Suuuunday Morning: why I like The Pixies; The Microphones; The Fourth Dimension

Lately I've been looking through the old issues of Hook and Line, from back when we used to print zines and e-zines. I truly miss that format. I miss holding this damn blog in my hands, or at the very least, seeing a cyber replica of something that looks like the thing that you can hold in your hands. Maybe I will make a small run of a zine type thing to accompany this blog in the near future.
In the same spirit of looking back, I've also been revisiting bands that I was obsessed with throughout high school, particularly ages 13-16; Namely, The Pixies, Radiohead, Jane's Addiction, Laura Viers, Modest Mouse, The Silversun Pickups and The Pixies, again.  The Pixies were so unreal the first time I heard them.  It was a very memorable musical epiphany, one of those feelings when you get super excited thinking, "This exists in the universe?!" It was this little tune,this exact video, in fact.

After years have passed, I think I am now able to understand why I loved The Pixies so much.  It's the crude and spontaneous, angry, crusty, hurting, "i'm-losing-my-breath-but-i'm-still-gonna-finish-this-line" sound.  
I read a piece of philosophy when I was a senior in high school.  I think it was by Plato because it was about why the arts are not good for society.   It was aligning the artist, the performer in particular, with the fits that people have when they are possessed by the devil or when they are insane.  And now that I'm thinking about it, that's exactly why I like my favorite bands! I like the bands who seem insane, like they have to do this.  Like when Frank Black makes that weird "Oouhg" sound before he sings "Said the man to the lady", I love that!  There is no formula that tells you when or how to do that. You can't learn how to do that in music theory, that comes from somewhere else.  If it seems too contained, too constant - i'm not a fan. But if it feels like the shriek at the end of the sentence found its source in some unknown reservoir in your mind then I'm totally digging it.

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I have recently been introduced to The Microphones. Good fall/winter music.

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I saw The Fourth Dimension.  Released on YouTube on Friday through Vice Magazine and Grolsch Film Works, The Fourth Dimension is a collection of three 30 minute films made by Harmony Korine, Alexsei Fedorchenko and Jan Kwiecinski. You can watch it below.


~Keba