The Moogyblog

I am quite in a better mood than I was all weekend. Not the least of the source of my temporary vexation was a $260 delinquent debt I owed to MCI Worldcom, via a collection agency. I paid. I do hope this is the last I will ever hear from either of them.

Also contributing was a sudden wave of noncreativity combined with insecurity about my own musicianship. This after I saw a terrific mutimedia show at the Wexner Center called the Avant Garage--five silent comedies from the '20s accompanied by five Ohio bands from the '00s. After the last set, featuring music by locals Silencio, I found myself wondering how the hell I was ever gonna rise to that stellar level. They were damn good. So were the opening act, The Volta Sound from Cleveland--they had a Velvet Underground thing going to the max. Buster Keaton never sounded so hip.

My attempts to play guitar after I got home were pretty frustrating. I was tired. I was in a lousy mood. I went and spent the night at my parents' house.

I had a good long talk with my mom. One of the things that came out of this strainer-clearing was that one of my chronic problems is a strong tendency to compare myself with others (always unfavorably) and to feel that I'm competing for talent and respect and with others (always unsuccessfully). This, again, is what my brother and sister-in-law would call unhealthy behavior for a 29-year-old.

Maybe it's just that I really wanted to be back at work and productive, which I was on Monday morning. The day seemed a whole lot brighter. Other than feeling like shit yesterday morning and going to work 2 hours late, this has been an okay week so far.

I do feel really tired now, tho. But I have a busy next few days. No time for being a slacker!

Twiggy & Frollywog have their first gig at a pool hall on October 24th (it'll take a few more practices before I feel really comfortable referring to the band as "we"; I've only rehearsed with them one time, you know...). I'm guessing it will be great to be on stage in front of an audience again, although I am pretty nervous about being up there on lead guitar. I'm used to being in the backline where no one can see me...this should be interesting. Wish me luck. And wish my other older brother a happy birthday.

On the Floorian front, the Vegetable Man 10-Inch Project is supposedly in print as we speak, which includes our 10-second rendition of Syd Barrett's classic "Vegetable Man." The 10-inch vinyl mini-LP will include 59 other covers of the same song. All exactly 10 seconds long. And all completely different. Rumor has it that the disc is one-sided, even. It is from Italy.

Last week I wrote a parody of uberrockers Stereolab in the form of a music-magazine short news article. I then audaciously sent it straight to the band itself, via their manager Martin Pike at Duophonic Records. Sample of my MADcap humour: lead singer Laetitia "Seaya" Sadier became "Seeya Somdier." (geddit?) Pikey wrote me back Monday. He seemed amused. I was relieved...I'd been expecting my favorite band to email back, if at all, with a terse "With fans like you, who needs hecklers? Bugger off, yank." Instead Martin compared my absurd scribe to an NME review, and if that wasn't enough he said he'd forward it to the band itself. Ooh. Aah. The thought of my words in Laetitia's eyes makes me numb with giddiness. Of course, she may find the idea of being the subject of a parody repulsive. Peurile. And ignorant. "L'Bouffants Des Marxistes" indeed!

Off I go...

Billy S.

Ugh. Why can't I say what's on my mind without worrying that someone is going to think I'm a total schmuck?

It occurred to me on my way home from the office that some of the feminists in the crowd will immediately conclude that I am a hateful male chauvinist bigot for picking on Michelle Branch the way I did. Notice how many times in my rant I unconsciously used the word "little." Ha!, I hear them sneering. You can't bear the concept of a strong, intelligent female figure, especially one who is rich and famous, can you? You feel really small now, don't you, pig?

For the most part I'm referring to age, not sex. I'm 29. Michelle is 18 or 19. Her fans seem to be in the 15-17 range. To my eyes they're little, as in little kids.

You can't win, can you? If you have an unpopular opinion.

That's one of the big things that was bugging me about the Michelle scene on the web. One thing I noticed was that there was NO dissent, no discourse. Everybody seems to think she's perfect. Totally great. And on the one anti-Michelle Yahoo! group, the fans had invaded and were shouting up a belligerent storm, telling the dissidents to fuck themselves yr all loozers and Michelle rocks and all that. Shouting down the opposition. I didn't feel like putting up with that shit. I never like it when there's no difference of opinion.

And I'm an inveterate iconoclast anyway. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, you know. I'm very anti-elitist, anti-superstar, and I always get pleasure from seeing the mighty and powerful get it where it hurts.

If being a dissident makes me a loser, then hell yes, I'm a 100% putrid buck-tooth loser, and I carry that like a badge of honor.

But I'm no male chauvinist. Perhaps not a radical feminist either, but I do tend to side with the feminists on most issues. And I do like some female singer-songwriters. You wouldn't exactly call Liz Phair a safe, compliant girl pop-singer, would you? She kicks ass. I dig some of Tori Amos's stuff, cuz she's a MUSICIAN. A REAL musician. Very very talented. I'm not really a fan of Ani DiFranco--and I don't really get into radical feminist polemics in general, it's necessary to an extent but not my cup of tea--but I heartily respect her DIY, fuck-the-system ethic. Maybe I would like her music if I knew where to borrow it from.

Those are the kind of female musicians I respect. The ones who you'll never hear on the lite rock--mainstream pop hits station.

One more observation: I'm a sensitive, angst-ridden artistic type who generally uses things like music and writing and art as a safety valve for my tormented teapot of a soul. You would think that artists like Alanis and Michelle would be right up my alley. Kindred spirits, you know? So why do I dislike them and their open-diary records so much? An interesting question to be answered at length as I continue to map my interior.

All right, now that I've apologized, you may continue on to read, with righteous horror and disgust, what I'm apologizing for.

toodle-oo!

Billy S.

Today's post is about Michelle Branch.

I must be one insecure little boy. I shouldn't be, seeing as how I'm in two bands now and both seem to think that I'm not too bad at what I do, but judging from my need to join the anti-Michelle Branch Yahoo! group and to shoot off a long rant about why I don't like her...well, do those little adoring fans of hers maybe perhaps have a point when they tell us heretics that we suck?

I feel awful about posting it. It was such a pathetic little weak squirt. But I still stand by it.

I've done the same thing in the past with Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morisette, and Green Day. Even with Kurt Cobain at the height of Nirvana's popularity spurt. I hated hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" every half hour on the local alternative rock station. I thought he was some mass-produced media rebel, a self-absorbed poseur. Turned out he was the real thing after all, in spite of the machine's attempts to turn him into a...well, a mass-produced media rebel.

There are certain artists who just get my goat. They give me heartburn. They make my hemorrhoids flare up and my blood boil when I hear their songs on the radio and catch glimpses of them play-acting and posturing in those music videos that they show simultaneously on all the TVs on display at Target. A wall covered with Avrils. Makes me want some Advils.

So what's bugging me? A nagging fear that I'm not really as good a musician as I think I am? Jealousy? That whole class thing? Or is it just that I have a really bad relationship with hype?

Hmm. Interesting question.

Yeah, what's with this infantile need to lash out at a girl who's not yet old enough to drink, who everyone in God's fucking earth fawns over as if she deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for her songs? I don't even know most of her songs. Just that one they keep playing on the radio whenever I'm within earshot. And that one with Carlos Santana.

Okay. You little Michelle worshipers are right. I'm very definitely a loser of the first caliber. I'm jealous of people who make lots and lots of money and who everyone knows and loves. Especially if they're real young, like I'm not. I hate the music industry. I hate the PR machine. I hate hype. I'm 29 and male. I've got a serious self-confidence crisis. I often wonder if "if you want to/I can save you" really is more profound than anything my feeble mind can come up with. No, wait, that's going too far. I'm at least as intelligent as her, dammit. And I don't sing like an Alanis wannabe in the tenth grade talent show. Plus I kick ass on guitar.

Ah yes, that old infantile egotism of mine kicks back in. Did I ever tell you that back in grade school I used to berate my classmates because they liked Michael Jackson? Patriotism isn't the last refuge of a scoundrel...self-aggrandizement is.

"You need a fuckin' army to take me! Who the fuck you think you fuckin' with, mang? I'm Tony Montana! You fuck with me, you fuckin' with de best! I'm still standing, eh! Go 'head, I take your fuckin' bullets!" --from Scarface

I do wish I could just shut Michelle and Avril and the rest out of my head and get on with doing my own music without distraction. But you can't get away from it. Everywhere you go, you have people--someone, who knows who?--telling you that [x] is the hottest thing going outside of BW3 wild wings, that anyone who's anyone should be listening to [x], that [x] is a certified genius and that we think that she's so important that we think you, who are unimportant, should be watching her brand new video. Just click here. I've been describing Michelle's new video and its link on Yahoo!'s front page. Elsewhere on Yahoo!, a banner ad cycles through Avril's disgusting little snarly face every five seconds or so, trying to get me to buy Hot Posters.

Hot Poseurs. Ha! I made a funny!

I'd have epileptic fits if I had Avril staring me down in bed every night.

Thank God pop music consumption is not compulsory.

Wait a minute.

Something just occurred to me.

Radio.

TV.

The press. Especially the hip music press.

Everywhere.

Every music artist I ever hated with a vengeance had one thing in common. And it wasn't that they were females under the age of 21.

It's that they were everywhere.

You couldn't scratch your navel without seeing their 'pitcher on the cover of the Rolling Stone, or go to your favorite comfort food hangout or supermarket without hearing their Big Hit on the muzak.

Take away the hype, take away the ramming down your throat and the glorification and deification, and the multimillion dollar deals and shit, and who would Michelle Branch be? Just a nondescript girl noodling teenage-girl poetry in her diary in her suburban bedroom. She might be a passable guitar player. She's an okay singer, I guess--her voice is her biggest asset IMO, at least when she's not aping Alanis. She does fairly well on that Santana track.

I don't know who introduced Michelle to the record industry, but someone obviously figured that she could possibly sell a lot of "entertainment product" if she were marketed right. The real person and the real talent--or lack thereof--isn't the point. Neither is the music itself. It's the image, stupid. They likely figured that she was just enough like a certain type of high school age girl to be assimilable...that is, the kids in the audience could identify with and admire her...and maybe fantasize about being her up there on MTV. You know? They play up the story about how two years ago she was a nobody who couldn't tell a G string from a g-string, and now she's a superstar. Very compelling stuff to a teenager. It's called "building a mystique." It's a time-tested marketing tactic in the entertainment industry. Basically it's manufacturing a mythic, heroic persona around a celebrity. A singer becomes a hero. Literally. It's all bogus.

"God, if only I could play guitar, and if someone would notice me, then maybe I could be a big famous singer like Michelle. But since I can't, I ought to support her, because she's one of us who made it, and you gotta support your friends, so you go girl!"

I can understand that mentality. The record biz vultures exploit it like a mother. They know that her music might not be all that special and that her lyrics are on par with your average $20-a-night coffee house folkie. But they play up her image. The play it up BIG. And they tell you over and over again how profound and spiritual her lyrics are, what a visionary young prodigy she is, how Wise Beyond Her Years (tm) she is, and so on. But she's really just an average girl just like you, who juust happened to make it because she was juust a little more enterprising than you. And she photographs really well to boot.

The implicit message in all the hype is that SHE IS VERY IMPORTANT. Much more important than you. All you are good for is worshiping at her feet. And buying her product. So buy. Or be, like, totally last week.

The crux of the biscuit is that it's not Michelle Branch I hate. Or her music, although I don't think it's anything particularly special. It's Michelle Branch The Media Creation that I hate. And I hate the PR machine. And I loathe her mindless fans.

I loathe the mindset that points an invisible accusing finger and tells me--me, Billy S., a musician--that I am nobody compared to someone who's got what it takes (whatever that is), who has "made it." Like Michelle Branch. I know that I'm a good musician who can write pretty good songs when I put my mind to it, some of which I'm quite proud of. I know I've had plenty of hard knocks in my life, and they often make their way into my songs and art and writing. But I don't matter. Michelle matters. Or at least the make-believe Michelle matters.

That agressive marginalization and condescention of the rank and file by the entertainment elite is what I hate with a biblical passion. Not Michelle Branch.

But you can't separate the real person from that bubble-like Reality Distortion Field that surrounds her. There's no fucking way. They make sure of it.

I wonder what Michelle Branch, the real person, not the one in interviews, thinks of herself, and her music, and the people she's surrounded herself with, and her fans. And mostly, about the rest of us, the left-behinds of the not-so-great society, to paraphrase Zappa. It's hard to tell. For all I know she might be the friendliest, most down-to-earth person imaginable, who thinks all this pop idolatry and media overkill are totally retarded. She may look at the maelstrom surrounding her and truthfully wonder, "why does everyone think I'm such a big deal? I just sing."

On the other hand, she is playing the game like a pro, and I don't hear her complaining.

I will get to the bottom of this. Stay tuned.

This has been a demonstration of the theory of Cognitive Dissonance in action. Thank you.

Unsettling. That was the word I was looking for, for the effect that Twilight Zone with Mickey Rooney had on me, or at least those thirty seconds that I spent thirty minutes writing about yesterday. Also a correction: "Nothing In The Dark," the episode with Gladys Cooper and Robert Redford, is a third season episode. So there goes my theory about the fifth season. Doh.

Another very quick update: I am now officially a member of two bands. Floorian you probably already know about. Spacey. Kinda dark. You know. The new one is called Twiggy & Frolliwog. They're maybe 15-20 degrees off of Floorian's starboard bow, so to speak. Kinda indie-poppish stuff. I'm gonna contribute lead guitar. Billy's happy.

More later.

I was over at my brother's house last night, primarily because I really didn't have anything going on this time, but partially to shut him up for a few days because he has this habit of trying to call me two or three times a day--sometimes more--attempting to get me to go "hang out," which usually translates to standing around in his garage or in the addition he's building or wherever his latest self-imposed DIY project is, offer a hand, and sometimes actually take over because he can't figure out how to do the stuff he's taken it upon himself to heroically do himself and fuck the sleazebag mechanics/contractors. "Hey Bill, why dontcha take a look at this Haynes manual and see if you can figure out how to overhaul this tranny." Sure. I usually do, too! But it'd be a lot easier to find one late '80s Subaru that runs well and stick with it. What the hell do you need five spare Subaru carburetors for? What, in fact, do you need five spare Subarus for? Anyway, I can confidently say that I'm a veritable jackass of all trades thanks to my brother's dogged insistence on getting me to help or completely do stuff he ends up being often incompetent at. Vinyl siding? Bring it on. Engine work or body work? A cinch. Wiring up anything from a car stereo to the mains in a house? Been there, done that. A lot of it is what is referred to in the business as "common sense."

As opposed to enthusiastically plowing into a project without thinking it through, or coming up with an exit strategy; and when things get stuck, either obstinately keep spinning your wheels or, if all else fails, you can always attack it with a hacksaw or a hammer in hopes that something will give, or just simply to punish that one rusted bolt for not unscrewing. And in the process of taking out your frustration on inanimate metal, breaking the entire brake system, having to sheepishly try to limp to the corner gas station and have a sleazeball mechanic do it, which is what you should have done in the first place.

My brother's DIY home improvement/auto repair/etc project policy is uncannily similar to George W. Bush's foreign policy, now that I think about it. However, John hates Bush. So do I. Hooray for our side!

I usually end up not minding it once I'm there, and our conversations are usually fun to get into, but of course like any self-respecting slacker I'd rather be sleeping, or websurfing. Usually it's like pulling teeth to get me to go over.

So anyway, I did decide to stop over last night after work. As expected I ended up helping out on the addition, but not before I rode out to Lowe's with him for a couple of boards. I also got to hang out a little with my fireplug of a cute little neice, which is always a high point of any visit to my bro's house. She's taking drama lessons and soccer and before she was in ballet and Tae Kwon Do. I should feel depressed that I got to do none of that when I was her age, but I already ranted at length about that before and concluded that there's nothing to be gained from that. In fact I am proud of my neice. And I'm gonna do everything I can to help her be not only the smartest and most talented and eclectic (did I mention cutest?) kid at her school, but also the fuck-youest independent little girl in the whole 'burb. My brother and his family are far from rich. Their house, which sits directly across from a circular open park like a keystone because it was the first house in the area, is considered to be in the poor part their borough. The upper-middle-class version of the 'hood. His next door neighbor has an Acura or something. And a Ford Expedition. By their neighborhood's standards, that's po' white trash.

Anyway, he lured me to stick around past when I wanted to head out--8:30 or so--with two things: free food (an oven-cooked Philly steak sandwich) and a stack of Twilight Zone DVDs he'd just bought. Well hell, a Philly steak sandwich couldn't take more than 20 minutes, right? So I figured I'd just sorta flip through the DVDs and view some highlights of episodes I hadn't seen since I was a little tiny kid, and just bask in the exellent image quality that DVDs made from high-quality network vault prints offered. I'd only ever seen the Twilight Zone in late-night reruns on local TV, in grainy 16mm. With The Giant V Of Death at the end. The old Viacom logo, I mean.

I was especially interested in seeing a 1960 episode, "The Lateness Of The Hour" with Inger Stevens and John Hoyt, because it was one of the infamous videotape episodes, and being a fan of vintage recording technology I wanted to experience a 43-year-old videotape recording. Chalk one up to the engineers at Ampex for getting their new invention right the first time. Aside from the bouffant hairdos, the mid-century stage accents (that curious blend of American and British you hear absolutely everybody speaking in old movies), and the absence of color, the thing looked like it could have been taped yesterday. Yesterday. Inger Stevens has been dead, from a barbiturate overdose, since before I was born. Yet here she was, dimples, lovely bare shoulders and all, devoid of the distancing effect of film grain and optical soundtracks. You could practically smell her perm and her perfume through the speaker grille. I think John Hoyt is passed away as well. It was like watching a live TV show starring ghosts. The overall look reminded me of soaps like The Young And The Restless, which incidentally is also taped at CBS Television City. Perhaps on the same soundstage. But I bet the video recorders they use now aren't the size of refrigerators.

One thing struck me about The Twilight Zone coming back to it after all these years. I like the earlier ones better. They seem more entertainingly, gleefully bizarre. The later ones have an overbearing, melodramatic seriousness about them, a sense of finality or something that makes me want to cry sometimes. Check out the one where obstinately living old lady Gladys Cooper admits injured cop Robert Redford into her decrepit tenement which is about to be demolished in an hour or two. He turns out to be the long feared Mr. Death, and with a light touch of his hand and that patented Redford Toothy Grin, a suddenly relieved and animated Gladys notices her own dead body on the stinky old mattress in this rotted room that in two hours will be a pile of bricks and plaster shards and broken glass and twisted pipes. They leave, lights fade out. Thus the long lives of an old lady and of an old building both end--their passing unheralded, unnoticed, uncared for, and horribly lonely--not with a bang but with a whimper, er, whisper, as Redford would say--on a gray, snowy morning as plaintive violin music swells. Billy feels terrible. Or the one where the real-life fourth most decorated WWII serviceman verbally spars with Mr. Sulu--er, Arthur, Takamuri, or believe it or not sometimes even Mr. Takamuri--in an attic full of junk. Both of these guys end up dying, for no really good reason. Plaintive Japanese style music swells up ever so slightly on the scene of this final, pathetic battle of a war long past. Banzai! Billy feels terrible.

The last season, especially, seems to have one trademark that I haven't noticed in earlier ones: a kind of creepy grotesqueness in the denouement (sp?) of certain episodes that makes me feel icky all over. Really icky. You know you're in for it when you see an optical zoom and something weird on the soundtrack. Take "The Last Night Of A Jockey." Here's a potentially funny situation: Mickey Rooney as a foul-mouthed, boozing, corrupt, pint-sized loser who just wants to be big. You know, big. And boy, does he ever get his wish. "I'm gonna ride again" he happily addresses the camera directly. Lightning flash. His conscience (Mickey Rooney again, well-spoken this time and decked out in a natty suit) starts giggling in delight. Cut to side angle--"What's so funny" he fumes. Optical zoom out. Now, keep in mind he's already gotten his wish to be like 6 or 7 feet tall, so we've already gotten used to the slightly miniature set. But as we zoom out (optically, as I stress, which has a bizarre, grainy sort of look compared to a "real" lens zoom) we see an even more miniaturized set. 5-foot runt Rooney towers up to the ceiling like a giant. "I'm too big! I'm too big!!" as a somber, droning, pulsing music cue swells up like an amplified heartbeat arranged for small orchestra in a minor key. Ickiness sets in with a vengeance as Rooney goes absolutely nuts and demolishes his apartment, yanking open the tiny closet door and flipping out handkerchief-sized garments, picking up toy-like prop furniture and tossing them around the room (including a dresser which is quite obviously a hollow, open-backed box). All the while he's punctuating each toss or blow by bellowing "I'm too big!" again and again, in league with that sickeningly obstinate minor-key music. Glass shatters. Boom! Now this could have been a hilarious scene. You'd think so, right? But no. This is one of those cases where the bad propwork and sets and stuff look more real than real, and more than CGI or bluescreen ever could. (You see this phenomenon at work in a lot of old horror and sci-fi movies, by the way.) Even really chintzy special effects, combined with just the right music, just makes you feel ill with revulsion. Suspension of disbelief...cognitive dissonace...something. Whatever. It doesn't look like Mickey Rooney, former child star, future spokesperson for TCBY Yogurt, destroying a miniature set filled with toy furniture. It looks like something unspeakably grotesque. Ol' Mickey's orgy of destruction is a lot more effective--genuinely frightening!--than it has any right to be. I felt really really icky. Damn director Joseph Newman for scaring me like a six-year-old!

It's like that episode of The Six Million Dollar Man where Steve Austin battles the leisure-suited andriod--excuse me, robot--and rips his face-mask off, revealing a yawning hole filled with electronic circuitry. This is a schtick The Twilight Zone used all the way back in its first season, by the way...and a nightmarish presence in my mind going all the way back to infancy when I first encountered bleeping-blooping fake humans on TV, grinning limp man-marionettes on album covers, and mean-sounding, mechanical female voices on the telephone when I'd play with the dial. Pure infantile terror. I still haven't rid my system of it.

Oh my goodness, I'm getting the creeps now thinking about it. I hope I can keep my lunch down when I go eat in an hour.

Anyway: that Philly steak sandwich was in fact the Alpha and the Omega of yumminess. I didn't get back home until 1am, then I websurfed until almost 3am. I was here at the office at 8:30am. Coffee. Yawn.

I still need to tell you about the second band I sorta auditioned for on Monday evening, but I'll wait till later. Must get some work done.

Billy S.

I was mpegging my Stereolab CD collection yesterday (or trying to, anyway, my CD-ROM drive wasn't cooperating) when I ran across one of their earlier tracks, "Pack Yr Romantic Mind." For those not in the know, it's a little slice of melancholy '60s-style French pop on their second proper album from 1993.

Anyhow, something in me wanted to shed a tear or two. Dunno why, specifically. I think it may have brought to mind poor Mary Hansen, the groop's longtime second vocalist (the "la-la-la" girl), who as you may know lost her life last December when a schmuck in a truck ran her over while she was biking in London. Why "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" brought her to mind is unclear...this was only the first 'Lab album Mary was involved with, and I'm not sure she's even on this particular song (it sounds more like Laetitia overdubbed the "duddy-duddy-dum, de-dum-de-dum-etc." backing under her own lead vocal) but regardless it put me in a very mournful mood all of a sudden. Mary seemed like such a sweet girl, you know?

Just had to get that off my chest. Okay, back to work.

Billy S.

No posts in probably a week, huh? Ah, it sucks. Been busy. And zonked out. But there has been some interesting stuff going on.

Let's see...I fixed the plug on my Farfisa Compact Duo electronic organ this past week or two or so, I think. I played with it all week. Then last night I took the guts of the thing out of its case so I could get at the electronics, in hopes of fixing the remaining problem--really low volume. I did fix a few dead keys while I was at it. A few of the little plastic rods that connect the keys with the electronics were loose.When I do, it's gonna rock. Listen to early Pink Floyd and Stereolab to hear the glorious Compact Duo in action.

I went with my bandmates to see Mogwai at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland Saturday night. Talk about MIND BLOWING. The MC was seriously weird though, like one of those obnoxious kids from grade school who inserts himself into a group of people who clearly aren't interested in his presence and keeps trying to hijack the conversation. I'll tell you about his bizarre effort to wind up the show next time...

I will be meeting up with a possible new, second band tonight. It was supposed to be yesterday but there was some confusion and it was a washout. I shall let yall know how that experiment in music-making goes.

That's it for now, more later...

Billy S.