yeah, i'm coming to a conclusion on the armed.
as mentioned, i distinctly recall the pumpkins cover, which was quite a long time ago. but, i didn't get over the genre barrier - i simply don't like metalcore, and there's just so much of it....i don't usually have time for more than a few seconds of it before i move to something i might actually like....
i stopped, this time, for whatever reason and listened a little more carefully, and it's actually the pumpkins influence that i want to pull out as peculiar. i am, myself, a substantive smashing pumpkins fan, and i know that this is a kind of commonality amongst musicians of my generation - we all worship the smashing pumpkins, for their musicianship, in a world that doesn't fully get it. if you play anything at all, you know. i think it was pitchfork that described them as savage virtuosos, or something like that. so, we all grew up playing these songs, and we all grew up acting out the same routine. i had my reznor fetish, others were into whatever else, but the pumpkins were the common ground. and, i bet you even gravitated towards your friends in high school because they were the pumpkins fans, didn't you?
so, these boys and girls are big smashing pumpkins fans, and they give it away, and it kind of roots their writing in a specific place. that's the thing that musicians get about the pumpkins that non-musicians don't, the detail, the complexity. that extra half note at the end of the riff. that goes over their heads! they don't even notice. if there's something special about this, it's that attention to detail.
and, we don't actually know who's playing guitar here, right? hrmmn.
the singer sounds a little like nivek ogre too, but what are the chances, right?
so, i'm willing to concede that this is interesting. i'm less willing to concede that it's actually any good. as the order forms out of the chaos, it's partitioning the sound into unlistenable trash and sappy slop. you want that intersection, especially at the trumbullplex. but, this is just a series of one-dimensional analyses.
i'm leaning towards going, though, out of the spectacle. i'm willing to concede it's interesting enough to experience, even if i'm skeptical as to whether i'll totally enjoy it.
it's how these things work out sometimes - you go for the show, and you ask questions later.
we'll see how i feel after plaid. but, there's often people at the 'plex all day.
Friday, December 6, 2019
i do understand that, in a certain kind of cultural sense, that armed show is where i want to be this weekend. i'm more likely to meet people that are more accepting of me in a situation such as that.
but, i don't actually like the music. rather, i'm really looking forward to plaid.
i'm waaaaaay more into warp records electronic jazz type stuff than i am into crossover metal. and, if you actually listen to the music i've written and recorded - especially since i've moved to windsor - it's way, way, way more similar to plaid than it is to the armed.
i don't think i've been confusing about that point, either. i've been very critical of modern rock, and demonstrated a strong interest in abstract techno.
but, i don't actually like the music. rather, i'm really looking forward to plaid.
i'm waaaaaay more into warp records electronic jazz type stuff than i am into crossover metal. and, if you actually listen to the music i've written and recorded - especially since i've moved to windsor - it's way, way, way more similar to plaid than it is to the armed.
i don't think i've been confusing about that point, either. i've been very critical of modern rock, and demonstrated a strong interest in abstract techno.
actually, i'm sure that i stumbled upon that pumpkins cover at one point previously.
and, i know that when people say they like punk rock in 2019, this is something like what they mean.
but, i never listened to music like this....
when i said i listened to punk rock in 1996, this would have been thought of as some kind of metal. and, i still basically interpret it that way.
to put it another way, my concept of punk is inherently pre-refused, and i didn't follow their reinterpretation of punk at all, i completely rejected it.
this is just way, way too loud and way, way too aggressive for me. and, it always has been; there is really no stage in my life where i would have listened to much of anything like this. like, remotely. i like my punk a lot catchier and a lot fruitier and a lot more cerebral and a lot more political than this.
so, what i'm going to suggest is that you ask somebody that likes metal, even if those words mean something completely different to my gen x mind than they do to your gen y mind. it may be an anachronism, but this used to be a kind of crossover sound, and i never crossed over to it.
https://thearmed.bandcamp.com/album/untitled
and, i know that when people say they like punk rock in 2019, this is something like what they mean.
but, i never listened to music like this....
when i said i listened to punk rock in 1996, this would have been thought of as some kind of metal. and, i still basically interpret it that way.
to put it another way, my concept of punk is inherently pre-refused, and i didn't follow their reinterpretation of punk at all, i completely rejected it.
this is just way, way too loud and way, way too aggressive for me. and, it always has been; there is really no stage in my life where i would have listened to much of anything like this. like, remotely. i like my punk a lot catchier and a lot fruitier and a lot more cerebral and a lot more political than this.
so, what i'm going to suggest is that you ask somebody that likes metal, even if those words mean something completely different to my gen x mind than they do to your gen y mind. it may be an anachronism, but this used to be a kind of crossover sound, and i never crossed over to it.
https://thearmed.bandcamp.com/album/untitled
i just want to add a weather update.
i have not been to detroit since oct 4/5/6th. i nearly went a few times after that, but i was sick, or something else. i made it to the bus stop on nov 7th for black midi, but turned around, unprepared to weather the overnight. i was in toronto on nov 19th. plaid is tonight.
the first few weeks after i got back weren't so bad, but november was broadly terrible. the funny thing is, though, that, since the beginning of november, the calendar has largely caught up.
it has not been that bad the last few days, and the longterm is not very scary, right now. it's detroit in december, mind you - don't go out in a tshirt, or at least not for too long. it's going to hover around or dip below freezing, sure. but, it's not awful, and it's not even unseasonable; if you crunch the numbers, the averages may even turn out on the + side.
what's going on? well, it has to be all of that hot air in the ocean.
...even as the forecast is warning us that it's -40 in northern canada, right now.
i suggested that we'd have a cold start to the winter, and i was right. but, i pointed out that we're bottoming out, right now. it's going to get better. really. so, i held out hope for an early spring.
it's still too early. that vortex could still roll right through here like bernie sanders looking for a hot meal. but, the solstice is only two weeks away, now, and it's starting to look like it might not be so bad, once the days start getting longer again.
i have not been to detroit since oct 4/5/6th. i nearly went a few times after that, but i was sick, or something else. i made it to the bus stop on nov 7th for black midi, but turned around, unprepared to weather the overnight. i was in toronto on nov 19th. plaid is tonight.
the first few weeks after i got back weren't so bad, but november was broadly terrible. the funny thing is, though, that, since the beginning of november, the calendar has largely caught up.
it has not been that bad the last few days, and the longterm is not very scary, right now. it's detroit in december, mind you - don't go out in a tshirt, or at least not for too long. it's going to hover around or dip below freezing, sure. but, it's not awful, and it's not even unseasonable; if you crunch the numbers, the averages may even turn out on the + side.
what's going on? well, it has to be all of that hot air in the ocean.
...even as the forecast is warning us that it's -40 in northern canada, right now.
i suggested that we'd have a cold start to the winter, and i was right. but, i pointed out that we're bottoming out, right now. it's going to get better. really. so, i held out hope for an early spring.
it's still too early. that vortex could still roll right through here like bernie sanders looking for a hot meal. but, the solstice is only two weeks away, now, and it's starting to look like it might not be so bad, once the days start getting longer again.
knowledge in the pre-modern era was inherently sketchy all around. the christians burned some libraries; so did the muslims. and, people forget that the muslims only kept what they translated - and then burned the originals. there's lots that they didn't bother with because it was heretical...
but, one of the places that we lost a lot of books was actually in pompeii. i didn't know this until relatively recently, but one of the things that was lost under the soot was an important library. they've found it, too, but they can't open it.
so, i'll lace into religious ignorance with a lot of zeal, but in a sense it's almost a kind of a sport. what's closer to the truth is that the the world's a dangerous place for a book. and, we have hints that this happens periodically, too. most of euclid was probably ultimately sumerian in origin, not greek; the only remnant we have of this is a story about pythagoras inheriting wisdom from the magis and sages of the east, not unlike jesus, another mostly mythological story with a lost history that likely traces very deeply into antiquity. we have these greek names that we can attach to what survives: plato, archimedes, hesiod. we don't even have the names of the egyptians and the sumerians that came before them.
but, with all of these fragments, we have all of these questions of ownership, and we came up with these labels: pseudo-aristotle, pseudo-aristophanes. even the roman period is blurry, actually. i point this out repeatedly in many contexts: there are segments of byzantine history that we know were erased. like, we know that there was a period from year x to year y that was removed from history. and, they were thorough. they were the empire. the egyptians used to erase pharoahs altogether, apparently because they thought it would prevent them from coming back....
so, there are important historical texts in the late roman period of questionable authorship.
my fundamental theorem of poeticity claims that all history becomes poetry, so we can expect this to not just happen again but to happen forever. if we can burn books, we can delete data, too. these books didn't burn themselves; it wasn't an accident, or at least not mostly. it was actually something very similar to what we today call "cancel culture". the mullahs were deleting porphyry's account...
pun intended.
so, will they find a schubert symphony one day and, lacking context of where it came from, be forced to call the author pseudo-beethoven?
as stated: this is not a terrible addition to the list.
but, one of the places that we lost a lot of books was actually in pompeii. i didn't know this until relatively recently, but one of the things that was lost under the soot was an important library. they've found it, too, but they can't open it.
so, i'll lace into religious ignorance with a lot of zeal, but in a sense it's almost a kind of a sport. what's closer to the truth is that the the world's a dangerous place for a book. and, we have hints that this happens periodically, too. most of euclid was probably ultimately sumerian in origin, not greek; the only remnant we have of this is a story about pythagoras inheriting wisdom from the magis and sages of the east, not unlike jesus, another mostly mythological story with a lost history that likely traces very deeply into antiquity. we have these greek names that we can attach to what survives: plato, archimedes, hesiod. we don't even have the names of the egyptians and the sumerians that came before them.
but, with all of these fragments, we have all of these questions of ownership, and we came up with these labels: pseudo-aristotle, pseudo-aristophanes. even the roman period is blurry, actually. i point this out repeatedly in many contexts: there are segments of byzantine history that we know were erased. like, we know that there was a period from year x to year y that was removed from history. and, they were thorough. they were the empire. the egyptians used to erase pharoahs altogether, apparently because they thought it would prevent them from coming back....
so, there are important historical texts in the late roman period of questionable authorship.
my fundamental theorem of poeticity claims that all history becomes poetry, so we can expect this to not just happen again but to happen forever. if we can burn books, we can delete data, too. these books didn't burn themselves; it wasn't an accident, or at least not mostly. it was actually something very similar to what we today call "cancel culture". the mullahs were deleting porphyry's account...
pun intended.
so, will they find a schubert symphony one day and, lacking context of where it came from, be forced to call the author pseudo-beethoven?
as stated: this is not a terrible addition to the list.
so, it was early on sunday morning that i was listening to schubert, and i'd like to pretend i spent all week at it, but i mostly spent the week staring at screens, figuring out what the best way to keep the police out of my computer is. the task i'm left to determine is whether this is beethoven lite, or it adds something worthwhile to the process.
i'm kind of left inconclusive, actually. while the piece could certainly be less dynamic, i'm still not convinced that it really does enough to grab me. it's this paradox in the instrumentation - with hundreds of instruments, they surely shouldn't be struggling to fill in the notes, but that's what i've always found so lacking in christian music in the first place, and why beethoven shines where mozart and much of the classical style falls so flat.
if i want to give this symphony high marks for anything, it's the melodicism, but that's a nod to it's simplicity rather than it's complexity, and doesn't help him get out of the beethoven-lite shadow.
i think the most blunt and honest reaction is to point out that, if this is the best thing he ever did (and i know better than to accept the standard opinion. i'll like the obscure one the best. i always do.), it would be something near the bottom of beethoven's output in just about every conceivable way. that's not to slam it, exactly - it's pleasant enough, even if it never gets over that hump. there are certainly moments. it's worth enjoying. but, it is what it is, and what it is is somebody trying very hard to emulate the greatest composer of all time without adding much of their own.
i'm kind of left inconclusive, actually. while the piece could certainly be less dynamic, i'm still not convinced that it really does enough to grab me. it's this paradox in the instrumentation - with hundreds of instruments, they surely shouldn't be struggling to fill in the notes, but that's what i've always found so lacking in christian music in the first place, and why beethoven shines where mozart and much of the classical style falls so flat.
if i want to give this symphony high marks for anything, it's the melodicism, but that's a nod to it's simplicity rather than it's complexity, and doesn't help him get out of the beethoven-lite shadow.
i think the most blunt and honest reaction is to point out that, if this is the best thing he ever did (and i know better than to accept the standard opinion. i'll like the obscure one the best. i always do.), it would be something near the bottom of beethoven's output in just about every conceivable way. that's not to slam it, exactly - it's pleasant enough, even if it never gets over that hump. there are certainly moments. it's worth enjoying. but, it is what it is, and what it is is somebody trying very hard to emulate the greatest composer of all time without adding much of their own.
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