(((shadowplay)))

What are we going to do now?

Here's the thing. I love Against Me! I freely acknowledge that the wondrous noise of Reinventing Axl Rose will forever kick the crap out of Searching for a Former Clarity. I don't think necessarily that their best album (so far) is the one that came out on the smallest label (No Idea), that they had a pretty good album followed by a mediocre one on a larger label (Fat Wreck Chords). I'm doing my best not to fear the next album, coming out on an even larger label (Sire). But I think that Against Me! is going to manage to do what many other bands before them have done.

They're probably going to continue going downhill.

It happens all the time -- the Get Up Kids, the Promise Ring, (arguably) REM (although I'm on the fence on that one), (arguably) Fugazi, etc., etc. For every band like Radiohead, that grows (in their case, from an angsty preteen into a schizophrenic twenty-something) from album to album, there are plenty of bands that just keep getting worse.

Against Me! had a clear, unwavering politicism on their earlier songs that I still find amazing. That's what has gone missing over time. I don't care about slick, I don't care about label, I don't care about any of that junk. The fact is that the closest thing they have to a really political song on the newest album seems to be "From Her Lips to God's Ears (The Energizer)", and on that song they replace the "fuck this world, we're all in this together" message with a knee-jerk reaction to Condoleeza Rice. I still like the song, but it still hasn't managed to weasel its way into my mind the way that "Those Anarcho Punks are Mysterious..." or "We Did it All for Don" have. Heck, I like "Don't Lose Touch", even with its quasi-Creedence guitar work. I just think that "Don't Lose Touch" should be a message from us to the band, not the other way around.

This all came from watching the video for "Energizer" a few minutes ago. I thought that the video for "Don't Lose Touch" was a pretty good one, especially to introduce the world to the band. It's simple, not much of anything to it, but it's okay. "Energizer"'s video doesn't even really correspond with the song, except the visual (this time) knee-jerk Rice reaction. They blew a chance at what could have turned out fairly powerful, all because some animator friend of theirs watched the "Float On" video a couple of times and had some animal masks lying around.

All that said, I still may drive to Cleveland on Friday to see Against Me! play.

posted by Bill @ 10:54 PM 0 comments

Tighten the noose in the back of my mind.

First off, a couple of new items involving Control, the Joy Division movie:

• Someone else actually had the rights to Deborah Curtis's book, Touching from a Distance, but let the option lapse, allowing the current team to start up. Amy Hobby had the rights, and had Moby on board as music supervisor, and they continued working after the option lapsed, but have apparently since decided to can the idea. Interesting.


• Sam Riley, who is playing Ian Curtis in the movie, was the guy who played Mark E. Smith in 24 Hour Party People, and originally tried out for the part of Steven Morris (and he actually looks a little more like Morris than Curtis).


• There are apparently going to be two soundtracks -- one with Joy Division (and I'm assuming the New Order versions) songs, and one made up of covers of Joy Division songs. And here's the thing: "The following bands have reportedly been approached to feature on "Out Of Control" - a CD of cover versions to accompany the film ... U2, Marilyn Manson, Kraftwerk, and Doves. Only Kraftwerk are reported to have said no." Another quote says that "The Smiths" were asked to do a song, and that they had said yes. The Smiths? So Morrissey's going to do "Heart and Soul", and Marr's going to do "Leaders of Men"?


• Apparently portions of the movie are going to essentially be music videos akin to Corbijn's "Atmosphere" video.

In unrelated news, I'm doing a meme. Here was the assignment: "Do a Wikipedia search of your birth date, minus the year; list three interesting events, three people who were born, and three people who died on that day."

Done.

Events:
1859 - Joshua A. Norton declares himself Emperor Norton I of the United States.
1862 - American Civil War: George McClellan halts the northward drive of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army in the Battle of Antietam.
1991 - The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) is released to the Internet.

Births:
1923 - Hank Williams, country singer
1935 - Ken Kesey, author
1985 - Alexander Ovechkin, Russian hockey player (Washington Capitals)

Deaths:
1179 - Hildegard of Bingen, German abbess, mystic writer, and composer
1996 - Spiro Agnew, Vice President of the US
1997 - Red Skelton, American actor and comedian

I was born on the anniversary of the beginning of Emperor Norton's rule!

posted by Bill @ 11:31 AM 1 comments