Why I Love Underground Anything

I've been struggling with a long time with the idea that I might be what is collectively known as a "hipster". I don't dress the dress, walk the walk, or speak the jargon but I am definitely a triumphant trumpeter of the unknown and therefore "untainted". And I've been called a hipster for that. And I consider it an insult. Which results in me fighting and arguing and attempting to distinguish myself from a group of people that I consider so ultimately shallow that they are worst than their mainstream counterparts. Because they treat music and art as a commodity and a fashion statement they do more to undermine real musical and artistic statements because that is the most commercial statement that I could possibly imagine.

But I can't bring myself to not be a little disappointed when something I like becomes commercially successful.

And I'm slowly beginning to realize that I'm okay with that. Because it's not that I'm instantly repulsed by something that's popular, and I consider every other person on the planet some kind of knuckle dragging moron. The simple reason is that when something is underground and virtually unknown, it's intensely personal to me. I noticed this first when I thought about video games. For a long time video games weren't really a mainstream thing, at least not good video games that weren't subtitled with the year and had some random idiot jock's face on the cover. And because of that I felt some sort of intimate bond with it. I can recall playing games and listening to their soundtracks and feeling like nobody in the world had experienced it, that this was a direct conversation I was having with the game developer while simultaneously getting lost in the experience. I found myself immersed in a world where honor and chivalry are redeemable qualities and don't just get you bent over a table. I felt the same way about books, pictures, and music.

And then the tide changed. And underground music started to become popular, and video games started to break societal prejudices and gain mainstream standing. And I couldn't help but feel a little bit put out. It was as though my best friend had suddenly started spending a bunch of time with people I knew nothing about and couldn't relate with, because unlike small underground communities who had played all of the same games, or listened to all the same music, or read all the same books as you had, these people weren't rife with shared experiences. It hurt, a lot too. Because all of a sudden that conversation you'd had with the artist who'd created a piece that you'd love was being drowned out by a whole bunch of voices that were trying to have the same conversation and all of a sudden you were forced to face the undeniable evidence that you weren't the only person in the world having this experience, there were literally thousands (in some cases millions) of others who had just as profound an experience with it that you did and that you weren't special and you didn't understand whatever it was on some deep intimate level, that you were just another person who came across some art and consumed it like everyone else.

And it sucked.

I Don't Know, I'm Bad With Names

The lethargy of nights is a frequent if not constant companion throughout my life. Everything is coated in an ultra-cool sheen of the rabble rousers and general rebellious folk, and stinks of the youth. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to revel in it. If I were to be honest with myself I could fathom a few reasons among the level headed and too quickly grown among us but it makes me no less tow headed that all my favorite (and many necessary) services have a hard five o clock deadline. And there is a certain conceit about the darkness that allows the more playful facets of human nature manifest themselves in otherwise perfectly docile creatures in the daylight. It's a philosophical but subconscious reasoning that is too abstract for anyone to take too seriously when they're not sitting around joking with friends and trying a bit too hard not to appear a studied intellectual. "No I was graced with natural insight, I was a very advanced child." But it's almost too obvious to even begin to talk about because it takes into account such a weirdly grotesque side of the guy who sits next to you on the subway, that if it weren't for the eyes watching him oh the things he would do. I guess that's why things get so very social at night times too. People flock to their kind in concert halls and dimly lit bars and stop pretending to be who they "really" are and just be for a few hours at a time with a person they keep at an arm's length from their safe and future lifestyle and enjoy the company of someone as specifically fucked in the skull as they are. Naturally they enjoy themselves more. And when the morning comes I can shed my skin and stop indulging myself. Because it's not, an awakening, of the suppressed individual that shows up on Avenue A in punk combat boots at 2 in the morning. It's masturbation. I flaunt my self important individuality at the subculture, the downtrodden few and therefore must be righteous because I don't wear suits and ties and no one calls me sir or ma'am and I've never watched a morning talk show, so please EXPERIENCE ME. That's why they enjoy night time in the Big City.

So have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.  

Radiohead Announces New Album: King of Limbs

Drugs: Great For Music; Bad For Music's Wallet

I know that this post is a long time coming but I really wanted to plan out what I was going to say here. Drugs are often inextricably linked to music, almost all of the greatest artists at one point or another did drugs, often time to great detriment. Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Bonzo, Keith Moon, and countless other artists lost their lives to drugs and music has mourned their losses. But despite the risks associated with drug use, drugs are essential to ensuring the purity of the medium.

Artist(s) You May Not Know: I Blame Coco and The Chapel Club

Firstly, let's get a bit of an apology out of the way. I left a lull in my posts and that was something that I promised I wouldn't do. So let me make that up to my followers. Here are two bands you may not know:

The SuperBowl Halftime Show: Preferable to Rape?

Pictured Above: The Black Eyed Peas
Not Pictured: Talent

 

Well boys and girls, I, like many of you tuned in to watch the Super Bowl. And like any similar minded people I dreaded the half time show. If only The Who could play again. But no, instead we got the Black Eyed Peas. And with that, allow me to review this "performance".

Collaboration of Genius Minds

If you don't know who the two men mentioned in the above video's title are then you are in the wrong place and the Beiber blogs are Pr0b@bly WhErEd Ud B M0r3 @ h0m3. But if you've got any musical acumen then please, read on past the jump.