#like nineties cobain era (:

[streetwiseangel]

tfw ur tryina be broody but ur not skinny and rich so instead of seeming complex and introspective at the bus stop, u look kind of like the gas station clerk may have overcharged you for a pack of pall malls but you really don’t want to walk the 3 blocks back

[parasiteicons]

12/2/93

[fashionbooksmilano]

Star Trak

Anton Corbijn

Schirmer/Mosel Verlag , Munich 2002, 144 pages, 113 b/w images, 30,5 x 29,8 cm., ISBN  9783829600569

euro 90,00

email if you want to buy :booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Anton Corbijn initiated a new era in portrait photography for the rock and pop music scene with his atmospheric, often melancholy images. Here is a photographer who travels the world, tirelessly seeking to capture its idols in quiet moments and catch a trace of their essential being behind all the fame and glamour. Taken primarily in black and white with a hand-held camera and without auxiliary lighting, most of Corbijn's photographs are shot in those quiet moments between performances. Beyond the reach of the glaring spotlights, on the dark side of the star cult - literally and metaphorically - Corbijn finds what interests him more than gesture, image or glamour: the unusual degree of privacy and closeness that turns his portraits into genuine character studies. Corbijn has now moved beyond the boundaries of music photography and Star Trak reads like a visual encyclopedia of the icons of our culture, gathering together outstanding personalities from the worlds of film, literature, rock music and fashion. He visits film directors Wim Wenders, David Lynch, and Martin Scorsese, actors Johnny Depp, Gerard Depardieu and Jodie Foster, and alongside the older rebels - like Mick Jagger and Leonard Cohen - he includes the enfants terribles of the Eighties and Nineties - Kurt Cobain, Billy Idol, and Slash. Corbijn couples the excesses of William S. Burroughs with the beauty of supermodels Naomi and Christy, and brings Salman Rushdie and Bono together in front of the camera.

07/10/22

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[dilettantereviews]

Yesterday I was up watching TV until 5 AM (I know) and I ran out of things to watch so I just had MTV on in the background because it was Nineties Nation and to my surprise, Catherine Wheel came on. I sometimes catch I Want to Touch You on their Thursday Rock Block feature but this one was a shock to me. They do have a fairly wide range of videos, but you have to accept you’ll be watching a lot of the same artists again and again and savvier viewers might watch out for certain blocks and write out the exact sequence of videos and wait for a repeat of the same “episode” (in case you ever wanted to know if these were actual episodes or if they were just developed by a Vevo like algorithm). Sometimes if you’re lucky, you might even get non lead singles by relatively small named bands in the Nineties block. My biggest gripe would have to be their 120 Minutes block. They only show it Monday morning 12 AM to 2 AM (AKA Sunday night if you’re like me) which technically, no, it’s not late for me and I could watch all of it and go to bed directly at 2:01 AM and it would be “early” for me. but I only watch it as a treat if I have Monday off. Each 120 Minutes block I am vaguely disappointed at realizing it’s the same group of Radiohead, REM, Beck, Talking Heads, 80′s New Order and maybe Blur. Sometimes they throw in someone left field that surprises me, like Curve, The Sundays, or Aphex Twin, so I always keep it on just in case if I see someone new. But seeing Catherine Wheel on an even broader block was a definite surprise. They don’t get 120 Minutes play (or fellow shoegazers Lush, who I once saw have For Love on a women’s day playlist in March 2018, or My Bloody Valentine, who had a free on demand video on one of the Music Choice/Hive Music/etc options back in the day). If I still had a VHS that I knew how to use, I would just set up an auto recording and fast forward through it each Monday but that sounds like too much (I feel like in the forum era of the Internet we could crowdsource an index of songs that play on which MTV Classic block). I found an archive for an actual 120 Minutes episodes with some summaries for episodes. Although I never watched it, I can feel the nagging responsibility of unfinished homework, the weird hours of Sunday retail, the resentment and then the guilt of not being able to control your family’s Sunday plans and the unspoken dread I would get watching Sunday animation blocks knowing that Monday was one tossing-and-turning-in-bed away just through glancing these. It’s interesting seeing how often some videos would remain in rotation, what the musical hosts would play, or seeing people who I know get completely snubbed from the show (Adore by Smashing Pumpkins was completely snubbed from 120 Minutes at a quick glance). I’m confused because the show that they had after Kurt Cobain’s death didn’t play any Nirvana.

I feel like I don’t pay enough attention to Catherine Wheel. I have Ferment on CD but I still don’t know that much about them. I didn’t even know they were British! According to their Wiki, they vaguely parallel The Smashing Pumpkins with their debut album being different from their other albums, their second albums being heavier (ironically I would call Siamese Dream Smashing Pumpkins’ shoegaze album), their third album having their heaviest rock/metal moments, their fourth album being a new sound album, before taking a pause with their 5th album released in 2000.

Shoegaze is one of those genres where I almost have to compartmentalize it away in a box away because it feels like too big of a genre to just listen to. It takes me back to when I first started to fixate on it on a bad stretch of uninspiring job applications, awkward dating apps, and being at home in the summer when everyone is going away.

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - The Squids, The Squids (Bankshots Music, Inc. and Oto-Songs, Inc., 1981) and Duganopacalypse Now (A Fan Compilation, circa 1981)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not-so-recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

The first band I ever loved was the Beatles, and John Lennon was dead years before I had any idea of who they were. It wasn’t until Kurt Cobain died that I had any interest in Nirvana--I recall an eighth grade classmate looking at mw with contempt after I told them I was unfamiliar with their music, when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was already an MTV hit. The chemical composition of my brain was dissolved and reconstituted over the course of two weeks when, at twelve years old, I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Cool Hand Luke on late-night television, but both films were about twenty years old by then. I just heard of Herbie Hancock’s V.S.O.P. album, featuring Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, about two weeks ago. I’m 42 years old now and I’ve only just come to realize how cutting and prescient Claude McKay’s novel Banjo is. 

All this to say that I wish I’d been around when Honolulu’s The Squids were playing around town. (Much thanks to Roger and Leimomi from Aloha Got Soul for pointing me in the right direction.) The Squids were so odd and varied, a New Wave outfit with the muscularity and venom of the truest punk rock, able to invoke the B-52′s in the same gig as Talking Heads or the Ventures or the Specials, all with the same veracity, but much weirder and crueler. They married a sunny, breezy synth sound with an aesthetic that I can only describe as joyously psychopathic, spraying smart-ass malice on the unfortunate subjects of their songs.

Though the band only officially released a 7-inch EP in 1981 (currently unavailable on Amazon) Comrade Motopu, the mysterious archivist who, through digitized vinyl and cassette tapes, as well as donated photos, scanned liner notes, flyers and news releases, has painstakingly agglomerated Hawai‘i rock music and associated miscellany on a magnificent pre-Y2K looking website, has not only shared the Squids’ EP (featuring “Tourist Riot,” “‘Love Theme’ From Surfer Boy,” “In,” and “Rio”), but what is also listed as Duganopacalypse,  a fan compilation with even more twisted tunes: “Medicine,” “Sexy,” “Head in the Sand,” the ska-soaked “New Girl in Town,” their partially awful, mostly spectacular “Cool Clear Water,” and “Pretty Vacant (with Dugan),” the Never Mind the Bullocks classic with a seemingly hated fan on the inarticulate vocals. I only pray that Comrade Motopu continues documenting this underhand era of Pacific rock music of the late Seventies to early Nineties--the site is a treasure, and more words about the bands highlighted on comrademotopu.com (the Vacuum and Yahweh’s Mistake, for instance) will be coming soon.

The Squids began as a concept by guitarist Beano Shots in 1979, later to take shape as a full-fledged human/cephalopod music group with members Kit and Gerry Ebersbach, Dave Trubitt, and Frank Orall. Those of us who sweatily flailed our way through a booze-and-drug bender on the strobe-lit (at least, as it appeared then) dance floor of the Wave Waikiki between the hours of 2 AM and 4 AM when all the other bars closed down would be surprised to learn that the now-demolished former nightclub, a hub for the scraped-out, after-hours husks operated by the residual combustion of chemicals in their blacked-out reptilian brains, once hosted the edgy Squids as the house band, presumably when the going-out crowd still had an affinity for fun, strong music, and did not simply seek to propel themselves upon the the mechanized beats and soulless zombie tracks initiated by a faceless button masher, in hopes that they would be manipulated, by the end of the night, into some loveless fuck with a nobody. 

Of the Squids’ stage show, we have but one recorded example of the band live in concert: a faithful interpretation of the Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant,” in which the players serve as back-up band for a loyal heckler known only as “Dugan.” Having taken (jokingly) enough shit from Dugan, the band harasses him into sing-shouting the song. The performance captures the “fuck you” sentiment of “Pretty Vacant” with a primitive abandon that almost makes the original seem like a Monkees’ tune. It also portrays a punk rock scene less enlightened to the diverse lifestyles it later engendered, when “dick sucking” was applied exclusively as a pejorative.

The same pissed-off adrenalin leads off the the 1981 EP in “Tourist Riot,” an apocalyptic narrative of that species of traveler compelled to hammer a new experience into a predetermined mold that will establish an appropriate backdrop to their social media posts. The tourists here burn hotels and smash out windows when their expectations aren’t suitably met--a bad vacation in which they are pushed around and mistreated leads the tourists to murder and mayhem.

“Tourist Riot” lays out the Squids’ music aspirations right away, especially in the interplay between Beano Shots’s electric guitar and Kit Ebersbach’s keyboards, which morph from forbidding electronic warning tones to psychedelic ghost notes to the replicated sirens of a city on fire, collateral damage in a war between locals and tourists. Following a surprisingly effective bridge that concludes with a shouted “Fuck it, I’m going to New York City!” is an atonal guitar solo reminiscent of Nels Cline asleep at the wheel, redeemed by a more fluid keyboard exploration.

When Jimi Hendrix claimed that “you’ll never hear surf music again” in 1967, he was, through the example of his own transcendent playing on “Third Stone from the Sun,” burying the corpse of that elementary, improvisationally unimaginative rock instrumental with the axe with which he had slew it. To that end, after hearing Jimi Hendrix and all the musical manifestations that took shape from his cosmic residue, it is sometimes hard to take surf music seriously. “‘ Love Theme’ from Surf Boy” comes across as the Squids’ winking parody of the genre, with its reverb, its whammy, its overall melancholy, and its simplicity. That said, there is some sophistication in the song’s structure, as if the wordless tune was more an exercise in technique, an attempt to take stock creatively before reaching out to a farther and stranger place.

On “In,” the guitars and keyboards snarl rabidly toward the same explosive destination, barely kept in check by the talents of the players. Lyrically minimalist, the song’s non-sequiturs slice through the instruments like assembled cut-up style by William S. Burroughs. “Are you losing sense of humor, could be Jesus was only kidding” followed by “are you losing sense of humor, could be Jesus was just a salesman.” These pieces of thoughts unfinished resonate in my head like something close to catchy--to what end, I don’t know. Where the keyboards overmatched the guitars on “Tourist Riot,” on “In” the guitar is locked in and dirty, climaxing in repetitive harmony between the instruments to close out the song.

When I first read the track listing to the 1981 EP, I thought the final song “Rio” would be a rough rendering of the hit video single by near-contemporaries Duran Duran (whose synth-guitar arrangements, though undoubtedly smoother, find relation in the Squids’ overall aesthetic). Instead, “Rio” is an acid commentary on the American Capitalist, represented as a white suit soaked in sweat, and his compulsion to foster vice and iniquity to exotic locales.

I’m not sure whether the fan compilation Duganopacalypse, also available for listening through the Comrade Motopu website, was recorded before, after, or  during the sessions of the 1981 EP. A few tracks lead me to believe that the songwriting and arrangements are from a wiser, more sophisticated band, while other songs seem so apelike in their imitations as to come through as pointless satires, or maybe the explorations of a band trying to find its identity.

In “Medicine,” for instance, the Squids operate under an overpowering B-52′s filter that washes out their uniqueness. Whereas on previous tracks this influence existed only at the fringes of their sound, the singer on “Medicine” channels Fred Schneider on the verse and switches to David Bowie during the bridge. The role-play, though, doesn’t kill the the more interesting aspects of “Medicine”--its guitar lick is inventive and so wormy as to be slightly irritating, and the song’s themes, that one must willingly imbibe “the medicine” to accept the hypocrisies of this “downer world,” resound strongly to anyone who casts their eyes around a crowded room.  

Where the B-52′s references go deep in “Medicine,” Talking Heads emerge in “Sexy,” from David Byrne’s vocal tics to the subtle and swampy “Take Me to the River” vibe. It goes beyond straight homage to cover band territory, but it does emphasize the band’s technical ability to lock into a groove. “New Girl in Town” is a heaping serving of not-completely-warmed-up ska leftovers, a bit misogynist (of its time, but still). “Head in the Sand,” regrettably, could have been the Squids’ crossover pop hit. I say “regrettably” because, even though the song has a point--that the ability of humans to maintain a semblance of happiness is to carefully cultivate the warm fuzz of obliviousness, sacrificing will to fate in the belief that nothing we could do to change anything would matter anyway--the effort seems more calculated than organic, a plastic approximation of the closest this band, given their specific set of skills, could get to a pop crossover hit. The work put into it seems to drain away at some of the dirty magic. It‘s self-conscious in a way that the other songs aren’t.

Finally we have “Cool Clear Water,” what would have been the band’s masterpiece if they’d spent a little more time recording a decent take (the version on the Duganopacalypse almost sounds live, though it could have been laid down in a rehearsal space). This is not the country classic performed by Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash. The Squids’ “Cool Clear Water” is the frightening confession of a soldier recently returned from the war in Vietnam, directed by an angel spirit to mass murder with a shotgun from a tower in town. When the killer is set to be executed, the angel spirit comforts him, tells him his spirit will be redeemed in heaven for “setting the people free.” The unnerving subject matter of “Cool Clear Water” is given sinister shape by the relentless horror-notes of Kit Ebersbach’s organ, the guitar holding down the song’s march toward inevitable nothingness because the bass (normally played with elan by Gerry Ebersbach) is a complete mess (I’m not sure if she hadn't learned the song or if she just showed up at the gig drunk).

As Marc Maron frequently says on his podcast, “there’s no late to the party” anymore, given the the amount of content available to all of us via the digital consciousness that we are now more plugged into than not. But I’ve waited all my life to lose myself in something vital, of the moment, with my eyes and ears and heart present while the thing is taking shape, at its most temporal. I feel that way listening to the Squids. I wish I could have seen them at one of their Wave gigs. I wish I could have had a beer with them afterward, and gushed in the embarrassing way I do about things I love.

[popmusicu]

Music and fashion

The effect that music has had in fashion has been evident throughout history, however, now that social media play such an important role in the way things are viewed and shared, that role has increased dramatically. Music influences many aspects of our lives when it comes to health, feelings, and moods. It also inspires art, movies, television shows, or how we dance, music can play an important role in the way we do things. But what about what we wear? Have you ever wondered how music affects fashion, or if it does?

The truth is that fashion has always been used as a form of individual expression, others also use it as an art form, the same can be said of music, for that reason, both are intertwined and closely linked. Fashion designers are fully aware of the effect of music on the fashion industry, on their products and use it to maximize their sales by coordinating with music.

The 60’s proved to be a massive era for shaping the future of fashion and influencing people to be much freer when it came to dressing. Boundaries were broken in the fashion industry in the same that musical boundaries were broken. By the late 1960s, folk music had begun to appear, and the likes of Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Joni Mitchell were at the forefront. They reflected the working class in the United States, singing about the scruffy lifestyles that lived by many people across the country and, indeed, the rest of the world. The first major fashion movement of the 1960s came out of Britain. This was when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and several other pop bands were seeing a growth in popularity. Their popularity, their music was different, and the capital became known as 'Swinging London'. It was at this time that fashion designer Mary Quant created the iconic mini skirt in response to the youthful, fun-loving attitude that was sweeping the country, as a result, fashion became much more colorful and headed to continental Europe and America.

Music and fashion in the 1990s is a major talking point.

In 1992 grunge and alternative music came to the forefront.

Bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and The Cranberries were growing in popularity and their aesthetic, grunge aesthetic and sound became the most popular version of rock at the time. Grunge fused elements of punk with heavy metal.

Where clothing had been somewhat sleek and neat, people began to take a more relaxed and carefree approach to the way they dressed.

One man who epitomized this style at the time was Johnny Depp, his long hair and relaxed approach to dressing were inspired by and adapted to the grunge genre.

Black leather jackets, flannel shirts, fingerless gloves, olive green coats and the occasional "acid washed" jeans were all the rage during the grunge era.

River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain are also great examples of the grunge aesthetics, and their style of dress has been copied over and over again on the catwalk and in the streets.

Undoubtedly music and fashion move simultaneously.

When a trend appears in the music industry, the chances are extremely high that the same trend will also prevail in the fashion industry.

This has been seen many times over the years, as in the examples already discussed:

The punk movement, the sixties, the nineties, and grunge influences are what we wear and what passes down the runway.

In the present, hip hop and pop music have completely shaped the way most people dress today. Or, at least, what they choose to wear based on what is popular for that genre. For a while, huge sagging jeans and big gold chains were seen everywhere. These were brought into fashion by artists like Tupac, Eazy E and Notorious BIG. It was during these times that many in the fashion industry began to see how big of an influence an artist or music had.

So, do music and fashion go hand in hand?

It seems like they do!

Fashion and the evolution of music are more intertwined than ever.

-Ainhoa Polo

[sonicshakedown]

It's rock Jim, but not as we know it.

Writing about William Shatner’s Seeking Major Tom might well be worth the entertainment value but this is not that. No, the Jim I’m talking about is that old psychedelic poster boy of the sixties Jim Morrison. I’ve been on a recent Doors bender and have on more than one occasion have picked up the influence the band has had on modern rock and metal bands. I’m hardly the first to mention rock, metal and Jim Morrison in the same sentence, but let me entertain you, “I’m the Lizard King, I can do anything.” At the height of The Doors’ career what would be known as heavy metal was brewing under the surface, not in sunny California but the grim motherland of England. Listening to The Doors self-titled (1967), where songs ‘break on through’ sound eerily Deep Purple. I’m not suggesting Deep Purple copied The Doors (Purple formed in 1968 and wouldn’t find their sound until 1970). What strikes me as interesting is the combination of organ, crunching guitar blues, drumming precision and baritone wails. There is a connective thread between The Doors and Deep Purple that is unmistakable. This is where the blues became even more petulant. The dusty sunshine motes of swinging commercial rock ‘n’ roll were brushed off the shoulders of youth culture. Vietnam was in full swing, televised brutality. Huxley’s, ‘Doors of Perception’ had swung wide open. It was the darker turn of blues that would spawn a more ferocious sound of blues-rock.

Deep Purple wasn’t the only band forming around the time of the first three Doors’ albums. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, King Crimson and Free to name a few. Progenitors of modern rock and metal. Of the four bands mentioned, all are British, three from London, one from Birmingham. None of these bands knew it then but the swirling aggressive bent featured in 60s blues-rock would be instrumental in seeds. From these seeds grew the harder nastier heavy metal. Most metalheads all agree that Sabbath is the godfathers of metal, but very few conversations acknowledge The Doors contribution. ‘Light my fire’, the raunch romp which feels every bit like the snaking crawl of the lizard king bears hallmarks in the later sleaze of Aerosmith formed in 1970. Morrison’s snarl as he barks “try to set the night on fire”, has me recalling the aphotic goth charm of the late Peter Steele (this year marks the tenth anniversary of Peter’s death). Type O Negative was a band that featured keyboard and guitar interplay. Though the band proclaimed The Beatles and Black Sabbath as key influences, I would also argue Type O was influenced by The Doors. Not convinced, listen to the end and imagine Steele singing that song.

Blues-rock is the very backbone of modern rock. It was none more evident than in the short-lived and commodified ‘grunge’ era. The psychedelic meanderings, the introspective dirges and the crooning and moaning manifested themselves in the teenage rebellion that MTV thrived on in the eighties. The Seattle sound rejected the unctuous over the top misogyny of hairbands for the moody dirt and grim exhibited by the bands like The Doors. Musically, Seattle and post-grunge rock bands drew from the well of blues-rock and added a healthy dose of punk. However, by the ninety’s blues-rock was barely recognizable outside of bands that self-identified as blues-rock. You can’t listen to Alice in Chains and not hear shreds of blues-rock, it’s there in their Sabbathian influence. Now it may seem like too much of a stretch to link The Doors with Nirvana as the two bands appear like chalk and cheese. Musically Nirvana is more punk; however, listen to ‘Peace Frog’ with its choppy guitar tone that sounds like a milder ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’. Spiritually, Cobain followed in the footsteps of Morrison. Not just because of the fact, Cobain died at age 27, but because he was the anti-hero. The rock icon that refused to play by the rules. And yet sadly, he was also a cliché, much like Morrison.

It’s easier to draw connective tissue from Black Sabbath to many of today's bands, but the musical compositions laid out by Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore cannot be denied as a major influence to contemporary rock bands and metal musicians. The Doors are more than just the flamboyant pomp of Jim Morrison. There is a discography of rock classics. ‘You make me real’ from Morrison Hotel is proof. Without blues-rock, we wouldn’t have hard rock and metal. 

   Album of the Day:

‘Point of Entry’ – Judas Priest (1981).

The first four Priest albums of the nineteen-eighties are pure gold. Point of Entry begins with a classic Priest anthem. ‘Heading out to the Highway’, kicks in a driving melody. It has a big rock sound that builds to a catchy chorus. ‘Don’t Go’ has this slow mid-paced stomp to it. ‘Turning Circles’ is another mid-pacer that builds into another solid chorus. This is probably the only let down of the album. We know Priest can play hard and fast, but the majority of the album is mid-paced. To me, this is so bad as there’s not a weak song on the album, but I would’ve loved a few quick numbers to break up the pacing, something like ‘Electric Eye’ that would appear on the following album Screaming for Vengeance. If there’s one thing that Point of Entry has in spades, it’s anthemic numbers. The type of songs that deserves fist pumps and head nods. It’s also a great album to drive to. Favourite Tracks: ‘Heading Out to the Highway’ and ‘Solar Angels’.    

[tarantulaboy]

Social Isolation Pt 16.

In the mid-to-late eighties the big record companies descended on Seattle like a pack of hungry wolves looking to snap up the next big thing from what had become an thriving underground music scene.

The likes of A&M, Columbia, Epic and Geffen were offering obscene amounts of money to secure record deals with bands that they hoped would bring them in serious profits as the hair metal scene of the eighties faded out in the noise of thrash metal.

Of all of the bands making a name for themselves in Seattle at the time, Soundgarden were the first to be snapped up taking the plunge into the mainstream. It wouldn’t be until Alice In Chains released their debut album, Facelift, on Columbia in August of 1990. It arrived kicking and screaming with the raw and visceral combination of Jerry Cantrell’s unique blues-infused guitar style and haunting vocal harmonies with singer Layne Staley with the opening track declaring “We Die Young”, a line that would foreshadow the entire Seattle grunge movement.

Another band who were snapped up with a six-figure advance was Mother Love Bone. The band had been formed by Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament after they parted ways with Green River, a proto-grunge outfit they had formed with Mark Arm, who would go on to found Mudhoney.

Mother Love Bone was a bonafide, brash rock and roll outfit fronted by one Andrew Wood, a man who would go on to have a profound influence on the direction that the grunge movement would take.

In late 1989 Mother Love Bone recorded their debut album, Apple, for Polydor/Stardog with the aim to release in March of 1990. Wood however never saw the release of the album. On March, 16th, 1990, Wood was discovered unconscious by his girlfriend, having overdosed on heroin. at 3.25pm that day he was pronounced dead.

His death would send seismic ripples through the grunge scene. He had lived with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and had good friendships with many in the scene including Alice in Chains. Soon after his death Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard would convene with Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden as well as future Pearl Jam members Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder to record as Temple Of The Dog. The self-titled album was released in 1991 as a tribute to Wood and remains to this day one of the finest one-shot albums ever created.

The legacy of Wood’s death would continue well into the nineties inspiring songs like Alice In Chains Would? as well as the increasingly dark tone of Chris Cornell’s songwriting for Soundgarden as he struggled to make sense of his friend’s untimely passing.

Pearl Jam remain together today, arguably the world’s last great rock band, and a testament to the unseen legacy of the death of Andrew Wood.

While Kurt Cobain’s high-profile suicide in April 1994 would mark a watershed for grunge music Andrew Wood’s tragic overdose should be remembered as one of the most influential events for rock music in the modern era.

[beathq-archives-blog]

BASICS

full name: harley o’callaghan

age: 20

gender: nonbinary

pronouns: they/them

department: visual arts

HISTORY

it all began in milwaukee, wisconsin. 1901. no, that’s not the year they were born. or when their parents were born, for that matter. that’d just about make them the oldest people in history.

in 1901, william s. harley had the revolutionary idea of inventing the modern motor-bicycle: the vehicle that, ninety-seven years later, harley o’callaghan would be conceived on.

harley’s parents, in their youth, were as reckless as their child’s name would suggest. they met at a rock venue in the late nineties, after kurt cobain died and took the grunge era with him. it was maybe two, maybe three months into their fling when harley’s ma got knocked up and she wasn’t allowed to have cigarettes for nine months after (she had them, anyway). that’s when harley was born: may 19th, 1998.

undeterred by a child, harley’s parents continued to live life as before. sex, drugs, and rock & roll, any time, all the time. their hands-off approach to parenting gave harley a sense of responsibility at an early age. more often than not, this meant cleaning up the messes their ma and dad made—both physical and metaphorical. by the time either of the two had found stable jobs, harley was already well-versed in taking care of themselves. some might even say they’d become a bit of a square by that point, but really, what was the point in rebelling when there were no rules to rebel against?

somewhere in that time frame, harley had taken up an interest in illustration. the music scene left a sour taste in their mouth, and they weren’t much of a performer. illustrated art was one of the only outlets they had to express themselves; all they really needed was a notepad and a couple different pencils. they applied to maryland in their senior year of high school, not because it was, like, their dream college or anything, but because it was far enough away from home to be distant and close enough to be comfortable. harley’s parents were on a boat tour in kolkata when they got their acceptance letter in the mail.

life for harley, two years into university, is slightly less stress-inducing. they juggle their time between school and the b-side collective, working both as an art student and an illustrator. skeptical and elusive, many of their interactions with other members of the organization involve fighting over art concepts for album covers and promotional materials. it’s not easy—actually, sometimes it’s downright infuriating—but then again,

when has life ever been?

( played by JAKOB LANDVIK and penned by RHAE. )

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Key Men’s Hair Trend: The Disconnected Undercut

http://fashion-trendin.com/key-mens-hair-trend-the-disconnected-undercut/

Key Men’s Hair Trend: The Disconnected Undercut

Not a decade goes by without an iconic hairstyle shaving its name into the back-and-sides of history.

We had Elvis Presley’s legendary rock’n���roll pompadour of the fifties; those long, textured, hippy locks of the seventies; and of course, the Liam Gallagher-esque messy mop that adorned the bonce of any man who’d so much as glanced in the general direction of an Oasis record, all through the nineties.

Today, this follicular tradition is still very much alive, well and held in place with plenty of pomade.

For many years now, a new hairstyle has dominated men’s heads all around the globe. It’s a throwback cut with more versatility than a Swiss army knife, and we’ve seen it rocked by everyone from Becks to Bieber, Timberlake to Tommy Shelby.

We’re talking, of course, about the disconnected undercut.

What Is A Disconnected Undercut?

As barbering continues to get more and more advanced, hairstyle definitions continue to get more and more confusing. Let’s start by breaking this particular wig down to its fundamentals.

The undercut involves a short back and sides, while the hair on top is left much longer. The longer hair on top allows for a variety of styles to be created, making it an extremely versatile cut.

What About The ‘Disconnected’ Part?

“‘Disconnected’ refers to one part of a cut remaining disconnected from the other,” says Mark Woolley, founder of Electric Hairdressing. “For example, the sides of the hair being much shorter and without blending into a longer top section.”

When you hear your barber referring to both of these things in tandem, they’re talking about a style that is lengthy up top, shaved on the sides and features little to no blending between the two.

How The Disconnected Undercut Became Popular

Like many men’s hair trends, the disconnected undercut hairstyle has its roots planted firmly in the scalp of Edwardian-era England.

“Disconnected styles originate from a time before the way we cut mens hair had finesse,” says Joe Mills, founder of The Lounge in Soho. “See Peaky Blinders, Taboo or any decent war film and you will notice the almost DIY look of the disconnection.”

Mills also notes that back in the day, the disconnection was more about barbering ability, as opposed to fashion, but when the look began to crop up again in the 2010s, thanks in no small measure to some of the aforementioned TV shows, the skilled stylists of today put their own stamp on it with things like skin fades and tight gradations.

“This has come back with such momentum in recent years, partly because of the way men’s grooming has found its feet,” says Mills. “We have experimented with facial hair and grooming products, and the way we wore our hair became a thing again.

“Clean, hard lines in hair, and then men’s fashion, fell in line with this.”

Top 3 Disconnected Undercut Hairstyles

The fact that the disconnected undercut leaves plenty of length on top means that there are endless ways to wear it, but seeing as human lifespans are finite, let’s just run through some of the most important ones.

Cropped Undercut With Fringe

The roaring success of Peaky Blinders opened men up to a new – well, old actually – set of style rules. And while countless sartorially-challenged blokes have tried and failed to emulate the aesthetic through the ill-advised wearing of cheap polyester flat caps, the style-savvy guy knows that the best way to get a hint of that Tommy Shelby look is through his hair.

The Brummy protagonist, portrayed by Cillian Murphy, wears a disconnected undercut with the length textured and brushed forward on top.

“To achieve this style, the hair is clipped short on the sides and back, usually using a 1 or 2 grade,” explains Paul Burfoot, founder of Fish Hairstyling. “The hair [on top] is then left longer and brushed forward.”

Disconnected Undercut With Length On Top

A style made famous by none other than Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, this undercut style is about as grunge as they come. Just stick on a denim shirt, some ripped 501s and you’ll be ready to hop on stage and start smashing some guitars.

“When worn with longer hair on top, a disconnected undercut’s main use is to remove weight,” says Mikey Pearson, founder and director at Manifesto barbershop in London.

“In this case, the undercut is designed to be hidden. The shorter the undercut, the more noticeable it is as it won’t blend as much.”

For medium- to shoulder-length hair, Pearson suggests going for a grade four undercut. For a more standout look, go even tighter.

Disconnected Undercut Slicked Back

One particular look that has become extremely popular among the kind of guys who love raw denim, big beards and tattooed knuckles, is this second Peaky Blinders-inspired chop. Having said that, it’s also found its way onto the heads of the likes of Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake, Conor McGregor and more.

Murdock’s Covent Garden head barber, Miles Wood-Smith, explains how to get the look.

“One option is to slicken the top back with pomade for an old-school appearance. (Think Arthur in Peaky Blinders.),” he says. “Always run a comb through for that neat finish.

“To wear the top going forward, before getting it cut, you should ask your barber to take the back shorter to avoid too much unwanted overhang.”

[gta-5-cheats]

The Best Movies of 2017 You Probably Didn't See

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The Best Movies of 2017 You Probably Didn't See

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Like the years preceding it, 2017 has been filled with amazing movies, some of which we’ve had the pleasure of watching while others will release over the next few months with the awards season in full swing. If you’ve been following critics publishing their year-end lists, you’ve likely heard these names multiple times over: Lady Bird, Call Me by Your Name, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

But there is a lot of good cinema that hasn’t got the same level of attention as the aforementioned films, either due to its origin outside Hollywood origin, or a lack of accessibility (most won’t be easily available for some months). But that doesn’t mean it’s any less deserving – in fact, the films below are more global, and hence more reflective of the world we live in.

You’ll see some of the following movies at the Oscars next year, and you might have already watched some of them if you’re lucky enough to attend an international film festival. Here are the best hidden-gem movies of 2017 that deserve a place in your bookmarks/ wishlist:

A Fantastic Woman Chile’s first openly transgender actor, Daniela Vega, stars as a trans waitress and singer named Marina in this socially aware and compelling character study film, who feels the full wrath of society after the unexpected and sudden death of her lover, an older man named Orlando. His ex-wife forbids Marina from attending the funeral, a detective looks at her as a sex worker and suspect, and Orlando’s son threatens to throw her out of the flat she used to live in.

Instead of being able to properly mourn Orlando, Marina must confront both family and society, and fight for the right to be herself: a woman. Shortlisted at next year’s Oscars for best foreign-language film, A Fantastic Woman is a compelling portrayal of grief and alienation, bolstered by Vega’s multi-layered, expressive and steady performance of a character she understands, and brought to life with immaculate control by director Sebastián Lelio.

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library Ninety-two branches across three New York boroughs serving dozens of millions, the NYPL is one of the greatest knowledge and most democratic institutions in the US. In Ex Libris, the documentarian Frederick Wiseman goes behind the scenes, to observe and report how it functions, what it does, and the place it holds.

It’s surprisingly moving, and reminds us that libraries aren’t just about housing books, they’re about people. And through the NYPL’s inclusive message – all races and ethnicities are active participants in its working – Wiseman sends the most powerful of messages, without ever asking someone to sit down and explain to the camera, aka a talking head.

Faces Places The 89-year-old Agnès Varda – known for her immense contributions to French New Wave – goes on a road journey with 33-year-old photographer and muralist JR in this documentary directed by the two, which sees them meeting locals in the villages and small towns across France, and then painting large portraits of them on houses, barns, storefronts, and trains.

Along the way, Faces Places also looks at the unlikely friendship between the two creators at its centre, an age difference of 55 years, and how their lifelong passion for images – but more importantly, the humanity in their subjects – moves, and unites them. The result is heart-warming, surprising, and undeniably political.

Foxtrot Another film that’s shortlisted for next year’s Oscars, the Israeli drama Foxtrot is divided into three sections around the death of a young soldier: how his affluent parents handle grief with intrusions from rabid relatives and army officials, the son’s experiences during his military service, and the life of the parents six months after. Through its subjects, it captures the emotions of a country that’s being pulled apart.

Denounced by the Israeli ministry for spreading “anti-Israeli narrative”, director Samuel Maoz said he criticises out of worry, and because he wants to protect it out of love. Though it’s not for everyone thanks to its long close-ups and slow pacing, those who stick around will get to see a visually-brave and intricate depiction of repressed guilt, and a profound exploration of mourning and loss.

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God’s Own Country Being called a “Yorkshire Brokeback Mountain” by critics to easily describe what it’s about, this love tale between an emotionally stifled English sheep farmer and an irrepressible Romanian migrant worker is anything but straightforward, though it does pay homage to that award-winning Ang Lee film with the struggle of two souls trying to find each other.

God’s Own Country is smart enough to skip over the predictable story obstacles you expect from such a coming-out drama, and instead forges a thoughtful film about loneliness, identity, and society that contains a subtle pro-immigration subtext. It’s a beautiful love story that couldn’t be more timely in an era when there’s ongoing discussion and debate of the consequences of a post-Brexit UK.

Jane Jane Goodall, the 83-year-old primatologist, usually considered the world’s best expert on chimpanzees, is the focus of this documentary that features over 100 hours of unused footage shot by future husband Hugo van Lawick in Gombe, Tanzinia during the 60s. The footage was only recently discovered sitting in a storage unit, and director Brett Morgen (Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck) intercuts with present-day interviews for an in-depth look at Goodall’s life.

Morgen understands that what makes the story tick is not the data she gathered about chimps in the wild, but rather the emotions the chimps brought out in herself. Jane is the portrait of a strong, remarkable woman who always fought for what she wanted, and helped us not just understand the world better, but also make it a better place to live in. It also has a wonderful score by the great Philip Glass.

Loveless Andrey Zvyagintsev’s last film – 2014’s Leviathan – prompted the Russian government to amend what films would be eligible for state funding, given its undercurrent of corruption in the country. His latest, Loveless, once again tackles the state of Russia, its police, society and anguish, through the lens of a missing 12-year-old, who runs away after seeing his about-to-divorce parents continually fight.

Winner of the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes, Loveless affords complexity to each of its characters, who are played wonderfully with sincerity and nuance by its two leads: the parents. Structured as a procedural crime thriller, the story is full of mystery and layers, offering a honest look at a country in crisis via a dissolving marriage.

The Other Side of Hope This Finnish film follows a Syrian refugee who arrives in Helsinki as a stowaway, and decides not to return to his native Aleppo even after being denied asylum by the government; and a salesman who has recently left his wife and job to buy a seafood restaurant that doesn’t seem to be making any money. The two meet with the Syrian looking for his sister.

The Other Side of Hope isn’t explicitly political, but rather a film about human decency, infused with humanity and solemn humour, showing how the cruelty of the bigots – Europe is grappling with an influx of migrants, and most countries are seeing a rise of far-right opposition – can have very real consequences for the unfortunate. All that’s to say, it’s very political.

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[rocknutsvibe]

Smithereens Frontman Pat DiNizio Dead At 62

So saddened to hear this news yesterday, it took me back to the first time I ever heard The Smithereens. It was 1986, a year that researchers have concluded was the worst year for music in the Rock era, a truth suspected by many of us on the ground at the time. Amidst the miasma of tinny, synthesized music – compressed, overprocessed aural plastic – came this song “Blood And Roses”, and it knocked me off my sectional sofa the first time I heard it.

Here was a deep, rich Rock sound, powerful but precise, with a controlled intensity like a tightly coiled spring. It was nothing like other music of the time, but it didn’t really sound like the music from the classic Rock era either. It felt like a breakthrough, a new template for the traditional guitar-based 4-piece Rock band. A teenaged Kurt Cobain fell in love with the band and would be deeply influenced by them.

In the meantime The Smithereens enjoyed some modest success, gaining some heavy rotation on MTV and releasing their biggest hit “A Girl Like You” in 1990. Pat DiNizio wrote or co-wrote all of the band’s songs and was its lead singer. The guy was blessed not only with a great sense of Rock songcraft but also with a set of terrific pipes, and for a brief, shining moment it looked like his band was headed for big heights.

But then fate intervened in the form of the Grunge revolution. Even though the Smithereens dealt in power, it was the wrong flavor of power for the early Nineties, and the band slowly fell out of view. They would maintain a cult-like following after that, and experienced a bit of a career revival in the Oughts, especially after their 2007 release of Meet The Smithereens!, a song-by-song cover of the Beatles’ debut album.

It was a great experiment that demonstrated how startlingly good those early Beatles song were, but it also showed where the Smithereens’ fine musical instincts were largely derived from. R.I.P. Pat DiNizio, and here’s hoping the Smithereens will always be remembered as a band that helped keep Rock alive in the barren musical landscape of the mid-1980s.

  Photo: By Jonathunder (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://ift.tt/nyd3RQ) or GFDL (http://ift.tt/KbUOlc)], via Wikimedia Commons  

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[nostalgiacolloquium]

On Kitsch, Nostalgia, and Nineties Femininity

On Kitsch, Nostalgia, and Nineties Femininity by Stephanie Brown

In Stephanie Brown’s article, the relationship between kitsch and nostalgia is explored and how it relates to the female identity. Utilizing various scholarly definitions, Brown is able to compile a more direct explanation for the kitsch phenomena. One theory presented by a group of critics was the idea of the “kitsch-man” who subconsciously responds to aesthetics by parodying them. They used the Grand Canyon and its “greatness” to demonstrate how kitsch is exclusively originated in America and is then spread globally. However, the author points out that kitsch exists internationally because of the class system. The taste of the aristocracy is deemed as good taste and all other art that exists in lower society is viewed as mimicking the high class. Even when the rich have “bad taste”, there is positive association. In terms of American taste, it historically aligns with their European counterparts. Americans who want to appropriate European culture are forced to purchase art overseas in order to replicate it at home. The act of cultural appropriation, then, can be viewed as a form of kitschiness. Umberto Eco, an Italian scholar, defined this sharing of cultural aesthetics as “incontinent collectionism” where no care is given to the original or the duplicate.

Another important point that Stephanie Brown presented was that kitsch must be mass-produced. This does not mean that items have to be cheap or not artisan but that the defining quality is that it cannot be unique. In many cases, there is also an over-ornamentation that is oftentimes unnecessary. Critics call refers to this as “defacement” and ruins the quality of the art. Brown argued that the value of the object is not determined by the level of beauty but rather its meaning. She continues on to suggest that kitsch objects have the sole objective to evoke specific emotions or memories specific to individual experiences. A bar of soap from Graceland was presented to demonstrate how nostalgia is promoted through kitsch items. The owner of the soap does not feel attachment to the physicality of the object but rather the memories tied with Elvis and his music. Nostalgia creates narrative in kitsch objects.

This leads to her next qualification: kitsch gives some form of pleasure. The pleasure that kitsch brings is contextual and based on a large spectrum. In addition, the sole purpose of kitsch objects is to spark desire to own not only the physical item itself but also what is represented. A desire to display the objects to conform to a social standard is also an crucial component to the market success of “retro” products. These objects, albeit not actually from the era emulated, are crafted in order to capture the attitudes of that time period and inject it into modern day society. Ownership of kitsch items favor aesthetic over practicalness.

In the latter half of her article, Stephanie Brown applies the same principles of kitschifying inanimate objects to the beautification of women. Much like kitsch, femininity is mass-produced through the cosmetic industry where women paint their faces much like a pattern on a vase. Beautifying oneself has no practical purpose; makeup serves no improvement to one’s life. It is purely artistic. She cites Judith Butler’s theory found in Gender Trouble, which introduces the notion that gender is a performance by separating it from the biological sex. The actual, raw object is not seen, but instead the outward display of archetypal behavior. Brown specifically states that kitsch is applicable to femininity and not masculinity. Masculinity have an inherent privileged position in society. Because their position is already known, there is no need to prove their status. Femininity, meanwhile, has consistently been subject to transformative measures to prove one’s place. They must mask their true identity in order to be accepted. Although every appearances are vastly varied, the commodification of women to have painted on faces strips individuality, much like mass-produced products. Cosmetic beauty is also designed to garner attention and sell themselves to other human beings. The desire associated with femininity supports Brown’s qualification for kitschiness. Feminine beauty has also become a domestic act performed every morning, inciting a desire for ownership by masculine counterparts.

Courtney Love, the lead singer of grunge band Hole and Kurt Cobain’s widow, is presented as an example of how kitsch is implemented into feminine identity. Her onstage identity is juxtaposed by her revealing, lace dresses (feminine) that are torn and often stained (rebellion). Her sloppily-applied red lips crooned lyrics in a little girl voice and swiftly rappelled into deafening screams. The differences in her behavior were an obvious parody but as time wore on the lines became much more blurred. As her career grew, her commentary on the subjection of the feminine identity grew more grotesque. The album art of Live Through This displays a decapitated doll that is meant to represent the absence of self-beautification in a woman’s life. The nostalgic desire to go to a time (which may have not existed in a civilized world) where women were not forced to hide behind a false identity. But, the use of a doll is a reminder that women’s bodies will always be used as objects with interchangeable parts that can be altered at will. The mid-90s Courtney was much different than her grunge past. Appearing in fashion magazines, such as Vanity Fair and Marie Claire, her identity slowly shifted to a more generic version of herself. Love’s appearance began to blend with all of the other female celebrities, her ultra dark self starting to fade away. Kitsch can be found in this transformation by the adornment of her true self to reduce her individuality and mass-produce another typical celebrity. The author claims that Courtney’s ever-evolving persona serves as a critique of “post-feminism” trends that claim to be revolutionary. It is using memory into a commodity, just another disposable parody of itself.

I found this article extremely interesting in regards to how kitsch can be attributed to the objectification of women and feminine traits. At the mention of kitsch, a very specific group of images pop into my head. Kitsch, to me, as always been connected to tacky tinker toys that alludes to a past time, specifically the 50s. It makes sense to make the connection between kitsch and nostalgia due to the imagery of past decades. People do not buy kitschy items because of they look attractive but rather for the dated aesthetic that reminds them of a past time. Memories associated with yesteryears’ decor are also extremely potent because of their specific appearance. For example, whenever I see a Dickens village I am immediately reminded of my grandma’s house at Christmas time.

Once the article delved into feminist theory and the feminine identity, modern day interactions I see start to support the idea of kitschification of women. On social media sites, such as Twitter, photos of girls with and without makeup are used to accuse all women of lying. Makeup and self-interested adornment is viewed as dishonest and condemned. Therein lies a double-standard between the masculine and feminine. When women dress up for men, it is accepted and expected. But when a woman dresses up for herself to boost her confidence, it is swiftly shot done and twisted into vanity. Through the idea of kitsch, we can identify how it can promote a sexist standard. I believe that kitsch can be extremely harmful to not only women, but all those who identify on the femme spectrum. Because if one person isn't conforming with society’s norms, it should not be ridiculed but celebrated for their differences.

Works Cited

Brown, Stephanie. “On Kitsch, Nostalgia, and Nineties Femininity.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 22, no. 3, 2000, pp. 39–54. www.jstor.org/stable/23414521.