The Final Alarm

As a supplement to the previous post I present you with another video from Ween's culturally significant 1997 public access performance. If you have been trying to imagine what an instrumental song that's a blend of Deep Purple and Rush would sound like (but you can't put your finger it), you should check this out:

Dreaming of Buckingham Green

My appreciation of music with low fidelity and videos lacking in production quality has greatly increased since I started listening to Ween. In the same way sweet leaf introduced Ozzy to his mind, the brownness of Ween exposed me to the appeal of raw creativity.

François Truffaut famously said "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between." Applying this quote to music, I think the lack of production value often helps express the joy of performing music. In the absence of production value is a particular rawness that helps you connect to music on an emotional level. 

A perfect illustration of said rawness can be seen in Ween's 1997 performance of Buckingham Green on public access television. The video is the epitome of imperfect, and yet it could not be better at expressing the joy of performing music. Enjoy: 

In Defense of Nickelback (Sort of)

Nickelback has written songs that contain some of the worst lyrics in the history of music. Take, for example, the lyrics to 'Photograph':

Look at this photograph

Every time I do it makes me laugh

How did our eyes get so red?

What the hell is that on Joey's head?

Kim's the first girl I kissed

I was so nervous that I nearly missed

But wait, there's more! Here are the lyrics to 'Something in Your Mouth': 

I love the way you dance with anybody

And tease them all by sucking your thumb

You're so much cooler when you never pull it out

'Cause you look so much cuter with something in your mouth

When they are not penning horrible lyrics they are writing boring rock songs that pretty much sound exactly the same. I am amazed they can get on stage and perform with total sincerity in front of tens of thousands of fans. But therein lies the rub: on any given night, tens of thousands of people are willing to pay money to see Nickelback live. 

In my opinion, Nickelback is bad at music. I have almost nothing positive to say about anything they've done, and I know that millions of people agree with me. However, in a certain sense Nickelback is a tremendously skilled band. One of the most difficult things to do is create something that is enjoyed on a large scale and Nickelback has been able to do this well as anyone. Their total albums sales are over 35 million worldwide and they routinely play to sold-out arenas filled with enthusiastic fans. They are virtual shoe-in to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Nickelback is deserving of criticism, ridicule, and the occasional rock thrown on stage. But they also deserve praise for writing music enjoyed by the masses. That's an extraordinarily rare skill and I respect them for creating music that makes a lot of people happy. In addition, they deserve credit for being so fun to hate. I've had a lot of fun talking to people about how much I dislike Nickelback. This is largely because they are an easy target and these conversations involve people agreeing with my point of view, which in turn makes me feel good. 

So for all their stupid songs about stupid topics, the existence of Nickelback is a good thing. They are a source of positive and negative enjoyment unlike anyone else in music. For this I tip my cap in their general direction.

Song of the Moment: Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

My music-listening habits have room for improvement. The most glaring flaw is that I tend not to explore the oeuvre of an artist when I hear a song I really, really, like. This makes sense in some cases (such as if the band is mostly terrible), but in general when you enjoy a song from a band or artist you are unfamiliar with you should try to listen to more of their music. Unless of course the song is Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer.

Peter Gabriel has released several songs that are quite excellent. Shock the Monkey, Big Time, and Solsbury Hill are all very good songs. If someone were to make me compilation CD with any of those songs I would tell the person "Including those selections from Peter Gabriel's repertoire was a good choice." However, if Sledgehammer were on the CD it would take make years before I got around to listening to any of the other tracks.

There are few songs I enjoy as much as Sledgehammer. I love the synthesized flute, how the intro leads into the first verse, and most of all the chorus. I have come to conclude that the chorus creates a sonic wave that stimulates the production of serotonin in my brain. If I like the song so much, why should I listen to any of his other work? I mean, time spent listening to other Peter Gabriel songs is time I could spend listening to Sledgehammer.

Recently I have been making a strong effort to listen to albums in their entirety, so the "I'm perfectly happy listening to this song, thank you very much" habit is on its way out. This is a good thing. Of course, maybe I'll find myself too impatient to listen to albums all the way through. If that happens you know what I'll be listening to.

Song of the Moment: Weird Al - Christmas at Ground Zero

I was a very large fan of Weird Al in elementary school and junior high. His music videos were an endless source of amusement and his ability to mock popular music by turning hit songs into odes to old TV shows and food tickled my funny bone. Then high school came. Sophomore year I was introduced to the blazing chops of Joe Satriani and immediately the unthinkable happened: I found something cooler than Weird Al. Though I am no longer what you would call a "fan" of Weird Al, his music has some positive traits that have held up well through time.

Weird Al is generally known as a curly-haired (and formerly mustachioed) goof ball that cranks out tunes that are fun for the whole family. While this is mostly accurate, it does not give any indication of his often dark sense of humor. His most well known songs are about benign topics such as the Amish or ice cream, but frequently scattered throughout his repertoire are some darker cuts, which I still find funny. In addition to his dark sense of humor, Weird Al has also written some pretty good style parodies of bands, genres, and eras of music. I don't think he's ever gotten enough credit for his ability to synthesize the essential characteristics of oeuvres into an original song, but then again, this is Weird Al I'm talking about.

This is all a long way for me to say that while Weird Al is not as funny to me as he once was, he is as funny once as he ever was:

The deflating balloon that is the Milwaukee Bucks

If the Cleveland Cavaliers have done one thing this season it's prove Lebron James is capable of making a horrible team good. Well, that and be embarrassingly bad. At 11-47 they currently have the worst record in the NBA and somewhere along the way they set an NBA record with 26-consecutive losses. Though I am happy not to be a fan of the Cavs, the sad truth is that they've had a more interesting season than the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Bucks were a team on the rise after finishing last season 46-36 and almost knocking off the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the playoffs. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that Andrew Bogut and Brandon Jennings would develop into a formidable tandem and the good times that started rolling at the end of last season would continue into the 2010 campaign. But instead of watching a young team develop into something special the Bucks have treated fans to one of the least enjoyable seasons possible.

At no point this season have the Bucks demonstrated any reason for hope. Sure, there have been some flickers of promise here and there, but nothing more. The Bucks longest winning streak of the season is three games and the last (and only) time they won four of five was back in November, which is also the last time there were at .500. The Bucks may very well sneak into the playoffs, but that's nothing to get too excited about considering that the only thing keeping them in the hunt of the 8-seed is the ineptitude of the bottom half of the Eastern Conference. The Cavs, on the other hand, have at least found a way to be memorable.

Though setting a consecutive loss record is nothing to be proud of, it is not necessarily a bad thing. For one, part of the joy of being a sports fan is having a shared experience with other fans, whether it be good or bad. For Cavs fans the losing streak was at least something they could get angry about together. More importantly,  ten years from now they'll have some stories to share about how much fun it was to watch the Cavs end the streak. This brings me to my next point, which is that the Cavs' overtime win against the Clippers to end the streak was genuinely compelling. It may not be the type of excitement fans typically look for, but was excitement nonetheless.

Contrast this to the Bucks. Their season has been the epitome of forgettable. Any exciting moment they've had has been confined to the game being played. Buzzer beaters are nice, but buzzer beaters against a team you're tied with in the standings are even better. The Cavs' win against the Clippers fit into a larger narrative, which in turn made it special. The next Bucks game with meaningful subtext will be their first.

Now, this is not to say that it is better to be a fan of the Cavs than the Bucks or that losing is fun. However, the truth is that sometimes going down in flames is better than anonymously crawling through a forgettable season. Cleveland at least has something historic to talk about. Milwaukee? Not so much.

Song of the Moment: Lita Ford ft. Ozzy Osbourne - Close My Eyes Forever

Today's song will also be accompanied with a special guest: A cover performed by Ween during the production of The Pod.


A common noun used to describe Ween is "brown." In the context of Ween, brown can be defined as: "(a noun used) to refer to the inherent "Ween-ness" of something, usually something lo-fi, terrible, but awesome in its terribly low fidelity."


The appeal of brownness for me has two components. First, Gene Ween and Dean Ween are very talented musicians, so anything they produce is going is to have some thought and skill behind it. I would like to expand on this point more, but I don't, you know, really understand music well-enough to analyze its technical aspects in depth. 


Second, the browner songs in Ween's catalog have a strong do-it-yourself feel. This does not necessarily influence the quality of the song, but the idea of two guys fooling around with whatever equipment is available and making music has a strong element of authenticity. Despite having no musical talent, in high school and college I would often participate in impromptu musical performances.* Even though the performances were horrible to anyone except my closest friends, there was a unique energy that only existed at the time of the performance. Brown Ween tracks, such as the one below, capture this unique energy (I think the Lo-fi sound quality helps here), and in that sense allows them to be terrible in a very good way. 


*One of the performances was a cover of 'Stairway to Heaven' that involved me singing and a friend if mine playing an acoustic guitar. Ween's 'Close My Eyes Forever' reminds me of that.  

Meditations on 'The Human Centipede'

Films about mad scientists with an affinity for bizarre experimentation are nothing new. What is new, however, is having your archetypal mad scientist attempt to attach three people anus-to-mouth so they can share a single digestive tract. Given the originality of that premise as well as humanity's universal repulsion of excrement, any sort of marketing was going to allow this film to gain notoriety (and let's not forget the scene when the front end of the centipede takes a poo). Despite the undeniable grossness of The Human Centipede there are two things about the film I found to be endearing.

The Human Centipede is a schlocky horror film. Sure, you may not immediately associate it with something riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but think about it sans the centipede.  How did our heroines get into their predicament? It was a dark and stormy night and they needed to find a party. On their way they take a few wrong turns and end up on a deserted road in the middle of a forest. Then their car gets a flat tire and need to call for help. Uh-oh! Wouldn't you know it, they see a light in the distance, conclude there must be a phone in there, and become acquainted with this guy:

The  picture should provide a clue as to what happens next. 

That is pretty standard stuff. Replace the human centipede with, say, a head in a pan and you have one of the worst horror movies ever made. However, by taking horror movie cliches to the most disgusting extreme the film becomes an inspired bit if genius; black humor on a meta level, if you will.

The next thing on my short list of endearing traits this film possessed was its tagline: 100% medically accurate. I'm no doctor, but upon watching the film, sure, what happened was more or less 100% medically accurate. Whether or not the tagline is true is irrelevant; what matters is that the reaction it generated was genuine. I first heard about Human Centipede in an e-mail from a friend. My friend excitedly mentioned that doctors verified the accuracy of the premise. A few months later I was talking to a B-horror movie aficionado and she more or less proclaimed "and they say it's 100% medically accurate!" This, I think, taps into the spirit of the film. What is the spirit of the film? You can find it in the fake trailer for Mant in the 1993 film Matinée:

What stuck me about Human Centipede and Mant is how both films shared the same promotional tactic, in this case "What you about to see could really happen!" That Human Centipede shares this element of kitsch is missed because, well, it's hard to focus on something other than three people surgically attached anus-to-mouth. Still, I think it's worth mentioning that Human Centipede is not really different for a film such as Mant.

When you removed the human centipede from The Human Centipede you have a B-level body horror film from the 50s with a cheap (but effective) marketing ploy. I find it comforting that a classic horror film plot structure is still being used, amusing that it was taken to its most grotesque extreme, and charming that people are still intrigued by something ridiculous because it just might be true.