July 25, 2002

 
If I Gave You A Party, Would You Come?

Sophie has asked for folks to come up with their own personalized fantasy festivals, and so I shall humor her. Note: I refuse to include defunct bands or deceased artists. I think that's kind of lame. I always like to keep my fantasies grounded in reality.

I'd want to have Cecil Taylor play, because he's one of my favorite piano players ever, and I still regret not having the money to go see him play at Lincoln Center earlier this year.

The Shimmer Kids Underpop Association are a natural choice, because I've never seen them live, they've never been on the East Coast, and are just way too good to be painfully obscure.

Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and whoever else they would want to have on stage with them is another obvious choice for me, for pretty much the same reason as the Shimmer Kids. I really resent that every band in NYC is getting press except for them, when they are unquestionably the best new band in the city, except for maybe the Walkmen. I'd have The Walkmen play the festival too.

I'd want The Danielson Famile and The Polyphonic Spree on the bill, cos I loved seeing them so much last month. I'd like to have The Flaming Lips play, and give them free reign to do whatever they want. I'd want to have Scott Miller play a solo set, and hope that he plays a lot of Loud Family songs.

I would like to have a Kitty-Yo all-stars performance, with Peaches, Gonzales, and Taylor Savvy performing all of their hits together and dancing after the sun went down.

I would have Jay-Z play a full set with The Roots, like on the MTV Unplugged LP. I'd have Beyonce Knowles do a set with the band she played with on the Tonight Show a few days ago. I'd have N.E.R.D. play, and bring out lots of special guests to do their Neptunes hits with them (ie, N.O.R.E., Clipse, Britney Spears, and Nelly).

I would have Prince headline, because it would be really cool to see Prince live, even if he just played a lot of songs from his last few albums. It'd be damn near transcendental if he played mostly 80s material - imagine a set with "Pop Life", "Kiss", "Darling Nikki", "I Would Die 4 U", "Cream", "Controversy", "Raspberry Beret". People would just fucking lose it! It'd be amazing.

So there - off the top of my head, on July 25, 2002, that's the festival I've come up with. If only it were real.

I Don't Like Mel Gibson, But I Might Have To Suck It Up...

I had no interest in seeing Signs, and had a feeling it was probably awful, but Russell Fischer has picqued my interest after reading his review on Barbelith. I might go check this out now.

What Are We, In Slow Motion Here? What Are Ya, Hypnotized?

I really love the way that Seymour in the Ghost World movie always does that uptight "Jesus!" exclamation every time Enid says something sort of sexual or inappropriate. It's so sweet and endearing.

Beautiful Fascists Fighting To Preserve The Status Quo!

Judging by Mark Millar's comments in this Comicon interview, it seems that I may have jumped the gun a bit in reacting to what seemed like a rather tossed-off "Manhattan gets trashed" issue of The Ultimates. I say that hesitantly, though - Millar is pretty notorious for intending to one thing, and somehow doing just the opposite. Flyboy from Barbelith has a an interesting observation about this, which I will share with those of you who might not read that site:

As I've said elsewhere, one of the big problems with his run on The Authority was that Millar thinks he's a radical/progressive/liberal and was thus writing a radical/progressive/liberal comic, but his instincts have always seemed to run the other way (aside from the content of his Authority, see the transphobic/homophobic comments Runce highlights in the interview). The Ultimates, which is openly about beautiful fascists fighting to preserve the status quo, and the relationships between them (you know, a bit like The West Wing), seems to work a lot better - it feels more natural, less forced, and the dialogue is Millar's least clunky to date... Ultimates = definitely a very guilty, ethically dubious pleasure. Almost transgressive for some 'lithers... fetishize the security forces!