Category Archives: Hedonism

Friday is here and so is our new batch of Essential Tracks, featuring an epic new dirge from some metal vets, a darkly mystical hip-hop posse cut, and some breezy guitar pop to usher in spring right. Read and listen to our picks for this week below.

Plus listen to our ongoing2022 Essential Tracks playlist.

Cave In are better than most at creating heavy music thats more than just heavy, but big. Ever since 2000s Jupiter, theyve seemingly strived to create rock and metal that sought destinations beyond the earth beneath us, their riffs and production harboring as much space as it does sheer weight or density. Blinded by a Blaze is a prime example of Cave Ins epic, astral tendencies at their best. Technically speaking, this is perhaps a power ballad, but its tinged with a sort of folk noir, spiritually aligned with the Bloodmoon album Stephen Brodsky recently released with Converge, and embracing a beauty within the crunch. Which doesnt mean that its not heavy, of course, but its in the mystical acoustic arpeggios that Blinded by a Blaze opens itself up and reveals something deeper and more interesting.

From Heavy Pendulum, out May 20 via Relapse

The new collaborative record from billy woods and Preservation didnt have any pre-release singles, which is par for the course for the enigmatic rapperArmand Hammers Haram, for instance, only had one, released just a few days before the album dropped. But given the albums bleed from one track to the next, I understand the hesitancy to isolate any singlesbut dont mistake that for a lack of standout tracks. Like this, one of two on the album featuring woods Armand Hammer bandmate Elucid, as well as Denmark Vessey and Quelle Chris, plus some eerie grooves from Preservation, rife with harmonica, guitar and organ samples. Like any track with this much talent, it feels at times like a challenge to see who can drop the best one liner, and theres a lot of incredible moments, though its hard to top woods in the first verse: The future isnt flying cars, its Rachel Dolezal absolved.

From Aethiopes, out now via Backwoodz

Quelle Chris said in a statement that accompanied the announcement of his new album DEATHFAME that it carries on like an incredible lost tape found at a Baltimore flea market. Which sounds kind of amazing in theory, and in practice, Alive Aint Always Living seems to live up to this ideal in practicethough not to the extent that 90s Memphis horrorcore tapes might feel like cursed objects. Its a track built on a crackly, lo-fi gospel organ and slow-moving beat beneath Chris soulful expressions of gratitude. It feels somehow both uplifting and more than a little weird and disorientinga paradox that only makes us keep coming back to it. Also, respect to Chris for showing up twice on this weeks Essential Tracks.

From DEATHFAME, out May 13 via Mello

Michael Beharies work with Zs tends to lean more toward the experimental edge of prog, and his collaborations with the likes of Greg Fox (Liturgy, Ex Eye) and Ben Greenberg (Uniform) might place him in a more intense kind of avant garde. But For Days is not thatits breezier, prettier, awash in gorgeously shimmering guitars and juxtaposed with some hypnotic flute accompaniment. Its both a testament to Beharies versatility as an artist and songwriter, and a great track to usher in the spring thaw.

From Promise, out now

After we premiered this track earlier this week, were now giving Copy of You more attention, marking an entire third of the debut EP by Beijing post-punk group Naja Naja that has landed in our pantheon of Essential Tracks. Copy of You leans more toward the darker side of the groups sound, steeped in eerie gothic synthesizers and stark, minor-key guitar riffs. Its as fit for the dancefloor as their previous single, Dong Dong, but its a little more of a goth club than a discotheque, a sexy and shadowy standout fit for some shadowy hedonism. Its songs like this that make Naja Najas debut EP one of our most anticipated releases this month.

From Naja Naja, out April 29 via Wharf Cat

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Jeff Terich is the founder and editor of Treble. He's been writing about music for 20 years and has been published at American Songwriter, Bandcamp Daily, Reverb, Spin, Stereogum, uDiscoverMusic, VinylMePlease and some others that he's forgetting right now. He's still not tired of it.

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Essential Tracks This Week: Cave In, billy woods and Preservation and more - Treble - Treble

Learning how to run towards, instead of away, from our challenges.

Life is full of both blessing and suffering. Imagine if we each held a sign that let others know the challenges we face each day:

There would be the secretary that you see at your doctors office who always seems stressed: In the middle of a messy divorce and just got a call from my sons school that he was suspended.

There would be that guy at the gym who seems so quiet. Sister is in the hospital from an overdose and just got a message that my company is downsizing.

There would be the colleague who never seems to make it to the meetings on time. Single mom, special needs child, no family support.

They are the people sitting beside us on the train and walking past us on the sidewalk. They are our friends and our families.

They are us.

In her recent book, Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, teaches us how to run towards, instead of away, from our challenges. The upcoming holiday of Passover is a unique time when we re-examine what it means to be free. Here are four ways, based on lessons from Dopamine Nation, that we can utilize to find new freedom and expansiveness within both our blessings and our adversities.

1. Walk toward what youre trying to escape.

Many of us are afraid to face our own discomfort. Whether its loneliness or sickness or grief, at some point we would rather distract ourselves from the pain.

But the pain we feel is the pain of being alive, and if we stop running from it, we may discover that it wasnt something we needed to escape from in the first place.

We are far stronger than we imagine. As Anna Lembke writes,

I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that youve been given. To stop running from whatever youre trying to escape, and instead to stop and turn and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead the world may become something worth paying attention to.

2. Light one step at a time.

Walking towards what we fear is not an all or nothing effort. It is a continuous, daily effort that requires patience and resilience. We can light one step at a time by doing the next right thing at this moment. And only after we have made our way through the tunnel can we see all the dark corners that we have lit up with our perseverance.

Lembke compares growth to the scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore walks down a darkened alley lighting lamp posts along the way. Only when he gets to the end of the alley and stops to look back does he see the whole alley illuminated, the light of his progress.

3. Learn to use pleasure to grow instead of allowing it to keep you stuck.

When pleasure becomes an end in and of itself, it stunts our growth and blocks the way forward. Neuroscience has taught us that in order to keep our dopamine levels stable, there is an inherent pull on the side of pain as soon as we overindulge in any pleasure. This pain is a gift. It teaches us the necessity of self-regulation in order to find balance in our lives. It also teaches us that we cannot always avoid pain and discomfort.

In our temperature-regulated, tech-run, bubble-wrapped lives learning to tolerate discomfort has become a kind of superpower. Lembke describes the paradox of hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake leads to anhedonia. Which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, leads to pain.

4. Accept that grief and sadness are part of what makes us whole.

We all experience days even periods when we feel sad, grieving or frustrated. And as anyone who has ever grieved can attest, the more you try to avoid the grief, the more relentlessly it will find you, often at the least expected moments. Loss and sadness are part of what makes us whole. Dont try to avoid them; accept them.

Passover is a unique opportunity to reflect on the journey that we have each taken over the past year with all of its obstacles and gifts. This is the time of year we left the narrowness of Egypt and walked forward into the expansiveness of an unknown destination. Each of us can find a way forward today as we walk toward whatever we have been trying to escape from.

If we were holding a sign at the table this Passover, perhaps it would say: I have come through the darkness. And tonight, I can see that there were little lights guiding me forward all along. Thank You for showing me that there is always a way to find freedom. Thank You for giving me the strength to turn towards the life I have been given.

Feature image: Unsplash.com, Divya Agrawal

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Four Ways to Find Freedom and Expansiveness Amidst Our Blessings and Adversities - aish.com - Aish

Have you ever wondered why we tap our shot glasses on the bar before throwing one back?

Yeah, I wondered, too.

Is it a Milwaukee thing? A Wisconsin thing? Or does this tradition expand beyond state borders?

The Google offers some ideas, but they didnt really add up. Some suggest that its a way to toast the dearly departed, and its less wasteful than pouring one out but does your great great grandpa really want you to wake him up in heaven every time you slam a slot of tequila?

Others speculate its a way to recognize the bartender for his or her service. That kind of makes sense, but customers tap their shots whether or not the bartender is participating or even watching.

I even found this unlikely explanation: In Ireland, it was believed that liquor contained spirits that might be harmful if consumed, and tapping the glass dispelled those spirits.

It all sounds a little random to me. So I asked a few Milwaukee bartenders, as well as ones farther out, why they think we participate in this ritual at the corner tavern.We've all see the "tap." And yet no one really knows why we do it.X

Paul Kennedy, who bartends at The Newport and Creeds Foggy Dew, sayshe noticed this tradition about 15 years ago. He says he asked customers why they did it but never got a definitive answer.

The most common answer Ive been given is its in honor of a friend/loved one who is no longer with us, he says. Ive also been told its a salute to the bartender. Thats sweet but salutes dont pay the electric bill. I refuse to do it. For all I know it could be a black magic ritual and a way to conjure up evil. Thats how we ended up with Ron Johnson in the Senate.

Ive always thought it was a sign of respect for the bar and/or the bartender, suggests Nate Tomzcuk, who used to bartend at the Safe House and Fanatics Sports Central, but cut his teeth bartending in Manitowoc. "Just like people clink their glasses with their cocktails/drinks or pour a little on the floor for their dead peeps.

Nomad bartender Sammy Mentkowski suggests a different reason, one that I am taking with a shaker of salt and a lime.

It all dates back to the early juke joints, where sawdust was placed on the dance floor for easy cleaning should the necessity arise, he says. After particularly raucous wang dang doodles, sawdust particles would fill the air covering everything in the vicinity including the glassware. Tapping the glass on the bar was a way to remove sediment before taking a gulp of that sweet dancing juice.

"Its one tap on the bar for me," says Amanda Wisth, who bartended at Joey's Yardarm in Racine. "When I was behind the bar and throwing them back with patrons, it was one tap, a wink, and a raise of the glass. To thank them for the (many) shots.As a patron, whether the bartender is joining in or not its the same: one tap, a winkand a raise of the glass to thank them for their service. Whether they see it or not, that good energy never hurts."

Amy Freeze had always heard while slinging drinks at bars andsupper clubs, it all comes down to gratitude. A shot tap, a nod of the head, a silent thank you to the bartender. I do like the idea of toasting your past, with your future. Sure. Ive poured one out for a homie. We all have, right?The shot tap means so many different things to different people and thats what truly makes it unique and well-loved by so many."

Maybe?

Emily Milquet, the owner of Manor on Main, a supper club in Wausaukee about three hours north of Milwaukee, admits she doesnt know why people do it, but liked the Internets explanation of showing respect to the bar.

So, she thought about it a little more, and came up with this explanation:

Well, when I take a shot I generally cheers and tap everyone elses shot glass as a way of including and thanking them, she says. The reasoning would be tapping it on the bar would be the same as saying cheers to the establishment.X

Hmm. This still sounds iffy to me, so I expanded my search for answers, and apparently, this isnt just a Wisconsin tradition.

Diane Dowland, who once owned the Monkey Bar in Milwaukee and now lives in Arizona, sees it out west, too.

"Ive seen both:the one tap and the double tap. I was told that the double tap is one for the bartender, one for someone who is no longer with us. In Wisconsin, youre doing shots with the bartender, so there it's is your 'cheers to the bartender.' In states like Arizona where the bartender is not legally allowed to drink behind the bar, the one tap is a frequent acknowledgment to the one serving you the shot, since they cannot partake with you."

By the way, Dowland says a Wisconsin bartender is practically a celebrity in Arionza.

'You can drink while you work? Inconceivable,' and 'how are you even able to count your drawer at the end?'I tell them how the main requirement when hiring a bartender in Wisconsin is that they can handle their alcohol. Even more so than how they look in TikTok leggings or whether they have a boob job. Weird!"

But the most stoic explanation comes from former Seattle bartender Jonny Cragg, who has served drinks around the world. Sadly, heremains stumped.

Short answer: I have no idea, he says. Longer speculative answer: Its a declaration of intent, a commitment to self harm in the name of hedonism.

So there you have it. Kind of. The answer: no one really knows. Bottoms up!X

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Why do we tap our shot glasses on the bar? - OnMilwaukee.com

At one point Tyrone takes a pause between tracks to pay respects to the beautiful site and acknowledge the custodians of the land. We're bringing a bunch of people and a bunch of infrastructure and a bunch of things into this place that we are not from, and we want to be respectful of that, elaborates Jon the next day, noting that all merchandise for the event was designed and produced in Mexico. The best food stall on site is run by a group of Mayan woman who serve up spicy tacos and sweet tamarind water.

The writing process of RFS DU SOLs latest album, which features GRAMMY-nominated track Alive, was helped by developing a greater level of respect for themselves and each other. Their meteoric come-up came with parallel chaos, especially around their third album Solace. We'd been running ourselves into the ground, the way we wwere writing music was staying up till 6:AM every night, not taking care of our bodies, not taking care of our relationships, shares James. The pandemic brought an opportunity to reset and refocus.

Read this next: Have you got 'rave fatigue'?

While completing Surrender, they took a six week studio trip to Joshua Tree where they started each day with group meditation and intention sessions. Its made me feel a lot closer to the guys, says Tyrone. We've always been close in the studio and friends, we've worked together really well, but there's been conflict and difficulties over the course of years of being together and touring, and it all builds up. We didn't necessarily resolve a whole lot of things. Having that time and structure to expel our energy and talk about our feelings was very reparative. It felt like we were more compassionate and empathetic towards each other and probably towards ourselves.

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RFS DU SOL's Sundream festival is an immersive blend of hedonism and healing - Mixmag

A couple of years ago, Emerson released Common Ground, aVR documentary about the Aylesbury Estate in south London, which impressed curators from Coventry City of Culture. They got in touch to commission him to do apiece on the citys acid rave scene, which up until now had been heavily overlooked in many documentaries and books about that era.

And so Emerson dove in headfirst, getting in touch with old school promoters, sound system owners, rave attenders and even police officers to get their take on what the acid house days in Coventry were really like. Its really nice to have those West Midlands voices, he says. And yeah, alot of police resources went towards breaking up parties where people were just hugging each other.

Back then, the Coventry area was big on football and, as aresult, football hooliganism and violence. In many ways, the birth of acid house brought much of that violence to agrinding halt, as pissed-up football fans turned to ecstasy and party planning. Inter-city rivalry, these networks who used to fight under the radar of police, suddenly switched, Emerson says.

You needed sound systems from one place, generators from another. You needed to find awarehouse, get flyers out. Suddenly, aviolent network became something that was able to beautifully promote and put on aparty. And for this purpose, VR is more conducive to properly capturing the euphoria and unbridled hedonism of raving in general, compared to looking at photographs pinned to awall.

To me, the technology is in service to the narrative, he continues. Ironically, its in place to take you back and connect you to these humanistic sensibilities, building aworld that feels textured and real so people feel comfortable in it.

One person left In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats moved to tears. Others came out buzzing, ready to pick up the phone and get some old mates back together. Beyond the giddy nostalgia Emersons exhibition has evoked so far, hes convinced the DIY spirit of acid house has carried over to contemporary rave culture.

Raves are organised on Telegram now, which is the new flyer or phone box. Theres something about abit of civil disobedience, about feeling like you have ownership over something, he says. The society we live in is quite hard in terms of feeling connected to people. When youre out raving, youre loved up, you can see the world from adifferent perspective. Theres adeeper meaning to it all which isnt all about the Tory government and taxes.

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats opens today at The Box in Coventry. Click here to book tickets

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This VR exhibition takes you to the hedonistic heart of acid house - The Face

The iconic Paris cabaret has come to Londons West End and its a sexy, lavish world of hedonism (Picture: Daniel Lynch)

Were there a category at next weeks Olivier Awards for the post-lockdown showthat offered the public the best escapism, Moulin Rouge! would be a slam-dunk.

The stage version of Baz Luhrmanns 2001 film stuns the moment you walk into the Piccadilly Theatre. This show doesnt so much as have a set as exult in a sexy, lavish world conjuring the hedonism of Pariss renowned pleasure palace.

However, because there is no Best escapism award at the Oliviers this production has to settle for the five categories for which it has been nominated: Best New Musical, Best Actor In A Supporting Role In A Musical, Best Costume Design, Best Choreography and Best Design.

This last one recreates the real Moulin Rouges iconic follies of the architectural kind. They tower over the audience like great mirages: a windmill on one side of the theatre and a giant blue elephant emerging from the royal box on the other.

They are not really necessary, says laid-back Tony Award-winning designer Derek McLane from his New York studio.

But theyre fun. They are part of that insane environment, which makes the audience feel like members of this crazy club for the evening.

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Turning the theatre into a cabaret club where, as top-hatted host Harold Zidler (Olivier-nominated Clive Carter) puts it, all are welcome no matter what your desires, has entailed draping walls in 800sq m of red velvet and the cast in 300costumes.

Satines diamond corset has 8,600 hand-placed rhinestones. It is worn by the casually glamorous Los Angeles-born Liisi LaFontaine when her Satine (Nicole Kidmans role in the movie) makes her spectacular entrance, gracefully descending from the ceiling on a spindly swing.

First, she must leg it backstage to the top of the building. Company manager Anthony Field describes the route: Liisi has to run all the way through the bowels of the building, out a side exit around the front (with a golf umbrella if the weather is gross) up the road

I have to put on extra layers so people cant see the costume, adds Liisi. into another side exit, continues Anthony, up a gantry, then a tiny flight of stairs She then gets changed at the top.

Liisi has her own entourage everywhere she goes backstage, explains Anthony. Verity is head of wigs and make-up, Beth handles sound and mics and there is Chloe who is Liisis personal dresser.

The team, dressed in black with headphones, follows the star everywhere. If I need little water sips, or need a cough drop, they provide, says Liisi.

But Anthony still hasnt finished the route to the top of the building: then up a cat ladder, then shes in the hands of the automation team.

With all these cameras its like NASA, making sure we dont open the trap door when Liisis standing there. Shes very brave. Its really scary up there.

We have a rule that once shes clipped we dont touch that harness until Liisi unclips herself, says Josh Colenutt, automation deputy head. When I first started the job it was terrifying, says Liisi.

The swing is just over the trap door and Im just kind of dangling up there. Liisi, who previously starred as Deena in Dreamgirls, says its a rare chance to sneakily watch the audience watching the show thats what gets me excited.

One more safety check from Josh, and Liisi descends, one of the few moments she is not haring around. Its like two hours of cardio, she says.

And on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which are double show days, by the end of the night, Im just like, Wow. I have nothing left.

Book tickets now on the Moulin Rouge website.

MORE : Gemma Collins faces backlash from theatre fans and acting community as she lands stage role in Chicago The Musical

MORE : Nicole Kidman and Kylie Minogue among celebs celebrating Moulin Rouge! as iconic musical turns 20

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Behind the scenes of Moulin Rouge as the iconic show comes to London - Metro.co.uk

The Wombats, an English indie rock band, released their fifth album in January. Fix Yourself, Not the World begins a philosophical shift in their music while maintaining the synth and pop sounds of their old albums.

Previously, their work focused on themes such as toxic relationships, hedonism and money. You may be familiar with Greek Tragedy, their most streamed song, which is focused on the theme of doomed romance. This new album takes an existential turn and focuses on the universe and letting go, themes which are perhaps overcoming the band members more now as they approach middle age.

Some may recall their second album, The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch, with the single Jump into the Fog. This song calls the listener to jump into moral fogginess, because its clear we feel nothing. Matthew Murphy, the lead singer, also sings that life tastes sweeter when its wrapped in debauchery.

This same album holds the single Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves), wherein Murphy, attempts to escape his demons by going to a bar, yelling if you love me, let me go back to that bar in Tokyo. Whether this commentary on escaping suffering through pleasure and numbing is being satirized or not, their ideas were clearly less sophisticated than they are currently.

According to the band in an Instagram post, the track This Car Drives All by Itself sets the tone for the new album.

The song was based on a saying a band member heard: We row, but the universe steers. This isnt a nihilist outcrying of mans lack of control, but rather a call to let go of the illusion of control by means of surrender.

The title song of the album, Fix Yourself, Not the World, stems from Carl Jung, a nineteenth century psychiatrist. When one fixes something within himself, he fixes it in society. Jordan Peterson, being steeped in Jungs psychology, is most likely paying homage to this sentiment when he continually states, Start by fixing yourself before you start to fix the world.

The track itself only has two lyrics paired with slow echoing guitar, as Murphy drolls, I dont want to lose myself in someone elses game / Im gonna stay right here in the Californian rain. Perhaps, these lyrics elucidate the need to feel through ones own rain, before going out into the world, in an attempt to fix it.

Another standout song, sitting right in the middle of the album and surprisingly upbeat is Everything I Love is Going to Die. The band is sure to emphasize that it is actually a happy, liberating song, despite the macabre title. Murphy croons, Sometimes I forget that everything I love is going to die. This statement, acknowledging the finite nature of all worldly things, sets one free to be fully present in each moment, a primary aim of the album.

In Method to Madness, their most uncharacteristically lo-fi song on the album, The Wombats continue their theme of detachment. When one cannot find the method to the madness and acknowledges the control is out of their hands, they can let go of life plans, sadness and neuroses.

While this song ecoes some of the same lines found in Jump Into the Fog, such as the lyric, drop your map, drop your plans, drop that five-step program, it takes the lines in a different direction. Instead of telling the listener that nothing is off limits, because we live in a fog, Method to the Madness invites the listener to let go of things out of their control or understanding.

This track recognizes human limitation, and again, relinquishes the need to make sense of chaos. It is a call to presence. In surrendering these existential crises and understanding how they transcend our abilities, we can leave the confines of the mind, and simply live.

The Wombats continue to make danceable upbeat tunes, which recently have become more thoughtful. I highly recommend all of their albums; however, if you would like to feel slightly better about the type of music you are listening to this Lent, Fix Yourself, Not the World may be more suitable.

Originally posted here:

A philosophical turn in The Wombat's "Fix Yourself, Not the World" - University of Dallas University News

With great mustache comes great powerand DJ Susan has it in droves.

Based in San Diego, Susan made a cross-country flight last week to immerse himself in the hedonism of Miami Music Week, a pilgrimage he takes annually. And he made his presence felt.

But that wasnt by design, as if he concocted some kind of masterplan to kick up dust in the name of fame like a hellbent TikToker. Its just in his nature.

In many ways, the gregarious Susan was emblematic of the triumphant ethos of the return of dance music in Miami after a brutal pandemic. If his unbridled personality didnt pull you in like a magnet to a fridge, it was his giant bear-hugs.

While hundreds of thousands of people flock to Miami for the weeks pice de rsistance, Ultra Music Festival, the citys various hotels and clubs moonlight as breeding grounds for the next era of electronic music. It's at those venues where Susan operated and pollinated, replanting the seeds of dance music culture that had eroded during the pandemic.

"It was incredible. The community was strong and everyone was out in full force,"DJ Susan told EDM.com."It was a place for artists and fans alike to connect without any borders and create a beautiful space for all of us to thrive together through our art and passion for music. After being away for so long, it really made it special to be able to physically be with these fans, fellow artists and industry players that we have only connected with online in real life. Not to mention, this was unmistakably the year of house music, so it felt really positive to be in the right place at the right time with too many legends to count."

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But it wasnt just the infectious antics of the "Tech House Tony Robbins" that made him the sweetheart of Miami Music Week 2022. It was also the music from his flagship record label, Hood Politics Records, a tastemaker known for its gritty hip-house style. And in a city that has long championed house musicperhaps now more so than everthe imprints signature sound could be heard far and wide.

Hood Politics is also beloved for its dedication to spotlighting young, genuine music producers who do it for the love of the communitynot the pursuit of streaming notoriety. It's this tenet by which the labeland its love-drunk founderare shaping the future of the underground.

"Hood Poli is a big family. Everyone we've connected with through the label has been nothing but genuine and supportive of each other,"said Rich DietZ, a fast-rising DJ duo who have released music on Hood Politics Records."It has to stem from the guy up top, DJ Susan. He's just out here spreading the love and reminding us all why we got into this scene."

Now back home in San Diego, Susan is decompressing what was a tornado of a week in Magic City. All it took was one look at his Instagram Stories, which functioned like a Dominique Wilkins-esque highlight reel of sun-kissed DJ sets and hysterical interactions with his fellow artists.

"To say it was historic would be an understatement," he reflects. "The love and energy was palpable and everyone was really focused on spreading that love throughout. This was the year."

Facebook:facebook.com/djsusan1Twitter: twitter.com/djsusanmusicInstagram: instagram.com/susieshouseSpotify: spoti.fi/36Aqsgc

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Who Is DJ Susan? Meet the Exuberant DJ Who Captured the Hearts of Miami Music Week 2022 - EDM.com

IN HER BITING manifesto Trash, Art, and the Movies, patron saint of modern film criticism Pauline Kael argues that bad movies are essential to cinema because movies are mostly garbage. As she explains: [I]ts preposterously egocentric to call anything we enjoy art as if we could not be entertained by it if it were not. Movies entertain us, tapping pleasure buttons with uncanny precision, and if that is all they have to offer us, why cant that be enough? (Her examples include Wild in the Streets or The Thomas Crown Affair; 2001: A Space Odyssey, on the other hand, is neither art nor entertainment, by her lights.)

This ethos has only spread in recent years. Tommy Wiseau has become, bizarrely, a household name. It is cool to like bad movies these days, usually with an air of mocking irony or guilty pleasure, sometimes with sheer unabashed earnestness. Philosopher and bad movie lover Matthew Strohls Why Its OK to Love Bad Movies (Routledge, 2021), part of Routledges Why Its OK series, is the manifesto, and corrective, this movement needs. It challenges, as much as it defends, those of us who claim to love Nicolas Cage and The Room and Troll 2 and Twilight. Strohl doesnt just want us to like these movies, but to care about them as well.

For Kael, bad movie love is a blessed, unabashedly crass form of hedonism, and Strohl is a hedonist, too; he loves bad movies because they bring him joy. The six chapters of Why Its OK to Love Bad Movies, rich with close film analysis and abnormally accessible philosophical argumentation, convincingly argue that these movies are wonderful. Indeed, the book is almost unbearable to read, as any writing on film worth its salt ought to be. All one wants to do, at virtually every page, is put it down and watch Batman & Robin.

But Strohls love is compelling and infectious precisely because its not just concerned with pleasure. Rather, it is built, like all real love ought to be, on an ethics of kindness. Strohl happily admits that bad movies are bad. The last thing he wants to do is pretend, as he puts it, that Citizen Kane and Plan 9 from Outer Space are the same kind of movie. Indeed, to do so would be to work against, rather than for, bad movie love. Strohl loves Citizen Kane because it is good, and he loves Plan 9 because it is bad.

Here lies the books major philosophical intervention. When Strohl calls Plan 9 bad, he is not making a judgment call about its value, about whether it is worth watching, even about whether it offers us pleasure. Like Kael, he sees artistic goodness as distinct from the question of ultimate worth; wonderful movies dont have to be good art. Rather, Strohl suggests that, when the critical establishment (and even a discerning viewer) deems a movie good, or praises it as cinematic art, what this really means is that the work satisfies cinematic convention: it looks, sounds, moves, and feels the way a movie is supposed to, according to established norms of filmmaking and taste. Conventions are not intrinsically bad; the convention that an actor uses an accurate accent often results in a more compelling performance. But conventions can limit. Those critics who populate the aggregate sites and assemble the Oscar short-lists too often insist that the only way for a movie to be pleasurable is for it to satisfy these norms.

Bad movies ignore the scriptures of Rotten Tomatoes. They break conventions, rather than playing by their rules. Strohls critical eye is sharp as well as generous, attentive to the myriad of real aesthetic riches bad movies offer. Bad movies break rules to find out what exciting, interesting kinds of beauty exist outside of the bounds of convention. They dare to imagine what aesthetic pleasures a bad accent might result in. Strohl argues that there is rarely any real difference between the bad movie and the avant-garde masterpiece. Both push past accepted norms to reveal new possibilities of human expression and appreciation.

But a crucial component of Strohls argument is that even the most affectionate ridicule the mode of appreciation epitomized by Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Nicolas Cage memes papers over this radical strain of aesthetic anarchism. Strohl devotes an entire chapter to Cage himself, not just defending the Wicker Man star from his haters, but from those who mock him and call it love. We lose something when we reduce Cage to moments of thrilling grotesquery, particularly when they are taken out of context. We lose something when, in Strohls words, we substitute ridicule for love. For 40 pages, Strohl offers one of the most careful career retrospectives Cage has ever received (joining the recent cluster of generous work on Cage). What seems when reduced to YouTube reels of Best Cage Freakouts like badness is the work of a bravely experimental performer. Cages ambitions are not simply to scream really loud, but, rather, to translate the sonic dissonance of avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen into human speech (in the crazy Cage mainstay Rage) or collage and recontextualize archaic Expressionist performance stylings into the 80s rom-com form (in, believe it or not, Moonstruck). Cage uses movies as a laboratory for human expression to poke at, think through, and reimagine the ways in which the body moves, the voice sounds, the eyes dart. If this is wrong, who wants to be right?

It isnt just that Cage is good at what hes trying to do, but that hes trying to do something at all, that yes, it sounds trite, but most things that matter do he has goals, desires, reasons for doing what he does. Strohl never lectures on this point; his ethics are never stodgy, being largely implicit. But it is there, steeping the entire book in a deep sense of care.

Throughout the book, Strohl almost obsessively draws attention to the human beings behind bad movies. He gives special place to their own words, their life histories, and their dreams. In doing so, Strohl seeks to uncover new genuinely aesthetic features that become more pressing when we acknowledge the fact that these movies do not emerge from the ether, but from the hearts and hands of people. The Cage exploration illustrates this particularly well, though his generosity extends to the people who worked on Plan 9, Troll 2, and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning. What results is not a simplistic ethics, but a rich aesthetic, one that sees being human and being glorious as entangled. Human beings, in all our rapacious strivings and failings, cant be summed up by social conventions. Were bigger than them; shouldnt our movies be?

Strohl asks: What if we saw the earnest care and passion that fuels the engines of so many bad films as an opportunity for love? It is no wonder that he cites Kael, and her own defense of trash, repeatedly. Kael, more than most, built her film criticism on a wry, unromantic humanism. Her disinterest in films as art was equaled by her interest in films as human (and thus sad, odd, and sometimes glorious) flashes of brief significance buoyed by a crooked smile, a cracked croon, a single instant of familiar absurdity. Strohl sees trash as rich with such flashes. His analytical precision, zealous passion, and overwhelming generosity make Why Its OK To Love Bad Movies genuinely indispensable.

Rax King, too, is obsessed with bad movies. And not just movies: her recent book, Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer, is headily indiscriminate in its adoration for the titular object: Josie and the Pussycats jostles against Americas Next Top Model and the Cheesecake Factory.

Unlike Why Its OK To Love Bad Movies, Kings book is memoir peppered with theory; Strohls work, by contrast, is theory peppered with memoir. Each of her 14 essays is, on its face, about a particular tacky cultural item. (King prefers tacky to trashy.) But those artifacts spend most of the time as scenery. They form the backdrop of Kings life, emerging into the spotlight only in precisely selected moments. What ultimately matters, for King, is not (just) the garbage itself, but the person who loves them. As such, no single movie or musician, or shitty perfume, is taken in isolation; rather, King carefully, lovingly articulates what they mean to her, the particular place they hold in her life. The essay on Jersey Shore is an essay about Kings late father, written with an ache thats hard to shake off; her discussion of Sex and the City slides back and forth between her relationship with a dear friend. She pairs Sims with her abusive ex-husband. Sometimes, the whiplash is jarring, frequently almost surreal. Yet, it is never forced; the juxtapositions make perfect sense.

That is, after all, what King is after: to connect, as does Strohl, the tacky and the human. Strohls focus is one half of the equation, Kings the other. Strohl reminds us that bad movies themselves and the human beings who create them should be treated with care; King reminds us that we, the human beings whose lives are formed by and around tacky objects, deserve care, too.

Take the first essay (a highlight of the book), which details Kings lifelong love affair with the critically reviled pop-rock band Creed. The essay seems, from a distance, to join Strohl in his quest: to defend downtrodden art on the basis of its humanity. King argues that Creeds music may not be artistically good, but that it is human, and that sometimes being human is better than being good. Scott Stapp, the bands frontman and cultural punching bag, made music to express pain and sees no reason to erect space between that pain and its artistic expression. He simply emoted with an ugly and crass grandeur. Fine, King argues, call it bad. But that badness becomes an excuse to ignore the emotional reality of Stapps life, and the way his music poor as it may be grapples with that pain. To respond with flat dismissal and contempt, then, is little short of cruel.

But ultimately, it is not Creed, Jersey Shore, or Guy Fieri on trial here: it is the author herself. Kings autobiographical tangents sketch a deeply familiar, and deeply sad, narrative of a child slowly learning that the world quickly turns its mocking fury from bad artists to their vulnerable fans. The first thing King ever hears called tacky is not a thing at all, but a person: her grandmother. Its not just bad movies and TV and pathetic 2000s boy-rock that needs a champion, but also the people who love them.

By offering herself up as a kind of case study, aimed at the project of humanizing tacky people, King humanizes us all, because who among us has successfully resisted the siren song of trash? What King reveals is that our failure to resist reveals the loveliness of our flawed, feeble, and sometimes glorious humanness. We do not consume art as algorithms, but as humans, as tangled knots of often contradictory, rarely neat, needs and desires, as too big, too unwieldy sums of histories and impulses and relationships that stretch infinitely forward and infinitely back. Why pretend otherwise? Why pretend that its not the case that Sex and the City first appealed to teenage King because it sounded like a porn title, and because she wanted to impress her friend and crush, and because it went on to play a central role in their relationship, and in Kings relationship with sex? Why not admit that Hot Topic arrived in Kings life exactly when she needed it, ostracized at school and in desperate need of a new set of values to reorient her sense of self-worth? King finds that pretension self-abnegating, and she sharply makes the case that you should too.

Crucially, King (like Kael) is not a romantic; or, when she is, she treats it as a kind of tackiness. For her, tackiness is synonymous with emotional overload. As such, it may be compelling, thrilling, and necessary, but it is rarely pretty, often messy. Tackiness frequently leads King to behaviors or feelings she (often retrospectively) knows to be misguided, such as when she develops a sense of snobbish superiority toward normies and posers upon discovering Hot Topic as a kid. These moments of overload, of messy, not-quite-right emotions, often frustrated me, which perhaps is Kings point.

In those moments of frustration, what I wanted, as I suspect many readers will, was to see King transform tackiness into something decidedly untacky: something sophisticated, ethically justified, admirable something right. Only then would it and King, and myself deserve kindness. But that would miss the point. Tackiness deserves kindness precisely because it is always unsophisticated, usually ugly, and frequently wrong (according to conventions of human behavior and expression). The work is not to lionize us in our tackiness but to humanize us, to run to, rather than away from, emotional overload. That excess of love (in all its fucked-up forms) is a necessary consequence of living. Tacky falls flat when read as a full-throated defense of tackiness as an objective, and objectively good, feature of art. Thats not how King wants it to be read. Read it, instead, as a love letter to tacky people, exactly as they (we) are.

Together, Strohl and King imagine a new future for transgressive cinematic tastes, one that might be called a revival of humanism. They seek to build in Strohls words better practices of engagement with trash, better ways of relating to and doing things with them, formed on foundations of care, of generosity and kindness directed at the profoundly human heart of trash. If were to love bad movies, rather than mock them and call it love, those foundations are essential.

But theres a way to do care wrong, and King sometimes makes this misstep. While discussing the gleefully tacky 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats, she turns to Susan Sontags seminal essay Against Interpretation. The essay ends with Sontags calling card: In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art. Hermeneutics, King argues, referring to the act of interpretation, means dissect[ing] art so that no piece of art need remain a mystery to its viewer. Erotics, on the other hand, is that pre-reflective impulse of sheer magnetism, the pleasure button. Sontags declaration is interpreted as an unequivocal abandonment of interpretation, in favor of pure feeling, and this contrast juxtaposition becomes Kings rallying cry for tackiness. Tacky things are perfect, a precise term by which King refers to the resistance to interpretation. A good pop song, a good chicken tender, Josie and the Pussycats all these are perfect, for King, because they speak wholly for themselves, as themselves. To analyze these objects would be an attempt to pin down the right way to experience the perfect thing and the right way to respond to it, according to conventions of taste. Tackiness cant survive interpretation, and it shouldnt have to.

This conclusion is worrisome, not least because it would entail the death of politics. King, for example, treats Americas Next Top Model as a tacky work that she deeply loves. Does this mean it is perfect? And does this mean that it escapes politics, politics only recognizable when we interpret? What am I to do with the extended history of antiblackness, transphobia, classism, and good old-fashioned misogyny wrapped through ANTMs DNA? What am I to do with the fact of Tyra Bankss quite obvious abuse? What am I to do with the tunnels of body dysphoria, self-loathing, and gender panic ANTM has sent me down as Ive grown up with it?

What am I to do with the fact that I love it, too?

Therein lies not only the rub, but the solution. Because what King is missing here isnt a concern with politics, but the willingness to imagine an interpretation that is erotic, that is steeped in love. It is possible to imagine a genuinely erotic hermeneutics, because Sontag herself does. In the same essay, she makes a crucial clarification:

Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. [] In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.

Against Interpretation is the eulogy for a particular kind of interpretation. But in the humanist future Strohl and King imagine, would interpretation be reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling? Are we not free to develop new forms of interpretation, in service of and birthed by new ways of relating to art?

Kings resistance to this imagination betrays, rather than protects, the deep humanism at the heart of her and Strohls theories of bad taste. Strohl demonstrates the beauty of erotic interpretation by investigating these films, revealing things about them, seeking to understand them not on the terms of conventions, but on their own. He imagines bad movie love with the metaphor of conversation. For him, loving bad movies is not a demand to silence, but a chance to say more, and say it with feeling; to think and wonder and appreciate, all loudly and with great excitement. Rather than an ethics and aesthetic that mandates or lectures, one that talks to or for, Strohl imagines a way to love best described as talking with. What if interpretation was not a mandate but an invitation? What if my challenge to ANTM was an act of love, by which I mean it was not a command but an inquiry, one that participates in the practice of loving ANTM rather than seeking to disrupt it?

After all, love is not silent, not Strohls and not Kings. Perhaps the deepest betrayal she performs here is that of her own resistance to interpretation, a betrayal played out over 14 essays filled with loving, intricate, and erotic interpretation. The greatest flaw of Tacky lies in its self-diagnosis. It is a testament, like Why Its OK To Love Bad Movies, not to the death of criticism but the birth of a new kind of hermeneutics. What trash deserves is not our silence or our scorn but a cacophony of love: ribald, unhinged, earnest. The pursuit of understanding, indistinguishable from a celebration, overwhelmed by feeling these are the sounds of being human.

Nicholas Whittaker is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. Their writings on art, love, and blackness can be found in The Point, The Drift, Holo Magazine, Aesthetics for Birds, and elsewhere. They are located in Queens, New York.

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How to Love: Matthew Strohl and Rax King on Bad Movies - lareviewofbooks

In the week that saw the lifting of almost all pandemic restrictions in Wales, its a playfully bold proposition to stage a show about the emancipatory and healing possibilities of a plague. In Dance to the Bone by Eleanor Yates and Oliver Hoare, the plague is a dancing one. A mass hysteria that seemingly compelled hundreds of citizens of Strasbourg in 1518 to dance is suddenly resurgent in contemporary South Wales.

Joanna Bevan (Yasemin zdemir) works at the Insurance4U call centre where she is failing to reach her customer conversion targets. She is grieving the recent death of her grandmother still present on a voicemail greeting which is causing further familial tensions. The offer of transfiguration and reconciliation comes in the form of the mephistophelian St Vitus (Hoare), the patron saint of dancers.

Co-directed by Joe Murphy and Matthew Holmquist, this is sleekly produced and staged gig theatre, performed by a small cast of onstage actor musicians. The ensemble work is lovely, and witnessing the dexterity of actors who can also play instruments (and sing and dance) is always a particular theatrical thrill. The songs possess an intoxicating and assured swagger, and the dancing choreographed by Krystal S Lowe possesses an undercurrent of horror despite expressive lyricism. On Simin Mas set, lit by Andy Pike, it feels like were in a sacred space: stained glass windows on one side, and God as a DJ on the other.

But the beats of the drama are not as spirited as the music, nor as invigorating as the dance. It aims for the transcendental, hinting at the fleshy hedonism of an illicit rave and of healing through transformation, but is slightly mired by a narrative that is more mundane and less persuasive. This isnt helped by the fact that much of the dramatic tension pivots on the use of the hackneyed trope where the Welsh language is rendered exotic, meaningful only as an incantation of strange earthy mysticism rather than a language in which people live their lives.

But even if I was not quite swept off my feet, there is still much here to tempt the soul.

Link:

Dance to the Bone review intoxicating songs and invigorating moves - The Guardian