art
Archived Posts from this Category
January 10, 2016
August 29, 2013
Every Now And Then My Bladder Fails Me…
Posted by franc under art, great idiots of the world, new new atheism, pseudo-skepticism, yellow journalism | Tags: crazy cunt lady, freethoughtblogs, ophelia benson, prunes |[9] Comments
May 3, 2013
Kabul Dreams
Posted by franc under art, culture, islam, middle east, music | Tags: Afghanistan, taqwacore |1 Comment
terrorists
I have previously written of Taqwacore in a blog post that has vapourised. I also briefly mention it here. Primarily Pakistan based, but it has spread elsewhere, as have the various bastard strains of metal. Music is a revolutionary force – you can have all the military interventions you want, but they will never seed social change like angry young folks with guitars. Deny it all you want, but the Sex Pistols did change the world.
Afghanistan has a little known rock subculture too. While not Taqwacore per se, Kabul Dreams echo the sentiments. Three Afghani kids from three separate tribes that spend most of their time butchering each other. There is hope. They have released an album.
Last.fm. Tardbook. WasteOfSpace.
There are worse things to throw a few bucks at.
October 15, 2012
Have Some Metal Up Your Ass Ulrich
Posted by franc under art, censorship, copyright, file sharing, free culture, great idiots of the world, history, internet, MafIAA, piracy | Tags: hypocrites, Lars Ulrich, Metallica, Napster |[6] Comments
It kept us sane.
I grew up with MaximumRockNRoll. Whilst far too often wallowing in identity politic nihilism, it was a priceless resource for alt.culture in the pre-internet stone age. It kept many of us sane, providing endless resources to other folks like us cruelly separated by the tyranny of distance. The premier issue was July 1982 – which makes us scumfucs that remember pushing 50 and beyond. The age that we used to hate with a fearsome passion.
Central to MRR’s appeal was knowing you were not alone. That there were others on the planet that held the same contempt for what passed as pop culture of the time. For me personally, rock bottom was reached here, also in 1982 – ABC and Look of Love [masochists can click here]. I cannot articulate the despair that was evoked by this nothingness that was everywhere – every music teevee show, every commercial radio channel, every shopping mall, pub and club. Noxious, spotty teenagers pumping dimes in jukeboxes playing the same non-music, bubblegum garbage everywhere. There was no escape. But there was MRR – and it was a lifeline.
The most wonderful feature of MRR, and similar zines such as Metal Forces for the headbangers, was the personals section where folks would post real addresses for correspondence and, most importantly, cassette tape trading of music – very much the Napster of its day. (more…)
January 26, 2012
No, Your Product
Posted by franc under art, culture, music | Tags: antibaboons, Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper, The Saints |[27] Comments
Know Your Product, after (I’m) Stranded, is what people remember The Saints by. Those that are grounded in their culture anyway. No, Your product is the real depth. Awesome. A beast that burned too briefly.
January 3, 2012
January 1, 2012
All these people are dead bar the singer. They lived a richer life than you’ll ever hope to, especially if you’re a baboon. Back when music had real venom. When the neighbours could get told to get fucked and the cops were too scared to interfere. The carpets were sticky and there was a faint stench of vomit in the air that was blue with cigarette smoke. There was a real chance if you entered, you might not leave. The gutters of Sydney punk circa 1980, I present X, still the greatest rock-n-roll band ever. Weep at what you will never experience –
December 22, 2011
Bat Chain Puller
Posted by franc under art, culture, genius, music | Tags: Bat Chain Puller, Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, lost album |[6] Comments
The Great One died earlier this year, magically at the age of 69. The man who painted with sound and ended his days painting with paint. As with his music, his visual art did not simply defy convention, it refused to acknowledge it.
The Captain was not like us – he was a precious idiot-god. Probably functionally illiterate, seeing music in drawings and drawings in sounds, I doubt anyone could have ever seen the reality he perceived – an endless source of grief for him, especially when bumping into immovable objects like Zappa.
He was without a doubt the man who poisoned me – life changed when at age 16 I had my mind permanently deformed by Doc At The Radar Station. I blaspheme by considering this his greatest work, alongside Lick My Decals Off Baby. Trout Mask is, dunno, beyond me, but still a masterwork, a communion for once a year perhaps, a sacred experience – black putty music. But Doc and Decals do it for me.
So, 35 years later, something all of us with fins have been waiting for, is finally being released from the vaults of Virgin records after being stuck in legal limbo. Bat Chain Puller is coming. There are many tracks from this that were subsequently re-recorded and added to later vinyl, much of it amongst the best of the best, like the sublime Owed t’Alex (raw live version, no doubt in a pub with sticky carpet and a faint vomit smell, the way I like it)–
Here’s a cut from Doc: Sue Egypt –
And one from Decals: Buggy Boogie Woogie (probably my all time fave) –
I salivate at the prospect of Bat Chain Puller.
December 10, 2011
Third Reich’n’Roll
Posted by franc under art, culture, music | Tags: Ralph Records, The Residents |[6] Comments
They think they're geniuses now. What a waste.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy to befall avante guano1 was The Residents actually earning enough money to buy real instruments and start believing all the bullshit from music pundits praising their genius.
How to destroy creativity – reward it and relieve it from hand-to-mouth starvation.
The Residents last worthwhile output was probably Diskomo, in my elitist opinion. Ever since then, they have started believing the nonsense that they are artists – and the volume of crap they churn out has grown exponentially to feed the less discerning.
Their music was most interesting when they didn’t know how to play and used trash and toy instruments – not the state of the art electronica they now employ.
This is from their glory days, before their ruin, Third Reich’n’Roll, which also has the best cover of Hey Jude ever – (more…)
grey lining 