Fashion Dystopia

"In my nightmares, the world is run by people like this, a fashion gestapo who decide who is in and out of society. Style becomes some kind of predestination, and culture is a quasi-Calvinistic realm where one must constantly display the grace you secretly hope God has granted you, which would make your grace then unquestionable. One must forever work hard to seem effortlessly natural—to me this is the ultimate in anxiety, a spiraling abyss of self-analysis and shame and pretension and phoniness and endless humiliation. To guys like Charney and his youth goon squad, this is utopia." - Rob Horning on "American Apparel" from his Marginal Utility blog at Popmatters.com

Read the whole article. Especially if, like me, you find yourself both drooling and recoiling at those entrancing American Apparel ads.

you can cleanse yourself afterwards HERE.

one day, baby....

yeah. still hasn't happened.

For the last week or two i've been diggin' the following music:

Congo Man - a very mellow dub remix of Lee Perry's production of The Congos (1974) remixed by Carl Craig - a generally crappy dance dude - but there is no techno to this - except for brilliantly pioneering drum and bass patterns brought to the fore by Scratch, and brightened up a bit by Carl Craig.

Year of the Cat - Al Stewart. A 1976 soft rock smoothy i heard recently in a pub. Stewart was originally from Glasgow. I like it in the way i like a lot of sunshiney pop. Weird that such a dingy gray town like Glasgow could produce such sunshiny pop - Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian - although like all GREAT sunshine pop the sounds of the song bely the often biting lyrics beneath (Quasi, Zombies, The Association, etc)

Sun Ra - everything. I've dug a couple of his records in the past (primarily 1978's Lanquidity), but now i am feeling the whole Sun Ra musical universe! The free jazz is great - but when the Arkestra comes together in a hard soulful groove - nothing beats it. See - "King Porter Stomp" and "Lights on a Satellite" from Live in Paris at the Gibus (1976), "Disco 2100" or "Spontaneous Simplicity" or scores of others. I'm thinking i'll make a beginners guide - which of course won't be for beginners at all - you have got to be a pretty advanced listener to get into most of this stuff. Then again - that statement goes for most of the music i like anyway.

Scott Walker - II (1968). If you like Nick Cave or other deep voiced freaky crooners, Scott Walker is not to be overlooked. I especially like his versions of a couple of really crazy Jaques Brel tunes - "Next". So So Brilliant!, or "Jackie" or "The Girls and The Dogs" damn. it just needs to be heard.

more to come, and look for a launch of a new site??????

e-zetti