Indie without the baggage: The Shins and Vampire Weekend

The Shins have been around in the indie circles for a few years, sending shivers down the spines of the serious-minded, and barely registering on the radar of those who believe that music which is not on the charts isn’t music at all. Many fans who were turned onto ‘New Slang’ by Garden State and Natalie Portman predicted a revival of shoe-gaze, but realized after they bought their 2001 album, Oh Inverted World, that slotting The Shins was no easy game. There was some Beach Boys there, some Bubblegum Pop, and to balance things out, an overlooked but consistent post-punk sensibility. Johnny Mercer sounds a lot like Pete Townshend, in that he sings like the air has been squeezed out of him (except, ironically, on ‘New Slang’, which is rendered in a beautiful offhand undertone). One thing everyone agreed on – they had a pre-natural grasp for melody, and a tendency to underplay things, qualities which as a combination had been missing from the music scene for a few decades.

Their follow-up album, Chutes Too Narrow, capitalized on these strengths, but also pushed the band’s sound in new directions with the startling loud-soft dynamics of ‘Kissing the lipless’ and the frantic rush of ‘Fighting in a sack’. But it was their third release, Wincing The Night Away, that truly showcased their willingness to experiment. Sandwiched between illegally sweet melodies were the spooky, rusted ‘Black Wave’, ‘Pam Berry’ and ‘Split Needles’, sounding like the aural equivalent of the tension that had always been lurking in their lyrics. Remarkably, they made all of it sound like a logical extension, instead of a departure from their normal sound.

However, if I had to pick a band can distract me from my Shins-worship, it would be Vampire Weekend. Sunny, utterly original and as smooth flowing as a stream, their sound was immediately (and correctly) compared to Paul Simon circa Graceland. But it hardly sounds derivative, you’d have to hear the actual songs to understand why this band has a sound all of its own. The lyrics are less crabby than those of the Shins, and have about an equal chance of being dismissed as bollocks. But their sound - the Afro Pop influenced singing, the clear beautiful lead guitar tone uncluttered by any extra rhythm - is the real triumph. Emphatically not ‘world music’, this Soweto via Manhattan vibe may be the most refreshing sound to hit the music scene in a long time.

(For more on Vampire Weekend, read Penfold, the first off the blocks when it comes to the indie scene)

Day for Night: Truffaut and the Truth

Pauline Kael, in her review of the film, called it “a movie for the movie-struck”. If that is true, then it would go some way in explaining why I liked it so much, where Truffaut’s much-venerated classic Jules et Jim left me somewhat cold. Day for Night is a film about the making of a film, a doomed, overheated piece called Meet Pamela, which is what seems to have riled up Kael in the first place. She misses the point. The fact that Ferrand, the director (played by Truffaut) actually believes that they are creating a small piece of art, enough to re-do a scene after adjusting the face of the leading lady by a few milimetres, makes it a movie about the alchemy of the movie-making process, irrespective of the end product.

There are moments that one can expect only from Truffaut. There is a dream sequence that unfolds in parts and in the end reveals a boy stealing publicity stills of Citizen Kane. Truffaut once said of that movie that it was the one that launched the maximum number of directors on their careers. Then what does he mean by this scene? Is Truffaut saying that the character he is playing is a hack, and in effect, distancing himself from him? Or does he perhaps feel a kinship with him and his troubled dreams about his inability to match up to a film like Kane? Is it a reminder of the fact that the New Wave was primarily founded on the work done by Hollywood directors like Welles, Hawks and Ford – suggesting that they are all, in a way, guilty of theft?

There is one more scene, much talked-about, which sticks in one’s mind. The young lead has to shoot his father in the movie. It is a scene rooted in artifice. The actor playing the father has died, so they have a stand-in. It is shot with artificial snow, the effect created by industrial foam. The director barks instructions at the extras as the scene is being shot, reminding us at every step that it is not ‘real’. Finally, with the thrilling background music rising to a crescendo, we see the man being shot, many times, from different angles. The scene could serve as a lesson in editing; it could also be a meditation on the nature of truth. When you get down to it, no movie is real. Realistic they can be, or based on real events. But the minute you have a plan, a script, a person shouting “Cut”, you are imitating life. The audience knows this and doesn’t care- what they are looking for in movies is not realism, but instead that one transcendental moment. Truffaut’s major achievement is that, after watching this movie, many would agree that he has a sure grasp on both reality and magic.

Part I: Every office has a quiet guy

On the way back, he replayed the conversation in his mind. He remembered every pencil fumble. Memory was the least of his problems.

“Ah yes. Come in. Come in. How are you?”
“Fine sir”
“Good. I hardly see you now days.”
He smiled, but kept silent. He generally preferred to remain that way until someone asked him a question.
“I wanted to speak to you for some time now…” the boss continued “…but something or the other kept coming in the way. You know how it is here…”
“Yes sir” he said. He did know how it was there, in fact, and it affected him a lot more than people realised. He wondered what was making the man who had single-handedly founded the office they all worked in some thirty years ago so nervous.
“So anyway…here we are now…”
“Yes”
“You joined two years ago, isn't it?”
“Two and a half sir”
“Right. Right. So, how are you finding things now days?”
“Good Sir, fine. Lots of business coming in…” he started, but saw the silver-streaked head before him shaking and stopped.
“Not like that. I meant how are things with you today, after this much time with the company”
He knew what to say. Anyone who had done an MBA knew what to say. “I feel much more involved today sir. I think I’m beginning to understand my job and my role in the organization a lot better now”
The Living Legend tapped his pencil and looked worried. “That’s good. Though to be honest I was expecting you to say something else …if you do have any problems you can tell me, you know…”
“What sort of problems?”
“Anything. We are completely open door. If there’s anything about your work that’s troubling you…or the office…”
“I love my work here”
“Are you sure? Don’t you find it difficult to have to talk to so many new people? Every day. With your condition…”

Sometimes he remained silent even when someone had asked him a question. This was one of those moments.

“Its nothing to be ashamed of…”
“I know”
He knew that. Sort of.

After a long uncomfortable silence, the boss asked him a series of questions. Had he thought about his future? Was he interested in pursuing other lines of work (because they could help him, get him started off, put him in touch with the right people)? Did he see himself doing this job in five years? Did he sometimes feel his talents lay elsewhere (not that he was not good at this, he was, but its all about human potential, isn’t it)?

'The eloquent young pilgrims pass, and leave behind their trail, imploring us not to fail'

He finally understood. He thought of asking if his Team Leader had complained. But he knew she wouldn’t have. She didn’t mind him. Neither did the others, though he knew he made them uncomfortable. He remembered his first week. So many people had come up and asked him if he was always this silent that he decided that would be his identity from then on.
Lord Silens.
Monsieur Silencieux.
El Silencioso.

Every office has a quiet guy.

And now, for the racist in us...

Morally charged, conflicted and complex, Lester Bangs at his best...

http://timeghost.net/stuff/bangs/white-noise-supremacists.html

Can you explain a bird?

One could argue that the lyrics below mean nothing. One could also argue that it doesn't matter. 'Piper' by Phish. Lovely stuff, hear it if you haven't...

'Piper, Piper the red red worm

Awoke last night to the sound of the storm

The words are the words I sailed upon'

Ekta Kapoor, you should be ashamed of yourself

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080052498&ch=6/9/2008%2011:59:00%20PM

Rocky roads to Dublin

One, two, three, four five,
Hunt the hare and turn her
Down the rocky road
And all the way to Dublin,
Whack-fol-lol-de-ra

The rocky road to Dublin is a 19th century Irish song about leaving home, ogling at girls in foreign lands and getting into fights that one can’t win. This renders its appeal timeless, and nearly every Irish music group worth their salt has taken a crack at it, albeit in wildly varying styles.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – Gaelic Storm
This was the first version of the song I heard, and the closest, one would have to assume, to the original Emerald Isle version. Gaelic Storm, whom some would remember as the band on The Titanic, is a traditional Irish band, in that they play music which is pure Irish, and not Irish Pop, or Irish Rock. Their version is taken at a fair clip, straightforward vocal, some nice violins, but nothing else to distract from the song itself.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – The Dropkick Murphys
Obliterates the Gaelic Storm version from one’s mind – this is the perfect storm. Like most DKM songs, it is the musical equivalent of a mob running towards you throwing bricks. While this lessens the chances of sneaking a violin in there somewhere, its just about perfect for the last paragraph, where the home-sick traveler gets picked on by the boys of Liverpool. The way the singer shouts “I could no longer stand it” leaves you in no doubt that he feels deeply about the situation, and it is this clenched-fist intensity that makes this version, for me at least, the most accurate and heartfelt of the three.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – The Chieftains and The Rolling Stones
The Chieftains have been bringing Irish music to the masses for decades now, as well as coming out with brilliant collaborative albums with country and rock musicians. The Rolling Stones have been singing about every form of excess, as well as indulging in them for decades now. Their version starts off carefully (Paddy Moloney sings, not Jagger) and slower than the other two. Somewhere after the second paragraph, however, a grinding guitar enters, and delicacy is abandoned for the rest of the song. Things get weirder and weirder – Watts forgets that he’s not playing a Stones song and starts thudding about, the two guitars continue to grind, and Jagger, finding nothing to do apparently gets up to dance (you can hear him tapping around in the background). The song ends with an extended instrumental jam, which reminded me of Van Morrison’s theory that the blues derived from Ireland, not Africa (a theory that has roughly the same standing in the musical world as the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis has in Biology). Whatever it is, it sounds dark and jagged and melodious, like drinking a pint of beer with a bar fight going on in the background.