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Mastodon, Geek Metal, and Geek Rock

I’m currently working on a paper for the annual Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference on Mastodon’s video for “The Motherload.” The working title of this paper, by the way, is “The Dialectic of T/werk: Hegel, Marx, and Womanist Agency in Mastodon’s “The Motherload” Video.” (I’m very pleased with my title.) But the upshot of all this writing and planning for my paper  is that I’ve been thinking a lot about Mastodon recently. Their most recent album, Once More ‘Round the Sun (which features “The Motherload”), is excellent. One of the things I particularly enjoy is the exuberance running throughout this album. While Mastodon is always good, there’s an energy here, almost a frenetic, desperate joy, providing an undercurrent that lifts their artistry to another level. Always different, and always fresh, I appreciate the ways that Mastodon continually subverts their genre.

Which brings me to the question, are Mastodon geeky? Could they be considered geek metal? Geek metal falls into the same genre bending as geek rock and nerdcore, with the same result. Much like geek rock has fallen by the wayside of rock, geek metal remains mostly subsumed within metal. Even Urban Dictionary’s definition is poor, although if there was any doubt about the marginalization of homosexuals, the existence of hate speech, or the instability of hyper-masculinity, these definitions clear that up. Geek metal is metal by virtue of it’s subject matter, typically fantasy, and is somehow, as Urban Dictionary seems to imply, “lesser” than “normal” metal. This implication, I think, is because metal tends to be associated with a performance of hyper-masculinity, and any deviation from that is discouraged.

Which brings me back to Mastodon. These guys are not your (stereo)typical metal band. They innovate in unexpected ways. They keep it fresh. They have videos with clowns (or, in the case of “The Motherload,” a great deal of twerking). They subvert the genre of metal which is a subversive genre to begin with. But are they geeky? I say yes. Their acclaimed album Leviathan is about Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby-Dick. Crack the Skye is another example, addressing astral travel and Stephen Hawking’s theories of wormholes. They wrote the score for the movie Jonah Hex, based on the DC comic, and released on an EP titled Jonah Hex: Revenge Gets Ugly. From great literature, to great physics, to great comics, Mastodon knows their way around geekdom.

But is that all it takes to make geek metal geeky? User Zipzop 5565 lists lists the Top 5 Geek Metal bands on Sputnik Music, and Mastodon is not on the list. However, neither is DragonForce, who are perhaps the quintessential geek metal band. The list includes Dethklok, Anthrax, Swashbuckle, HORSE the band, and Wormed. I’m only familiar with Anthrax and Dethklok, and neither would have come to mind immediately as geek metal. However, this user provides justification for his choices, which not only make sense, but which would also include Mastodon in the category of geek metal. However, much like geek rock, the geekiness is the ear of the beholder as much as it’s in the music itself. Whether Mastodon consider themselves geeky is another question entirely. But this geek is happy to call them geek metal, as an accolade and tribute to their brainy metal sensibilities.

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Why Jon Stewart’s Departure from the Daily Show is Good News

A cry of dismay went out yesterday when Jon Stewart announced he would be leaving the Daily Show.  Social media was filled with distressed fans. His departure, though, is good news for Comedy Central and good news for comedy generally.*

A bit of history — back at the dawn of cable channels, 25 years ago, there were two competing television comedy channels: The Comedy Channel and Ha! These two channels really were trying to get a grip on how to do comedy in the era of cable, and so were a mix of stand-up clips, old classic TV (similar to Nick at Night), talk shows, and things like MST3K. They merged to create Comedy Central.

In pulling those two together, Comedy Central never quite hit a big audience, but produced cult classics (Dr. Katz and Kids in the Hall spring to mind). It wasn’t until about a decade ago that they seemed to develop the right chemistry, with South Park, Reno 911, Chappelle’s Show, and the Daily Show/Colbert Report. Of those, South Park and The Daily Show were old standbys that had slowly built and maintained an audience, while Chappelle’s Show was a cultural juggernaut that suddenly imploded after two seasons (and Comedy Central hasn’t ever found a true heir to Chappelle since).

Here’s the problem — Reno 911 eventually faded, and that left South Park and The Daily Show franchise not just carrying the channel, but sucking the air out of everything else. Because cartoons are inherently more expensive and difficult to make than talk shows, South Park took a lot of money, but not a lot of programming space. The Daily Show, however, has become a problem.

These types of shows are addictive to basic cable channels: They are dirt cheap to make, and because the topics they deal with are so ephemeral, people are forced to watch them, well, DAILY, thus getting eyeballs on your advertisers.  Why  experiment with an ambitious scripted show with an entourage cast when you can just slap out a Colbert Report or a Tosh 2.0 for next to nothing? These shows might not be great, but cheap-and-reliable mediocrity keeps the profit margins much higher than more expensive show. Look at what Comedy Central has been doing over the last decade, and it’s clear that their programming has grown stale, the only good things being departures from The Daily Show style.

Aside from the staleness of their programming, the problem with The Daily Show is that, despite its efforts to market itself as young and hip (bringing to mind Steve Buscemi on 30 Rock) it’s a show for old people. Don’t believe me? Try watching an old episode of The Daily Show, anything more than two months old. Since the political critique rarely rises above the level of snark, and the pop culture references are so ephemeral, it’s no longer funny and often makes no sense out of the context of the moment.  This isn’t a show for binge-watching young people to stream — it’s a show for the late 1990s. And while shows like this can probably find some niche, that niche is getting smaller and smaller. Two years after its cancelled, you won’t remember The Daily Show, and if you happen to find clips online, it will seem hopelessly dated, like Laugh-In. Ten years ago, my students all watched The Daily Show religiously. Today? Meh, maybe if someone posts a clip online that will disappear from their Facebook feed in a couple of days.

Of course, The Daily Show isn’t over. Heck, Jon Stewart wasn’t even the original host. But all those 30-somethings who still think they’re young and hip will find themselves scratching their heads at whomever the next host is, and grousing about how much funnier it was in the old days. Comedy Central will be forced to search for truly fresh programming — or embrace a role as one of the dying basic cable channels.

[Feature Image heartlessly stolen from Rolling Stone]

*In the interest of full disclosure, let me confess that I've never found Jon Stewart funny. Ever. When people post clips of him and shower them with great praise, I'm as puzzled as I am when people praise Friends, a show that was almost aggressive in its refusal to be amusing. Stewart seems to be able to take the most mediocre Tonight Show-style monologue and use his delivery to beat any humor our of it. He did the impossible -- he made me long for Jay Leno to deliver the same material. For the sake of this piece, though, I'm going to pretend that Jon Stewart isn't just funny, but is hilariously so. I'm going to pretend that Jon Stewart is the Funniest Man Ever to Live, the Voice of a Generation, a Revolution in Comedy, etc. Those who know me should be aware that this is merely a rhetorical position for the sake of this piece, and that I have not taken leave of my senses.
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Juice Lee’s Final Fantasy

Nerdcore rapper origin stories tend to follow two basic archetypes:

  1. Nerds are seeking an outlet for their nerdiness, and find that outlet in rap.
  2. Rappers have a lot of nerdy interests, and begin to incorporate those interests in their music.

Often they have a conversion story, a moment that they realized what they really wanted to do with their art. Cincinnati-based nerdcore rapper Juice Lee can pinpoint his conversion moment exactly, to a 2010 meeting with legendary nerdcore rapper Mega Ran.

In Juice Lee’s debut album, Metanoia, you can hear Juice straining against the conventional topics of rap. From the opening track, “Deaf Ears,” he is hyper-aware of his difficulty in finding an audience, and in the ways he is violating the stereotypes of rap. Though it has traditional tracks like “Police State,” the stronger ones are those like “Metanoia,” calling himself to a more educated and intelligent rap. When I interviewed Juice recently, he described the experience of recording before his moment of nerdcore revelation, where the local rappers couldn’t understand what he was doing, but the nerdier sound engineer got it exactly. The entire album has a subtext of frustration.

It’s hard to imagine how Juice could have continued. He either had to sell out his voice to an audience that wasn’t interested in it, or he would have to accept his music continuing to fall on “Deaf Ears.” All that changed (not when the Fire Nation attacked) when he was introduced to Mega Ran in 2010.  Suddenly he learned that there was a name for what he did, and that there was already a nerdcore audience waiting for him.

This revelation did not just change his artistic direction; it unleashed him. His next album, The Epic of John Fong, is a rap opera fan fiction of an obscure kung fu film — about as high-concept and nerdy an album as you could imagine. Juice Lee jumped into the deep end of nerdcore, embracing long-form storytelling and relishing geeky obsessions. With Mega Ran as a mentor, he was positioned to make a serious impact.

Then, to hear Juice Lee tell it, he squandered his opportunity. He took relationships for granted, and didn’t hustle like nerdcore artists need to do to connect to their audience. His next albums, It’s Unclear at this Point and Double Dragon (with I-EL) , never caught fire like he had hoped. Juice made a lot of music (that album is huge at 30 tracks), but he assumed that things would just fall into place, and that just didn’t happen.

Here is where his love for retro-gaming didn’t just provide fodder for his music; it informs his career choices. Juice took inspiration from the story of Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy game franchise. According the the myth, Sakaguchi was frustrated with how things were going at Square, where he was the Director of Planning and Development, and he had decided to quit game development and go back to school — but he decided to create just one more game, (hence the “Final” in Final Fantasy). The game was a hit, and Sakaguchi’ went from being a failed game developer to a legend.

Juice’s latest album, The Reverie, is an homage to Sakaguchi, and is his own Final Fantasy. Rather than just give up, Juice decided to pour everything into The Reverie. The first-person narrative of the album can be heard either as the voice of Hironobu Sakaguchi, or of Juice Lee himself. Using all the XP he has gained in the last few years, Juice produces tracks like “Con-Soul” that act as meditations on the role that gaming has had on him and a generation.

Although he has good single tracks like those on It’s Unclear at this Point, Juice Lee is at his best when he steps out of himself and does long-form storytelling for others, such as John Fong and Hironobu Sakaguchi. In other words, he draws his strength from roleplaying, allowing his characters to speak for him. It is through his reverie that Juice Lee finds hope for his final fantasy.

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Help Us Disney — You’re Our Only Hope!

2014 was a dismal year for film, and it bodes ill for the future. Looking at the top-grossing films of the year (and since it is show business, this is generally a good indicator of what will be made in the future), all of the top 10 were franchise films, and you’ve got to get down to #15, Interstellar, before you hit the first non-franchise movie. Of course, this is not to say that no good films were made this year – 1941 is brought to mind, a year in which the dreadful How Green Was My Valley won five Oscars, yet The Maltese Falcon came in 30th in the earnings, and Citizen Kane came in 57th.

With filmgoers (that’s you and me, folks) voting with their dollars for more franchise films, and not for great original films like The Good Lie, we can expect the next few years to be all franchises. Movies will be a lot of McDonalds, with a dismal sameness to them. Even more depressing is the sheer number of top-grossing movies in which nothing happened at all – consider, for example, Mockingjay, Part I, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, both movies which consist primarily of reaction shocks from the protagonists because they have nothing else to do.

Great franchise films are hard to make. It’s not impossible for a filmmaker to sneak a good movie through – (1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon is a wonderful example of using thoughtful camera work to make a great creature-feature), but it’s just more difficult.

Let’s say, for example, that you were tasked with making the next Marvel movie. The aesthetics are pretty much already set, so you can’t deviate far (a happy except this year was Guardians of the Galaxy, but it had to be set so far away from the rest of the Marvel universe to make that possible). Characters and their arcs have to be adapted from an existing body of comic book work. From the moment you sign your contract, you’re shackled in setting, character, and plot.

Five years ago, if you had said to me, “Disney will acquire Star Wars, and this will be the best film news in years,” I’d have said you were crazy. And yet, here I am saying just that myself. Although there will no doubt be a few happy surprises in the next few years, our hope for franchises lies in Disney’s Star Wars.

Star Wars still holds, I think, the opportunity to make good, even great, films. Yes, the aesthetic look and sounds of the Star Wars Universe are set, but by relegating the old Expanded Universe to “Star Wars Legends,” Lucasfilm and Disney have an opportunity for good storytelling with dynamic characters and dramatic tension. Everything is really only bound by what came before in the story, and what is to come is no longer preordained. Setting is determined, but plot and character is still free.

This doesn’t mean the films will be great; we are just as likely to get another Phantom Menace as an Empire Strikes Back. But the freedom filmmakers have open up new territory to explore sophisticated ideas, to create thematic parallels with other films, to make Star Wars films aimed at various audiences, from wacky droid adventure musical cartoons for children, to sophisticated character meditations for adults. Could it be a horrible disaster? Of course … just I like to think we’ve got a new hope.

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A Very Viking Yule

Gather ’round, boys and girls, as Professor Awesome reads to you an early 15th-century tale that tells of the ancient Viking past, set around the 5th or 5th century, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. In this tale you will hear of the champion Bodvar, and how he defeats a Yule-tide monster, and turns his cowardly friend Hott into the hero Hjalti.

 

Cover image shamelessly stolen from io9.

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