Random Music Talk CXXI: Not this time, Crappy

[LemonMelon]

Art is art and largely exists outside of its creator (there are rare examples where fiction and reality collide to upsetting degrees and it's difficult to reconcile), but my money goes toward artists I want to support. If I don't feel an artist is worthy of my monetary support because of their actions, I just don't support them. I'm a huge fan of Polanski's work, but I wouldn't pay money to see a Polanski film at this point.

If I ever want to listen to Brand New again (not a fan anyway), I'll just download the album. I don't even want them getting my streaming revenue.

 

[Kieran McConville]

See, that's more or less what I was getting at. You might very well not want to give Polanski the benefit of your hard earned, but there's nothing to stop you checking a DVD of Rosemary's Baby out of the city library. Or, I dunno, picking it up for a buck at some neighbour's garage sale. Or whatever.

Same with novelists. There were a couple of high profile cases in the last decade or two of American science fiction authors who turned out to be pretty personally unpleasant characters (politically more so than for having committed any crime); but the counter could be, has been, that some books are wiser than the people who wrote them. Some art is better than the people who made it.

 

[Kieran McConville]

And of course it's not always to do with rape or sexual misconduct; I'm aware that some people to this day will not forget David Bowie giving a Nazi salute. It'll come up in every internet comment thread about the man. But we don't pretend his work wasn't great work. Mostly we don't pretend that.

 

[lazarus]

I think people are more concerned about Bowie sleeping with underage groupies than they are about some ill-considered theatrics from the late 70s.

 

[Axver]

And of course it's not always to do with rape or sexual misconduct; I'm aware that some people to this day will not forget David Bowie giving a Nazi salute. It'll come up in every internet comment thread about the man. But we don't pretend his work wasn't great work. Mostly we don't pretend that.

To be honest I'm not sure I knew about this.

But the whole "how serious were Joy Division about Nazi imagery?" thing hasn't stopped me from being a big fan of their music.

 

[LemonMelon]

I think people are more concerned about Bowie sleeping with underage groupies than they are about some ill-considered theatrics from the late 70s.

I think fans try to overlook that as much as possible.

Personally, I like to think he grew up in the ensuing 40 years and came to disgust his actions during that period of his life. He did not speak kindly of the Station to Station era or his nazi fascination of the time.

 

[nielsgov]

I was just getting into Brand New actually. The Devil and God Are Raging inside of Me is a really good album.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I think people are more concerned about Bowie sleeping with underage groupies than they are about some ill-considered theatrics from the late 70s.

Both get talked about, but true, that's an often voiced concern. And probably he did grow up in the intervening decades, like we'll ever know (barring some tell all expose).

 

[u2popmofo]

I've been listening to a lot of the early Smashing Pumpkins albums recently after watching Billy Corgan on the JRE Podcast last week. I seem to always forget how good Siamese Dream is.

 

[IWasBored]

Goddamn.

I've been a casual listener of Brand New and particularly enjoy some of The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - "Millstone" is a classic - but I've never been a more of a fan than that. I recall skipping out on a tour because I couldn't be bothered going to the southside to see them play the Palais or Prince or somewhere else in Shithole Kilda.

I've been fortunate so far, most of my favourites are still alive and haven't done anything too distasteful. There's the recent Crystal Castles situation; I love that Alice Glass now feels confident enough to denounce Ethan Kath in public. And obviously some of the black metal musicians are pretty undesirable, but even then it's not as if Burzum is my favourite black metal artist or anything. Definitely in the extreme metal community you sometimes take the music and reject the musicians.

But oh god if something comes out about, I don't know, Neil Finn or Martin Phillipps or Neige or something, I'm going to be pretty upset.

I always wondered what metal people did with Burzum, if they separated whatshisface’s church burning, murdering, literal nazi self from the music or write it off as 100% not okay. People try to do that with Skrewdriver where they’re like “I only like the first album,” but they’re usually still called out as racist for even slightly being okay with anything that shithead ever did. I always assumed it was more because the general public hears “skinhead” and equates it with neo nazi, and those of the non nazi variety are a lot quicker to want to separate themselves from the scumbags who co-opted their subculture. That’s always the approach I’ve taken. Sure it sucks when entire 2 day festival-type show get cancelled cos someone goes and books fucking Condemned 84 again. It’s still better than being seen as sympathizing with nazis though.


I’m glad that I never liked Brand New, but several years ago Blood for Blood did not get back together after one of the guys in the band got drunk and tried to rape a 12 year old. The other guys in the band threw him out and nailed the final coffin in the band ever truly getting back together (and won’t even release the last batch of songs they’d recorded before that happened), the guy who wrote all the songs doesn’t even say his name when he’s talks about BFB in his podcast. I have no problem continuing to listen to the old albums knowing that he didn’t write the music (and if he could, Rob Lind would edit the other guy off all the old songs) and that the other guys were done with him with no if’s, ands, but’s, or chance for a wishy washy bullshit appology.

 

[corianderstem]

The groupie thing re Bowie is interesting. It's fucked-up, but .... I hate to try and justify anything, but a) it really was a different time; but mostly b) the woman in question said that she really didn't see it as something bad that happened to her, and that if I recall correctly, he was very respectful and when she said she wasn't up for it the first time they got together, it was cool.

I think it's important to hear what the person who may be considered a victim has to say in these situations. Contrast this story with Polanski, where she told him to stop and he didn't, despite it being "a different time." I mean, fuck that guy. (I understand that she'd prefer the legal situation just be dropped at this point, she'd like to move on, and I respect that enough to not care if he's allowed to come back to the US or whatever, but still, fuck that guy for raping her.)

In general, bands sleeping with very young groupies is super gross. But with this specific Bowie story? Gray area. Maybe he fucked young groupies on a regular basis, in which case, ew. But this is the only story that gets brought up (that I've heard, anyway). I'm sure there were others.

 

[lazarus]

You can basically accuse every classic rock band of the same thing, I imagine. Including the Beatles when they were in Germany.

 

[corianderstem]

Oh, totally.

 

[martha]

And how old was Priscilla when she started "dating" Elvis?


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Elvis Presley or Elvis the guy who used to run this message board?

 

[corianderstem]

lol

 

[martha]

The one that ate America.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[LemonMelon]

Elvis Presley or Elvis the guy who used to run this message board?

White trash?

The Memphis Flash?

Would have been a sissy without Johnny Cash?

That one.

 

[Axver]

I always wondered what metal people did with Burzum, if they separated whatshisface’s church burning, murdering, literal nazi self from the music or write it off as 100% not okay. People try to do that with Skrewdriver where they’re like “I only like the first album,” but they’re usually still called out as racist for even slightly being okay with anything that shithead ever did. I always assumed it was more because the general public hears “skinhead” and equates it with neo nazi, and those of the non nazi variety are a lot quicker to want to separate themselves from the scumbags who co-opted their subculture. That’s always the approach I’ve taken. Sure it sucks when entire 2 day festival-type show get cancelled cos someone goes and books fucking Condemned 84 again. It’s still better than being seen as sympathizing with nazis though.

In the various extreme metal communities, the line tends to be based more on lyrical content and visual aesthetic. Like, Varg is a Nazi fuckwit who murdered his Mayhem bandmate Euronymous, but Burzum's music is not about Nazi themes. None of the lyrics and imagery are political at all. Most black metal fans despise Varg but rate Burzum's third and fourth albums highly; we wouldn't have atmospheric black metal as a genre without Burzum. On the other hand, there are bands that have lyrics or symbolism that is explicitly Nazi - it's even a sub-genre of sorts, National Socialist Black Metal - and those I absolutely will not listen to. NSBM fans get heaps of shit and it's very much a corner of the genre that's disowned by most of the black metal community. Anybody who tries to spruik an NSBM band or argue they're not serious or "not that Nazi" is going to get howled down.

To be honest I suspect a few favourites of possibly holding rather unpalatable political views (though not quite Nazism, thank fuck). If John Haughm of Agalloch is one of those right-wing pagan types I wouldn't be shocked. I even worry about Neige from Alcest - I can perhaps look past his teenage work with the far-right band Peste Noire because he was so young and got fired by the ideologue whose band it is. But as an adult he was part of Old Silver Key with the members of Drudkh, whose music I like but about whom there are rumours of far-right nationalist views. So I've always hoped Neige doesn't have latent far-right sympathies. Nothing I know of him from meeting him a few times or reading plenty of interviews has ever suggested anything untoward, but the associations raise my eyebrows a little.

 

[HeartlandGirl]

I've been torn up about the Brand New news. I just finally got into them in 2015, and there's a lot I like about their newest album. But I feel guilty listening to it now.

 

[Axver]

So there's a new Sleigh Bells EP.

It's actually probably the best thing they've done since Reign of Terror.

 

[Joey788]

It’s really great. Rainmaker is an early standout for me.

 

[Hewson]

RIP Malcolm Young.

 

[gump]

Damn this new Charlotte Gainsbourg is hot. I didn't expect anything that could match IRM, but Rest may be better.

 

[cobl04]

RIP Malcolm Young.

Very sad.

 

[the tourist]

I'm amazed at guys like Kevin Parker who can write, records, mix, and produce their own material. To be so close to the material makes it... just complex and a lot of gray areas. And then you just hope you're not mastering it too loud. But you probably are.

 

[LemonMelon]

I need to listen to some AC/DC tomorrow. Malcolm was one of the great rhythm guitarists.

 

[LemonMelon]

I'm amazed at guys like Kevin Parker who can write, records, mix, and produce their own material. To be so close to the material makes it... just complex and a lot of gray areas. And then you just hope you're not mastering it too loud. But you probably are.

Kevin Parker rules, yeah.

I have a lot of respect for multi-instrumentalists who produce much of their own work. Obviously there are genius jack-of-all-trades like Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Prince, but it was actually Beck (who mostly produced just his earliest material) and Todd Rundgren who really inspired my own recording process. I don't know where I would be without Mellow Gold or Something/Anything? as an illustration of what a person could do with a recording studio. Those albums make recording rock music sound like the greatest job in the world.

 

[the tourist]

If I had more money than time, I would definitely be giving this to someone else to mix and master. Unfortunately since it will probably be heard by less than 100 people, I can't justify the money. Just the time. Which isn't without its own cost - sleep; for my toddler will still be up at 7:30.

 

[cobl04]

You only need one AC/DC album. Really, you only need one AC/DC song. Everything they've ever released is exactly the same. But what they did, they did really bloody well.