Fig.1: a fish killed by Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia, or VHS. This is not the “VHS” we will be discussing here, but as maladies go, it has a pretty cool name, don’tcha think?
Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a creaky ghost of Christmas past.
After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.
"It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse we'll just give away or throw away."
…
Kugler is president and co-owner of Distribution Video Audio Inc., a company that pulls in annual revenue of $20 million with a proud nickel-and-dime approach to fading and faded pop culture. Whether it's unwanted "Speed Racer" ball caps, unsold Danielle Steel novels or unappreciated David Hasselhoff albums, Kugler's company pays pennies and sells for dimes. If the firm had a motto, it would be "Buy low, sell low."
VHS has been very good to me over the years; my band used to “enhance” our live performances (and by “enhance” I mean “mask the lack in quality of”) with VHS footage of cheesy old sci-fi (the Desi Arnaz Jr.-anchored Automan), Japanese techno-virus art films (Tetsuo: The Iron Man), and blow-up doll porn. Sure, that could all be done with DVD now, but there’s something romantically punk rock about spackling together a cheap light show out of the refuse of your local Goodwill, and back in the early ‘00s, nothing spelled “kickass thrift store throwaway” like outmoded technology.
Fig.2: VHS enabled my band to introduce Automan to literally dozens of Manitowoc punk kids
But earlier today, as I read the LA Times article linked above, I didn’t find myself pondering nostalgia as much as I was thinking about how finally, at long last, the people who fucked up the marketing of Betamax are off the hook for letting the market flood with a subpar video format.
Revolutionary for its day, the Betamax format was on its way to becoming the industry standard until the appearance of JVC's VHS a year later. Betamax was probably a bit sharper and crisper, but VHS offered longer-playing ability, which made it possible to record an entire movie on one three-hour tape. The two formats were locked in a struggle that was eventually won by VHS.
A number of theories as to why VHS emerged victorious have been floated, but the longer playing time was certainly crucial, as was the fact that VHS machines were cheaper and easier to use.
Silly, silly Sony. A tweak to tape length here, some adjustments to the cost of a Betamax machine there, and we could have been blessed in the 80s with a video format with a robust 250 lines of resolution instead of VHS’ paltry 240! Ha! Fools!
Of course, with the advent of the DVD (and now the Blu-Ray), the Format Wars of the late 20th century are now blissfully obsolete, a historical footnote of interest to format nerds and AV club geeks everywhere. The majority of the world will never know how much better we could have had it—and if they’re like my mom, whose main concern when it came to home video was whether or not she’d be able to catch the episode of Remington Steele she missed because of her pool league, they won’t care.
This got me to thinking, since I was at work and any excuse to think of something other than work, I’ll generally take, because I’m lazy. How many other FUBARs in judgment will eventually be rendered obsolete by history? I spent the rest of my workday thinking about recent examples and came up with a few case studies—none of which receive the blanket absolution of the Sony corporation, but a couple come close:
Year: 1992 Culprits: Jerry Glanville and the Atlanta Falcons FUBAR: Trading Brett Favre to the Green Bay Packers
What happened? The Packers, under the guidance of general manager Ron Wolf, the acumen of head coach Mike Holmgren, and the gunslinging talent of Brett Favre, rebuild what at the time was an NFL Siberia into the Super Bowl XXXI champions. Favre, of course, goes on to break nearly every important passing record in the game. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Falcons canned Jerry Glanville, who said “it would take a plane crash for him to put Favre into the game,” according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and eventually did manage to make it to a Super Bowl, getting crushed by the same Denver Broncos team that won the previous year’s Super Bowl against…Favre and the Packers. In the 18 years of Favre’s career, the Packers have mostly outperformed the Falcons.
Fig: 3: to be fair, Glanville was a hell of a lot more entertaining than Holmgren
Off the Hook? When Favre retired during the last offseason, a few sportswriters claimed that the mental midgets who let Favre get away from the Falcons were finally “off the hook,” as Falcons fans no longer had to look at their current team and wonder “what if.” It could be argued that they didn’t have to do it this year, either, as their rookie sensation Matt Ryan hung neck-and-neck with Favre statistically while the Falcons surged to an 11-5 record and made the playoffs. The Jets and Brett? Sitting at home.
Verdict: The jury’s still out. Atlanta was perfectly able to lose a Super Bowl to Denver without Favre, while the Packers needed him to make it close. But the Falcons still don’t have a Lombardi Trophy to match the one Brett delivered to Lambeau in 1997. The way the Falcons played this year, though, one could be on the way soon.
Year: 2008 Culprits: San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and MillerCoors, LLC FUBAR: Removing caffeine from Sparks alcoholic energy drink
At the behest of San Francisco and 13 states, including California, distributor MillerCoors LLC is taking the caffeine out of its Sparks line of energy drinks, which list ginseng, taurine and 6 to 7 percent alcohol among its other ingredients. "We're doing it to protect the public health of our young people and to reform business practices," said S.F. City Attorney Dennis Herrera. He estimated the agreement, announced Thursday, removes 85 percent of caffeine-spiked booze from the market.
The Sparks campaign began in San Francisco last year, sparked, so to speak, by local consumer organizations. California and other states joined in a "multi-jurisdictional investigation," charging that Sparks drinks are unsafe, deceptively advertised and illegally marketed to the adolescent set. Under the agreement, MillerCoors is removing caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng from Sparks and says it won't produce similar drinks in the future. It also agreed to shell out $550,000 in costs, $52K of which goes to San Francisco, said Herrera.
Fig.4: Imagine this clever corporate traffic sign-esque logo with a line through it, as I’m too lazy to photoshop one right now
Can anyone please explain the point of a carbonated beverage that tastes like liquid SweeTarts if all it has going for it is alcohol? And can anyone explain how this is “protecting our health” when we can still go to bars and order vodka Red Bulls? Way to go California…first smoking in bars, then gay marriage, now this? Why don’t you just outlaw rainbows and blowjobs while you’re at it? (Don’t laugh; they were illegal in California until 1975 or ‘76. Look it up! The blowjobs, not the rainbows…although obviously those anti-sodomy laws probably made it hard for the average leprechaun to enjoy life.)
Off the Hook? Well, aside from those vodka Red Bulls, we still have Four. And as long as we still have Four, IfIHadAHiFi utility infielder Rev.Ever will still be able to get blackout drunk in Athens, Ohio, assume the role of “hype man” when his bandmates perform karaoke versions of Paula Abdul songs, and start extreme rules cockpunching matches with members of White Wrench Conservatory.
Fig.5: Only one person involved in this performance remembers it happening
Verdict: Again, a hung jury. There are still alternatives on the market, but how long they’ll last is anyone’s guess. And without Sparks, Milwaukee basement shows are gonna be a lot less ruckus.
Year: 2000 Culprits: The US Supreme Court, Florida Secretary of State Kathleen Harris, and many—but not a majority—of US voters FUBAR: The election of George W. Bush
What happened? The largest terrorist attack ever to take place on US soil; an unnecessary war that killed over 4000 American soldiers and Allah knows how many Iraqis; unspeakable abuses of US military detainees; the erosion of the average American’s civil liberties; the collapse of the American economy.
Fig.6: perhaps one of the greatest FUBARs in the history of Presidential politics. (No punchline needed, really)
Off the Hook? A lot of those voters, including many in Florida, looked at what they wrought eight years later and said “oops, my bad,” and overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States, almost immediately restoring America’s standing in the world from “a land of motherfucking cocksuckers” to “a bunch of arrogant douchebags who sometimes manage to get their heads out of their asses.”
Verdict: Not yet, folks. The Big O may have caused a worldwide pleasure wave with his election, but he’s got a lot of work ahead, and we voters have to hold his feet to the goddamn fire and make sure it gets done. And of course, no amount of regained international respect will bring anyone back from the dead.
…Jeez, sorry to end this one on such a downer. Um…fuckin’ Sparks! Am I right? Eh? Eh?
So this happened in Edmonton, Alberta on Nov. 20th:
Fig.1: Police dash-cam footage from 11.20.08. WTF WTF WTF WTF
In the parlance of local hardcore bands named after exclamations, HOLY SHIT. How did this not make national American news? A huge white ball falls and explodes in a country right on our borders, and no one takes notice? Where was MSNBC? Where was CNN? Where was FOX News? (Wait, FOX is obsessed with the Mexican border. Never mind.)
Obviously this was some sort of government cover-up where the US military got involved, possibly with the Men in Black, and forced Canadia’s accommodating news media into radio silence, as it were. Which leaves it up to that last bastion of true investigative journalism--the internet blogger--to speculate about what really happened that fateful night in Chris Benoit’s hometown.
This intrepid reporter threw on some blinders, exhaustively researched his own nerdy obsessions (like any conspiracy theorist worth his salt) and came up with the following possibilities:
Tesla’s Death Ray: unearthed and test-fired
I’m fascinated by the life story of Nikola Tesla, the visionary Man Out of Time who solved the world’s energy crisis in his head roughly 100 years before gas hit $4/gallon while inspiring a band of farm kids in Sacramento, CA to name their butt-rock band after him (and then compose the third-best power ballad of the hair-metal era, “Love Song,” but none of this really has anything to do with astronomical phenomena). While I’m grateful to Tesla’s memory for enabling me to dismiss Thomas Edison as a no-good, elephant-frying son of a whore, I’m probably even more fascinated by the theory that the Tunguska explosion of 1908 was caused by Tesla test-firing the death ray he was supposedly working on in either Colorado Springs or Long Island, NY.
In 1907 and 1908, Tesla wrote about the destructive effects of his energy transmitter. His Wardenclyffe facility was much larger than the Colorado Springs device that destroyed the power station’s generator. Then, in 1915, he stated bluntly:
It is perfectly practical to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible. ... But when unavoidable [it] may be used to destroy property and life. The art is already so far developed that the great destructive effects can be produced at any point on the globe, defined beforehand with great accuracy (emphasis added).(30)
Nikola Tesla, 1915
He seems to confess to such a test having taken place before 1915, and, though the evidence is circumstantial, Tesla had the motive and the means to cause the Tunguska event. His transmitter could generate energy levels and frequencies capable of releasing the destructive force of 10 megatons, or more, of TNT. And the overlooked genius was desperate.
Could it be that someone, perhaps a budding supervillain, has stumbled across Tesla’s long-dormant superweapon? If so, I’m on the first train to Colorado. America’s economic security is at its lowest point in nearly a century, and there’s serious money to be made in the supervillain and evil henchman industries. UNLESS…
The sole survivor of a dying planet crashed in Edmonton and will grow up to fight for truth, justice, and the Canadian way.
Superman: Red Son envisioned Kal-El as a Soviet crusader committed to Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact; is Clark Kent as a Cordial Caped Canuck dedicated to Labatt, poutine and universal health care that hard to fathom? Let’s hope that’s not the case. Frankly, I was getting pretty excited about that new career in villainy, and while a Canadian Superman would be the hero equivalent of choosing RC Cola over Coke, Clarkley Do-Right would still tear the shit out of my Wardenclyffe Tower headquarters. HOWEVER…
Meteorite pieces from the Edmonton Event will be lethal to our new protector.
…And will be available in all sorts of fashion-forward colors: green, red, blue, white, gold, black, silver…Christ, there’s black and silver kryptonite now? God damn, DC sucks.
Well, perhaps the Edmonton Object was not of alien origin:
The object was a Russian zombie bomb, not unlike the new Metallica video.
Have you seen this video? It’s for the song “All Nightmare Long,” off the new Metallica Death Magnetic album. Frankly, this clip has been seriously messing with me for the past week or so, as it seems that the post-Justice Metallica has now produced something that is actually NOT laughably horrible. This is god damned confusing.
Fig.2: Soviet zombie spores reanimate America's dead and bring an end to the Cold War. Um, AWESOME
Watch the clip and then tell me you’re not as confused as I am. It’s actually quality. Wtf. By the way, did you notice the Tunguska connection at the beginning of the video? That’s what we writers like to call a “callback.” Clever!
Unfortunately, while browsing YouTube in an attempt to find more witty explanations for the Mysterious Edmonton Event, I discovered that
It was just a god damned meteor.
Behold:
Fig.3: Zzzzzzz
Well, that’s just boring. But damn, ain’t it cool lookin’?
This weekend, while at a party at one Mike Shank's pad, a young woman with whom i had spoken earlier in the night walked up to me while i was in a circle talking with Tea Krulos, J. Jason Groschopf and Mr. Dave Clay (names dropped to convey just how scene this party was. Yes indeed, i was hobnobbing with movers and shakers--as far as i'm concerned, anyway). She wanted to let me know that she thought i looked like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, but without all the gray in the hair.
Now, i realize that this was meant as a sincere compliment, but i was unable to hide my obvious discomfort at this comparison. I managed to say "really?" instead of "Oh my fucking god i HATE Richard Gere with the passion of a thousand suns OMGWTFGROSS," but when she looked at the other guys and said, "doesn't he?" she caught me mouthing "NO" at them.
"What, isn't that a compliment?"
"No, i mean, it is! Thank you!" I stammered, but she had realized that she had unwittingly insulted me, and walked away.
I felt bad. Whenever a young lady implies that you are attractive, you should say thank you, no matter how perplexed you are by her optical prescription. But two points:
1) I'm pretty sure i've hated every movie Richard Gere has ever been in. At least, i know for sure that i hated that streak he went on in the 1990s where he was always cast as the dashing, distinguished older leading man making crazy with the love scenes with whatever hot starlet was the "It Girl" of the day, despite the fact that he comes off like a smarmy douchenozzle. From my perspective, it started with the execrable Pretty Woman and continued with Sommersby, Intersection (where he was paired with TWO trendy starlets, for fuck's sake), and the most offensive of the bunch, Dr. T and the Women.
Now, before you start wondering why the hell a straight man is watching these abominable chick flicks, let the record show that of all of these, i have only seen Pretty Woman. Once. On VHS. Because i think my mom taped it off Showtime or something. No, my vitriol is based solely in the trailers for these movies, all of which showed Douchey Dick in the throes of passion with his leading lady, as if to say "yes, i will be in your movie, but it's in my contract that i be naked with the leading lady, and that my love scenes get as much exposure as humanly possible. In fact, i will only do Letterman and Leno if you ensure that they'll ask me about faux-fucking these gorgeous broads."
I mean, dig this bullshit right here:
Not only do we get a little bit of nakey Richard a mere 30 seconds in, but he’s got a fresh-off Silence of the Lambs Jodie Foster tenderly shaving his face and declaring with a straight face, “Ah nevah loved him the way ah love yew,” all against a sweeping Oscar-bait score meant to stir the loins of the most barren of tired Midwestern housewives. (And this is a borderline non-sequitur, but wtf is the Klan doing messing with Ricky when there’s a fricking black judge in town to harass?)
Crimes against film, i’m tellin’ ya.
But bottom line, i just don’t see the resemblance. Here, guess which one’s me:
Fig.1: Exhibit A—my pecs are much softer and more closely resemble female breasts. That’s ok, you can say “ew.”
Fig.2: Exhibit B—would Richard Gere allow himself to be photographed after having kicked his own ass by falling in the bathroom at 5 AM? I think not.
Point #2) "Without all the gray hair?" C’mon. Lady, i LOVE the gray hair i have and want MORE. I totally want to rock the Wayne Coyne streaks. I can do this.
Fig.3: ROWR.
I think i’ve figured out next year’s Halloween costume. I’d have to beard out (which, gross—i quote the greatest drummer of all time: “This is the Buddy Rich Band. Nice young men with faces. No more fucking beards”), but damn, imagine the tail. (Not to mention all the free drugs, which i could then turn around and sell since i don’t do them.)
As the unfortunate complimenter walked away, i semi-sheepishly looked at the other guys and asked if i had handled things properly. I feel the need to belabor this point—I FELT VERY BAD ABOUT MY LACK OF MANNERS. Fortunately, i had Dave Clay in the room, who has only heard the word “etiquette” in the context of a local commercially-oriented power-pop band.
Fig.1: At least that godawful Asian-style font didn't make it onto the album art, i guess
If you're on top of pop culture, you've probably already listened to the new "Guns 'n' Roses" album, as it's been streamable on the "G'N'R" MySpace since Thursday. Me, i listened to it for the first time while at work on Friday, but since i was in an office environment, cranking the muthafugga wasn't really an option. I did, however, hear enough of it to know that Chuck Klosterman is on crack rock.
In his review of Chinese Democracy for The Onion, Klosterman (with whom i agree on some issues [the validity of hair metal as a genre] but disagree vehemently on others [the boneheaded contention that hair metal was valid essentially because it sold a lot of records]) attempts to mark the release of Axl Rose's Citizen KanePlan 9 From Outer Space as some sort of cultural turning point:
Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we'll ever contemplate in this context—it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that.
Uh...really? Says who? You?
Fig.2: It's called a camera, Chuck. When i click this button, it will create an image of you. Like magic!
Oh, wait, i get it. Look at that photo...he's totally stoned. That explains it.
But still, i really did enjoy his musings on Motley Crue in Fargo Rock City, so maybe i should give the album another listen, at home where i can hear everything, yes? After all, it may be impossible to review the album in a vacuum away from the 17 years of anticipation, or whatever the hell else Chuck contends, but in the end, it's about whether or not it's a good record--or at least, a passable listening experience. Granted, with this much time gone, "almost as good as Use Your Illusion" would likely be a success. So, blah blah, enough with the buildup--i'm gonna hit "play" on the MySpace player and blog my thoughts as i absorb that which we thought would never see the light of day, and that which many of us plain didn't give a shit about. But hey, that's what obsessing about pop culture is all about--caring about shit that ultimately is pointless. So join me, won't you?
1. Chinese Democracy
Ok, opening reminds me of, like, "In the Beginning" from Shout at the Devil. I thought Axl hated the Crue? But in time, our nations grew weak, and our cities turned to slumswait, opening riff. Very processed. Ha! That first guitar lead totally sounds pasted over the top.
...Man, this already doesn't sound like a band...at least, it sure doesn't sound like one playing live. Ooh! Big explosion at the end! So dramatic! I'll bet the pyros that go off during the concert at the end of this song are badass.
2. Shackler's Revenge
Holy shit, that opening noisy guitar is FUCKING RAD. ...But it doesn't belong anywhere on a Guns 'n' Roses record. A Nine Inch Nails record, maybe. What is that, a disco beat? Oh man, this is totally the Nine Inch Nails song Axl's been wanting to write since "My World" at the end of Use Your Illusion II.
Ya know, the 90s really fucked with the hair metal dudes something fierce. They spent all of their childhoods and the 80s listening to KISS and the Stones and each other, and they weren't paying any attention to what was going on in the indie world at all (which is ironic in Axl's case since he at least has Duff in the band...you'd think Duff would have turned him on to some Fastbacks or something). So when the "alternative" boom happened, all these poor guys were stuck playing catch-up. "Oh man, this Trent guy is so innovative!" Yeah, Axl, that's because you totally missed the boat on Big Black, buddy.
3. Better
Seriously, the vocals are so much higher than everything else in this mix, it feels like Axl singing karaoke over his own songs. [INSTRUMENTAL BREAK: 16 BARS] More 90s alternative flourishes. Man, he spent so much time catching up to the Alternative Nation that he still emerged 10 years behind. Let's hope no one tells him about Jet or Wolfmother; when he figures out that they sold a bunch of records by sounding a decade behind G'N'R he's gonna be PISSED.
4. Street of Dreams
Oh shit, ridic Elton John power ballad #1...oh! This is the one that was leaked previously and called "The Blues." I'm not sure if this new title is much better. Wow, yeah, holy Elton John and Queen rip. Never mind what i said about Wolfmother, i guess Axl's still in touch with his inner 70s child. Which, actually, is a good thing if you think about it. Man, i hope this is this year's prom theme song back home in Hilbert, Wisconsin, pop.1000. That would kick so much ass.
5. If the World
Flamenco guitar over drum machine? HOLY FUCK THIS IS TOTALLY "STRIPSEARCH" BY FAITH NO MORE. Wow. WOW. OK, here's one more way that Axl's a decade late: all the terrible nu-metal bands that cited Mike Patton as an "influence" got big TEN YEARS AGO. And after Patton was all "yeah, those bands suck" a few of them got depressed and quit.
Frankly, this is weird to me. I mean, FNM toured with GNR and Metallica in '91 or '92 and spent the whole time making fun of Axl. OK, we're far enough into the song that it's stopped sounding like a Faith No More song, so i should probably let this go, but--wait, shit, no, the synths are back. Man, this is just weird. I'm not sure that if i were in his position i'd be borrowing ideas from musicians who ripped on me mercilessly when we were tourmates. But then, if i were in his position i wouldn't wear my hair in fucking cornrows.
6. There Was a Time
Haha! Get it! The first letters of the title spell out TWAT! Haha! HaHAhaHAhaha! Oh, Axl. Oh, holy shit. You dildo.
Ya know, actually there's a decent song buried somewhere underneath all this drum machine and overproduction and 7000 guitar and piano tracks. I really wonder how some of these would have sounded with the original band on them. Well, i suppose the drumming wouldn't have been very even if Adler played on it...
7. Catcher in the Rye
Jesus Christ, we're STILL on "There Was a Time?" This song is almost twelve minutes long? Jesus H. Bloat. Where's my man Hench when we need him?
Oh, wait, it was only 6:40. I did the math wrong on the MySpace player. It only felt like twelve minutes.
7. Catcher in the Rye
More Queen. More really boring Queen. Fuck. Next.
8. Scraped
Hahahahaha, what the HELL is this opening? A bunch of stoned Sunset Strip broads trying to sing "aaaaa" in three different keys, one of them Z-minor. Jesus. More industrial metal riffs as played through an "80s hair metal midlife crisis" pedal--available now from the fine folks at Line 6!
9. Sorry
You fucking should be, Axl. This actually sounds like more half-assed Faith No More to me. This is seriously weirding me out. I'm not exactly thrilled by the implications of this. "Hey, DJ, which mainstream band would you say had the most influence on your aesthetic taste as an adult?" "Oh, Faith No More, easily." "Really? The band that sounds like a washed-up Hollywood glam-rocker trying to be 'alternative' in 2008?" "...Yeah. Excuse me, i'm going to go cry myself softly to sleep now."
Oh god, these lyrics! "You close your eyes/All well and good/I’ll kick your ass/Like I said that I would." So deep.
10. Riad N' The Bedouins
I don't even know how to fucking pronounce this title. This opening sounds like one of those self-hypnosis tapes that help you quit smoking...and then goes into a fucking POSTER CHILDREN riff? Buh? "Imagine yourself next to a peaceful stream, where it's too pure and tranquil to even consider smoking...and if you see Kay, tell her AAAAAAAAAAH!"
Woah, is that a pitch shifter pedal on the lead guitar near the end? Yes. Yes it is. Wtf, now the guitarist is trying to sound like Melt-Banana? Well, i suppose maybe if that was Buckethead...or Bumblefoot, or Flubbernuts, or whatever other dumbass names these guys give themselves.
11. I.R.S.
It doesn't sound like this song is about former WWE wrestler Mike Rotundo, aka Irwin R. Shyster. Thus, i do not care.
12. Madagascar
This song is probably not about digitally-animated talking animals. It does start out with a HILARIOUS horn overture, though. God, this is really starting to hurt. Like, physically.
13. This I Love
Jesus Christ why am i doing this to myself.
14. Prostitute
The last track on Chinese Democracy opens with drum machine and a Jawbox riff. The sky is green, grass is blue, and Bud Light tastes like God's own come. As i listen to this, let me wrap up by saying that Chuck Klosterman is officially a batshit lunatic for giving this pastiche of poop, turds and corn-speckled dung an A-. Jesus, no wonder Axl is a certified crackerjack these days--can you imagine working on this shit for 17 years and coming out intact on the other side?
This song sounds like "Estranged Part 2." There better be fucking goddamn whales in the video.
Christ, i'm beaten. Tune in next time, when i live-blog my first impressions of Metallica's Death Magnetic and slowly devour my own brain.
Fig.1: This image of a packed Cactus Club witnessing Call Me Lightning is sure evidence of a dying scene
Matt Wild needs a hug.
If you’ve read this month’s edition of SubVersions, Matt’s back-page column in the pages of VITAL’s print edition, you may have gotten that impression. Every year, to close the annual music issue, Matt gives his take on the state of the Milwaukee Music Scene, and he’s not in a very good mood this month.
“You want to know my take on the state of the scene? It sucks. What’s more, I’m glad I’m out of it. And that HiFi lyric [NOTE: Read the article and you’ll see he’s referring to “Success! Success! Success!,” a rock song by the band I drum in. Do note that I found it totally flattering that Matt referenced us! Oh, Matt]? Oh, it’s true all right, though I would argue that in Milwaukee, no one hears you, period. It doesn’t make a lick of difference whether you’re 20, 30, or 48, because the only people that are going to give a shit about your band are your friends and girlfriends, and even they’ll piss and moan if you don’t put them on the guest list. Is the idea of a bunch of slowly graying adults playing basements and barely-attended clubs inherently ridiculous? In a world of few absolutes and rampant relativism, let me just come out and say it: Yes, yes it is. Give up now. Feel the shame.”
Jon Anne Willow, our fabulous Editor in Chief, the Robbie Robertson to my Peter Parker, suspects what I am certain is true. She “has known Matt for many years and has believed for a while now that he was heading for that aspirations-vs.-reality wall most young artists collide with eventually.”
Since Matt ended the music issue on such a downer, I thought I’d take a stab at a well-intentioned rebuttal to his contention that the current Milwaukee Music Scene is sucky and awful. I also would like to send Matt a small ray of hope from the other side of that wall Jon Anne is talking about, not unlike the black GI who peers over the Berlin wall and rescues Hedwig from cold East Berlin in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Only, ya know, with slightly less gay. (But only slightly.)
Fig.2: Let me save you from all this strife and sauerkraut, Matt
What I’m trying to say, Matt, is this: Jon Anne is 100% correct about that aspirations-vs.-reality wall. I know because I full-on smacked into it head first two years ago.
The year was 2006. The Republicans were about to cede control of Congress to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years, and a little tv show called Heroes had caught the nation’s imagination before jumping the shark a season later (because, really…West? That kid sucked). And your humble narrator had just ended a 5-year relationship because he didn’t follow his lady love to grad school, choosing instead to stay in Milwaukee with his stupid band, believing they had lots more to accomplish before they called it a career.
That fall, we went on tour to the Southeastern part of the country, eager to rock the shit out of cosmopolitan locales like Nashville, Birmingham, and Raleigh—you know, cities pre-built to accommodate noise-oriented chaos rock that buries what pop hooks it manages to vomit out under an unlistenable din of bullshit. As you may guess, the tour didn’t go very well—five people showed up in Nashville, three in Raleigh, and the club in Birmingham didn’t even know there was a show booked that night.
I wasn’t in a healthy state of mind. At all. “DJ, you are an idiot. You stayed in Milwaukee so you could go on tour and play in front of three people per night if you’re lucky. Way to fuck up your life, jackass, and by the way, you totally ended “Potential Energy” early in Columbus, loser.” Guh. I’m really hard on myself when I’m schizophrenic.
When you hit that wall, you need to slam through it with the hammer of your choice. Let’s go back to Jon Anne, and her Editor’s Desk from the music issue: “Meanwhile, back here in the neighborhood, I still see community-building as our best course of action in effecting long-term change.” She wasn’t talking explicitly about music when she wrote that, but music as community is as old as, well, music.
A few days after our tour’s low point, we hit Long Island while I was still hitting my head against that wall. And who should show up at the gig but our pal Kael, an old Manitowoc pal who was living in upstate New York and traveled four hours, on about three different kinds of public transportation, to see us. BAM. Wall broken. Really? We inspire someone to spend four hours one way on buses and taxis and trains…just to see us? And most importantly, bring whiskey with him? Screw the money we’re losing on tour—you can’t buy how awesome that feels with cash.
This is why Milwaukee’s Music Scene will always be strong: because this city gets what I’ve always known, but took until 2006 to really understand. It’s all about the love. Maybe you start a band because you have something to say; maybe you’re just looking to have some fun. Hopefully you’re not looking to become famous, because that guarantees that your band will suck rocks (check out the lineup at the next Emergenza fiasco if you don’t believe me). But if you stick with it long enough, you realize that you’re in a band because you meet the coolest, most talented, most inspiring people in the world while playing in a band. The Milwaukee bands that succeed—and by “succeed” I mean “stay together for a long time without sucking”—are the ones who reach out beyond the city and make friends that they can be inspired by. Whether it’s bringing the bands here or journeying out into the big, scary world, at risk of forfeited wages and romantic relationships, to take your music to complete strangers, that sort of worldwide community building makes our city stronger. Outside ideas leak in, keeping the creative juices from going stale (and I’m not talking about out-of-town bands playing the Pabst, either—yeah, buddy, you’re the only one who ever decided to rip off Of Montreal. Sure). People in other cities start to associate our city with quality. Don’t believe me? When we played Detroit in August, the sound guy was excited as hell to hear we were a Milwaukee band. “Milwaukee bands always kick ass. I’ve never seen a bad one.” (That’s because the bad ones either don’t tour, or tour once, get discouraged when they lose their ass in the gas tank, and break up.) We’re bringing a fantastic band called The Antiques, from Washington, DC, to the Borg Ward later this month, and when they listened to some mp3s by Year of the Scavenger (a relatively new Milwaukee band made up of people from older Milwaukee bands), their reaction was “holy shit, this is awesome. Is every Milwaukee band as good as the three we already know?” (Where did they meet the other two? In DC, as White Wrench Conservatory and we wrapped up our tour at the Velvet Lounge.)
As long as Milwaukee bands have the wisdom to reach outside the city, Milwaukee bands will kick ass. The ones that stick to their insular group of friends and remain comfortable playing to the same thirty people every show? They’ll get bored and fall by the wayside, wondering why no one else ever notices them. And the scene will be better for it.
This isn’t, by the way, some sort of “inferiority complex,” as Milwaukee often accuses itself of having; I’m not saying that Milwaukee isn’t any good without other cities propping it up. Rather, we make those other cities better in return. It’s symbiotic bliss, baby—they inspire us, and we inspire them. That’s why our pals in Boston moved heaven and earth to get us a show in their town, and why we’ll move equivalent amounts of earth to bring them back here. Because we blow each other away, and it’s awesome.
So buck up, Matt Wild, ya little scrapper! Break through that wall! OK, maybe your band’s broken up, and maybe you think that you’re “a terrible singer, a hopeless guitar player and a mediocre songwriter at best” (your words, pal, not mine). But these words I’m spewing forth apply to more than just music. You’ve got something to contribute, and you’ll make us all better when you do. Find your new niche, and hammer away at it, because chances are, you’ll find your own Kael from Manitowoc—someone truly inspired by what you do. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be inspired right back.
And Matt? Spend some time doing your thing outside of Milwaukee. When you play a show in front of two people in Philadelphia because the bar didn’t promote your show or get a local on the bill to help with the draw, you’ll appreciate a town where the local bands are at least willing to play, and the clubs are more than happy to have them (even if the same ones end up playing every other week). And hey—when you’re playing where no one knows you, there’s no one to bitch and moan about not being on the guest list!
Agree? Disagree? Come buy me a drink or slap me in the face at “Smoked Out: A Great American Rock Show,” this Saturday at the Cactus Club in scenic Bayview! My stupid band, IfIHadAHiFi, will be sharing the stage with The Celebrated Workingman and Canyons of Static, all for a ridiculous $5. Come see how strong Milwaukee really is.
DJ is a local musician, writer and scallywag. He loves his cat, but pretty much everything else pisses him off. 
