Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings Fall Tour Dates

(Via Paste)

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings just announced a handful of fall tour dates including The Newport Folk Festival, which NPR will stream live this weekend.

August
1 – Newport, R.I. - Newport Folk Festival
5 – Salt Lake City, Utah - Twilight Concert Series
7 – Brooklyn, N.Y. - Prospect Park
13 – Cleveland, Ohio - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

September
4 – Snomass Village, Colo. - Jazz Aspen Snomass Festival
14 – Puyallup, Wash. - Puyallup Fair
17 – Lexington, Ky. - Busters
18 – Memphis, Tenn. - Minglewood Hall
19 – St. Louis, Mo. - The Pageant
20 – Columbia, Mo. - The Blue Note
21 – Kansas City, Mo. - Midland Theatre
23 – Dallas, Texas - The Showroom at Palladium
24 – Austin, Texas - La Zona Rosa
26 – Phoenix, Ariz. - Orpheum Theatre
27 – Santa Fe, N.M. - The Lensic Performing Arts Center
28 – Denver, Colo. - Ogden Theatre

Links & Bits for 7/30/10

"I believe I can support you, but also support people who hate you" -- On the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (Bitch Blogs)

"It's also very harmful for a movement to form alliances with others based solely on identity, rather than politics. I have learned the hard way, for example, to not assume that any old woman of colour I meet strolling down the street is going to believe what I believe, or even have experienced the world the way I do. Sure, it can be natural to believe, when you feel cornered and alienated by ye olde Dominant Culture on the basis of your identity, that everyone else with your identity, will have reached the same conclusions about the Dominant Culture as you have."

All Your Boobs Belong To Us: Some Thoughts On Consent While Female (Tiger Beatdown)

"I mean, seriously: just how far does this go? Had GGW showed up to, oh, say, Le Bernardin, and some trashed suit was spending his bailout money on adult entertainers, and somehow a primly dressed female patron walked into the shot and had her dress ripped off…is that implied consent? Does a $180 prix fixe somehow mitigate the implications of consent in the way that a $3 PBR doesn’t? Because to be honest, what is the difference? Why should it matter if you dance or you don’t, if your skirt is shorter than your belt or brushes your ankles? How in the hell can clothing or location or body movements override a direct refusal to consent?"

My Week At New York Rock Camp (The Underrated Blog)

"A couple of months ago I saw a twitter friend post something about New York Rock Camp, a Brooklyn-based music camp for kids where they learn "rock" instruments (guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, vocals) and eventually form a band to perform at the end of the week. I thought I'd give a shot and applied to be a volunteer. Lo and behold, I was accepted to be an assistant teacher for both Keyboards and DIY Arts & Crafts."

Mad Men: 4th Season, Same M.O. (Racialicious)

"Characters of Color may be out of luck in this episode, but there was an errant civil rights reference: Andrew Goodman, one of the civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964, was referenced by Don’s Betty-clone on the date."

Female music bloggers, I know you're out there

I do now.

For a few years I was a music blogger at a popular website created to promote women's blogs Part of my job description was to link to other music blogs penned women, except that there weren't many. Or so I thought.

I would dig through the directory of entertainment blogs only to find that most of them focused on television or movies, or when I would find a well-written music blog, it was long-abandoned. I always thought I just didn't "look hard enough." Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place.

Since then, I've found dozens of music or pop culture blogs written by -- or mostly written by women -- through the feminist blogosphere (here are  some good ones ), which is perfect, since I'm always looking at ways pop culture and politics intersect. Here's where I start to contradict myself: on one hand, I don't think it's enough just to write show or record reviews and maybe entice your audience with a few freebies; I need content. But on the other, women are still underrepresented in the music blogosphere. So, to recap:

* There are a lot of women writing about music.
* There are a lot of women writing about music, but not in "traditional" (read: male-dominated) spaces.

Well, that should come as a shock to no one.

I had a little "a-ha" moment when I read this quote from the latest issue of Bitch. It has nothing to do with music or blogging, but in a way, it's applicable here. Publishers Weekly's top ten books of 2009 didn't include any authored by women, leading one to believe the bias was intentional. Unfortunately, it's never that simple:

"Are people in the publishing industry biased against female authors just because? Not likely. Is our culture, as a whole, systemically biased against feminine themes? Yes, indeed."

That bias cuts across all forms of media. Women writing about their experiences as fans, musicians and critics are squeezed out of the mainstream, music blogging world. Their stories are labeled as "women's issues" (sometimes literally, as in Rolling Stones' "Women In Rock" issue), and deemed not as worthy.

Album of the Week: Dean & Britta - 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (late of Luna and Galaxie 500) were commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum to write songs for 13 of Warhol's "Screen Tests," his short, silent films of the 60s. From Art Daily:

"Wareham and Phillips viewed hundreds of the screen tests in the museum's archives and chose 13 subjects, including Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick and Dennis Hopper. Sponsored by the museum, the project has toured since September 2008 and released a DVD last year, but now Dean & Britta are responding to demand for the music itself. A double-CD package, "13 Most Beautiful Songs ...," including a disc of remixes and a 12-page booklet of essays by Wareham, will be available from the duo's own label, Double Feature Records, in a limited run of 3,000.'

The album also includes covers of Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine," and Velvet Underground's, "Not A Young Man Anymore."

Not Your Older (Or Younger) Sister's 90s

As much as I am starting to get my fill of 90s nostalgia, I'm really enjoying The Real 90s. (Courtesy of 90s woman.) Check out their far too accurate version of 90s fashion. Save for the first few years, I spent most of the 90s as a full-fledged adult, but Adidas track jackets (or oversized black hoodies) and cords were my weekened uniform.

(Something that few people will cop to, though: those first couple years of the decade, before "grunge" was a selling point, fashion consisted of a lot of color-blocking and acid wash worn unironically. At least for those of us in the middle of the country.)

Flashback overkill aside, I am glad that there are a few more voices joining in. What bothers me most about nostalgia culture is who gets to call the shots -- who gets to assign value to the music, television shows, movies, and books of the decade. Most of what I've seen so far presents a very white, straight, middle-class version of 90s girlhood, and that shuts a lot of us out.

NPR Polls Women Musicians

(Via MS Magazine Blog)

In March, NPR asked over 700 female musicians about their experiences in the music industry. Those stories, unedited and uncensored, are now available on NPR's website and they are, "by turns infuriating, hilarious, downright inspiring and heart-breaking."

The project is called Hey Ladies: Being A Woman Musician Today, and topics cover everything from the inevitable sexism of being "the girl in the band"to raising families while being a working musician, plus lots of advice to novice musicians and how much -- or sometimes how little -- the music industry has changed:

Dot Allison: "I think women need to see themselves as worthy without having to allow themselves to be sexualized in a 'victim' kind of way... sexuality is beautiful.. but I think the objectification of any human being in an exploitative way is really sad."

Marissa Nadler: "I think women today have a more DIY approach, with much of that due to the prevalence of technology. Women can book their own tours and build their own fanbases, as well as control their own images and imagery, from home. They don't necessarily need a record label and they don't need a label telling them how to dress or how to sound."

Bettye Lavette: "I see differences between women after the seventies. Women entertainers were suggestive until then. Women have become way too salacious since then. There is little left to the imagination."

Hey Ladies Facebook Page

The one in which I recast Lucinda Williams as a riot grrrrl (or something)

Okay, Car Wheels, wasn't life-changing, per se, but it was a permanent fixture in my stereo for most of the late-90s. Most of the "pro-woman" rock of the decade I either didn't like, or I didn't know it existed. The lone, cool radio station stuck with the trifecta of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Stone Temple Pilots (with a little Alice In Chains thrown in for good measure) long after those bands ceased to be relevant. The overtly political feminst punk wasn't for me, as in, I probably wouldn't be cool or smart enough to sit at Kathleen Hanna's lunch table. It may have been my own perception of what was "cool,"but if the Lizes, Courtneys, and Kathleens weren't singing for me, or for someone like me, I wasn't going to listen. I did listen to Lucinda Williams.

The thing is the songs on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road  don't even come close to sending a positive message. She makes mistakes, falls in with the wrong crowd, falls in love with the wrong guy, drinks too much... she's deeply flawed.  And for all her tough cooke posturing, I get the feeling she would leave it all if a "good man" came around. These were not the values I was supposed to be learning, but it felt real. I know that sounds cliche: "It's so real," Or "it's so raw." I have to roll my eyes when rock fans describe their favorites as "raw," but it is. Like, open up a wound, raw. But it doesn't sound out of place next to those other iconic female artists of the 90s. Lucinda never compromised her artistic integrity either.



Something else I find exasperating? When albums are held up as "universal." This is the real issue I have with the rash of 90s nostalgia. A lot of those "universally" love albums and the culture surrounding them smacked too much of elitism: grass roots punk movements that started and ended on college campuses. Oddly enough, Lucinda Williams came from an academic background. Her father was a poet and professor, but her music  was neither "painfully intellectual" nor inaccessible.



One of the best reviews I read of a (now forgotten) album went something like, "I judge an album by how it makes me feel. If it makes me feel good, then it is good." Car Wheels on a Gravel Road makes me feel good -- and I'm okay with that cliche.

Links & Bits for 7/23/10

Chrissie Hynde at Almost 60: No Pretending (MS Magazine Blog)

"A 50-something rock n’ roller with a 20-something girlfriend hanging off his arm: You know the scene, it’s as old as Keith Richards. But what if we invert it? How about a 50-something rock n’ roller with a 20-something boyfriend hanging off her arm? Cue Chrissie Hynde. In her first full album without the Pretenders, the band she’s fronted for the last 32 years, Hynde has partnered with Welsh singer and songwriter JP Jones for Fidelity!"

The life and work of Sandy Denny (The Guardian)
"Intimate portraits of the influential folk singer, including some previously unseen images."

Is It Wicked Not To Care (Paste)
"I think every adult I know who cares about music has a memory like this about their earliest musical preferences, and no matter how much nostalgic affection they retain for the music they once loved so dearly, most now recognize their teenaged taste almost as that of another person—at best endearing, at worst embarrassing."

The populist narcissist (fourfour)
"You have to see the faultiness of Lady Gaga's rhetoric to believe it. Sure, I knew about it in theory, but the extent of her philosophical ridiculousness was never more clear to me than on Friday night at New York's Madison Square Garden when she ordered a sold out-crowd to, "Jump for your freedom! Jump for your soul! And be who you want, goddamn it!" At that point, I was torn because who I wanted to be was a person who wasn't jumping."

Why I Could Give Two Hot Fucks About the Loss of Daria (Snarky's Machine)
"While I enjoyed Daria – because it was funny, only engaging in low level -ism fail – I didn’t understand what the hell Daria was whining about half the time. High school definitely sucks, but I bet it sucked a lot more for Juin Baize who was bounced out of the same high school as Constance McMillan. The way high school sucks definitely depends on where one finds themselves in relation to the kyriarchy."

Earworm of the Day: Hate On Me by Jill Scott

Have you ever had one of those "serendipitous earworms?" The kind of song you get stuck in your psyche only to realize later that its lyrics summed up exactly what you were feeling, well, the minute it got all "earwormy?" "Hate On Me," by Jill Scott does that. There's been quite a bit of talk lately about songs that are pro-women, or send a positive message to women, and I don't think this song is mentioned enough.



Related Links:
Jill Scott's "Hate On Me" as an Educational Tool (Whose shoes are these anyway?)

Gaga Fans Ignore Haters

Just when I think I've had my fill of the media juggernaut that is Lady Gaga, she does something that's pretty awesome and deserves mention.

Twice Lady Gaga has swung through my town in the past year, and twice the show has been targeted by homophobic picketers. This time around Lady Gaga instructed fans to "ignore the 'hate criminals' at all costs and be grateful that they are 'not addicted to hate'." (Jezebel) From her Twitter:

"Tonight love and hate met in St. Louis. And love outnumbered the hate, in poetic thousands. Hate left. But love stayed. + Together we sang."

More on the St. Lois Gaga show:
Lady Gaga fans Battle Homophobes in STL: Does Westboro Deserve Counter-Protesters? (Autostraddle)
Show Review + Photos + Setlist: Lady Gaga Burns Down the Scottrade Center (Riverfront Times)

Album of the Week: Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting (20th Anniversary Edition)

Concrete Blonde's Bloodletting was one of the first CDs I bought, and one of the first records I bought that was just creepy enough to make my mom nervous, but accessible enough that none its songs didn't sound too out-of-place next to George Michael's "Freedom '90" on a mixtape. The single "Joey" was all over the radio that summer, but "Tomorrow Wendy" was the better song. Twenty years have passed since I was a goth-poseur teen. How the hell did that happen?

Bloodletting is finally getting the reissue treatment. This 20th anniversary edition comes with six rarities as bonus tracks and a twelve-page booklet with lyrics, a new essay, and rare photos. Let your teenage freak flag fly.

Tracks
1. Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)
2. The Sky Is A Poisonous Garden
3. Caroline
4. Darkening Of The Light
5. I Don t Need A Hero
6. Days And Days
7. The Beast
8. Lullabye
9. Joey Listen
10. Tomorrow, Wendy
11. I Want You (B-side of Joey)
12. Little Wing (B-side of Caroline CD single)
13. Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) (French Extended Version)
14. Roses Grow (Live) (B-side of Caroline CD single)
15. The Sky Is A Poisonous Garden (Live) (B-side of Caroline CD single)
16. Tomorrow, Wendy (Live) (B-side of Caroline CD single)

Lilith and Feminism -- Or Something Like It

The Lilith Fair passed through my town this week, and although I didn't go I've been reading reviews and looking at photos from those who did. I feel a weird sense of obligation to write about Lilith, even though it was never my thing. The cliquishness, the exclusion of tons of great artists because they didn't fit the "Lilith mold" plagued its early years, and while recent shows have included far more artists from a diverse spectrum of musical styles, the image of Lilith and a folky, white girl-fest is hard to erase. And there's this.

During a press conference with McLaclan and and a handful of Lilith performers, a reporter from MS Magazine asked the dreaded "F-word" question:

"While the media had been scrutinizing McLachlan’s feminist identity for years–”Is she, or isn’t she?”–I still believed that Lilith Fair was an act of resistance. (Brandi) Carlile’s feminist rhetoric seemed to naturally lead into the question I had come to ask: “Who here identifies as a feminist?” I got a long pause, followed by nervous laughter. Finally Carlile spoke, “I don’t know, it means something different that it used to.”

McLachlan herself went on to say, "It’s a tricky question, because it’s been redefined and I think we all define feminism to a certain degree. We all define femininity. I think we’re able to have a little more balance. There’s still fights to be fought. There’s still inequality, absolutely."

To her credit, she said some smart, insightful things during the rest of the interview, but the F-word question dodge is depressing, to say the least, and too common a trope for women in the entertainment world. Also, that she equates feminism with femininity, or femininity with being a woman (you can identify as a woman and not be "feminine), makes me roll my eyes. But I think a lot of the problem lies within the entertainment industry itself, and its denizens not wanting to be pigeonholed as "women artists" (even when you're fronting one of the biggest celebrations of women as artists). I'm barely old enough to remember Patti Smith saying something like, "I ain't no women's lib chick," while at the same time making some of the most powerful music I'd heard in my short life. The good part of me wants to give those artists a pass, and let the work speak for itself, but I look forward to the day when the F-word is no longer taboo.

Lost and Found (Song): The Raincoats - No One's Little Girl

This song came up on my Last.fm playlist the other day, and it got me thinking about all the "angry women in rock" (not my words; I hate this cliche) songs of the 90s that everyone's waxing nostalgic about today. Despite missing the boat on riot grrrl, I did listen to a lot of the early, female-fronted punks bands coming out of England. I want to say I found this on my own, but I'm guessing I only know The Raincoats because they were namechecked by Kurt Cobain, but that was impetus enough to check out a band I wouldn't have otherwise.

"The Raincoats are a British post-punk band. Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art, London, England.

Since 1996, The Raincoats have played some special events such as Robert Wyatt's Meltdown in 2001, at Chicks on Speed's 99 Cents album release in Berlin in December 2003. da Silva and Birch recently recorded a cover version of "Monk Chant" for a compilation album of The Monks songs called Silver Monk Time, and performed the song live with the Monks in the Volksbuehne, Berlin in October 2006. They played at Ladyfest Leeds in April 2007 and the Nuits Sonores Festival in Lyon on 18 May 2007 on the Girl Monster stage with Chicks on Speed. On 28 March 2009 The Raincoats-Fairytales-A Work in Progress, directed by Gina Birch and produced by The Raincoats was screened at the BFI in London and the band performed at Donaufestival on the Girl Monster stage with Girl Monster Orchestra on 25 April. It was recently announced that the band have been chosen by Matt Groening to perform at the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival he is curating in May 2010 in Minehead, England." (Wikipedia)

Joan Armatrading in American Songwriter

American Songwriter has a nice piece on Joan Armatrading talking about touring, songwriting, and creativity. Here are some of the highlights:

"When I’m touring I might get ideas and I might get a feeling I want to write, but when I write I need to be in a quiet place, and not distracted, and just on my own. On tour there’s too much moving around–you’re getting to the gig, and you’re doing the soundcheck, then you’re doing interviews, and your day is kind of busy…but I might write something down in a notebook, and then when I’m off the road, I just wait for the writing experiences to come to me."

"So I don’t just say “OK, today I’m gonna write.” It’s the other way around, dictated by the song. I’ll start to write, and stay with it for however long that’s working. If I’m in the mood for it for 15 minutes then that’s how long I’ll do it; if I’m in the mood for it from whenever I start ‘til 5:00 the next morning, then that’s how long I’ll do it."

"..my form of writer’s block is writing rubbish! I can always write, but to me they’re just not very good songs. But I must complete whatever it is I’ve started, so I don’t have lots of unfinished songs and stuff like that. I finish everything, even if it’s bad. And then once I finish it, I will just put it away."

Links & Bits for 7/16/10

Why I'm following NPR's 50 Greatest Voices (Feminist Music Geek)
"The series’ selection process began with listeners offering suggestions. Kristen at Act Your Age elbowed me to submit a list, which I remember included Édith Piaf, Björk, and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. From there, a panel pooled together their selections. Between these two resources, a list of nominees was formed, out of which the chosen 50 great voices emerge. Perhaps this process sounds over-involved and potentially off-putting, especially to listeners whose favorites were not chosen. However, at the risk of sound like a shill for NPR, I’ve liked most of the results so far and appreciate what this series is trying to accomplish."

The Relevance of Lilth Fair In 2010 (The Sexist)
"Everything from “is there something a little creepy about women of necessity having a commonality, simply based on gender determinism?” to “Younger women have a tendency to be entirely embarrassed of anything explicitly labeled ‘feminist’ or ‘women only’ . . . that territory [is] just shy of absolute taboo."

The Corin Tucker Band Set to Release Debut EP (Under The Radar)
"After a protracted break from music since Sleater-Kinney's indefinite hiatus announced in 2006, Corin Tucker has at last revealed the details of her highly anticipated new album under the moniker The Corin Tucker Band."

Kate Nash: "Yes, I'm a Feminist" (Jezebel)
"Yes, I'm a feminist. I think everybody should be, because feminism is about equality of the sexes, which we all believe in, don't we?"

Lost and Found (Song): Mary Gauthier - Drag Queens In Limousines

The sound on the video isn't the best, but here's singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier explaining how she came up with one of the coolest song titles ever, "Drag Queens In Limousines." (A clearer version of the song can be heard here.)



And Mary on the whole "tortured artist" myth from an interview with American Songwriter:

"I don’t think all artists are tortured – that’s a myth. I think the human condition involves suffering. I think a lot of artists torture themselves. They, we, generally have a lot of fragility. But fragile and tortured are different. A lot of the tortured artist clichés comes from addiction. A lot of us haven’t dealt with our addiction yet.

But it’s a different time now. Many of us are dealing with it. I certainly have, and I’m open about it. In the songwriting groups I’ve done, there’s always five or six people in recovery. They’re not tortured. They’re joyful. There’s pain, there’s sorrow. But if you look at their faces, they’re not tortured."

Is Pitchfork Biased Against Middle-Aged Women?

(Disclaimer - I am not an investigative journalist. Everything here is part speculation, part nagging suspicion, and part whatever I was able to cull together in one afternoon. No actual science was involved.)

As a woman, and one who is closer to her forties than her twenties, I have more than a passing interest in how sexism and ageism intersect in the music blogosphere. This link a grammar, a writer for Pitchfork, left on his tumblr says that the popular music blog has a bias against music made by women over the age of forty. According to Flavorwire's research, Pitchfork's reviews for a handful of recent albums by female artists are substantially lower than the averages given by Metacritic which pulls in reviews from many sources. Some of the examples given are Hole's Nobody's Daughter, which scored a 55/100 according to Metacritic, and a 29/100 from Pitchfork. Madonna's Hard Candy gets a Metacritic score of 65%, almost 10% higher than Pitchfork's.

Yeah, that smells a little like bias. But wait. a grammar says their research is "is missing several control groups, including but not limited to: (a) how Pitchfork ratings as a whole compare to Metacritic averages, and (b) how Pitchfork ratings of men over 40 compare to Metacritic averages, plus also things like (c) genres/label-origins/how-long-they’ve-been-making-music of Pitchfork-reviewed albums by men/women over 40, and how they compare, etc. (Is there a male Madonna to compare with here? Is it George Michael? A male Liz Phair?) See also: how do Pitchfork ratings for albums with Metacritic scores compare to Pitchfork ratings for albums not indexed on Metacritic? Let’s not invoke science unless we’re invoking SCIENCE!"

Because I am a nerd like that, I tallied some of the scores for albums made by men over forty, and compared them to Metacritic's cumulative score:

Wilco's The Album
Pitchfork - 73%
Metacritic - 76%

Morrissey's Year of Refusal
Pitchfork - 81&
Metacritic - 79%

Bruce Sprinsteen's Working on a Dream
Pitchfork - 58%
Metacritic - 72%

Pearl Jam's Backspace
Pitchfork - 46%
Metacritic - 79%

To be honest, I had to do a bit of digging to find Pitchfork reviews of albums made by artists over forty of either gender. That itself should be addressed, but from the few I did find, I'll hazard a guess that a) Pitchfork does have some bias against music made by women over forty, b) Pitchfork has some bias against music made by middle-aged people regardless of gender, or most likely, c) Pitchfork has some bias against artists not currently in the indie rock, pop, or hip-hop pantheon. (Wilco and Morrissey remain in the critics' good graces despite crossing over into "elder statesmen" territory, and among the albums made by women, Laurie Anderson's reviews were consistent across the board.)

This is not to pick on Pitchfork -- I think you would probably get the same results from any popular music blog. We live in an ageist, sexist society, and our popular culture unfortunately reflects that.

Album of the Week: M.I.A. - /\/\ /\ Y /\

(Note: I think I'm going to refer to this one as MAYA rather than typing /\/\ /\ Y /\ each time. My nearly middle-aged eyes can't handle it.)

M.I.A.'s much ballyhooed MAYA hits stores today, and the early press isn't exactly kind. Pitchfork gave it a whopping 4.4, saying:

"It's hard to tell whether /\/\/\Y/\ is half-assed or half-baked. There are certainly a number of good ideas in the mix here, but the execution is lacking. Tracks like "Story to Be Told", "Lovealot", and "Teqkilla" come across like mildly promising demos ready to be edited into sleeker, stronger compositions. Lead single "XXXO" sounds unfinished, as if everyone involved figured they may as well wait around for someone else to make a better remix. Most of the songs are built out of digital clangs and electronic noise, but unlike Kala's "Bird Flu", in which chaotic clatter was the basis for a brilliant track evoking panic and confusion, this cacophony doesn't signify much of anything, aside from perhaps a desire to seem confrontational and daring. There are moments of interesting noise, but in the absence of appealing grooves or memorable hooks, it barely matters."

PopMatters called it "lacking focus and confidence," and according to The Guardian , MAYA is "a headache-inducing patchwork of conspiracy theories, love, technological overload, world musics and sadness framed by the sort of poltergeist-in-the-machine noises you might expect from a new synthesiser called the Korg Kaosillator." Of the reviews I culled through this week, only the NY Times and Rolling Stone had anything positive to say, the former crediting MAYA's producers with the album's end result:

"The album’s producers, who include Blaqstarr, Diplo, Rusko and Switch, mingle propulsion and attack in tracks that can be fanatically layered or sparse but effective. M.I.A.’s drunk-on-the-dance-floor song, “Teqkilla,” is tambourine-shaking, synthesizer-blipping, sample-chirping mayhem. “Born Free,” despite its gratuitously violent video, recaptures the confrontational energy of the group it samples, Suicide. The rhythm track to “Steppin Up” starts with power drills and then thuds, whirs, power-chords and generally slams onward. And the sometimes inane lyrics of “Tell Me Why” arrive in waves of an Auto-Tuned chorale."

Writing about Voices

"The first time I heard John Lennon or Donald Fagan sing, I thought the voices unimaginably strange. I didn't want to like them. Something kept me going back to listen, though."

Daniel J. Levitin from This is Your Brain on Music

I've read This is Your Brain on Music a handful of times, and I keep going back to that quote. I've never found Lennon's or Fagan's voices odd, and recently it hit me that by the time I'd heard The Beatles or Steely Dan, their influence had already filtered through the music I'd grown up with. Of course their voices wouldn't sound strange to me. But then, I listen to a lot of voices deemed strange or odd or "uncommercial," and none necessarily needed a warm-up period either:







A couple years ago, I wrote a much longer post about favorites -- why you like the music you life (inspired by an NPR post), and I came up a bit disappointed that it can't be pinned down to a formula. I mean, of course it can't, but I really wanted it to. It sure would take the pressure off, when in the company of rock snobs, if there were a bona fide, organic reason why you didn't like, say, Bob Dylan. Or the Beatles.

Most of the reasons given for liking a particular band or artist were pretty vague: "It moves me," or "It just is..." But there has to be more to that, right? I'm going with the reasoning in the book -- that you're instantly drawn to what's familiar. I heard a lot of soul, R&B and country before I ever heard rock, so I tend to gravitate to singers whose voices are expressive, "soulful" The flat drone of a lot of indie rock singers has never been my cup of tea (which makes music blogging about primarily "indie" artists a weird hobby), but if the songwriting is good, I can ignore it. And sometimes learn to love it.

Shone Knife Plots Tour; New Album

(Via Tom Tom Magazine)

Shonen Knife has lined up some No. American tour dates in anticipation of their soon to be released in the US album Free Time:

09.08.10 Wed Seattle, WA -  Tractor Tavern
09.09.10 Thu Vancouver, B.C. -  Biltmore Cabaret w/ Jeff The Brotherhood
09.10.10 Fri Portland, OR  - Mississippi Studios
09.11.10 Sat Oakland, CA  -  Uptown Night Club
09.12.10 Sun San Francisco, CA  -  Bottom of the Hill
09.13.10 Mon San Diego, CA  -  Casbah
09.14.10 Tue Los Angeles, CA -  Spaceland
09.17.10 Fri Austin, TX -  Red 7
09.18.10 Sat Dallas, TX -  The Loft w/ Lovies
09.19.10 Sun Kansas City, MO -  Record Bar w/ Grass Widow
09.20.10 Mon Northfield, MN - The Cave
09.21.10 Tue Chicago, IL -  Schubas
09.22.10 Wed Kalamazoo, MI -  The Strutt w/ Grass Widow
09.23.10 Thu Cincinnati, OH -  Midpoint Music Festival
09.24.10 Fri Pittsburgh, PA -  31st St. Pub
09.25.10 Sat New York, NY -  Asia Society Museum
09.26.10 Sun Washington, D.C. -  Rock and Roll Hotel w/ Grass Widow
09.28.10 Tue Brooklyn, NY -  Knitting Factory (Brooklyn)
09.30.10 Thu Montreal, QB -  Cabaret du Mile End
10.01.10 Fri Toronto, ON -  Horseshoe Tavern
10.02.10 Sat Buffalo, NY -  Mohawk Place

Lost and Found (Song): Tuscadero - Mt. Pleasant

It's kind of depressing when you see albums from your youth going for a penny at Amazon. Yeah, that's right. One whopping cent. Along with Tuscadero's Pink Album, I found Bash & Pop's Friday Night is Killing Me -- Replacements' bassist Tommy Stinton's first post-mats album -- for the same. I paid $0.50 for my copy. Maybe I should feel cheated?

Despite the rash of Liz Phair-related posts, I'm not much of a 90s nostalgia geek. I know to keep it in its rightful place, probably in that box filled with old copies of CMJ -- when it used to be the perfect size to fold into a back pocket -- somewhere in the basement. But I did spend the better part of my adolescence in the early 90s and most of my twenties in the mid-to-late 90s, so it kind of unavoidable. I like what Jess from Total Trash had to say about The Pink Album:

"The Pink Album was one of the few LPs I brought with me to Wisconsin upon my immediate 18-year-old escape from Indiana/the Region/etc. I ended up at some snooty liberal arts college with a bunch of people from DC, who scoffed at the idea of these “dumb bar girls” and their silly record. Screw you NYU dropouts, I’d mutter, while cheesin along to “Nancy Drew”, your college band sucks and you don’t want to see Apocalypse Hoboken with me anyway."

Links & Bits for 7/9/10

Love the Way You Lie: more part of the problem or the solution? (Feministing)
"In many ways, the song can serve to raise awareness about domestic violence. The title itself evokes an image about a woman in a domestic violent relationship who wants to believe her partner will no longer commit acts of violence against her, because he says he won't. But what is explicit in the title is the notion that although the aggressor says he will reform, it is a lie. This calls upon some of the data available in the domestic violence literature on the high likelihood that a perpetrator of IPV will reoffend. In a 2004 study (see page 2) held in the Bronx misdemeanor domestic violence court, 62 percent of batterers who were arrested for domestic violence were rearrested within 2 years."

B-Sides: Nona Hendryx (Bitch Blogs)
"Hendryx has experimented with all kinds of sounds during her solo career. First, she made a heavy metal album called Nona Hendryx (1977). The album was produced by Epic Records, but was quickly pulled from the shelves and given no air time, as they were unsure of how to market a black rock singer. In a 2001 interview with The Advocate, Nona said, 'Rock and roll is not considered black music. It's been co-opted by the white audience, and it's difficult to reclaim as our own.'"

Wherefore art thou, androgyny (Love is the Slug)
"A crop of artists coming out from the sidelines or up from the underground and grabbing some attention are bearing the torch of androgyny with much style and flair. First up is the dazzlingly talented Janelle Monae, whose blend of hip-hop, r&b, rock and futuristic pop is almost out-shined by her yen for impeccably tailored, mod-eqsue tuxedos and a flawlessly coiffed afro-pompadour."

And the Hits Just Keep On Coming: More On Liz Phair's "Bollywood"

Er, so I jotted off a post before I realized the extent of the backlash against Liz Phair's single, "Bollywood."

Right now I feel like a hypocrite, or a bandwagon-jumper, or a vaguely hypocritical bandwagon-jumper. My love/hate relationship with Liz Phair is well-documented. I'm fascinated, not by her, but by the influence she's had many women's lives. I am not one of them. I've tried to come up with a plausible reason why her music never resonated with me, and I simply don't have one aside from being a little too old when Guyville hit, and too busy trying to keep my head above water, financially, during the years when I should have been all teen-angsty. That the themes in her music are presented as "universal" has always bothered me, too. (Universal? Maybe if you're white, straight and preferably middle-class.) But this isn't about the Liz Phair of yore. From the LA Times (via Broadsheet):

"Hating Liz Phair is fun, almost as fun as turning the pop-fashion tide away from M.I.A. by doubting her motives behind having a child with a wealthy man, or dissecting the ways Sarah McLachlan was stupid in her attempts to revive the Lilith Fair. This rough summer for feminist pop musicians doesn't strictly reflect sexism; often, women are the most vocal in expressing wrath toward role models who suddenly seem all too human. For Phair, who enjoyed a modest revival when ATO Records reissued her groundbreaking debut album, "Exile in Guyville," in 2008, being the object of others' effervescent scorn has become old hat: every album she made after that one sent more of her fans into attack mode. The fact she called this new one "Funstyle" -- as well as some of the music included in the package -- indicates that she now means to make this hating game her own."

And maybe some of us just didn't like the song.

Later in the article, the author makes comparisons to Frank Zappa and Dr. Demento as evidence that "Bollywood" is indeed satire. Fair enough. (I'd go one further and throw Alex Chilton's Like Flies On Sherbert in the mix, if only for the WTF? factor.) Maybe Funstyle is a novelty album, but that doesn't make it above criticism, and not all criticism is "hatin'."

We Could All Learn a Little Fabulousness From Grace Jones

I stumbled upon this old clip from Grace Jones's 1986 appearance on Letterman. I've been meaning to post it, but there's nothing I really can add. This is what "The 80s" looks like in my mind, had my 80s reality not been about birthday parties at Happy Joes or summers spent eating hotdogs on white bread. My 80s was generally un-fabulous.



I'm not sure if this was my first glimpse of Grace Jones. I stayed up late a lot as a kid, watching TV shows I shouldn't have been (*cough* Benny Hill *cough*), so it's definitely possible I saw this when it aired. I was fascinated, but definitely a little intimidated by her. In his book, The Sex Revolts, Simon Reynolds says, "So much of Jones's aesthetic seems bound up with the eroticisation of alienation: witness the fetishistic sex of "Warm Leatherette," her version of the Daniel Miller song inspired by J.G. Ballard's ideas about the eroticism of car crashes, or the disconnected femme fatale of "Private Life," (written by Chrissie Hynde) who scorns a man for his wimpy attachment of intimacy, and boasts 'I'm very superficial.''"



But as a kid barely into her teens, all that would have been over my head. I think what it show me was a tougher, cooler version of femininity, or a marrying of the two. It was a dangerous idea for kid growing up in a blah Midwestern burb, and I loved it.

Liz Phair's "Bollywood" Confuses Fans

To quote Dorothy Parker, "What the fresh hell is this?"

Over the weekend, Liz Phair posted a new song, "Bollywood," to her website and, well, calling the reviews mixed would be generous. Here's the basic info, via TwentyFourBit:

"Liz Phair just released her first new album in 5 years, Funstyle, via her official site. And thankfully, Phair is offering a taste of the insane first (rap) single, “Bollywood,” before you drop $5.99 for the 11-track LP. What appears to be a screenshot below is, in fact, the record’s M.I.A.-esque cover art, which should give you an idea as to the tongue-in-cheek nature of Phair’s latest career move. Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what is going on here, but a tsunami of snark will be hitting the blogosphere in due time."

Is it? Tongue-in-cheek, I mean? Lord, I hope. I've only half-heartedly followed Liz Phair's career since the release of Exile in Guyville, her critical, if not commercial, breakthrough (for reasons I've already discussed); so I shouldn't judge. But I will. I'm someone who, for pleasure, listens to atonal noise filled with extraneous clanks, beeps, and samples, and I still got through only thirty seconds of the song before I aborted it, head shaking. Apparently, I'm not the only one who is confused by this new, er, direction:

"But, no, you’re right, I can’t for the life of me figure out why she’s trying to sound like a painfully white, frightfully low budget parody of M.I.A., that doesn’t really scan for me either. I guess it’s just an example of how some people have a whole career’s worth of good music in them and some have one album." (Love is the Slug)

"I was one of those 90s teenagers who clung to "Exile In Guyville" like a life raft in high school, but the time has long passed since bashing Liz Phair for not sounding like the Liz Phair of yore was considered clever or fashionable or even remotely necessary, and so instead of lamenting the loss of "Explain It To Me" Liz, let's just focus on this Liz, and this song, which is, well, I don't know what the hell it is. What is this?! Is it a rap? Is it a dance song? Is it a skit? Is someone talking to her? Who is talking? What is happening here?!?" (Jezebel)

Beyond Britney (Pop in the 90s)

Twice this week I came across posts discussing pop music in the grunge era. This one from 90s woman asks:

"Maybe that’s because so much energy was going into “alternative” music, so pop was really the dregs? Now it seems like there’s just one mass, with indie being more or less in the same world."

To be honest, when I think of 90s pop, my mind doesn't immediately go to Hanson or Ace of Base. Maybe it's because I was already well into my twenties when harder rock returned to the airwaves, I didn't really notice pop music then, or when I did it sounded more like this. (Oddly enough, I listen to more traditional "pop" now .) By the late 90s, it was hard to believe the same decade that gave us Nirvana also produced The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, and The Backstreet Boys.  But if go back far enough, there was a period of time just before Nevermind broke when radio stations and MTV got a whiff that there was something out there called "alternative rock," but didn't quite no what that was yet. And a lot of it sounded like pop, or at least borrowed heavily from 70s power pop. Early-to-mid 90s pop, to me, was this:

Juliana Hatfield - My Sister
Dramarama - Last Cigarette
Material Issue - Diane
Redd Kross - Annie's Gone
The Cardigans - Lovefool

Kids Talk About Gender Stereotypes

Thanks to Feministing for the heads-up.

Lost and Found (Song): Galaxie 500 - 4th of July

Technically, this is Luna, but a nice version nonetheless...

Links & Bits for 7/2/10

"Feminists, we're calling you" to watch Itty Bitty Titty Committee (I Fry Mine In Butter)
"Much of the criticism I heard about the movie was that it seemed to be making fun of the third wave feminist politics riot grrrl helped develop, which it intended to champion. Indeed, the movie is inconsistent in its tone. Sometimes, the use of grainy stock footage of members committing politically motivated crimes like vandalism seem to suggest the historical significance of their work."

Dirty Girls and Bad Feminists: A Few Thoughts on "I Love Dick" (Tiger Beatdown)
"There’s a moment in almost any bad memoir where you start to get the sense that the author is telling you more than he or she actually wants you to know; a moment where the author’s persona, carefully crafted to be winning or fun or poignant or survivorly and magnificently victimized, starts to slip, and you get the sense of a different person trying to speak."

Lady Gaga May Not Have a Penis, But She Makes An Attractive Man (Jezebel)
"Is Lady Gaga getting her butch on modeling for Vogue Hommes Japan under the pseudonym 'Jo Calderone'?"

My Pride (fourfour)
"...what I did do on Sunday was watch the entire episode of The Joan Rivers Show devoted to Paris Is Burning that some wonderful people have uploaded to YouTube. Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja and Freddie Pendavis (whose name Joan pronounces like "Pen-dovah," much to Freddie's amusement) and PIB director Jennie Livingston all sit on Joan's coach (and in millions of living rooms when this aired in 1991) and talk about being gay and drag balls and slang (Joan is legitimately perplexed by the term "24/7!")."

Tortured By My Music (A Feminist Speaks)
"It took me a long time to see the harmful role that women have been placed in as objects of men's lust and as the disposable, weaker sex. I could no longer listen to this trash that degraded me and told me I was shit. I put aside my sexist music and listened to women's voices."

Patti Smith and Loretta Lynn Added to the National Recording Registry

Patti Smith's Horses  and Loretta Lynn's Coal Miner's Daughter  are among the twenty-five new recordings added to The Library of Congress's National Recording Registry for 2009. (Glorious Noise)

"Among the selections are hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, who paid homage to mothers struggling to survive in "Dear Mama"; Loretta Lynn’s biographical hit, "Coal Miner’s Daughter"; Bill Cosby’s second album, "I Started Out As a Child," of short vignettes drawn mainly from his childhood; the 1923 recording, "Canal Street Blues," by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band that epitomizes the New Orleans sound; the last sessions by the 1961 lineup of the Bill Evans Trio and possibly the greatest live recordings in the history of jazz; and the Marine Corps Combat Field Recording Collection of the second battle of Guam, which vividly documents rare battle sounds and personal accounts by troops before, during and after the battle."