The Perishables
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I Should Not Be So Fascinated by 3OH!3: The Mysterious Allure Of "House Party"
- 18 Jul 10
I currently hold a morbid fascination with this combination of song and video from 3OH!3, which is apparently a pop group made up of the new Captain Kirk and your metalhead brother who shouldn’t wear so many vests, both of whom have more chest hair than you may either expect or care for:
Let me make clear right from the get-go: I know nothing else of the work of 3OH!3 (except that they brought out a song with that fake lesbian that’s shagging Russell Brand, and achieved some popular success collaborating with something called Ke$ha, which my fourteen year-old cousin somewhat suspiciously assures me I’d like). I’m fairly sure this is, objectively, a terrible, terrible song, whilst the video barely even warrants that description, unless that description is followed by the words ‘will give viewers epilepsy’.
And yet, I can’t stop myself from watching this clip. As I type, I’m on three times in a row. There’s some kind of blunt power in a line as wilfully stupid as ‘gonna have a house party in my house’, the kind you find in hardcore punk or outsider art. What are they gonna do at this house party in their house? ‘Gonna pour booze down my mouth’, naturally. So, not only do we have an idiot-proof guide to the consumption of intoxicating spirits and the best location in which to throw a house party, we also have an attempt to convince listeners that 'house' rhymes with 'mouth'. It's a song that looks you straight in the eye with an unearned air of confidence - much as the members of 3OH!3 do in the video - declares its stupidity out loud, and then dares you, it double dares you motherfucker, to say as much back to it.
On the available evidence, this macho posturing is unearned. All things considered, this sounds like a fairly, almost charmingly, tame party. Like the threat that they 'might stay up until the A.M.' You hear that, mum? They might stay up past midnight! Yeah! Also, they can have a biscuit any time they like now that they're big boys! Alcohol and biscuits also seem to be the only things driving them to stay awake until such an outrageous hour - this is one house party that is conspicuously free of any other kind of drug, even so much as a joint. Their boasts about how their attitude is now 'fuck the clubs, [because] I'll be gettin' love in my house', meanwhile, might sound like 'bitches, hence!' by any other name, but in this context, it sounds more like they're being given kudos for throwing a mad bitchin' party than engaging in the sexing. I mean, if 'love' in this context meant sex, they presumably wouldn’t be getting it in the clubs anyway, but in either their own or someone else’s house after having left the clubs. Right? The emphasis in their delivery isn’t on 'my', but on 'house'. Like, ‘I’m attaining levels of respect equivalent to those of major clubs without having to cross my front door’. At this point I realise that I may be over-thinking this.
But still, semantics aside, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the throwdown of a party of this magnitude ups their collective desirability level from 'I'm throwing up just looking at you' to 'I'll totally throw up on you if that gets you off'. Herein lies the paradox: 3OH!3 do not look like the kind of guys to whose parties the kind of skanks who would dispense such love would flock. They look like high school virgins who spend their days debating the semantic distinction between bitches and hos, kids who decide to throw a party to move them up the social ladder then panic when all their big talk leads to shit getting rapidly out of hand: Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad. Now that they’ve become famous, it is presumably much easier for them to get love in their houses. And yet, said fame also makes it more difficult for them to throw parties at their houses, because of the potential for gatecrashers and paparazzi and so on and so forth. So the odds of them actually getting love at a house party in their house are as slim as ever - they’re stuck in the perpetual no-love-getting-at-house-parties zone.
I would be exceptionally keen to hear people much cooler than me scramble over themselves to tell me how most of the largely disappointing new M.I.A. album differs musically from what’s on show here. The thing is, M.I.A. is deliberately being obnoxious on Maya, the half-hearted pop-noise assault linked to her overarching thesis about the effects of the omnipresence and sensory overload of internet media. I’d imagine even 3OH!3 would agree it would be giving them too much credit to assume they’re going for something similar here. As far as I can tell, they just want to make a racket for no reason other than they think it’s cool. Which is kind of admirable in its single-mindedness. Of course, it would be preferable if all this was in service of some grander message than the frat-boy platitudes at which they land. Then again, maybe that’d defeat the point. Overall though, this isn’t the kind of thing frat-boys would be expected to like. It’s noisy. It’s ugly. It isn’t melodic. It has an easy shout-along chorus, but the aggression is matched with electronics, not the generally preferred guitars. Give those frat-boys the same musical backing with M.I.A. ranting over the top and they’d likely run a mile. I’m not sure how much of 3OH!3’s output sounds like this, but, going by comments below the video on YouTube like ‘I Love 3OH3! But This Song Is SHIT!!!’, I’m guessing it’s an anomaly.,/p>
All of which cognitive dissonance only serves to make it all the more fascinating and, ultimately, frustrating in its nigh-on-Lynchian indecipherability: the robotic ‘crashing on my couch’ for no apparent reason. The few seconds of what might be the world’s shortest guitar solo. It goes so far beyond regular stupidity as to be almost avant-garde. Depending on how charitable you're feeling, it's either musical anti-comedy - Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! in a song - or Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right” delivered without the knowing, self-aware smirk. I can’t even tell if they’re kidding or not - there are a couple of moments in the video that suggest some kind of awareness of how ridiculous this whole thing is, but if this is all a joke, then it’s still total frat-boy humour, which pushes it over the line from fascinatingly obnoxious to gratingly obnoxious. The look of sheer intensity on their faces however - particularly Vesty McMetalhead - suggests that no, they are in fact playing it straight, so if it is a joke it’s played with a deadpan worthy of Flight Of The Conchords. And until I can unravel this conundrum, I'm doomed to forever return to "House Party", like some sort of YouTube-surfing Flying Dutchman. One who's only ever greeted with questions about cafés and the red light district because those are the only things these similarly doomed revellers know about the Dutch.
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I think it's pronounced... 'Faa-che-book'?
- 11 Feb 10
So we're back, kind of. The first review in our planned ongoing revival is up now, and it finds us entering the brave new/old world of DVD and Blu-Ray reviews alongside albums, gigs and new cinema releases. Mainly, this is just as an excuse to cover anything we miss in cinemas - we're not going in-depth with special features or technical details or anything, so don't get your hopes up. Although anyone who hasn't yet got on-board with Blu-Ray should really sort that out ASAFP (The Godfather in particular has had wonders worked upon it, although I always feel like telling people that will inevitably lead to this kind of reaction - 'what, you gonna call Coppola with ideas on how to fix it?').
As we begin to shake off the rust and get back into the way of things, new stuff should appear with increasing regularity and, being the forward-thinking kinds that we are, we have one of these here 'Facebook' pages, as I believe the youths are calling them. Any new updates'll get posted there, so if you want kept up to speed and, like me, are still a little bit afraid of RSS feeds, then go ahead and join.
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Brazen Hack In Brazen Plug
- 17 Sep 08
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Idiocy Of British Public Confirmed By Weekend Box-Office
- 23 Jul 08
The Great British Public, however, clearly know better than to blithely accept a too-rare piece of genuinely populist art when it's handed to them on a plate, which is why Celebrity Sing-A-Long-A-Abba topped the UK box office for the second week in a row, beating WALL-E's £4.3 million opening by some £300,000 to end up with £4.6 million IN ITS SECOND WEEKEND ALONE (this despite it being the first UK-wide weekend of the summer holidays and WALL-E ostensibly being aimed at kids, even if it is far too good for the little buggers). Only three weeks ago, WALL-E opened in the USA with $62.5 million, going straight to number one in the process. When the country that lets this get past the 3am-and-stoned-stage of development has better taste than your own native soil, it's time to consider a move.
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Year-end Best-ofs: Life Edition
- 08 Jul 08
It gets hugely unfair for different people for different years, because of sudden gluts of all-time favourites. For me, those were:
1987 [also released: Hüsker Dü - Warehouse: Songs And Stories, Prince - Sign O' The Times, R.E.M. - Document, The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come, The Jesus And Mary Chain - Darklands, Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel Of Love, Pixies - Come On Pilgrim]
1991 [Sebadoh - III, Nirvana - Nevermind, Dinosaur Jr - Green Mind, My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, Massive Attack - Blue Lines]
1992 [Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted, The Flaming Lips - Hit To Death In The Future Head, R.E.M. - Automatic For The People, PJ Harvey - Dry, Sonic Youth - Dirty]
1996 [Beck - Odelay, Belle And Sebastian - Tigermilk, Fugees - The Score, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads, Wilco - Being There, Silver Jews - The Natural Bridge, R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi]
1997 [Radiohead - OK Computer, Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind, Mogwai - Mogwai Young Team, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call, Teenage Fanclub - Songs From Northern Britain, Stereophonics - Word Gets Around (sentimental reasons, that one, although I maintain it's a fucking great album in and of itself, regardless of what they'd become. I smell a future Perishable.)]
1998 [Air - Moon Safari, Belle And Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap, Idlewild - Hope Is Important, Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, Mos Def & Talib Kweli - Black Star, Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Jurassic 5 - Jurassic 5, Pulp - This Is Hardcore, Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Wainwright, Silver Jews - American Water. That was quite a run of years in the late 90s there]
2000 [Air - The Virgin Suicides, Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour Of Bewilderbeast, Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele, Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows, Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man, OutKast - Stankonia, Phoenix - United, Primal Scream - Xtrmntr, Steve Earle - Transcendental Blues, Talib Kweli - Reflection Eternal, Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out]
2004 [Beastie Boys - To The 5 Boroughs, The Bees - Free The Bees, The Dears - No Cities Left, Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads - The Futureheads, The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike, The Hold Steady - Almost Killed Me, Interpol - Antics, Joy Zipper - American Whip, Lambchop - Aw C’mon/No, You C’mon, Low - The Great Destroyer, The Radio Dept. - Lesser Matters, Rufus Wainwright - Want One, Sons And Daughters - Love The Cup, Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans, Wilco - A Ghost Is Born. Incidentally, A Ghost Is Born is one of my favourite albums ever ever ever, but Nick Cave soundtracked my first weeks at uni, so gets the sentimental vote. And is also fucking awesome, but that's almost beside the point.]
and 2007 [Arcade Fire - Neon Bible, Radiohead - In Rainbows, LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver, M.I.A. - Kala, Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat, The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America, Ballads Of The Book, Low - Drums And Guns, The National - Boxer, Richard Hawley - Lady's Bridge].
Without further ado then (and feel free to contribute your own/utterly demolish mine):
1986: The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
1987: Sonic Youth - Sister
1988: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
1989: Pixies - Doolittle
1990: Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet
1991: Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
1992: The Lemonheads - It's A Shame About Ray
1993: Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
1994: Silver Jews - Starlite Walker
1995: Sparklehorse - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
1996: Belle And Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
1997: Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
1998: Arab Strap - Philophobia
1999: The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
2000: Radiohead - Kid A
2001: Radiohead - Amnesiac
2002: Idlewild - The Remote Part
2003: Mogwai - Happy Songs For Happy People
2004: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus
2005: Arcade Fire - Funeral
2006: Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
2007: The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
2008 (so far): Aidan John Moffat - I Can Hear Your Heart
For the record, sentimental reasons at least play a part in 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007, which to the attentive is half my life. I think that's a pretty good balance to have.
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Death by emo
- 20 Mar 08
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Triptych 2008 line-up moves Brazen staffer to tears
- 12 Mar 08
- the original line-up of US indie legends Sebadoh (fronted by Dinosaur Jr and Folk Implosion man Lou Barlow) play the Classic Grand on Friday 25th April, with support from Pram and Copy Haho (this, incidentally, is the only event of the weekend that I immediately rushed out and bought a ticket for, regardless of funds for the rest of the month)
- maverick hip-hop genius RZA is introducing a screening of Jim Jarmusch's urban samurai movie Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai - for which he wrote the soundtrack - at the GFT on Saturday 26th April, ahead of an appearance as Bobby Digital at The Arches that night
- happening at the same time as the RZA's take-over of the city centre is easily the most jaw-dropping line-up of the weekend, as the south side's Tramway theatre is commandeered for the day by Mogwai, Clinic, Dirty Projectors, Malcolm Middleton, Correcto, Frightened Rabbit, Errors, Magik Markers and RememberRemember
- a similarly astounding line-up fills the Tramway on Sunday 27th April for the Last Ever Triptych Party; they're going out in style, with a combination of live sets and DJ slots from, amongst others, Candi Staton, Derrick May, Gilles Peterson, Four Tet, 1990s, Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells, The Fence Collective, The Parsonage, the Sub Club's own Twitch and Wilkes, Belle And Sebastian's Chris "Beans" Geddes, The Pastels,David Shrigley and Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake and Gerard Love.
- if you still have the time, energy and money - or just couldn't get tickets for anything else - Sunday night also sees Andrew Bird headline at The Arches.
Triptych is apparently being replaced by some mysterious thing called The Tennent's Mutual, details of which are being revealed in April but which sounds worryingly close to a piece of banking terminology.
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I am, like, fo shuz, gonna shoot this creep's nuts off
- 11 Mar 08
What's brought this to your friendly neighbourhood pop culture blog all of a sudden is that it was on TV over Christmas; I recorded it, and only just got around to watching it again at the weekend. Post-Grindhouse, I was ready to give it another go, thinking I had maybe gone into it with the wrong mindset previously, that maybe I'd like it more having become attuned to Grindhouse's wickedly trashy vibes. Watching it again, though, I found myself experiencing more or less exactly the same feelings I did watching it the first time. Most of what I liked the first time round held up, but that's mostly performance-driven anyway (Del Toro's Crazy Eyes deserve a credit of their own); if anything, I liked everything else about it less. And what caused that was mostly based around a comparison I found myself making time and again whilst watching it: not one of the comparisons you might expect, either, to other Rodriguez or Tarantino films, or even other comic adaptations. No, the film it really reminded me of was Juno. And, as has also been previously documented on these here pages, Juno irritated the fuck out of me.
Granted, the two don't seem that similar at first: one a hyper-stylised ultra-violent live-action comic book, the other a gently 'quirky' (eugh) teen pregnancy comedy. But what stuck in my craw about both was the same thing: neither felt genuine, like each of their hooks were just gimmicks, affectations. I remember thinking at the time that Sin City felt like a lad mag reader's conception of film noir: too glossy by far (which is what you get when you shoot on digital rather than grainy film stock), too overt with its sexuality (half-naked lesbian parole officer, eh? Hooker army, huh?), all subtlety removed, the thin line between 'strong moral centre' and 'slightly concerning right-wing vigilante tendencies' blurred beyond recognition. I watched it again fully prepared to revise that opinion, but found I couldn't. It still felt like it was trying on Humphrey Bogart's clothes and tearing away at them until they fit.
Juno felt like it was doing the same thing to indie movies; like they made a soundtrack album they could sell to the hipster kids and came up with a movie to justify it. Wes Anderson's films might be even more artificial than Juno was, but they feel more like a form of personal expression than almost any other film you'd care to name from the past decade, like you're seeing one man's obsessions played out on screen; when you see him reference Harold And Maude or play some Emmitt Rhodes on the soundtrack, it's because he fucking loves Harold And Maude and Emmitt Rhodes, and has grown up fucking loving Harold And Maude and Emmitt Rhodes. When The Moldy Peaches or The Stooges come on the Juno soundtrack, or when Ellen Page starts mouthing off about how great Dario Argento is, it sounds like the filmmakers overheard some cool-looking kids talking about them and decided to stick them in there for some extra hip points.
And that's why I couldn't embrace Juno or Sin City, regardless of the raves coming from all directions about both of them. Yeah, they're cute/funny/stylish/well-acted/whatever; but ultimately, they both feel completely disingenuous, a pose rather than a way of life. And nobody likes a poseur. Rodriguez, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody are undoubtedly talented filmmakers; I'd just rather hear what they have to say for themselves rather than what they think other people want them to say.
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