There was a very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin. He’s a fascinating man in his own right, but the real crux of the piece was whether or not the music industry could be saved from itself.
Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig’s first three albums. Later in his career, he discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash’s career while producing the Man in Black’s last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary recordings to name.
Yet Rubin tells his interviewer: “‘I have no training, no technical skill – it’s only this ability to listen and try to coach the artists to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.’” I have never known much about Rick Rubin personally, except that he had worked with a ton of great bands. I assumed he was an engineering wizard, to have risen to such prominence as a producer, and think it’s really quite interesting that he essentially reduces what he does to being the ultimate fan.
Given his track record of consistent innovation, it was an especially adroit move on behalf of Columbia Records to hire Rubin as their new label co-head. Apparently it wasn’t an altogether easy sell, either, because Rubin had sworn never to work with Columbia again after an album he’d produced for Neal Diamond, 12 Songs, which Rubin was especially proud of, suffered heavily in sales because Columbia’s corporate paymaster, Sony, had decided to load it with DRM software that doubled as spyware. (I told you this article was interesting!)
One of Rubin’s first accomplishments at Columbia was to convince them to “go green” and stop using plastic cases for all of their releases. For an industry that is completely out of touch with the present and mired in a vicious rear-guard action against the future, it was a nicely symbolic if inadequately small bit of acquiescence to the reality of where music is heading.
Of course, no one knows exactly where the music “business” is going, but everyone agrees that the majors seem bent on securing their profits even at the expense of allowing themselves to become completely obsolete. The actions of the Recording Industry Association of America have been thoroughly pilloried enough that everyone is aware of its crimes. Few people with half a brain still have any respect for the labels that use the RIAA as their attack dog against all those nefarious file-sharers that are “destroying” the music business. How does Rubin propose to pull Columbia out of this quagmire?
To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”
Obviously there’s a lot that would have to be figured out to put this system in place. There will be many complexities to such a system that Rubin does not touch on, so it will not be anywhere near as simple as he describes it. But a virtual library does have its attractive points, such as the idea that all your favorite music will be on one universal platform and you can listen to it anywhere you want. Also, as a musician, I like the possibilities this would give me to put out my music however I choose: I could upload every show my band plays, for instance, and my music would be available to my audience as the ever-evolving entity it is, as opposed to something static that I recorded at one point in time.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, but several issues raise themselves immediately, the most important being: Will people be willing to pay a subscription fee for digital copies of music, even if that money grants them access to a virtual universal library, rather than continue to freely share music digitally with their friends and online peers? I assume that, like with TV shows, hard copies will still be made available to those of us who insist on such archaic things. If CDs are available, how can the RIAA stop illegal file sharing altogether and force everyone to pay a subscription fee? It seems like they can’t, not without continuing to sue every starving student and single mother who “steals” music from them, a practice that is the single biggest factor in ensuring their steady path into obsolescence.
But Rubin does say, after all, that the iPod will be obsolete in this future industry. Are the major labels, in fact, thinking about not making CDs and vinyl albums at all?
Without the option of hard copies being available, you will inevitably have two distinct music businesses develop: The majors who only put their stuff online because that’s the only way they can squeeze the money out of it; and the independent artists who won’t play that game and still love and cherish the recorded artifact as much as the exposure and convenience of digital file sharing, free or otherwise. This would, again, ensure that the major labels remain the province of the mainstream, while all the true innovation continues to happen under their radar – in other words, a type of limited obsolescence, but obsolescence all the same.
I mean, sure there’s big money in Hannah Montana CDs, and the teeny-boppers who listen to that kind of thing are also entirely likely to buy into a subscription model because they don’t buy hard copies of music anyway. But if the majors insist that their artists cannot release CDs of their music, what self-respecting independent artist of today is going to agree to sign to them in the future? This is what I mean by limited obsolescence: the majors will only be able to continue serving up mainstream pop crap, not the kind of innovative music Rubin has a knack for producing.
This could actually be a great thing: Let the majors cater to the teeny-boppers, which is pretty much what they do best anyway, and let everyone else figure out their own way forward. I’m kind of liking this subscription model more and more…
10.15.2007
Looking on unemployment's bright side
Sci fi has always been my chief fascination/obsession. It must've all started with Star Wars, but The Transformers and Voltron definitely did their part when I was still but a wee lad, as did Spaceballs and Flash Gordon. By the time I was reading chapter books it was, naturally, Frank Herbert and Arthur C. Clarke. Those two carried me through college (with a little help from David Lynch and Stanley Kubrik, of course). Orwell was a titan in my universe as well (I prefer Terry Gilliam’s take on 1984 to Michael Radford’s, but was enraptured by both).
I started off as a computer science major at UT-Austin but eventually decided that studying English was a better way to qualify myself for a career writing for video games, which was how I had decided to sustain myself while scribing my own SF masterpieces. I worked on my first manuscript in Austin for a couple years after college while writing business information for a website by day. I moved out to the Bay Area about five years ago, where I finished my first novel.
I also got my Masters degree in English from San Jose State University, where I had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for an undergraduate course on sci-fi literature. I taught a whole new generation of sci-fi geeks both Orwell and Clarke! (Herbert didn’t make the cut, though the professor had thought long and hard about that decision, he assured me.)
My novel has yet to see the light of day – it’s really just the first of a four-part series, naturally – but I did manage to finally land a job writing for video games. For the past year and a half I’ve been working at Perpetual Entertainment, and among other duties I had the honor of writing various feature articles and press announcements for Star Trek Online, an MMO being developed by Perpetual that is set entirely in the Trek universe. I really was pretty much in heaven, until another game the company was developing got axed and they laid off half the workforce, me included.
I have plenty of free time now that I’m unemployed, which is pretty cool because I’ve been wanting to finally finish Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series for a while now, and I’ve been re-watching all of the Firefly DVDs ever since I heard the latest rumors that a Serenity sequel might actually get made. Now I can do both.
I started off as a computer science major at UT-Austin but eventually decided that studying English was a better way to qualify myself for a career writing for video games, which was how I had decided to sustain myself while scribing my own SF masterpieces. I worked on my first manuscript in Austin for a couple years after college while writing business information for a website by day. I moved out to the Bay Area about five years ago, where I finished my first novel.
I also got my Masters degree in English from San Jose State University, where I had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for an undergraduate course on sci-fi literature. I taught a whole new generation of sci-fi geeks both Orwell and Clarke! (Herbert didn’t make the cut, though the professor had thought long and hard about that decision, he assured me.)
My novel has yet to see the light of day – it’s really just the first of a four-part series, naturally – but I did manage to finally land a job writing for video games. For the past year and a half I’ve been working at Perpetual Entertainment, and among other duties I had the honor of writing various feature articles and press announcements for Star Trek Online, an MMO being developed by Perpetual that is set entirely in the Trek universe. I really was pretty much in heaven, until another game the company was developing got axed and they laid off half the workforce, me included.
I have plenty of free time now that I’m unemployed, which is pretty cool because I’ve been wanting to finally finish Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series for a while now, and I’ve been re-watching all of the Firefly DVDs ever since I heard the latest rumors that a Serenity sequel might actually get made. Now I can do both.
2.07.2007
musings on the NOFX show of 01/31/07
NOFX
Strike Anywhere
The Departed
01/31/07
Slim’s, San Francisco
When NOFX took the stage they immediately told the sold-out crowd at Slim’s that they were tired and didn’t want to be there. But of course no one took them seriously. The Bay Area-based punks have kinda made their careers out of not being serious, in fact. NOFX shows are always a boisterously good time, and this was just the first bit of the sarcastic banter that makes their shows completely unpredictable and as funny as they are rockin. Hell, the band has as much fun at their shows as anyone else.
That’s because they do things entirely their own way. From their music to their shows — even their record label, Fat Wreck Chords — they’ve never bothered catering to anybody else’s expectations.
Far too many punk bands do seem to cater to some accepted definition of punk. Another local (but lesser-known) group, The Departed, opened the night with a solid set of generic three-chord punk. Their style seemed to play well to the masses, but it lacked anything like originality or volatility. They broke up the monotony at one point by playing a song that was reminiscent of the more layered indie-punk of Sleater-Kinney, but, after that, frontwoman Michelle Lockneck told the crowd they were going to “pick the pace back up.” Apparently, she meant they were going to continue churning out different variations of the same standard punk tune.
Now, if you’re really into punk then I can see how you’d like the Departed. They’ve got great energy on stage (and in the crowd after NOFX’s set, dancing to the house music), and drummer Nikki Stix carries a jaunty but propulsive beat with ease. I’ll be the first to admit that I am unfair about any music that I perceive as generic or pedestrian. What was really unfortunate for them, however, was that a video of a Dead Kennedys show was playing between sets. Jello Biafra’s hyper-manic stage show and the endless stream of stage-divers were a demonstration of the raw energy and power that punk once attained to. And, unfortunately, the Departed just didn’t measure up to that. They kinda got blown off the stage…by a DVD. Or at least would have, if the sound to the DVD had been turned up. Still, even without sound the Dead Kennedys were a lot more intriguing to watch than the Departed.
To be fair, few bands could measure up to the intensity of that Dead Kennedys show. Hell, NOFX didn’t either, in some ways.
Neither did the next supporting act, Strike Anywhere, who are nonetheless aptly named: them boys are damn near combustible on stage. They projected a fierce energy, jumping around and playing a much heavier and dense version of punk than the Departed. But still, they weren’t really offering anything that various other bands, like AFI and Strung Out, don’t already offer, which sort of negates any “outsider” status, a necessary component of punk, IMHO.
Whoever made the choice to play the Dead Kennedys video—whether it was the Slim’s staff or NOFX—made a grave error. Punk was supposed to be all about anti-establishmentarianism and outsider art, and at the time this video was shot, the Dead Kennedys come off as being punk as fuck, if only because they clearly are just doing things their own damn way. Right next to Biafra’s extreme animation, you’ve got Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray in the background meekly playing along. (Which makes me wonder how they ever earned themselves nicknames. Don’t you have to have character to get a nickname? I guess they’re much more interesting off-stage.) But hey, Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray were doing their thing, in a band where defying the status quo appears to have been the primary goal. And that’s what matters most.
The most impressive thing about the DK performance, though, was how they extended this anything-goes ethos to include the audience: the band’s complete acceptance of fans coming on stage, chugging their fists, knocking into the musicians, and then leaping back into the crowd was incredible.
The reason I say NOFX didn’t measure up to the intensity of the Dead Kennedys show is this: about halfway through their set, one single guy somehow got onstage, and not only was he not permitted to stage dive, but security guards quickly and roughly escorted him offstage.
That’s pretty damn lame.
But, to my mind, NOFX make up for it in many, many ways. And after all, if that’s not their thing then fine, it’s their show. For me, listening to singer/bassist Fat Mike’s satirical, sarcastic, and frequently hilarious lyrics (which have a lot in common with Jello’s, actually), more than makes up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to get onstage and do a swan dive onto the concrete floor. And NOFX’s stage presence may not be as rowdy as DK’s was in their prime, but NOFX makes up for it with a presence quite possibly unique unto themselves (at least I’m not aware of any other band that could pull it off), as well as an inventive musical style that draws equally from punk, reggae, ska, and hardcore. NOFX is a true champion of the DIY ethic and a torchbearer of the outsider punk tradition.
As they launched into a reggae-fied version of “We March to the Beat of Indifferent Drum,” guitarist/trombonist El Hefe affected a Jamaican accent and hollered, “Jamaica, Jamaaaica.” Fat Mike wasn’t having that, though. He stopped the song and told El Hefe to do the intro again, because they were recording a live album that night and he didn’t want that on the record. When someone in the crowd apparently took issue with Fat Mike stopping a song that had already been started, he told that person, “We can do whatever we want.”
In fact, that’s exactly what NOFX has always done. Stopping songs that you’ve already started is supposed to be a cardinal sin in musical performance. NOFX doesn’t care; that wasn’t the only song they stopped.
While in the crowd, I heard some dude complaining that “they talk too much between songs.” This is, of course, another bit of music industry “wisdom:” Talking too long between songs supposedly loses your audience. This is a bit of wisdom that NOFX flouts mercilessly at every show, though. I don’t know what that dude was talking about: the between-songs banter—mostly between Fat Mike and El Hefe—is just as worth the ticket price as the music. And of course that dude was pogo-ing along with everyone else a few short minutes later.
NOFX may not allow stage-diving, but they engage the crowd more than any other band I’ve ever seen. For instance, at one point, as El Hefe laid into his trombone to start a song, Fat Mike stopped him.
“Stop! Stop! Look at what that girl is doing!”
El Hefe stopped and looked.
“Whoa,” he said, “that’s means your father didn’t give you enough attention when you were a kid.”
I guess they embarrassed the girl, because after the song El Hefe noticed she was gone. By the end of the show, however, she was back, mostly because El Hefe went out of his way to assure her: “We were just having a laugh at your expense.” (He meant it in the best way possible.)
Another girl asked Fat Mike to say “Happy Birthday Amy.” When he figured out the girl making the request was Amy, he led the band into a quick rendition of their song “Happy Birthday, You’re Not Special,” even throwing Amy’s name in and mentioning several times that she’s a crackwhore.
Okay, so I guess that maybe you had to be there. And yeah, Fat Mike and El Hefe really are kind of arrogant dicks at times, but it’s all in good fun. You get the feeling that these are old pals just hanging out, shootin the shit, playing music. It just so happens they hang out on stages with sell-out crowds watching them. Though they can be a bit cocky, the guys of NOFX can’t be accused of taking themselves too seriously. There’s also plenty of self-deprecating humor going on.
When someone handed Fat Mike a joint, he took it and raised it to his lips. Two crew-members and Fat Mike’s wife rushed on stage—for a moment I thought another dangerous, nihilistic crowd member was attempting to—horrors!—STAGE DIVE!!! But no, they were just there to take the joint away, though they looked more like they were mauling Fat Mike. “They let me have alcohol, coke, and ecstasy all tour long,” he immediately quips. “But apparently no marijuana. Good lookin’ out, guys.”
Fat Mike also told a story about a guy who flew in from Minnesota to attend the show the night before, and afterward invited them to go golfing the next morning. But he warned the band not to dress too weird because they were going to a ritzy country club and he didn’t want them to cause a scene. So, because they really wanted to play this course, the boys of NOFX put on their best golf duds and showed up to play. But the guy that had invited them had apparently been partying all night long, and ended up ODing on the second hole.
“His heart actually stopped beating. There were two fire trucks and an ambulance. EMT’s right there on the second hole. We played through though,” Fat Mike assured us. “It was a really nice course.”
Then they launched into “Whoops, I OD’d.”
Which brings me back to the music. NOFX ripped through crowd favorites like “Lineolum” and a cover of Rancid’s “Radio,” as well as several songs from their new album, like “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (which the band allegedly banned MTV from playing) and “Instant Crassic.” From the raucous, rockin’ punk tunes to their laid-back, reggae version of the Rancid song, NOFX pretty much nailed it all.
The true root of their individuality as a band is the fact that they resist any easy classification as just a “punk” band. What punk guitarist other than El Hefe, for example, would launch into a quiet, pretty version of “No Woman, No Cry” while the second guitarist is having technical problems?
Though a lot of Fat Mike’s lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously, some are exceptionally sincere and meaningful. Channeling the same contempt for the mainstream music industry that the Dead Kennedys were notorious for, NOFX played their song “Dinosaurs Will Die,” which lays out their vision for making music: “Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame/Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve/We’re gonna fight against the mass appeal/We’re gonna kill the seven-record deal/Make records that have more than one good song/The dinosaurs are gonna die and I do believe no one will cry.” Indeed, there were no teary eyes in the crowd that night.
Just in case there were any doubts left about where NOFX stands in relation to the establishment, they closed with their song “The Idiot Son of an Asshole,” an ode to the president.
Strike Anywhere
The Departed
01/31/07
Slim’s, San Francisco
When NOFX took the stage they immediately told the sold-out crowd at Slim’s that they were tired and didn’t want to be there. But of course no one took them seriously. The Bay Area-based punks have kinda made their careers out of not being serious, in fact. NOFX shows are always a boisterously good time, and this was just the first bit of the sarcastic banter that makes their shows completely unpredictable and as funny as they are rockin. Hell, the band has as much fun at their shows as anyone else.
That’s because they do things entirely their own way. From their music to their shows — even their record label, Fat Wreck Chords — they’ve never bothered catering to anybody else’s expectations.
Far too many punk bands do seem to cater to some accepted definition of punk. Another local (but lesser-known) group, The Departed, opened the night with a solid set of generic three-chord punk. Their style seemed to play well to the masses, but it lacked anything like originality or volatility. They broke up the monotony at one point by playing a song that was reminiscent of the more layered indie-punk of Sleater-Kinney, but, after that, frontwoman Michelle Lockneck told the crowd they were going to “pick the pace back up.” Apparently, she meant they were going to continue churning out different variations of the same standard punk tune.
Now, if you’re really into punk then I can see how you’d like the Departed. They’ve got great energy on stage (and in the crowd after NOFX’s set, dancing to the house music), and drummer Nikki Stix carries a jaunty but propulsive beat with ease. I’ll be the first to admit that I am unfair about any music that I perceive as generic or pedestrian. What was really unfortunate for them, however, was that a video of a Dead Kennedys show was playing between sets. Jello Biafra’s hyper-manic stage show and the endless stream of stage-divers were a demonstration of the raw energy and power that punk once attained to. And, unfortunately, the Departed just didn’t measure up to that. They kinda got blown off the stage…by a DVD. Or at least would have, if the sound to the DVD had been turned up. Still, even without sound the Dead Kennedys were a lot more intriguing to watch than the Departed.
To be fair, few bands could measure up to the intensity of that Dead Kennedys show. Hell, NOFX didn’t either, in some ways.
Neither did the next supporting act, Strike Anywhere, who are nonetheless aptly named: them boys are damn near combustible on stage. They projected a fierce energy, jumping around and playing a much heavier and dense version of punk than the Departed. But still, they weren’t really offering anything that various other bands, like AFI and Strung Out, don’t already offer, which sort of negates any “outsider” status, a necessary component of punk, IMHO.
Whoever made the choice to play the Dead Kennedys video—whether it was the Slim’s staff or NOFX—made a grave error. Punk was supposed to be all about anti-establishmentarianism and outsider art, and at the time this video was shot, the Dead Kennedys come off as being punk as fuck, if only because they clearly are just doing things their own damn way. Right next to Biafra’s extreme animation, you’ve got Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray in the background meekly playing along. (Which makes me wonder how they ever earned themselves nicknames. Don’t you have to have character to get a nickname? I guess they’re much more interesting off-stage.) But hey, Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray were doing their thing, in a band where defying the status quo appears to have been the primary goal. And that’s what matters most.
The most impressive thing about the DK performance, though, was how they extended this anything-goes ethos to include the audience: the band’s complete acceptance of fans coming on stage, chugging their fists, knocking into the musicians, and then leaping back into the crowd was incredible.
The reason I say NOFX didn’t measure up to the intensity of the Dead Kennedys show is this: about halfway through their set, one single guy somehow got onstage, and not only was he not permitted to stage dive, but security guards quickly and roughly escorted him offstage.
That’s pretty damn lame.
But, to my mind, NOFX make up for it in many, many ways. And after all, if that’s not their thing then fine, it’s their show. For me, listening to singer/bassist Fat Mike’s satirical, sarcastic, and frequently hilarious lyrics (which have a lot in common with Jello’s, actually), more than makes up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to get onstage and do a swan dive onto the concrete floor. And NOFX’s stage presence may not be as rowdy as DK’s was in their prime, but NOFX makes up for it with a presence quite possibly unique unto themselves (at least I’m not aware of any other band that could pull it off), as well as an inventive musical style that draws equally from punk, reggae, ska, and hardcore. NOFX is a true champion of the DIY ethic and a torchbearer of the outsider punk tradition.
As they launched into a reggae-fied version of “We March to the Beat of Indifferent Drum,” guitarist/trombonist El Hefe affected a Jamaican accent and hollered, “Jamaica, Jamaaaica.” Fat Mike wasn’t having that, though. He stopped the song and told El Hefe to do the intro again, because they were recording a live album that night and he didn’t want that on the record. When someone in the crowd apparently took issue with Fat Mike stopping a song that had already been started, he told that person, “We can do whatever we want.”
In fact, that’s exactly what NOFX has always done. Stopping songs that you’ve already started is supposed to be a cardinal sin in musical performance. NOFX doesn’t care; that wasn’t the only song they stopped.
While in the crowd, I heard some dude complaining that “they talk too much between songs.” This is, of course, another bit of music industry “wisdom:” Talking too long between songs supposedly loses your audience. This is a bit of wisdom that NOFX flouts mercilessly at every show, though. I don’t know what that dude was talking about: the between-songs banter—mostly between Fat Mike and El Hefe—is just as worth the ticket price as the music. And of course that dude was pogo-ing along with everyone else a few short minutes later.
NOFX may not allow stage-diving, but they engage the crowd more than any other band I’ve ever seen. For instance, at one point, as El Hefe laid into his trombone to start a song, Fat Mike stopped him.
“Stop! Stop! Look at what that girl is doing!”
El Hefe stopped and looked.
“Whoa,” he said, “that’s means your father didn’t give you enough attention when you were a kid.”
I guess they embarrassed the girl, because after the song El Hefe noticed she was gone. By the end of the show, however, she was back, mostly because El Hefe went out of his way to assure her: “We were just having a laugh at your expense.” (He meant it in the best way possible.)
Another girl asked Fat Mike to say “Happy Birthday Amy.” When he figured out the girl making the request was Amy, he led the band into a quick rendition of their song “Happy Birthday, You’re Not Special,” even throwing Amy’s name in and mentioning several times that she’s a crackwhore.
Okay, so I guess that maybe you had to be there. And yeah, Fat Mike and El Hefe really are kind of arrogant dicks at times, but it’s all in good fun. You get the feeling that these are old pals just hanging out, shootin the shit, playing music. It just so happens they hang out on stages with sell-out crowds watching them. Though they can be a bit cocky, the guys of NOFX can’t be accused of taking themselves too seriously. There’s also plenty of self-deprecating humor going on.
When someone handed Fat Mike a joint, he took it and raised it to his lips. Two crew-members and Fat Mike’s wife rushed on stage—for a moment I thought another dangerous, nihilistic crowd member was attempting to—horrors!—STAGE DIVE!!! But no, they were just there to take the joint away, though they looked more like they were mauling Fat Mike. “They let me have alcohol, coke, and ecstasy all tour long,” he immediately quips. “But apparently no marijuana. Good lookin’ out, guys.”
Fat Mike also told a story about a guy who flew in from Minnesota to attend the show the night before, and afterward invited them to go golfing the next morning. But he warned the band not to dress too weird because they were going to a ritzy country club and he didn’t want them to cause a scene. So, because they really wanted to play this course, the boys of NOFX put on their best golf duds and showed up to play. But the guy that had invited them had apparently been partying all night long, and ended up ODing on the second hole.
“His heart actually stopped beating. There were two fire trucks and an ambulance. EMT’s right there on the second hole. We played through though,” Fat Mike assured us. “It was a really nice course.”
Then they launched into “Whoops, I OD’d.”
Which brings me back to the music. NOFX ripped through crowd favorites like “Lineolum” and a cover of Rancid’s “Radio,” as well as several songs from their new album, like “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (which the band allegedly banned MTV from playing) and “Instant Crassic.” From the raucous, rockin’ punk tunes to their laid-back, reggae version of the Rancid song, NOFX pretty much nailed it all.
The true root of their individuality as a band is the fact that they resist any easy classification as just a “punk” band. What punk guitarist other than El Hefe, for example, would launch into a quiet, pretty version of “No Woman, No Cry” while the second guitarist is having technical problems?
Though a lot of Fat Mike’s lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously, some are exceptionally sincere and meaningful. Channeling the same contempt for the mainstream music industry that the Dead Kennedys were notorious for, NOFX played their song “Dinosaurs Will Die,” which lays out their vision for making music: “Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame/Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve/We’re gonna fight against the mass appeal/We’re gonna kill the seven-record deal/Make records that have more than one good song/The dinosaurs are gonna die and I do believe no one will cry.” Indeed, there were no teary eyes in the crowd that night.
Just in case there were any doubts left about where NOFX stands in relation to the establishment, they closed with their song “The Idiot Son of an Asshole,” an ode to the president.
1.12.2007
Yeah, so you may as well find out now: I take Science Fiction WAY too seriously
After hearing about Larry Niven's Ringworld from several other sci-fi-heads, and reading about it on the backs of many sci-fi books I've read and enjoyed, I figured it was about time I read it. But, like the time I finally read Stranger in a Strange Land, I was disappointed to find a lot of sexism mixed in with some really fascinating concepts and at least mostly decent writing. Heinlein may have had an excuse (albeit a lame one) because Stranger in a Strange Land came out in 1961, before the feminist movement forced sexists to obey certain measures of common decency. But what's up with Niven, who published Ringworld in 1970? Did he incubate in some kind of feminism-free zone?
At one point, when the cast of heroes in Ringworld all set off on a dangerous mission, Niven writes of the female lead: “Teela stood behind [the men], safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine" (319). I mean, he's not even being sly about his sexism. Why, you might ask, was Teela taken on the mission in the first place? Because she's a good fighter? Or a skilled pilot? Or maybe even a knowledgeable scientist? Nope. Turns out she was bred to be lucky. Apparently, along with lots of men to do the real work, you need lots of luck in outer space, moreso than extra fighters or scientists.
Now, it's possible I missed something and Niven was in some way parodying or otherwise playing off of readers' expectations. But I don't think it's likely. The only other female character is a prostitute.
The interesting thing, though, and the thing that gives me pause, is the way he describes Prill's profession.
"'Boredom can be dangerous when a ship takes years to cross between worlds,'" she explains. "'The ways to amuse must be many and all different. To be a ship’s whore needs knowledge of medicine of mind and body, plus love of many men, plus a rare ability to converse. We must know something of the working of the ship, so that we will not cause accidents. We must be healthy. By rule of guild we must learn to play a musical instrument'" (328).
For some reason, this description reminds me of the character Inara from Joss Whedon's Firefly. Inara's a prostitute, but portrayed more or less in a favorable light--prositution in the future is apparently a noble profession.
But notice Prill doesn't say that prostitutes have to love many men and women--only men are provided with their services. In fact, there are no male prostitutes. The only reason women are even brought along is to pleasure the men, who need the distraction from doing all the important work so they don't go crazy. Now, to be fair, Firefly never mentions male prostitutes either. But still, there's a dignity to Inara that Prill is lacking. Inara at least gets her own ship.
Plus, Niven is guilty of writing the most horribly unsexy description of sex EVER: "Louis rolled onto his back, and Teela impaled herself as she straddled his hips. They looked at each other for a long, brilliant, unbearable moment before they began to move” (165, emphasis mine). Yeesh.
I mean, yeah, I'm taking this far too seriously. But damn. When it comes to female leads impaling themselves like good little heroines should, someone's gotta say something.
Edition of Ringworld cited:
Niven, Larry. Ringworld. Del Rey/Ballantine, 1970.
At one point, when the cast of heroes in Ringworld all set off on a dangerous mission, Niven writes of the female lead: “Teela stood behind [the men], safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine" (319). I mean, he's not even being sly about his sexism. Why, you might ask, was Teela taken on the mission in the first place? Because she's a good fighter? Or a skilled pilot? Or maybe even a knowledgeable scientist? Nope. Turns out she was bred to be lucky. Apparently, along with lots of men to do the real work, you need lots of luck in outer space, moreso than extra fighters or scientists.
Now, it's possible I missed something and Niven was in some way parodying or otherwise playing off of readers' expectations. But I don't think it's likely. The only other female character is a prostitute.
The interesting thing, though, and the thing that gives me pause, is the way he describes Prill's profession.
"'Boredom can be dangerous when a ship takes years to cross between worlds,'" she explains. "'The ways to amuse must be many and all different. To be a ship’s whore needs knowledge of medicine of mind and body, plus love of many men, plus a rare ability to converse. We must know something of the working of the ship, so that we will not cause accidents. We must be healthy. By rule of guild we must learn to play a musical instrument'" (328).
For some reason, this description reminds me of the character Inara from Joss Whedon's Firefly. Inara's a prostitute, but portrayed more or less in a favorable light--prositution in the future is apparently a noble profession.
But notice Prill doesn't say that prostitutes have to love many men and women--only men are provided with their services. In fact, there are no male prostitutes. The only reason women are even brought along is to pleasure the men, who need the distraction from doing all the important work so they don't go crazy. Now, to be fair, Firefly never mentions male prostitutes either. But still, there's a dignity to Inara that Prill is lacking. Inara at least gets her own ship.
Plus, Niven is guilty of writing the most horribly unsexy description of sex EVER: "Louis rolled onto his back, and Teela impaled herself as she straddled his hips. They looked at each other for a long, brilliant, unbearable moment before they began to move” (165, emphasis mine). Yeesh.
I mean, yeah, I'm taking this far too seriously. But damn. When it comes to female leads impaling themselves like good little heroines should, someone's gotta say something.
Edition of Ringworld cited:
Niven, Larry. Ringworld. Del Rey/Ballantine, 1970.
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