The Gospel According to Prisco

I am easily swayed and tend to be forgiving in my appreciation of things.  I like a lot of stuff, even though I hate large portions of it.  I will look at something as a project that could have been improved in some small way.  Thanks to grad school, I can no longer answer the question, “What’d you think?” or “Did you like it?” with a simple terse phrase.  Much to the chagrin of those around me.  I am trying to overcome my douchebaggery, and sound less like a pretentious cocksure know-it-all who doesn’t have a fucking clue.  This blog doesn’t help matters.I loved the movie Juno.  And when I love something, I usually suck it to the marrow.  I will go and track down other things by the director, by the writer, by the actors in that movie.  I will look up the soundtrack.  God forgive me if it’s a movie adaptation, because then I will find the book.  A weird part of that, I will not go and automatically read the book the movie is based on.  Case in point: Fight Club. I didn’t go and read the novel first, I went for Invisible Monsters and then Choke.  And I haven’t turned back.  I will spiderweb from there.  And occasionally, I will hit some stinkers.  It’s like they say, “Not everything can be a home run, kid.”Well, I fell in love with the soundtrack to Juno.   I attended the screening at the DGA, and so Jason Reitman was there to tout his film.  (Side Note: his Q&A was done by Craig Gillespie, the director of Lars and the Real Girl.  Gotta love them DGA Q&As.)  He asked Ellen Page who she thought Juno listened to, and she immediately said, “The Moldy Peaches!” and downloaded all their songs.  He contacted Kimya Dawson, the lady part of the Peaches, and asked her if she had any material.  She promptly sent him all of like seventy-teen hours of solo stuff. If you’ve seen the movie (and if you haven’t, get out.  Seriously.  Get the fuck out of here, American Gangster) the music is used beautifully.  Particularly, I fell in love with the last song of the movie, “Anyone Else But You”.  I can track my life on those single songs that fucking own me for months or weeks or years. Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”.  The Mountain Goats’ “No Children.”  Nerf Herder’s “Jacket”.  This one took the place of “Los Angeles is Burning” by Bad Religion, which was there for the most part because at the time, uh, it was, and I’m a ironically evil motherfucker.  I pulled the Moldy Peaches song close to my heart, hugged it and squeezed it and stroked it, and never let it go.So I went out and snatched me up some of the Moldy Peaches.  I went with the self-titled, mostly because it’s got the song I love so much on it.The Moldy Peaches, both band and this CD, remind me of those times in high school when everyone was little punk rock dorks, listening to cassette tapes and putting safety pins through their band patches, stepping into a pair of Converse and jamming out of the house on skateboards or BMX bikes.  Before they decided to punch holes in things and casually do drugs.  Before they became a hipster, dark geek specs glaring with cynicism, making their hair wild, slurping five dollar espresso and bitching about how “mainstream” everything is.  I want to grab those scene-cocks by their fucking earlobe hoops and shake them until they shit vegan-safe, “IT’S OKAY TO LIKE BANDS PEOPLE HAVE HEARD OF.  PUT DOWN THE SOY LATTE AND FUCKING TASTE POP CULTURE.  IT WON’T HURT YOU.”  Sorry.  Hipsters make me fisty.But this is about a simpler time, when kids sat in basements and talked about bullshit, and played video games, and watched horror movies and essentially fucked around.  When one of more of your friends got together with three kids, a microphone, and poorly tuned guitars, hastely assembled on someone’s pool deck and called themselves a band.  And you rocked the fuck out.  Just around the time when you were filling the red Solo cups with beer someone’s older brother bought.  That’s what the Moldy Peaches recall for me.The lyrics are sophomoric, but in a good way.  They aren’t trying to start a political revolution, or get 187 on a brother, they just want to ride bikes with you.  It’s just two friends fucking around on their keyboards.  The production quality is intentionally crappy (I think a phone actually rings in the background of one of the tracks) and the musicianship is just lowlevel.  These are just two kids with access to a recording device and a dream.  The lyrical quality ranges from the outright loopy (”this is the church and this is the steeple; we sure are cute for two ugly people”) to the mindlessly repetitive (”These burgers….are crazy….”).  There are moments of staticky guitar riffs and random insanity, which makes me think of Ween when they hit the bad acid trips.  It’s misplaced and unpleasant, but again, in that sort of way that made you and your friends thrash the fuck out on a basement couch while playing Atari.   It makes me think of standing on cushions, headbanging with the horns up, and then diving into a flying mosh elbow.  It sounds shitty, but it’s that shitty that makes you laugh til your snort Mr. Pibb out your nose.You can’t possibly be expected to take the entire album at face value as a serious attempt at musicality.  And that’s the beauty.  Despite a number of sloppy tracks that are jarring and disonant, there are a couple of just deliriously fun songs that foreshadow the solo career of Kimya Dawson.  This isn’t a great album.  I wouldn’t even recommend it to people who really liked Juno. But it makes me think of happy times, spent dicking around with people I love.  And that’s the hallmark of a pretty decent time well spent. 

Genius is a term that’s often bandied about with reckless abandon in the entertainment world.  Directors, authors, musicians; all of them get painted liberally with the genius brush.  Genius is something that can be recognized without actually having to kowtow.  I can appreciate Bob Dylan or the Beatles, but it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy every fucking song. Or any of them for that matter.  I like David Lynch, he’s working on a frequency beyond most people’s comprehension, but it doesn’t mean that I will foam at the mouth should someone question his work.  In fact, I totally understand how people can look at these artists and go, “…the fuck?”

I have never bowed before the altar of Thom Yorke.  Sure, I understand, the man’s talent is unquestionable.  I’m fairly certain the man could do a composition based on the phone book, and it would be stunning.  I’m a casual Radiohead fan, to the point that Pablo Honey is still my favorite album.  I’ve never been crazy about ambient music.  Not to the level of “unhs unhs unhs unhs”, that would be heresy, but there’s definitely a vibe there in the later albums that a bit trancelike.

That’s part of the appeal of Radiohead, I suppose.  There’s an obvious difference between tracks, but upon listening to the whole album In Rainbows , I couldn’t always tell when songs were going from one to the next.  Fuck, with Yorke’s keening lilt, I would be hard pressed to quote a lyric from any Radiohead song other than the perennial “Creep”.  Because the songs themselves are these layered quilts of sound and symphony.  So while I didn’t love everything on the album, there are bits and pieces here and there that are absolutely gorgeous.  I would venture to say that if you can’t find something on a Radiohead album that you enjoy, you just don’t like music.

I loved the middle of the album, in particular “Faust Arp” and “Reckoner”.  There are parts around it that sounds to me like his typical mournful wailing over electronica.  But as a whole, the album is a great distraction.  I don’t think you really listen to Radiohead for particular songs, unless you were a casual fan of the aforementioned “Creep” and “Karma Police” and one that’s been recommended to me numerous times, the wonderfully titled “A Punchup at a Wedding”.  I think the beauty of Radiohead is the ability to put on one of their albums, and let it wash over you.  You catch the bits you like, and just let the others float off into the ether. 

I admire the hell out of the band for offering it online for what you want to pay.  Most people wanted to pay nothing or $4.  It’s no longer available for download, but I was still able to (cough) acquire (cough) a copy.  That’s a brave statement to make.  Of course, this is their seventh album, and they aren’t hurting for fans or cash.  And while dear Courtney Love is planning a similar fire sale, I don’t expect that this will become the norm. 

Anyway, I liked this album, and it’s making me consider revisiting the early ones, particularly Amnesiac and The Bends to see if maybe I missed some stuff in my reckless youth. 

And yea, good people of the Interwebs, my opinion is here to be foisted upon you, with great wrath and furious anger.  Bitter misinformed statements made with no research or justification whatsoever, rife with misogyny and surburban-safe racism.   Or, occasionally, you know, glowing, sappy, disgustingly gloppy unabashed praise.

What gives me the right?  Do not question me, moral mortals!  Toiling away in the salt mines of Barnes and Noble, as well as gathering to my folds the sheepskins decrying me Bachelor of All Things English and Theatre, as well as Master of the Finer Arts of Film and Screenwriting, I have earned my keep.  I also listen to music.

My mighty cultural appetite knows no bounds.  However, in the interest of sanity, I have decided to set my task to fall within a fortnight, which according to me is fourteen days, or two of your pitiful weeks.  My goal is to read one book, watch one movie, and listen to one new band/artist.  Of course, a superior being as myself, I usually will surpass this. On a grand scale. 

My mission, if I choose to accept it, is basically to write up a review on a semi-weekly-when-I’ve-completed-it basis.  I will also comment angrily on things that are occuring in the news, the entertainment industry, or my life, which garner my disdain and subatomic fury.  WHICH IS EVERYTHING!

Please note, my rants will usually be filled with profanity, improper grammar, and more likely than not words that cannot be found in any dictionary.   For your edutainment.

This is the part where you may libate your esteemed pope.  Basically, if you possess a recommendation, hurl it forth with lightningesque ebulience to priscogospel@hotmail.com

Go forth and spread the good word about the bad words!