yourbeginnersguide

[yourbeginnersguide]

PJ Harvey fans we are eating GOOD with her latest email… this image is one of a few from her latest.

PJ Harvey's drafted notes on the writing and performance of the song “Lwonesome Tonight” from her new album I Inside the Old Year Dying.

[yourbeginnersguide]

ST. VINCENT @ THE ANTHEM

ST. VINCENT @ THE ANTHEM

I wrote this back in November 2017 with the intention of publishing and clearly, I forgot. Now, she’s a much bigger name, having performed at both the Academy Awards in 2018 with Sufjan Stevens and Moses Sumney and at the 2019 Grammys with Dua Lipa.

So here’s a step back in time to when I saw St. Vincent from the first row!

Annie Clark blows my mind. Not only is she an insanely talented…

[yourbeginnersguide]

Going back through old posts... 

thoughts on erasure

I was thinking about Kurt today a little, since it has been 20 years, and it brought me to an article on Riot Grrrl (largely on the influence on Kathleen Hanna) and how much of the movement was very exclusionary to women who weren’t thin, able-bodied, pretty white women. 

Of course upon reading the comments it just made me a bit sad to see that there are still feminists who don’t understand why people feel excluded so frequently from feminism. It’s understandable if you’re really only just getting started, but when I see people comment, “Punk rock is inherently white” it just really makes me sad. 

Sad because there are so many examples that directly contradict this idea and yet, it’s still something that people strongly believe. From my perspective as a black female, people seem to forget that black rock bands, or even black bands exist. That black instrumentalists exist. That black men play guitar. It doesn’t matter that The Roots play on The Tonight Show every night for some people, because they still think of them as “The House Band” and not The Legendary Roots Crew (not to be confused with Nappy Roots). It doesn’t matter that Beyonce made up her entire backing band out of women, and has a black woman with an afro for a lead guitarist and musical director. 

 It’s so ingrained in the minds of the wider populace that anytime a member of my extended family finds out that I even like rock bands at all they are taken aback. For some reason, rock music just isn’t expected from someone like me. 

If I had more friends who were POC and were into rock music when I was fourteen, I would’ve found so much more enrichment from the scene than I did. Instead I found a lot of disappointment and felt frustrated that I never quite fit in with the people who liked the music I liked. I didn’t grow up listening to The Beatles, and I definitely didn’t grow up listening to any alternative rock. (This is where people ask incredulously, well what did you listen to?!) I had to find every band on my own, in my own time. 

Getting people to recommend music was fairly easy, but I had to turn to the internet to get the best recs, since I couldn’t go to shows. Unfortunately I missed a lot of bands that way. If I had found X-Ray Spex at fourteen I probably would’ve been awestruck to find someone like me, braces and all, fronting a band and singing the way Poly Styrene did… instead, as a youngster, I had Gwen Stefani, who I still have a soft spot for, despite her problematic tendencies. I had the girl pop/R&B groups of the late 90s, and I had men, namely Prince and Jimi Hendrix, who wasn’t exactly on tour.  

I feel like the Internet has really helped to open a lot of doors, but it’s also created a deluge of new music, so much so that it’s difficult to sift through even the newest buzz bands. A couple years back it was kind of a fun gimmick to be an anonymous band or artist, or to just wear a mask–it allowed the music to speak for itself at first, but then the conversation turned into, “Who is the person behind __?” and usually, it was a POC or a woman. Is that what it takes to get success? To remove your identity and become an avatar? 

There has to be a better way. 

I just feel like there’s so much more that can be done when it comes to feminism and music. Intersectionality is important and that message seems to be getting through with certain pop artists (of course that isn’t without its own problems), but why is it sounexpected in rock? Is this just an American phenomenon? 

Is the next revolutionary Nirvana or Beatles-sized band going to be fronted by someone who isn’t a white man? Does Beyonce have to do everything herself???? 

[yourbeginnersguide]

OK NOT OK

I just received my copy of Radiohead’s reissue of OK COMPUTER, OKNOTOK 1997 2017. I ordered the special or deluxe or whatever edition of it because I love the ephemeral nature of paper and box and cassette tape. But. Art is forever. Isn’t it?  The work put into the physical manifestation, the thing you hold and clutch and pass on to your children, “Take this, young Padawan, for I am giving you…

[yourbeginnersguide]

Contently.

I started a Contently. page to compile all of my work as it publishes so that I can stop worrying about directing people to multiple websites.

[yourbeginnersguide]

Tickled

Review posted over at BYT. http://brightestyoungthings.com/articles/movie-review-tickled?platform=hootsuite

[yourbeginnersguide]

It's been far too long.

It’s been far too long.

Hello! In the years between this post and my last, I received my M.A. in Critical Studies from MICA and began writing film reviews for BrightestYoungThings.com. I’m going to go ahead and link one review here. It’s for the Julianne Moore film, Still Alice that came out a while back. Yes, it is a bit older, and it is not in the “academic” style I’ve been working on during school, I will have plenty…

[yourbeginnersguide]

"FAR AWAY": Sleater-Kinney & Fear

Almost a year after 9/11, Sleater-Kinney released their sixth record, One Beat. “Far Away” is a direct response to the emotional day, and the response of President Bush.

When working backwards in time from The Woods to One Beat, you can immediately tell a difference in approach to the sound of the band. For all of the destruction and chaos found in The Woods' soundscape, on One Beat, there is clarity. Tucker and Brownstein want to be understood, and have a number of important things on their mind.

(photo upload not mine)

[yourbeginnersguide]

SLEATER-KINNEY!

If you’ve never heard of Sleater-Kinney, they’re a rock band that started in the 90s by guitarists and vocalists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein. Combining both the riot grrl and “indie” sounds coming out of the Pacific Northwest, the duo became one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 90s and early 2000s. They took an indefinite hiatus in 2006, and have now officially announced their return with 2015′s No Cities to Love and a sold out tour. 

[yourbeginnersguide]

IN THE DARK PLACES

So our young men hid with guns in that forest and in the dark places…

And not one man has, and not one woman has revealed the secrets of this world.

“In The Dark Places” has a somber and straightforward message. This song…

[yourbeginnersguide]

What was your first Arcade Fire song?

My first was this version of “Wake Up” with David Bowie.

It took a while before I found them again, in the Where the Wild Things Are film ad version, in the late spring or early summer of…

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[yourbeginnersguide]

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

“Now I just think of all the records I want to make. I dont think of the awards I want to get, it doesn’t mean anything at all. I think of all the things I want to try and the visual things…

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[yourbeginnersguide]

A Perfect Day Elise

“A Perfect Day Elise” is the PJ Harvey starter kit song of the day.

It’s one of my absolute favorite songs she’s ever done. I heard that it’s inspired by the J.D. Salinger story, “A Perfect…

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[yourbeginnersguide]

PJ Harvey's regular photographer's website

PJ Harvey’s regular photographer’s website

 Maria Mochnacz has done a ton of work with her good friend Polly Harvey. Click through to see just how many classic images and videos she’s taken. I even saw a few I’d never seen before in there… 

Also, PJ has…

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[yourbeginnersguide]

VOXPOP from today's show - PJ Harvey at Borris House with reaction from Dorothy Cross, Liam O'Maonlai, Si Schroeder, John Butler and Neil Brody

Reblogged from thegossipradio:

Last Sunday we went down to Borris House to see PJ Harvey chat to Anne Enright.

We came back with this..

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On Thursday's Show: PJ Harvey at Borris House - reaction and performance; Hilary A. White talks…

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[yourbeginnersguide]

Bat for Lashes is featured on this awesome new collaboration with TOY for Speedy Wunderground. Just wow. I never knew I wanted this but now I want more.

Related articles

LISTEN: Bat For Lashes/TOY Collab (thequietus.com)

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[yourbeginnersguide]

Radiohead - "There There"

One of my favorite things about Radiohead is how fully-formed and thought out each and every song is that they’ve released (on a record, as Radiohead).

That idea of creating a fully formed…

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