Medievalists.net has a feature on short, pithy Irish sayings, like proverbs. There was one odd pairing:
A prostitute’s lot is uncertainty.
A timid person’s lot is uncertainty.
So … if you’re a timid person, you might as well be a prostitute? That just doesn’t seem right.
When it’s written as verse, this type of writing is often called “gnomic verse” or “gnomic poetry,” and it has been a very popular genre through the ages. It occupied a similar social space to internet memes today — short, little bits of wisdom that are easily transmitted.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice [….]
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Chances are that if you know any lines beyond “To be or not to be” from Hamlet, you know these sayings.
If you’re interested in more ancient and medieval gnomic wisdom, you can find Proverbs here, or Anglo-Saxon gnomic verse (with some riddles) here.
Geek rock has frequently been conflated with novelty rock and artists like They Might Be Giants and Weird Al Yankovic have both appeared on Dr. Demento. The question of geek vs. novelty, however, is not a simple one. For me, the conflation of “geek†and “novelty†is largely due to the conflation of “geek†with “smart†with “trivial and exclusive knowledge.†Smartness is magic. Ask any geek the square root of 467,982 and they can answer, magically, off the top of their heads. Ask any geek about your computer, and they will answer in a language that the common person cannot understand. Knowledge, and especially geek knowledge, is esoteric, effortless (to the geek), and  exclusive. Geek knowledge does not appear to be easily accessible, even though anyone can learn math, or computers, or programming, or technology, or literature, or what have you. And it’s knowledge that is trivial in that it is not immediately relevant to a “normal†day. Who needs to know pi? Or phi? Or the date of the first Mercury mission? Or the author of “A Sweet Nosegay?â€
Much like magic, geekness became associated with novelty. Or perhaps it always was inherently novel–after all, a “geek†was the dude biting heads of chickens at the carnival. (Which means, of course, that Ozzy? Total geek. Right?) A geek was a sideshow, a freak attraction, a ten-cent spectacle. An amusement. A novelty, like a pulp novel or a comic book or a sci-fi movie or sci-fi tv show.
In other words, like Star Trek.
Not Star Trek now, of course, because Star Trek, with the reboot movies, and TNG, and George Takei’s winning of the Internet is different from the original airing of Star Trek and the decades of marginalization and parody when cosplay was freakish and replica phasers were best kept at home. Now, in the heyday of geekdom, Star Trek is no longer a sideshow, but a mainstream blockbuster phenomenon. Much like the novelty band/song who has been geek rock all along.
You know where I’m going, don’t you?
“Star Trekkin’†is the perfect example of the dynamics between novelty and geek rock. Yes, it’s a parody. A loving parody, to my ears. A silly, joking, homage to the original series. Yes, it’s a novelty; at least, it’s classified as such. But it’s all in the ears of the audience, too. And this audience member hears it as a tongue in cheek homage to a groundbreaking show that, while breaking ground, also forayed into over-acting, Edens and Earth like planets, and stunningly literal rocky terrain. All flaws, perhaps, and worthy of parody, but all lovable flaws nonetheless. So maybe it’s time to reclassify “Star Trekkin’†from a side show, chicken-beheading novelty act to a clever early foray into geek rock (which is, of course, the final frontier).
On the whole, I can’t stand love songs. Part of it stems from time as a wedding DJ, where every week I watched newly-hitched couples writhe to such formulaic, saccharine dreck as Lonestar’s “Amazed†(which paradoxically cribs a lyric from one of the best love songs of all time, Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazedâ€), Hoobastank’s “The Reason†(remember that one from 2005?), and Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,†which spends its first 80 seconds without a drumbeat, the hallmark of any great dance number, am I right?
Part of it is also my own disposition, and I know I am speaking for my than just myself on this. I don’t go for all that lovey-dovey cutesy stuff. That’s not what love is. Sure, those moments of hand-holding, cuddling, and saying really sweet things to one another have their place – on waterfronts, behind closed doors, in a dimly-lit theater…just make sure that in any of the above scenarios that you stay the Hell away from social media. Nobody cares. Love isn’t just teasing one another about who really loves who more, it’s about sticking together no matter what work, family, or the universe as a whole decides to throw at you. It’s about being there for your partner, supporting and comforting them, but more importantly, it is about having someone in your life that you can turn to for comfort and support without hesitation, someone to whom you can expose your weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and shortcomings. They don’t exactly address that in “Love Will Keep Us Together.â€
There are two kinds of love songs that I do like: the realistic ones and the weird ones. The realistic ones include Ray Davies from The Kinks wondering aloud in their 1965 song “Something Better Beginning,†which captures a couple’s first meet at a dance, that “I found something I thought I’d never have / The only time I feel alive is when I’m with you / I wonder how long it will last.†The end result is a much more accurate glimpse into that first-night excitement than anything else from that period. I also love when married musicians write about love. Neil Young has been married to his wife Pegi since 1977, and the longevity of their relationship makes songs like 2010’s “Walk With Me†carry far more emotional weight. Paul McCartney’s Ram also exemplifies the realism of married bliss, where all the guy wanted was a horse, a sheep, and a good night’s sleep with his wife and babies in the heart of the country. (Be sure to also check out “Country Dreamer,†a Wings B-side from 1973. That song is all I want in life.)
The most exciting love songs, though, are the ones with the most unique approaches. I would much rather hear Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog†than “Brown-Eyed Girl.†Who cares about all the times you sang sha-la-la when Iggy is beckoning, “Now we’re gonna be face to face / And I’ll lay right down in my favorite place?†Or, to return to The Kinks, how about “Lola,†the one tune that Ray has routinely introduced in concert as being one of his favorite love songs? In it, a young man, fresh to the electric candlelight of the London nightlife, encounters Lola and her dark brown voice. By the song’s end, the narrator declares, “I’m not the world’s most masculine man / But I know what I am, I’m glad I’m a man / And so’s Lola.†Not your typical tale, but there is no denying that the two are happy and comfortable with being themselves.
Perhaps my favorite of these off-beat love songs is “Kingdom of Love†by The Soft Boys, fronted by a young Robyn Hitchcock. Their second release, 1980’s Underwater Moonlight, laid the groundwork for some of the decade’s best music. (Naturally, this also means it sold poorly.) What made The Soft Boys so captivating was their ability to wear their influences on their sleeves – John Lennon, Captain Beefheart, The Byrds, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, and Davies – while still presenting a collection of songs that are wholly original, blending the psychedelic pop of their heroes with the lean vitality of punk. The album’s lead number, “I Wanna Destroy You,†is perhaps the best example of this, a catchy pop tune to be sure, but those Beatlesque harmonies are delivered with a sneer. The title track, which rounds out the album, is also a must-hear masterpiece.
However, it is “Kingdom of Love†that gets the heaviest rotation. I enjoy this song so much that I included it in my literature class at St. John’s University. Discussing the subject of love, we looked at a number of songs about relationships and explored notions of power, gender, and sex. Other songs discussed included Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me,†“You Keep Me Hangin’ On†by The Supremes, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)†by Beyonce, “Summer Boyfriend†by Lady Gaga, “Man†by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and this one. (That lecture and subsequent discussion should probably be its own article – I had a surprising mix of opinions on the narrator of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On†and whether she was a victim or, as one female student put it, “clearly just a crazy bitch.†She made a compelling argument.)
When I first heard “Kingdom of Love,†I was immediately captivated by the music. The intro and verses groove along with a cool swagger, a laid-back interplay between two guitars with a walking bass line and a relaxed drumbeat, while the choruses have a sense of urgency to them. Hitchcock’s sotto near-whisper is replaced with a near-monotone pair of vocals while the chilled-out guitars descend with bombast before going into its cathartic, major-key bridge. As stellar as the music is, the lyrics are even better.
In each verse, Hitchcock alludes to different places – a spiritual kingdom of love, a primitive jungle of love, and a physical kingdom of time. Every one of these places represents a different facet of being in a relationship: the mental connection of finding a soulmate, the physical connection that comes with sex, and the emotional connection that comes with companionship. Better still is the first chorus:
“You’ve been laying eggs under my skin Now they’re hatching out under my chin Now there’s tiny insects showing through All the tiny insects look like you!”
I find that to be the perfect metaphor for the infatuation stage of love. (Note also that he is using a metaphor rather than a simile – it’s not “like†you’ve been laying eggs under his chin, you have been laying eggs under his skin!) The imagery of subcutaneous bugs works perfectly here; a person comes into your life and invades your psyche, the entirety of your being. This is reinforced in the song’s final line: “You’re the one I love, or so it seems / Because you’ve confiscated all my dreams.†This person has become such a part of the narrator’s life that they are omnipresent, even in dreams. The song’s bridge also has a lyric that I jokingly challenged my students to use as a pick-up line, but one that I will be including someday in my wedding vows: “All I want to do is be your creature.†If that’s not love, I’m afraid I don’t know what is.
There are other types of love song that I venerate, namely doo-wop ballads. However, I consider doo-wop to be a far more sophisticated form of music than (white) pop, especially from that same era, so we’ll just have to save my thoughts on The Penguins’ “Earth Angel,†“In the Still of the Night†by The Five Satins, and The Flamingos’ version of “I Only Have Eyes For You,†one of the most uniquely arranged pop songs in history, for another time.
The Telegraph has a quiz in which you try to tell if a particular quote is from TS Eliot’s poetry or rap. I did miss one…
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity
… but for the most part it really shouldn’t be that hard. The rap lyrics aren’t just really limited in vocabulary, but the metrical structure is really simple.
MC Lars gets it. If you had trouble figuring out which was Eliot and which was rap, Lars is here to school you with a primer on meter.
Now, if the samples had been from nerdcore rappers, I’d probably have happily failed.
In Geek Rock: An Exploration of Music and Subculture, I wrote the chapter on They Might Be Giants, entitled “They Might Be Lacanian: They Might Be Giants, Jacques Lacan, and the Rhetoric of Geek Rock.†I am a long time fan of TMBG, and in many ways, I could credit them with inspiring our book. After all, I originally pitched the idea of a geek rock panel to Alex DiBlasi in large part because I wanted to write about They Might Be Giants. I found it strange, to say the least, that in all the writing on music, there was no scholarship addressing TMBG, or, as we found out, geek rock as a genre. That, of course, is now no longer the case.
For They Might be Giants in particular, it also now no longer the case because the 33 â…“ series has recently published their book on Flood, written by S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer. The pros of the book are many.The writers take a cultural studies lens in order to explore 1990, geek identity, and the idea of excess: aesthetic excess, creative excess, and excess of meaning.  Reed and Sandifer are clearly fans, and not just because they say so–their writing demonstrates a level of familiarity with TMBG that belongs to the long-time listener. I was also very pleased to find that Reed and Sandifer constructed geek identity as more of a process, a way of interacting with the world, then a collection of sci-fi references and t-shirts. The history of the band was traced a little more extensively than the beginning led me to believe, where the authors claimed they would not be providing “biographical analysis†(2) and then proceeded to fill the next 25 pages with band biography. Technically, I suppose, the authors don’t really analyze the biography, but the disconnect was a little jarring.
To give a synopsis of the book: the biography of the band covers the first three chapters “Who Might Be Giants?,†“Lincoln,†and “Brooklyn’s Ambassadors of Love,†while the next chapter, “America,†places the band within a more global context. “Flooding†focuses on the idea of excess, while “Childhood†explores TMBG’s return to themes of childhood in their music. “Childhood†was, in my opinion, the least convincing and weakest chapter, and I found many arguments here a little too reductive. I suspect that the authors were limited by space, and I wish they had a larger book to flesh out these ideas more. “Mediality†focuses on tech, a la Marshal McLuhan, and is an excellent chapter, which I would frankly like to see turned into a book in its own right (however, as a rhetorician who specializes in delivery, that could just be me). The chapters“Geek Culture†and “Post-Coolness†were larger discussions of the evolution(s) of geek culture and geek identity, and the discussions were interesting enough that I could almost forgive the easy theoretical out of “post†in “post-cool†(which I realize is an academic fad at the moment, but I think categorizing what is supposed to be beyond category with “post-†is silly enough that we should just think of something new instead of just having “post-†thing). These chapters are particularly valuable in their contributions to defining the geek in the rock.
However, in addition to the pros of this book, there some cons. The flooding metaphor becomes repetitive and is punned a little too often. While no human with ears and a heart in the TMBG fandom could write about the Johns without punning, it’s a little, well, excessive.  The rigor is surprisingly lacking for two such robust scholars. The lack of a bibliography, or any provided references, is glaring, especially since sources are mentioned throughout the text. I’m assuming this a publisher mandated lack, since the authors have clearly done their research. The audience, then, appears to be dictated by the publisher, rather than authors. While the authors appear to conducting research, the publisher appears to marketing to a general audience that it believes isn’t ready for “real†research–the kind that comes with a bibliography. These flaws are, in my opinion, more due to the 33 â…“ series, which really has yet to decide if it is fan-based or scholarship based, and which tends to, in my opinion, underestimate their readers. I think Reed and Sandifer did a pretty great job, especially considering the overall constraints of the 33 â…“ series: books should be general, academic (but not scholarly), and short.
Overall, Reed and Sandifer’s Flood is a neat book. It’s worth reading,not only if you’re a fan of TMBG and/or Flood, but also if you’re interested in geek culture and geek rock. If you’re looking for a scholarly treatment of any of those topics, however, this isn’t it, which is a little disappointing if that’s what you’re expecting. But don’t let that dissuade you. There are quite a few delightful tidbits in here, and I hope this book (and mine and Alex’s!) is only the start of a much larger foray into geekdom, and a continuing spread of geekdom into the mainstream. The reclamation of geekiness and the spread of geekdom has been inspiring. But that’s just how geeks are, I suppose. We get knocked down, and we get up again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAAbuGX-qEY
And then we take over the world with our robot army.
And it’s hard not to be. The nefariously catchy J-pop/heavy metal combo is not only brilliant, it’s infectious. The trio of Japanese teen pop idols, Su-metal (Suzuka Nakamoto), Moametal (Moa Kikuchi), and Yuimetal (Yui Mizuno) manage to make heavy metal girly. And cute. And totally kawaii. According to Wikipedia (which I have to rely on more heavily than usual, since I do not read Japanese and thus cannot read their website) their label, BMD Fox Records, even promotes Babymetal as being “kawaii  metal.â€
What is “kawaii?†you ask. That is an excellent question. And the answer to that question is why I’m writing about Babymetal for “Guitars and Geeks,†because I think that anything that can be described as “kawaii metal†falls into the territory of geek rock.
Kawaii is, simply put, cute. But, it’s a special kind of cute, and that special kind of cute is based in the aesthetics of  Japanese pop culture. Hello Kitty is probably the most recognizable example of kawaii (and her popularity is awesome because it allows me to have things like a Hello Kitty toaster). But another example, less known to Americans, is P-Chan (aka Ryoga Hibiki) from the animated series Ranma ½, based on the manga written by Rumiko Takahashi. P-Chan is very kawaii. His big eyes, smooth features, and clean lines are all examples of manga style art. Plus, he is a little black pig with a neckerchief. I mean, c’mon! How much cuter can a little pig get?
It’s this element of kawaii, of cuteness, that references a knowledge (or at least acknowledgement) of Japanese pop culture. While you can certainly appreciate the cuteness of kawaii without reading manga or watching anime, a knowledge of Japanese pop culture certainly adds to the experience. To make a comparison: you can read Ready, Player One by Ernest Cline without ever having played a video game, and you might enjoy it. But if you grew up playing 80s video games (or have explored 80s video games extensively), then your reading experience changes dramatically, as every reference has, well, a referent. And much like 80s video games, the knowledge of kawaii, and of Japanese culture in general, has tended to be the purview of geeks. Geeks, with their specialized knowledge and pursuit of such, tend to be the ones frequenting comic stores, import stores, and websites where manga, anime, and Japanese pop culture abound.
So is Babymetal really geek rock? Well, it’s a stretch.
But it’s also awesome. And geeky. And rock. So check out some Babymetal and decide for yourself.
Then, if you’re feeling geeky(er), explore some Japanese pop culture and  watch some Ranma ½.
ps–There is now an English version of the Babymetal website here.
Medievalists.net has an interesting article about the risk of contamination of archeological sites by historical reenactments. One of the potential side effects of reenactors trying to be as “period” as possible is that the more successful they are, the more they risk confusing future archeologists.
The folks over at Numberphile have dug up the best way to cut a round cake from a letter to the editor in a 1906 issue of Nature. Although it seems there ought to be a better way to keep it together than rubber bands.
By the way, the cover image here is from Cake Central.
Here’s an engineer explaining the difference between Betamax and VHS, and why VHS won. Back in those days, I worked as a stock boy in a video rental store. To give you some context, when I first started working there it was mostly LaserDiscs and Beta (with the LaserDiscs clearly on the decline), and a little VHS. Within a year, the store was half Beta and half VHS, with the LaserDiscs no longer available for rental — we were selling the used ones in bargain bins to clear out stock. Within two years, the LaserDiscs were gone, and Beta was clearly on the decline. A year after that, it was hard to find any place carrying Beta.
In the final stages of editing our manuscript, Vickie and I, during one of our semi-daily State of the Book conference calls, agreed that we needed to include a comprehensive Geek Rock discography. The reason for this was simple: there was (and still is) a lot more ground to cover. We’re both proud of every single chapter included in Geek Rock, but my only lament was in regard to what wouldn’t be in the book. I even hinted with a not-so-subtle nudge and wink that maybe, just maybe, we could someday do Return of the Son of Geek Rock to enshrine at least another dozen more artists from this genre within the framework of legitimate academic discussion.
For me, the most glaring omission (and sorry, kiddies, but I’m calling dibs on them in the event Return of the Son of… becomes a reality) is The Residents. In short, they represent the most esoteric depths of experimental music from the classic rock era, with a discography that spans four decades and gives Zappa a run for his money in terms of their eclecticism. Just about the only thing one won’t find in The Residents’ discography is a hit record. Commercialism has always been their target, not their goal. It may also be worth mentioning here also that The Residents have existed in some form since 1972 with no one knowing for sure just who the Hell these guys (and maybe gals) are.
There is plenty to discover and discuss from mining the band’s career. In my experience of getting into The Residents, I found the easiest point of entry to be their tribute albums – songs I already know, albeit in vastly different form. Covers can be a touchy subject, especially in this day and age where we can all rest soundly knowing just what Avril Lavigne’s rendition of “Imagine†sounds like, and yet at the same time there is a litany of cover tunes that not only do justice to the original, they surpass them. I’m sure there is a sizable segment of the population who think The Beatles did “Twist and Shout†first, no doubt because of the energy and vigor they put into their performance. Or how about Ike and Tina’s rendition of CCR’s “Proud Mary?†I love Fogerty and the gang, and they have their own share of dazzling covers (turning “Susie Q†and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine†into sprawling swamp-rock jams? Brilliant!), but Ike and Tina made “Proud Mary†theirs. In that same vein, Trent Reznor, the angriest man in music, was gracious enough to concede that Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt†was the best.
Beginning in the early 1970’s, cover albums became somewhat of a trend – David Bowie’s Pin-Ups, The Band’s Moondog Matinee, John Lennon’s Rock & Roll, side A of Todd Rundgren’s Faithful – meant to be a fond look back on the past, its yearning for yesteryear (for Todd and Bowie, it was back to the mid-60’s, while for Lennon and The Band, it was back to the early days of rock ‘n’ roll) a sign of dissatisfaction with the times. Released in 1976, The Residents’ second album, The Third Reich and Roll, subverted the standards of the above-mentioned tribute albums where the past was held in such a lofty view.
Beginning with an actual clip from the German version of “Let’s Do The Twist Again,†the snippet is cut short by flatulent sound effects and a tribal drumbeat. When the vocals come in, it is an atonal take on the chorus from Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1000 Dances.†The barely intelligible lead singer calls off all the dance styles from the original before going back to the tribal drums. With the emergence of a plonking piano, the band segues into “My Baby Does The Hanky-Panky†by Tommy James and The Shondells. Each side of the original record makes up one long track, segueing from one song to the next, making it less of a traditional album than it is a work of aural art.
It is seemingly obvious from the outset that The Residents were throwing tomatoes at pop music: just look at the cover, which Wikipedia matter-of-factly denotes as featuring “television entertainer Dick Clark in a Nazi uniform holding a carrot while surrounded by swastikas and pictures of a dancing Adolf Hitler in both male and female dress.†The metaphor is a hard one to miss: the innate fascism of pop music. The late Clark may appear to be an innocent target, but let’s not forget that in the 50’s he dodged the same payola scandal bullet that ruined Alan Freed’s career (which may have had more to do with Freed playing Little Richard, while Clark was plugging Pat Boone’s version of Little Richard…)
The songs parodied are at times obvious choices: “A Horse With No Name,†“Yummy, Yummy, Yummy,†“A Double Shot of My Baby’s Love,†all songs with truly stupid lyrics. However, at the album’s conclusion, a synthesizer playing “Sunshine of Your Love†suddenly shifts – it can’t be! – to one of the most sacred cows of the past decade: The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,†with its closing mantra that seemed to make all the clouds go away during the storms of 1968. As the singers join in, the keyboardist begins bungling his notes – intentional or not? – adding a sinister quality to the proceedings. The guitar, which begins by doubling the “Hey Jude†mantra melody, starts to take some liberties here and there before drifting into the Luciferian counter to The Beatles’ angelic hymn: “Sympathy For The Devil†by The Rolling Stones. They even throw in a few “woo-woo†backing vocals for good measure. In just 35 minutes, The Residents have torched the very institution of pop music, reminding us that even our gilt-edged heroes were all part of the same big ugly pop machine.
Left off the album, but from around the same period, were two more visitations by The Residents onto the hallowed ground of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. It is worth keeping in mind that by this time – 1976 – both groups were thought of as part of the past, despite everyone’s efforts to bring The Beatles back together, while the pre-punk revival Stones were busy taking two years to churn out yawn-inducing mid-tempo dinosaur rock sludge. (Black and Blue, anyone?)
The Residents’ intentions may never be known, but their cover of “Satisfaction†takes the roughshod garage band from outer space of The Third Reich and Roll and does it one better. With a vocal performance that is more screaming than actual singing, the cocky swagger of the original is replaced with an impotent, nasal lament, countered with sheer rage on the chorus. This type of cover, where deviation from the original is what defines it, was the first of its kind. Two years later, Devo’s robotic version of “Satisfaction†was praised for its innovative approach. Their version is brilliant, but The Residents’ version is, by contrast, downright scary.
On their EP The Residents Play The Beatles and The Beatles Play The Residents, the band did more than just spoof rock’s most sacred cow. The A-side, “Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life,†is an audio collage compiled from Beatles and Beatle-related recordings. They go for deep cuts, too: “Tell Me Why†from A Hard Day’s Night, “Mr. Moonlight†(itself a cover!) from Beatles For Sale,“Tell Me What You See†from Help!, and even clips from The Beatles fan club-only Christmas records. Assembled like a more commercial “Revolution 9,†The Residents did one of the first mash-ups. The EP’s B-side is a haunting cover of Magical Mystery Tour’s “Flying,†one of The Beatles’ only instrumentals and only one of two to share a group writing credit.
By doing these twisted covers, the aura of reverence surrounding Rundgren’s note-for-note replications of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago†and “If 6 Was 9†and Bowie’s space-glam updates of songs by The Kinks, The Who, and The Yardbirds was suddenly unnecessary, while Lennon and The Band’s veneration of yesteryear can be written off as silly exercises in nostalgia (though in Lennon’s case, it was the settlement of a court battle for “borrowing†some Chuck Berry lyrics in “Come Togetherâ€). With Devo’s warped cover of “Satisfaction,†The Sex Pistols’ obscenity-laden version of “My Way,†and all those surprisingly effective hard rock covers of Britney Spears tunes, cover tunes can now – under the right circumstances – be stripped of their politics, done the way the artist wants to play it, not as an homage or a glowing tribute, but simply because they want to do it. We have The Residents to thank for that.
