diamond black hearted boy

Child Abuse, to go along with Syllabus Building

...and its hopeless vicissitudes

 (I love this video)

Not Allowed: Hats Festooned with Animal Ears, for Adults

I'll admit it, when it comes to the culture of punk (and its affiliates) I accept and embrace punk terminology that denotes youth exuberance and juvenility, particularly the use of terms like "kids" to refer to others in the scene. I recognize these efforts as attempts to distinguish the punk community as somehow outside the confines of those who are responsible to state and capitalist efforts, a rejection of the public demand that as adults we assume the role of citizen-consumer, etc. At the same time as a generation (punk or not) I think we are not doing ourselves any favors when we consciously wear things that infantilize us. 


There has been a rash of wearing winter hats, over the last few years, with all sorts of animal-like adornment, most popularly hats with some sort of mammalian-ears (cats, fox, etc) that seem to infantilize its wearers. This has been particularly noticeable at various Occupy movements throughout the country, which has struck me the wrong way. Not because I want to use a fashion accessory to critique the underlying seriousness of the protests. I'm not going to do that, because then I might sound like Roger Ebert's (glib) recent post on Occupy Wall Street that suggests his utter lack of understanding of the motivations of these protests, just how out-of-touch he is with the status working and poor America, and just another reason why we don't turn to mediocre film critics for appropriate political vectors (I might be stabbing myself in the back with this last statement). I am clearly someone who supports these movements and sees them as the far-left return to the focus of politics for which I have waited all of these years. Fuck arguments about how we look as indicative of the credibility of our politics. But...


Get it the fuck together youth of America! Being "cute" in the sense of being 4 years-old is not useful, but is embarrassing! YOU ARE NOT A CHARACTER OUT OF A JAPANESE ANIME CARTOON!

Para Calificar, Jams

Thoughts on Punk and Race, from the Editors of White Riot

In an interview with souciant.com:

"MT: I think the agental moment is very important. But one thing that occurred to me just now is that there are complex networks of privilege informing that agency as well. Particularly when you think about black punks, for instance. “Punk” is something they are hailed as, a homophobic slur. And so I wouldn’t want to make it seem too hunky dory — “I can identify as punk and everything’s great!” — because “punk” is very a complicated term that people in various margins of racial outsiderness have to negotiate, especially when it does take on that poisonous valence.

SD: The thing is, a lot of punks of color will talk about the fact that as they slipped their given identity and took on the mantle of punk, they’d get crap from people asking, essentially, “What, are you trying to be white?” So punk is identified as white and therefore it becomes very complicated for them. Here’s this way that through their agency they can adopt a race-less identity — at least that’s the ideal — which is, “I’m punk,” yet it is seen both by people from their own ethnicity and, unfortunately, white punks as being white. And that gives them a lot of anxiety. Now what James Spooner has done with Afro-punk and a lot of the folks in the Race Riot zine."

(White Riot, out on Verso).

Hearts of Darknessess + Shitface

Movie Trailer for a collaboration between band Hearts of Darknessess and filmmaker Shitface.

This Made My Sunday, I Believe It Previews a New Album for Las Vaderramas?

Tracks that Occupy the Space of Dread Leading Up to Prospectus Draft Submission

The first is a track by Chavela Vargas, a lesbian caught up in the heady days of México's revolutionaries and vanguards. Reconfiguring the traditional, torch-song ranchera songs, with some queer flavor. For a brief period she had an affair with Frida Kahlo.


Chavela vargas - la llorona by laodameia





Death Grips. I tend to think that more often than not rock/punk/hip hop intersections don't always work out for the best. I think a good example of this might be Mad Decent World's podcast that set punk and hardcore anthems in a kind of hip hop ambience as podcast/mixtape which doesn't completely fit with the irruptive qualities of punk/hardcore, at least in places. This does an interesting merger by not always trying to balance elements to give each their due, but rather in cases merely channeling a punk angry affect, in other cases chanting more than rapping to reduce the dissonance between the two elements. Download this full album free at the Death Grips website.

Stay+ (formerly Christian AIDS, but had to change the name after a cease and desist order from Christian Aid the NGO). This track is double reminiscent of both 1980s era New Order-like melancholy, '90s dance pop, but is also an indirect tribute to the intensely driven, urgent, and anti-establishment activism of ACT-UP in the 1990s (an organization I have a lot of respect for) in response to the accelerating AIDS crisis to which the Reagan administration turned a blind eye (in the end killing thousands just in New York City). Download some of their material here.





In my endless pursuit of musical material that appeals to my punk/metal interests that nonetheless is something I can read, write, or study to, I recently stumbled upon this beautiful video by Kerretta.





Sunglitters have incredibly chill tracks perfect for a panic-stricken summer:





Also, Cayos, supply me with some tracks to lower the blood pressure:



IceAge, some atypical Danish teens, producing a post-punk fuzz ridden track that instills occasional desire to start dancing


Iceage - New Brigade from iceage on Vimeo.

Ghostface Killah, Top 10 Softest Rappers

Some of Ghostface's comments here are a little fucked-up, particularly those that regard gender norms, but I think there is something fundamentally right about his assessment of Soulja Boy:

"5. Soulja Boy 

Aka the 2011 Mr Bojangles. This nigga also deserves recognition as the coon of the decade namsayin. I dont even kno how muthafuckas listen to this niggas music….nevermind callin that shit hip hop. If it was 1930 this nigga would be rockin a necklace made of chicken legs n pigs feet n be tap dancin on watermelons for a livin. Anyways…sons music is only technically hip hop….like drinkin a beer wit a straw n a umbrella in the bottle is technically drinkin a beer namsayin. Hidin behind 50 Cent wont protect you from ya own bitchassness tho son. This nigga been germinatin in the garden of wackness for a hot minute now. This nigga done splashed hisself wit enough water from the fountain of coonery to last 12 lifetimes. Stop givin this nigga a pass jus cos he young. Muthafuckin Run DMC was around this niggas age when they made King Of Rock yo. LL Cool J was on his first comeback when he was this niggas age yo. NWA made Fuck The Police when they was this niggas age son. You cant hide behind youth forever you clown ass muthafucka. If I see you Imma smack the slaves outta you nigga. Its open season on you son."

Despite the proliferation of rap artist personas we see in the media, some even transgressing boundaries that make Ghostface uncomfortable, there remains a need to furnish America with a metonymic stereotype or icon upon which we might heap blame upon as a representative not only of the "poverty" of culture in African-American communities, but also for the affliction of its persistent economic poverty. To the reactionary mindset, the former produces the latter.

I've determined why it is I don't like Eminem...

I said as much on a car trip with my friend S, where we admitted to our mutual dislike of him.



I've decided that his voice reminds me of my mother's if it was auto-tuned a few octaves lower.

I gave up drinking for a 4th month stint once...

...just to prove to myself that I could do it. I have to say the experience was refreshing, and sobering in the best of ways. It helped me reconsider my priorities, and how those corrolated with my behavior. But I noticed a strange craving for ice-cream creeping up in me those 4 months that hasn't completely gone away. This video represents that new and disturbing craving:

This video gives us everything that is right about hardcore...

...and the hotness of hardcore boys/men/dudes

Medieval Chic

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Bandido is pretty phenomenal

As the child of someone who emerged out of this subculture, I'm surprised I never heard this band growing up.

Black Elk, Can't Stop Listening to This Track

Daily Gay Inanity 2

If you need some amusement today, I would recommend watching these videos tone-deaf baby gay twins, gather by our friends a House of Vader. Hilarious and completely magical at the same time. Watch closely with the 2nd video as they attempt a little montage.

I'm going to Peru, to climb Machu Pichu in a month!

(actually this video has nothing to do with Peru besides being in Spanish and evoking a tropical climate, but you get the idea).

2010 Review Part 1

One of my graduate school friends labelled the 2009-2010 complex as "one of the worst years of our lives." So, because I haven't posted in sometime, and want to find some positives from this year, I will do my best to keep some positives in mind as I proceed, to compile some bests.

Best Tracks of 2010, for me:

Kanye has always been an interesting producer, but here he's becoming a much better songwriter. Also Nicki Minaj's portion of the track makes it to my mind. The psychotic killer vs. the profit motivated gangster cold blooded killer I think is an interesting variation for pop-hip hop



Justin Pearson's musical career shaped my personal aesthetic and sensibility probably more than it should have in the last few years of the 20th and the first few years of the 21st centuries. That said, this turn toward the more danceable and slightly more gay in these two tracks is just what the doctor order (although the quasi-hawk not so much):





I already posted this, but I love British lesbian art music.



Not really one for the ages, but a motivator for right at the end of the semester:



A like songs that occasionally make you feel like your life will or should be over in whatever way. Here is one the years most important with a stunning queer video (sometimes verges on a parody of itself I'll admit. As in, why are those women playing tennis with a liver?):



Kylesa, I will always love Male/female dueling vocals. Spiral Shadow is a fantastic new album:



The lyrics are trite and the video is a little overblown, but I really love this track, and Kelis' lesbic style here:




Best Continuing/ Resurgent Musical Trend:

Homocore!!

Brontez Purnell of, being a black gay man of note in the San Francisco punk scene has his own band:



Homo Black Flag cover band with appropriate American Modeling Guild Video:



Last.fm recommended this to me and they were absolutely correct:

Joe Diebes

Visual and sound artist Joe Diebes explores in this video the ways in which musical virtuosity can approximate and approach the mechanical, and machine-like:

excerpt from Scherzo from Joe Diebes on Vimeo.

2 of the better acts from VIA electronic music festival

Expensive Shit (featuring a former member of Modey Lemon, current member of !!!)



Dominique Young Unique (a grouping only possible in Florida)



(VIA)