Sex And Drugs

On Saturday I watched Traffic (Odeon, Tottenham Court Road. Gotta love the 5 pound student concession), and later, Sex: The Annabel Chong Story on Channel Four. Two films with much fodder for moralizing/philosophizing/taking the piss, and I have to say that I engaged in all of the above.

As films go, both were absorbing, but for very different reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed Traffic, It took the hugely complex mess that is the war on drugs, and chose key elements within it on which to focus. It had a number of messages, but didn’t club you over the head with them. It had unlikely heroes, and unlikely villains, who eventually came across as believable and multi-dimensional, the way real people are. It had moments of genuine hilarity, and genuine pathos. It was easy enough to follow, but not predictable. It was gripping, thought-provoking, and genuinely entertaining, if you take the word in its broad sense. I came out of the cinema and was amazed that two and a half hours had passed so quickly. I think the most important thing about “issue” movies for me is that I don’t want to be condescended to or clubbed over the head, and I don’t want emotional rhetoric to obscure the hard facts. A guilty movie that comes to mind is Philadelphia. Traffic, however, didn’t strike me as falling prey to such weaknesses. Well worth my 5 pounds.

Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is a movie of particular interest to Singaporeans, given that we’re a country used to being famous for having the best port and airport in the world, or being one of the freest economies, but aren’t really used to having the world’s best gangbanger.

The movie tells you particular things about a)pornography, b)Singapore and c)Annabel Chong.

a) I hadn’t seen that much porn before watching this movie, but my primary reaction to what I saw wasn’t moral outrage or disgust but incomprehension as to why men find it arousing. Gisele Bundchen nekkid and seductive: understandably arousing. Annabel Chong nekkid and trying to be seductive: repulsive. The woman is hideously ugly. I don’t even understand how any of the 251 men could get it up to fuck her. The same goes for men. To me, Ralph Fiennes: sex on legs. Ron Jeremy: an advertisement for chastity on legs, and disgusting fat legs at that.

b) It’s annoying how I have to keep telling people this. I don’t feel oppressed in Singapore. I’m not brainwashed. I’ve lived in the “liberal democracy” of the UK for a year, and I love it. I’ll go home to Singapore in two years, and live happily there as well. Annabel Chong feels oppressed by Singapore society. I’d suggest that anyone who has willingly fucked 251 men in 10 hours is likely to feel oppressed in most societies.

c) I felt some pity, some disgust and not much respect for her. Pity because of the obvious unhappiness she goes through in the course of the film. Disgust at her pseudo-intellectualization of everything she does. If she’d said she’d done 251 men in 10 hours because she liked sex (or pain), or wanted the money, or wanted to set a world record, I’d say fair enough. Saying she did it as a feminist statement, and that it was a noble and empowering act for womankind, is ridiculous, and I’m pretty sure most of womankind would rather she empower us by putting her obviously capable intellect to work instead of her equally obviously capable cunt.

I don’t usually use the words I’ve used above, but the politer alternatives seemed inappropriate. Porn is about fucking, not sex; cunts and pussies, not vaginas. Sure, it has its place in a secular capitalist society, but I don’t think it should be made out to be anything more than what it is. It isn’t intellectual. It isn’t noble. It’s just something certain consumers are willing to pay for, and certain people are willing to produce. And the Invisible Fist does the rest.

The NME Thing: Mansun/King Adora/Sunna/Mull Historical Society (Astoria, London)

I knew I had to do the NME thing at some point during my time in Britain. Tonight I went to a Mansun/King Adora/Sunna/Mull Historical Society gig at the Astoria with Matt, Alec and Nina. As I’ve said before here, it wasn’t the first gig I’d choose to go to out of all available, but Matt wanted to go, and I figured I might as well go since I’d have company.

We got there during Mull Historical Society’s set. I can’t say I was distressed at having missed any of it. I suppose a charitable music journalist could call their lack of packaging, stage presence or sound quality refreshing in this age of manufactured musicality, but I was underwhelmed. Of course, if they become the next Radiohead, I’ll have to delete this post hurriedly and drop smug little references into conversations about how I watched them when they were unknown and knew they were going to make it big, but somehow I’m not too worried about that happening.

The second act, Sunna, was definitely an improvement. Sure, they didn’t sound like much more than a rather derivative heavy rock/lite metal Bush/Metallica/Pearl Jam amalgam, but they had catchy enough riffs, showmanship, and at least some level of variation in their songs. They had the Metallica ballad, the White Zombie-esque dancey metally track, the Pearl Jam’s Spin The Black Circle stylie thrash, and other appropriately dark toned, minor keyed extended jams, all involving lots of flashing lights and people risking whiplash. All good fun.

King Adora. Hmm. I didn’t realize how many of their songs I actually knew until I heard them perform. I was generally distracted during their set by the antics of a group of what looked like 14 year olds who were obviously huge fans. One had orange King Adora bumper stickers stuck across his face. At the end he ripped them off in a swift and manly gesture and waved them ecstatically in the air. Ten seconds later, one hand came down from its aerial worship and surreptitiously checked an eyebrow. Ouch.

The main feeling I had at the end of Mansun’s gig was frustration. This is a band whose first album I thoroughly enjoyed, whose second album I thought showed a significant evolution of sound, and whose third and most recent album I felt to be profoundly uninspired and so tediously Mansunesque it sounded like a Mansun tribute band.

Live, The Chad Who Loved Me, Taxloss, Blown It/Special and Wide Open Space (all from Attack Of The Grey Lantern and Six) were immensely satisfying, and Paul Draper can definitely sing live. But ultimately, these performances just showed up the mediocrity of the new material even more. I Can Only Disappoint You was as boring live as it is on the album. They tried to give Electric Man some resonance by washing the band in warm yellow light during the chorus (“Bring your sunshine to me, oh, electric man”) but if the music doesn’t move me, clever lighting won’t change that.

Other musings:

Is there some unwritten requirement that when you go to a gig, if you don’t have a T-shirt of a band performing, you have to wear another one with some other band in the “scene” on it?

Do indie boys really think that disgusting haircut (and I use the terminology loosely) looks good? Only Beck looks cool with it, boys. And that’s actually just because he’s Beck. It’s still a dumb haircut even on his dear little genius head.

Mama Was A Rock’N’Roll Band

Today, I did not read chapter 8 of Law and Economics, Cooter and Ulen, 1997. I did, however, read this Magnetic Fields blissout at Tangents, which made for much better reading.

He talks about having tears in his eyes during Papa Was A Rodeo, while people around him were laughing, and my heart goes out to him. Sure, there’s some sort of humour in that the lyrics read by themselves could come across as incredibly hokey and country-western-cliched, but actually listening to the song just changes everything. You feel the dead-end desperation of nowhere towns. You see the swath of road illuminated by the headlights of a truck, beyond which all is darkness, but you know the road just goes on and on. You squint a little at the sickly yellow light of a roadside diner, and rub your fingers against each other, thinking you can feel menu grease on them. And then the song ends, and you open your eyes, and you’re sitting in your room, and you just really really love the Magnetic Fields.

I borrowed Screamadelica and Pixies At The BBC from Nick, and Matt has lent me Little Kix in preparation for the Mansun concert we’re going to this Thursday. The loans from Nick were stuff I’d always meant to listen to but never really got round to getting my hands on. I’ve listened to each one once since Sunday, but don’t have defined feelings about them yet except that they’re definitely worth listening to again. The Mansun album sounds like, well, Mansun. Similar to the first two albums with none of what made them interesting. This is why I sort of lost interest in them after hearing the new singles on the radio last year. Oh, well. The reasons I’m going to the concert on Thursday are, firstly, that I thought it’d be good to see a really Britishy type band live here, just for the sake of it, and secondly, that my growing resignation about my grim prospects of watching bands I really want to see made me jump at the chance to see a band I didn’t really mind since I would at least have company to go with. I’ve written about this before, and it doesn’t sound any less pathetic the second time, so I’ll stop there.

Fearful Symmetry

CD-Wow has The Roots Come Alive and Ladysmith Black Mambazo: The Warner Brothers Collection for £6.99 each and free delivery. Hmmm. Should I snap these up because they’re cheap, or hold out for better albums by the artists like Things Fall Apart for The Roots and something from Ladysmith’s Nascente label days instead? I can hear a little voice in my head and it whispers prudence.

I wanted to listen to Maxinquaye last night, but remembered that it’s been on loan to Gareth since the beginning of this academic year. Note to self: nag. I also really wanted to listen to Loveless but I forgot to bring it back with me when I returned here after summer at home in Singapore. Note to self: MUPPET.

I really want to write something about this post at Entropy, but I don’t have the time right now. So often, when I’m reading this blog, it feels as if its author Jared has reached into my head, found the most fundamental things by which I define and understand myself, and written them down far more compellingly than I am able to. The scary thing is that he’s writing it about himself, and doesn’t know I exist.

The inevitable cliches about how the Internet brings the people of the world together and how you suddenly discover some wondrous synergy between yourself and someone you have never met thousands of miles away come to mind. But I’ve been on the Net since 1994, have spent more hours surfing the Web than I dare to compute, and have never seen any site with content that speaks to me quite like his. Something even scarier is that much of his “about me” page would sum me up perfectly.

It’s somewhat weird. A little depressing, in a way. Hmmm.

Generation Surrenderist

My mother once walked into my room while Heather Angel (last track, Sonic Youth’s A Thousand Leaves) was playing. Her comment on Kim’s vocals was in a similar vein to the comments she makes about most of the music I listen to. She said, “This sounds like the ramblings of an autistic.” I know these are politically correct times but while listening to the first couple of minutes of the track earlier I couldn’t help thinking that she did have a point. Oh dear. I feel I have betrayed My Generation.

The penalty for agreeing with parental criticism of music I like will surely be swift and severe. Perhaps I will be made subject to a fetid and formulaic morass of sound, blasted from all directions wherever I go. Everywhere I go, members of My Generation will respond with looks of incredulous disbelief when I scream for release from this “music” that they love and perpetuate through their dollar votes. Death will be no escape from this; when they see that my rebellion persists, they will incarcerate me; my captors will call me Winston and tell me it is not easy to be sane. Eventually something will break. I will be released into the world again, to spend my days sitting in McDonalds with a gaping smile as the latest Matchbox 20/Stereophonics (adapt as needed for US/UK readers) hit blares.

Perhaps this will happen.

Or perhaps I’m just channelling George Orwell because he’s more fun than The Economics Of Contract And Tort Law.

My Name Is Michelle And I’m A CDaholic

Russ thinks my CD buying is an addiction. He might be right. Bricolage (Amon Tobin), How It Feels To Be Something On (Sunny Day Real Estate) and Mag Earwhig! (Guided By Voices) arrived this week. I also ordered Whiteout (Boss Hog) and The Sophtware Slump (Grandaddy). All from Django. But see, they’re all really cheap, relatively. I’ve been waiting to get the first three for *ages*, and I’ve only just got them now, because they’ve always been too expensive at special import prices. So it just happens to be that expenditure I’ve always intended on incurring is suddenly being incurred all at once, but I’m buying all of them at used CD prices, so they’re really much cheaper. I can stop any time I want. Really.

Really.

(other random music notes to self)
Current gig-related frustration:
The Magnetic Fields are on tonight at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. I only found out this morning. It’s sold out now. Argh. Argh. Argh. I must keep track of these things.

Upcoming gigs worth thinking about:
– Grandaddy 7 Feb at The Forum
– Goldfrapp 22 Feb at ULU (3 minutes away from home. I love living in central London.)
– My Vitriol 1 March at ULU (even more so if Marten can get us on the guest list again)
– Low 22 March at Shepherd’s Bush Empire
– All Tomorrow’s Parties some time in April somewhere out of London. It looks very promising. I didn’t go last year and had to listen to Sonic Youth’s weird set on the radio instead.
– Asian Dub Foundation, apparently some time in April at the Barbican.
– All Tomorrow’s Parties at UCLA, October 19-21. Curated by Sonic Youth. I need say no more. I am *seriously* contemplating a hop across the ocean, although it may well be wishful thinking for reasons I’ll outline below.

Probable future gig-related frustration:
– Almost none of my friends even know any of these bands exist, let alone like them, Marten, Jeremy and Jason being exceptions. I watched the Smashing Pumpkins, Built To Spill and Flaming Lips alone, but that’s because I’ve resigned myself to my plight.
– I actually have to study, unfortunately.
– I’m a poor student who already spends too much on music as it is.

The Necessary Nose Ring

Last night saw the continuation of the To All The Albums I’ve Loved Before saga. The work that received sporadic bursts of attention and inattention was a seminar on reservation of title clauses.

It never fails to astound me how no matter how much you seem to be trying to cram into your head at any one time, there remains an immense and unbelievably complex metropolis of the rest of it that you have yet to navigate. People have written 800 page tomes just on reservation of title clauses. I spend a term reading Crime And Punishment, ten minutes a day, and at the end of it there are thousands more great works of literature to read. I have been a classically trained musician since the age of 5 and there remain thousands of composers and their works that I have yet to appreciate. Will my mind ever stop boggling?

So last night’s playlist was chosen much in the same way as the night before, with much of the same effect i.e. not much work done, because I kept having to stop what I was doing and listen to exceptionally good bits. Or exceptionally good songs. Or exceptionally good song sequences. You’re probably beginning to realize my problem…

Wowee Zowee (Pavement): I should probably say that every Pavement album I own has been my favourite at one point or another (yes, even Brighten The Corners), but last night I was in the mood for catchiness, so that meant this one was it. Business Idea Which Will Never Succeed But Would Be Really Cool If It Could: Pavement karaoke. I mean it. Just imagine a room full of people going “Whenever, whenever, whenever, when-ne-ne-ne-ne…” or “Graaaaaaaaaave architecture…” I think it’d be fun. :)

Ben Folds Five (Ben Folds Five): I lost track of them a bit after The Unauthorised Biography Of Reinhold Messner disappointed me hugely, so I don’t really know what’s going on with them now, but this album is still rollickingly great. My two highlights have always been the piano intro to Philosophy and the chorus of Alice Childress, but Underground and Julianne are immensely entertaining as well.

After these two I realized that listening to albums to which I knew almost all the lyrics was a bad idea while trying to write notes. “Hand me my nose ring” and “the necessary fiduciary relationship existed to enable use of the equitable tracing process” do not mix well in the brain. I only just managed to stop myself from writing “the necessary nose ring“.

Room Time

I have reached a strange sort of equilibrium between frustration with myself for being unable to keep to an orthodox sleep pattern and frustration with myself for being unable to commit enough time and discipline to studying.

This weekend, such an equilibrium involved me spending most of Saturday and Sunday daytimes asleep, and most of Saturday and Sunday nights doing work. Although I didn’t quite plan any of this, in hindsight it avoids the multiple distractions of the day and has me wide awake at times where there’s nothing much more to do than study.

After sleeping at 5 am on Saturday morning, I then woke up at 3 in the afternoon, which rather shocked me, but then forced myself to work from 10 pm to around 4 am, after which I did some website fiddling till breakfast at 9. I went to bed at noon, after mass, not to awaken till 9 pm. After dinner I came back up here and managed a reasonable amount of work again.

There are, however, problems to living this way. First of all, it’s decidedly antisocial, given that while the rest of the world is out and about I’m semi-comatose in my room. Today at around 1 pm I blearily opened the door to a knock from John, asking if I wanted to join everyone for soccer and picnicking in the park. I had to say no.

The second problem is that removing myself from the distractions of the world still doesn’t tackle the myriad distractions in my little room. While ploughing through the Roman law principles surrounding mixing of property, I decided that it was all getting a bit too masochistic and put on Daydream Nation. This usually means that for the first four tracks at the very least I am incapable of doing anything other than lying down with my eyes closed and experiencing intense aural bliss. This incapacitation continued in varying degrees over the next couple of hours, when I decided to revisit some of my old favourites just so they’d know they’re still loved even with my recent CD sprees.

Some random thoughts, which are not meant to be profound musical commentaries, because it’s 5 in the morning:

On Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth): ‘Cross The Breeze is such a trip. I regularly attempt to decide what my favourite Sonic Youth song is, and I regularly fail, but this often features prominently in the pointlessness. Love the song, love the album, love the band.

On Dog Man Star (Suede): It’s probably not particularly hip to like Suede these days, and I’m not really sure if it ever was, and I know this album has been criticized for being ridiculously overdramatic, and I know lots of Real Suede Fans prefer their first, and even more Real Suede Fans say the B-sides are the best, but I’ve listened to all the albums and most of the B-sides, and I still like this one best. I like every song on it except The Wild Ones and This Hollywood Life. LOVE Heroine, The Asphalt World and Still Life. So there.

On In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel): I’d actually forgotten about this one for a while, because Marten lent me On Avery Island and I’ve been listening to that, but after Jeremy raved about it the other day, I started hearing the songs in my head and made a mental note to give it another spin. Sounds even better in real life than in my head. Maybe I’ll dream about two headed boys and kings of carrot flowers tonight. :)

Okay. It’s 5.04 am. Think I’ll put my last choice for the night on, switch the lights off and snuggle in. Hmmm. Blue Lines, or an Ella compilation?

Restraint, In A Fashion

Yesterday, I finally managed some restraint. Let me begin by explaining that I’d headed to Oxford Street to return an item of clothing at H & M, but got there too late after a number of, er, distractions, on the way. So rather than waste the journey, I went into HMV, since it was still open.

The sale was surprisingly good, with lots of albums that I’d have bought if I didn’t already own them. After walking around a bit, I found Boss Hog’s Whiteout (9.99), Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump (9.99), Kruder & Dorfmeister’s The K & D Sessions (10.99), Craig Armstrong’s The Space Between Us (6.99) and an indie rock compilation with various interesting people on it (4.99).

BUT!! I only ended up buying the Craig Armstrong, and I’ve even decided to return that, because it’s not good enough to own. I figured I can either wait till I get Boss Hog and Grandaddy on Django, or wait until I get back to Singapore and get them at affordable prices from Borders. And I’ll borrow the K & D off Nick. Voila! Money saved, to spend frivolously another day. :P

Buy Two, Return Three = Not Bankrupt Yet!

I just made Django richer yet again.

Guided By Voices: Mag Earwhig (used, $8.99)
Sunny Day Real Estate: How It Feels To Be Something On (used, $8.99)

I’m thinking of returning some of the CDs I bought from Impulse the other day. I wasn’t too fond of Tortoise’s TNT or William Orbit’s Pieces In A Modern Style. I’m aware that not liking TNT is a bit of a sin in some circles, but I found it a little too cold and clinical, and the instrumentation flat. I’ll listen to it again before making a final decision, but more out of respect for the City Slang maestros than anything else. As for the William Orbit, call me a curmudgeon, but I liked the original versions of the pieces better than his versions. I’ll also probably return Best Of Ella & Louie, because I realized that the songs I like best are the ones I already have.

Music read of the day: Pitchfork interviewed Amon Tobin.