Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Everything has been done

Dead disco, dead punk, dead rock n roll

Code Poetix tagged us to list seven songs we are listening to for the spring. Well, usually LI just don’t do the meme thingy, for the same reason that, in the first grade, we had such trouble learning the hokey pokey – an exaggerated sense of our own ridiculousness in certain social situations. But this seems like fun. And a good link excuse!

1. Ysa Ferrer’s To bi or not to bi Throughout her career, Ysa has shown a strong desire to dress in sexy costumes and be physically lofted by lithe but muscular men. Well, don’t we all? In the plus column, too, there is her often expressed desire to literally become a Manga character. I am pretty confident that to bi or not to bi will be in the clubs this summer, although perhaps more the clubs in Moscow than NYC.
2. Britney Spears Piece of Me. The news that Britney Spears is “not fit” to take over her estate – which, of course, I read via my handy Google Britney Spears news alert – makes me wonder whether Brit isn’t playing some deep game, here, mimicking a conformity that, in her heart, she surely doesn’t feel. The old Britney would certainly have run off with her beach chair beau without a thought in the world, but the new one has to make her way through a Machiavellian forest of other people’s strategies – much like Beatrice Cenci.
O white innocence,
That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide
Thine awful and serenest countenance
From those who know thee not!
3. Santogold L.E.S. artistes. LI is not going to lie. We are in love, painfully, humiliatingly in love with Santi White. The whole gestalt, lock stock and barrel, from her carefully chosen look – the great psychodelic designs of her pants, the dyed, unequally cut hair, those beautiful hands - to the impassive flygirls, some retroreference to a mashup between the Soul on Ice universe and Barbarella. There is no song we don’t like.
4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Deanna. LI would have to fold up if we didn’t have Nick Cave to accompany our frequent jags of pointlessness. And then, there’s this song, the title of which coincides with a certain current crush. About which, LI will not be jinxing the issue by many more personal revelations on this blog. You make personal revelations, you live to regret them.
5. Dhoom Machele by Tata Young. Everybody loves Bollywood line dancing. LI does too! Just try to resist it.
6. Weepers Circus Ma dame aux camellias. Têtes raides is having an excellent influence on French music at the moment. There’s a return to a sound that evokes the Moroccan decored boite de nuit in Hollywood, 1937, backed by a wastrel old Goa to Katmandu 60s rock beat. It is cool to me that this is the opposite of Ysa Ferrer’s sound, and yet both are so cabaret.

At the end of this exercise, I am supposed to tag others. Well, I would love to hear the summer music lists of my web compañeros: the WerePoet, Northhanger, Chabert, Mr. Praxis, Amie, Mr. Lumpenprofessoriat. Among others.

Na na na na na na na na na na na na

14 comments:

northanger said...

your list is my list!

Roger Gathmann said...

North - I never knew you were a Dhoom Dhoom fan!

We need a list for the coming Obamanation. I'm working on it.

julie said...

Hello! I'm sorry I don't know you but I've just read your list, and I'm glad to find a song from this band I like : WEEPERS CIRCUS! Ma dame aux camélias is a wondefull song!
A part from britney spears, I don't know the artists and song you've mentionned. So I'm wondering where are you from?

Roger Gathmann said...

Julie, you mean, where am I from musically? Which is more interesting than geographically. Musically, I'm from the nineties grunge deal-y - I was the lyric writing part of a New Mexican band that never became the next L7, much to the disappointment of Melanie (the guitarist) and me.

If you like Weepers Circus, you must like Tetes Raides. I'm sorta interested in the primitifs du futur sound in France at the moment. My intuition tells me that the next big thing in pop is going to be cabaret - taking the sawdust circus sound, with an arabesque twist - some zurna, for instance, thrown in. Which is cool!

Ah, but my intuitions are invariably wrong, though.

julie said...

Yeah right, it's much more interresting! I also know Têtes Raides, but I not fan... Do you know Olivia Ruiz? Dionysos? Aldebert? Debout sur le zinc? These are fantastic french artists!
I think you're intuition is good! Or at least I really wish so!!

So you were a lyric writer. That's cool! I try to write some poems and stuff. I wish I could write songs, but I don't know any instrument... I'm just starting to practise my mum's guitar, but it's hard to learn by myself!

You seem to be from the south of the USA, and so I'm wondering how did you manage to hear Têtes Raides or Weepers circus...?

Roger Gathmann said...

Debout sur le zinc is a great example of adapting these middle eastern rhythms to a more traditional street sound.

I'm a fan of French music - hey, you know, it is the YouTube world - you don't have to listen to English english english all the time, anymore. Is that chouette or what?

Roger Gathmann said...

Oh, and we need a link. Here's cunnilingus mon amour.

Dominic said...

Numerous marvels of which I was not formerly cognizant - thanks, LI! I only wish I hadn't heard Cave's Deanna before, so that I could be introduced to its awesomeness all over again...

julie said...

You've choosen the good song! I suppose you know what the tittle means! lol!
I'm soo stupid sometimes!! You tube! What a wonderfull thing!! Technologie could be a great thing sometimes! And yes, this is very "chouette"! ;)

I promise I won't "poluer" your blog anymore with all my comments!

lots of love from France.
Julie

Roger Gathmann said...

Julie, can one pollute a hodgepodge? And I liked your comments! although we do disagree about tetes raides.

And... praxis has put up a list . What I like about this meme is that it involves people listing music I've never listened to. Which, from my point of view, is great. I miss the days when people would compile songs on tapes and give them to each other. Although I guess the equivalent is ipod list swapping, which I don't know about, not having an ipod.

Anonymous said...

LI, ah, damn, I've been "away" for a while and am still trying to catch up with your incredible recent posts and so don't quite know how to do this music meme. And it's hard to come up with stuff to compare with your links. And Mr.Praxis. That "music of the spheres" from Werkmeister Harmonies which has "haunted" me for years. Where does one go from "there"? Besides, you already have Santogold and Nick Cave!

1)nouvelle vague: in a manner of speaking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vn0PvvS1zs&feature=related

2)pj harvey/thom yorke: this mess we're in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM9a4FXpT44

3)mylène farmer (I was tempted to repost my earlier links to her on LI, but here is another one called Sans contrefaçon)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZhdKCo8Ogo

4)mozart(action musicale) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i40i2fOUnmA&feature=related

5)têtes raides: expulsez-moi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBOq12Bgydw

6)rimbaud (voyelle) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPIKQiyEMb0&feature=related

7)monteverdi: lamento della ninfa

Amie

Anonymous said...

oops, the monteverdi link didn't go through. here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGBR3G58xuw

Amie

Roger Gathmann said...

Wow! I just saw the Decroix recitation of Voyelles. Thanks, Amie - le voyou style, as it should be done.

Roger Gathmann said...

IT has put up her list here I love the Russian choice, Tatu. I've noticed a disturbing tendency among these lists to go for English language songs exclusively. This is odd, to me. Don't we all live in cosmocopratopia?

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