Category Archives: Knee Jerk

Feline Longevity

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Falling in love with an adorable kitten we are amused until it soon grows to be an adolescent nuisance. Likewise, there are bands that, in their time decades ago, seemed relevant and were briefly the focus of universal attention. They may have been genuinely talented and creative, but their moment passed and the adoration moved on to another infatuation. I’ll come up with a few examples in a minute, but I want to continue the idea of the living, furry creature with a full lifespan. Long, long after we may have forgotten about the kitten and moved on, the maturing feline continues making a living being a cat. Continue reading →

Turkey Buffet

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Netlflix online streaming is great for swiftly pulling up a long list of movies to watch, but I can flip through the list of suggestions for so long, with no interest, that I get bored, give up and do something else. First world problem, I know. I start out thinking there’s got to be some great movie, enlightening documentary, or hilarious Louis CK masturbation joke that will broaden my horizons. Netflix is limited by whatever feasible licensing deals they can manage, and they seem to be making a killing at securing utter shit cinematic bombs. At least you have a choice of what shit to watch, and the long chance for a serendipitous discovery. On broadcast television and radio you are almost certainly locked into abysmal mediocrity. The big outlets cringe away from taking any chances and from missing the center of mass of the broadest audience. Continue reading →

Pledge

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My takeaway from the Coachella and RSD has been to fixate on Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Meat Beat Manifesto. At the edge of my conscious thought there’s a loop of “Acid Again” and “Heads Will Roll” beyond my control. On top of that, another topic, is the big thumping In Silico by Pendulum I enjoyed while smashing cop cars and other public property in Need For Speed: Undercover. I don’t mean to drop names here, but it’s becoming clear that good music is not dead. For a while I thought all creativity had dried out, though it was there all along in some other business model. Forget physical retail stores at this point – when I visited Best Buy today it wasn’t easy to find the single surviving row of CDs after rezoning for vast tracts of iPhone accessories. Out in the wild, in the unwashed back woods of the music scene, there are a lot of innovative, talented and well-produced projects funded in the spirit of democratic venture capital. Continue reading →

Bad Hair Day

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I talked before about the role of the producer in being a back-seat driver, steering the band off to the back roads and sometimes over a washed out bridge. Now that I think about it, U2 were led off into neverland when Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois stepped in and produced Joshua Tree. Since I’ve listened to some Brian Eno records now I realize that Joshua Tree is just another Brian Eno record with some Irish guys along for the ride. I love that record, but I see it as a case of the producers steering from the back seat. On a side note, knee jerk reaction, I bought the reissue of The Jesus And Mary Chain record ‘Automatic’ (with all the obsessive extras). In the ‘creepy stalker’ edition liner notes I read about how around that time the JAMC almost intersected with Daniel Lanois as a producer. I quote JAMC quoting Lanois, “oh we won’t do it in a recording studio, we’ll rent a big church somewhere…” JAMC responded, “we were thinking of getting in drum machines…” and they say ‘that was the end of working with Daniel Lanois.’ Continue reading →