ONE HUNDRED SHARDS

I oftentimes start posts and never finish them.

Here are the useful sections of those abortions.


It is hypocritical, but I basically hate "bloggers" specifically the ones whose entire content is not their own but a series of download links and cut and paste wiki facts versus any kind of critical stance, all under the guise of some vague self congratulatory curatorial mission.

I have and probably will continue to post sets of images, but these are things I actually created, or have some critical perspective on, not just some definitively cool thing I posted with zero commentary or justification.

I just trudged through a series of precious blogs that are nothing more than endless scans from art books. It's like all those music blogs where the people posting the stuff have this annoying arrogant pride as if they had some hand in creating the uploaded content. I can't even bear the endless sycophantic commentary that goes with the deluge, I guess everyone wants to be cool or accepted. That whole system is boring.


I have ended up with a lot of useless stuff in my collection from trusting magazines or other people.

Avarus, and all that Finnish "everyone make dumb sounds together" stuff is not worth exploring. The Fonal Records label seems to be the only logical filter, and I will continue to support that outlet because all releases I've heard are great sonically and visually, but the world really doesn't need recordings of people banging on cardboard... unless it's some awesome sound art thing from the 60's. I can see how perhaps a heavily processed and layered soup of the group improvisations could be interesting, but raw room recordings of untrained people making a racket is the kind of thing that should not be immortalized as anything other than a download.

It's like a lot of that Sound@One stuff. Some is great, or at least one was great and I kept trying to find more fixes. Do not bother with Zashiki Warashi, because that project is terrible. I really should re-evaluate all that No Neck Blues Band stuff I have...

I have (had) two CDs by a band called Clearlake, who literally only have one good song. "Almost The Same"... everything else by them is forgettable. Well, "We All Die Alone" is ok. If they'd released one 45 in the 80's with "Almost..." on the A and the other on the B, they'd be a happily remembered band.

The Raveonettes, just a crap Jesus And Mary Chain rip off with a tiny splash of Suicide and some surf vibes. I'm sick of that whole thing. Staggering unoriginality.

Metallic Falcons.... What is this junk? The Antony contribution is good, obviously because he's a unique voice, but this fake direct and blatant Nico rip off is painful beyond belief. This chick is in that absolutely awful band CocoRosie that everyone thinks is so great. This is why I need to not trust anyone. Annoying cutesy knitting fetish art school hipster girls, Fuck off.


I decided that I will never watch any "true story" movie based on real people who have lived since the advent of film and audio recording. If some tale must be told of a real person, piece it together.

I hate dramatic reenactments. It was the most frustrating part about Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911... let's revisit those amazing intros...





The Unsolved Mysteries music is classic... always loved the "mysterious" sound of the whole thing.

Doing a movie about Julius Caesar is acceptable, or an American Civil War movie, things like that, but movies about Johnny Cash, Serge Gainsbourg, etc... Fuck OFF. One conundrum is that movies about real times and places, but using fake bands or people are totally lame.

I despise actors, and seeing them try to impress people with how much they can imitate something is a parlor trick and it should be rejected. Fucking Grey Gardens? Ridiculous, lets give these burnt out worthless actresses some roles where they can shine one final time. There are two entire movies of THE REAL PEOPLE...

I wrote the above before the "Facebook movie", but that infuriates me more. I completely reject this ridiculous immediate retroactive importance thing we keep inundating ourselves in. The fear of death, and the saturation of ego in this trend is so horrifically embarrassing... I even feel like an ass for having this blog. I look forward to the Friendster movie, how bout the Geocities or MP3.com movie? Obviously I realize that Facebook is a more pronounced and staggering cultural phenomena, but still... are we so desperate to ensure our place in history? You're not fucking important.


I keep finding myself becoming unreasonably obsessed with things that aren't really worth getting invested in. Luckily I've become aware of this fault and work against it now.

It usually comes about due to an overall unknown and a few clues of possible greatness. An example is that I have a decent sized collection of 1970's Japanese soft-rock pop-folk music... I don't need it, like 3 of the albums are worth keeping. I happened upon the Soft Fit and Elec labels and since I unfortunately heard a few awesome albums I decided to investigate... everything. A big reason for this is the fact that Japanese websites are inconveniently totally insular and there is no interest in non Japanese speaking / reading people being able to learn about or investigate the Japanese music. So it's a classic buy it to discover the secret situation. This secret pretty much sucks.

One benefit I've convinced myself of thanks to the exposure to all this saccharine and boring music is that I really understand why Kan Mikami, Kazuki Tomokawa and even Morio Agata are so significant. Real emotion and expression amid a plastic flowery wasteland really stands out. I think what I find most unacceptable is the abundance of "country" vibes, banjo, harmonica, wistful phony melodic tendencies... I actually prefer less artful Enka music to this stuff that actually tries to have an interesting sound palette, probably because the Enka exhibits less artificial posturing. It's straight forward and unapologetic in how sentimental it is.

Cutesy 70's pop-folk: Kimihiko Sato 佐藤公彦(ケメ) = NOT good.



Actually passionate 70's folk: Kazuki Tomokawa (友川 かずき = VERY good.



Soullessly soulful 70's Enka: Hiroshi Itsuki 五木ひろし = SUPER awesome.



It's also helped me to realize that I really fucking love Japanese pop of all sorts from the 50's to early 70's (mainly the 60's), but after that it's basically all uninteresting. There are definitely exceptions and lots of the really trashy 70's stuff completely rules, but for straight ahead pop, it's all about the 60's with all the killer Group Sounds stuff.


There has to be a secret ingredient, that's it, there has to be something you can't quite explain. When no matter how thoroughly you dissect and examine something, in the end you throw your hands up and remain baffled. I feel like I shouldn't even be able to justify why something is great when it is...


This is my 100th post. Hooray for my chronic writing.