The shorts are out. The pasty, prickly legs wearing the shorts are out, too. It’s sunny every day and we’re starting to remember that we own arms, and shins, and sandals. Birds chirp in the morning, cats moan at night, and hemlines rise with the temperatures. Isn’t it great?
That all depends. Sure, we’re in pleasant weather now, but before you know it you’ll be sweating through pants and underpants, kicking your bedmate away at night, and trying to schmooze your way into the esteemed echelons of friends with air conditioning units.
Summer is upon us early this year, prompting me to address my fellow shade seekers. Don’t worry, I can’t #summer either. How could I? I don’t play ultimate Frisbee. My surfing lessons started and stopped on a wave-less day at Rockaway Beach. I can “ride a bike” only in the capacity that I can “cook” – for survival purposes alone. And until they can make a bikini out of a black turtleneck and a motorcycle jacket, I will feel perpetually out of place in summer outfits, or as some call them, “dresses.”
So what are we supposed to listen to on the 85-degree days, crouched under patches of shade while everyone else at the BBQ dances to “summer jamz”? Don’t we get an anti-Ibiza anthem? In fact, there are plenty of songs commiserating with our Heliophobia. And yes, most of them are by Morrissey. The lugubrious Brit couldn’t have possibly maintained that sallow glow by overexposing himself to the UV Rays, now could he?
Songs like “The Lazy Sunbathers,” “Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning,” and Morrissey’s cover of Patti Smith’s “Redondo Beach” wink at the singer’s grotesque relationship with warm weather and those who enjoy it. The former seems to correlate catching a few rays with mass public ignorance. “The lazy sunbathers,” Moz croons, “Too jaded/To question stagnation/The sun burns through/To the planet’s core/And it isn’t enough/They want more.” Only an Englishman could vilify sun seekers so much.
But it’s the melodramatic “Lifeguard On Duty” from 1990’s Bona Drag that injects a common summer job with existential weight.
“The work you chose has a practical vein/But I read much more into your name/Lifeguard” Morrissey intones.
The only mention of Moz getting wet at this beach, however, is when he walks back through the center of the town, “Drenched in phlegm every time that I come home/Lifeguard save me from life/…Save me from the ails and the ills/And from other things.” Other things…like phlegm.
Another known hater of the heat is Philly’s oddball balladeer David E. Williams, whose menacing “Summer Wasn’t Made For You And Me” really sums life for the sunless.
Stalking a snowy Coney Island in a suit and tie, Williams drones, “Summer wasn’t made for you and me/With its screaming children and the heat’s obscenity/And all the stupid palefaces from town/Ridiculously fashionably brown.”
It’s a real beach party.
In my defense, I’ve gotten much better at summering in the past 15 years. My black clothing and I have come a long way since our first punk rock summer together in 2003, when I refused to wear anything but a patched hoodie and skinny jeans regardless of the season. I went three full years without revealing more than my hands and head to the sun, covering myself like a Victorian aristocrat.
Come freshman year of high school I decided it was finally time to embrace my Spanish heritage and get a tan. This was largely prompted by the fact that my best friend at the time, Daniel, criticized my forced paleness. “You tan naturally. Trying to force yourself pale is the same as all of the pale girls in school going to tanning beds.” Touché. Cocky with the knowledge that I’d never sunburned before, I lay out for hours one day sans sunblock – and subsequently turned a painful shade of cooked crustacean.
Since then I’ve found a safe space between full-body coverage and UV searing, but it’s still a struggle to exist in the summertime. Perhaps denial would be a wise approach to our collective heatstroke; it certainly worked for The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt in the deliciously sullen “I Don’t Believe In The Sun.”
“So I don’t believe in the sun,” Merritt wails. “How could it shine down on everyone/And never shine on me/How could there be/Such cruelty.”
Whether it is the sun, or summer love that left you scorched, Merritt assures us that ignoring our problems will definitely make them go away. Like Morrissey, The Magnetic Fields write recurring fuck-yous to the hi-temp months. In “Summer Lies” we hear a tale of deception.
“All the sweetest things you said and I believed were summer lies/Hanging in the willow trees like the dead were summer lies/I’ll never fall in love again.”
Perhaps summer-lovers are better at summer love, but Merritt and his Magnetic Fields may never know.
The odd thing about both Merritt and Morrissey is that although they are insufferable miserablists, they write such goddamn catchy pop songs that their melodies often outshine their dour lyrics. So bring the boombox to the beach, and from beneath your umbrella and wide-brimmed hat, sing along:
“The only sun I ever knew/Was the beautiful one that was you/Since you went away/It’s night time all day/And it’s usually raining, too.”
I bet no one will even notice.
The greatest betrayal of summer is one we don’t understand until we graduate and join the workforce. Summer becomes a myth; a vestige of childhood when adults paid our rent, fed us, and all we had to worry about was what to do on Saturday night. But now we have what Eddie Cochran (and Robert Gordon, and Joan Jett, and Marc Bolan) referred to as the “Summertime Blues.”
“I’m gonna raise a fuss, I’m gonna raise a holler/About a-workin’ all summer just to try to earn a dollar.”
As kids we used to play in the woods (where there’s plenty of shade), go on long camping excursions, and eat ice cream without an ounce of regret. But here we are: staring at desktops and clicking away, still waiting for the school bell.
But at least we have The Magnetic Fields and Morrissey to crouch in the shade with – what’s that you say? Moz moved to Hollywood, got a tan and abandoned us? He is a Lazy Sunbather now, too?
Well, in the words of David E. Williams:
“Was summer made for them?/Well, yes, maybe/But summer wasn’t made for you and me.”
And let’s not forget, that in addition to sunburns and heatstroke, summer also=SHARKS.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Ira Glass with members of Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company, shot by David Bazemore
Radio could easily be thrown under the bus as one of the least relevant media outlets these days – right above cable television and print journalism. It seems easy to dismiss the radio as a physical object considering that its top airing shows are often listened to via Internet streaming and podcasts. But as I sit stranded in my apartment with an absentee wi-fi signal, I’d do anything for a radio right now.
Long a beacon of information, entertainment, and more recently, nostalgia, radio has withstood the fickle curator of time for over 100 years. It was the first thing I heard every morning for two decades, my Dad flipping its switch at six am, seven days a week. During power outages and floods we’d pull out the wind-up radio, which only needs a few cranks of a rotating lever to sustain hours of energy. No iPhone can do that.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one who gets all warm and fuzzy inside at the thought of straightening an antenna. I had the opportunity to attend BAM’sRadioLoveFest this weekend to see a theatrical interpretation of everybody’s favorite radio show, This American Life, featuring your host and my daydream husband, Ira Glass. But what exactly is a theatrical interpretation of a radio show? Well, it’s a bit like tasting color.
Organized in acts much like the original program, the live staging possessed qualities of a variety show. I suspected both of these approaches, but other than that, I had no idea what I was getting into. Act One recounted the tribulations of a professional audiobook narrator who found herself locked in a hotel room closet with no phone and limited Internet signal. Her entire hour-plus of closet captivity was fortunately recorded on the iPad she had with her, and her story was told through a combination of audio clips and Ira Glass’s narration. But the narrative took an especially comic turn when one-by-one, costumed opera singers trickled on to the minimally adorned stage to sing the tragedy of the girl locked in the linen cupboard.
The next segment, 21 Chump Street, was likewise a true story told through the medium of music, this time with the addition of dance. Composed and narrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights, Bring It On) it recounted the experience of an undercover NARC sent to a Miami high school to weed out dealers. This act was enjoyable, but my least favorite bit of the evening given its Glee-like performances.
Writer Joshua Bearman narrated an autobiographical radio drama starring Josh Hamilton (as Bearman) and James Ransone as the author’s brother. It was the heaviest moment of the evening, dealing with the slow death of Bearman’s alcoholic mother in Florida. Yet the tale was told with a relatable comic lightness that didn’t dismiss the gravity of its subject matter, but rendered it as catharsis. It must have been an odd sensation for Mr. Bearman to narrate his own story and watch someone else play it out. Perhaps this was part of his coping process, and it was admirable that he could share it with a crowd of some 2,000 attendees.
Oddly enough, Bearman’s late mother had an extended presence in the show; as it turns out, she used to baby-sit Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt, also on the bill for the evening, and one of the main reasons I ended up in those red velvet seats to begin with. Unfortunately, Merritt only got two songs in the entire night: “How Do You Slow This Thing Down?” and “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing” off the seminal 69 Lovesongs. These performances were staggered between other acts, and added a stiff serving of delicious misery to an otherwise merry evening.
Sandwiched throughout the night were comedic tales told by SNL’s own Sasheer Zamata, and stand up comedian Mike Birbiglia, who had me in stitches with his tale of domestic arguments… over domesticated animals. At one point, an actor in a mouse suit and roller skates was chased across the stage by a man in a cat suit. That fine feline was none other than Ira Glass. At times like this, one must swoon.
The final act mirrored that of the first. Ira Glass narrated a story supplemented by audio clips from the original raconteur. This account was straight from the mouth of a professional River Dance performer, relaying the details of a lottery pool she and her team went into together. Feverishly convinced they would win, the dancers went into frenzy with the expectation, sometimes shouting “DO IT FOR THE LOTTO!” during their performances. As Ira told the story from his podium, the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company pranced behind him. Glass said of the performance in a recent interview: “I tell stories, and they dance. It sounds terrible, but I swear it kills.” Kill it did, especially as the number ended with Ira dancing in unison with the two professionals, a big red rose in his slate-blue lapel. I’d out-swooned myself.
I went into RadioLoveFest a bit bewildered with what I was to expect. I left with a cramp in my dimples from smiling so hard. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the immense pleasure of seeing Ira Glass dance again, but I do know one thing: radio ‘aint dead yet.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
At Audiofemme, we don’t exactly try to break music news; we’re more about pontificating on the news after it has broken. In honor of that, here’s our first monthly recap! It’s true that we’re a week into March, but this is a look back at some things that happened in February – and without mincing words, exactly what we think about it all. This installment features MIA, Whitney Houston, why the Grammys are irrelevant, and the best show we’ll (possibly) ever see.
AF: Afterflipping the bird during a Superbowl halftime show performance, thename Maya Arulpragasam was on everyone’s lips once again (or anyway,her initial-based moniker, MIA was). But MIA didn’t need to extendher middle finger to get our attention, since she already had it withthe video for “Bad Girls” released just a few days prior. Thesong is from the Vicki Leekx mixtape, self-released at thebeginning of 2011. Not only is the single far better than prettymuch anything from 2010’s mostly excruciating /\/\/\Y/\, butthe video adds a new level of intensity to an already fierce jam.
MIAreunited with director Romain Garvas, who also had a hand thecontroversial video/short film for “Born Free”. Looking back on“Born Free” it’s hard to say if our distaste stemmed from lukewarmfeelings for the track, or if we just thought the video was dumb. AudioFemme has always appreciated the political content in MIA’s work. Itnever feels like a gimmick, mostly because it extends throughevery expression of her being, from her music to her fashion sense toher live shows and album artwork, not to mention her background andthe causes she supports. “Born Free” was sort of an exception tothat. While we suppose that someone should call attention to thehorrors of genocide, must it be done by depicting a bunch of gingerrefugees shuttled to their torture on a crowded deathbus? Are whitekids really so blissfully unaware of racial and cultural profilingthat they need MIA to clobber them over the head with gory imagery offreckled, pale bodies exploding over land mines? Sadly, the answeris yes, but it felt a bit heavy-handed and obvious.
Thevideo for “Bad Girls” is essentially doing the same thing but ina much more successful manner. It takes a very real topic –oppression of women in the Middle East – and turns their liberationinto a orgiastic free-for-all. While it was filmed in Morocco, thedesert scenes and clay buildings remain just ambiguous enough toencompass areas of the world where MIA would have been arrested forsuch openness. Musically speaking, “Born Free” had a much moreaggressive sound than “Bad Girls” and in turn, the video was hardto watch. “Bad Girls” delivers its heat as a club-readyscorcher, and so there is a party-at-the-end-of-the-world sort oflanguage to the video. At first glance the future appears strangelydystopian, aimless. Then those first beats drop, MIA gyrates ontothe scene wearing iridescent lame, and snarls “Live fast/Dieyoung/Bad girls do it well” and the realization hits: we areactually seeing a utopia where Middle Eastern women are allowed todrive stunt cars, dance provocatively and wear whatever the fuckcrazy clothes they feel like wearing.
Allaspects of MIA’s signature in-your-face attitude are in full effecthere – her pouty expressions, provocative gestures, and creativewardrobe. Her bravado is most apparent when she nonchalantly filesher nails atop a stunt car driving on two wheels, but every second isinfused with the palpable excitement of the most explosive actionsequence in any summer blockbuster. At the exact moment MIA asks“Who’s gonna stop me if I’m coming through?” she’s backed bymotorcade of glow-in-the-dark cars and a horde of flamboyantlyshrouded back-up dancers on the march, a procession placing her inthe position of liberator and leader.
Inno time, the video had amassed 25,000 comments so MIA proceeded torespond to those comments in a follow-up video. Unfortunately, thequestions were no more insightful than YouTube comments ever seem tobe. We learned that see-through cars are expensive to ship, thathopefully MIA’s new album will see release during a season wherepeople will be wearing fewer clothes, and MIA promised to go out fordrinks with some lucky Brooklynite next time she’s in New York. Dudebetter watch out, I heard that babe likes truffle fries.
Lindsey: Speakingof living fast and dying (relatively) young, the world lost one ofits most beloved and talented performers on the 11th with the passing of Whitney Houston.
Iwas at work when news of Whitney’s death was tweeted to my roommate,who was at the time sitting at a corner booth enjoying our deliciouspork tostadas and coconut margaritas, and I’ll probably alwaysremember that setting. Just like I’ll always remember being on theJFK AirTrain when some dude with phone in hand announced to theentire car “HEY EVERYBODY, MICHAEL JACKSON JUST DIED!
A strangething happens when incredibly well-known pop singers die. On the onehand, there’s an element of shock, and then there’s the mentalpreparation one must begin in anticipation of hearing that artist’ssongs in every public place for the next three months, the fanscoming out of the woodwork to testify their love and heartbreak, thetackiness of televised funerals. But in those initial moments, myfirst thought was to tune Spotify to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody(Who Loves Me)” and pump up the volume, which is just what I did. In the next few hours we played most of Whitney’s back-catalogue,wondering how such a talented, wholesome lady could be so completelyderailed by a total asshole and his suitcase full of blow.
Aftersuch a time, I began to tire of the schmaltzy sentiment runningthrough most of Whitney’s oeuvre, but I did tear up to “I WillAlways Love You.” My parents listened exclusively to country musicwhile I was growing up, and when The Bodyguard came out I wasin fourth grade and already well familiar with Dolly Parton’soriginal recording. I remember being furious that Whitney had takenall the credit for it – I even had unschooled friends who insistedit was Whitney-penned material. I might have won the bet, but Istill looked like a bumpkin.
Onthe night of her death I found myself at a dance party and when theDJ played “I Wanna Dance” everyone lost their shit. It was acheap move (albeit one I’d pulled just hours earlier) but that’s thecharm of Whitney – even when you know the purpose of the music is to appeal to yoursappy, overemotional core, it still gets to you, and for that reasonalone the imprint she’s left on American culture will endure.
Lindsey: Following news of Whitney’s death, the 54thGrammy Awards aired on CBS. Admittedly, the Grammys do not interest me in the least, for all the reasons you’ve probably heard before…that they represent the lowest common denominator of fandom… thatthey celebrate mediocrity in pop music while ignoring more innovativeworks easily found just beyond the mainstream… that they haplesslycompare apples to oranges in categories that barely apply to theartists nominated… that they are incredibly boring. What I usuallysay instead of all that is “It’s just not my thing” and it isn’t –which doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone else, even if thosepreceding sentences make me sound like an incorrigible snob.
Infact, the Grammys often serve to shame me for just how littleattention I pay to Top Forty recordings. Someone I was talking to ina bar that Sunday made mention of Kanye West’s “All The Lights”and I had to admit I’d never heard it, not even once. Part of it ismy general annoyance with Kanye West’s personality and poorlyric-writing, though I think he’s a stellar producer, but I wasstill a tad embarrassed.
Sowith my tail between my legs, I watched maybe two minutes of NickiMinaj’s “Roman Holiday” performance, but all I could say was“UGH, why is everyone obsessed with this trainwreck? I feel likeI’m having a nightmare except I’m awake. I’m going to go read in myroom.”
Andmy takeaway was this: at least now the Grammys are recognizingelectronic forms of music, even if it is shitty dubstep. And givingawards to chubby girls based on actual talent rather than looks. Andgiving Dave Grohl a platform to become an internet meme, just likehe’s always wanted. And finally, we’ve all been introduced to thegenius of Justin Vernon, whom the Grammys discovered.
AF: On the 13th Tibet House hosted its annual benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, curated by Philip Glass. By far, this concert was the best thing we’ve attended all month, and (given the majority of shows we catch that take place in venues that frequently smell of vomit) probably the most highbrow outing we’ll go on for a long, long time. The original bill listed Glass, video artist and digital pioneer Laurie Anderson, and minimalist prodigy James Blake, with other performers to be announced. In the following days, Lou Reed was added to the bill. Even then, we knew we were in for a once-in-a-lifetime live music experience.To get a sense of how UN-willing we were to miss it, picture this: Annie hobbling around with a freshly broken toe (her big toe, no less) having not slept in over 24 hours (and yes, the two are interrelated), completely wacked out on painkillers. Plus, our seats were located in the second balcony. Still, hell would have indeed had to have been frozen over for us not to attend this spectacle.
We made our way to the mezzanine and settled into our fancy velvet theater chairs just as the lights dimmed. We began to flip through the program wide-eyed with our hearts racing. Page after page of revealed some of our favorite musicians to be unexpected additions to the benefit, including Antony (sans Johnsons), Stephin Merritt, Das Racist, Rahzel, and Patti Smith’s Band.
While such an talented line-up might sound intimidating or pretentious, the evening was anything but, its short sets peppered with a lively sense of humor. While there were a few contemplative moments – the evening began with throat-singing Tibetan monks in radiant yellow robes, and about halfway through the set Tibetan singer Dechen Shak-Dagsay asked the audience to meditate on freedom for Tibet – by and large the night felt like a celebration, and it was never a somber one.
Laurie Anderson set the mood for the evening, performing right after the monks. Over ethereal synths, she recounted a story about a two-week “silent” canoe trip she took down a tributary of the Colorado River, during which she quickly discovered it was not the “meditation retreat” she had signed up for, but rather an opportunity for narcissists to gather and validate one another’s “life stories”. She garnered more than a few laughs over tales of running into a group for incest survivors who turned the now collective campfire into a platform for oversharing, passing a wooden spoon to take turns speaking into “as if it were a microphone”.
She picked up a violin and was joined on stage by Antony, wearing what can best be described as a muumuu. His otherworldly voice echoed against the ornate vaulted ceilings. The amazing acoustics of Carnegie made this feel both intimate and immense at the same time. While the songs had us in tears by the end, shocked that something so beautiful could come out of the mouth of a human, the droll lyrics of Anderson’s “The Dream Before” were delivered with Antony’s trademark whimsy and sass.
Stephin Merritt longed to have an orchestra behind him while singing “This Little Ukelele” and pretended to be surprised by the string quartet that actually occupied that space. They joined him in a soaring rendition of “The Book of Love”. But the most uproarious portion of the evening were Das Racist’s dual appearances. Heems and Kool A.D. had all the earmarks of dressing it up for Carnegie Hall in their dashing suits, but their lively performance of “Michael Jackson” saw them flirting with the aforementioned string quartet, somersaulting at the stage’s edge, and parading around with the American flag that had been innocently fluttering to stage left. Dap wore a traditional Indian dress that somehow made his pelvic thrusting more pronounced and therefore more comical. While the audience was actually comprised of many young folks who likely knew what to expect from the tongue-in-cheek rappers, one has to wonder what older fans of Glass’s minimal works had to say about their outrageous contribution to the evening.
All of the hilarity was anchored by stellar performances from stalwart musicians. Lenny Kaye lead Patti Smith’s band in a tribute to seminal garage rock comp Nuggets. Rahzel, formerly of The Roots, incorporated robotic dancing and beat-boxing skills into his memorable offering. And Glass’s own arrangement of “Pendulum for Violin & Piano” with violin virtuoso Tim Fain was astounding. Even from from the distant balcony in which we sat, you could see his fingers flying, leaving the audience stunned by his show or skill.
Lou Reed finished out the night (we imagine he probably demanded that he get to go last) seeming beleaguered (as always) and taking himself way too seriously (as always), performing a song bemoaning the fact that he’s exceptionally old and looks like it. It wasn’t all that funny. But despite the few awkward moments it was difficult not to feel as though we were truly seeing something special when he was joined onstage by the other performers for closing number “I’m Beginning to See the Light”. Philip Glass had turned 75 a few weeks prior, so the house was invited to sing “Happy Birthday” to the genius who had put it all together, a small token of appreciation for all the beauty and delight we’d just witnessed.
Even with all the tremendous talent present that night, it was James Blake that had us swooning, holding a collective breath for fear that if our muscles so much as twitched the whole thing might possibly vanish into thin air like a mirage. A drummer and guitarist provided sparse backup while the gangly Blake crammed himself behind a keyboard tiny by comparison to his long frame. He played both parts of “Lidnesfarne” before moving into “The Wilhelm Scream” which built to a gorgeous wave of heartbreaking distortion that all but blotted out James’s wistful moaning of the lines “I don’t know about my dreams / I don’t know about my dreaming anymore / All I know is that I’m falling, falling, falling…” In trying to explain his allure we had to settle on his unfathomable level of maturity for such a young musician as well as his outright innovation; almost no one is doing or can do what it is he does, and the sentiment behind it resonates deeply, on an almost subconscious level. To hear him live was absolutely mesmerizing; his playing electrified the space between himself and the audience. He bashfully offers his being and invites the listener to merge with it, and in so doing we were transformed, our hearts heavier but our heads lighter. You can check out a clip Annie recorded below; we apologize for its brevity, but the Tibet House Benefit was simply too amazing to experience on a viewfinder. It was practically too big to wrap our minds around the fact that we were even present for such a wondrous event, laughing one second and crying the next. Here’s to many more years of Philip Glass curating delightful showcases like this one.
Looking forward to March, AudioFemmewill be at SXSW! It’s Annie’s second year in attendance andLindsey’s first, so we like to argue about who is more excited. The next few weeks are going to be a flurry ofRSVPing and making long itinerariesthat we probably won’t stick to. Check our Twitter feed or like us on Facebook as we’ll be updating there when we’re particularlyexcited about some showcase or other. And if you’ll be in Austin, feel free to track us down and say hello!
