Monday, September 12, 2011

scat is also another word for poo. that's an interesting coincidence.

I’m currently sitting in a ‘euro’ café where I’ve been for the past several hours. I’m not ENTIRELY sure what I’ve been doing but I’ve applied for some jobs and I’ve written some stuff and I’ve researched steampunk a little, which has to be one of the more confusing subcultures I’ve ever encountered. It’s confusing because it’s some serious dork bullshit and it resembles that movie Wild Wild West with all the old timey-modern era mashup weirdness, but the actual things that the steampunk designers make look pretty awesome. It’s kind of Jeunet/Gilliam-esque, and I like those dudes. I don’t know. I’m not gonna explain/ figure out my complex feelings regarding Steampunk beyond I think it’s dorky to dress up in costumes every day, but those dorks seem to make some cool stuff. The real issue at hand is that this café is playing jazz and it’s bumming me out on an almost cosmic level.

I used to like jazz. When I was a kid, I thought that the saxophone was, hands down, the coolest instrument on the earth. In fairness to me, I was extremely young and it was the early 80s and saxophones were enjoying real moment in the spotlight. These days, pretty much the only way to look cool with a saxophone is to be a really skinny black guy leaning against something in a poorly lit subway station, playing some really soft, dark sounding shit. I’d hate to discourage anyone from making music, so I’m gonna stop short of saying anything like ‘the sax is the dorkiest instrument on the earth’ but well, let’s just say that you’re gonna have to really reinvent that thing to impress me too much.

Now jazz is, in theory, unbelievably cool. Born in America, a loose confederation of black guys who were super fucked up on heroin cruised around to illegal clubs to play illegal music that they just made up on the spot while playing together (often for the first time) based on a few conventions of style. That’s fucking AWESOME. Except for one thing: the actual music. Now, I was in a jazz band in highschool just like everyone else and at the time, I kind of was able to fool myself into thinking that jazz was pretty cool, but that didn’t last/stick/hold any water because there was no point ever when I was sitting around putting on jazz albums. Jazz radio stations stink, jazz djs are the WORST and any perversion of jazz, like vocal jazz, smooth jazz, modern jazz, deconstructed jazz, scat, that shit is just completely unacceptable.

I don’t think it’s out of line to say that scat vocals make up the most offensive music I’ve ever heard. It combines the cocksure retardation of speaking in tongues with the shittiness of jazz. There is NOTHING worse than listening to a bunch of wide assed white ladies with Han Solo haircuts barbershopping senseless bullshit over a bunch of electric pianos and saxophones. It’s infuriating. Well, actually no. Speaking in tongues is actually much worse, but that’s because speaking in tongues is just jazz for non musical, humorless white religious nuts and that’s shitty on a level that can’t really even be easily measured.

The theory behind speaking in tongues is that an angel, or the holy spirit, depending on who’s making the shit up, is taking possession of your body and speaking to you in the pure language of gods love. The way you speak in tongues is to stand there, wait for the spirit/angel to take you over and then loudly start just jib-jabbin nonsense phonemes until you’re plumb tuckered out. This is, obviously, one of the stupidest things you can possibly imagine trying to convince anyone of, but wide eyed mongoloids seem to absolutely lap that shit up for some reason. I mean, if those kooks can talk themselves into babbling like assholes in public, why can’t they just talk themselves into being allowed to have a little fun the rest of the time? At least the people playing jazz were high on drugs. There’s NOTHING cool about speaking in tongues except for that since you’re already a complete religious weirdo that’s afraid of sex if you do it, then you’re at least not getting laid any LESS by doing it, which is an impressive outcome of babbling like an idiot in front of your whole community.

Speaking of babbling like an idiot in front of everyone, thanks to all y’all who came out to the Double Door on Friday. What a great time. Thanks for the beers and cheers. I had an awesome birthday! You guys are all right.
Okay, I gotta get out of this fucking place with its fucking jazz. I can’t stand no more. It’s making me furious. Ta.

16 comments:

Bridgett said...

Funny story: I'm sitting here at work, reading the news instead of being productive, and I come across a horrible news article about a crazy female who did something really awful and I won't go into it. Anyway, so I'm reading through this thing, and I read that the story happens in East St. Louis, and they quote some guy a lot in it named Brendan Kelly, who is a prosecutor or some shit like that for the county. First thing I thought of was that you said you had a song called East St. Louis, and then I remembered a post from way back when about no one having your name.

That's all I got.

Trusty Chords said...

Isn't that the reverse of what's supposed to happen? When you're a kid, you listen to punk rock 'cuz jazz is stupid. But, as you get older, you reject the three chord thing for the greater musical complexity of jazz. That's what I always thought...

Candice said...

i play the saxophone.

FranklinStein said...

I think The State Lottery makes use of the saxophone with FINESSE. In fact, right before reading this post, I put "When the Night Comes" onto my iPod nano for an intense iron pumping session. I'm stoked to say the least. Check out that band if you haven't already. A girl I introduced them to said the singer (who I have a man crush on) sounds like you. I can kind of see that...

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Man, yall read this business about the planned explanation for Harper's death on Two and A Half Men? My god, Chuck Lorre is one excitable retard.

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Reactionary would be more accurate I guess. Reactionary retard. I mean Sheen is no great shakes but I'll hang with him anyday over the "mastermind" behind Grace Under Fire and Cybill. Imagine the secret OCD shenanigans with that uptight motherfucker, jesus

BEEXtrix Potter said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BEEXtrix Potter said...

Nooo, excitable I guess. Excitable retard. If you can thing of a better adjective, serve it up. There's combative, but not quite what I wanted to highlight. I mean, he expended waaay to much sweat and effort locked away in his lil' office dreaming up the perrrrrfect death for the eeeevil Sheen, whilst neglecting his family/children, like a complete faggot, is what I'm trying to convey.

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Guys I must apologize, 'reactionary' does not seem to have the alternate non-political meaning which I so often like to think it does, though I can't think of any good reason why it shouldn't. 'Reactionary - characterized my hyperbolic, grandiose, or otherwise inappropriate reactions to mundane, trivial things on account of being a walking clenched sphincter'. Makes sense to me, I dunno.

BEEXtrix Potter said...

ohh, hehe! I mean the specifics of Sheen's death, obv that he was going to be killed off is old news. Pushed in front of a subway train; body "exploded" upon impact. Absurdly inappropriate/over the top given the show.
I mean don't get me wrong, an "edgy" and over-the-top death shoehorned into an otherwise safe, cookie cutter turd of a show on account of a jittery, neurotic little Jew's deep-seated grudge is funny in its own right, but TAAHM isn't smart enough for that kind of shit. It isn't Curb. Fans will just be confused and alienated.
Hehe, lil' needledick chuck

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Wait none of you actually cared about having that spoiled right? I mean I hope not

Anonymous said...

Hey Brendan,

Your set at the DD rocked.

Yup.

Bill

Jacob William said...

I can also play the sax. And I was in two different jazz bands in high school...as well as marching band, pep-band and well, every band. I actually like some jazz quite a bit, though I don't listen to it often. It takes a certain amount of patience and I have to be in the right mood to drop a needle on "Kind of Blue" or some shit...

kant_hackit2001 said...

trusty chords.. you ever heard of the band leftover crack? similar vocalist but in my opinion, even better..

Anonymous said...

Wow, your amazing explanation of the history and culture of the entire jazz genre was mind blowing. Nahh just kidding. First off, only a few genres of jazz are "made up on the spot" such as be-bop, hard-bop, Dixieland and some nu-jazz. Cool and Modal jazz are totally written and constructed before they are even played. Also many jazz musicians became better after they got clean like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins. Why am I making a fuss about this? Well, if you feel all jazz fits together is one description, then the Lawrence Arms are just the same thing as of Angels and Airwaves and Sugarcult.
But scat totally ducking blows.

Unknown said...

BK your description of the Jazz player in a dimly lit subway reminded me of a video i took while in New Orleans this spring. Just some guy playing a sax on a street corner, it was one of my favorite moments of the trip. I posted it on youtube if anyone would like to take a look-see.

http://www.youtube.com/user/buke09?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/NldiSXoc0Qs