This is bleak

Maybe it's got something to do with me standing on the cusp of manhood/being able to legally buy alcohol, but goddammit if the future doesn't seem a little uncertain. The economy is trying to eat its own chin, folks have been talking about Russia as if the cold war never ended, and the Swiss may or not be in the possession of a Black Hole Easy-Bake Oven. Shit is serious, and I'm ascared.

I don't even know what I would give to reside in some kind of  Felicityesque J.J. Abrams creation with a healthy market, quirky but affable co-eds, and real fuckin' cosmopolitan parties with cool music. But the optimism of the 90s has drained out of even J.J's cool glasses, and he too, has boarded the bleak train.

Pop culture has been doing its part, preparing me over the past several years for a future where the Earth has been ravaged by aliens/robots/disease/war/environmental disaster, and turned into a burned-out wasteland where gangs of insane, immoral dispossessed roam the streets, killing people for canned goods. I know from movies and shit that canned goods will be very valuable in the future. So will, water, paper, sugar, and something called "spice." Or maybe I'm getting confused. It is hard to keep focus in our scary, brave, new world.

So, I basically know what to expect, but am I emotionally prepared for the apocalypse? I won't be surprised when they land, but will I blink in the face of our future alien-cyborg-nuclear-environmentalist overlords? Will I be broken in the work camps/ficitional radioactive element mines? How can I harden myself for the long battle ahead?

If humanity has any hope for surviving in a gray, bombed-out, ash-covered, uncertain dystopia, we will need direction on how to feel every hour of every day. So that we don't break down weeping in the middle of our canned good/"spice" raids, the apocalypse's has to have a kickin' playlist.

Tell me how to feel!!!!!!!!!!

And we're gonna party like it's two thousand and twelve:

Gary Numan - Cars [Buy]

Guns N' Roses - Paradise City [Buy]

I'm sure this one seems like a joke, but it's not. There's too much shitty hair metal retro-futurism on this song for me to take it seriously. Axl is fucking with all of us. All of us!

PJ Harvey - The Sky Lit Up [Buy]

Bell - Videotape/Eraser

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary Blues [Buy]

France Gall - Bebe Requin [Buy]

Perhaps another weird choice. I don't know, I just figure that in the lawless, dystopia to come, when you're bartering with the warlord who controls the major city that you're trying to gain access too/escape from, when you walk into his nightclub lair, the enchanting waif who sees you and thinks you might be her ticket out of being said warlord's concubine, will probably be singing this song. I don't know.

Cat Power - Bathysphere [Buy]

The Carpenters - Top of the World [Buy]

Humanity's grim struggle for survival will often require all of us to dig deep into our hearts to recover grim, obvious irony.

Chromatics - Healer [Buy]

Hank Williams - Long Gone Lonesome Blues [Buy]

Crystal Castles - Through the Hosiery [Buy]

I don't know how many people actually consider shit like this, but one of the reasons why I like Crystal Castles so much is because I feel so fucking apathetic when I listen to them. There's nothing more apocalyptic than a bunch of young people thrashing dispassionately in a dark, strobe-lit room filled with their faceless peers to distorted vocals about anesthetized fucking through underwear. It's pretty easy to imagine a bunch of futureless apocalypse-babies bopping around to this in an abandoned warehouse or something. 

Farah - Law of Life [Buy]

Portishead - Wandering Star [Buy]

Rio en Medio - Girls on the Run [Buy]

Royksopp - What Else Is There? [Buy]

 

Eleven Inches. Holly. Phoenix Feather. "Nice and Supple." Thirteen 1/2 Inches. Yew. Phoenix Feather. "Powerful."

I probably should've just written about Magic Wands in that last post, and included them in the group of bands who are biting the 80s, but executing said biting so well that it's hard to hate. Actually there's plenty room for The Magic Wands to still suck it up, as they only have like 4 tracks, but what's there is solid shit.

Most of the bands with recycled sounds that suck tried to recycle cock-rock in the most dickless way possible, like Jet or Wolfmother. Magic Wands feel so sincere though about their Blondie-esque style. Their lead singer's name is Dexy! That's dope! Who the fuck do you know named Dexy? I thought so.

They are always referred to as "Chris and Dexy Valentine." Does that mean that Chris doesn't have a last name, or they're married? Maybe it could be a White Stripes gimmicky thing. *Shrugs*

Magic Wands - Teenage Love

Magic Wands - Black Magic

Je m'appelle...

In the long running tradition of bands like Rilo Kiley, Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, I bring you Azeda Booth. And yes, they are a band of bearded, racist flutists, with a foxy ginger lead singer.

Some hours have passed since I wrote the above joke. Now I have no desire for this post to be funny so I will be frank instead.

Have you ever been awake by yourself at 3 in the morning, not really doing anything? You are either reading, or watching something, or writing, or drawing, or spinning around in your living room with your eyes closed, listening to Yes, and then it comes. This hope that something is steadily moving towards you. This thing is flipping over cars and pushing up dust in its wake. If you could just get your hands on this thing, the apparent mystery of 3 in the morning existence would be revealed to you, and you wouldn't just be waiting for tomorrow, you'd be living in the gorgeous, shining, electric night.

No fucking clue what I'm talking about? Well, I'm not surprised. I'm an especially sensitive boy, and I will dream up all sorts of whacked out shit if left to my own devices at 3 in the morning, which is essentially every night.

Azeda Booth sounds like this feeling. Their songs are essentially composed of urgent, fantasy beats and vocals so processed that you will think that you are listening a girl made of spun sugar, not some dude from Canada. Their album, In Flesh Tones, is affected by all the same emotional urgency that watercolors staring across the room, trying not to stare across the room, then giving the fuck up and staring across the room again, cause looking's legal right?

Buy In Flesh Tones

Azeda Booth-Ran

Azeda Booth-Big Fists

ac/dshe

Photo by Napoleon Habeica

I think it's symptomatic of the effects pedal/laptop addled world we live in that when I first heard the name "electrocute," my mind immediately jumped to kewt girlz makin' beets, and not a heavy metal band from Norway, which is clearly what the name electrocute should belong to.

Electrocute is pretty much two girls playing up being girls and being real cute, while pedaling taffy-infused beats to match. To be honest, part of me, a large part of me, feels like electrocute is just using me. They're definitely relying on the same kind of "girls who make harmless pop" schtick, with the same kind of self-aware gender marketing that bands like the Go Gos relied on. If that's true, does Electrocute just deserve to disappear into the sands of pop-time?

But I don't know. The songs certainly are fun, and Electrocute's definitely aware of their own self consciousness (a paradox, I know), with lyrics like, "If you want to make them dance/get your spray on hot pants." Also, my itunes is composed almost entirely of cute girls who make music, so two more can't hurt.

Buy On The Beat 

Electrocute - On The Beat

Electrocute - Uh Oh 

Siren Song

The first time I saw that video, MTV was running this series of videos called "Most Controversial Videos," and I stayed up until about 3 in the morning for the chance to maybe see some nudity/fucked up shit. Even though this video more or less delivers on both of those promises, I'd completely forgotten about my goals, so fucked up was I by the music I was hearing.

I think that was the beginning of my serious preference for lady vocals over dude vocals.  Actually, there's a good chance that it's equally owed to all of the time 8 year old me spent in my room, euphonically paralyzed by "Always Be My Baby" (which pretty much everyone loves, right).

I love women's voices so hard, it's really unfortunate. If every song on my computer sung by a man was sung by a woman, I would probably like them more. If Bob Dylan got sex reassignment surgery and released an album, I would probably buy that shit and see him when he played Chicago. It's a problem.

Rubies is a band with prime lady vocals. Singer Simone Rubi doesn't have incredible range or a terrifically unique voice, but it's just such a goshdarn nice sound. It's just so sweet and warm, you want to put it on waffles, or sleep with it in your arms when it's cold.

I've never considered this before, but this is probably the reason why I sing in falsetto. I guess this is the closest I could ever come to my lady-voice dream and still be able to piss in alleys.*

Them's Rubies

Buy Explode From The Center by Rubies

Rubies - Stand In a Line

Rubies - Room Without a Key

*If I just planted the image of post-op lady Matthew in your heads, then success! You have been pranked by nothinbutcuts.

you go back, jack, and do it again.

Oh loyal readers, I is so sorry for the long content drought that has ravaged nothinbutcuts, and is largely (entirely) my fault.

Pretty much, what happened was that I heard of a particular event, and go to so excited that I decided to pour a glass of water into my laptop. Luckily, the only part of my computer that was damaged was my keyboard, so I didn't have to buy a whole new computer.

Unfortunately, unless I wanted to pay 100 dollars for a new keyboard and get it immediately, I had to wait about two weeks to get one from Hong Kong at a reasonable price. Because my summer grind doesn't pay me 100 dollar keyboard money, I opted to inconvenience the both of us, and be without access to my baby for two weeks.

Sorries.

I was at work the other day, and the song "I Kissed A Girl" came on. I imagine that something about the words, "I kissed a girl/and I liked it," have some undeniable appeal to my newly minted, post-adolescent mind, cause I found myself nodding my head, and made a note to investigate it further. 

eh.

To be honest the ??maybebisexual?? trope is a pretty uninteresting platform for any kind of pop anything, on its way out ever since the media made such a bfd about it when Lucy Liu and Calista Flockhart kissed briefly on Ally McBeal.

That being said, where the Katy Perry original fails, is the point where it tries to make lady-on-lady snogging transgressive and dangerous, which it certainly the fuck ain't. If Perry went a little bit further and made a song about scissoring, then she might be on to something.

However, I did find a pretty good remix of it. Some songs just beg to be remixed; something about them is a little off, and you just know that if someone fiddled with it a little, it could live up to its potential. The MR GASPAR remix nixes the danger and just makes it frivolous, excessive, and thoughtless. That's what the young people want, right?

p.s. here are some other remixes I like that I don't think I'll ever have a chance to post.

Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (MR GASPAR remix)

Cassie - me & U (siik remix)*

Klaxons - As Above So Below (Justice remix)

*this track was sent to me sometime ago by the O to the R to the mothafuckin H. What it do what it do.

4, 3, 2, 1

I always wonder how Sally Seltmann feels about the ridiculous hubbub that surrounded Feist after that commercial confused every top 40 devoted tv watcher in America into thinking that Feist was the next Vanessa Carlton or some shit. I only wonder because Seltmann (who performs under the name New Buffalo) actually co-wrote the song which catalyzed Feist's catapult into the heart of the mainstream. Does this mean that Seltmann could have easily been in Feist's sparkly blue shoes? Seltmann could've performed at the Grammys! She could've played Saturday Night Live! She could've been on Sesame Street! Motherfucking Sesame Street! Now that the moment is gone, how will Seltmann ever fulfill her childhood dream of being eiffel towered by Bert and Ernie?*


Oh well. I'm sure there's no hard feelings or anything. New Buffalo and Feist are labelmates after all, and if there's room enough on one label for two earnest and delicate lady songwriters, then doggone it, there's room enough on your itunes.


New Buffalo-Cheer Me Up Thank You






*Yes, I realize this joke is excessive, I do not apologize. I should've called this blog Real Talk, with GossipMatthew.


Buy Somewhere, Anywhere


New Buffalo-City and Sea (Lady Nameless)
New Buffalo-While You're Away