2. I had a dream last night that I saw a review of a new Skye song on a Matos blog post guest-written by Sasha Frere-Jones who had written for the New Yorker, which was actually the Village Voice. (Uh, I've never even SEEN these people, and they show up in my dreams. I also had a dream that I tried to have a conversation w/ F-Kog and a Stooges song came on and I was kinda faking the lyrics, and he wasn't singing along at all, so it was pretty awkward when I got to the parts I had to mumble. It was "Search and Destroy," I think. I also have a recurring waking nightmare where I'm giving a presentation and someone double dog dares me to start singing an Ashlee Simpson song, not from the chorus. So I sing "Love Me for Me" to myself sometimes to try to commit it to ready memory, since it's not an obvious pick just in case anyone asks me to start singing an Ashlee song to PROVE I KNOW IT BY HEART.)
Anyway, M/S/F/J tips me off to this supersecret private show Skye is giving on a beach somewheres, so I head off and of COURSE it's a BIRTHDAY PARTY for a buncha toddlers. Except they're part of this weird evangelical family (with an older brother type who reminded me of...I dunno, maybe the older bro in Home Alone?) and they start having conversations that I find morally problematic or some such thing except I couldn't understand quite what they were saying.
Did I mention we're on a beach? The waves start crashing down and we all realize with dawning horror that there is a GIANT OCTOPUS crashing up against this makeshift stage where Ms. Sweetnam is scheduled to play. Now, this family is so nuts they book Skye ONLY, no band or nuthin, so she shows up and looks around confused, like where's my band? Just two little speakers on a sorta wooden plank stage. The fundies cross their arms and say they like her, they don't want a buncha punk BOYS ruining everything. Sing us a nice song, etc. And she says, well, I need at least ONE guy on stage with me! So she goes off and brings back this guy that looks like a nicer version of the bald head biker dude on Veronica Mars and the fundies are pissed, but they let the show continue.
So here's this song, which I can only hear in bits because the waves are crashing down and THE OCTOPUS etc. Sounds pretty good, really nice synth line in it and I can't figure out where it's coming from since it's just a guitar and vocals. (Maybe there was a backing tape or something.) So I get the bright idea to grasp onto this railing that's set up like a barrier between the plank-stage and the crashing waves. I'm clinging onto it and it freaks the guitarist out...GET OFF THE STAGE, DUDE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT THIS KID'S BIRTHDAY PARTY. Fuck this guy (who now mysteriously has hair), I wanna rock out. And that's when I realize that Skye is singing and playing the keyboard line at the same time...BACKWARDS! Like, the keyboard is facing the wrong direction and she's just sort of pecking at it, playing this line from behind the keyboard. So I go HOLY SHIT BACKWARDS SKYE SOLO!!! And then she looks over and she's kinda weirded off, too, she gives a look to the guitarist like who is this guy (c'mon like Skye hasn't stumbled onto this thing) but she keeps going with the song. And the octopus seemed to be enjoying himself. Don't know what happened to the rest of the party, perhaps they met an untimely end what with the octopus but I wasn't paying attention to them at this point.
3. Long article about "wherefore art thou indie-rock humour" in Stylus this week. With a hole so big in it you could drive a truck full of clowns through it. "Indie rock" is a social distinction! Of course most of it is humorless (though, oddly, Arcade Fire's first album is actually pretty silly! And since when are the Shins not funny? Know Yr Onion! The problem with post-Garden State is that the Shins were never actually trying to change anyone's lives!), the whole distinction is based on pretending that non-indie stuff doesn't count toward the humor tally. Or even "indie" productionwise but not "indie" socialwise. Uh, DaHv, undeniably INDIE, is funny as hell! This goes back to the "extreme pop" discussion...when someone gets kicked out of the indie distinction (e.g. Liz Phair), it's likely their music will get funnier. Not always.
Sam Ubl's also the guy whose Brooke Hogan review I was talking about way back when, and he has this to offer to keep me from going too deep into this one.
To the extent that one can even generalize about “the record-buying public” anymore, it seems modern ears visit indie rock for the same reason they visit any other store in the strip-mall of digital-age culture consumption: to purchase goods for the pantry. In this case they’re copping to poignant emotions, the kind you can’t find on Paris Hilton’s 24-hour corner—not in labeled form, anyway.
There is something inscrutably, powerfully attractive about Paris Hilton that defies all categorization. I assume this is what he meant. Take it back, I have no idea what those words mean.
That's it for now. Anyone looking for humor in MUSIC could look at my top, like, thirty singles of 2007 so far. From indie (Alexa Melo) to under the radar major label (Lil' Mama) to major major (Avril, he admits...nah, HILARY "GYPSY WOMAN").
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