KILLING IN THE NAME (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE) // ROCK'N'TOYS SESSIONS (THE WACKIDS)
That amazing solo instrument is an Otamatone, and I want one. There seems to be a plethora of YouTube vids of rockers making music with them and at least half the fun is the smile on the little guy's face as they do so.
Thanks to uploader acquiescefc, Jack White's Love Interruption from his debut solo album Blunderbuss, performed with his male backing band The Buzzards - and Alison Mosshart.
Jesse Singal, writing in NY Mag, argues that there is a difference between "old millennials" and "young millennials".
As someone who graduated directly into Thatcher's Britain and consequentially can't stand to be labeled a "Baby Boomer", I feel for him or her.
They argue that there's a split that occurred due to the introduction of the iPhone (2007) and the Great Recession (2008) that caused a major difference in young people's outlooks. I can believe that; it seems more likely that cell-phone availability and job insecurity is a much likelier contributor to cautious vs. risk-taking personality than the arbitrary Arabic numeral group giving your birth cohort.
When It Might Get Loud came out in 2009, I was just getting into Jack White’s music and at the peak of a rediscovered Led Zeppelin fanaticism. I loved the hell out of the idea of the film. Thesis: take three guitarists and examine the role of rock guitar in music, and what drives the players to learn and excel at it – starring Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge.
The premiere was in LA and when I phoned up for tickets, they said there were two premieres. I asked what the difference was, and she didn’t tell me the truth, which is how come I went to the second premiere that didn’t have Jimmy Page and Jack White in attendance. But never mind! I saw it another two or three times in the cinema, and then bought the DVD. I gushed about it several times on my blog, and other bloggers – cooler heads, one might say – did try to tell me it wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t having any of it.
I re-watched it just now. There’s things I still love about it. Jack’s laconic gunslinger outsider shtick, Jimmy’s palpable excitement at listening to Link Wray’s Rumble and his enthusiasm with the other players; Edge’s self-deprecation and brief Wanderer-of-the-Wasteland episode ending when the looming tangle of trees suddenly resolves into perfect rows with clear paths between them; the cows listening to Jack’s Diddly Bow; the slide guitar jam near the end; the White Stripes performing for a room full of puzzled Chelsea Pensioners. And although the three men seem to be mostly there because they were the three who answered the phone, rather than anyone’s idea of a broad selection, they settle into their roles as Jack (heart), Edge (head) and Jimmy (groin).
The cooler heads were right, however. The exercise was flawed in numerous ways. Neither producer Thomas Tull nor director Davis Guggenheim demonstrate an understanding of the guitar nor are they able to pull together a cohesive account of the electric guitar or its place in rock. The narrative used is a three-act drama, which means that at the top of the second act, someone had to have a crisis, reach rock bottom and be forced to develop new strengths to overcome adversity and ultimately triumph. This is a really strange thing to have in the middle of a factual film that is not a biography. It’s shoehorned in by bending poor old self-effacing Edge’s story, having him go into exile to learn songwriting skills. Which he does, but the sought-for emotional catharsis is blunted by its artificiality. As a more concrete example of a flaw, Jimmy’s first electric guitar is labeled onscreen a ‘Stratocaster’ even though it’s a Grazioso, and Jimmy was one of the least likely rock musicians to be seen with a Strat at any point in his career.
More obviously (and loudly) two of the three guitarists refuse to stick with the script. Jack’s first love is the drums, and he’s portrayed as switching to guitar mostly because his upholsterer boss Brian Muldoon already played drums and he wanted to jam. Apart from a fair amount of drumming, the bulk of Jack’s music in the film is thumped out on piano, so Guggenheim must have been overjoyed to get hold of the footage of him bleeding for his art all over a guitar pickguard. Jimmy loves guitars – literally – but spends a lot of time talking about producing music (mostly drum sounds) and plays a lovely mandolin bit. At least he can tell his spooky story about the guitar “intervention” when his first guitar turned up mysteriously in his house just as he became interested in music. Edge sticks to guitar, but his style – very simple riffs compounded into lacy ruffles by echo, delay and other effects – means that the film spends most of its time marveling at his equipment and following his guitar tech around.
The ’summit’, where all three guitarists meet for the first time, with their equipment set up around them, is evidently supposed to be a climax. In the event, all three seem a little shy, and you watch The Edge, ever eager to please, trying to keep the conversation going by asking Jimmy questions but aware that he needs to avoid the minefield of disallowed inquiries that have tripped up many a professional journalist and gotten them yelled at by an irate Page. (He steps in it with the Kinks question, but manages to get out with both feet intact.) They demonstrate one of their famous riffs each, teach it to the others, and then join in on the ultimate song of the movie. It’s… The Weight, that old chestnut, played on acoustic guitars, and there’s nothing about it that you wouldn’t see at any house party where three or more of your friends brought or found an acoustic instrument and downed sufficient beers to have a loose jam.
It’s worth watching, because we care about the people and what they have accomplished, but as a movie, alas, it’s strictly third-tier.
Since the media still loves divide and conquer tactics - as both attacked and attackers will click on the content - Boomers vs. Millennials is one of today's big Let's-You-And-Him-Fight matches. I'm not happy with being shown how to hate on a daily basis, but it is - as the annoying Gen X folks always used to say - what it is.
Just this month I've seen the following headlines:
I found a couple of more recent articles about inter-generational sniping in my bookmarks. Anyone who's amused by the current Millennial/Baby Boomer social media battles might find them familiar.
"The growing public approval of anti-culture is itself, I think, a reflection of the new cult of youth. Bewildered by a rapidly changing society, excessively fearful of becoming out of date, our leaders are increasingly turning to young people as guides and mentors. If youth likes the Bieb, then it must be good, and clever men must rationalize this preference in intellectually respectable language. Indeed, the supreme crime, in politics and culture alike, is not to be “off the hizzle”."
Actually, I changed four words there. The original is from Bill Deedes (b. 1913) throwing shade at the Beatles in 1964. It's a great piece of sniffy fuddy-duddyism. It's worth a glance at the whole thing.
And from a decade later, we get another Bill - this time it's Grundy - tipsily attempting to out-snark Siouxsie Sioux and the Sex Pistols (Rotten, Jones and Matlock) on his TV show in 1976. The show was a disaster for the Pistols, as most of the country weirdly sided with Grundy (b. 1923) and the Pistols subsequently found themselves persona non grata, but at the time it was hilarious.
"GRUNDY: It's what? ROTTEN: Nothing. A rude word. Next question. GRUNDY: No, no, what was the rude word? ROTTEN: Shit. GRUNDY: Was it really? Good heavens, you frighten me to death. ROTTEN: Oh alright, Siegfried... GRUNDY: [Turning to those standing behind the band] What about you girls behind? MATLOCK: He's like yer dad, isn't 'e, this geezer? GRUNDY: Are you, er... MATLOCK: Or your granddad."
The picture was 'obviously' light blue and gold - to me. I assumed the people who saw black and blue were somehow processing the white balance in their heads, which is pretty damned clever. It's as though they weren't seeing what color the picture was, but estimating what color the real dress is and reading it back without realizing that's not what was on the monitor. The real dress is, equally obviously, blue and black.
But apparently, I couldn't have said that, because nobody knew how color perception worked at that time, at least according to this Slate researcher.
Two Years Later, We Finally Know Why People Saw “The Dress” Differently
Remember “the dress”? It disrupted our understanding of color, and, yes, it took science two years to catch up. No one had any idea why some people see “the dress” differently than others—we arguably still don’t fully understand it. It was like discovering a new continent. Two years later we have a much better idea of what may have been a reason for the varied perceptions: People’s perceived color is also informed by their perception of lighting. And the image of the dress, taken on a cellphone, contained a lot of uncertainty in terms of lighting conditions. Was it taken inside or outside? This matters because it implies artificial or natural light. Was the dress illuminated from the front or the back? This matters because if it was back-lit, it would be in a shadow, otherwise not.
I joined http://mastodon.social . If you're my friend here and you want to be included, why not join and follow? I'm LyleHopwood there. :)
It promises to have fewer assholes and more granularity than Twitter, but I'm yet to experience that because I don't have any friends. Luckily there is a timeline that streams everything 'local' so if I want to respond to a stranger's post, I can. (And they can respond to mine.)
I haven't found a button to share these posts to Mastodon yet. It's kinda new.
I sometimes mention a product on this blog, and I give a URL to Amazon or similar sites. Just to reassure you, I don't get paid to advertise anything here and I don't get any money from your clicks. Everything I say here is because I feel like saying it.
