite films). Hands down, the most iconic film score has to be The Lord of The Rings soundtrack by Howard Shore, whose other works include the soundtracks of The Hunger Games and How to Train Your Dragon.

The iconic soundtrack of Lord Of The Rings is perfect accompaniment to its scenery

5. Jazz

My love for jazz is largely due to my grandfather, who is pretty much a walking jazz encyclopedia. I also have the privilege to immerse myself in jazz music at university.

Jazz’s roots stem from horrific black oppression in America. Blues music originated in the fields of the slave trade, and New Orleans marching bands were gatherings of African-Americans who were displaced after slavery was abolished. The combination of these things as well as the western classical tradition influenced early jazz in the 1910s-20s. Jazz’s rich history and emotion can be heard so well in the music.

Early jazz pioneers in the Dixieland (20s) period included The Original Dixieland Jass Band and King Oliver. I don’t usually listen to this early jazz because of its old recording quality, even though they are just as important in the development of jazz. The 1930s marked the swing period, where great artists like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald made their names. From the 40s onwards, the style of bebop was born, and some of my favourite jazz artists from this era include Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Charlie Parker. 

While South African jazz artists like Abdullah Ibrahim and Brazillian artists like João Gilberto frequent my listening list, I mostly listen to contemporary jazz. Last summer, I had the privilege of seeing the Billy Hart quartet and Joshua Redman at the Village Vanguard in NYC. The best way to enjoy jazz is live in an atmosphere like that; the music is made for it.

The Village Vanguard in NYC is one of the best venues I’ve been to

A clarinet inspiration of mine is Anat Cohen, who covers a broad range of the jazz spectrum. Furthermore, I love artists that take core elements of jazz and put their own twists on it. Herbie Hancock was one of the first artists to do this in the 40s, fusing jazz, electro and funk styles together. For example, Snarky Puppy are a large contemporary instrumental group that use jazz harmony in many of their albums. Similarly, solo artist Jacob Collier uses modern music technology and multi-layering techniques with jazz harmony to produce complex and interesting music. Nubiyan Twist are an British jazz group incorporating Afro-jazz and hip hop into their style, and I was only introduced to them recently. There is so much to choose from!

One-Man jazz-infused musician Jacob Collier

Many people say jazz is dying. But there are so many ways to keep it alive. start by listening.

6. K-pop

Dear reader, I am going to let you into a little secret. A guilty pleasure of mine. And that is Korean Pop.

My love for K-pop is purely superficial. It goes against everything I stand for within art – meaning, authenticity, musical complexity. It’s a manufactured industry that is full of flaws, including overworking and paying artists unfairly.

But it’s mesmerising.

Seventeen’s MV “Don’t Wanna Cry”

Watch one music video – or even better, a live performance – and see the highly trained voices and slick choreography and beautiful people and you’ll be hooked. With the world getting smaller and the internet the way it is, it’s never been easier to fall down the K-Pop rabbit hole. It’s a mish-mash of all pop-like genres, with a fusion of multicultural influences – with the most popular groups specialising in the sounds of Hip Hop and EDM. It’s as much, (if not more) of a visual experience as a sonic experience.

K-Pop singer Ailee performing at the 2018 Paralympics Closing Ceremony

If you are persuaded, here are my recommendations. Sonically, I think the soft sound of band Day6 or the soulful voice of Ailee are fantastic. Choreography-wise (and looks/popularity-wise), my favourite groups are BTS (you’ve probably heard of them – they beat the likes of Justin Bieber in a popularity vote at the BBMAs), Seventeen (there are a lot of them), Blackpink, KARD (one of the few mixed groups), GOT7 and EXO.

I dare you to try listening to a new genre this week. I also dare you to recommend me more music! If you want to have a nosey – here’s a link to my spotify.

My favourite radio stations:

Radio 1 (Their greatest hits show especially)

BBC Radio 3 (both new and old jazz and classical music, as well as live concerts like the Proms)

BBC Radio 6 Music (who doesn’t want to hear about the new stuff?)

Absolute Radio (commercial radio with the #NoRepeatGuarantee for all your rock, indie, and nostalgic needs)

Classic FM (not as wide repertoire as BBC Radio 3, but their Facebook page’s memes are on point.)

Stay sound!

– Naomi

“So, What’s Your Favourite Type Of Music?” A good question. A classic icebreaker. A great conversation starter. A brilliant way to assess a potential new friend.

[nelson-riddle-me-this]

Rules: tag 9 people with excellent taste

Colour(s) I’m currently wearing

Mostly white - I’m wearing my bathrobe. My mom got it for me and it’s great. It’s not the softest but it’s good and it’s got cool blue and grey horizontal stripes on the bottom. Normally it’s very frustrating for her to try to get clothing gifts for me, but she hit the nail on the head with this one.

Last band T shirt I bought

I’ve never bought a ‘band’ t-shirt. The artists I really love don’t have much in the way of t-shirts and if they do, they look really corny. Like I’m not gonna get a Streisand t-shirt and look like some middle-aged empty-nester out grocery shopping.

Last band I saw live

I guess our evening Jazz Ensemble - it’s professional adult musicians - at my school’s Jazz Ensembles concert. They’re great. As for non-school performances, I think? the last concert I went to was a Brian Setzer concert at the Hollywood Bowl with my mom a while back.

Last song I listened to

I tried listening to some contemporary pop from the Love, Simon (2018) soundtrack today and it was really difficult so now I’m at the computer enjoying some tumblr-time and listening to my most-chill and most-favorite Doris Day album.

Lipstick or chapstick?

I used lipstick once for my Katharine Hepburn halloween costume last year and - tbh lipstick is so much work - makeup in general. Like it would be fun to be a girl and wear dresses and be super pretty and stuff - but wo-MAN it’s so much work!

So chapstick. The tube I use is some Burt’s Bees pink grapefruit that I really love. This might sound weird but I only have it because a boy I had a small crush on once asked me to hold it while he changed clothes and forgot to collect it from me..

Last movie I watched

I went to the movies last weekend with @adamsberg​ and another one of my best friends and saw Love, Simon (2018). I really really really really loved it.

I hadn’t even heard of it until a few weeks ago I saw a trailer on YouTube, but I thought it looked great and it was everything I hoped and more. I have this soft spot for angsty contemporary teen dramas like this [The Fault In Our Stars (2014) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) are also in this micro-genre]. While I love my classics, I also love these great movies that are being made here and NOW! Sometimes I feel apart from the rest of the world - and not in a good way. I wasn’t friendless in high school - but I wasn’t anywhere near as close to any of my friends as any of these movie teens are... as accepted and loved as I am to/by an amazing, small, group of my friends now. I have no horror stories, but I don’t have very many stories and that’s just it - I could have had so much more, but I didn’t. Part of it was because I wasn’t out yet and this film so wonderfully explored that. I highly reccomend it - and not just for the good plot, it’s hilarious and an overall great experience.

Last 3 TV shows I watched

911 (2018-present) 

Sometimes my mom’s taste in first-run television is pretty bad (NCIS stopped being good like a decade ago) but in this case I am totally on-board. Angela Bassett [WAIT HOW IS SHE 59???????] is an inspiration (I WANT HER CHARACTER’S HOUSE!), the writing and production values are generally very good - it’s a solid, interesting show. Still, can anyone tell me what the deal with that middle-aged white lady (who’s a few years younger than Angela Bassett but lowekey looks 20 years older) who dresses like a suburban mom trying to dress like her teenage daughter - like what’s the deal with her dating that guy in his 20s? 

Frasier (1993-2004)

My mom and I watch this show somewhat regularly as it’s on like every flippin’ night on the scourge that is the Hallmark Channel (generally decent reruns, but I hate the channel itself and their original programming is complete trash). In a lotta ways I really love it - it’s hilarious, witty, sophisticated, adult, and has the power to  create a real poigniant moment like you rarely see so fully-realized in sitcoms. 

It has its issues though. Frasier and Niles (especially in early seasons) can get annoyingly whiny/snobby. I get that their characters are kinda built around that, but there’s a point at which they take it too far and it becomes disengaging. Also it’s a super white-people-centric show (I wonder why Hallmark likes it so much...) so diversity could be a lot better. Still, it’s generally a high-quality program.

Gosh I don’t remember what else I watched last. I haven’t had a lotta TV time lately so Imma use this opportunity to plug...

Stranger Things (2016-present)

One’a my best friends, Grace, introduced me to this show and I absolutely love it. The period’s really well done - not just accurate, but alive and real and relatable. The acting and casting is great. Winona Ryder is a treasure and I have a shameless crush on Joe Keery’s amazing hair and the person it belongs to. The scoring is effective, interesting, and very different from the kind of film music I usually am exposed to (I’m really making an effort to expand my horizons beyond classic orchestral sounds lately). The production values are great - it’s just an amazing show. 

Last 3 characters I identified with

1.) Simon Spier from Love, Simon (2018)

While there are some things about him I definitely don’t identify with (message me personally if you wanna know specifics- I don’t want to spoil anything), I very much identify with his coming out story and coming to terms with his sexuality on his own terms. 

I feel like there are people who will criticize the film based on Simon’s extreme normalcy - like he’s honestly a fairly stock white, middle-class, suburban teenage boy and, aside from his involvement in theater and ‘ya know liking boys he doesn’t do much that would be considered “gay” - but that’s kinda the point of the film. Being gay is just something that is and anyone can be gay - they’re not weird or whatever just for being gay - that was one of my fears - that I would be treated (or even just feel like) some strange unwelcome outsider just because of this one thing.

I had a long conversation tonight with an older kinda mentor’y friend of mine (though I’m more of the mentor) who’s gay and who was having a really rough night. Among the lotta things he said was that all gay men cheat that there’s no true monagomous love in the gay community and like lightning I shot him down with a fervor and wisdom and riteousness that would make Kate proud (wayto blow my own horn). 

That’s the exact kind of idiotic prejudice that makes people afraid to come out in the first place. It’s fear that kind of small-minded judgmental behavior which was most responsible for me remaining closeted in high school. It’s a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t been there because after you’ve been through it, it can kinda feel like nothing afterwards -  all this fear and conflict and it’s really kinda purposeless. You find that people still love you and the people who don’t are really not good people anyway. I wish I had come out in high school, I could have been happier. But I am happy now.

2.) Tracy Lord from The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Dedicated followers may remember I rewatched this one a few wks ago on what would have been a date with me and my crush until he cancelled. That time I saw Trace and Kate herself through lenses less tinted than ever before, but still she’s there in all her glory and all her not-glory. Tracy is riteous, despises drinking and gets very contemptful of what she views as weakness, such as her ex-husband’s drinking problem or Mike’s cynical view of the rich. I am often that way (in large part due to the second-generation effects of my mom’s own east coast catholic upbrining) which has it’s merits certainly - that specific east coast almost ‘puritan’ toughness (I think Dick Cavett, said Bette Davis and Kate both had it) can be a tremendous source of strength and sense. It can also easily become cold, prudish, snobbish, and condesending. I have tried to unlearn these aspects and I am still working on that. This is kinda what Tracy’s arc is about, learning to be human and be loved and to love others.

Though it’s not as recent, the next one that comes to mind is

3.)  Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things

I already mentioned that my friend Grace got me into this show, but I didn’t mention that I only ever watch it with her. Not that I don’t really love the show - I do - but I like saving it for when we’re together - it makes it more special. 

Anyway, more than perhaps any other single character on that show, I identify with Nancy Wheeler. Regular suburban teenager who’s better - not just a regular suburban teenager - she’s aware of the sort of suburban ‘don’t do much with your life ‘cept rasie kids [not that there’s anything wrong with having and raising kids, that’s wonderful] trap. I also found the episode with her at Steve’s house really resonated with me. Barb telling Nancy “this isn’t you” really got to me. Part of me still has an internal ‘Barb’ that kinda ties in with the whole east-coast ‘puritan’y’ morality but there’s also the part of me that wants to be young and just a person and do cool things with my friends and kiss boys and watch great angsty contemporary teen dramas. They both have their merits and drawbacks - the young side has life but can be stupid and reckless - the old side is wise and careful, but can be paralyzing and stagnating.

Books I’m currently reading

I have a whole slew of books checked out that I’m supposed to be reading (for my own enjoyment).

The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard     by   Leonard Bernstien

I loved his The Joy of Music so I figured I would like this too. He’s a great music lecturer. I’m only like 5 pages in so far.

Elizabeth Taylor: A Private Life for Public Consumption      by    Ellis Cashmore 

This one I’m a little further on, though most of that was just the introductory timeline of her life with a key notating each illness/medical episode, marriage/actual or rumored romantic relationship, and neaar-death experience (her life is such ‘drama’).

I also have a book about motifs in Hitchcock’s films with the car picnic from To Catch a Thief (1955) on the cover. I haven’t started reading it yet.

And I have some book about Lerner & Lowe, the duo responsibly for My Fair Lady, Camelot, etc...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was really really wonderful to participate in. Thank you, my amazing friends, so much for tagging me @adamsberg​ and @in-the-key-of-d-minor​. I’ve enjoyed lots of asks and tag games, but I’ve never felt this good about one before...

I tag

@hildy-dont-be-hasty @tyronepowerbottom @reluctant-martyrs @thevintagious @littlehappyrock @n2ninvisiblegirl @solasdisapproves @hepburnandhepburn and @her-man-friday

If I didn’t tag you but you wanna participate, have at it!

What’m I gonna do, fire you?

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

Last February, a website called Rave News reported that leading vaporwave producers were gathering in Montreal for an emergency summit to discuss "creeping fascism" in the scene. Vaporwave, an electronic subgenre conceived on the web in the early 2010s, is perhaps best described as post-apocalyptic mall music, with producers like Macintosh Plus and Saint Pepsi (now Skylar Spence) warping muzak, smooth jazz, and dated adult contemporary into airless, warbling soundscapes. It was a progressive-leaning genre that seemed to satirize consumer culture. "I always assumed it was transparent through my work that I leaned left," vaporwave pioneer Ramona Xavier, the woman behind Macintosh Plus, told THUMP.

But now, according to Rave News, vaporwave was mysteriously attracting fascists.

The article's comments section was quickly swarmed by neo-Nazis eager to defend their interest in vaporwave. "The National Socialists who lived in the time of Hitler were big fans of Richard Wagner," one wrote. "But in modern times, it is appropriate for us to turn to modern music." There was just one problem: the report, like everything else on Rave News, was fake news. No anti-fascist meeting of vaporwave artists had actually taken place.

"Our souls are wrapped up in these sounds."—Andrew Anglin, Daily Stormer founder

The point of The Onion-like satire wasn't clear. But knowingly or not, Rave News had hit on a real trend. On SoundCloud and Bandcamp, self-identified fascist musicians really have appropriated vaporwave, along with synthwave, a genre that nostalgically recapitulates the soundtracks of early video games like Sonic the Hedgehog and 80s movies like Blade Runner and Halloween. Today's fascists have stamped synthwave and vaporwave with a swastika and swirled them together to concoct a new electronic music subculture called fashwave (the "fash" stands for "fascism"), and another related microgenre called Trumpwave. The aesthetic of both might be summed up as Triumph of the Will on a Tron grid.

Fashwave is almost entirely instrumental, and wholly unoriginal. If it weren't for the jarring track titles—"Demographic Decline," "Team White," "Death to Traitors," to cite a few by fashwave artist Xurious—you might not be able to tell the difference between fashwave and the microgenres from which it draws inspiration. Occasionally, though, a track will interrupt its celestial synth atmospherics or arcade-like 8-bit bloops with a sample of Adolf Hitler ranting at a rally, or President Trump's speeches spliced together to make him boom, "The heroes are those who kill Jews!" The effect is a hammy nightmare—think Jane Fonda leading one of her 80s exercise routines at a Nuremberg rally.

Fashwave has become propaganda for the neo-fascist movement known as the "alt-right," a term that originated on America's far-right fringe in the early 2010s. Proponents of the loosely configured movement tend to reject "political correctness," trade, immigration, Islam, feminism, the left, "globalism," and establishment conservatism—which are also more or less the targets of Trump and, after his takeover, much of the Republican Party. Like fascism through the decades, the alt-right is shot through with contradictions; many of its followers disavow racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. But its underlying motive is still that of the fringe from which it sprang: white ethno-nationalism and authoritarianism.

With Trump's election and the spread of far-right parties in Europe, the alt-right is on the ascent. Like its Nazi and Italian fascist forerunners, it wants to infiltrate and remake popular culture. And fashwave—with its sonically inoffensive, largely lyric-free instrumentals—is the first fascist music that is easy enough on the ears to have mainstream appeal.

On 4chan's /pol/, the web's unofficial alt-right headquarters, posters talk frankly of fashwave as a "trap to make our ideas seem friendly and approachable," as one user wrote. Another warned that the slogans on fashwave-related art work needed to be softened for wider consumption: "Careful guys, the phrase needs to be oblique and vague, not direct 'GAS THE KIKES' /pol/ memes. Try some subtlety."

"I think it's great that we have our own culture, even if it's small."—alt-right leader Richard Spencer

With its tinny musical quality and tiny scope, however, fashwave is a long way from exuding any real cultural power, and might flame out any day. Until Buzzfeed brought the music into mainstream awareness with an article in December, it was virtually unknown beyond alt-right circles. There are only a handful of major fashwave artists, and they're not headlining any fascist raves or military parades. Instead, they're toiling in the internet's depths, getting a few thousand listens for every track. Leading fashwave producer Cyber Nazi's two biggest hits, "Right Wing Death Squads" and "Galactic Lebensraum," cracked 50,000 YouTube views—respectable, but hardly a cultural Reichstag fire.

Still, the alt-right's gatekeepers have adopted fashwave as the movement's signature sound. Black Sun Radio, an online neo-Nazi station, is saturated with both fashwave and non-fascist synthwave. Andrew Anglin, founder of leading neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, last year christened synthwave the "soundtrack of the alt-right," praising it as "the Whitest music ever [sic]" for its ostensible lack of African rhythmic influence. He posts a recurring feature called "Fashwave Fridays," which includes a synthwave playlist alongside typical synthwave imagery, like 80s women in bright spandex and retro sports cars. "The music is the spirit of the childhoods of millennials," Anglin wrote on the Daily Stormer. "Our souls are wrapped up in these sounds."

Over the phone with THUMP, Richard Spencer—president of white nationalist group the National Policy Institute, and widely regarded as the inventor of the term "alt-right"—said he loves fashwave. "Sometimes when I'm doing business, busy-work, I'll just flip on Xurious or Cyber Nazi on SoundCloud or YouTube and just listen to it," the white supremacist writer and publisher, who sports a Third Reich-reminiscent "fashy" haircut, said. "I think it's great that we have our own culture, even if it's small." (Spencer recently became a national meme when he was punched in the face by an anarchist while giving an interview to ABC News, footage of which has been set to different popular songs, including "Sandstorm," and which gave rise to the hashtag #punchanazi.)

Spencer has incorporated fashwave aeshthetics into the alt-right's branding. In November, at a National Policy Institute conference in Washington where Xurious was a musical guest, Spencer unveiled a logo for the movement. Its geometric "A" and "R," cast against a starry sky, looked like letters from an alien language, and over the mic, Spencer said the design was inspired by "synthwave nostalgia."

Fashwave's visuals, circulated on Twitter and 4chan, are just as essential as its music. Typical vaporwave pop-art—such as Windows 95 logos, Japanese characters, and Greco-Roman statues sprinkled on pastel or neon backgrounds—mingles with Nazi iconography, like Hitler in a Hawaiian shirt. At the same time, the neon-lit cityscapes of synthwave visuals are populated with red-eyed cyborg death squads.

In an email to THUMP, Cyber Nazi proclaimed fashwave to be the "direct heir" of Futurism, the 1910s avant-garde art movement that hitched itself to Italian fascism. The Futurists gloried in technological advances such as trains, automobiles, and electric light, as well as the violence of heavy industry and war. Similarly, "We have the internet and computers," Cyber Nazi wrote. Viewed a certain way, fashwave does reflect a kind of present-day Futurist project: a global cybernetic subculture geared towards millennials, propagated by memes like Pepe the Frog, and centered on sites like 4chan and the new Twitter alternative, Gab. In synthwave and vaporwave—genres born, like the alt-right, largely on the internet—the movement has found a natural fit.

Meanwhile, fashwave fans have cast aside punk, folk, and metal—music traditions with long histories of being appropriated as vehicles for far-right ideology—as relics. "It's impossible to build anything with [those] old and expired genres," Cyber Nazi told THUMP. "We are young people who have nothing to do with the skin heads gangs, hoolingans or kkk masons. [sic]" This disavowal, however, doesn't mean fashwave represents a friendlier fascism; in an interview on Right Stuff Radio, Cyber Nazi casually mentioned his hatred of "niggers" and "sand-niggers."

Vaporwave and synthwave aren't the first electronic music genres to be appropriated by fascists, either. In fact, they're just the latest iteration in a long history of co-opted machine-made sounds, one with roots in the early 20th century.

"It's impossible to build anything with old and expired genres"—fashwave producer Cyber Nazi

Back in the 1910s, Futurist thinker Luigi Russolo called for an explosive "art of noises" for the industrial age, and in the 1970s, early industrial and noise musicians consciously rose to the challenge. According to Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music by S. Alexander Reed, pioneers like Spahn Ranch, Nurse with Wound, and Pornotanz aimed to critique society's invisible totalitarianism by conjuring it as violent noise. However, industrial music's nihilistic outlook and martial overtones—including its use of fascist symbolism and regalia for shock value—also attracted neo-Nazi fans. An example of what Reed calls industrial's "often intentional language of ambiguity" can be found in Laibach, a leather-clad Slovenian group whose name refers to the Nazis' term for their occupation of Slovenia. The group has embodied a vaguely Stalinist aesthetic since the 80s so convincingly that North Korea welcomed them to Pyongyang in 2015.

As industrial music was emerging in the 70s, Kraftwerk was busy in Germany laying the groundwork for electronic pop music. The group always insisted that their artistic vision of a dawning cybernetic age was a continuation of the radical modernism of 1920s Weimar Germany rather than a homage to the Nazi era. But Kraftwerk's automaton-like presence recalled soldiers marching in lockstep, and the cover of their 1975 album, Radio-Activity, pictured a Nazi radio set called the Volksempfänger. That tension led Genosavior, one of the scene's artists, to praise Kraftwerk on Twitter as an "Early #FashWave prototype." One alt-right meme even rechristens them "Fashwerk."

https://soundcloud.com/user-625608547/team-white-free-download

Spencer, for his part, says his favorite bands are Depeche Mode and New Order—two groups that are practically synonymous with the 80s, the decade in which the alt-right bigwig grew up. But unlike most other fans, he sees a fascist sheen on the icy synth plains of the New Wave music they pioneered. Upon surface inspection, you can see where he might have gotten the idea. According to a biography of the band, New Order traced its name to a stray phrase from the Situationists, a postwar French art collective of anti-authoritarian Marxists. But "New Order" was also Hitler's term for his program of world domination. The band's earlier iteration, Joy Division, borrowed its name from brothels in the concentration camps, in addition to putting a drawing of a Hitler Youth drummer on the cover of its 1978 debut EP, An Ideal for Living. To the band's dismay, plenty of skinheads misunderstood where the band was coming from, and showed up at Joy Division's concerts.

Over the phone with THUMP, Spencer said he thought New Order and the New Wave bands that took after them "were consciously or unconsciously channeling... something darker, more serious, maybe more authoritarian."

At least with New Order, he's right, although it's complicated. On the one hand, the band was critiquing fascism as a growing menace in a late-70s Britain where imperial decline and industrial decay had radicalized a stagnated white working-class (sound familiar?). On the other hand, as Simon Reynolds recounts in his 2006 history Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, singer Bernard Sumner "enthused about the beauty (the art, architecture, design, even uniforms) that emerged despite 'all that hate and all that dominance.'" Fellow member Peter Hook, writes Reynolds, admitted to the dark allure of flirting with fascist aesthetics. "We thought it was a very, very strong feeling," Hook said.

That guilty fascist charge, so acutely felt by New Order in the 70s and 80s, now flows shamelessly through the alt-right, finding full expression in fashwave.

"By connecting an easily digestible message to the soundtrack of our youth, the alt-right seeks to subvert our critical thinking and directly appeal to our emotional selves."—Stefanie Franciotti AKA Sleep ∞ Over

But fashwave taps into still another lineage in the history of modern music—that of vaporwave's raw material, muzak, which in turn is haunted by the specter of fascism.

In September 1934, the National Fascist Militia Band, an Italian brass band created by Benito Mussolini, entered the New York studios of the newly formed Muzak corporation and recorded one of the first-ever sessions of muzak. There were 25 songs in the set, including an Italian ditty called "March on Rome (Anthem for a Young Fascist)" and America's own "The Star-Spangled Banner." The Muzak corporation piped the National Fascist Militia Band's tunes into hotel lobbies, restaurants, and homes under a sanitized alias: "The Pan-American Brass Band."

The Muzak corporation wasn't a fascist outfit itself, but its use of canned easy-listening music to spur on shoppers and workers had stark martial origins. Its founder, Major General George Owen Squier, was America's chief signal officer during World War I, responsible for the military's communications network. The company's patented "stimulus progression"—playlists calibrated to maintain workers' energy levels and morale through the day—first came into wide commercial use during WWII in armaments factories. According to Elevator Music: A Surreal History, by its heyday in the 1960s and 70s, muzak was everywhere: trickling out of megaphones at a Nixon inauguration, calming cattle in slaughterhouses and astronauts on their way to the moon, keeping missile operators awake and alert in underground nuclear silos. As if winking at the critics who called muzak (a portmanteau of Kodak and music) an instrument of societal control, the Muzak corporation branded itself a "System of Security for the '70s," as well as "The Total Communications System."

By 2009, following the economic crash, the Muzak corporation went bankrupt. (It was eventually bought out, renamed, and revived, and now creates customized playlists of pre-existing songs for store branding.) Around the same time, left-leaning experimental electronic artists like Daniel Lopatin, James Ferraro, and Ramona Xavier began plumbing all the bland sonic ambience of capitalism, including muzak and largely forgotten pop and smooth jazz numbers, resulting in what would later be known as vaporwave.

Lopatin, best known for his work as Oneohtrix Point Never, looped and slowed down bits of old pop songs for a 2009 compilation called Eccojams Vol. 1, released under the alias Chuck Person. Ramona Xavier's 2011 album Floral Shoppe distorted 80s pop and old smooth jazz, and her retro net-art aesthetic, presented as kitsch, has a become canonical vaporwave signifier, extended and reinterpreted by later acts like 2 8 1 4 and Death's Dynamic Shroud.wmv. James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual, released the same year, assembled cheap MIDI presets, the Skype login sound, and other bits of pointedly contemporary digital detritus into a gratingly cheery faux-muzak orchestra. While the project's absurdly gleeful tone leaves it unclear whether Ferraro's vision of life in the digital age is utopian, dystopian, or neither, that ambiguity and perhaps ambivalence has persisted in the music of the vaporwave scene he helped inspire.

In a 2011 essay that helped define the genre, Adam Harper asked: "Is [vaporwave] a critique of capitalism or a capitulation to it?" "Both and neither," he continued. "These musicians can be read as sarcastic anti-capitalists revealing the lies and slippages of modern techno-culture and its representations, or as its willing facilitators, shivering with delight upon each new wave of delicious sound."

The development of vaporwave ran parallel to that of synthwave, which emerged in the mid-2000s, rebooting the synthy 80s film scores by composers like John Carpenter, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream. Within the past two years, the semi-ironic nostalgia of synthwave and vaporwave has outgrown its subcultural roots and seeped into the mainstream—a process exemplified by MTV's use of vaporwave in branding, and the popularity of the soundtrack to hit Neflix series Stranger Things, by Austin synthwave group S U R V I V E.

At the same time, fascists have flipped this retromania around, collapsing the ironic distance into a vortex of nostalgia for the worst elements of the Reagan era. According to Spencer, the alt-right's fascination with the 80s stems from looking back on the decade "as halcyon days, as the last days of white America." Fashwave, then, directly links pop culture's generalized 80s nostalgia to the alt-right's racist ideology. The "one connecting factor" of white nationalism, an alt-rightist declared on Twitter, is "a belief in the supremacy of the 1980s. This is the goal."

A vaporwave video by satirical artist Mike Diva

Stefanie Franciotti, who records under the alias Sleep ∞ Over, emerged from the same Austin-based, synthesizer-centric scene as S U R V I V E. She is decidedly anti-fascist, and described fashwave to THUMP as "weaponized nostalgia.

"By connecting an easily digestible message to the soundtrack of our youth," she said, "the alt-right seeks to subvert our critical thinking and directly appeal to our emotional selves."

Today, arguably, the 80s are back, but with a few modifications. The Reagan rictus smile has slumped into a scowl, and the Shining City on a Hill is to be ringed by a great wall. At the center of it all is Trump, a living time-capsule of 80s capitalist excess and garishness, and thus the ideal subject for fashwave. In "Trumpwave," a track by the synthwave artist iamMANOLIS is annexed to play over footage of a younger Trump wrestling at WWE, hitting on women, and eating stuffed-crust for a Pizza Hut commercial. Below the video, a YouTube commenter wrote: "When you see all these older videos it all makes sense. It's not that Trump is weird and we're going towards some parody of a society, it's that we already live in a parody. Trump is bringing back the sanity of the good old days." Another wrote simply: "The Donald is here. I feel the capitalism! <3 "

"Trumpwave" is an exemplar of the genre by the same name. Trumpwave shares an alt-right audience and at least one producer—Cyber Nazi—with fashwave. But the fashwave off-shoot is distinct in appropriating mainly vaporwave, and in its emphasis, through both sampled audio and video clips, on The Donald himself. In Trumpwave, he is recast as the modern-day inheritor of the mythologized 80s, a decade that is taken to stand for racial purity and unleashed capitalism. "Ivanka Vaporwave," a production by an alt-right YouTube channel, slows down the Cosmat Angels' 1985 "I'm Falling" over old clips of Trump's daughter Ivanka modeling as a young teenager. Cyber Nazi's "Take Back Our Future" rolls light muzak over stock footage of early 90s New York on a sunny day and Trump awkwardly dancing on Saturday Night Live.

Trumpwave exploits a vulnerability in vaporwave: its ambivalence about the cultural detritus that inspired it. This careful tension between irony and earnestness was part of what made vaporwave fun—it flirted with the implicit transgressiveness of appreciating its aggressively commercial source material. But that ambiguity left the aesthetic distressingly easy for the alt-right to appropriate by stripping it of irony and playfulness—by taking it literally, as a glorification of capitalism. Similarly, when synthwave artists exhumed 80s movies like Blade Runner, Robocop, and Terminator, they also dressed the music in the decade's fatalist retrofuturism. A glance at the album art of Cyber Nazi—with its jackbooted cyborg cops going door to door—shows how for fascists, this dystopia is utopia. Extrapolating from the 80s, fashwave embraces that decade's grim sci-fi forecasts as paradise.

There's nothing inherently fascist about any sound—everything is context. But the deployment of vaporwave and synthwave by the alt-right proves that fascism has survived the defeat of the Axis, incubating its own culture even as it lost all political power. New Order, Kraftwerk, and many others traced an enduring fascination with fascist aesthetics. Meanwhile, neo-Nazi subcultures thrived in the shadows of genres like industrial, punk, metal, and trance. Fashwave is just the most recent in a long line of fascist appropriations, stretching beyond music: the Nazi swastika is, of course, a literal inversion of a Buddhist symbol. But unlike other genres, fashwave arrives at a time when fascism itself is surging to global power for the first time since the 30s, and both its music and visuals can seem like a premonition of the future. Refracting a nostalgia for the 80s and a love of capitalism through the prism of Trump, fashave projects an image of a looming dystopia, one that grows a little more plausible by the day.