Hard News: Friday Music: Partners in Vacancy
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
and Faye Wong’s Take My Breath Away from Wong Kar Wai’s As Tears Go By
Dammit, far more likely to have been Sandy Lam than Faye Wong. Still Cantopop at its best, though.
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Stupid, in reply to
Ian, that's a Lesley MacLean, one of her best screen-prints :-)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Ian, that’s a Lesley MacLean, one of her best screen-prints :-)
Okay, I'm gonna curate a Lesley Maclean gallery for Audioculture. Needs to happen.
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Well, we'll see if this works. I discovered both of them very late.
Mink DeVille - Just Your Friends. Sublime.
The Hudson Brothers - Dolly Day
(one of them is actress Kate Hudson's father). -
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Faye Wong
The real Faye Wong-Wong Kar Wai connection is also a cover, but comes from Chungking Express, 《梦中人》, otherwise known as Dreams by the Cranberries. Doesn't work quite as well for me as Sandy Lam's Take My Breath Away, but then again, Chungking Express, much as I love it, isn't quite as cool a film as As Tears Go By.
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hey Russell - re Lesley Maclean poster gallery, see http://dubdotdash.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/fnun-sound-and-pictures.html
also Chch Library's online poster collection
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I'm a bit late on the Friday thread (as usual).
I didn't see the Cyrus performance at the VMA's but I was bombarded by kids for days after at school asking me if I'd seen it. From my Year 10s up to my Year 13s, but mainly the younger ones. So the kiddies saw it alright.
I can't stand that Blurred Lines song, right from when I first heard it on Mai FM. I've got a Jap import that was fresh off the boat and I only pick up Mai so I got barraged by it for a while. I like Hip Hop and R'nB so no big deal, but for a few days I thought it was a PI group haha, then found out otherwise. Terrible song, terrible lyrics, terrible video. My ears hate it and I switch to the other station I get - Radio Sport. I see that T Veitch is shifting to ZB. Is that right? Mark Watson replacing him in the mornings. God have mercy on us. Veitch was flawed in multiple ways but Watson is a lame wanna be sport shock jock.
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BenWilson, in reply to
It's hard to even continue with an article that starts with:
Only 20 years ago the World Wide Web was an obscure academic thingamajig. All personal computers were fancy stand-alone typewriters and calculators that showed only text (but no newspapers or magazines), played no video or music, offered no products to buy.
I can distinctly remember that my VIC20, from over 30 years ago, was capable of music and non-textual graphics. 10 years later computers were pretty much in their current form, just a hundred times slower. The modern Windows doesn't really look any different to Windows 95. 20 years ago isn't that long. The World Wide Web was indeed in it's infancy, but it was not obscure. Abso-frikken-lutely everyone was getting on it as fast as they could because they could see how wicked it was. Buying stuff online was possible, since credit cards have been around since ... er ... well my whole life anyway.
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BenWilson, in reply to
But on the other hand I do agree with some of the stuff in there
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be that like civil aviation, the car industry is getting so closed to the aerodynamic ideal that massive style changes are impractical and, well, stupid.
Nah, I don't buy it. SUVs are ridiculously OTT vehicles, and the likes of Hummers take that into a whole new zone of stupid. But the stylings of these things really is in statis. Absent faded paint, a car from the 90s can pass as one from the late noughties. When I think how radically different even the cars from the 80s I have owned were, let alone the 70s and that horrible 60s car that was my first ever lemon, I'd agree that there is a real timidity in modern styling choices for vehicles. It's not down to aerodynamic efficiency when it's wings at the back of the vehicle, or interior fabric colouring. It certainly isn't when we're talking about the entirely monochrome exteriors.
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As for new stylings, my decision to lead the trend of losing shoelaces altogether has never caught on, but I've grown accustomed to not having to tie my shoes on with string, and won't go back. It makes buying shoes a little difficult, but I'm determined, in an age where the sole lasts less time than the velcro, never to trip over another shoelace in my life.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
And I use Win7 at home, but I'm stuck with XP at work. And if I want to show my students anything online, I either use the IE5 installed on the classroom computer or install a modern browser before class starts. The differences are astounding.
Fair point on the SUVs, but I still disagree on the stasis in car design.
I think you'll find a lot more shoelace-free friends up here. Slip ons are quite popular in China.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
En Provenance...
that’s a Lesley MacLean, one of her best
Thanks Stu...
Now how much do ya think one of those silk screened books from your States Trip would sell for?
Has it held on to the $50 I paid for it, all those years ago?:- )
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Still looks great though, don’t it…
Gorgeous.
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BenWilson, in reply to
think you’ll find a lot more shoelace-free friends up here. Slip ons are quite popular in China.
I don't think any of that article was trying to generalize beyond the First World, as it was in 1990. I've never been to China, but I'd be amazed if the changes in cultural styling since the 90s aren't significant. I am personally more likely to look to China for future ideas.
I think you’ll find a lot more shoelace-free friends up here. Slip ons are quite popular in China.
I think that's part of the reason that it doesn't catch on. It's seen as a tacky made-in-China kind of idea, symptomatic of the disposal good lifestyle. It doesn't matter that they're actually better. They just say a little bit too loud that the shoe is a disposable item.
Also, I think there's some kind of attachment to lace tying, as the cultural touchstone of one's ability with knots generally. It's obviously impractical to still be tying up a shirt, so we use such things as buttons and zips and clasps and domes, but with shoes for men, it's like some last bastion of one's connection to being a creature of the great outdoors.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
I think you tried to quote something different for your first point. I found the article made no attempt to generalise beyond the borders of the USA – and a fairly strict definition of those borders that includes DC but excludes any of the territories. I’ll leave it up to somebody more familiar with the USA to comment on whether its generalisation extends to the entirety of US society or is largely limited to a middle-class to affluent, mainstream, largely white portion of the USA.
I am personally more likely to look to China for future ideas.
Me too, but I guess that’s fairly obvious. I already linked to Cui Jian, who’s a pretty interesting musician, starting off as a trumpeter in the Beijing Philharmonic like his dad (you can here some of his trumpet playing on this song – and watching that and reading the lyrics (his voice is rough to the point of often incomprehensible to my ears), it’s no bloody surprise he’s had so many run-ins with the authorities), then getting turned on to rock through the cassettes that started flowing in to China with reform and opening up, he’s continued to experiment musically over the decades. There’s plenty more interesting stuff going on in Chinese music, I’ve heard some cool modern, experimental Kazakh and Mongolian folk (ETA: can't remember band names off the top of my head, sorry), for example, and heavy metal with a touch of ancient China （春秋/Chūnqiù《山海间》(Shān Hǎi Jiān), though I should point out their music generally tends to be a lot louder). And I dislike hearing so many Chinese complain about how shite Chinese film is, because there’s lots of good Mainland cinema being produced. Of course, a fair bit of it runs foul of the authorities, but still, it’s there. Literature, well, everybody who knows seems to think contemporary Chinese literature (i.e. stuff being written now) is crap and it was the moderns of the late Qing and Republic years (Lu Xun, Lao She, Eileen Chang (whose chosen English name sounds very much like her Chinese name), Qian Zhongshu) who wrote the best of the baihua literature, many point to money being the root of this particular evil, others suggest the censorship I’ve already alluded to, but then again, Mo Yan (or at the very least, Howard Goldblatt) is good enough for a Nobel (of the three Nobel literature laureates born in China, he’s the only PRC citizen). Some dislike his style, but I quite enjoy what I’ve read of him. And I don’t know what Twitter looks like now, I just don’t miss it enough to bother jumping the GFW, but when I signed up for Weibo it was offering a vastly superior (bar the censorship) service.
Anyway, enough for now. I’ll just leave with a link to this site I’ve linked to before for those who may be interested.
Oh, nearly forgot:
but with shoes for men, it’s like some last bastion of one’s connection to being a creature of the great outdoors.
My slip-ons comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, but still, interesting point. That’s not a factor that’s important in urban China, but ease of getting shoes on and off in a society that requires you to swap shoes for slippers or jandals when you enter somebody’s home is. In rural China it’s the opposite, though. Not some “outdoorsman” thing, more the practicalities of old-fashioned peasant-style agriculture, and so shoes stay on when you enter a village home.
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BenWilson, in reply to
That’s not a factor that’s important in urban China, but ease of getting shoes on and off in a society that requires you to swap shoes for slippers or jandals when you enter somebody’s home is.
It's sufficiently common here that it's a factor in my decision. My place is a no-shoes house.
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If blue jeans became unfashionable tomorrow, Old Navy would be in trouble.
Half the world wears jeans.
Jeans protect people because they already occupy this personal intimate space and there is no empty feeling inside that can be colonised by this external gaze. Furthermore the very anonymity and ubiquity of jeans protects from judgement. You may not be especially right, but you can’t go far wrong with denim jeans. As a result, despite all the attempts by the clothing industry to broaden the appeal of more exciting, exotic, stylish, interesting, impressive and costly clothes, denim is likely to become if anything more and more powerful as the central foundation of the individual’s wardrobe, and commerce has to simply try and adapt to this use of denim.
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For NZ music fans, there’s an interesting show starting on Nelson’s Fresh FM every 2nd Wednesday called Beat.co.nz, by a guy called Richard Liddicoat (who I work with). Should be a little like Radio NZ’s Music 101 show. This week he’s got a segment called Lilburn to Lorde as well some Flying Nun, Nathan Haines and more. I think you can tune in live and it might be available on Podcast as well.
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One instance of this video has already suffered a copyright takedown, but for as long as it lasts, here’s the Auckland Uni Law Revue parody of ‘Blurred Lines’:
Update: A TVNZ news story says it was taken down because “YouTube claims the video violates its terms and conditions by displaying sexually explicit content.”
Huh?
Update 2: Pretty sure it's not the "sexually explicit content". The notice links to YouTube Community Guidelines, which include copyright.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Not the first time stripped-down men have been depicted on MTV. And it was similarly controversial but for different reasons.
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Alan Perrott, in reply to
now this, like bananas, fish and milk, is something I've never got. even as a wee chillun I hated blue jeans. so I've never worn them and never will.
I'm reading John Lydon's autobiography and it seems we have this in common. but as I'm reading John Lydon's autobiography I'm not sure this is a good thing. He's a bit of a twat.
still, I encourage everyone else to fill their boots with blue jeans so I'm left with my choice of polyester slacks.
mmmm, polyester slacks. -
Thicke’s Blurred Lines is a stupid, misogynistic song with an even stupider and more misogynistic video.
This is belated. But I feel like I must, in the interests of honesty and not-just-saying-stuff-on-Twitter-ism, note that I pretty much totally enjoy the song and may call Russell a fogey about it next time I see him. :) "Hey-hey-hey."
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Some very stripped-down men in this recent Marina and the Diamonds video:
Thoughts?
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Geoff Lealand, in reply to
I have liked Marina since my daughter introduced me to her music. I will ask her about this.
Interesting last minute CU of a budgie (more like a small parrot) smuggler.
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All this and nary a mention of Robert Palmer?
Shocking!
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