Fadz n trendz watch: Lo Fi music and the bicycle helmet nag nanny regime

(oh yeah, somehow lo-fi and bike helmets came to this)


As we know both mainstream and indie/underground are full of lame and sometimes inexplicable trends and fads. The current trend in independent/underground/nascent pop/rock scene that is emerging is the micro-genre of nu-fi, which I like if you took a glass of Lo-fi, stuffed it with fly-embedded ice cubes and left it rot in the July heat. Lo-fi was a play on words to differentiate certain independent musicians who didn't have the money (or desire) to make music with any decent fidelity. Artists during this period, such as Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, early Pavement, Beat happening, etc. made songs during this period that were fantastic mini-ballads and pop compositions that were made ever so charmulous by recording them with equipment that made the finished product sound like it was recorded in a chaw-hounds half empty (or is it half full? It's Tuesday already!) Chunky Fully Loaded soup spit can. Sure, it sounded like shit, but the fuzz, pops, scratches, and feedback of lo (or lack of) fidelity was like a brown paper bag covering some delicious hooch that you couldn't wait to rip through to expose the sweet nectar within.

Of course now we have musicians who grew up listening to the 80s-90s lo-fi artists and now record "lo-fi" intentionally regardless of whether or not they can afford the higher fidelity equipment. Bands such as Wavves, No Age, Time New Viking are the nu-wave of this sound and are starting to command some serios star power. Not that I hate them soooo much, but sudden trends and micro-genres that everyone goes apeshit over while forgetting the roots of such a sound tend to crawl up my ass and die.

Which is exactly the reason that I found this interview with the lead singer of Psychedelic Horseshit so entertaining. Read it, don't weep unless those tears are from painful laughing fits:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postrock/2009/03/sxsw_leftovers_talkin_expletiv.html\



after reading this, I checked out some Psychedelic Horseshit tunes and realized that does not only do they have a hilarious front man but they are nuts to the hut great.

Meanwhile, on the cycling front:

Wearing a bicycle helmet is not just for protecting your precious gray noodle, but are also a quasi religious lifestyle choice to lord over others akin to not smoking, buying fair trade coffee or spending three months worth of your coffee shop wages to buy a Macbook. I usually go helmetless and often get hassled about it by my more serious cycling friends/random idiot strangers on the street. Bike riders, whether casual/recreational or enthusiast in the US have this weird fixation on wearing a helmet. Like most things we think are good for us, it's mostly clever marketing according to the following articles. One juicy factoid here is that helmets are only tested for crown (top) impact and not at all for side and rear impact. So, when you smack the side or rear of your head into a sign pole or a Mini Cooper painted with the flag colors of some Europhile dipshit's anscestral home country your head might be just as likely to crack like a warm M & M as if you were wearing nothing but a side comb over. Read on:

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/07/cycle-helmets-and-other-religious.html

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/06/get-yer-torches-its-bike-helmet.html


What have we learned today kids? Grow a brain and use it. Use it to dig beyond the buzz band or micro genre of right now. And forget about protecting it with a foam and plastic covering when you're out on two (human powered) wheels.

RIP Jeff Hanson

I found out today via pitchfork.com that Jeff Hanson was found dead in his home this past Friday. He was a well known and critically acclaimed Twin Cities singer-songwriter. He was 31 years old.



http://pitchfork.com/news/35540-rip-jeff-hanson/

I had heard the name Jeff Hanson around town and I had seen his band M.I.J. play at the old downtown Minneapolis teen music hut/coffee shop The Foxfire but I had never stopped to give his solo work a chance. I am glad I did today. Here's his imeem page for anyone who wants to listen.

http://www.imeem.com/artists/jeff_hanson

I was impressed by the songs on imeem. My first thoughts are of Elliot Smith in both vocal style and musical composition, but with feathery, effervescent, almost feminine vocals (his work is sometimes confused for that of a woman). There is a wintry, pastoral feel to many of the songs. Very Midwestern. The vocals take a bit of getting used to, but the music is ultimately rewarding if you give it a chance. The composition is especially rich for just the classic acoustic guitar/drum/bass, and there are ribbons of keyboard tones in standout track "If You Ever Say".

It is sad to see a local boy go.

Sunday

Went to Grand Old Day on Grand Avenue in St Paul. Met up with Mikey and Brandon on the Sabo bridge and then rode fast into St Paul. Eyedea and Abilities was on stage when we showed up, with Eyedea sporting his full on '92 grunge style.



The show was pretty shitty but also pretty entertaining. Eyedea is a freestyle MC virtuoso (won the HBO Blaze Battle (2000) and Scribble Jam (1999)) who's lyrical content is pretty dark cerebral indie MC material that doesn't work on an outdoor stage. A strange flannel clad man took the stage with him for a time and after laying down some decent rhyming then tore down one of the banners overhanging the stage. Had a few beers, hung out and rode back.

During this weekend and onward I am continuing the stream of realizations that I came to on my road trip out west that I just got back from.

I had been pretty depressed over the last year or so, thinking that I hadn't made much out of myself and that my life was a bit in the shittube. I started thinking about how I have a bachelors's degree, a master's in education and I was working a tech-support type job at a software company and well into my late 20s. No girlfriend, a social circle that was mostly made up of the same dudes I went to high school with (nothing against them boys, I just thought I was weird for having mostly the same friends), living in the same city/metro that I grew up in, just generally down on myself. I was eating too much, drinking too much, sleeping too little, and just felt mopy and lethargic most of the time. My life wasn't that bad per se, just not shaping up at a level that I always envisioned for myself. I didn't feel like I had a whole lot of control over my life and I was getting pretty unhappy and unsatisfied.

After going out west I realized that lots of people my age are still working things out and no one really has it as great as I sometimes think they do. Other people feel insecure, have personal-life-cluster-effenheimers, feel uncertain, wake up with a ephemeral feeling of general turdliness from time to time. I'm no different in this respect. What I see in other people is they don't let it get to them. At the very least, they cover up their insecurity and try to make the best of the situation.

I also realized that I have a great deal of control over my life that I sometimes don't realize. Oftentimes I would blame others for my problems, wait for others to take the lead, look to other for permission to act, etc. On this recent trip to Montana, Sasquatch! and Seattle, I felt a lot of that melt away. In a way I waited for my buddy to help initiate this trip, but I was one who kept pressing the idea of taking a trip this year. It was up to me. I drove alone out to Montana and I took care of myself most of the way. After taking a detour on my way to Jellystone national park and conquering the famous Lava Lake trail in the Gallatin national forest, I realized that I can spontaneously jump out of my comfort zone anytime I want and try something and succeed. After visiting Seattle and meeting some new people, I realize that there are other options out there, and I can make a major change in my life if I need to. If I make a mistake, it's my fault but it is also OK to make that mistake and I have enough control to make things better. I have enough personal gusto and charm to win friends anywhere I go. I can look at things relatively and not see bad moments in myself as global, static attributes.

Music musing

Listening to Neil Young's "Freedom"today. While I have always been somewhat familiar with the man's work, I haven't really been much of a fan just for lack of effort. I'm liking the album a lot, and upon listening to the song "Don't Cry", I realize the impact this guy had on grunge/alternative/indie rock throughout the 80s and 90s.

End of a trend?

http://eater.com/archives/2009/04/pop_quiz_when_did_the_bahn_mi_craze_run_its_course.php#comment-420829

Since when was banh mi a trend? We've been eating banh mi (and pho) in Minneapolis for decades. Like Andrea Nguyen and hotpot said, by the time NY media catches onto something it is already well established outside NY.