The Twelve Pains Of Christmas

So, for my last blog, I have decided to write a light hearted blog about my favorite Christmas song: The Twelve Pains Of Christmas by Bob Rivers. If you have never heard it before, you should look it up, it is highly amusing.
I like this song because it pokes fun at everything that people complain about Christmas; from issues with parking to the way that Christmas lights always seem to be tangled.
I really enjoy this song because it reminds me of going to go Christmas shopping with my Mom. I think that some songs have value just for the sheer entertainment, and this song is a perfect example.
I enjoy the light-hearted feel of this song and the multiple voices in it. Each of the twelve pains of Christmas are sung by a different person. There is even a whiny child screaming in some areas.
The entire song is quite well put together, each area of the flows perfectly into the other. This song is an amazing example of holiday humor, and I feel that everyone should enjoy it.
Happy Holidays All.
Melissa

Freedom Songs

I went to a talk recently, it was put on by the Art Renegades; and they invited members of an art group called The Beehive Design Collective. They are an art group based in Maine who use animals to tell stories about both local and international issues.
They are a very interesting group, if you are interested in learning more about them, this is the link to their website: http://www.beehivecollective.org/
However, this blog entry is not directly about them. This entry is about something that was said at that talk, about freedom or resistance songs. Or really, to be more specific about parties where music is made...I made the jump to freedom or resistance songs in my own mind. Anyway.
The most recent project that the Bees (as they call themselves) have been working on is called, I believe Project Columbia a very large ink drawing using paper wasp and leaf cutter ants; to display what is happening in Columbia with the war on drugs. One scene in this giant drawing, which looks more like a mural spread out on the floor, is a scene depicting a few leaf cutter ants (the locals of Columbia) having a parting, dancing and sharing some booze.
When questioned about how the scene fit in, the Bees responded that in an atmosphere of violence just living and throwing a party is resisting.
This got me thinking about songs that caused a stir or that brought to light an ideal or had a cry or something. Songs that made people in power uncomfortable. I've heard about these songs, but I can't think of one song like that from my generation.
I'm not sure what that means, does it mean we're a lazy generation with not motivation to have a purpose or a cause? Does it mean we're simply disenchanted, is there a difference? I really don't think we have a lack of things to be angry about. All one has to do is turn on the news to find something to be upset about...
But why isn't there any music to inspire people to DO anything about what they are upset about? The most controversial band I can think of next to Maryland Manson, who is mostly for shock value and anti religious ideals; is Against Me, who as far as I can tell spent their entire career bashing consumerism only to join a major label...
Perhaps there is a reason this generation is disenchanted, and lazy. Or maybe, we just haven't found what we'll work toward yet...but I want to know why our music is so fluffy. I know every generation has it's fluff...disco etc. But they had something to balance it out, a "heavier" music. Where is our heavier music? Am I just not looking in the right areas? Or is all our music really just fluff, dressed up so it doesn't always look like fluff, but fluff none the less?
Just something I've been thinking of lately.

So, It's Been A While...

So, it's been a while since my last blog...mostly because I had no idea what to blog about. Then last night as I was falling asleep I started thinking about songs that have people's names in the titles; or that refer to a person by name within the song. Something that I always thought was uncommon because, not everyone would know someone with that name...therefore making the song hard for a wide audience to relate to; and because it would be very personal for the artist, and possibly embarrassing if the relationship ended. But when I went through my iTunes Library, which consist of 1821 songs I found 30 songs with people's names as titles or in the titles, this was not including the movie and play soundtracks I own.
Then I started thinking about the songs and if I found them hard to relate to because I don't know someone named "Emily" or "Kelsey" or "Delilah" or "Alfie" and for almost every song the answer was: no I do not find them hard to relate to. So, this got me thinking about why I thought they would be hard to relate to and why they are not hard for me to relate to. I also looked at the songs to see if the songs had a personal or romantic coloring to them. Many did, so apparently being forced to remember a relationship through a song you wrote is not a deterrent to some artists.
I have picked two songs from two separate artists to illustrate what I ended up finding, I will put a list of all 30 songs at the end of this blog. The songs I picked are "Delilah" by The Dresden Dolls and "Emily" by From First To Last.
"Delilah" is a story told from the view of a frustrated friend, about a girl who keep going back to be used by this one guy. The friend is watching helplessly as this girl Delilah keeps getting hurt and not understanding why he won't change. I know several people who have been in a situation like this, and I'm forced to watch as they get hurt again for the 1000,000 time by the same person. It's a common story with a name that may or may not fit attached to it. I found that to be true with almost every song on my list. The name just helped pull the story together.
"Emily" in comparison to "Delilah" is a love song. Well, more a song of infatuation. The singer is infatuated with this girl named Emily and the entire song is about how "there is no one in the world like Emily." Which, obviously disproved my theory that artist would not want to preserve their feelings for a person who may or may not be around them for very long. It seems overly painful to me, but there were a good handful of songs like this that I found.
It was really interesting for me to look at all these songs, and to disprove this idea I had held for so long; that was quite obviously wrong. I plan on making a play list on my iTunes of these songs and listening to it all the way through just think about it a bit more. I'm really quite fascinated with the idea of it now...I'm not sure why, but it's really caught my attention.
Here are the songs:
1) Melissa by The Allman Brothers
2) Jimmy Jazz by The Clash
3) Rudie Can't Fail by The Clash
4) Gabrielle by Cradle of Filth
5) Half Jack by The Dresden Dolls
6) Dear Jenny by The Dresden Dolls
7) Delilah by The Dresden Dolls
8) Mrs. O by The Dresden Dolls
9) Mandy Goes to Med School by The Dresden Dolls
10) Me and the Mini Bar by The Dresden Dolls (we all know her name, so I thought it fit)
11) Grand Theft Autumn by Fall Out Boy
12) Emily by From First to Last
13) Jesus of Suberbia by Green Day
14) St. Jimmy by Green Day
15) Maria by Green Day
16) Niki FM by Hawthorne Heights
17) Mrs. Jones by Hole
18) Anna Molly by Incubus
19) Kennedy by Kill Hannah
20) Mr. Brightside by The Killers
21) Alfie by Lily Allen
22) Kelsey by Metro Station
23) Tom Sawyer by Mindless Self Indulgence
24) Helena by My Chemical Romance
25) Nemo by Nightwish
26) Jenny Don't Be Hasty by Paolo Nutini
27) Franklin by Paramore
28) Danny California by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
29) Everyman Has a Molly by Say Anything
30) Jackie Will Save Me by Shiny Toy Guns

Where I Am Now, And Where I Plan To Go.

What am I Doing?
Right now I'm on this belly dance music kick. There is form of belly dance originating in the United States I believe, called Tribal Fusion Belly Dance, and their music is amazing. It's usually made with electronic sounds, with a slow heavy base and creepy layering sounds. It's amazing. I wrote three songs in an attempt to create music that could be used for this dance style. And because I have a rather odd sense of humor I thought it would be funny to name them all after phobias. Some good arts to check out if you are unfamiliar with the music are, Pentaphobe and Maduro.

Where am I Heading?
I don't have a real defined goal in mind. I've never actually written my own music before. Right now I'm just thrilled to find that I can do it with some manner of success. But ideally I would like to keep on this track that I'm on, I really enjoy this music and I think it would be awesome to make more of it. Music around phobias is kinda my plan right now. I found this amazing list of phobias online, http://phobialist.com/#A-
So maybe I'll just work my way through that.

What Do I Want My Audience To Experience?
I want them to experience the music for what it is, an experiment, hopefully a successful one. I want them to hear the sounds and how they make the song, and hopefully understand how the music could be put into movement...also, I hope they get my humor with the phobia names. I also think it would be cool to play the music for some of the belly dancers I know and see if they think they could dance to it, or if I'm way off track and if so how to bring it back. Maybe I'll send the songs as files to my friend in Orono. See what her take on them is.

What Do I Want To Achieve?
I want to make music that people can dance to, specifically belly dance. I also want to be successful in creating music around a word that make sense. I love the idea of being able to write a piece of music around a word, making that word into a piece of music. I just really like that idea...so I would love to achieve a small collection of music centered around words...or more specifically the music representation of words.

Next Steps.
Obviously make more music. But to go into more detail.
1) send the music to my friend in Orono and see if she thinks she could dance to it and get any input/advice I can from her.
2) figure out Garageband more fully, so I don't have to spend as much time feeling my way through as I do now. I'm getting better each time I use it though.
3) Write more music, lots of it, even if half of it is garbage or super short.
4) Think about my final project for this class...and if I want to continue making music after this class ends.

Blogging About Blogs....

I read two blogs, one written by Chantal and one written by Vincent. And while I feel pretty ridiculous blogging about blogs. I did find their blogs to be interesting. Particularly Chantal's because it was interesting reading about Angels and Airwaves a band I do not really like through the lens of someone who enjoys them.
Vincent's was interesting as well, I enjoyed the part about the The Blow, a band that basically has a live performance similar to a Karaoke party. With this woman singing to her music being played through loud speakers. This image is just amazing to me.

Second Artist Blog

The artist I choice for my second blog entry is Jeffree Star. Here is a man who despite his many interviews never really gets asked anything substantial. All the questions where about make-up where he lived while he was growing up, why does he love make-up. The interviewers completely ignore any question on music style, or artist statement. They are completely and totally distracted by his pink hair. However, I was able to put together a little something about him from what measly information I could squeeze out of interviews and my knowledge of his music.
Jeffree Star grew up in Orange County California, moved to LA when he was 17, and has been sneaking into clubs with a fake ID since around 16 which is where he met many people and starting doing make-up for money. His first passion appears to be make-up, and it is clear in his many photographs on myspace that he loves to do himself up. However, that is not to say that his music should be brushed off as a "side project".
Star tends to gravitate towards songs that sound like the belong in a club setting, with heavy use of machine generated sound in accordance with his vocals. Which despite his "feminine" appearance are quite varied, as I found out in the last few minutes of a three piece youtube interview that was other wise useless; where he screams hard-core style, it's really quite a sight to see. http//www.youtube.com/watch?=vIK4TsmhLQQ&feature=related
Star is also entirely self produced, showing the classic DIY punk attitude with a few twists when it comes to labels, "I'm not even trying to get signed. I mean, I am sure I will eventually. but for now there is need to" http://laist.com/2008/03/10/jeffree_star_interview.php
Which, is the closest thing to an artist statement I was able to find.
I think the reason I had such a hard time finding anything helpful to me about Mr.Star is two fold. One side being that he is an Internet sensation and is just now really breaking into the main stream, where he has been rather "underground" for so long. The second side being no one can seem to get passed his unusual image and ability to walk in heels most women shudder at to ask him any sort of deep question, past his fashion sense.
Which makes it really hard to write anything of meaning about him that reflects his view on what he does. But, I can still write about why I picked him. And, actually, the reasons why I picked him are identical to the reasons I picked the Dresden Dolls for my first blog.
I picked him for his gender bending qualities, is totally in your face look and yes, even his bright pink hair (which is now orange by the way, don't believe me check out is myspace, http://www.myspace.com/jeffreestar). Just like with the Dresden Dolls I am fascinated by people who break their gender roll, and even more fascinated by people's response to it. I also picked, just like the Dresden Dolls before him, for his in your face lyrics about topics that generally would be seen as to blatantly about sex and/or just uncomfortable. And with song titles like "We Want Cunt", "Straight Boys" and "Ice Cream" I'm sure you get the idea.
Also, as an added interest piece for me, Mr. Star has recently started his own label called Popsicle Records, which other than the myspace dedicated to it http://www.myspace.com/popsiclerecords also has little info out about it.
I'm not sure that Jeffree Star will have much of an impact on the work I do in this class, but I certainly admire his ambition and unapologetic fuck-you attitude.

Found Artist

The Dresden Dolls

For this assignment, I choice the self described "Brechtian Punk Cabaret" band The Dresden Dolls. This band is made up of just two people, Amanda Palmer, piano and vocals, and Brian Vigllone, drums vocals, guitar and electric bass. The band is originally from Boston Mass. The pair met at a Halloween party where Amanda preformed on an old piano in an attic.
I decided on The Dresden Dolls for several very important reasons; one, as it states on their official website (http://www.dresdendolls.com/main1.htm), "The Dresden Dolls continue to defy explanation and classificationn". Two, the members of the band refuse to be seen as on gender for any real length of time. Amanda doesn't shave her legs or under arms, and Brian is often seen wearing a skirt or full on dress. In one of the versions of their video for the song "Backstabber" Amanda is shown dressed as a man and Brian is in a dress for the entire thing. Three, because there is only two members of the band and Amanda's singing voice is not what would be considered "normal" for a female singer to have. It's more in the vein of Courtney Love, with her grinding vocals and the tendency to be slightly off the music. And, four, the lyrics to their songs can be down right uncomfortable when paid attention too, here is a taste of some of their song titles, which are tame in comparison to the lyrics: "Sex Changes" , "Bad Habit", and "Mandy Goes To Med School".
It was near impossible to find any sort of "artist statement" from these two. While I did read around three interviews with them from different times, the bio on their website, and their myspace about me. The closest I could come was two rather vague quotes.
"...and working with the idea of being slightly painfully honest and making the audience squirm a bit." Amanda Palmer in an April 2004 e-mail interview http://onlyangels.free.fr/interviews/d/dresden_dolls.htm
and
"Music is one of those things that brings great joy to people, singing is a sort of unifier of people, no matter what political place or original place you come from, we are a lot more a like than different and it's important to remember that" Brian in July 2006 interview http://www.ondarock.it/Dresdendolls_eng.html
These quotes are really rather hard to understand if you have never seen/hear the Dresden Dolls, so I think this would be a good time to put a link to their video of "Night Reconnaissance" from their most recent album "Yes Virginia..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yC6xftLzrY
I'm not sure how The Dresden Dolls directly relate to the work that I am doing in this class, mostly because I have yet to have any feed back on any pieces I have made. But I can talk about how I relate to them, and how I hope some of their influence comes across in my work, in this class and out.
I relate to The Dresden Dolls for all the reasons I choice them, their crossing dressing, their undefinable nature, Amanda's strange voice, and their harsh/raw lyrics.
I hope that their influence shows through in my work in pretty much the ways I just listed above. However with some tweaks. I don't plan on writing any lyrics for this class, but I do intend to try and explore gender in music and sound, and I like the idea of being too honest to the point of discomfort. Music that makes people uncomfortable fascinates me in general, but the idea of being so honest that it makes people uncomfortable, is just to good to pass up with out playing around with it.

Reflection On My Work This Week.

This week wasn’t by my definition a very productive one. I upload “Good sister/Bad sister” to my Garage Band and played around with adding random sounds and interments to the beginning and end of the song. I’m not sure I like how it came out, and I’m still not sure how well I’m using the Garage Band application…I don’t even know how good I am at this.
I think I need a good dose of inspiration…I’m just not sure where to get that from. I’m a bit frustrated with the progress I’ve made so far, I wonder, is it possible to be born musically stupid? Maybe I’m just looking at it from the wrong side…Maybe I need to try something completely different.
I suppose I could try chopping the song up and mixing bits and pieces in with something else. I don’t really know. I still have to think on it some more.

Snap-Shot Of Where I Want To Go This Semester

I was thinking of ways to incorporate my work from last semester’s Writing About Music course; because it seemed like a shame to put all that work into something not to touch it again. That’s when I had a moment of inspiration. Why not take the work I did with Bikini Kill and Courtney Love and tweak it a bit? Why not take some songs from Bikini Kill and Hole and layer them? Or add sounds from the free sound website and make something really disturbing from the whole thing? Why not try, through added sounds, force people to pay attention to the lyrics instead of the people singing. I feel this is would be very interesting, especially in Courtney Love’s case, because she has such a reputation; no one I’ve talked to really takes time to try and hear what she’s saying. This wouldn’t apply, at least in my mind, as much to Bikini Kill, mostly because the lead singer married a Beastie Boy; and their music is so blatant in what it wants to say, it’s hard to miss the meaning. So that’s where I am at this moment. I plan on listening to Hole’s first CD “Pretty On The Inside” to pick a song to try and work with. Though I’m leaning towards “Good Sister/ Bad Sister” right now, maybe mixing it with “White Boy” by Bikini Kill.

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