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unnursvanablog · 2 years

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The Euro songs we have lost, part one.

Just like last year I have compiled a list of my favorite national finals songs that did not make it to the big show in May, in Liverpool, but have found a good little home in my currently listening and other playlists that I have. Because even if these NF can be an absolute massacre and you can end up with your heart broken and non of your favs in Eurovision it's still such a fun way to explore new music.

And yet I can resist tweeting out 'omg worst eurovision ever' every day from now and until May even if that happens because I am an adult, but more importantly I have watched eurovision every damn year since 1999 and I know that sometimes you just have an off year with eurovision and it just isn't eurovision-ing all that much for you some years. It happens. And that's fine. Because the show is still always entertaining, you can usually find at least one song that you LOVE, and then is just always next year. The show must go on.

And there are always eurovision songs that wear me down every damn year and I end up LOVING because I enjoy the performer or they were just so fun on stage. It's all fine, even if it may apear that I have not gotten a lot of favs through. I just aim at a solid top 5 and a fun show for eurovision.

Now, I don't watch or even listen to ALL eurovision NF because there is just so much time that one has. One does need to pick and choose with these things. And this is just a blog post to mourn but also talk about some of those faves that I lost.

KRUTЬ – Колискова: Although I personally am not a huge ballad person, KRUTЬ had my favorite song in Vidbir before the show started and the one I wanted the most in Liverpool. It's a quiet, haunting lullaby in Ukrainian and is just absolutely beautiful. I may not reach out for this song that much on my playlist atm, but you know, it's an awesome song.

FIINKA — Довбуш: The song that actually became my favorite song, or like my most played song from Vidbir, was actually Fiinka with this rap-folk song. I never had any hopes of this winning since rap-folk won for Ukraine last year and Ukraine is not very used to sending the same example many years in a row.

OY Sound System — Ой, тужу: Traditional/folk mixed with edm is generally something that I really like in Eurovision, and just in general too, so of course I was going to enjoy this. It doesn't reach the same heights as GO_A's two song and it's nothing new for Vidbir so it was never going to win. But it does go off! It's fun. This is my jam.

Jerry Hill - When God Shut the Door: The song that I and almost everyone in the eurofandom that I am apart of thought this going to win Vidbir. Lots of emotion in this one and a really cool song, but I personally found it oddly staged. Or I wasn't really feeling it on the stage.

Neon Letters & Maiko - Tokimeki: There was a cute little Japanese citypop song and I really couldn't help but root for it, even though I always had my doubts that it would win, or get out of its semi. It would be something significantly different for Estonia and also just Eurovision itself if it had been chosen. But then it was put in a box on the stage and sort of didn't have the energy it needed to get out of the semi.

Meelik - Tuju: There were a few blissful days right before the Estonian final that I was starting to think that this song could very well go all the way to Liverpool for Estonia (if you're going to have a Eurovision with lots of guys in bands why not them, huh ? the best dudes in a band that were available) but it sadly didn't happen. This song has been stuck in my head since it came out. The chorus is such an earworm. And I also just really enjoy the indie looser aesthetic that the band has going on.

Chérine - Ça m'ennuie pas: what a happy little synth song (I love 80s synth and really can't get enough of it) and it was in French which made it even more cute. Like 80% of the fans thought it was going to take the ticket to Liverpool but it was strangely staged on the night itself (which I can't find a video of) which may have been why it didn't work, although why it didn't win or even come second is still a mystery to me.

Jone ft Silkie - Ekko Inni Meg: This song immediately got stuck in my head the moment I heard it. And really has been there in the back of my mind ever since. It's samples some other song, which Ateez (a kpop group) has also used, and it may not be the most original song there is and the staging didn't maybe have the impact it needed and I would absolutely love for the woman who sings in the song to be with Jone on stage. But damn this is such a fun, catchy track that I couldn't help but root for it. Probably one of my fav songs this NF season.

Eline Thorp - Not Meant to Be: A sleeper hit for me, but then there was just something about this song or maybe just the singer that was so charming, that it just wore me down. I was quite pleased with it making the final.

Ella A - Waist: This song was much better on spotify than it was on stage imho. Ella did have some cool choreo and attitude on stage and you can see that in a few years she will be a really cool performer. Maybe a little more confidence was needed to sell this whole thing to an audience, and I actually thought this suffered from over-choreography like a lot of songs this year. The slomo effect as I call it. It just doesn't always work. But as I said the song is great on spotify.

Vicco - Nochentera: Going into BenidormFest this was my fav song. It is a good radio pop and the video works well for the song but I really always knew that it probably wouldn't be strong enough on stage to go all the way. It's just not that kind of song. And I was right about that. It felt a bit weak on the night and didn't stand out when it came to staging. But it's great on spotify.

Megara - Arcadia: this would have been something completely new and exciting from Spain, which is something I'm always up for in Eurovision. It is fun when countries take a little risk. It was cool to have something like Megara in BenidormFest and the song was well performed and managed to not be too choreographed or anything like that. This was just enough. And it was fun!

Paola & Chiara - Furore: I need you all to pretend to be shocked that this was my fav, ok. Even though Sanremo just ended just yesterday and the songs have not even been out for a week, this song has completely taken over my life. On Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then this morning I have woken up with this song stuck in my head. I just wake up singing this song. It was everything I could have wished for tbh. Never had any chance of winning Sanremo, but it won my heart (which is a much higher prize tbh) and gave me the biggest show. This was a show! It was camp, they were all sprayed in glitter. What's there not to love.

Levanta - Vivo: This lady has had a song in Sanremo before, in 2020 which was the first sanremo that I watched, which I absolutely loved. So I had high expectations for this song. And while don't think Vivo is better than Tikibombom, I think it manages to pull off a similar vibe which I appreciate. It was never going to do amazingly in Eurovision, it was never going to win Sanremo, but that doesn't matter. I adore it.

Colla Zio - Non Mi Va: This song almost woke me up from the dead towards the end of the first night of Sanremo, after we had just listened to so many boring ballads and slower songs. The song sounds so much fun on spotify and it was a fun on stage. Although the performance there was a bit too out of sync and they do that thing I think is done a little too much in Sanremo… which is just wandering aimlessly around the stage. Or maybe I just want my boy bands to be a little more in sync and dance-y after listening to kpop for so many year. But they still got better and better with each passing night.

Colapesce, Dimartino - Splash: Here are other performers who have been in Sanremo before with a song that I really liked, the year Måneskin won, called Musica Leggerissima. I can't make up my mind if I enjoy Splash more than that one tho. I don't know what it is about this song, but I get a bit of an Abba feeling from it. And maybe that's why I like it. But they are also very charming performers.

Lazza - Cenere: At the bottom of my top 5 in sanremo but it was still the song that I most wanted to go to Eurovision, out of the ones that I knew had a chance to go to Eurovision. This song is just so current, it would be a little different in the eurovision landscape and would stand out in the competition, just like Soldi did.

#eurovision

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rametarin · 2 years

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Speculation about Pyotr.

Sooo. Semaphores. Those military flags they use to communicate across boats and stuff, largely before radios.

Did you think this symbol meant, ‘peace’? No. It meant, ‘Nuclear Disarmament.’ All along. It was the cold war mentality against nuclear bombs, as well as, nuclear power. Civilian or government run. They conflated Nuclear Disarmament to mean peace, and so it became a peace symbol.

I’m still old enough to remember stateside, the people that were 15-20 years older than I was in the 80s. People that lived through the 60s and 70s. I’m 38, so they’d be in or nearing their 60s by now.

But if you find a person that today would be called an SJW, you found a person that probably had a negative opinion about, at least, the capitalist west using nuclear power- because they deliberately would conflate nuclear weapons with nuclear power. And I remember hearing many the passioned rant about how one could not exist without the threat of weaponization of the other.

So why do I bring it up in the context of Hunter: the Parenting?

Look at Pyotr’s shirt.

It’s like when metal and goth musician aesthetic wear upside down crosses. But I don’t 100% understand what this means. Is he against nuclear disarmament? I don’t know. It’s the “peace” symbol, upside down and red. Either he’s pro-nuclear (civilian nuclear power, weapons) or pro war, and I don’t know which is intended. That may be intentional.

Well. Pyotr was embraced/died in 1985. He can’t be over 40- I’d wager he’s not even over 35. Pyotr strikes me as a vampire born in the 1950s, grew up and matured in the 60s, went through his 20s in the 70s and was 35 by 1985. Just passed the two decades of conscientous objectors, the Viet Nam war and the hippie movement.

He sounds like an American to me, but I’ve been deceived by how well Scandinavians and East Europeans can speak English before. Like, props, because some of yall consume western media like crack and I could confuse your accents for midwesterners at times- which is supposed to be the flattest, most basic kind of American English. Not drawling like the Deep Souf, not twangy like other parts of the south, not sounding like a Californian or New Englander. Just.. that sure is some American English, there.

So Pyotr could verywell be someone that learned English. Given the era it wasn’t especially common to find an American named Pyotr during the Cold War. There’s a tradition of immigrants coming here and naming their kids more anglicanized versions of the names. So, Pyotr becomes Peter.

So the big question is whether he was a native of Europe or one of its former colonies. Was Pyotr his real name, or did he name himself that?

We know by his long, greasy hair that he couldn’t have been military- at least, not at the time he died and was embraced. His shirt doesn’t seem very Hippie-like. An underwater welder with really long hair? I guess it’s possible that his employers could’ve allowed it because they just intended to kill him anyway.

Pyotr died under the water, embraced by a Nosferatu, presumably beneath the sea. Or perhaps a lake. Some body of water, somewhere. Possibly even in a sewer or sewage system? By his own superior- which raises even more questions.

What was Pyotr working on, beneath the waters? Was it related to nuclear power? Was it an above-the-board job, or a secret organization that he was employed for, being paid on the sly? We don’t know.

Initially I thought that going by the vulgar names of Shitbeard and Ape Boy, Pyotr might have decided to call himself the Russian name for, ‘faggot.’ But, after reaching out to the local Russophone I know, I can safely conclude, no, Pyotr PROBABLY did not name himself the English phoenetic of the Russian way to say and spell(anglicized) Peter. I was wrong in assuming he was over pronouncing it to muddle it between, ‘Peter’, and, ‘faggot,’ but the Russian word for faggot does sound more like the way Peter is said in English. So, this would’ve meant he either didn’t know how to properly pronounce it as a Russian would, or overpronounced it to distance himself from the term. Piotr = yes, P-Yo-Tur = no.

So then I started wondering if perhaps Pyotr might be a Russophile during the Cold War. Supposing Pyotr was English/British and not American, this might mean Pyotr was a Western Sympathizer for Socialism, Communism and the Soviet Union. One of those people in England that sided with the USSR and saw them as morally/ideologically right, no matter what they had to excuse them doing.

Also known as, a tankie.

So I’m going to guess his name is definitely not wordplay/vulgar or problematically sneaking in calling himself a faggot. Just.. if anything an anglophone with possible Russophile leanings.

Assuming Pyotr was possibly some sort of conspirator or terrorist in life, being a long haired counter-culture underwater welder, he could’ve conspired to do something constructive for some not-so-good guys. Which, wouldn’tyaknowit, would bring him smack dab into his sire’s web.

We don’t know for sure if Pyotr was embraced by a Camarillan Nosferatu or Sabbat. Were I to hazard a guess, I’d say Sabbat, but Nosferatu delve between both equally. He could just as easily have been honeypotted by a patriotic Nosferatu guarding the region wherever Pyotr and presumably his other welders got ate and turned, as he could’ve been just extorted for illegal, questionable labor underwater and then disposed of to not have to pay them.

Perhaps I’m just following trails that are not there, seeing shadows and leads that don’t exist.

Or, something very terrible is in motion and may involve nukes under the sea, in Hunter: the Parenting.

#Hunter: the Parenting #Pyotr speculation #vampire: the masquerade #theory #spoilers #longpost #long #long post

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dossi-io · 3 years

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An introduction to DeVita

Do you want to learn all about the AOMG artist DeVita? This article will cover everything you need to know about the third female member to join the labels roster.

The content of this article is also available in video format, embedded at the bottom of this article.

Prelude

In early April of 2020, the Korean hip-hop label AOMG ambiguously announced that a new artist was signing onto the label. This label was grounded by the Korean-American triple-threat; Jay Park, who’s also one of its executives. This is a label with a very organic feel and artist-oriented nature, which stands out compared to many other music labels.

On April 3rd, the label’s official Instagram account posted a video. It was titled, “Who’s The Next AOMG?” where fellow AOMG members talked about this upcoming recruit. They sprinkled small hints and details by sharing their thoughts on the artist without mentioning who.

Around the world, fans immediately began speculating on who this could be. The major consensus was that it had to be the solo artist Lee Hi, due to reporting like this: “AOMG responds ‘nothing is confirmed’ to reports of Lee Hi signing on with the label”

A few other names got thrown in fan speculations like Hanbin (B.I), previous member of IKON, Jvcki Wai, and MOON (문) aka Moon Sujin. This despite a few of these already being signed to other labels.

On April 6th, three days later, the account was updated with a part two. This time dropping more hints, which would exclude many names from fan speculations.

On the 7th of April, the label’s official Instagram account posted a short teaser. The video sported an 80’s retrofuturistic setting, with a woman turned from the camera, dressed in all black, rocking braids, and some glistening high-heels. As it seemed to be a female, some were now certain that it had to be Lee Hi. A small few actually guessed correctly that the one who would be joining AOMG would be Ms DeVita.

Finally on April 9th, it was official! She debuted with the music video, from which the teaser clips was taken from, EVITA!, which accompanied the release of her EP, CRÈME.

What does the name DeVita mean?

The name DeVita, draws inspiration and meaning from two things. Firstly, Eva Perón – also known as Evita – who was Argentina’s former First Lady. When Chloe was learning about Eva’s life, it inspired her to combine “Devil” and “Evita”, thus creating “DeVita”. The name signifies the duality of how both Eva Perón and DeVita could be perceived. Either being a devil, or an angel depending on the eye of the beholder. Secondly, Salvatore Di Vita, a character from Cinema Paradiso, was also a source of inspiration.

An introduction to DeVita

Chloe Cho – now known under the artist name DeVita – was born and raised in South Korea, until the age of eleven. In 2009, she moved to Chicago, where she would learn English.

In 2013, she went back to Korea and participated in the third season of the show; K-pop Star. A talent show, where the “big three” (the three largest music labels in Korea) hosts auditions to find the next big k-pop star. However she didn’t win, therefore neither got signed.

Later on, she returned to Chicago and graduated high school. After reflecting on what she wanted to do next, she decided to make music. In 2014, her pursuit to become an artist brought her to the talent show Kollaboration. On this show, she performed covers and actually ended up being a finalist. Despite her talents, she did not triumph as the winner of the show.

Not letting these losses stop her, she started releasing music on Soundcloud. The earliest release I could find, Halfway Love (Ruff), was from 2016. Her catalogue consisted of both covers and original music.

One day, Kirin, an artist and CEO of the music label 8balltown Records, was introduced to DeVita’s music. He liked what he heard and the two linked up. In May of 2018, WEKEYZ, one of 8balltown’s producer duos released a track titled Sugar. This track featured both DeVita, and the AOMG rapper Ugly Duck. This was the beginning of many collaborations to come.

On August 28th of 2018, just a few months later, AOMG released Sugar (Puff Daehee Mix).

This was a remix done by Puff Daehee, the alter ego of Kirin. Along with this track, it was accompanied by a music video starring Kirin, DeVita, and Ugly Duck. For most people, this was their first time seeing DeVita.

DeVita continued doing features on many songs by Korean artists while creating a little buzz for herself. There’s one notable feature, which could be seen as an important milestone in her career. That is her feature on the track Noise, from AOMG artist Woo Won Jae’s project, titled af.

In a tweet a few days after the release of CRÈME, she shared the significance of this moment.

“I was still making minimum wage working at a restaurant back when Noise dropped- I wrote my part during my shift on the back of this receipt paper. This was about a year and a half ago. A little bit after that I got a call from Pumpkin at 3am Chicago time. He said Jay wanted to meet in Philly in 4 hours. They put me on a plane and the rest is history.”

The phone call she mentioned in her tweet, about Jay wanting to meet, must have been made around September 2018. Jay was performing in Philadelphia at the time. The moment they met in Philadelphia was actually captured through a photo of the two. However, this picture ended up getting removed later on.

Fast forward a few months and Jay had just released his Ask About Me EP. The project focused on a western audience, so he went to the States on a promo run. During his visit, he also met up with DeVita once again, as can be seen here.

Finally, on April 9th, her being signed to AOMG was officially announced and she debuted with her EP titled CRÈME. Her joining AOMG, looked like something that happened pretty naturally. The vast majority of artists she had collaborated on tracks with happened to be AOMG members. Getting comfortable with the AOMG family, likely made the decision to join crystal clear.

Artistically

Just a quick look at her body of work thus far, a majority of it is in English. However, she has no issues singing in Korean, as proven by her feature on Code Kunst’s; Let u in. The tone in her voice has this sort of mixture of many singers, a melting pot of sorts. It reminds me of Audrey Nuna, SAAY, H.E.R, some vocal riffs from Dinah Jane, and at times, just a tiny bit of Ariana Grande.

As an artist, she’s still in the early stages of carving out her own unique sound and style. There’s incredible potential here, but her distinct identity is not completely there yet. I see before me a caterpillar that within a couple years, will transform into a butterfly, with its own identifiable pattern to spread its wings out on.

From what she’s shown so far, I would say she seems most comfortable doing R&B and soul music. However, beyond a quick description I prefer to refrain from categorizing her. Mostly because artists generally feel limited when categorized. More importantly, because we have no idea what she has in store for the future.

Debut EP: CRÈME

CRÈME is DeVita’s “crème de la crème”. She constantly modified the tracklist to present her debut project in a way that held her personal standard; essentially presenting us her best tracks. The result is CRÈME, which consists of five tracks, with a runtime of fourteen minutes altogether.

This EP showcases the fact that she is a competent songwriter, able to write some soulful, emotional ballads. It is completely in English and all the tracks are written by her, telling both life stories of her own and that of others. A majority of the production was handled by her “musical soulmate”; TE RIM, but other notable names, like Code Kunst show up as well.

Tracks:

Movies, introduces the project in a very gentle manner. In the track, DeVita paints a picture of a criminal couple, getting a rush, by committing crimes together. The lyrics feel inspired by movies like Bonnie and Clyde. My initial thoughts were that, for some ears, it could possibly be “too” calm as an opener. It doesn’t demand attention the way EVITA! does. Simply put, it’s not a bad track. I would just have put this track later on in the EP.

EVITA!, is something different compared to what I hear from others in the K-R&B lane. I love the 80’s aesthetic in both the track and music video. Sonically, the nostalgic saxophone riffs, warm lush synth pads, thumping bass line, results in a trip back to the 80s. With this recipe, topped with DeVita’s “current” contemporary soul and R&B voice makes for an interesting combination. The music video had that futuristic 80’s look with the neon colors, and I loved how the guns she played around with looked a lot like the “Needlers” from the Halo franchise. The title is once again just like DeVita’s name, an ode to the controversial Eva Perón. The instrumental was originally used by TE RIM, the producer of the track in 2017. His version has the same title as DeVita’s version and I recommend giving that one a listen as well, as it has a different feel to it. This track was definitely one of the highlights of the EP.

All About You, is a simple yet beautiful piano love ballad. Originating from her own tales of love, her vocals effortlessly capture what she felt during these moments.

1974 Live, is yet another ballad, but this time, with a calm guitar backing, playing a poppier R&B chord progression. DeVita’s voice is given a lot of space to be in the center of the track. As soon as I heard this track I became curious. What was the significance of this year, which would have her title the track as such? My questions were left unanswered… until the EP had marinated a while, when she tweeted: “1974 Live is about Christine Chubbuck”. In case you’re unfamiliar, Christine Chubbuck was a television news reporter, who made history in 1974. She was the first person to commit suicide live on air. According to her mother Christine’s suicide would on paper be due to an unfullfilling personal life. All throughout her life, she had experienced unreciprocated love. With this information tying back to the track, it becomes a lot less ambiguous and reveals a more cohesive narrative.

Show Me, is the final track of the EP, featuring immaculate production from the talented CODE KUNST. The sound is very moody, which fits her voice like a glove. This is my favorite performance on the entire EP, both lyrically and vocally. The lyrics present someone who’s fed up dealing with men, who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Now she’s looking for love with someone who’s honest and “real”.

With the project being a year old now, it has already gotten her nominated for both Rookie of the Year along with EVITA being nominated for Best R&B & Soul Track in the 18th iteration of the Korean Music Awards.

A majority of listeners seemed to enjoy the project. Many seem to be in love with her voice judging by the endless amounts of praise she has received, often described as painfully addicting, soothing, smooth, and so on.

I also asked a friend who’s a huge fan of Korean music, especially the hiphop and r&b scene to share her thoughts on the project. Here’s what she said:

"This whole project is empowering, in particular the tracks Show Me and EVITA! DeVita being a new artist, managed to impress me and many more listeners through this EP. As mentioned earlier, empowering lyrics with unique melodies and beats. Especially with the track EVITA! The fact that 1974 Live and EVITA! was referring to, two historically important women, is something that I love. This is one of my favorite EP:s of 2020 and DeVita is now included in my list of favorite artists." @Haonsmom

From what I’ve seen, only a few have been vocal about not really being too fond of the project. Some were left a bit disappointed, as they were expecting more hip-hop and R&B from an AOMG artist. The lack of “danceable” tracks was also a concern to some. Despite these criticisms, one thing was always mentioned; the girl has a beautiful voice and is obviously talented.

After listening to this EP, I hear a lot of potential. Being an EP with just five tracks, it definitely avoids overstaying its welcome. It’s brief enough to allow a listen through the entire project, no matter what you’re doing. My favorite tracks would have to be Show Me and EVITA!, but I found the whole project to be enjoyable. This EP is sprinkled with lovely vocal performances and simple but captivating production. I do still stand by my opinion that Movies would have fit better later in the tracklist if you’re chasing that mainstream ear.

I think the way EVITA! kicks you in the face, demanding attention, would’ve been a better fit as the opening track. In contrast to the other tracks, the energy level is unique, making the placement feel odd as the rest of the tracks have a chill vibe. All in all, this project gave me a taste of the “crème” but left me with a curious yearning for what this chef will whip up for dessert.

Bright future ahead

The addition of more female artists to the AOMG roster was much needed. Hoody was the first and only female member for about four years. This was the case up until late 2019, where she was then joined by sogumm, who had just won AOMG’s audition program called SignHere. Now funnily enough after DeVita, Lee Hi actually did end up officially signing with AOMG on July 22, last year.

Based on what I’ve heard during Devita’s Kollaboration days, she has improved immensely. This topped with her leaving the impression of someone passionate about their craft, bodes well for what's to come. She seems to be someone who'll constantly evolve.

Following an artist, at the early stages of their career, is something that I always find exciting. With such a lovely debut, I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for DeVita.

To view the content of this article in video format simply play the video embedded below.

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Credits:

The first image in article: Original photo, pre-edit from @jinveun

Gif from the Sugar Puff Daehee MV: @moxiepoints

#devita #krnb #jay park #aomg #h1ghrmusic #8balltown #kpop #review #korea #uglyduck #chloe devita #chloe cho #kirin #evita!#crème #moon sujin #khh #korean hip hop #krap

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ladydarklord · 3 years

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The Mighty Boosh on the business of being silly

The Times, November 15 2008

What began as a cult cocktail of daft poems, surreal characters and fantastical storylines has turned into the comedy juggernaut that is the Mighty Boosh. Janice Turner hangs out with creators Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and the extended Boosh family to discuss the serious business of being silly

In the thin drizzle of a Monday night in Sheffield, a crowd of young women are waiting for the Mighty Boosh or, more precisely, one half of it. Big-boned Yorkshire lasses, jacketless and unshivering despite the autumn nip, they look ready to devour the object of their desire, the fey, androgynous Noel Fielding, if he puts a lamé boot outside the stage door. “Ooh, I do love a man in eyeliner,” sighs Natalie from Rotherham. She’ll be throwing sickies at work to see the Boosh show 13 times on their tour, plus attend the Boosh after-show parties and Boosh book signings. “My life is dead dull without them,” she says.

Nearby, mobiles primed, a pair of sixth-formers trade favourite Boosh lines. “What is your name?” asks Jessica. “I go by many names, sir,” Victoria replies portentously. A prison warden called Davena survives long days with high-security villains intoning, “It’s an outrage!” in the gravelly voice of Boosh character Tony Harrison, a being whose head is a testicle.

Apart from Fielding, what they all love most about the Boosh is that half their mates don’t get it. They see a bloke in a gorilla suit, a shaman called Naboo, silly rhymes about soup, stories involving shipwrecked men seducing coconuts “and they’re like, ‘This is bloody rubbish,’” says Jessica. “So you feel special because you do get it. You’re part of a club.”

Except the Mighty Boosh club is now more like a movement. What began as an Edinburgh fringe show starring Fielding and his partner Julian Barratt and later became an obscure BBC3 series has grown into a box-set flogging, mega-merchandising, 80-date touring Boosh inc. There was a Boosh festival last summer, now talk of a Boosh movie and Boosh in America. An impasse seems to have been reached: either the Boosh will expand globally or, like other mass comedy cults before it – Vic and Bob, Newman and Baddiel – slowly begin to deflate.

But for the moment, the fans still wait in the rain for heroes who’ve already left the building. I find the Boosh gang gathered in their hotel bar, high on post-gig adrenalin. Barratt, blokishly handsome with his ring-master moustache, if a tad paunchy these days, blends in with the crew. But Fielding is never truly “off”. All day he has been channelling A Clockwork Orange in thick black eyeliner (now smudged into panda rings) and a bowler hat, which he wears with polka-dot leggings, gold boots and a long, neon-green fur-collared PVC trenchcoat. He has, as those women outside put it, “something about him”: a carefully-wrought rock-god danger mixed with an amiable sweetness. Sexy yet approachable. Which is why, perched on a barstool, is a great slab of security called Danny.

“He stops people getting in our faces,” says Fielding. “He does massive stars like P. Diddy and Madonna and he says that considering how we’re viewed in the media as a cult phenomenon, we get much more attention in the street than, say, Girls Aloud. Danny says we’re on the same level as Russell Brand, who can’t walk from the door to the car without ten people speaking to him.”

This barometer of fame appears to fascinate and thrill Fielding. Although he complains he can’t eat dinner with his girlfriend (Dee Plume from the band Robots in Disguise) unmolested, he parties hard and publicly with paparazzi-magnets like Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse. He claims he’s tried wearing a baseball cap but fans still recognise him. Hearing this, Julian Barratt smiles wryly: “Noel is never going to dress down.”

It is clear on meeting them that their Boosh characters Vince Noir (Fielding), the narcissistic extrovert, and Howard Moon (Barratt), the serious, socially awkward jazz obsessive, are comic exaggerations of their own personalities. At the afternoon photo shoot, Fielding breaks free of the hair and make-up lady, sprays most of a can of Elnett on to his Bolan feather-cut and teases it to his satisfaction. Very Vince. “It is an art-life crossover,” says Barratt.

At 40, five years older than Fielding, Barratt exhibits the profound weariness of a man trying to balance a five-month national tour with new-fatherhood. After every Saturday night show he returns home to his 18-month-old twins, Arthur and Walter, and his partner Julia Davis (the creator-star of Nighty Night) and today he was up at 5am pushing a pram on Hampstead Heath before taking the train north to rejoin the Boosh. “I go back so the boys remember who I am. But it’s harder to leave them every time,” he says. “It is totally schizophrenic, totally opposite mental states: all this self-obsession and then them.”

About two nights a week on tour, Fielding doesn’t go to bed, parties through the night and performs the next evening having not slept at all. Barratt often retreats to his room to plough through box sets of The Wire. “It’s a bit gritty, but that is in itself an escape, because what we do is so fantastical.”

But mostly it is hard to resist the instant party provided by a large cast, crew and band. Indeed, drinking with them, it appears Fielding and Barratt are but the most famous members of a close collective of artists, musicians and old mates. Fielding’s brother Michael, who previously worked in a bowling alley, plays Naboo the shaman. “He is late every single day,” complains Noel. “He’s mad and useless, but I’m quite protective of him, quite parental.” Michael is always arguing with Bollo the gorilla, aka Fielding’s best mate, Dave Brown, a graphic artist relieved to remove his costume – “It’s so hot in there I fear I may never father children” – to design the Boosh book. One of the lighting crew worked as male nanny to Barratt’s twins and was in Michael’s class at school: “The first time I met you,” he says to Noel, “you gave me a dead arm.” “You were 9,” Fielding replies. “And you were messing with my stuff.”

This gang aren’t hangers-on but the wellspring of the Boosh’s originality and its strange, homespun, degree-show aesthetic: a character called Mr Susan is made out of chamois leathers, the Hitcher has a giant Polo Mint for an eye. When they need a tour poster they ignore the promoter’s suggestions and call in their old mate, Nige.

Fielding and Barratt met ten years ago at a comedy night in a North London pub. The former had just left Croydon Art College, the latter had dropped out of an American Studies degree at Reading to try stand-up, although he was so terrified at his first gig that he ran off stage and had to be dragged back by the compere.

While superficially different, their childhoods have a common theme: both had artistic, bohemian parents who exercised benign neglect. Fielding’s folks were only 17 when he was born: “They were just kids really. Hippies. Though more into Black Sabbath and Led Zep. There were lots of parties and crazy times. They loved dressing up. And there was a big gap between me and my brother – about nine years – so I was an only child for a long time, hanging out with them, lots of weird stuff going on.

“The great thing about my mum and dad is they let me do anything I wanted as a kid as long as I wasn’t misbehaving. I could eat and go to bed when I liked. I used to spend a lot of time drawing and painting and reading. In my own world, I guess.”

Growing up in Mitcham, South London, his father was a postmaster, while his mother now works for the Home Office. Work was merely the means to fund a good time. “When your dad is into David Bowie, how do you rebel against that? You can’t really. They come to all the gigs. They’ve been in America for the past three weeks. I’m ringing my mum really excited because we’re hanging out with Jim Sheridan, who directed In the Name of the Father, and the Edge from U2, and she said, ‘We’re hanging with Jack White,’ whom they met through a friend of mine. Trumped again!”

Barratt’s father was a Leeds art teacher, his mother an artist later turned businesswoman. “Dad was a bit more strict and academic. Mum would let me do anything I wanted, didn’t mind whether I went to school.” Through his father he became obsessed with Monty Python, went to jazz and Spike Milligan gigs, learnt about sex from his dad’s leatherbound volumes of Penthouse.

Barratt joined bands and assumed he would become a musician (he does all the Boosh’s musical arrangements); Fielding hoped to become an artist (he designed the Boosh book cover and throughout our interview sketches obsessively). Instead they threw their talents into comedy. Barratt: “It is a great means of getting your ideas over instantly.” Fielding: “Yes, it is quite punk in that way.”

Their 1998 Edinburgh Fringe show called The Mighty Boosh was named, obscurely, after a friend’s description of Michael Fielding’s huge childhood Afro: “A mighty bush.” While their double-act banter has an old-fashioned dynamic, redolent of Morecambe and Wise, the show threw in weird characters and a fantasy storyline in which they played a pair of zookeepers. They are very serious about their influences. “Magritte, Rousseau...” says Fielding. “I like Rousseau’s made-up worlds: his jungle has all the things you’d want in a jungle, even though he’d never been in one so it was an imaginary place.”

Eclectic, weird and, crucially, unprepared to compromise their aesthetic sensibilities, it was 2004 before, championed by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company, their first series aired on BBC3. Through repeats and DVD sales the second series, in which the pair have left the zoo and are living above Naboo’s shop, found a bigger audience. Last year the first episode of series three had one million viewers. But perhaps the Boosh’s true breakthrough into mainstream came in June when George Bush visited Belfast and a child presented him with a plant labelled “The Mighty Bush”. Assuming it was a tribute to his greatness, the president proudly displayed it for the cameras, while the rest of Britain tittered.

A Boosh audience these days is quite a mix. In Sheffield the front row is rammed with teenage indie girls, heavy on the eyeliner, who fancy Fielding. But there are children, too: my own sons can recite whole “crimps” (the Boosh’s silly, very English version of rap) word for word. And there are older, respectable types who, when I interview them, all apologise for having such boring jobs. They’re accountants, IT workers, human resources officers and civil servants. But probe deeper and you find ten years ago they excelled at art A level or played in a band, and now puzzle how their lives turned out so square. For them, the Boosh embody their former dreams. And their DIY comedy, shambolic air, the slightly crap costumes, the melding of fantasy with the everyday, feels like something they could still knock up at home.

Indeed, many fans come to gigs in costume. At the Mighty Boosh Festival 15,000 people came dressed up to watch bands and absurdity in a Kent field. And in Sheffield I meet a father-and-son combo dressed as Howard Moon and Bob Fossil – general manager of the zoo – plus a gang of thirty-something parents elaborately attired as Crack Fox, Spirit of Jazz, a granny called Nanageddon, and Amy Housemouse. “I love the Boosh because it’s total escapism,” says Laura Hargreaves, an employment manager dressed as an Electro Fairy. “It’s not all perfect and people these days worry too much that things aren’t perfect. It’s just pure fun.”

But how to retain that appealingly amateur art-school quality now that the Boosh is a mega comedy brand? Noel Fielding is adamant that they haven’t grown cynical, that The Mighty Book of Boosh was a long-term project, not a money-spinner chucked out for Christmas: “There is a lot of heart in what we do,” he says. Barratt adds: “It’s been hard this year to do everything we’ve wanted, to a standard we’re proud of... Which is why we’re worn to shreds.”

Comedy is most powerful in intimate spaces, but the Boosh show, with its huge set, requires major venues. “We’ve lost money every day on the tour,” says Fielding. “The crew and the props and what it costs to take them on the road – it’s ridiculous. Small gigs would lose millions of pounds.”

The live show is a kind of Mighty Boosh panto, with old favourites – Bob Fossil, Bollo, Tony Harrison, etc – coming on to cheers of recognition. But it lacks the escapism to the perfectly conceived world of the TV show. They have told the BBC they don’t want a fourth series: they want a movie. They would also, as with Little Britain USA, like a crack at the States, where they run on BBC America. Clearly the Boosh needs to keep evolving or it will die.

Already other artists are telling Fielding and Barratt to make their money now: “They say this is our time, which is quite frightening.” I recall Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who dominated the Nineties with Big Night Out and Shooting Stars. “Yes, they were massive,” says Fielding. “A number one record...” And now Reeves presents Brainiac. “If you have longer-term goals, it’s not scary,” says Barratt. “To me, I’m heading somewhere else – to direct, make films, write stuff – and at the moment it’s all gone mental. I’m sort of enjoying this as an outsider. It was Noel who had this desire to reach more people.”

Indeed, the old cliché that comedy is the new rock’n’roll is closest to being realised in Noel Fielding. Watching him perform the thrash metal numbers in the Boosh live show, he is half ironic comic performer, half frustrated rock god. His heroes weren’t comics but androgynous musicians: Jagger, Bowie, Syd Barrett. (Although he liked Peter Cook’s style and looks.)

“I like clothes and make-up, I like the transformation,” he says. Does it puzzle him that women find this so sexually attractive? “I was reading a book the other day about the New York Dolls and David Johansen was saying that none of them were gay or even bisexual, and that when they started dressing in stilettos and leather pants, women got it straight away with no explanation. But a lot of men had problems. It’s one of those strange things. A man will go, ‘You f***ing queer.’ And you just think, ‘Well, your girlfriend fancies me.’”

The Boosh stopped signing autographs outside stage doors when it started taking two hours a night. At recent book signings up to 1,500 people have shown up, some sleeping overnight in the queue. And on this tour, the Boosh took control of the after-show parties, once run as money-spinners by the promoters, and now show up in person to do DJ slots. I ask if they like to meet their fans, and they laugh nervously.

Fielding: “We have to be behind a fence.”

Barratt: “They try to rip your clothes off your body.”

Fielding: “The other day my girlfriend gave me this ring. And, doing the rock numbers at the end, I held out my hands and the crowd just ripped it off.”

Barratt: “I see it as a thing which is going to go away. A moment when people are really excited about you. And it can’t last.”

He recalls a man in York grabbing him for a photo, saying, “I’d love to be you, it must be so amazing.” And Barratt says he thought, “Yes, it is. But all the while I was trying to duck into this doorway to avoid the next person.” He’s trying to enjoy the Boosh’s moment, knows it will pass, but all the same?

In the hotel bar, a young woman fan has dodged past Danny and comes brazenly over to Fielding. Head cocked attentively like a glossy bird, he chats, signs various items, submits to photos, speaks to her mate on her phone. The rest of the Boosh crew eye her steelily. They know how it will end. “You have five minutes then you go,” hisses one. “I feel really stupid now,” says the girl. It is hard not to squirm at the awful obeisance of fandom. But still she milks the encounter, demands Fielding come outside to meet her friend. When he demurs she is outraged, and Danny intercedes. Fielding returns to his seat slightly unsettled. “What more does she want?” he mutters, reaching for his wine glass. “A skin sample?”

#I hadn't seen this one before so I thought I'd share #noel will never dress down #ah yes the patient boyfriend Julian Barratt

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passionate-reply · 4 years

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Are you tired of Great Albums being about music people have actually heard of? Do you want me to just go ape shit, and review obscure minimal wave cassettes from the 80s? Admittedly, Oppenheimer Analysis’s New Mexico is one of the most famous weird minimal wave cassettes, and for good reason: it actually holds up quite well as an album! Come check out what all the fuss is about. Transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be talking about a very cultish cult classic, and an album that’s one of the definitive works in the very underground scene of so-called “minimal wave”: New Mexico, the only full album released by the duo “Oppenheimer Analysis.” The band’s namesake was actually lead vocalist Andy Oppenheimer, who became acquainted with instrumentalist Martin Lloyd at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention, where the pair bonded over speculative fiction, Midcentury graphic design and propaganda, and the work of early British electronic pioneers like the Human League. 1982’s New Mexico was these two’s first recording as a group, but Lloyd did go into it with one credit--the year prior, he and David Rome of Drinking Electricity released a double A-side, featuring the jumpy, playful instrumentals “Surface Tension'' and “Connections.” They referred to their act as “Analysis,” making it feel very much a part of the Oppenheimer Analysis story.

Music: “Surface Tension”

Oppenheimer, meanwhile, was a true outsider artist, making a living as a nuclear science writer without any substantive musical background. While not all minimal wave is “outsider music,” and not all electronic outsider music is minimal wave, there’s certainly a correlation there. Oppenheimer’s reedy, somewhat strained voice lends New Mexico the punkish charm that only utterly untrained vocalists can offer: a vessel that cracks and buckles as it fails to contain the raw emotion within.

Music: “Martyr”

The addition of a singer is one major distinction between New Mexico and Lloyd’s earlier compositions, but they’re also very different in tone. As I said earlier, the “Analysis” instrumentals are sort of light-hearted and sprightly, a bit reminiscent of the jazzy synth experiments of artists like Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley. New Mexico is substantially darker and more gothic, as befitting an LP that’s at least partially a concept album about the nuclear age.

Music: “The Devil’s Dancers”

While nuclear anxiety is an indispensable theme of the album, it’s never a suffocating one that makes it feel horribly antiquated to modern ears. It’s a very aestheticized rumination on nuclear themes, that never jumps up and hollers, “bombs are bad!” Take, for example, the track “Radiance,” probably the best-known track on New Mexico...to the extent that any of them are that well-known. It’s one of the album’s most languorous, atmospheric moments, and paints a vividly desolate picture of ground zero after a detonation, with its fluttering, delicate, but ultimately frigid synth flourishes.

Music: “Radiance”

I think my favourite part of “Radiance” is actually its lyrical turn: an atomic blast isn’t like the radiance of a thousand suns, but rather, vice versa. The latter is the one that’s merely theoretical and dwells in the realm of poetic license, whereas the former is a historical fact that we all have to contend with. “Radiance” is quite solid, but in many ways it’s a pale imitation of the title track, a seven-minute sprawl that works exquisitely as a kind of musical landscape painting:

Music: “New Mexico”

Painfully evocative, with an eerie, almost yearning undercurrent, “New Mexico” is easily the track that feels the most grand and epic. I would really have loved for it to be given more of a place of honour in the tracklisting, possibly as the closing track, but it’s wedged somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the second side. I suppose we can’t expect quite as much from a gonzo underground mail-order cassette release, though. At any rate, while “Radiance” and “New Mexico” are absolutely about atom bombs, they remain very emotionally intimate--almost torturously so. A lot of the other tracks are less about the bomb itself, and more about the rise of “Big Science” in the Midcentury consciousness in the wake of the Second World War--chiefly, “Men In White Coats.”

Music: “Men In White Coats”

As in “The Devil’s Dancers,” Oppenheimer happily accepts the role of an evil or insidious narrator here, and sells us this megalomaniacal perspective with aplomb. A lot of early 80s synth, minimal wave and otherwise, is characterized by more deadpan vocalists, but I can’t stress enough how much Oppenheimer’s piercing lead vocals bring to this album. It’s perhaps the most critical on the tracks that delve into more traditionally emotional topics--chiefly, the standard romantic love numbers. Take, for instance, the harrowing, neurotic “Scorpions”:

Music: “Scorpions”

I’m certainly a fan of the title “New Mexico,” which just ties together all the right connotations. First and foremost, New Mexico is a place--a place you can visit. And this is one of those albums that really wants to ground you in a narrow and specific sense of place, a sonic landscape. New Mexico is mostly empty desert, large tracts of which have been government land even before it started being used more intensively for military research in the 20th Century...most famously, of course, on nuclear weapons. I like to think that the name also suggests novelty and recency of place. We are, after all, entering a “new” world, defined by the advances of science, and the upending of earlier ideas about the world.

The representation of the album art for New Mexico that I’ve been showing you is actually the imagery of the 2010 reissue of the album, which I’ve chosen because I think it’s a bit better known, and I simply prefer it, personally. The most striking thing about it is this colour--a ghostly green, that instantly evokes the common imagery of atomic phenomena. Radiation doesn’t really glow green, of course, but, like everything else about the album, it’s clear that this choice is meant to be a reflection upon the greater cultural imaginings and social impact of the Atomic Age, so I think it’s a perfect fit. At the center of the composition, we see a figure, head bowed and face shaded to provide some sense of anonymity, reaching a hand towards the side of his face in a gesture that’s almost reminiscent of using a cell phone at first glance. What exactly he’s up to is as unclear as his identity. Between the modernist styling of the architecture to his left, and his antiquated attire, the image is quite suggestive of a Midcentury setting. But the real narrative angle here comes from the right side--several figures are approaching that central character, possibly in hostile pursuit. Espionage gone wrong? A desperate attempt to silence a whistle-blower? Much like the music, there’s an ambiguous, mysterious, but also menacing ambiance to this cover.

For historicity’s sake, I’ll also discuss the original cover of the homemade cassettes of New Mexico. As we might expect from the nature of this release, it’s a fairly simple graphic, featuring a nude woman whose full-figured body type, popular on pin-up models, and short hairstyle convey that Midcentury aesthetic almost as well as her clothed counterpart on the reissue. Our eyes are naturally drawn to her exposed breasts, where they meet a pair of radiation warning signs censoring her nipples. A simple image, but a deeply perverse or twisted one. Is it a kind of union between the vulgar, crass profanity of pornography, and the depravity of atomic weapons? Is it a visual representation of the way Oppenheimer Analysis have beautified the nuclear landscape, conflating man’s inhumanity to man with something voluptuous or pleasurable? This cover is at least as complex a symbol for the album as the reissue one is. And while it’s easy to dismiss it as lowbrow, I think it’s worth noting how the salacious or saucy aspect of it would have helped it fit in with other underground cassettes of its era, many of which had lurid or provocative imagery.

Of course, this discussion of the differing incarnations of the album is a natural segue to addressing the release history of New Mexico. The story of Oppenheimer Analysis is deeply entwined with that of New York-based Minimal Wave Records, founded in 2005 by Veronica Vasicka, a radio DJ fascinated by underground electronic music. The label specializes in making obscure, self-published works like New Mexico widely available in digital form, so that more music enthusiasts can get a chance to hear them. Without her, I myself might never have heard this album, and certainly wouldn’t be in a position to make a review like this! Vasicka felt strongly about the artistry of Oppenheimer Analysis, and gave the honour of her label’s first-ever release, “MW001,” to a self-titled EP compiling several of the tracks from New Mexico. Later, in 2010, when she was able to rerelease New Mexico in its entirety, she gave it the honourary designation of “MW001D.”

Vasicka is the one responsible for coining the term “minimal wave” to describe the subgenre she was interested in, and, fifteen years later, I think it’s safe to say it’s had some staying power. While it may be a bit vague and subject to individual interpretation, that’s a problem all genre labels contend with, and I think fans of minimal wave ought to be proud that this term was at least coined by a passionate and dedicated fan, who made her favourite music more accessible to everyone, as a labour of love. It’s also not the only genre term to come about much, much later than the music it seeks to describe. At any rate, New Mexico will always have a place in the minimal wave hall of fame, and it’s a genre-defining work, if in hindsight. The stylistic hallmarks of New Mexico are, for better or for worse, now also those of a whole movement: harsh, tinny rhythm machines, strident synth lines, anxious, unmannered vocals, and technological themes.

But what actually happened to Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd? In light of the renewed interest in their work in the 00s, they actually got back together for a bit, releasing some archival material from the 1980s and laying down a handful of new tracks, very similar in style to those on New Mexico. Lloyd passed away suddenly in 2013, but Oppenheimer has remained interested in keeping their ideas alive. He’s been performing live as well as putting out new music, first as “Touching the Void,” alongside Mark Warner of Sudeten Creche, and more recently as “Oppenheimer Mk II,” with Mahk Rumbae of Konstruktivists.

Music: “You Won’t Disarm Me”

Something that I think really stands out about New Mexico, especially when compared to a lot of other small-time minimal wave releases, is that it’s a very consistent quality throughout. As you might expect with an underground genre, a lot of the music to choose from is varying degrees of amateurish and clunky, and it’s arguably better to listen to Minimal Wave compilations than the LPs that exist. New Mexico is an exception, though, and doesn’t have any particularly weak tracks. The favourite tracks cited by fans of the album tend to vary pretty widely. My top pick, though, is the album’s opener, “Don’t Be Seen With Me.” It’s a perfect marriage of dizzying, spiraling synth runs, and one of Oppenheimer’s most frenetic vocal performances, that creates a masterful portrayal of being swept up in infatuation with somebody you really shouldn’t be fooling with. That’s all I’ve got--thanks for listening!

Music: “Don’t Be Seen With Me”

#music #great albums #album review #album reviews #minimal wave #minimalwave #coldwave #minimal synth #oppenheimer analysis

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lothioriien · 5 years

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richie tozier and his zoomer teen: headcanons

A/N: I tried keeping this as gender neutral as possible, but idk it’s a lil implied that the kid’s a girl. i’m trying to learn how to write gender neutral stuff :”)

By teenager, I mean around 16-17! High school age!!

Enjoy!

Sometime in the early 2000s, famous comedian Richard Tozier went to a party and came home with a woman.

oh yeah they deffo got it on that night

But that was a one night stand kind of thing, and Richie didn’t have any contact with her until about a year later.

He got up the couch one early evening to the ringing of his doorbell, and found a basket and a bag filled with baby food, diapers, and clothes perched on his doorstep

And in the basket? A small child, an apology note from the mother, and a birth certificate with his name listed as the father.

Oh boy did his life completely change after that.

It was him and the child, against the world.

but let’s skip the details on him struggling to take care of an infant first and move on a bit to when the kid’s older.

You, of course, are the baby that was left on his doorstep, and Richie tried to be the best father he could be despite his touring career as a comedian.

He’d bring you to the shows, even if you didn’t understand a thing that went on, though eventually when you’d help him write some material when you were older.

Constantly touring with him as a kid meant you were homeschooled. But that didn’t stop you from having a social life. You’d be friends with a lot of his fellow comedians, and John Mulaney was your ultimate favorite friend of his.

you just loved the very tall and gangly twelve year old looking man named uncle john.

Your academic life though was not too bad. You’re pretty intelligent, but when it came to maths, oh boy.

As a kid, you’d ask Richie constantly about math. He’d hate the school curriculum you had because math was different back when he was younger. He’d always help you, but it was mostly the internet just teaching you both.

You’d introduce him to vines (through iconic vine compilation videos), but mostly because he was so confused with this new language you were speaking.

Eventually he’d say some vines back to you and it’d come off so weird cause he’s a 40 year old white dad. You love him, nonetheless, and appreciate the effort

A lot of your instagram stories or snapchat stories are you filming him as you sing “You are my dad! You’re my dad! Boogie woogie woogie!”

He found it cute at first, where he would smile at you hiding behind your phone and hug you after cause dang he loves his kid so much and would die for you

then later, he’s evidently so annoyed because you do it constantly. As in he takes off his glasses, puts his head in his hands and just sighs so loudly.

When tiktok became the new vine, you were on the app every single day, making it a goal of yours to become tiktok famous.

You’d force your dad to do tiktoks with you

“I love my daddy. he is my superhero”

“Famous relative check!”

BUT THE PERFECT AUDIO

“Don’t look at me like that.” “YOU’RE MY DAD. BOOGIEWOOGIEWOOGIE!”

Gaining some clout because he is a pretty famous comedian 👀

Saying “ok boomer” to him when he’d annoy you

But then he’d clap back by being like “What the fuck Y/N. I was born in 1976, i’m not that old.”

“Yeah but sometimes you think like a boomer.”

“Ok, zoomer.”

“Dad. No. Get out.”

He’s really chill with you swearing. You definitely got that habit from him.

“What the actual fuck, Richard.”

“At least have the fucking decency to call me dad, Y/N.”

He got you into video games at a young age. Every time there was a new console or a new interesting game out, you’d both be up early to go out and get the said console/game.

And in each game you’d play, there would be hilarious commentary.

it’s basically that video with bill hader playing god of war with conan but imagine that and a zoomer’s feral energy combined.

He also got you into becoming a cinephile. Though unlike him, you read the books before watching the movie.

Marathoning a bunch of tv series together and you can never watch any new episode without him. Friday nights were reserved especially for it.

Richie can’t fucking cook for the life of him. Growing up, it was always take out, pizza, instant noodles, or mac and cheese.

He tried learning how to cook, he really did. But it was just so bad that eventually you’d learn how to do it. Then you’d try to teach him how too.

But did he get better as a cook?? Not really.

He once accidentaly set almost the whole kitchen on fire when he tried making pasta when you were 15.

“DAD, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PUT WATER IN THE POT FOR PASTA.”

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? I JUST WANTED TO DO SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOU!”

“I APPRECIATE THE GESTURE BUT PLEASE DON’T EVER TRY TO COOK AGAIN.”

The following morning, he got up and learned how to make pancakes with sausages, bacon, and eggs.

It was damn good, and by far the best thing he ever made.

So his pancakes became a regular thing.

On casual dinner nights at home, he’d let you have a drink with him and be drinking buddies. He taught you how to drink and be safe with drinks (cause we stan a protective father amirite)

Speaking of protective father, he’d be so picky and open about the people you’d date

“Really Y/N? That person? They’re fucking trash and you know it. You deserve better, sweetie.”

“But dad. They’re hot.”

“That’s still a no from me, kiddo.”

Having the most random, yet somehow meaningful conversations with Richie, yet roasting him at the same time.

“Y/N, do you think I would be classified as a papi by people.”

“No. You still wear hawaiian shirts over a t-shirt. You’re too tacky for that. You’re a papa, not a papi.”

But somehow, you also adopt his fashion style?

Cause hawaiian shirts are pretty cool? Very John Deacon ala 80s aesthetic?

And then he roasts you back from the time you called him tacky.

“Respect the drip, Richard.”

Even though you always poke fun at each other, you guys are actually so open with each other and just talk about anything and everything.

Oh no when you first got your period, he was panicking and nearly bought the entire aisle of pads and tampons because he was so clueless

Meeting the Losers Club was exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. You didn’t know what to expect of them or what they’d expect from you.

You clung to your dad the whole time, watching him reunite with his childhood friends. Each one of them had a look of surprise and confusion the moment they laid their eyes on you.

They found you to be like a mini-me of Richie, as both of you were clad in printed/hawaiian shirts and glasses.

“Jeez, Richie. Why’d you decide to bring a fucking clone of yourself?” asked Eddie.

“That’s my kid, you dumbass! Eddie, this is Y/N.”

“No shit, you have a kid! You got married, dipshit?”

“No, uh, it’s just them and me.”

You decided to butt in jokingly, “Joe was in the picture for a while too,”

“Joe? Who the fuck is Joe?” The minute Eddie asked this, Richie knew what was coming next.

“Joe mama.” Thus receving a high five from your father and a groan from Eddie.

at first, everyone else would not believe Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier had his very own kid, but the minute you started to get comfortable and joke around, it really clicked for them.

“There’s no doubt they’re Richie’s kid. Look at them! They’re basically a carbon copy of him!” Eddie would have exclaimed.

You‘re very liberal and open-minded, supporting the LGBT+ community and such, but you didn’t really know Richie’s stance on it.

Perhaps it was because he’d been surpressing his feelings for a specific boy from his childhood for almost his entire life, and he didn’t really talk about that topic so much.

But when you saw the chemistry between your dad and Uncle Eds, you sensed a little something there on both ends.

always saying a specific vine under your breath when you see them “two bros, chilling in a hot tub, five feet apart cause they’re not gay” (thank you to for this hc)

OKAY UNCLE EDS LIVES IN THIS AND HE’S DEFFO A BIG PART OF YOUR LIFE AFTER ONE SPECIAL TRIP TO DERRY, MAINE.

You’d say the vine so much, Richie eventually heard it and pulled you aside.

“Y/N, I- how did you know?”

“Know what dad?”

It took a little while for him to come up with the proper words to say. How was he gonna break this to you?

“Y/N..honey, I’ve had feelings for your Uncle Eds ever since we were kids. I-i don’t know, it really scared me as a kid to feel that way so I never talked about it. I guess what I’m trying to say is, kiddo, I’m gay.”

“Huh? I thought you were American?”

the man was basically on the verge of tears. He was so tense, he almost forgot to breathe. But the moment you hugged him and told him that it’s okay, that you love him so much, and that you’re so proud of him, he wrapped you in the biggest bear hug and cried. You cried too.

A/N: Imma end it here for now :)

So sorry it took forever!! I hope you enjoyed!!

Let me know if you want a part 2! 🤪

#richie tozier #bill hader #richie tozier x zoomer reader #richie tozier headcanons #richie tozier x reader #bill hader imagine #finn wolfhard #it #it movie #it 2017 #it chapter two #richie tozier imagine #eddie kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak imagine #reddie #reddie imagine #reddie headcanons #james ransone

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newmusickarl · 3 years

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Mercury Prize 2021 – Ranking The Contenders

It is that time of year again – the season of the Mercury Music Prize. In the last few weeks, the albums nominated for the 2021 Mercury Music Prize have been revealed and, as ever, it is a highly diverse and eclectic list of some of the best British and Irish music released over the last 12 months – some familiar, some not so familiar. Each of these nominated records is now vying for the prestigious title of Album of the Year, the overriding criteria for which has greatly deviated throughout the award’s history.

Traditionally the eventual prize winner would tend to be a lesser-known record rather than what was necessarily the best album out of the 12, with the judges choosing to highlight the artist and record that may have been overlooked and needed the most attention. However, this has changed in recent years, with the judges choosing what has been widely regarded amongst music critics as the best album in most cases.

So, with the likes of James Blake, Michael Kiwanuka, Dave, Sampha, Alt-J and The XX being just some of the acclaimed artists that have taken the top prize home over the last decade, the big question is - who is in with the best shout this year of being named the overall winner?

In recent years a strong favourite has often emerged from the pack, but I must say I find the 2021 prize to be the most open and hardest to predict in years. There is no clear favourite this time around for me, which makes for an exciting and intriguing build to the September awards show.

Despite the unpredictability, as I do each year I’ve listened to all 12 albums and tried to rank them based on what I think are their chances of winning. To be clear, this is not a “Worst-to-Best” countdown – this ranking is based solely on how likely I think they are to win the overall prize.

To determine this, I’ve considered the front-to-back listening experience and the artistic achievement attained by the album, the popularity of the artist, how critically acclaimed the album is and how similar albums have fared in recent years too. So without further ado, here’s my final thoughts and analysis on this year’s nominees.

12. Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra

This collaborative release from electronic artist Floating Points, American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra was one of the albums I hadn’t heard prior to the nominees being announced, so was pleasantly surprised by what turned out to be quite an interesting listen. Built mainly around a twinkly harpsichord and Sanders’ saxophone, the music builds to a swell at various stages before gently disappearing in the same subtle way in which it arrived.

That said, I would be very surprised if this album took home the overall prize and title of “Album of the Year” for several reasons. Firstly, this feels primarily like a Pharoah Sanders project, who is of course American and not British. Secondly, although split into nine movements this is ultimately one single piece of music and the Mercury Prize has always been about celebrating artistic achievement in the traditional album format. Based on this, I’m surprised it has even been nominated and I think this cancels this one out for me.

Of course, there is always a chance this could prevail on the night, but I think it would be too controversial and therefore highly unlikely to get the overall nod.

11. SOURCE by Nubya Garcia

This debut album from London-born jazz musician Nubya Garcia was another record I hadn’t heard before her Mercury Prize nomination, which sees Nubya take the listener on a journey throughout musical history. As she describes the record herself, this is “a collection of thoughts and feelings about identity, family history, connections, collectivism and grief.”

Now jazz records have always found a spot on the Mercury Prize shortlist with at least one record from the genre getting a nomination each year. However, the reality is that none have ever actually won the overall prize - even in recent years with promising efforts from the likes of Moses Boyd, Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming in contention. So as impressive as Nubya’s debut is in parts, I don’t think it is the album to buck the trend.

10. Pink Noise by Laura Mvula

Singer-songwriter Laura Mvula is certainly a favourite with the Mercury Prize judges, with her third album Pink Noise representing the third nomination of her career, making her an impressive 3-for-3 so far. That said, Pink Noise is a very different record to her first two outings, with Mvula lacing these tracks with synths to give them a wonderful 80s aesthetic and neon glow. When combined with her traditional soul style, it does make for an enjoyable and fun front-to-back listen.

However, my biggest reservation with the record is that it’s not particularly ground-breaking – this is a sound that a lot of other artists have employed recently and had similar or greater success to what Mvula achieves here. With this being the case, I’m also putting this one down as unlikely.

9. Not Your Muse by Celeste

Brighton-born singer-songwriter Celeste has already proved herself a hit with critics, having been named as the BBC’s Sound of 2020 prying to releasing this debut album. Across the 12 tracks on Not Your Muse, Celeste’s powerful, beautifully toned voice takes centre stage, simply soaring amongst the glossy musical arrangements.

From the instantly recognisable groove of Stop This Flame that has been everywhere in the last 12 months, to the string-drenched majesty of A Kiss, Celeste shows off her full range with plenty of style and flair. This is an impressive debut outing to say the least, drawing natural comparisons to the late-great Amy Winehouse for her soulful voice and cinematic presentation.

Although I wouldn’t be completely shocked if Celeste was to walk away the overall Mercury Prize winner, I think the success Not Your Muse has brought her already goes against her case. With its release, she became the first British female to have a No.1 debut album in the last five years and she even already has an Oscar nomination to her name for Best Original Song. She’s also been featured on Sky Sports coverage all year, as well as high profile John Lewis and SuperBowl adverts.

Therefore, I think it’s safe to say Celeste’s career is already flourishing, so a Mercury Prize win for her would simply be another accolade rather than the career-defining moment it has been for other artists in the past, and would be for other artists on this year’s shortlist.

8. Fir Wave by Hannah Peel

Northern Irish composer, producer and electronic musician Hannah Peel makes for a fascinating entry in the Mercury Prize shortlist for me. This was another record that I hadn’t heard previously and took me by surprise, with Peel essentially reinterpreting 1972 album Electrosonic by Delia Derbyshire (famous for creating the original Doctor Who theme) and the Radiophonic Workshop.

Although this is based on source material, this is an entirely fresh composition with Peel’s style of electronica drawing comparisons to that of Mercury Prize alumni Jon Hopkins. Peel herself best describes the record as “The cycles in life that will keep on evolving and transforming forever. Fir Wave is defined by its continuous environmental changes and there are so many connections to those patterns echoed in electronic music – it's always an organic discovery of old and new.”

It is an impressive record, and I was quite torn as to where to place this one on the list. If the Mercury Prize decide to return to their old habit of giving a lesser-known record the overall nod, then Hannah Peel could well be the artist to benefit - but that hasn’t really been the trend in recent years. Additionally, Peel herself is a very successful composer who continues to score many TV programmes and films, as well as putting together orchestral arrangements for the likes of Paul Weller.

For me, the nomination for Fir Wave has already granted it additional attention, which I think makes it a winner already in that sense. It’s certainly got an outside chance for the overall prize itself but based on recent history I don’t see it being named as the winner.

7. As the Love Continues by Mogwai

At this point, ten albums and 26 years into their career, people just about know what to expect from Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, and that is soaring, grandiose instrumentals. Yet somehow with each new release, the band continue to astonish, taking their instrumentals into unchartered territory and leaving listeners in wonder with their colourful, breathtaking soundscapes.

Amazingly, As the Love Continues is the band’s first ever Mercury Prize nomination, which is quite incredible given the high standard of their output over the course of their career. That said, it is not surprising this is the one for which they have finally been nominated, as it is for my money one of their best releases.

From cathartic opener To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth, the acid-drenched industrial sounds of Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever, and the dreamy, looping guitar riff and euphoric crescendo of Pat Stains, Mogwai’s touch for forging fascinating sonic textures hasn’t missed a beat. That said, it is the one track that contains clean vocals that stands out amongst the pack here, and that is the emotional gut punch of Ritchie Sacramento which sees frontman Stuart Braithwaite paying a beautiful tribute to all his musician friends that have passed away over the years.

This is still one of my favourite releases by anybody so far this year and my second favourite album overall out of the 12 shortlisted. So why only at No.7 you ask? Well, because sadly I just don’t see Mogwai taking away the overall prize.

Firstly, as well as their first Mercury Prize nomination this was also the album that saw Mogwai land their first ever UK No.1 album, so they are arguably more popular than they ever have been. Secondly and most importantly, the Mercury Prize has mostly favoured debut albums and younger artists throughout its long history, and I think Mogwai are simply too established and verging on legendary status at this point to get the win. So as much as I love this album, I think it’s likely to get overlooked in the same way Radiohead have been every time they’ve been nominated. Here’s hoping I’m wrong and left pleasantly surprised!

6. Conflict of Interest by Ghetts

Here’s another record where it’s quite puzzling as to which way the judges will sway on this one. On the surface, this third album from Grime MC Ghetts has all the credentials to be a Mercury Prize winner. With the likes of Dave, Skepta and Dizzee Rascal all amongst previous winners, Ghetts comes from a genre that has a winning track record, certainly in recent years as well.

The album itself is also mightily ambitious and grand in its scope, with each autobiographical, astutely written track seamlessly segueing into the next one. There are also plenty of moments throughout of stunning, cinematic orchestration that help to elevate Ghetts’ bold vision at various key points. Perhaps most importantly though, it is also one of the most critically acclaimed albums on this year’s shortlist, holding an impressive 95/100 on Metacritic at the time of writing.

However, as many reasons as there are for Ghetts to be a contender, there’s also some things working against him, which is probably why he’s landed at the midway point on the rankings. Firstly, I found the album was about 10 minutes too long and didn’t quite strike the same chord that Dave’s Psychodrama, or even Kano’s two recently nominated albums, Made In The Manor and Hoodies All Summer, have done previously. It’s certainly an impressive outing, but for me lacks the emotional punch of those records.

Also, as I said about Stormzy’s record last year and still rings true today - no album that has Ed Sheeran on it deserves to win the Mercury Prize.

5. Collapsed in Sunbeams by Arlo Parks

Into the top five now and I think here is the point where we finally arrive at what are the genuine contenders for this year’s prize. Kicking us off is young singer-songwriter Arlo Parks for her beautifully understated debut album, Collapsed In Sunbeams.

Parks said of the album recording process that she trusted her “gut feeling” a lot of the time, with most tracks “taking an hour or less from conception to end.” This is very evident across this raw, no-frills debut, where her wonderful soulful voice and honest songwriting are often the main attraction across the album’s 12 tracks.

Now, there is a lot working in Arlo’s favour when it comes to acts that historically win the Mercury Prize – it’s a debut album, she has her fans on the Mercury judging panel, and her success has been modest so far in comparison to some of the other nominees. That said though, the vital ingredient this album is missing for me is that grand ambition that recent winners Michael Kiwanuka, Dave and Sampha have all had – this is certainly a well-crafted record, but not necessarily one that will set the world alight and be talked about for years to come. For that reason, my gut says Arlo will be one of the names in the mix on awards night but will ultimately come up short.

4. DEMOTAPE/VEGA by BERWYN

For me, Trinidad-born rapper, producer, and songwriter Berwyn is the real dark horse amongst this year’s nominees. At just 27 minutes long, DEMOTAPE/VEGA is by far the shortest album on this year’s list, but nevertheless still manages to leave one of the biggest impacts.

Ultra-raw, brutally honest and charmingly homemade on his laptop, this debut is the perfect showcase for Berwyn’s talent. Across the album’s concise runtime, he carves out piano-driven R&B and Soul elements to backdrop his spoken-word style of rapping. To draw comparisons to other Mercury Prize alumni with multiple nominations, think James Blake meets Ghostpoet and you’re not a million miles away from Berwyn’s sound. For me personally, this album left a bigger impact in less than half the time of Ghetts’ whole album, thanks to cuts like the mesmerising and passionate 017 FREESTYLE.

Berwyn is certainly one of the artists on the shortlist that will greatly benefit from the extra exposure that winning the Mercury Prize brings so if you want to take a punt on an outsider, this would be the album I’d recommend backing.

3. For the First Time by Black Country, New Road

Much like Arlo Parks, experimental London rockers Black Country, New Road are another artist that have a lot pulling in their favour.

Another critically acclaimed debut and one that blends multiple elements from favoured Mercury Prize genres – post-punk, jazz, alt-rock, math-rock, amongst many others - to make a truly unique and bold sound. With razor-sharp guitar riffs, cutting lyrics and moments of seismic, horn-backed musical swells, this is a record that you can see easily winning over the judges on awards night. Although at times this is a record that’s easier to admire than it is to love, there are moments in which you can’t help but get enraptured, such as the wonderfully erratic Instrumental opening, the epic and meandering Sunglasses and the melancholic, romantic groove of the stunning Track X.

For me, this one is a genuine contender that I could easily see being named as the overall winner. In terms of things going against it, I would say it’s simply down to the fact that these next two albums are on the shortlist.

2. Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice

For me, the album that presents the biggest intrigue on this year’s shortlist is Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend. This is because as much as there are factors working in this album’s favour, there is almost an equal measure working against this record winning the top prize.

Having released their debut My Love Is Cool in 2015 to much acclaim and their first Mercury Prize nomination, there was a lot of talk at the time as to whether the rock quartet could deliver with their eventual follow-up. With their sophomore effort, Visions of a Life, they actually went one better and won the 2018 Mercury Music Prize, achieving further critical and commercial success.

Now with Blue Weekend, the four of them have produced a record that has managed to exceed the high expectations set by the predecessors. At the time of writing, the record is currently sat on a 91/100 on Metacritic, with a 9.2 user score, suggesting widespread universal acclaim amongst both fans and critics alike – so it would certainly be a very popular winner. It also suggests that by all accounts, this record is a more significant achievement than the 2018 album for which they won the Mercury Prize.

So as the only previous winners on the shortlist who’ve also just created their best work to date, they’re a certainty to win the prize again, right? Well not quite.

You see the thing is with Wolf Alice, they have Mercury Prize history working both for and against them. On one hand, if Wolf Alice were to win, they would become only the second artist after PJ Harvey to win the Mercury Prize twice, and also become the first artist ever to win back-to-back prizes for consecutive albums. If they were to achieve this, I don’t think there would be any outcry from the public, as the consensus with Blue Weekend is that it is a very special album and would be fully deserving of such an accolade. However, to achieve this it would mean the judges doing something they have never done before, and something they have only ever done once previously.

Therefore, you must feel on the night of the awards ceremony, it will ultimately boil down to one big debate - Deserve Vs Need. With this album, it feels like Wolf Alice have finally evolved from Britain’s most promising young band, into Britain’s best band working today. They are at the height of their powers right now, with Blue Weekend landing them their first ever UK No.1 album, helping them to instantly sell out tours and catapulting them to festival headline slots. So ultimately, they don’t need the win like they did several years ago to take them to that next level.

That said, this is the best album on the list and feels like a generational record in the same way Dave’s and Michael Kiwanuka’s did the last two years. Just take a track like The Last Man On Earth for example - a haunting piano ballad built around Ellie Rowsell’s powerful vocals, that begins gently before eventually erupting into a glorious haze of soaring guitars and Beatles-like riffs. It is barely six months old and already this song feels like a timeless classic, and you can argue the rest of the album is the same. So, if any album really deserves to be named “Album of the Year” and make a bit of Mercury Prize history in the process, it is very much this one.

Which way the judges lean on this Deserve Vs Need debate I feel will ultimately decide this year’s prize, whether Wolf Alice triumph and make history or whether this next album pips it to the post instead. My gut says that the latter is more likely, but it makes for an exciting conundrum around this year’s winner and will have me rooting on the night for Wolf Alice to prevail.

1. Untitled (Rise) by SAULT

So here we are then, the album I think is most likely to take home the 2021 Mercury Prize…. and kind of predictably it’s the current favourite. Although it may be the boring choice to put this album first, analysing the chances of mysterious musical collective SAULT against the rest of the nominees, it is clear as to why they are looking the most likely at this moment in time.

Interestingly much like Burial when he was nominated back in 2008, no-one really knows much about SAULT other than the fact they make eclectic and vital music, with their identity still very much a mystery. However, despite their anonymity, the last 12 months have seen them create shockwaves throughout the music world, releasing three highly acclaimed and topically urgent albums for which they could’ve been nominated for any one of them. In fact, on Metacritic’s compilation of all critics’ Best of 2020 year-end lists, both Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) landed in the overall Top 10, with the latter for which they are nominated holding an impressive critic score on the site of 93/100.

Whereas Untitled (Black Is) feels like the rallying cry, Untitled (Rise) is a record that celebrates black excellence, arriving in a year where the voice for racial equality has never been louder. Bringing together various elements of House, Soul, Disco, R&B and Afrobeats, SAULT have crafted a powerful statement through the pure majesty of their diverse sound. This is a thought-provoking and engaging album that will have you dancing one minute, then contemplating the state of the world around you the next.

Although it would be easy to say they have the benefit of collaborator and last year’s winner Michael Kiwanuka being on the judging panel, I think the real reason this SAULT album seems the most likely candidate is because it makes for essential listening that also perfectly fits with the Mercury Prize ethos. It is a musical collective still in their infancy, making important music that takes inspiration from a vast array of genres, as well as the current social and political climate around them.

Having listened to this record several times now, it is no surprise that many music outlets had this as their Album of the Year for 2020, and I would not be surprised at all to see the Mercury Prize give it that same accolade come September - if music really can change the world, then SAULT are leading the way.

#mercury prize #hyundai mercury prize #mercury music prize #wolf alice #sault #ghetts #celeste #arlo parks #laura mvula #black country new road #berwyn #mogwai #hannah peel #floating points #pharoah sanders #nubya garcia #best new music #albums of the year #album of the year

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mcrrisons · 4 years

Text

wooo hi friends!! s here FINALLY dropping this intro, you’ll now know that i’m late to everything O:) i have insane muse for this type of character so i’m sooo excited to be here! any questions lmk but now ........... *rubs hands together like a fly* let’s get to plotting

@mapleviewstarters

『 travis fimmel. fourty-six. cismale. he/him. 』 oh heavens, is that WELLS MORRISON from CHESTNUT DRIVE i see roaming around mapleview? minnie may’s always calling them -BELLIGERENT & -CONTRITE. i happen to think they’re not that bad! they’re a pretty cool at COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT and every time i’ve seen them, they’ve always been +CAPTIVATING & +OPEN-MINDED. i hope i see them around again!

TW: ALCOHOLISM, DEATH, ABUSE

GETTING TO KNOW WELLS

full name: wells irving morrison

age / birthdate / sign: 45 / november 18, 1974 / scorpio

gender / pronouns: cismale / he/him

orientation: hetero

height: 6′2″

hair color: dirty blond, some gray growing in

tattoos: a lot of drunken tats over the years, either cheap ones or ones that his buddies did for him for free. most of the actual WANTED ones covered up some scars he chose to ignore

drinks / smokes / drugs: big yes to all, no one left behind - but alcohol and cigarettes daily as those are more acceptable and easier to get

occupation: although collecting unemployment from the government, he often has plenty of odd jobs to make money under the books.

residence: mapleview, born and raised. still lives in the same plot of houses his great great bought / built years ago.

alignment: chaotic evil (but he tries his best............ ok)

parents: hank (deceased) & caroline morrison

siblings: 2 brothers (jeremiah & tucker) and 1 sister (addison) that he KNOWS of

children: lane morrison (intro here), and probably a few others but that’s for future plots!!

WHAT’S HIS STORY ?

wells’ blood runs thick through this town to a long line of morrisons, and they sure as hell make SURE everyone knows it. rumors have flown around about the morrison family for generations, eyes roll when they enter a space (at least in wells’ experience) & they own a reputation of chaos. scaring away newcomers just by being themselves. and of course, like it was in his dna, wells’ actions would align with those that preceded him.

he grew up on a plot of land bought many moons ago by his great great ... grandfather / uncle / (the story changes every time he hears it) w/ a few trailer-like one story homes with broken screen doors & random “antiques” in the yard aka things that people in fair lane were throwing out that everyone THOUGHT would be needed one day. (still lives here btw!!!)

growing up around family was FINE but it reminded him of his destination - what he was going to end up like anyway, DESPITE being kinda smart in school & having larger dreams. the family was scrappy, deceitful; wells learned at an early age how to manipulate people to get what he wanted. he was taught how to STEAL, lie, charm, and how to get by with what they had.

wells spent most of his childhood at his uncle’s home, just a few minute walk away on the plot bc his own home wasn’t ideal. he looked up to the guy A LOT, but hasn’t spoken since he left mapleview for bigger and better things when wells was just 15.

his father, a returned drafted vietnam vet, took out the anger of what he witnessed / how he was treated / how life was UNFAIR out on his family, and often times physically. he wasn’t involved in wells’ life all too much, only when he needed something or wanted to let off some steam.

his mother was a caring & loving woman, also mapleview grown (the two had been high school sweethearts), but loyal to a FAULT, always choosing her husband to back.

screams, crashes, fights, fires - you name it. needless to say, that plot of morrison homes never had it quiet, easy. cops knew everyone by first and last name and could drive the route from the station to the morrison’s home with their eyes closed.

wells’ father DIED when he was 19 (although wells hadn’t considered him alive for a while) & no one knew HOW so there was never any closure for him, his mother, his fam... all his death provided was another source for the rumor mill surrounding the morrisons. was it a bad bar fight ? did he have a bad fall ? wrong pills ? some say his mother was a killer but he knew better than that.

wells’ mother is still live & somewhat well, living with his brother in a house about 20 minutes away. at her old age, it’s hard for her to do things on her own and it was decided that wells - the youngest of his generation - wouldn’t be able to care after her, let alone care for himself. she’s been there for about 10 years now and still complains every minute.

ok back to our boy. somehow wells managed to destroy every good thing that ever came his way. self-destructive due to self-hatred and REGRET which never got better as he got older and continued to well, destroy things. a slippery slope, for sure.

alongside his uncle, always dreaming of getting out of this small town, wells was good ENOUGH at school and that was his way. but of course it didn’t happen: 1. he fell into fulfilling prophecy of his predecessors, 2. he had not a PENNY to his name to leave (i.e. gambling addiction), 3. he had a child in his early twenties, 4. he tried to fight the admissions counselor at the nearby community college

having some sort of love in his life. didn’t happen: 1. he pushed/pushes everyone that dare get too close (mostly selfishly), 2. couldn’t change his addictive personality (i.e. alcoholism), 3. began to resemble his father, 4. has 0 emotional intelligence and cannot touch feelings/emotions

to get a job and be a normal person in society. didn’t happen bc: 1. has a narcissist complex, 2. would steal from the cash register, 3. would hit on customers, 4. doesn’t understand paying “taxes”

more to add here

BASICALLY, he’s lived a life. he acts as though his life is already over, there’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain and this is just how it will be for the rest of his time on earth. he’s despondent and lives far too much in the PAST, blaming himself for everything that came his way (but ok he’s not too far off tbh).

although MANY a regret linger in his mind before sleep, his largest regret is losing his family - the love of his life who LEFT the two high and dry just after about a year together and his son who moved out at just 16. the mother of his child was the only person he remembers that saw him for more than rumors, his facade and became a good influence to him - but OF COURSE he fucked that one up and she left. he blames himself big time, but would never show that. only hatred her way aloud.

his son, lane, left while still a boy just like himself, and it HURT to think that the apple hardly fell from the tree above, not able to be a good father. never TAUGHT how to be one. manipulative to a fault, wells would always say the younger was never appreciative, never UNDERSTOOD... and he’d convince himself that his son hated him as much as he hates himself. he’ll also say he’s the only reason he’s still alive. LOVE / HATE seems to blur so often for the old man here. always did.

the only constant throughout his life has been alcohol. the morrison’s start off early of course, and wells was drinking/etc on his own by the time he was 12. UNLESS you count the bourbon his father would feed him to sleep as a baby. what started off as social and partying as he grew older, became something much more ugly. his body didn’t just crave it, it NEEDED it to function by the time he was in his early twenties. it was easier to hide it then, all young and into a good time but it wouldn’t just last for weekends. he’d need a drink to get by mentally, and physically and became fully dependent. a depressant to match his mental illness.

WHO IS HE ?

he has a DEEP southern accent with a hard RASP that sounds as though he smokes a pack a day (because he does).

despite graduating high school (i KNOW, believe it), he doesn’t have a vocabulary too wide and will use larger words incorrectly all the time.

can have a bit of an old grumpy man aesthetic, easily belligerent, even though he’s only in his 40s and can be charming as hell too (that smile!!!! ok!!! knows how to manipulate.)

he doesn’t trust the government at ALL and is a bit of a conspiracy theorist, despite collecting money from the government each week for unemployment. he refuses to pay taxes so only does jobs under the books. will go on a tangent about how the government is creating diseases, hiding aliens; eat the rich, etc... he also doesn’t trust cops at all, despite being picked up and taken home by them at least once a week.

grew up on rock and roll! had a band in the 80s where he could’ve SWORN they’d be rich and famous. long hair, tight pants, acting out - wannabe motley crue.

drives (ILLEGALLY) an old ford from the 70′s that somehow still works, after losing his license years ago from too many DWIs.

i assume all of the town knows him as the town DRUNK. maybe it used to be funny back in the day, but now it’s just really SAD. he’s a nuisance.

WHO DOES HE KNOW ?

y/c HIRED him for some odd jobs, must be under the table.

HIGH SCHOOL BUDDIES who also stayed around mapleview. they can be friendly, enemies now, distanced, a lot to do here.

a BROTHER / step (which i might submit to the main :))

a ONE-NIGHT stand

a GOOD INFLUENCE who tries their best to get him working towards something better. fair warning, this would 9.99/10 times not work.

where wells is the BAD INFLUENCE to y/c, convincing them to drink a ton, giving horrible advice when they’re in their most vulnerable state.

a STORE OWNER that has banned wells from entering their establishment due to a prior mishap.

a DEALER of all things wells shouldn’t, but does.

THE HILLS by the weeknd - a plot where these two are hooking up or together but only in secret. whether that’s because they’re in different socioeconomic classes, have a bad history, the other is cheating... they have to hide.

WHITE KNUCKLES - they’ve previously had a bar fight, are known enemies. could’ve been something said about his family, his past.

#°。°。°。𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇𝑜. °。°。°。#tw alcoholism #tw abuse #tw death #ugh yes his icon rn is a dumpster but i'll change it as soon as i open up photoshop and make a new pretty dash icon #but for now #it just Makes Sense :)

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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ESSAY: Berserk's Journey of Acceptance Over 30 Years of Fandom

My descent into anime fandom began in the '90s, and just as watching Neon Genesis Evangelion caused my first revelation that cartoons could be art, reading Berserk gave me the same realization about comics. The news of Kentaro Miura’s death, who passed on May 6, has been emotionally complicated for me, as it's the first time a celebrity's death has hit truly close to home. In addition to being the lynchpin for several important personal revelations, Berserk is one of the longest-lasting works I’ve followed and that I must suddenly bid farewell to after existing alongside it for two-thirds of my life.

Berserk is a monolith not only for anime and manga, but also fantasy literature, video games, you name it. It might be one of the single most influential works of the ‘80s — on a level similar to Blade Runner — to a degree where it’s difficult to imagine what the world might look like without it, and the generations of creators the series inspired.

Although not the first, Guts is the prototypical large sword anime boy: Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soulcalibur, and Black Clover's Asta are all links in the same chain, with other series like Dark Souls and Claymore taking clear inspiration from Berserk. But even deeper than that, the three-character dynamic between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, the monster designs, the grotesque violence, Miura’s image of hell — all of them can be spotted in countless pieces of media across the globe.

Despite this, it just doesn’t seem like people talk about it very much. For over 20 years, Berserk has stood among the critical pantheon for both anime and manga, but it doesn’t spur conversations in the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Dragon Ball Z still do today. Its graphic depictions certainly represent a barrier to entry much higher than even the aforementioned company.

Seeing the internet exude sympathy and fond reminiscing about Berserk was immensely validating and has been my single most therapeutic experience online. Moreso, it reminded me that the fans have always been there. And even looking into it, Berserk is the single best-selling property in the 35-year history of Dark Horse. My feeling is that Berserk just has something about it that reaches deep into you and gets stuck there.

I recall introducing one of my housemates to Berserk a few years ago — a person with all the intelligence and personal drive to both work on cancer research at Stanford while pursuing his own MD and maintaining a level of physical fitness that was frankly unreasonable for the hours that he kept. He was NOT in any way analytical about the media he consumed, but watching him sitting on the floor turning all his considerable willpower and intellect toward delivering an off-the-cuff treatise on how Berserk had so deeply touched him was a sight in itself to behold. His thoughts on the series' portrayal of sex as fundamentally violent leading up to Guts and Casca’s first moment of intimacy in the Golden Age movies was one of the most beautiful sentiments I’d ever heard in reaction to a piece of fiction.

I don’t think I’d ever heard him provide anything but a surface-level take on a piece of media before or since. He was a pretty forthright guy, but the way he just cut into himself and let his feelings pour out onto the floor left me awestruck. The process of reading Berserk can strike emotional chords within you that are tough to untangle. I’ve been writing analysis and experiential pieces related to anime and manga for almost ten years — and interacting with Berserk’s world for almost 30 years — and writing may just be yet another attempt for me to pull my own twisted-up feelings about it apart.

Berserk is one of the most deeply personal works I’ve ever read, both for myself and in my perception of Miura's works. The series' transformation in the past 30 years artistically and thematically is so singular it's difficult to find another work that comes close. The author of Hajime no Ippo, who was among the first to see Berserk as Miura presented him with some early drafts working as his assistant, claimed that the design for Guts and Puck had come from a mess of ideas Miura had been working on since his early school days.

写真は三浦建太郎君が寄稿してくれた鷹村です。今かなり感傷的になっています。思い出話をさせて下さい。僕が初めての週刊連載でスタッフが一人もいなくて困っていたら手伝いにきてくれました。彼が18で僕が19です。某大学の芸術学部の学生で講義明けにスケッチブックを片手に来てくれました。 pic.twitter.com/hT1JCWBTKu

— 森川ジョージ (@WANPOWANWAN) May 20, 2021

Miura claimed two of his big influences were Go Nagai’s Violence Jack and Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star. Miura wears these influences on his sleeve, discovering the early concepts that had percolated in his mind just felt right. The beginning of Berserk, despite its amazing visual power, feels like it sprang from a very juvenile concept: Guts is a hypermasculine lone traveler breaking his body against nightmarish creatures in his single-minded pursuit of revenge, rigidly independent and distrustful of others due to his dark past.

Uncompromising, rugged, independent, a really big sword ... Guts is a romantic ideal of masculinity on a quest to personally serve justice against the one who wronged him. Almost nefarious in the manner in which his character checked these boxes, especially when it came to his grim stoicism, unblinkingly facing his struggle against literal cosmic forces. Never doubting himself, never trusting others, never weeping for what he had lost.

Miura said he sketched out most of the backstory when the manga began publication, so I have to assume the larger strokes of the Golden Arc were pretty well figured out from the outset, but I’m less sure if he had fully realized where he wanted to take the story to where we are now. After the introductory mini-arcs of demon-slaying, Berserk encounters Griffith and the story draws us back to a massive flashback arc. We see the same Guts living as a lone mercenary who Griffith persuades to join the Band of the Hawk to help realize his ambitions of rising above the circumstances of his birth to join the nobility.

We discover the horrific abuses of Guts’ adoptive father and eventually learn that Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all victims of sexual violence. The story develops into a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring politics and war, but the real narrative is in the growing companionship between Guts and the members of the band. Directionless and traumatized by his childhood, Guts slowly finds a purpose helping Griffith realize his dream and the courage to allow others to grow close to him.

Miura mentioned that many Band of the Hawk members were based on his early friend groups. Although he was always sparse with details about his personal life, he has spoken about how many of them referred to themselves as aspiring manga authors and how he felt an intense sense of competition, admitting that among them he may have been the only one seriously working toward that goal, desperately keeping ahead in his perceived race against them. It’s intriguing thinking about how much of this angst may have made it to the pages, as it's almost impossible not to imagine Miura put quite a bit of himself in Guts.

Perhaps this is why it feels so real and makes The Eclipse — the quintessential anime betrayal at the hands of Griffith — all the more heartbreaking. The raw violence and macabre imagery certainly helped. While Miura owed Hellraiser’s Cenobites much in the designs of the God Hand, his macabre portrayal of the Band of the Hawk’s eradication within the literal bowels of hell, the massive hand, the black sun, the Skull Knight, and even Miura’s page compositions have been endlessly referenced, copied, and outright plagiarized since.

The events were tragic in any context and I have heard many deeply personal experiences others drew from The Eclipse sympathizing with Guts, Casca, or even Griffith’s spiral driven by his perceived rejection by Guts. Mine were most closely aligned with the tragedy of Guts having overcome such painful circumstances to not only reject his own self enforced solitude, but to fearlessly express his affection for his loved ones.

The Golden Age was a methodical destruction of Guts’ self-destructive methods of preservation ruined in a single selfish act by his most trusted friend, leaving him once again alone and afraid of growing close to those around him. It ripped the romance of Guts’ mission and eventually took the story down a course I never expected. Berserk wasn’t a story of revenge but one of recovery.

Guess that’s enough beating around the bush, as I should talk about how this shift affected me personally. When I was young, when I began reading Berserk I found Guts’ unflagging stoicism to be really cool, not just aesthetically but in how I understood guys were supposed to be. I was slow to make friends during school and my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood had my friends' parents moving away faster than I could find new ones. At some point I think I became too afraid of putting myself out there anymore, risking rejection when even acceptance was so fleeting. It began to feel easier just to resign myself to solitude and pretend my circumstances were beyond my own power to correct.

Unfortunately, I became the stereotypical kid who ate alone during lunch break. Under the invisible expectations demanding I not display weakness, my loneliness was compounded by shame for feeling loneliness. My only recourse was to reveal none of those feelings and pretend the whole thing didn't bother me at all. Needless to say my attempts to cope probably fooled no one and only made things even worse, but I really didn’t know of any better way to handle my situation. I felt bad, I felt even worse about feeling bad and had been provided with zero tools to cope, much less even admit that I had a problem at all.

The arcs following the Golden Age completely changed my perspective. Guts had tragically, yet understandably, cut himself off from others to save himself from experiencing that trauma again and, in effect, denied himself any opportunity to allow himself to be happy again. As he began to meet other characters that attached themselves to him, between Rickert and Erica spending months waiting worried for his return, and even the slimmest hope to rescuing Casca began to seed itself into the story, I could only see Guts as a fool pursuing a grim and hopeless task rather than appreciating everything that he had managed to hold onto.

The same attributes that made Guts so compelling in the opening chapters were revealed as his true enemy. Griffith had committed an unforgivable act but Guts’ journey for revenge was one of self-inflicted pain and fear. The romanticism was gone.

Farnese’s inclusion in the Conviction arc was a revelation. Among the many brilliant aspects of her character, I identified with her simply for how she acted as a stand-in for myself as the reader: Plagued by self-doubt and fear, desperate to maintain her own stoic and uncompromising image, and resentful of her place in the world. She sees Guts’ fearlessness in the face of cosmic horror and believes she might be able to learn his confidence.

But in following Guts, Farnese instead finds a teacher in Casca. In taking care of her, Farnese develops a connection and is able to experience genuine sympathy that develops into a sense of responsibility. Caring for Casca allows Farnese to develop the courage she was lacking not out of reckless self-abandon but compassion.

I can’t exactly credit Berserk with turning my life around, but I feel that it genuinely helped crystallize within me a sense of growing doubts about my maladjusted high school days. My growing awareness of Guts' undeniable role in his own suffering forced me to admit my own role in mine and created a determination to take action to fix it rather than pretending enough stoicism might actually result in some sort of solution.

I visited the Berserk subreddit from time to time and always enjoyed the group's penchant for referring to all the members of the board as “fellow strugglers,” owing both to Skull Knight’s label for Guts and their own tongue-in-cheek humor at waiting through extended hiatuses. Only in retrospect did it feel truly fitting to me. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of Guts’ path is a constant struggle. Today I’m blessed with many good friends but still feel primal pangs of fear holding me back nearly every time I meet someone, the idea of telling others how much they mean to me or even sharing my thoughts and feelings about something I care about deeply as if each action will expose me to attack.

It’s taken time to pull myself away from the behaviors that were so deeply ingrained and it’s a journey where I’m not sure the work will ever be truly done, but witnessing Guts’ own slow progress has been a constant source of reassurance. My sense of admiration for Miura’s epic tale of a man allowing himself to let go after suffering such devastating circumstances brought my own humble problems and their way out into focus.

Over the years I, and many others, have been forced to come to terms with the fact that Berserk would likely never finish. The pattern of long, unexplained hiatuses and the solemn recognition that any of them could be the last is a familiar one. The double-edged sword of manga largely being works created by a single individual is that there is rarely anyone in a position to pick up the torch when the creator calls it quits. Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and likely Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter all frozen in indefinite hiatus, the publishers respectfully holding the door open should the creators ever decide to return, leaving it in a liminal space with no sense of conclusion for the fans except what we can make for ourselves.

The reason for Miura’s hiatuses was unclear. Fans liked to joke that he would take long breaks to play The Idolmaster, but Miura was also infamous for taking “breaks” spent minutely illustrating panels to his exacting artistic standard, creating a tumultuous release schedule during the wars featuring thousands of tiny soldiers all dressed in period-appropriate armor. If his health was becoming an issue, it’s uncommon that news would be shared with fans for most authors, much less one as private as Miura.

Even without delays, the story Miura was building just seemed to be getting too big. The scale continued to grow, his narrative ambition swelling even faster after 20 years of publication, the depth and breadth of his universe constantly expanding. The fan-dubbed “Millennium Falcon Arc” was massive, changing the landscape of Berserk from a low fantasy plagued by roaming demons to a high fantasy where godlike beings of sanity-defying size battled for control of the world. How could Guts even meet Griffith again? What might Casca want to do when her sanity returned? What are the origins of the Skull Knight? And would he do battle with the God Hand? There was too much left to happen and Miura’s art only grew more and more elaborate. It would take decades to resolve all this.

But it didn’t need to. I imagine we’ll never get a precise picture of the final years of Miura’s life leading up to his tragic passing. In the final chapters he released, it felt as if he had directed the story to some conclusion. The unfinished Fantasia arc finds Guts and his newfound band finding a way to finally restore Casca’s sanity and — although there is still unmistakably a boundary separating them — both seem resolute in finding a way to mend their shared wounds together.

One of the final chapters features Guts drinking around the campfire with the two other men of his group, Serpico and Roderick, as he entrusts the recovery of Casca to Schierke and Farnese. It's a scene that, in the original Band of the Hawk, would have found Guts brooding as his fellows engage in bluster. The tone of this conversation, however, is completely different. The three commiserate over how much has changed and the strength each has found in the companionship of the others. After everything that has happened, Guts declares that he is grateful.

The suicidal dedication to his quest for vengeance and dispassionate pragmatism that defined Guts in the earliest chapters is gone. Although they first appeared to be a source of strength as the Black Swordsman, he has learned that they rose from the fear of losing his friends again, from letting others close enough to harm him, and from having no other purpose without others. Whether or not Guts and Griffith were to ever meet again, Guts has rediscovered the strength to no longer carry his burdens alone.

All that has happened is all there will ever be. We too must be grateful.

Peter Fobian is an Associate Manager of Social Video at Crunchyroll, writer for Anime Academy and Anime in America, and an editor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: Peter Fobian

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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aijee · 3 years

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hello aijee!! what are your thoughts on mingyu and wonwoo's bittersweet?

Oh anon. Oh anon, anon, anon. I have very many feelings about this remarkable intersection of ley lines. I’m sure the WWxMG spheres of the Internet are in some state of madness, and I felt like my meager offerings would be nothing in comparison. But you are now my excuse to write up a Pandora's box answer that I've done my best to organize below the cut. It’s honestly not that exhaustive, but I have to catch a flight soon.

The short of it is: I really liked it! It was nice to see WW/MG doing something distinctly not hip-hop, or eye candy-centric, or “let’s fight over this random girl for no reason other than to give (female) fans the feeling of being sandwiched between two hot guys.” The urban imagery was also wonderful. I’m a big, big sucker for Japanese films set in cities in the 80s/90s, so this video definitely hit a specific aesthetic nerve for me. ALSO LEEHI MY BAE!!

But, fair disclaimer, I do have some reservations. Nothing is perfect!

The song itself

It was refreshing to hear a softer song with WW and MG doing so much of the vocals. I’m so used to eleven other guys contributing (I’m personally a bigger fan of the group/non-solo tracks), it was almost jarring to hear only two male voices in something very much not hip-hop or rapping. And LeeHi? My ex-YG BABEE?? I honestly wished I heard more of her!! And saw her in the video! Her voice was a perfect addition to a song that sounds more, as its name suggests, bittersweet.

I feel like all three of the artists involved have a much more dynamic range that could have been utilized, even for a muted tone. The song overall doesn’t really stand out to me, especially within Seventeen’s wonderful discography and selection of ballads. The instrumental was kinda weak ngl. But I still very much enjoyed the song! The lyrics from an English-speaking standpoint were also very lovely and definitely struck the heart on my sleeve, as you can imagine from the types of themes I tend to write about. Kudos to MG and WW for participating in it! Always love seeing SVT showing off their creative chops.

The video/cinematography

Frankly, I wasn’t impressed by it. 3.5/5 stars. I’m personally not a big fan of the blurry type of slow motion. I get that, perhaps, it was meant to evoke a sense of reminiscing on old memories, which can be blurry and choppy. But I felt like those extra seconds could have been used for more evocative cinematography between the trio or combinations thereof. There was so much potential to have a more unified sense of “story.” I felt like the acting really carried it, but overall the visual artistry didn’t hold together in my opinion.

I also thought that the imagery paired with the lyrics was often too on-the-nose. (Take this with a grain of salt from someone who doesn’t know Korean, only the official English translations.) In other words, I thought that the shots could be too literal when paired with the lyrics.Yes, yes, eyes are are meeting but something still feels far apart because the girl ain’t lookin at WW. Yes, yes, the scent of a moment fills hands because we see a glass of alcohol in presumably WW’s hand. I do like that the lyrics actually match the video to some degree (since so many Kpop MVs are just dancing in a fancy room), but, again, it felt too one-to-one without much thought otherwise.

Also, those AirPods lmao. I don’t know why, but that took me out of the immersion. WW and MG had one each, and I’d be knocking furniture down at that observation if they both weren’t wearing right-side pods, thus eliminating the possibility of sharing. Imagine!! Turning the act of sharing AirPods into something symbolic! Remembering things when someone else “plays that old tune”, being disconnected and connected at the same time, etc. To think that I’d be yell-writing about the potential symbolism of AirPods...

The duo/trio

My first thought seeing this video was: Are Mingyu and Wonwoo okay with this? They clearly had a say in the lyrics, so I feel like they’re okay. Instinctually, I get concerned about how a company can push idols pairings in official content to the point of undermining the real-life relationship; I felt like WW, as a naturally shyer and introverted person, stepped back from the WonGyu pairing at some point. I think this was a bigger concern in the group’s earlier years, and I feel like they and the fandom have matured significantly over time. Fans reading this are certainly free to educate me on their takes regarding this, since I follow Seventeen’s official content more (as much as I am able to, at least) than fan content, like fancams, and I try not to make too many legit assumptions based on official content.

All this being said, I think they looked really comfortable with each other in the video! Which I loved the most, honestly. The premise didn’t didn’t feel like guys fighting over a girl (yawn). I’m not a fan of the overused K-Pop trope of “let’s have a random girl act as a stand-in for fans to feel like they’re being pursued by their oppars.” I felt like, while MG and WW expressed clear interest in the girl, there was interest expressed in each other as well—especially MG towards WW in my opinion, cont’d below. And the interest was never forced to be romantic, even though it could be! LOVE that for them. (I highly recommend reading up on “queer platonic relationships”, which a friend of mine taught me recently. Made the mistake of writing “romantic” instead of “platonic” so sorry 😬)

Motherfuckin Kim Mingyu AKA my interpretation of the story

*I did read the little summary in the description box about “three longtime friends”, but I’m choosing to ignore it because I don’t think the video portrays that well and I like my interpretation better haha!

That sequence of WW putting a hat on MG, with WW’s fond but exasperated face of a hyung (I’m okay, not okay).

The cut from that shot of WW and the girl breathing heavy and looking at MG, to MG staring vacantly behind a rained-on glass window (I close my eyes but thoughts of you...).

The way MG steps out first into the rain and smiles back at WW in that last sequence of shots (Eyes meeting but hearts apart); MG looks so content despite the sadness usually meant to be evoked by dramatic rain sequences.

As someone who normally connects with WW, I really connected to MG’s character this time around. I interpreted MG’s character as going through a really complex series of emotions towards both the girl and WW, platonic, romantic or otherwise. It’s hard to pin down, but the small age difference between him and WW felt so much more apparent in the MV. I almost got the impression that maybe MG’s character felt new, naive and lost in the city (he has a few shots of wandering or being in front of urban areas). Then he found stability with the girl and WW, the consequence being the whirlwind of feelings he must be experiencing because of them. I wish there was more exposition hinting at what happened to the girl, since she sorta just...blipped out of existence by the end.

At the start of the MV, WW’s character looked like he was at the end of his rope, drinking away his woes, maybe because of what seems like a nice job based on the suit. But then he found solace in the female bartender, who was kind and had open ears. The two of them became friends (maybe more, perhaps one-sided in WW’s disfavor). Then WW met MG through her. He saw MG’s character as a cute dongsaeng to be nice to, mostly on the whims of the girl, even dancing with them after closing time. But maybe WW’s character started having complicated feelings for MG’s character throughout it all. He started seeing MG more (more than the girl? Hard to say), based on how he was staring at MG at the end of the running sequence at around 2:08, not even looking back at the girl. He ended up liking MG so much, that he followed MG into the rain despite them both avoiding it, staying indoors, before the end sequence.

That’s sort of the dirty and quick of my initial thoughts. Honestly, I wish I had the energy and speed to throw out a proper written work because I LOVE stories that are basically just complicated feelings with relationship boundaries that are hard to define. Also, gotta say, that little sassy look the female actress gave at around 0:30 was real cute. 👀

#askaijee #might as well be an aijeepost

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black-is-no-colour · 4 years

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AnOther Magazine Autumn Winter 2020 Cover Story: John Galliano on Fallen Angels, Blitz Kids & Meeting Margiela

EMAIL EXCHANGE BETWEEN JOHN GALLIANO AND ANOTHER MAGAZINE, JULY 2020

AnOther Magazine: You went back to your own beginnings with this collection – your work of the 80s, your formative ideas about fashion. Why did that feel right for now?

John Galliano: Compression and suppression inspire a distinct sense of creativity, resourcefulness. During the lockdown period, something drew my mind to the way we felt during the Thatcher years, our backs up against the wall. Nothing can stand in the way of this kind of creativity.

AM: Why was your 1986 Fallen Angels collection specifically a point of inspiration – what is it about that collection that resonated?

JG: In confinement, I had come across the neoclassical wet drapery of Antonio Corradini and Raffaelle Monti – these veiled heroines in marble – which really appealed to me. I was hungry for the kind of aspirational beauty that inspires hope. In many ways, we were expressing the same sentiment in the 80s. It was a hankering for beauty, for heroism, for hedonism and hope.

AM: Fashion has changed so much since that era – in large part through work you yourself have undertaken across your career, helping to reinvent the ways we see clothes and fashion as a whole. Why does that era’s aesthetic and spirit speak to you today? To hark back to another collection of yours, is it about rediscovering a forgotten innocence?

JG: Between then and now, the common denominator is resourcefulness. The motivations were different but the expressions are similar – working with what you have, you try to find hope through the beauty of escapism.

AM: The Blitz Kids were a slightly earlier reference, but also in the mix. Why is that pertinent to now? That idea of dressing up to party – a decadence, perhaps? Certainly a glamour.

JG: Zoom parties! Putting on a red lip for the screen. We may be in a time of limitation, but we still have a human need to dress up, express ourselves and have a good time. Glamour needs an audience. I’ve never referenced a period in my own life before, but the emotional state of lockdown evoked an energy I had felt before.

AM: Can you describe your feelings when you first walked into the Blitz? Do you have any anecdotes you’d be happy to share?

JG: I wasn’t queen bee at the time. I had not become the peacock people associate with John Galliano. I was still quite shy, on my foundation year at Saint Martin’s. But, working Saturdays at [the boutique] PX, I had met a girl named Maria. Her background was Spanish, we hit it off and she got me into the Blitz club, along with Princess Julia, who worked down the road. I was a bit in awe of these characters. Of course, I wasn’t ruling like the Stephen Linards and the Stephen Joneses – I couldn’t even afford to go every week – but I did serve some looks.

AM: Stephen Jones once said that people were embarrassed to be seen in designer clothes – apart from Westwood, actually – at Blitz, that people made their own clothes. Was that something you also remember and experienced? Why was that?

JG: I think it was in the spirit of the time. We didn’t have the resources. I remember I had a brown workwear suit, a two-piece, with asymmetric fastening and little gold studs on it. It had a blue contrast collar with an embroidered yellow oak leaf. And I probably wore some kind of pointed pixie boot. Charles, the manager of Mrs Howie [a groundbreaking boutique in London, opened in 1976 by future fashion PR Lynne Franks and her then-husband, Paul Howie], would sometimes let me wear a hand-knitted jumper that had the letter S, for Super, on it. In the Blitz, people would dress up as historical eccentrics. Resourcefulness became our gateway to self-expression.

AM: You talked about the theatrical costumier Charles Fox in the film you produced to show the Artisanal collection. Can you elaborate on that – what happened and what it meant to you? Many of the references – the military, the men’s formalwear – are still with you today, as is, undoubtedly, that spirit of reinvention and transformation.

JG: When Charles Fox closed down, all these amazing characters and Saint Martin’s students flocked there to buy it all up. Today, you might call it upcycling, but back then it was what they could get their hands on. If you have a love of theatre and history, reinvigorating the old is a reinvigorating process in itself. Creation is the very act of giving life to something.

AM: It’s interesting that you chose to reveal your creative process so openly in the film, from research, to narrative, to referencing, cutting and making and styling. That feels quite precious – a lot of designers keep it to themselves. Why did you decide to share that? Why is it right for now?

JG: The anxiety we all experienced during the lockdown period created a need for transparency. I felt a desire to be clear about what we stand for at Maison Margiela – our core beliefs in diversity, inclusion and self-expression – which all begins with the process work. By recording and showing our research practice, our genderless fittings and how we express ourselves through charity finds and upcycling, we reinforce those values in a way that might appeal to Gens Y and Z. It is my hope that when our clients eventually meander into a Maison Margiela store and see the results of that process, those values will resonate. Perhaps this format can be a blueprint for a new way of proposing our ideas and ethics.

AM: Your clothes always tell a story – often many stories interwoven. You find these extraordinary narrative references and they feed your creativity. Does fashion need to tell a story – does a narrative add to fashion, for the wearer – or is that your process, just for you as a creator?

JG: The narrative informs my research and the process work and the way I communicate with my team through that process. But in the end I often keep it to myself. During the creative process, however, it feeds into the values that are transmitted through our work and which create a connection with our clients.

AM: What was it like designing a collection during lockdown? What were the good things, what were the bad things? How did the process change? And do you feel it has changed your creativity – your viewpoint on the world?

JG: In the beginning, it filled me with anxiety – and like everyone, of course, we had to deal with practical challenges. To me, it became a matter of turning those challenges into a sense of resourcefulness. I applied some of the things I’ve been fortunate to have been taught in the past. It’s like a mourning period – once you accept reality, you are able to embrace the unknown. And so it became a driving force – the feeling that nothing would stand in the way of creativity.

AM: Given the current situation, people are speculating that the collective experience of the fashion show may be a thing of the past. You have staged some of the greatest fashion shows in history, redefining the medium. What is your reaction to the idea that fashion shows may be of the past? How important are shows to you, as a means of expressing your ideas?

JG: What I eventually realised during the lockdown period was that fashion as we’ve known it in the past will never be the same, at least not until a vaccine is found. For the moment, I hope the format we adapted to this season can be a new way of communicating and exploring one’s collection. I don’t really like doing those big shows any more, because so often the focus is taken off the clothes. I prefer smaller shows. For now, I’m happy treading gently in this new direction.

AM: Our fight and flight instincts have perhaps never been so acute, and both those elements are present in the collection. The confrontation of taking clothing apart at the seams and the romance and fantasy of veiling, clothes that appear drenched in water. Does that make sense to you?

JG: The idea of fight and flight is another way of expressing resourcefulness and escapism – elements that have been inseparably interlinked through history. The human desire for beauty and seduction is a powerful instinct.

AM: When it comes to difficulties, do you feel that you, as a designer, propose clothes to fight in, or clothes as a flight of fantasy, an antidote to reality? Which do you find more powerful?

JG: I have spoken before about our desire to transmit Gen Z’s appetite for defiance through self-expression as a reaction to conformism and the societal preconceptions that negate our authentic selves. My proposals reflect those values. I hope our work can be tools for the expression of individuality and a message of joy and hope.

AM: In the film you showed predominantly classical female veiling. Did you look at veiled men in classical sculpture too? In some ways that has always been more scandalous, the naked Christ.

JG: Historically, the wet drapery that inspired me was often related to images of goddesses – and gods, too. During the process work, I began to express it in these celestial bodies – heroines as well as heroes – which draw the mind to many areas of mythology. You’ll recognise it in how I christened each passage in the collection, and in [model] Malick’s performance in the film.

AM: How does that religious iconography relate to your childhood?

JG: It’s a familiar element of my upbringing, because my mum brought it from Gibraltar and Spain. But this collection is reflective of so many mythologies.

AM: You are a person who has often had to deal with a lack of resources and has somehow managed to turn those limitations into a positive. The São Schlumberger collection, for example. How – and why – does limitation inspire you?

JG: Limitation creates challenges, and challenges force us to innovate. Whether inspiration is born out of necessity or out of determination – such as a desire to be sustainable – it inevitably enriches the creative process.

AM: There’s always a conversation around the relevance of haute couture – people argue that it is moribund, anachronistic, and so on. In what way do you feel you have moved the Artisanal so it works for now?

JG: I work within a creative pyramid, the pyramidion of which is haute couture. The work we do in the Artisanal atelier – the experimentation, development and technical know-how – drip-feeds into every other collection at Maison Margiela. Haute couture isn’t an expression of elitism, it’s what fuels a fashion house. It is the highest and most authentic form of dressmaking, and in an age tuned into transparency, I think the role of the dressmaker will be re-evaluated.

AM: And why genderless? That also goes back to the Blitz, perhaps?

JG: Genderless-ness is part of our genetics at Maison Margiela. It goes back to the freedom of self-expression and breaking down preordained conformist ideas of masculinity and femininity. Without these societal preconceptions we are free to express ourselves, to discover new things and evolve. The Blitz club, like certain communities today, provided an escapism from societal norms, but so many people are still having to negate their authentic selves. There’s still work to be done.

AM: There is still an amazing sense of the emotion in clothes that are hand-sewn for days, even weeks, on end, the romance of the touch of the hand. It feels very much as if you own that territory and that there are not so many people doing it like that today. Can you expand on that a little please?

JG: Over the years, I have taken on the responsibilities of a creative director, and I accept the role. But I am, at heart, a dressmaker. The creative process is the fuel of fashion. And creativity is the blood that courses through my veins and through this house.

AM: Craft is incredibly important to what you do – and always has been. It feels integral to your idea of couture. What does handicraft represent now, in a time when it is more difficult for many people to be together?

JG: Someone who watched the film told me that the connectivity between the team really shines through. That meant a lot to me, because connectivity is created by authenticity – and there’s nothing more honest than craftsmanship.

AM: There’s also the idea of construction and the extremely technical pattern cutting involved in this collection specifically. Can you talk a little more about the circular cut? About the methods you explored in these clothes, this collection?

JG: I mentioned how I was hungry for an aspirational beauty that creates the same sense of hope I remembered from the Blitz years. Back then, I had discovered the bias through a technique I had developed called circular cutting. It’s a way of structuring garments from several circular pieces – in this case, fabrics like butter muslin and thermocollant – which diffuse the draping and can evoke that wet, chiselled effect. The tailored pieces are examples of Recicla – humble charity-shop finds that I reinvigorated with heroic cutting – rooted in décortiqué, inspired by the hedonism of the dance L’Apache, which conjured these armour-like silhouettes. That process reminded me of the resourcefulness of the Blitz era.

AM: You talk about the idea of a community, the Margiela pluralism of ‘we’. Do you think that is a more humane position than, for want of a better way of putting it, the concept of the designer superstar? You have experienced both – in a sense, you have epitomised both.

JG: It is my hope that the film reflects the sense of community and connectivity that exists within the pyramidical structure of our fashion house.

AM: You have always had your own community. You can really see that in the film. These are all people who have been with you for a long time, some even from the start. They seem like kindred spirits – is that important? Finding people you can communicate with instinctively, maybe even without words?

JG: Community is about sharing and connecting, becoming part of a unity and relating to one another through emotions rooted in mutual memories. As you see in the film, we share all these things and use that connectivity in the creative process.

AM: In general, what is the importance of teamwork – of community – in fashion? Does it feel more important than ever now, following the assault on our personal freedom and contact with other human beings that the pandemic has brought?

JG: The lockdown period demonstrated the human need for connection. Immediately, we all took to Zoom and other channels to invoke a sense of connectivity. Fashion has the power to express codes of belonging. Through the values we have reinforced this season, I hope we are able to communicate the ethics of our community – the values of Maison Margiela.

AM: I think perhaps people don’t always realise the many connections between yourself and Martin Margiela – the importance of white and clothing stripped back to the toile, the interest in 18th-century cut, the deconstructing and reconstructing of traditional garments and the value of a sense of the passing of time, of age. How do you feel your two aesthetics relate to one another?

JG: When I met with Martin shortly before I joined the house, as a couturier I was particularly interested in his adaptation of the codes of haute couture – the idea of the maison, the white coats, the genetics, and so on. As we continue to establish a new set of codes at Maison Margiela, I hope those parallels feel inherent.

AM: You have launched a Recicla collection as part of the ready-to-wear and the Artisanal, where you source vintage items and rework them. That, again, references the Maison Margiela Replica heritage, but it is also a gesture towards sustainability. It’s an overused word but why is it important and can fashion ever really be sustainable?

JG: Upcycling, the raison d’être of Recicla, is a self-evident proposal for sustainability, but one that invigorates the creative process at the same time. Recicla started its life in the Artisanal atelier but is now being embraced by our commercial teams and actively going into stores, and I’m so happy to witness this development. Step by step, we can all play our part in being resourceful and reducing waste.

AM: You are among the most-referenced designers in student and emerging designers’ work. Does that make you happy, even proud? It’s not easy for you to answer, maybe, but why do you think it is?

JG: If I can deliver some of the hope, aspiration and passion that I remember from my own time in college, it’s a joy. Every year, when our new lot of stages arrive from the colleges, I do a dinner for them and get out my finest china and crystal. Sometimes it’s a drag ball or a karaoke. We have fun. When they come here they’re no different from how I was. Their experiences today are different because of the internet, but they’re creative souls like we were.

AM: There’s that old cliché of money being no object. In many ways, the most brilliant fashion proves and disproves that. How would you look at that sentiment, given the value of experience/hindsight?

JG: Financial resources make a difference to the way in which ideas can be executed and communicated. But some of the finest ideas are born out of a lack of resources. Drive can be fuelled by desire, but also by necessity.

AM: What would you say to a student starting out? I feel that your words would be very important to them, given the challenges facing any young designer, but perhaps more than ever now.

JG: Believe in yourself. Believe in your dream. Be passionate. You can be whatever you want to be. Don’t listen to anybody who says you can’t. Work hard and never give up.

AM: What are your hopes and dreams for fashion as we emerge from this crisis? And what are your hopes and dreams for the world?

JG: Now, more than ever, we need to respect fashion as a platform for communicating our values and ethics. As we emerge from this crisis, it is our responsibility to stand up for what we believe in – inclusivity, diversity, nonconformity, self-expression. We have to use the voice of fashion for positive change.

The full article is here: AnOther Magazine

#Maison Margiela #Margiela #Maison Margiela by John Galliano #John Galliano #Galliano #Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano #fashion #AnOther #AnOther Magazine #interview

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chiseler · 4 years

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BUTTER KNIFE SLIDE

In the early ’90s, I was the Editor-at-Large at The Welcomat, a Philadelphia-based alternative weekly. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, but every Thursday I would hop on a NJ Transit commuter train for the three and a half hour trip to Philly. After arriving at 30th Street station, I’d walk across the river into Center City to the paper’s offices, which were housed in a building on the corner of 17th and Sansom. I’d make a right in the building’s small lobby, take the elevator to the Third floor, and walk to the back, where the editorial department was located. Even before saying hi to the other editors, I’d drop my bag on my desk, step over to the office boombox, sort through the small batch of cassettes stacked next to it, throw in Delta bluesman Cedell Davis’ debut album, Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong, and punch the play button. Without fail, once those first notes hit the air, an audible and pained collective groan arose from every throat in the room.

While my own aesthetic sensibilities were just as offended as my co-workers’, over time I came to have a real and solid affection for Davis, the same way you come to cherish a middle child with a droopy eye or a pet rabbit with the mange.

To the uninitiated, the first moments of the opening track on Davis’ album, “I Don’t Know Why,” might have been produced when a large bull walrus with a head cold and an untuned autoharp were tossed into an enormous blender together. Those same listeners might even cynically conclude the album’s title was a direct reference to the last thing Davis muttered before stepping into the recording studio. At the very least, Davis’ caterwauling guitar and his own strangled yelping vocals might be seen as proof positive there really is such a thing as an authentic Delta Blues singer who is absolutely godawful. As one friend put it, “If you’re bad enough, you get to be ‘authentic’.’”

That said, over the years Davis idiosyncratic style also earned him some fierce, high-profile defenders. Love and respect him or cringe at the mere mention of his name, no one can deny Davis had a legitimate claim to the blues.

Ellis Cedell Davis recorded Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong for Fat Possum Records when he was sixty-eight years old, but his career as a workaday delta bluesman began roughly half a century earlier.

Davis was born in Helena, Arkansas, in 1926. At the time Helena was a bustling Delta port town, where his father ran one of the city’s countless juke joints and his devout Evangelical mother, while working as a cook, was better known among locals as a faith healer. Perhaps on account of all the sordid temptations waiting around every corner in Helena—it was a town rife with bootleggers, gamblers and hookers—young Cedell was sent a ways upstream to live with his older brother on the E. M. Hood plantation. There he became friends with Isaiah Ross, and the pair, only seven or eight at the time, began playing blues. Davis’ mother insisted the music was the handiwork of Satan, but it was the music that surrounded them, it was the music they knew, the pair often sneaking into local juke joints to catch live performances. Davis began with the diddly bow, a single wire nailed to a wall and plucked, before moving on to harmonica and guitar. Ross, meanwhile, stuck with the harmonica and would later be signed to Sam Phillips’ Sun Records as Dr. Ross, the Harmonica Boss.

When he was ten, Davis contracted a severe case of polio which left him nearly paralyzed. He returned to Helena, where it was hoped his mother’s healing powers might be able to save him. Well, Davis survived, but the muscles of his legs were so deteriorated he was forced to walk with crutches. Worse for the budding musician, he lost a good deal of control over his left hand, and his right was gnarled and completely useless. Being a right-handed guitar player, this was bad news.

In the early ’80s, Davis told New York Times music critic Robert Palmer—a tireless champion of Davis’ music—that it took him three years to figure out how to play again.

He flipped the guitar around to start teaching himself to play left-handed, but even then, with his right hand unable to work the fret board, he knew he needed something to use as a slide, so swiped a butter knife from his mother’s silverware collection, using the handle to work the frets.

In 2017, shortly before his death, Davis told an interviewer. “Almost everything that you could do with your hands, I could do it with the knife. It’s all in the way you handle it. Drag, slide, push it up and down.”

To unsophisticated ears, the grinding shriek resulting from the butter knife slide working the strings might be reminiscent of a cat in heat caught in a ceiling fan, but Mr. Palmer, being a rock critic, recognized its virtues, describing it as only a rock critic could: "a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity.” Palmer also argued that Davis’ wholly unique sound wasn’t merely the untuned inchoate noise so many claimed, noting the subtleties of the guitar work remained consistent performance to performance.

In the early 1940s, while in his teens, Davis started playing on street corners around Helena, sometimes working as a duo with Ross. Soon enough he found himself booked in the local juke joints, playing house parties, and appearing on local radio blues shows. He became friends with a number of the era’s most notable Delta Blues luminaries, including Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Robert Nighthawk and Charlie Jordan. In 1953 Davis teamed up with Nighthawk, a famed slide guitarist in his own right, and the pair began playing all over the Mississippi Delta region, eventually relocating to St. Louis. Davis, it was said, had a Buddha like presence on stage, a radiant calm that seemed to defuse even the most unruly of crowds. It apparently didn��t always come through.

In 1957, while the pair was playing a gig at a bar in East St. Louis, someone in the audience pulled a gun. This sparked a panic in the crowd that only escalated when cops raided the place. Davis was caught in the resulting stampede, and trampled under lord knows how many feet. The bones in his legs weren’t merely broken, they were shattered, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Just as he was determined, for better or worse, not to let polio and a ruined right hand stop him from playing music, he didn’t let the wheelchair slow him down either. Shortly after he got out of the hospital, he and Nighthawk returned to Helena, where the duo continued performing together. When Nighthawk snared them a regular house gig at a nightclub in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1961, Davis picked up and moved there.

(As an interesting side note, Pine Bluff was home to an enormous U.S. Army chemical and bioweapons storage facility. It’s unclear if these two things are connected, but if you take Davis at his word, the town also boasted the fattest women in the world, an observation that inspired his song, “If You Like Fat Women,”)

Davis and Nighthawk went their separate ways in 1963, after ten years of playing together. Davis would remain in Pine Bluff for the next few decades, still playing the juke joints around the Delta.

(As another side note, throughout his career Davis remained adamantly vague when it came to questions about his marital status. He might have been married twice, or maybe not at all. It’s unclear. He knows he had a few kids, maybe even some grandkids, but he was no longer in touch with any of them.)

In the mid-’70s, like so many other folklorists inspired by Harry Smith and Alan Lomax, Louis Guida began trolling the Deep South with a tape recorder, hoping to make field recordings of some as-yet-undiscovered authentic blues legend along the way. In 1976 he stumbled across Davis playing in a bar, and those first recordings appeared on Guida’s compilation album, Keep It to Yourself: Arkansas Blues Volume 1, Solo Performances, which came out in the early ’80s.

And here we go. Robert Palmer heard that album and headed to Arkansas to catch Davis’ act, writing the first of many stories about him for the Times and other publications. Over the course of the decade, Palmer’s endless championing of Davis earned the man with the butter knife slide gigs not only all over the country (including a multi-night stand in NYC), but around the world as well. Suddenly Davis, who prior to that had ventured no further than St. Louis, was starting to get some recognition within the international blues community. Not all of it was as laudatory as Palmer, but still. In 1993, it was Palmer, not surprisingly, who brought Davis to the attention of Fat Possum Records.

The indie label had been launched by three white college buddies from The University of Mississippi in 1991, their goal being to promote (which sounds so much better than “exploit”) previously unknown bona fide aging black Delta blues musicians. Along with R.L. Burnside and T Model Ford, Davis became one of the earliest acts signed to the label. In 1994, with Palmer himself producing and assorted label mates like Burnside acting as sidemen, Davis went into the studio to record Feel like Doin’ Something Wrong, which featured a smattering of classic vlues covers mixed in with Davis originals, including “Murder My Baby” and the above mentioned “If You like Fat Women.”

Going back to the album now for the first time in roughly twenty-five years, it doesn’t seem nearly as comically awful as it did back in The Welcomat’s editorial office. In fact it’s pretty good, if you’re a fan of unpolished, dirty, gritty roadhouse blues. If you aren’t conscious that he’s playing with a butter knife, Davis’ guitar work merely sounds a little squeaky and rough, but not all that different from what you might hear from others of the time.

If there is a downside, it’s that the album’s a little one note and generic. Apart from the covers, Davis relies on the same simple blues progression for nearly every song, which, yes, can be a little tiring if you’re listening carefully. But if all you wanted was some generic roadhouse blues to put on as you go about doing other things, it fits the bill.

In a strange move considering he’d only put out a single album at that point, the following year saw the release of The Best of Cedell Davis, this time spearheaded not buy Palmer, but by popular jazz fusion bandleader Col. Bruce Hampton, one of Davis’ newfound fans. None of the album’s ten tracks appeared on Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong, so I can’t say for sure if these are new recordings or songs taken from his appearances on earlier Delta blues compilations, but a couple, like “My Dog Won’t Stay Home” and “Keep Your mouth Closed, Baby,” are kind of fun.

Shortly after the Best of came out, Palmer died, and Davis lost his most influential benefactor. But Palmer had gotten Davis on the map, and it was up to Davis to carry on as he always had.

In 1998 he released Horror of It All, an album whose title once again played right into the hands of the Davis naysayers. In fact, It’s an album, despite promising song titles like Chicken Hawk,” “Keep on Snatchin’” and the mind boggling “Tojo told Hitler,” that seems determined to prove the naysayers were right all along. With the exception of a new iteration of “If You Like Fat Women,” there are no drums, no side guitars, nothing but Cedell and the naked glory of his butterknife slide. It’s Cedell laid bare, and it can be painful, especially as Davis keeps playing those same simple blues progressions over and over. Yes, he has an absolutely unique sound, a bit like Joseph Spence, but ouch. It really is godawful, but like the equally godawful Godzilla vs. Megalon, may be the album that cemented his reputation among blues critics and fans who weren’t Robert Palmer.

(Oddly, Horror of it All is the album I keep returning to, as it best captures my initial impressions of the Davis sound.)

After Horror of It All came out Davis decided to take a break from recording to write more songs and return to playing the juke joints where he was most comfortable.

It’s a funny thing. If you don’t know the back story, Davis’ music, while perhaps not as awful as I once maintained (and countless blues critics still insist), doesn’t get much beyond the merely adequate. When you do learn his story, though, well, that elevates things, right? Knowing he’s confined to a wheelchair and using a butter knife in his crippled right hand, it’s really something he plays as well as he does. It also sure makes for a swell and effective marketing gimmick. He may not have been the worst bluesman who ever lived, but without that gimmick he was nothing. If he’d merely been blind it would’ve been no big deal—blindness just comes with the territory—but Davis was all messed up, and never let it stop him. Again, for better or worse.

As has happened so many times before, if you have a performer whose abilities make at least a stab toward the adequate, then add a mental or physical disability on top of it, all you need do is step back for a few moments and wait for the hipster celebrities to start lining up, hoping to get their claws in him. Consider the cases of Larry “Wild Man” Fischer or Daniel Johnston.

Sure enough, when word of Davis’ condition began circulating along with those first couple Fat Possum discs (the label having become quite popular among white hipsters), the white hipster celebrity musicians began clamoring to get on board.

Davis’ returned to the studio in 2002 to record When Lightnin’ Struck the Pine. The accompanying press release claimed he had personally signed R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin to be in his backing band. Why do I find it hard to believe a 76-year-old black bluesman from Arkansas had ever heard, let alone heard of, R.E.M. or the Screaming Trees, or that he would personally sign a couple white hipsters to be in his band?

Well, whatever. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it really did happen that way, and there wasn’t some heavy conspiring between Buck, Martin, and the white boys who ran the label to get them in on those sessions.

Well, however it came about, the resulting album was, much to my amazement, um, pretty good. The sound is as grungy as ever, but much fuller than it had been on his earlier albums, with the addition of organ, piano and sax together with Buck and Martin. And as it should be, Davis vocals and butter knife slide are front and center. The energy level’s been ramped up considerably, and best of all, Davis, both in the songs and a few candid recordings from the studio, seems to be having a fine time of it.

Three years later in 2005, Davis had a stroke and was forced to move into a nursing home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This time it was definite and final—he could no longer play guitar. But if polio hadn’t stopped him, and crushed legs hadn’t stopped him, it’s little surprise a stroke and no longer being able to play the guitar wasn’t going to stop him either. He could still sing, and so kept writing songs and recording. And the hipsters kept piling on.

His 2015 album, appropriately if ironically entitled Last Man Standing, featured an 88-year-old Davis working through a greatest hits set in front of a backing band that again included Barrett Martin, as well as Jimbo Mathus and Stu Cole from the Squirrel Nut Zippers and noted blues guitarist brothers Greg and Zack Binns.

The resulting album, as you might expect, was a far cry from his debut. The production was clean and sterile, with the all-star band’s three guitars pushed to the front of the mix and Davis’ butter knife clearly absent for obvious reasons. At least none of the involved made the mistake of trying to recreate his trademark sound. It sounded like a bunch of white hipster musicians playing standard blues riffs behind an eighty-eight-year-old mumbling bluesman.

If you hadn’t smelled it already, to drive the Bad Faith of the whole project home, the album also contains three or four tracks of Davis just talking to the band in the studio, clearly trying to tell stories about his life and career to these youngsters who not only don’t know who the hell he’s talking about, but can’t understand what he’s saying. While similar tracks had been included on Lightnin’, this, unlike those, had been recorded after Davis stroke. The clear intention was to say to listeners, “Hey, get a load of this crazy old mumbling Southern black bliuesman! Is that authentic or what?”

Somehow, the following year he released yet another album, Even the Devil Gets the Blues, this time with someone from Pearl Jam in his backing band. Then in September of 2017, Davis had a heart attack, and died from complications a week or two later at age 91. Not surprisingly, at the time of his death, he was still scheduled to play a gig at the end of the month.

I’m not sure who the final Great Cosmic Joke is on, those hipster musicians who thought playing with a bona fide authentic Delta bluesman would bolster their street cred in some way, or poor Cedell—whom I adore and admire more with each passing day—who might have been conned into believing all that support from white institutions from the NY Times to R.E.M. would push him over the top. Whatever it may be, a mere three years after his death, and after seventy-five years of making a go of the blues against all imaginable odds, Cedell Davis remains virtually unknown and forgotten, even among serious blues aficionados. In fact it seems, and this may be the saddest thing of all, he’s only remembered nowadays by people like me.

by Jim Knipfel

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Thoughts On: Heretic

Earlier this year, just before the beginning of quarantine, I played a little game called AMID EVIL, something I would not have done were it not for the enchanting video skills of YouTuber Civvie 11. In his video, Civvie demonstrated the awesomeness of the retro shooter, both in graphics and gameplay, and since I was jonesing for something a little more dark fantasy than I was used to, I decided to give it a try. The game is a thrilling rush, and worthy of its own post here, but that game was a segue into me finally picking up and playing a game series that I had been intrigued by for nearly twenty some odd years: the Heretic and Hexen games.

AMID EVIL owes a lot to these games; in fact, it's not much of a leap to say that it owes everything to these games. It's even less of a leap to say that most first person shooters, whether dark fantasy or no, owe a lot to these games. Raven Software introduced a monster of a franchise when they dropped Heretic in December of 1994, working in collaboration with id Software as Raven was creating their games using the DOOM engine (or, as I think we're calling it now, “id tech 1”). John Romero helped in-house, giving advice on how to work with the engine, which was instrumental for Raven to push id tech 1 to its limits. They made changes to the engine which eventually became staples in other FPS games: an inventory system, translucent objects, pushable objects, the ability to look up and down, and the ability to fly. While the game itself was objectively a reskinned version of DOOM, it was stylish and engaging and reworked the most popular game engine at the time. In short, it won accolades in no small amount, and sealed itself in history as a high watermark for boomer shooters, hell, for PC gaming in general. So when we're looking backwards into the foggy past of our ancestors, is Heretic a game that we, in the Year of Our Lord Gaben 2020, should consider playing, either for the first time or as a throwback? Roll up your sleeves, party people, we've got a deep one to dive into today. Because we can't simply look at Heretic alone; oh, no. We're going to have to look at the whole franchise.

Heretic is not a complicated game per se, but it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. We have the standard issue Run-Gun-Have-Some-Fun gameplay that Wolfenstein and DOOM brought to the table. There's three keys of different colors – yellow, green, and blue – there's a variety of weapons that almost line up point-for-point with DOOM's stack of damage inducers, and there's a horde of enemies that are around every corner waiting for you to come out magic blazing. But where DOOM has a mostly straightforward path from point A to point B, Heretic is a trickster which can and will give cause to tear one's hair out. Secret doors, invisible walls, fake walls, and hidden switches are everywhere, which means that nine times out of ten you'll either be consulting your map to figure out where the fake walls are, or you'll be pressing the space bar on every surface to see if it will open or activate something useful. Raven did a bit of a whammy on the game, setting up the simplistic stuff to lure you in, as though promising a hot night out with the kind of experience you think that you're used to, but then they strap you in for the kinky stuff that you always imagined you'd be into, but now that we're here you're not so sure. Make no mistake, I did consult a walkthrough at least once, maybe twice if I'm remembering right, during my playthrough. And the game is punishing the deeper you get: enemies lie in wait immediately behind doors, around corners, hidden out of sight or just above you since some of them can fly, and as your limited ammunition dwindles down into the red, you'll be forced into running risk-and-reward of melee weapons and inventory items to keep moving. Fortunately, each weapon has its own ammo stock, and some enemies are more susceptible to different weapon types. Adding to the bonus in the player's favor are inventory items that boost weapon damage, specifically the Tome of Power which magnifies the current weapon's attack power into a secondary fire that more often than not is absolutely brutal. But, unlike future entries in this series, the motto of the day is: Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, Don't Stop Moving, Don't Stop Shooting. It's Fun, Fast, and Furious in an entertaining way that only occasionally leaves you pondering why you even booted up the game this morning.

However you may feel about the gameplay itself, it can't be denied that the visual aesthetics and gamefeel are dripping with atmosphere. Everything from top to bottom feels like the best of cheesy 80's style fantasy art, from the front cover to final screen. Gloomy castles, underwater domes, craggy hellscapes. Weapons impress with over-the-top magical properties. The default staff acts like the DOOM pistol, lobbing nearly harmless yellow energy, while the Etheral Crossbow shoots multiple energy arrows at once, like a magic shotgun, easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Besides that one, my other favorite weapons are the Hellstaff (which blasts rapid-fire red energy, and causes acid rain to fall when Tomed up) and the Phoenix Rod (basically a magic rocket launcher that belches fire when overpowered). Depending on what you're facing, proper usage of these weapons (all finely drawn sprites, natch) can either chew through a mob with ease or leave you scrambling to get back. Stun lock Disciples with the Dragon Claw while obliterating Golems with the Crossbow; save the Phoenix Rod for big bads. And enemy creatures run the gamut from the simplistically annoying Gargoyles (red bat-winged creatures who also shoot fireballs) to the sturdy Golems (which come in a secondary variety which throw flaming skulls at you) to the Disciples of D'Sparil (faceless hooded monks who fly, chant, and shoot fireballs at you, on theme). Usually these damage sponges come at you in packs, rarely doing so in solo numbers because otherwise the game wouldn't be a DOOM clone. What really gets challenging is when boss creatures start popping up like regular enemies – in packs. Take the Iron Lich for example, a massive floating skull wearing a spiked helmet that throws walls of fire and tornadoes that do continual damage, they appear as a boss at the end of the final level of the first episode, then appear later on in groups. They take incredible amounts of damage and return fire constantly, which leads to a tense game of bobbing and weaving and staying as far away from them as possible. But the absolute worst is the Maulotaur. Basically, a minotaur that stands head and shoulders taller than the Iron Lich, carries a huge mace, and shoots waves of fire at you which can one-shot you if you're not paying attention. Staying away from them is key, but they can charge forward fast in order to close distance and take a few swings at you with the mace. These assholes also start as a final bosses, then appear as regular enemies surrounded by waves of other mobs. Maulotaurs are the dealbreakers of the game; they require ridiculous amounts of ammo to kill, and will force you through most of your inventory items if you're not already powered up. Thankfully, your inventory can hold quite a few helpful items, such as quartz flasks for health, the aforementioned Tomes of Power to boost weapon damage, invisibility spheres and wings of flight, and even motherfucking time bombs. But amongst all these, the most ridiculous and yet satisfying item is the Morph Ovum. Shaped like an egg, when used it gets thrown outward and whatever it hits is transformed into an easily killable chicken. Got a wave of monsters crowding too close and you need to thin the herd fast? Turn them into chickens, then turn them into fried chickens.

What gets me is that this game doesn't feel nearly as highly regarded as its indirect sequel, Hexen, and that's probably because for the most part this is a full-on DOOM clone. There were a lot of them back in the day, too many to count, and I think that if wasn't for the legacy of Raven and Hexen, this might have fallen through the cracks of history. Is it uninspired? No, not in the slightest. The quality of the spritework and animations are top notch, the production values are stellar, putting it just above the quality of the average obvious Doom clone. The amount of innovation, with the aforementioned inventory system and modifications to the engine, mesh well with the ambitious world/story crafted in the background of a single warrior trudging across worlds to defeat an evil tyrant who has taken over his people's lands. The current version on Steam is actually the second version released; initially, the game launched in 1994 with three episodes, the first one being the shareware version, and then later on in 1996 had a second physical release which added on two new episodes. It was like an expansion pack folded into the main game, and considering that Hexen was released in 1995, it makes sense that the two new episodes of Heretic feel so much more brutal in difficulty by comparison. And thematically it makes sense for them to have a higher base difficulty, since it’s about escaping the dark world you had to break into, and now you're crawling your way back out of it. Kind of a neat trick, having the hero beat the bad guy halfway through the story, then showing his journey to get back home. Hell, even the name of the main character is awesome. A later game in the series will reveal that his name is Corvus, but originally the character was simply referred to as The Heretic, and in a gaming landscape featuring such characters as Doomguy, the Quake Ranger, and the Doomslayer, the Heretic ought to stand right up there with the rest of them.

So is the game worth playing today? Absolutely. Any fan of boomer shooters or retro gaming in general should absolutely play this game. Utilizing DOSBOX (which the Steam release uses) is fine, but doesn't allow for the best playing experience currently. A quick download of GZDOOM to launch the game will give better controls, easier mouse compatibility, and smoother graphics. There's a method to tie GZDOOM into your Steam page so you can even track how long you've been playing it (for those who this is important for). And it's super cheap, meaning there's little to no excuse to not play it. So why then is this game sitting in the background, kind of like the little engine that could? You know, I'm doing my best to get into the meat and potatoes of this game, to be more descriptive of it and really entice you, the reader, into wanting to play this game. The powerups are fun, there are segments where you absolutely get to go apeshit on monsters and laugh hysterically while you do so, there are moments where the “AHA” is so enlighting that the relief is palpable. Some of the bosses are so memorable that to find them around the corner later in the game as minibosses – in multiple! – is downright frightening and adds to the risk/reward, since they're usually guarding something good that you want to pick up. Long story short, if you like DOOM, you'll like Heretic, which feels like selling the experience short. But the real reason I think Heretic is overlooked is because it is overshadowed by the more complex, more engaging, and more brutal Hexen.

If it hasn't become obvious yet, this is going to be a multi-part Thoughts On post. You've read Heretic, which is a fine game that does what it does and is memorable and fun and fine. But next, we're going to dive into the second course of this delicious fantasy meal, Hexen, and talk about how the second game in this series is the one that got everyone to sit up and take notice of what Raven Software was doing.

#heretic #hexen #ck burch #rubyranger #thoughts on #boomer shooters #doom #quake #raven software #id software #amid evil #new blood #ranger report

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passionate-reply · 3 years

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This week on Great Albums: a deeper dive into one of the most underrated early synth-pop acts. You’ve heard “Fade to Grey” by now, I’m sure, but this record is weirder and wilder than you might imagine! Find out more by watching the video or reading the transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be discussing one of the first opening salvos of the New Romantic movement: the 1980 self-titled debut album by Visage. You could be forgiven for assuming that Visage was the alias of a single person, presumably the dapper fellow all over their brand, but Visage were, indeed, a group!

That “face of the band” figure was Steve Strange, who was less of a musician and more of a tastemaker and aesthete, and the club promoter for London’s famous nightclub, The Blitz. The Blitz’s DJ, Rusty Egan, was also a percussionist, and had previously played in the punk band Rich Kids, where he became acquainted with Midge Ure. Famous for his many connections and skill at leveraging them, Egan put together a sort of dream team out of the many musicians he knew at the time: Ure, who’d been orphaned by the dissolution of Rich Kids, Billy Currie, one-time synthesist of Ultravox before their group split apart, and several members of Buzzcocks alumnus Howard Devoto’s band Magazine. A bit of a motley crew, for sure...but one can’t argue with the success Visage would achieve.

Music: “Fade to Grey”

“Fade to Grey” is surely one of the most iconic songs of early 80s synth-pop, and its music video pushed forth a bold new aesthetic for the new decade: sophisticated, futuristic, androgynous. While Steve Strange would consistently reject the “New Romantic” label for his own work, his influence on the scene was undeniable. “Fade to Grey” strikes a balance between being debonair and mysterious, with its ghostly vocal reverb, and being a straight-up club classic, with an absolutely massive synth riff. The inclusion of a French-language translation of the main lyrics gives it a lot of European panache, and may well have been one of the main factors propelling it to international success--“Fade to Grey” was actually an even bigger hit in markets like France and Germany than in Visage’s native UK. That aside, though, as is so often the case with these famous 80s songs, the rest of this album is not to be missed! If you’re looking for another song with a bit of a similar vibe to their famous hit, I think you can’t go wrong with its opening track and final single, also titled “Visage.”

Music: “Visage”

There’s something really satisfying about a track, artist, AND album all having the same name--the triple threat! Still, I think this album’s title track stands well enough on its own, with a soaring refrain that’s quite easy to sing along to. While this album doesn’t get quite as “baroque” as Ultravox would, on tracks like their famous hit “Vienna,” the dry piano used throughout this track really classes the place up. Thematically, the title track seems to assert the importance of fashion and style, as well as the importance of innovating in those fields--“New styles, new shapes, new modes.” While lots of electronic acts were fixated on the future, Visage were one of the first to center aesthetics to such a dramatic degree. Plenty of people, both at the time and more recently, would criticize New Romantic acts of the MTV era for being “style over substance,” as though their embrace of the parallel art form of fashion inherently made their music worse. I’ve never understood that criticism myself, since it’s perfectly possible to care about, or excel at, more than one creative pursuit at once. At any rate, the title track’s focus on novelty contrasts quite strikingly with the preceding single, “Mind of a Toy.”

Music: “Mind of a Toy”

“Mind of a Toy” is a surprisingly high-concept song in comparison to the album’s other singles, narrating the thoughts of a plaything that’s lost its lustre, and has been discarded in favour of newer and better diversions. It feels like a pointed criticism of the consumerist obsession with novelty, and a counterpoint to the apparent thesis of the title track. It’s perhaps also a sort of critique of the way popular music disposes of so many of its once-loved idols--who, like puppets, are often controlled by unseen outside forces. You’ll also find several tracks that push into more experimental territory on the album, to a degree that may be surprising if you’re only familiar with the big hit. The eerie, cinematic instrumental “The Steps” is perhaps the most striking example, and closing the album on this note is certainly a bold decision!

Music: “The Steps”

The album’s cover features Steve Strange dancing with a woman, in a starkly lit, greyscale composition that recalls early photography. In the background, we can see the shadows of several instrumental musicians--perhaps a nod to the composition of the band itself, in which the composers and instrumentalists happily hid behind the facade of Strange’s attention-grabbing persona. What’s perhaps most interesting about it is the fact that despite having a dance partner, Strange’s attention seems to be focused entirely on us, the viewers. He seems to meet our gaze, with a vigour and intensity that borders on confrontational.

Before “New Romantic” took such a strong hold as the term for this movement, one of the contenders for its name was “peacock punk.” I’ve always liked the way that alternative phrase communicates the brash, almost macho nature of its seemingly fey male frontmen, whose gender-bending style was often rooted in self-confidence that bordered on bravado. I think Steve Strange’s fixed gaze on the cover of this album embodies this principle of “peacocking,” and lavishing attention on one’s personal aesthetic in a daring, perhaps even aggressively counter-cultural manner. While a lot of this music, and its associated visual culture, has been dismissed as some sort of yuppie frippery, it takes some serious balls to transgress ideas about gender as much as the New Romantics did, and I’d say it’s pretty damn punk.

This album is, of course, self-titled, which I suppose could be seen as a sort of throwaway non-decision. But I think the use of “Visage” for the title calls attention to the idea their name represents. A “visage” is, literally, a face, but the connotation of the word is certainly a bit loftier and more refined than that. A visage is less likely to be an everyday face, and more likely to be a metaphorical or symbolic “face”--a front for something, a representation of some greater idea. While Strange and company couldn’t see the future, they of course ended up being the representative front for the coming wave of stylish, synthesiser-driven pop, even if they weren’t at the crest of it for too long.

After their debut, Visage would go on to release one more LP with their original line-up, 1982’s The Anvil. Less experimental, and more indebted to disco and dance music, The Anvil would produce two more charting singles, “Night Train” and “The Damned Don’t Cry,” though neither of them would reach the same heights of international success as “Fade to Grey.”

Music: “Night Train”

Later in the 1980s, Billy Currie and Midge Ure would become increasingly committed to their work with the re-formed Ultravox, and they left Steve Strange and Rusty Egan to continue the Visage project on their own. The two of them released one more album under the Visage name in 1984, but when that was panned, they went back to running the Blitz Club together.

In 2013, Steve Strange decided to return to making music, and revive the “Visage” name. While his untimely death in 2015 would cut this era short, Strange released one full album, and recorded enough material for a followup that it could be released posthumously. Though Strange is no longer with us, Rusty Egan has become quite keen on the idea of a Visage reunion of some sort in the past year or two, possibly involving Midge Ure, Billy Currie, and/or fellow New Romantic heartthrob Zaine Griff, who I think could fill Strange’s shoes better than just about anybody. It sounds quite promising, so we’ll have to stay tuned.

My favourite track from this album is “Tar,” which was actually released ahead of the album, in 1979, but failed to attract much notice. It was love at first listen for me, though--I love the way the chorus rises so triumphantly, only to fall back down into its screwy, glitchy synth hook. Besides that abrasive touch, the theme of the song is also a bit out there: it’s a somewhat patronizing number all about the repulsiveness of cigarette smoking. Perhaps now that fewer people are smokers, this premise will come across as less alienating than it did at the time! That’s all I’ve got for today, thanks for listening.

Outro: “Tar”

#music #visage #steve strange #album review #album reviews #great albums

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