Flex The Cerebellum

Alright, back to the music project, after a much needed break. I liked the way the Blues Traveler Suite worked out, so this is another set of albums from one band. Based on the title, and the pictures below, I'm sure you've figured out Rage Against the Machine is the topic band. I'm not that subtle.

Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine

1992, Epic

produced by Garth Richardson

Zach de la Rocha - vocals

Tom Morello - guitar

Tim Cummerford - bass

Brad Wilk - drums

singles-

• Killing in the Name/ Darkness/ Clear the Lane
• Bullet in the Head/ Settle for Nothing
• Bombtrack
• Freedom/ Take the Power Back

There has been so much said of this album, including "one of the best metal albums of all time" and "I wish they had stopped at this album". Not only is the sound unique to its time (1992: hair metal was gearing down, grunge was gearing up), but it is the first successful and truest blending of rock and hip hop. This album debuts a sound that is never shy, never apologizes, and is powerful in its simplicity.

There are only 4 members, and only 4 instruments used: a guitar from the Eddie Van Halen/ Jimi Hendrix schools of experimentation, a funky yet heavy drum, a hard rocking rhythmic bass, and a hip hop voice. This fact not only makes what is heard incredible, but also lends an amount of honesty and integrity to a music scene full of overdubs, extra musicians, synthesizers, turntables and auto-tune.

The subject matter of Rage Against the Machine is not for everyone, and for as many people sucked into the music due to the revolutionary, humanist, and leftist themes, there are many turned off by the lyrics that make one think and challenge public perception, status quo, and conservative values. These songs are not easy party music tracks, love songs, or Dio-esque epics about rainbow dragons and vikings.

De La Rocha raps and rants about police brutality and racism in America, big media, manifest destiny, urban slums, apartheid, and empowerment.

Thought provoking? Yes. Fueled by anger? Absolutely. I think the best thing about these songs are the ability to inspire one to think outside of the proverbial box, challenge conviction, and formulate opinions based on experience, asking questions, and taking ones education in ones own hands.

Rage Against the Machine

Evil Empire

1996, Epic

produced by Brendan OBrien

singles-

• Bombtrack/ Fuck the Police
• Bulls On Parade/ Hadda be Playing on the Jukebox
• People of the Sun/ Zapatas Blood/ Without a Face
• Vietnow/ Clear the Lane/ Black Steel --> Zapatas Blood

The sophmore effort from Rage Against the Machine came four years later.  The sound doesn't change much on this album from track to track, and borrows heavily from it predecessor.  The subject matter of the individual tracks are far more interesting than the actual songs, where on the debut album the opposite feels true.

There are good moments. Vietnow pulls a classic hip hop move and samples the riff from The Wanton Song by Led Zeppelin. Without a Face and Year of the Boomerang are able to change up an otherwise train of similar sounding metal tunes. Still, much on this album bears a listen. Subject matter expands to cover the Zapatistas, the Zoot Suit Riots, The Black Panthers, the LA Riots, domestic violence, AIM and Leonard Peltier, the Christian Right and conservative radio pundits, class war, sexism, and colonialism.

For me, personally, I heard this album first and it has had a lasting impression. Although I agree the other albums are better, this one still has moments that can not be outdone by earlier or later work.

Rage Against the Machine

Battle of Los Angeles

1999, Epic

produced by Brendan OBrien

singles -

• Guerrilla Radio/ Without a Face
• Sleep Now in the Fire/ Guerrilla Radio/ Bulls on Parade/ Freedom
• Testify/ Guerrilla Radio/ Freedom
• Calm Like a Bomb

The last album of original content, Battle of Los Angeles came out to critical acclaim when I was in high school. I remember being surprised to hear sounds that I hadn't previously heard from Rage Against the Machine, specifically Tom Morello.

This album showed a more mature band and a deeper more polished writing style. Instead of relying on incessant chanting of revolutionary and angry propaganda phrases, there is a focus on story telling, versus, even a hint of singing, which of course makes the chanting of phrases even more powerful. In the end, I guess, reliance on old habits dies hard.

Unlike Evil Empire, where there are forgettable tracks indistinguishable sometimes from others, this album can be listened to from beginning to end, no skipping required. Each track could have been a single, the deeper into the album one gets, the deeper and more adventurous the music gets.

Subject matter expands again to include Mumia Abu Jamal, 1984, privatization and outsourcing, the war on illegal immigration, and Christian missionaries.

While looking up some things for these posts I ran across online postings in music forums. Everytime I read anything from online forums there a few things I always see.

1: Someone has to make it very clear how much he dislikes whatever is being discussed, usually in a way that makes him seem uneducated, closeminded, and unaware of being uneducated and closeminded.

2: No one is able to properly defend and debate said hater in a coherent, educated manner which ends in both parties arguing about each others' homosexuality.

3: the anti-rage sentiment stems from a very few similar statements. I base this on reading such things more than once, in more than one place.

The first is that the band whines about leftist ideologies and needs to grow up, shut up and just play music. This seems to be a knee-jerk reaction that anyone would make after their culture has been questioned, and the comfort of their world has been threatened. Frankly, that particular phrase irks me more than anything else.

There has always been dissent and struggle in music, especially rock and roll. If Elvis, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana had all shut up and played the music that was expected, there would never be any innovation, or change, ever, and we'd all be still listening to good ole country tunes, turn of the century folk music, and classical baroque.

Many bands and musicians that are most revered by our society have a foot (sometimes two) in dissent, revolution, protest, and humanism. And this spans every genre of popular music, from country (Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings), to folk (Woody Guthrie, Steve Goodman, John Prine, Pete Seeger), rock (Jefferson Airplane, MC5, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, U2), metal (Metallica, Guns and Roses, System of a Down) hip hop (the NWA, the Fugees, KRS1, Immortal Technique, Atmosphere, the Coup), punk (Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Rise Against). and truly, any artist ever influenced by any of those already mentioned also carry with them the culture of dissent. Personally, if they all just shut up and played music, it would be pretty uninspired, banal, and boring.

Shut up and play music?  Aye Aye, Captain!

The other complaint I read a lot is that the music sounds the same on every track and the guitar "screeching" is an unimaginative, old, and worn out gimmick. First of all... if you want an album that is completely different from track to track with no similarity, or stylized fingerprint, buy a comp record like NOW 20, or Hot Hits of the 90s. Second... one would have to be pretty dense to not appreciate the Tom Morello sound. Not only has he adapted his play to incorporate sounds never before heard through an amplifier, but is able to seamlessly blend conventional playing with his more inventive style. This makes me wonder if online boards had been around in the 60s and 80s, if similar statements would have been made of Hendrix, Tony Iommi, and Eddie Van Halen.

More than Meets the Eye

I found this interesting table earlier today.  Its a depiction of famous trilogies, most are actually more than trilogies.  The chart shows how the three (or more) films matched up to one another as far as how fans view them.  As far as I can tell, concerning general nerdom sentiment, its pretty accurate.  There are a few trilogies I would like to see added, including Toy Story, the other Star Wars trilogy, Silence of the Lambs, Mission Impossible, The mighty Ducks, The Mariachi trilogy (Once upon a Time in Mexico...), and Austin Powers.

Another trilogy that ought to be in this graphic is Transformers.  The title of this post should be I Wanted More Than Meets Michael Bay's Eye, Tranformers Could Have Been Better, but thats way too long.

I saw The Dark of the Moon the other day.  It was definitely better than the last Transformers film.  When seen back to back to back, however, the trilogy is not good.  It reminds me of Die Hard and Indiana Jones, where the 2nd movie (the one in the middle) is the worst.  The biggest issue with Die Hard and Indiana Jones is the fact that they are prequels to the original.  That and the chick in Temple of Doom is a terrible actress, and protecting an airport is not as cool as a one-man siege of a building.  Transformers: The Rise of the Fallen doesn't have these excuses, however.  Dark of the Moon is so much better that it has been able to highlight the glaring ineptitude of its predecessor, much like With a Vengeance and Last Crusade did to their previous films.

The problem with Rise of the Fallen is the same issue most film franchises have when making a sequel.  The market success of the first film has creators, studio, and marketers clamoring for more.  More new characters, more action, more explosions!  The film suffers from the desire for more.  Michael Bay decided the Dark of the Moon would be the last of the Transformers films, and neatly tied up all the loose ends.  I wish he thought of doing only three movies to start with.  Planning a trilogy ahead of time is much better than doing it piecemeal.  If you dont plan ahead, you may end up with the second and third films sucking (see the graph for Jaws, Planet of the Apes, and the Matrix).

Planning ahead means you've either already written the complete story, or have a pretty good idea how it will progress (see Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future).  Star Wars is actually a really good example of a film in three acts, the middle film being the second act, seeing the protagonist seemingly defeated, and at his greatest despair.

Transformers doesn't do this.  In fact, after watching the third film, it became clear that the second film (although references are made in passing) is not at all necessary to the plot.  The main protagonist in the second film is never mentioned, which is odd as two primes hang out together in the third film.  The Fallen (the prime who betrayed) is portrayed as such a powerful figure in Transformer history, you would think Optimus would maybe bring it up to Sentinel.  Also, there are Transformers that are never seen killed that do not appear in the third film (both autobot and decepticon).  On top of this, the arrival of the Transformers in the first film should have made someone involved with the Apollo Moon missions somewhere sit up in shock and make some important phone calls.  No one would be able to watch aliens descend on the planet and still keep that secret.

I would like to point out too that arguably the biggest baddest decepticon has been upstaged in two consecutive films by another villain.  Megatron vanishes in The Fallen, and has to be goaded into taking back his masculinity in Dark of the Moon by a human chick.  And, as cool and badass as Shockwave was, I'm pretty sure he is supposed to be a constant rival for Megatron's power.  Come to think of it, so is Starscream, although their methods vary significantly.  And while we're on the subject of decepticons, I'm also pretty sure a majority of Megatron's followers transformed into aircraft, fighter jets to be specific, not police cars, SUVs, or Mercedes Benz.

And then there is the autobots.  The only thing I did not like about the third film is the Transformers themselves.  The characters that share a name with the title of the film are upstaged by just about every human character.  I wanted to see a movie about shape changing robots, not a bunch of cliche human characters.  The autobot characters are sadly underdeveloped.  And the ones that are developed even a little bit are ones that no one cares about (like the old smarty pants inventor, and the two annoying little toy-sized ones).  The Fallen had the same issue.  The focus is put on the newly introduced characters and not spent making the older characters stronger.  I wanted to see more Ratchet, and Sideswipe, and Ironhide.  What I got was two smartass Chevy Sparks, motorcycles, a crusty old transformer named Q (watch Bond movies much?) an RC truck, Nascars, and a metal gremlin.  Pretty lame.  There are so many better autobots to choose from.  Why make up stupid ones?

If Transformers had aspired to be a trilogy of epic proportions, a three act play ought to have been conceived ahead of time.  Even if the first film flopped and no other films were made, they would still have an anchor with which to draw from, one film at a time.  Continuity would have saved the second film, and made the third less awkward.  Oh... and all three films may have had better plots.

She can Kiss Me with her Fist Any Time

Florence and the Machine

Lungs

2009, Island

produced by Paul Epworth, James Ford, Charlie Hugall, Stephen MacKey, Eg White

Florence Welch - vocals, drums

Rob Ackroyd - guitars, bass

Christopher Lloyd Hayden - drums

Tom Monger - harp

Isabella Summers - drums

singles-

• Kiss with a Fist/ Hospital Beds
• Dog Days are Over/ You've got the Love
• Rabbit Heart/ Are you Hurting the One you Love
• Drumming Song/ Falling
• You've got the Love
• Cosmic Love

The strength of this music is tough to describe. There is so much depth to this, if there was a royal rumble of contemporary music, this group would be tossing out contenders left and right. James Christopher Monger from AllMusic describes the album as equal parts Sinead O'Connor, Kate Bush and Fiona Apple. I'd like to think of Janis Joplin being less bluesy and more folk and I think you'd nail Florence Welch on the head.

Kiss with a Fist and Dog Days are Over are probably the best tracks. Kiss with a Fist reminds me of songs like O Bondage Up Yours by X-Ray Speks, and Wave a White Flag by Elvis Costello.

Holy Moly, Frodo! Something Evil Lurks!

So, obviously, this post is not about the music project. Although, the title could be a Led Zeppelin reference, I suppose. But it isn't.

A while ago I discovered a new fantasy writer, and quickly became in awe of the expanse, detail, and depth of his epic creation. This, I told myself, and others who were in earshot, makes Tolkien look like a beginner.  I stumbled, pretty literally, upon R Scott Bakker's first volume in a bookstore while looking at Lord of the Rings editions. The cover, which was the first edition hardcover published by Penguin Canada, was black with sinister sanskrit-like runes scrawled across it. Pretty interesting, and after reading the synopsis, and the reviews, I invested about $27 dollars into it, deciding this wasn't a Tolkien knock-off, or a lame role-playing novelization, but appeared to be legitimate, and could possibly be groundbreaking. And it turns out I was right, but seemed to be the only one who thought so.

Where Tolkien created things that lived around mankind and had different culture, language, customs, and history, Bakker has created differences between people, painting realistic nations split by culture, religion, proximity, language, much more like George RR Martin. Bakker had not needed to go outside of the species to create scenarios of misunderstanding and distrust for evil to take advantage. Religion and questions of spirituality, theology, philosophy, and metaphysics are at the heart of this epic, more so than Tolkien or Martin ever dared.

Not to say that Bakker has only created a world with the sole inhabitants being human. There are non-men, similar to Tolkien's elves, but twisted by time, driven insane by their immortality. Sranc roam uninhabited wastelands that remind one again of Tolkien's orcs. There are also Wracu (dragons), ciphrang (demons), genetically engineered monsters (Bashrag), and the primary antagonists, the Inchoroi, who appear to be otherworldy (read aliens).

The influences of Tolkien and Martin are unmistakable. But the way the world is created has more of a Greco/Persian eastern influence than western Nordic/Germanic or War of the Roses England. The conflicts depicted in the first trilogy (Prince of Nothing) more resemble crusade-like middle-ages mentality than epic journeys of fortune, which seems to be the driving force behind the second unfinished trilogy, The Aspect Emperor. End times theology seems to play a role as well, as aspects of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic ideas of Anti-Christ and apocalypse flit in and out of the narrative. There are also powerful ideas of feminism, the sacred feminine, gender roles, social impact of warrior culture, mysticism, xenophobia, and the thin boundaries of sanity.

The idea that caught me pretty early on while reading, and truly impressed me the most, however, was that unlike in other epic fantasy mainstays like Lord of the Rings, Conan, Harry Potter, Eragon, Narnia, Wheel of Time, or Song of Ice and Fire, there is no clear boundary between good and evil. In fact, it could be said that there is no true good at all in Bakker's universe, only shades of evil, which manifest through greed, amorality, and entitlement. And at the top (or bottom, I guess) of this evilness scale is the true bad guy of the series, a race of evil beings that make all other characters deeds pale in comparison. Everyone here has faults, impure thoughts, agendas, emotional shortcomings.

Not only is good and evil up for debate here, but also sanity. Multiple characters battle with what it means to be sane and a good many slip over the boundaries, most unable to recover after grasping with realities and concepts of meaning not meant for weak men (and women). There are times when it seems the insane are the only ones who truly know reality.

This isn't meant to say that none of these characters are like-able.  The main characters in the first trilogy and the relationships they have to each other are interesting. The way they interact, use each other, tolerate each other in order to get what they need echo the reality of true human beings. Also, it takes some time to truly appreciate the deviousness of the characters and figure out who is truly betraying whom. No one in this world plays nice, making this series at once epic, and at the same time a horror.

Part of Bakker's world building includes the physics of Magic. Seen by one of the prevailing religions as a sinful abomination, magic is practiced by guild-like institutions called schools. Incantations, songs, are sung that can redefine reality. There are three types of magic, only two are described in detail. Gnostic sorcery reshapes reality through abstractions, and Angagogic sorcery reshapes reality through allusions. Basically, the Gnosis creates  new reality by describing the new reality outright, and the Anagogis alters reality by describing the new reality through metaphors. The physics of magic in this universe is unlike anything I've encountered before in fiction, and probably makes the most realistic sense.

The biggest criticism seems to be from feminists, or more specifically, people arguing that Bakker is a degenerate misogynist and therefore should not be read by anyone. Below are a few links to reviews concerning this. The first one is actually intelligent, from Shattersnipe.  http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/the-problem-of-r-scott-bakker/

The other two degenerate pretty quickly into name calling and condemnation, one begins the post by saying she only read 5 pages of his first book before making a sweeping judgement. Being able to write a review based on the first five pages of a book is an amazing talent.

http://www.alexdallymacfarlane.com/2012/02/oh-r-scott-bakker-no/
http://requireshate.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/r-scott-bakker-prince-of-misogyny/

I think, in each of these cases, the writers are so quick to condemn anything even remotely offensive, that they miss the point entirely. I've read Bakker's interviews, the Q and A sessions where he addresses these issues. I've read the spin put on these answers. There is nothing in these articles I believe Bakker would disagree with, but yet, he is still lambasted as being misogynist and inherently evil. His nihilistic approach to human nature helped create a realistic male dominated society, and his female characters exist realistically in this system. The entire social system in these books is violent, misogynist and dark, and it's done that way on purpose.

Also, something must be said about the one-sidedness of these arguments. His female characters might not be "strong" in the way that feminism may want them to be, but then again, none of his male characters are strong either in the typical western ideal of heroes. Perhaps his female characters are lacking in certain ideal feminist traits, but then again, none of his characters are likeable, strong, altruistic characters, male or female. Unless you believe that sociopathic thinking, violence, and abuse are all excellent traits, these books help to define and reveal the philosophical shortcomings inherent in human beings.

I definitely recommend the Prince of Nothing and the Aspect Emperor trilogies. And just think, you won't have to wait years at a time for the next book to hit the shelves, as there are now five volumes available. There are epic battles, doublecrosses, philosophical inquiries, a vast world to become accustomed, mysteries, love, abandonment, corruption, true evil, and a realistic portrayal of war and conflict. These are not easy books, however. Enjoyment of intelligent, thought provoking writing is a must.

Traveling Wilburys, Jr.

Fistful of Mercy

As I Call you Down

2010, Hot Records

Dhani Harrison
Ben Harper
Joseph Arthur

singles -

• Fistful of Mercy

This "super group" was a very pleasant surprise for me.  I've been a huge Ben Harper fan for quite some time, and got into Joseph Arthur after catching his song In the Sun in a movie soundtrack.  Fistful of Mercy has paired up these two neo-folk/neo blues artists with Ayrton Wilbury, also known as George Harrison's son, Dhani.  

Harrison has called this project his own Traveling Wilburys, however, the comparison stops there.  I so very much want to love this album and collaboration, however, I wish there was more Ben Harper rhythm and less Arthur/Harrison schmaltz.  The songs are very soft and sometimes uninspiring.  Also, I'm not sure what to think of bands that name themselves the same thing as a title of a song they wrote.  Fistful of Mercy the song is one of the better tracks on the album.  Father's Son should have been a single, and is the best track, having an upbeat rhythm unlike the rest of the music, and very much like Ben Harper's work with the Innocent Criminals.