‘The hooky yet hard-edged, guitar-driven musical style known as power pop didn’t generate spontaneously. There were threads and uprisings—disconnected sounds that later combined into something like a movement—as early as the late ’60s, when some young rock-‘n’-roll fans were already starting to rebel against rock’s increasing pretensions and ponderousness. The impulse that led to power pop was already alive in the network of collectors of obscure ’60s garage-rock singles, and in the creators of the disreputable pop hits classified as “bubblegum.” Some key songs by Badfinger and The Move were power pop before the genre really existed, and once the sound became more viable and widely imitated, it was easier to trace the roots of the genre back to rockabilly, doo-wop, girl groups, and the early records of The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, and The Who.
‘Power pop evolved throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, running parallel and sometimes absorbing other trends like glam rock, pub rock, punk, new wave, college rock, and neo-psychedelia. But for the core power-pop sound—the one that came closest to breaking through to the mainstream and challenging ’70s rock radio’s preference for grandiosity—the best place to start is with The Raspberries. The Cleveland band’s 1972 single “Go All The Way” (written by lead singer Eric Carmen) is practically a template for everything the genre could be, from the heavy arena-rock hook to the cooing, teenybopper-friendly verses and chorus. The body of the song was The Who; the soul was The Beach Boys. The Raspberries only lasted five years, breaking up in 1975; and they only recorded four albums, of which only the twin 1972 releases Raspberries and Fresh really fulfill the promise of “Go All The Way.” Still, The Raspberries’ initial fusion of fist-pumping guitars and sugary melodicism—and the chart success they had at the start—inspired young rockers across the Midwest.
‘While The Raspberries didn’t last long enough or stay true enough to popularize power-pop, the genre’s next big band had a stronger impact. Cheap Trick, formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973, were pegged by critics early as one of the great hopes for the survival of meat-and-potatoes American rock ’n’ roll. Less cutesy and more muscular than The Raspberries, Cheap Trick really picked up the post-Beatles mantle of Badfinger, and gave it some middle-American blue-collar beef. Cheap Trick spent the next decade as solid sellers, while scoring the occasional chart breakout, but the band warred with its own sound throughout the ’80s, sometimes embracing pop, and sometimes rebranding as a mainstream hard-rock group, complete with power ballads and glammy videos. The reasons for Cheap Trick’s identity crisis may have had something to do with the trouble power pop had catching on—not just with the public, but with the top rock critics of the era, who were frequently distrustful of the genre’s elements of sweetness and simplicity. Even the acts that the critics did embrace often languished in obscurity, as Cheap Trick did in the early going.’ — A.V. Club
____
Shoes
‘The brilliant quintessence of American power pop hails from Zion, Illinois and began by recording at home on a 4-track, which resulted in a self-released LP that attracted national attention and (eventually) a major-label contract. Bassist John Murphy, guitarists Jeff Murphy and Gary Klebe and drummer Skip Meyer blend electric guitar — loud, distorted and multi-tracked, yet sweet — with breathy, winsome vocals to create melodic rock made most impressive by the strength of three equally talented singer/songwriters.’ — Trouser Press
‘Too Late’
‘Now and Then’
‘Cruel You’
______
Pezband
‘Formed in the late seventies, Pezband combined Beatles-esque melodies with a gritty rock ‘n roll edge. The band released three studio albums from 1977 till 1979, all of which were critically acclaimed. Rolling Stone cited their 1978 sophomore release, Laughing In The Dark as one of the best albums of the year, and Billboard and Trouser Press sang their praises as well. However, Pezband’s adoring reviews didn’t translate into album sales, and the band broke up shortly after they released their third studio album in 1979, Cover to Cover.’ — Chicagoist
‘Love Goes Underground’
_________
The Bongos
‘The Bongos emerged from Hoboken, and Manhattan’s New Wave and No Wave venues such as Tier 3 and the Mudd Club, with a guitar-driven pop that belied a strong influence of the avant-garde. What set them apart from other such groups of the era were their sudden guitar outbursts or saxophone improvisations that echoed the work of Lou Reed, Ornette Coleman, or Captain Beefheart within the context of a pure, melodic pop song. In addition, unlike many of their peers, the group explored unabashedly sensuous dance rhythms that made their recordings dancefloor favorites.’ — collaged
‘In the Congo’
____________
Great Buildings
‘Great Buildings was one of a series of bands that were part of Columbia Records “Developing Artists” series in the early 80’s. (Paul Collins’ Beat, The Laughing Dogs, 20/20, Tommy Tutone and others) Danny Wilde and Ian Ainsworth (former singer/guitarist and bassist with Los Angeles Sparks-loving glam/bubblegum band The Quick) went on to form Great Buildings. They recorded the Apart From The Crowd album for Columbia in 1981 before breaking up a short time later. Danny Wilde went on to release several solo albums for Geffen before teaming up again with Solem to form the Rembrandts.’ — Powerpop Presents
‘Another Day in My Life’
__________
Phil Seymour
‘Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Phil Seymour is probably best remembered for his time with the Dwight Twilley Band, who turned out some of the finest pop songs of their era, including the classic “I’m on Fire.” After two albums (1976’s Sincerely and 1978’s Twilley Don’t Mind), Seymour left to pursue a solo career. While waiting for a recording deal, he began recording solo sessions, as well as contributing session work for Tom Petty, 20/20, and Moon Martin. His self-titled debut was well received at the time (the single “Precious to Me” made it to number 22 on the pop charts) and has become highly revered in power pop circles as one of the landmark albums of the era. In 1984, Seymour was diagnosed with lymphoma. He returned to Oklahoma, carrying on at a diminished pace and recording infrequently, until the disease took his life on August 17, 1993 in Tulsa.’ — allmusic
‘Love Receiver’
_______________
The Three O’Clock
‘The Three O’Clock were the quintessential L.A. Paisley Underground band. Lead singer and bassist Michael Quercio in fact coined the term to describe the set of bands, including the Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Green On Red and the Bangles, who incorporated the chiming guitars of the Byrds and the Beatles into their pop songs with a psychedelic bent, and the clothes to match. Their final album and first for Warner Brothers/Paisley Park (Prince was a fan), proved to be their undoing, as they never really fulfilled the label’s expectations and Quercio refused to be pigeonholed as a pretty-boy pop star or spokesperson for the premature retro revival.’ — collaged
‘With a Cantaloupe Girlfriend’
‘Fall to the Ground’
‘Jet Fighter’
___________
Off Broadway
‘The year is 1980, and Chicago based power pop outfit Off Broadway has just released their first album, ON. The critically acclaimed debut album includes the singles “Stay in Time” (which reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100) and “Full Moon Turn Your Head Around,” and goes on to sell nearly 300,000 copies in Chicago alone (more than most modern bands sell on a national level). The music industry is buzzing over this young Midwestern power pop band, and a bidding war amongst over a dozen major record labels begins. In the end, Off Broadway signs with Atlantic, but the glitz and glamour of being on a major label never come into fruition for Off Broadway.’ — Chicagoist
‘Bad Indication’
____
20/20
‘One of the key bands in the Los Angeles power pop explosion of the late 1970s and early ‘80s, 20/20 never quite scored a hit single, but they were a powerful draw on the West Coast in their heyday, and their signature song, “Yellow Pills,” became a cult favorite, covered by a number of later power pop acts and providing a noted pop fanzine with its name. In 1978, the group came to the attention of Greg Shaw, who was documenting the new L.A. pop scene with his label Bomp Records. Bomp released 20/20’s debut single, “Giving It All” b/w “Under the Freeway,” which earned enthusiastic reviews as the group worked the L.A. club circuit. Portrait Records, a subsidiary of CBS, signed the group, and 20/20 went into the studio with producer Earle Mankey (formerly of Sparks) to cut their first full-length album. The LP, simply titled 20/20, received rave reviews, but while “Yellow Pills” received scattered airplay on progressive outlets around the country, radio didn’t embrace the single as they had with the Knack’s “My Sharona” (doubtless due to the song’s oblique drug references).’ — collaged
‘Yellow Pills’
‘Nuclear Boy’
‘Remember the Lightning’
_______
The Boys
‘Although the Boys never achieved massive commercial success, their music legacy has been carried on by influence. German punk band Die Toten Hosen championed their music for more than a decade, covering several songs and introducing new fans to the Boys. They also recorded cover versions of some songs, namely “First Time” and “New Guitar in Town” for their album Auf dem Kreuzzug ins Glück – 125 Jahre die Toten Hosen and “Brickfield Nights” for the cover album Learning English, Lesson One. In the late 1990s, Japanese band Thee Michelle Gun Elephant had a hit with a Boys cover. This prompted the re-release of several Boys albums with encouraging international sales (more than 30,000 albums being sold in Japan alone).’ — collaged
‘Brickfield Nights’
__________
The Records
‘Like the Motors, the Records were reborn pub-rockers, who made a giant leap into the present by leaving their history behind and starting afresh with finely honed pop craftsmanship and the full-scale record company support they had never previously enjoyed. While the Motors went for grandiose production numbers, the Records — led by ex-Kursaal Flyer drummer/songwriter Will Birch — made sharp, tuneful confections that offered maximum hooks-per-groove in a classic Anglo-pop style not unlike the Hollies, with similarly brilliant harmonies and ringing guitars.’ — Trouser Press
‘Starry Eyes’
___________
The Plimsouls
‘From inception, the Plimsouls, formed by singer, guitarist and songwriter Peter Case (who had previously fronted power pop band The Nerves), quickly became a crowd favorite in the Los Angeles club scene. Long Beach promoter Stephen Zepeda signed the group to his Beat Records label for a five-song EP called Zero Hour. Guitarist Eddie Muñoz joined the group during the recording of the EP. The band achieved national popularity in 1983 when the single release “A Million Miles Away” was included on Valley Girl’s motion picture soundtrack and became a minor hit. The band, which also appeared on camera in the film performing the song and parts of two others, quickly re-recorded the song for inclusion on a second album, Everywhere At Once, produced by Jeff Eyrich, but broke up shortly after.’ — collaged
‘A Million Miles Away’
‘Now’
______
The Pop
‘The Pop recorded two albums for Arista in the late ’70s, but could never shake the impression that they were little more than an attempt to build the ideal power-pop band from scratch. The Pop believed in the new DIY values of the punk ethic and their first LP shows it. It is an eclectic powerful combination of Punk meets Pop and two of the album’s songs, “Down On The Boulevard” and “Animal Eyes” soon became authentic anthems on the Southern California music scene, mostly through air-play on The Rodney Binginheimer radio show on KROQ and the bands extensive clubs dates up and down the coast. The Pop called it quits on July 4, 1981.’ — collaged
‘Go!’
______
The dBs
‘The dBs released their first album, Stands for Decibels, in 1981, to critical acclaim but negligible sales. Their sound was a modernized version of earlier power pop, with precise arrangements and highly accomplished instrumental work. Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple were the band’s songwriters, and while Holsapple was skilled in the composing of fairly straightforward tunes such as “Big Brown Eyes” and “Bad Reputation,” Stamey’s songs, which include “Espionage” and “Tearjerkin’,” tended to be somewhat more experimental. They released a second album in 1982, Repercussion, which built upon the strengths of the first album, and also released singles such as “Judy.” These two albums, recorded on the British label Albion, have since been reissued on one compact disc.’ — collaged
‘Black and White’
__________
Cheap Trick
‘Combining a love for British guitar pop songcraft with crunching power chords and a flair for the absurd, Cheap Trick provided the necessary links between ’60s pop, heavy metal, and punk. Led by guitarist Rick Nielsen, the band’s early albums were filled with highly melodic, well-written songs that drew equally from the crafted pop of the Beatles, the sonic assault of the Who, and the tongue-in-cheek musical eclecticism and humor of the Move. Their sound provided a blueprint for both power pop and arena rock; it also had a surprisingly long-lived effect on both alternative and heavy metal bands of the ’80s and ’90s, who often relied on the same combination of loud riffs and catchy melodies.’ — allmusic
‘Way of the World’
‘Come On Come On’
‘She’s Tight’
*
p.s. Hey. So, tomorrow I’m going to Amsterdam for the weekend. As far as you’re concerned, this means that the p.s. tomorrow is likely to be a bit rushed as I try to get it done pre-departure time. On Saturday, you will get a hopefully lovely rerun post and no p.s. per say. On Monday, everything will be back to normal with a new post, full p.s., etc., at which point I will catch up with the comments from both Friday and Saturday ** Scunnard, Hi. Certain things (age, location, general profession, etc.) about the seeming brother of George match, and others (for instance: wow, does he look different, if that’s him, etc.) make me wonder. Mm, I just want him to be the right guy, I guess. I don’t like the uncertainty. A friend of mine is going to make the initial contact with him for me to see if he’s the guy and if he will be willing to talk to me ‘cos I’m scared a bit shitless. Oh, thanks about the DG-F post, man. ** Misanthrope, Who ever knows with those motherfuckers. It just always seems like these really hyped up crises always get ‘solved’ albeit in some disappointing, heavily compromised way. Rallo?! Rallo is still alive? You’re kidding me. Weird, cool. ** xTx, Extie! My pal! Err, no, ‘Billie’ has not arrived. Hm. It is getting a little long. I’ll go down to the office today and make sure they don’t have some package for me that they forgot to tell me about because that has happened. Yikes, want! Very, very top notch news about your progress on the novel! Mega-whoopie! Mine, err, is crapped out right now, so, bleah, yeah, but I’m a stubborn motherfucker, so it’s not over yet. I miss you too! All love to you! ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. Sorry about the non-Skyping last evening. Yesterday got away from me. New Park Chan-Wook definitely has potential, I agree. I’m curious. It would be nice if Glass did something interesting again. I’ll use that link, thanks. I’m not giving up on the George novel yet, but I think it’s good to be realistic so I won’t crash and burn inside if/when it gives up my ghost. Art, yeah, but it and love are kind of all we’ve got or something. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. That thing Bill is doing sounds fun. If I were nearby, I would go and learn a lot. Give him a big ‘merde’ for me. ** Billy Lloyd, Balls plus great instincts and inherent talent. In your case, you’ll nail it, in other words. Assembling a team to make it happen, that sounds really logical to me. And it seems like angling for a label is the obvious and right thing to do, at least to start with. Let me know how your talk is received. Snow, awesome. We’re still without. Word is that it might rain-snow today, which is the worst. With my luck, we’ll get a massive, gorgeous blizzard while I’m in Amsterdam, where it never snows, which will have turned into a chilly swamp by the time I get back. Fully and heavily enjoy your London/ Oxford trips. Anything particularly exciting pre-planned? We can compare our respective trip notes upon our respective returns. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Thank you for the sympathy. No, I’ve never gotten this far into a novel and still felt this deeply negative about it, but I’ve never written a novel like this one before, so it’s hard to compare its status to the other ones. I don’t know. I’m going to trying to fix it, at least for now. Yeah, thanks, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, You got snow. Hunh. Usually, when you get it, we get it, but not this time unless today holds a big surprise. Thanks for the tip/link re: the AN website. That does look useful, and it’s a swell review, man. A real pleasure. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I hope so too re: the novel. I’m not giving up yet. Thank you. I’ve listened to the MBV twice, and it’s really gorgeous, and I can tell it’s going to unfold and unfold in an amazing way. I actually really like the later Celine novels. ‘Normance’, ‘Castle to Castle’, ‘North’, all pretty fantastic, I think. I haven’t read the posthumous one, ‘Rigadoon’, but I want to. ** Statictick, Hi, N! Dude, spooning vs. commenting, no contest. Hope it was a soup spoon. Hope it was a ladle. Awesome re: possible guest-post, man. Really sweet of you. ** Trees, Hi, Ted. Thanks about my novel problems. I tried stepping away from it for a few months, and that didn’t work, so I’m trying fiddling with and chiseling what I’ve already written rather than trying to generate more prose. We’ll see if that helps. Cutting back could be plenty. I hope whichever route you go does the trick. All your upcoming book stuff is really exciting. Remember that I’d love to celebrate any of them on the blog, if you like. It is weird how multi-tasking just happens so naturally and easily sometimes, yeah. Weird stuff: the brain, I guess. ** Sypha, My sympathies to you re: the Gaga cancellations. Your worrying about her feelings on the matter is very odd and sweet. ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi. Oh, thanks. Saki is mysterious and kind of magical to me for some reason. It could partly be the little bottle and cup. It would be nice to drink it while not in a restaurant. I think that’s the only place I’ve ever tasted it. Nice pic of Bacon. He looks very tender. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant. Really interesting about the sigil thing. That whole novel, ‘Guide’, is a sigil. Novel as sigil, or vice versa. I can’t say whether it worked or not because I think that would fuck something up, as I understand the principle. I am excited to read ‘Rontel’. I have to get on ordering it. My opinion on ‘Cremaster’ has changed towards the more positive as time has gone on. Partly for the reasons you mention, I mean for the reasons that you say you’re taken with it. The hype around it at the same was very off-putting, or it was to me. Thanks for being into Little Caesar. It was cool, and it was great to do, but, man, it was so much work to put together entirely on my own. I don’t miss typesetting machines and laying-out and the physical pasting and the endless trips to the post office whatsoever. But, yeah. My agent has been trying off and on for years to get Grove to put out a single volume version of the Cycle, but they’re just not interested at all. They think that would cause them to earn even less money on the books for whatever reason, and those kinds of decisions always drive everything, I guess. Good day to you! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. The very first blog post, which was on my old, dead blog, happened on May 15, 2005. My first blog didn’t get hacked in the usual sense of the word. Back in those days, Blogger had this annoying set-up where people could flag a blog as offensive, and, if it got flagged a certain number of times within 24 hours, the blog would be automatically shut down, and, when that happened, all of the images in blog would be deleted. Basically, someone who hated the blog, or, more likely, hated me, hit the ‘flag’ button a ton of times one day, knowing that would kill the blog. When I managed to get Blogger to finally restore the blog, it was empty, and I just gave up on it because refilling it with the images would have taken an insane amount of work. Anyway, it got ‘hacked’ and died on November 20, 2006. Zac’s piece in ‘Userlands’ was his first published work, yeah. The online writing scene in those days was nothing at all like it is now, to the point where the premise of the ‘Userlands’ anthology seemed very fresh and novel, which is pretty funny to think about now, and which shows you how fast the online writing scene grew. Thanks for saying ‘Userlands’ was ahead of the curve. I think it was, yeah, if only by accident. It was well received and did pretty well, but I had hoped that there would be more concentration on the importance of the blog context and how that affected the work and the community in which the writers interacted, but there wasn’t a lot of thought put into that, or not to the degree that I thought was important to the project. Mm, I can’t remember exactly when HTMLG started, or exactly when Tao’s online movement/ sites/ self-branding outreach started. I guess the main difference between then and now is the obvious one, i.e. that back then it was still about posting fiction and poetry online whereas now the forms dictated by the internet’s shape and dimensions and possibilities are very central to so much of the forms being used by current writers in Alt Lit and otherwise. So, I think it’s significantly different now. Re: underrated sites and blogs, mm, I’ll need to think about that and get back to you ‘cos I think there are a bunch, and I would really collect my thoughts and check my bookmarks and stuff. Yeah, online writing is a huge and completely fascinating area/topic, for sure. I know I think about it and what it means and the innovations and things happening because of it a lot. Anyway, there are my initials answers, and I’m very happy to talk a lot more about that and about my experiences, if you like. It’s inspiring. My word overuses are legion. Like ‘yeah’, which I type at the drop of a hat. And also starting sentences with the word’ oh’. Bad habit, but whatever, I guess. Thank you a lot about the red lightbulb pieces, man. They’re from that book ‘The Weaklings (XL)’ that’s coming out. Great day to you, sir. ** Grant Scicluna, Howdy, Grant. Thanks a lot re: the novel struggles. I mean, it makes sense that this one would be the extremely hardest one and the most likely to fail. I’m trying to tackle the biggest thing of all, and it could be way too big for me. Still trying, though. I really hope the meeting goes incredibly well today, and, yeah, try not to worry, and that’s the spirit, and … how did it go? Hm, I don’t remember there being a film outlined from ‘A Herd’. Maybe I’m just forgetting, or maybe I never knew about it? So, as far as I know or can remember, I don’t know anything about that possible project. Hunh. Best of the best to you, man. ** Adrienne White, Whoa, hey, pal! How utterly sweet to see you here! Wowzer! I hope you’re doing really, really great! Are you? Much love to you! ** Bollo, Hey, J! No problem, man, just very happy to see you. Very cool score on the books and stuff. So fucking wish I could see/go to that show of yours that you noted on FB. Are those pix from that show? Wait, hold on, … oh, yes, they are. Seeing them is way better than nothing. They look fantastic! I’ll pore over them heavily a little later, and have a huge blast at the opening! Everyone, the ultra-great visual artist Jonathan Mayhew who hangs around under the guise Bollo has an exhibition opening imminently called ‘Envelope’ at the Ballina Art Center where his work will be shown alongside works by the artist Alan James Burns, and you can see some beautiful photos of Mr. Mayhew’s work in the show here, and, if you’re in Ireland, you can find out more about the show and how to see it here. Awesome! Happy V Day to you too! ** Right. Today I present some awesome past music makers who were into creating very precise, self-reflexive and/or subversive perfect pop songs in hopes of spreading brainy joy, and, if you would like some brainy joy in your life, I recommend give the post your attention. See you tomorrow.
Coop! So yo ARE going to Amsterdam! Wowzer, goody, awesome, yay! All that. Hope you have an badass week-end!
Me, while you're on your way there tomorrow, I'll be doing a bloody Toefl (test of English as a fucking language)(wait, no, "foreign", sorry), which I truly can't be assed with (since I already did it 10 years ago and scored something like 290 out of 300), and dammit, now I think about it, I'm sure a "Dennis Cooper, Writer Extraordinaire and Master Word Crafter, hereby certifies that Wolfie's English is Just Fine, Motherfucker" certificate would have been enough, and saved me £130.
DAYEM.
Too late.
Ok, love to you dude, it was great talking yesterday! Take it "easy"!
Dennis, Yeah, a lot of peeps I talked to yesterday are confident they'll get something done. I hope so. I've got…PLANS!
Yepperz, Rallo's back. Funny that Wolf posted first because it was her turn, then mine, but she couldn't do it, so my bit's up next. I just finished it last night. Probably won't be up till next week though. I want to give it a few days to make sure I haven't completed it just yet.
Power Pop RULES!
Latest FaBlog: Slightly Dopey
Daniel Radcliffe and Dane Dehan interviews
dennis, thanks a million for yesterday, my stuff always looks so good here! and thanks for everyone's nice comments. in answer to a few questions, it's a nikon coolpix 16 mp, and sadly that wasn't the real mrs lennon.
looks like i'm taking two more trips to the bay area THIS MONTH, haha! one is to the largest orchid show in the US…all this traveling is making me feel young. i'm having a pretty good year so far.
yum, power pop! i'll dive in after work tonight.
again, thanks, you da man.
xoMK
sux that Billie hasn't arrived yet. FUCK. Well, it hasn't come back to me 'undeliverable' either so… there's hope i guess.
If it doesn't arrive by march maybe i can send it to your LA address and Joel can send it?
Poop about your writing. Gather up all your stubborn and hit it dead on. We need more DC books!
love to you!
me
d-
lots of stuff i didn't know on this one. but, no big star? i'd say they had just as big an impact on the power pop genre as the raspberries. i might just be saying that because i have such a huge soft spot for their albums. you think later 'mats would count as power-pop? like, everything from 'tim' until they split? i'd say so, since they sanded off a lot of the edges and drunken craziness. and everyone love the 'mats, right? since it's my day off, i'm going through this whole post.
yeah, maybe not moving to reno, as it feels like maybe something to do when i decide to give up on this whole music/art thing (knowing full well, of course, that one can be an artist or make music anywhere, reno just seems more like a place i would go to hibernate and avoid making music that yearns for the spotlight; i'll move there when i want to be salinger and hide from the world). but i'm pretty set on moving away from this toxic fucking valley as soon as possible.
band practice was good last night. too bad we can't have practices this productive and awesome with rwd. shit, we don't even practice at this point. i think i need a new band. new people to play with, new outlook on some stuff. same songs, though. i'm proud of them and i wrote them and we haven't done anything with them so i can use them wherever i see fit. fuck. just angry i guess. i wanted to practice today, but it ain't gonna happen. i wanted to do a lot of shit today that won't get done. so instead, i'm going to sit at home, drink whisky, listen to music, probably jerk off before too long (it's this theory i have where if you start yr day on a high note, ie. an orgasm, you can go into the world with more focus and not want to decapitate the first person who gets in yr way or slows you down; it doesn't always work, particularly since i'm so anti-leaving the house lately, a lot of the times starting my day on a high note means that the best part of my day comes in the morning and everything else after it sucks). have fun in amsterdam!
talk soon.
-me.
"Dark Blood" premieres (sort of)in Berlin.
Here's my review of the Chilean film NO.
I'm familiar with a lot of these bands, but I'd never heard of the Pop. How popular was, say, 20/20 in the late '70s and early '80s?
Don't know these bands as well as I should… soon I will.
Big Star deserve their own day, as they are god-like… If I had the time I would cook one up.
Hey, in response to the other day – I am hoping to catch Iceage too, when they come to Seattle (March I think). I really like the new album…reminds me a bit of Rites of Spring meets… something darker.
Happy Valentine's Day
Have fun in Amsterdam! Kisses
Ah stop, you flatter me!
Assembling a team is way harder than I thought it would be though, I really need someone to help me with the visual aspects but finding someone who is willing AND has the same aesthetic taste as me is hardddddd
Have the most fun ever in Amsterdam, won't you? I'm trying not to be sad because Bjork is next week and I never got tickets 🙁
I'm going out with my friends sugar daddy type person and my friend all weekend, which will hopefully be fun and if not I will just get so off my face I don't notice. I'm also going to a dancehall night in Oxford which will probably be the most embarrassingly white thing I've ever been to but I like dancing to dancehall so there we go.
I got given a valentine's card last night from a man I'd met once ever. It was very weird. Especially because he'd just written his name in it, no message at all.
I am trying to learn 6 choral pieces for tomorrow as I forgot to learn them and so I am avoiding doing it by writing this comment. I ought to get back to it. My head hurts.
I can remember the first time I ever heard the Raspberries "Go All the Way". A friend and I were riding around, cruising the fast food strip in our bucolic little town. At the first strains he was like, "Hey, turn that up !" It had to be Pete Townsend windmilling his Gibson, or, so we thought, until the lyrics started. We looked at each other, aghast, with a, "WHAT THE FUCK ?!!!" It wasn't going all the way, nope, more like an incomplete handjob. The genre definitely got better. I agree with rewritedept on Big Star. The Mats, too. I read once where Paul and Tommy paid a cab driver fifty bucks to drive 60 mph down Sunset Bivd. In reverse. If they reunite ( after their benefit for Slim )it wouldn't be right unless they played one really fucked-up show, and broke up, again. I think a good name for a Replacements cover band would be the Haz-Mats.Ummm, I dunno…too obvious ?
Regarding the aforementioned "riding around", I think the Gourds got it right in the song "Shreveport". To wit :
"Glasspacks hummin', at the circle on the square / Heavy metal rednecks, and their frizzy blonde hair / Fuck a buncha hairdo boys / In their spandex britches / And their big tittie, fancy drunkass bitches." Hey, another good band name, Drunkass Bitches.
Thanks so much for answering my questions, that’s really helpful to me. I’m thinking about the subject because the last couple days everybody’s been talking and arguing on FB about the Alt Lit wikipedia article and how much it sucks, so some people have been editing it with mixed results (at one point, someone kept inserting the word “dog shit” into random sentences, that made me laugh), but I feel like a lot of important things are getting left out, so I think this weekend I’m just gonna try and write my own short version of the wiki article and post it to my blog for my own benefit, to organize my thoughts and get a better grasp of the history.
It seems like Kill Author was a popular website, but that site closed shop around the time I was just beginning to get into Alt Lit, so I missed all that. And maybe 3am magazine? I know that Tao and Noah Cicero used to be editors there.
These days there’s a lot of people self-publishing their ebooks on sites like Scribd, does that seem like a pretty recent thing to you? My feeling (and you’d know better than me) is that it was more common in the past to have online literary journals and blogs that hosted content, but I think now the trend is even more DIY and decentralized, because people are realizing that they can put out things on their own and use pre-existing social networks like Facebook and Tumblr to promote things themselves, with the goal of making something go viral. I think a big thing was when Heiko Julien’s poetry ebook got reblogged on Reddit and went viral, getting like 30 or 40 thousand reads in a few days, which I guess is pretty unheard of for any poetry book, much less one that really didn’t have any attention prior to being uploaded to Scribd.
Maybe another more recent thing is pulling different pranks to “rig” the internet for opitmal SEO, like when Steve Roggenbuck did a google bomb to get Pancho Peligroso’s website to be the first search result for “2011 poet laureate” or when he called his ebook “download Helvetica for free” to get traffic from people looking to download that font. And other pranks like this
http://neatomosquitoaltlitfireworksshow.tumblr.com/post/39297303119/internetpoetry-a-poem-in-the-amazon-reviews-for#notes
Which in order to work, require a lot of people participating and working together. A bunch of people have to click “yes” to keep the poem as the first result.
And the whole image macro thing seems like a pretty new phenomenon, drawing on meme culture and taking advantage of microblogging, which has to ability to spread things really quickly.
I can’t remember when Twitter started to really become mega-popular, but I think that’s another important aspect of Alt Lit…the 140 character limit is definitely shaping how people write, particularly poetry. Just finished reading Mira Gonzalez’s book which was really awesome, a lot of her lines sound like tweets (and of course she’s a bad ass at twitter, she really good with that). And Megan Boyle’s book is pretty amazing too…it’s just a bunch of posts from her blog.
Web design seems very important…putting things out for free to increase readership seems important…
Collaborative poetry also seems like a distinct aspect of Alt Lit, like a bunch of people cutting up and remixing text inside a google doc that everyone has access to.
I’m kind of just thinking out loud and organizing my thoughts, but those might be some ways in which online writing has been shaped by the internet, particularly social networking and microblogging.
What do you think? Feel free to say whatever you want, I don’t have any specific questions to ask you this time around, except maybe if you can think of any examples of earlier versions of the type of things I’m talking about.
Thanks for everything, I agree that this subject is really exciting and interesting. Literature is starting to change in ways similar to what happened with the music industry, the internet was huge paradigm shift away from the “get a major record contract” model.
Have you read this Vulture article about Grizzly Bear? It's very interesting…basically the article is saying that Grizzly Bear isn't making much money, which is surprising based on how popular that band is. I guess that's the other side to all the changes that've gone on in the music world…greater freedom and independence, but less financial stability… Anyway if you haven't read it, it's a good article.
http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/grizzly-bear-shields.html
Have a great day!
I made a mistake, I looked it up and Heiko Julien's ebook got 25,000 views in one day. By now it's increased to more than 42,000 "reads"
Hi Dennis, How was your Valentine's day? Mine is good with a lot of rice cakes from Los Angeles, shipped overnight, so freshly. Right now, I am drinking a tiny cup of saki with a rice cake, and think of your prose which reached my gut nicely. Or I am just showing off how sweet my Valentine's day is. To look serious a little, I would like to keep you posted what I have been working on. I have been working on Daylight and Nightlight in Blanchot and the clear and the obtuse in Barthes. Honestly, not Blanchot. But something about Barthes always reminded of you, which is your work.
Dennis, well, you know me, I'm so attuned to human suffering…
Dennis,
Wow, Amsterdam. That's so exciting. You're just going for pleasure, right? I have a very straight-laced gay friend going in a few months; I made him promise me he'd rent a hooker.
No worries about the Skype thing. Did you celebrate Valentine's? Mine was very happy and low-key.
Einstein on the Beach was so amazing and now Glass has done so little since then. At least with Steve Reich, who did 'Music for 18' the same year, he's followed it up with some seriously great work (though he needs to ditch his 'fast-slow-fast' structure).
I am really enjoying 'Crime and Punishment'. I think it might be better book than 'The Brothers K'. It's faster, tighter, edgier, and (simultaneously) messier, and it's just a thrill. You should read it.
Also, I may start Proust soon. Holy shit, I know.
J
According to Al Jazeera about a month ago, the Dutch government finally went ahead and banned sales of cannabis to tourists. I don't understand this at all – it just seems likely to produce a fully illegal black market and empower street dealers. The two rationales I've heard are that 1)Dutch pot is so potent that tourists who are used to weaker strains in their home countries are smoking it, having panic attacks and clogging Dutch emergency rooms and 2)dealers from other countries are coming to Holland to buy pot to smuggle back home. It seems like you could control the first with some kind of warning about potency – despite the availability of vodka, people still drink beer.
Dennis,
I've been listening to the album "Le Universe Perverse" by Witchboy on bandcamp just now, kind of in the background, but the song "Rave Requiem for Antonio" started playing, and I suddenly noticed the title and heard the lyrics and thought "Couldn't be…"
…But it is!
Wow.
Hope you're well.
dennis hey, still haven't heard anything re the job. parents are on me about applying to other stuff now even though it's only been since monday. oh a coding test was just, they gave me a few example files of the things i'd be doing, and had me do them, like a practice run.
have an awesome time in amsterdam. i'm hoping it's the writing retreat thing you mentioned awhile back and you break through on your novel cuz the world needs to read it and more importantly i wanna read it haha.
x
My favorite song by Antonio.
That’s a creative answer to a difficult question