Bleeding from your face is the new Black

5 become 1

2008-05-24T22:27:00.008+01:00

Today's post discusses one of the most prominent contributors to the 1980's hardcore straight-edge scene - SSD, or Society System Decontrol.

I'll jump right in and show you a photo from the rightfully legendary Glen E. Friedman (while his friends were busy inventing skateboarding, he got to work inventing skate photography aged 12 - Seriously though the guy has shot more of the album covers in your collection and posters on your wall than you're likely aware) profiling the band's singer, David 'Springa' Spring and leader/guitarist Al Barille. I always found the expression and pose of Barille to be just about as intense as it comes, I'd easily go so far as to say this is one of my favourite photos of all time, if not the favourite.

I really don't want to write too much about this photo, because I think there's only so much you can say, either it hits you or it doesn't. Also because it's late and I'm lazy.

I would say I am a fan of this band, but they don't neccessarily shine out musically by any significant amount to my mind.

I enjoy the guitars and the overall sound of the band but I think my main gripe is the lack of variation present. They have some GREAT songs ('Eighteen' being my favourite by quite a way, redefining the word "angst" in roughly 41/2 minutes), the only problem being that, while all bands obviously posess a defining sound, in the case of SSD this sound seems to be applied far to rigidly to each song, resulting in a lack of distinction from track to track.

This could be stating the obvious but I have always found vocals to be important in the way I recieve a band, I find on the whole a singer's voice either gels or it just plain doesn't. I can't give too many evidenced reasons as to why I am not so hot on Springa's vocal work. The same reason I don't like olives or films featuring Laura Linney I guess - I just plain don't like it that much. I will say however that the vocal section of SSD has always struck me as somewhat murky and difficult to absorb. This observation is not to be misplaced as a dislike of the often pragmatically incomprehensible vocal delivery, as just a quick glance over to Bad Brains' throat-maestro H.R. shows you don't neccesarily need to hand-deliver every word to successfully communicate.

Interestingly, just recently some controversy has kicked off about a possible reunion show, which apparently only Springa has associated himself with, along with a backing section of random hired goons. Barille has denounced the idea and disassociated himself and the remainder of the members from the show with the following response. It's long and I wasn't intending on posting it here but I really do recommend you read it, there's some class lines in it.

"There is absolutely no truth to any speculation that SSD will be performing this summer. The fact is original vocalist David Spring "Springa" is assembling a band of hired guns to tour and rip off the public playing under the name SSD. Due to his selfish actions David Spring has officially been terminated from ALL association with the band SSD. His attempt to recreate SSD in 2008 will utterly fail and I hope the public will not attend his performances and if they do they make it as miserable as possible for him to remain on stage safely. I know I personally will make every attempt to make him pay for his corrupt, cheating selfish actions. SSD will always be a team with integrity. It's unfortunate that a fat overweight "has been" and "nobody" will try to fool the public under the mighty moniker SSD.

His overall contribution to what made SSD such a special band is so far under the radar and almost next to zero. Anybody intimately involved and close to the band understands his contribution. The real fact is that the band had to go out of its way to compensate for his talent, work ethic and criminal behavior.

I feel bad for those fans who have been waiting for a chance to see the band but attending this Dave Springa performance is a travesty and borderline criminal. He is a terrible human being and I'm not just saying this now. He is basically the reason the band dissolved. Our relationship has been civil since we stopped playing but clearly after then band dissolved his musical and organizational ability pretty much guaranteed his ability to get to get zero accomplished. He couldn't write a song if it fell in his lap. Having said that, I have been monitoring this potential SSD ripoff roadshow for sometime and I have done my best to discourage it through various legal and illegal tactics. I have actually held off some royalties and payments to hold over his head and help him make the right decision.

He is basically following the business model laid out by Cliff from the Freeze, Chris Doherty from Gang Green, Choke from Slapshot. I can only speculate but I believe their motives are clear. I hate to throw anybody under the bus but I'm sure this support system of 40 year olds living in the past has helped David Spring organize the tour.

Motives

1) Rip off the public as 40 plus year-olds playing music made by kids and capitalize on American Hardcore Movie.

2) Make enough money to buy their alcohol, drugs and coke and whatever else.

3) Pounce on as many foreign chicks who think these American punk rock stars are special and give them 20 year old pussies. Hopefully they will give them something else as well.

4) Escape their miserable lives and US wifes and girlfriends to pursue their sexual fantisies.

5) Hopefully come back to US with enough money so they can collect unemployment and continue their life avoiding a disciplined work schedule in which you wake up and go to work. They will repeat the cycle every two years.

If it wasn't for my efforts, Springa would have justified this plan and pulled this shit sooner. It seems like he might pull it off this time but I am a fucking fighter and I don't take well to people ripping me off and tarnishing the name of my band. I am assemblng a network of supporters who will help do everything possible to make him uncomfortable and fearful for his safety at each show. If he gets close to the Boston or New York area then I will execute the plan. My goal is to make the tour fall apart due to poor attendance, hopefully get the promotors to back off after my legal representative serve papers. I would also appeal to the general public to understand when they are getting ripped off and for them to NOT BELIEVE that this lineup is SSD. It's just a fat overweight scumbag breaking ranks from the band. He must be stopped.

Please share this letter to anybody or any punk rock news outlet. It's time to put a stop to these rogue motherfuckers who have no integrity. Anyone who can help make David Spring's life miserable will be on my list of close friends who I will be entirely indebted to and hopefully I can repay the favor somehow.

Thanks

Alan Barile
Leader SSD"

I think there are some pretty erstwhile statements in that letter, many of which, as I read them, reminded me of why I keep coming back to SSD despite not being entirely blown-away by every facet of their music. It has a certain youthful intensity to it I find entertaining to read for the same reasons I enjoy listening to this guy's music.

My concluding topic is the reason I decided to use SSD as the focus of today's post. While going through the motions of your usual Friday night Wikipedia triva-felch last night, I clicked through to the article about SSD's drummer, Chris Foley. I won't detail the article here, go check it out for yourself. One thing I will say though is... Hardcore...
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While writing this post I clicked the ever-useless 'Random Page' link on Wikipedia, and got this as a result, which made me probably a little happier than it should have.

My Corona

2008-05-23T10:28:00.000+01:00

Short post today, pointing anyone who stumbles across this in the direction of my favourite San Pedro hardcore punk triplet of the moment, The Minutemen.

The ability to turn even ignorant narrow-minded schlumburgers like me who think acoustic music 'is for chumps' onto such oft distortion-free licks is certainly no small deal. Personally, I normally deplore punk bands who present acoustic variations of their work, but (aside from the fact the two styles are presented in parallel anyway, there's no repackaging going on here) due to the level of musicianship so ingrained in these guys' work there is no bridge to be crossed in the first place. This being an opposition to the norm of the excercise just being a novel way of presenting songs that really weren't designed for guitars that you don't have to plug in, as is often the case.

I'll spare you my usual "all the kids with their fancy modern spangle bands don't know what they owe these guys" rant but I will say anyone who dares question these guys' Hardcore credentials gets a mouthful of fist.

I heartily recommend you go YouTube stalk 'em.
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"I'D LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT!"

2008-05-22T13:02:00.021+01:00

If you haven't seen any updates to this blog for a while, try pressing F5 to refresh the page, or maybe try deleting your temporary internet files. If neither of those methods work then it's probably because I haven't made a new post in months. Or your F5 key is broken.

Anyhow today's (gargantuan) post takes a look at the new Mr. Men animated series 'The Mr. Men Show', the existence of which I was made aware of by spotting a stranger carrying a themed bag at a train station a few days ago.

For those of you not in the know (I don't know how big the series of books is outside the UK), the show is based on the Mr Men and (lets face it, lame) Little Miss books, an extensive series of young children's books created and illustrated by Roger Hargreaves from 1971 up to Hargreaves' death in 1988. A few posthumous additions were made to the series by Hargreaves' son, Adam. Each book carried a title such as “Mr Lazy” or “Mr Small” and would then detail the daily exploits of its primarily coloured, geometrically shaped eponymous character and the related situations their prevalent personality trait or physical characteristic would bring about;

Mr. Small lives under a daisy and regularly ends up falling into jam jars and suchlike, Mr. Strong eats loads of eggs for breakfast then helps people out by carrying heavy stuff etc. and Mr. Tickle runs around joyously terrorising the other Mr. Men, making good of his god-given gift of bright orange super-long wiggly arms, etc. etc. so on and so forth.

In short, it's the kind of astoundingly simple yet at the same time beautifully cohesive and proficient brand of children's fiction that make everyone a little sad to ever have to resign to reading books with more words than pictures.

The series and its associated properties have always been marketed fairly thoroughly (Whether such decisions are a good or bad thing isn't something I'll discuss for now [See Calvin & Hobbes Vs. Garfield].), and there have been a few incarnations of an animated Mr. Men show in the past, but I'd like to focus on this most recent one; 'The Mr. Men Show', created by Renegade Animation in 2006.

The first thing that jumped out at me when I spotted a few characters from the show plastered on this bag a few days ago was the fact that the Mr. Men now have eyebrows, or at least eyelids, a small black line extending from their previously eyes. See the comparison below, with the original Mr. Tickle on the left, and the redux version on the right.

This sparks off an argument in my mind that, speaking as a cartoonist (not wanting to sound like a dick though), I encounter often. Cartoons are often met with disdain by many of the surrounding artistic communities, the most prevalent reason for this being the misconception that it is easy, or simple (and followingly a waste of time) to draw them. I originally saw the decision to throw in this eyelid line as a manifestation of this trivialisation. In short, I saw it as a downgrading of the intently precise and heavily-developed and worked-on, yet seemingly simple illustrative quality of Hargreaves' work.

I would like to underscore the above baiting with a look at Mr. Noisy's shoes, shown in their original form below. The sumptuous grain of his shoes are to me a prime example of the distinctive, important and era-defining details that can so easily be glossed over in Hargreaves' 'simple' illustrative work. I remember being impressed by his shoes as a kid, and the feeling still carries over now. As a result, I was glad to see that the grain lives on (albeit tweaked slightly) in his 2006 reincarnation.

It is one example of the well-placed compromising consideration the show's creators have given to character redesign and implementation, contrary to my initial reaction and reception of the work. Another example would be the decision to use lines to provide shading on many characters' noses (See Mr. Grumpy for instance) rather than the more seemingly obvious choice of block shading. After coming to the conclusion through observations such as this that the designers were in fact not out to piss all over the original designs, instead attempting to incorporate them into a more contemporary aesthetic, I think that they have done well in updating the characters and making them workable and pragmatically animate-able within the context of a contemporary animated children's T.V. show.

A quick look on the Renegade Animation website reveals they look for qualities in their potential employees such as a solid grounding in drawing, design and classical animation techniques, an admirable set of criteria I see as having paid dividends. Aside from the various already-discussed successful design choices made by the show's creative team, the animation is pretty impressive too.

The Mr. Men, with their distinctive design realised through heavy-set outlines and lack of detailed tonal information are a good choice for the assigned brand of somewhat limited (movement-wise) episodic digital animation. The show's teaser trailer (which I now can't find) displays a comical sequence of Mr. Tickle falling off a roof, with a pleasing amount of comedy drawn purely from the timing of the fall. This is an example of a quality (being the preciseness of considered and correctly timed/spaced movement for varying desired effect) that is so often missing from a lot of animation, yet remains, for me at least, one of the (if not the most) alluring qualities of the medium. Either I'm going soft or digital animation is getting better but either way The Mr. Men Show is a great example of top quality animators making the best of a limited palette of movement and expression.

The show has hit a little bit of controversy over the observation that most of the Mr. Men with negative characteristics seem to have foreign accents. Some might label assigning Mr. Rude a French accent well researched, others would call it offensive. One man (or Mr. Man)'s freedom fighter is another's casual racist I guess. Ultimately I think it's a harmless decision and one made for successful comic effect.

Getting back to the topic at hand, modernisation and redesign is an unavoidable aspect of any serialisation such as this. For the most part, I think the production is absolutely stunning. I think the music, though simple, is well placed and appropriate, the voice artistry is tangible and well-applied and the backgrounds follow a (albeit somewhat fashionable at the moment) 50's-style Hanna-Barbera (Yogi Bear, The Flintstones etc. etc.) throwback moulding, employing textured mattes and pastel colours applied to blocky, basic shapes. The show is essentially the latest aesthetic follow-on from the ball put into motion by Gennedy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab), Craig McKracken (The Powerpuff Girls) and co., which I see as no bad thing, being a fan of this whole 'Cartoon Modern' movement.

As you may have gathered from my earlier discussion of character redesign, I was initially going to totally slam the show for some of its aesthetic choosings, due to the inevitable knee-jerk fanboy response anyone feels when they see someone “messin' with the classics”.

However after spending a while thinking about the show and considering it through the writing of a post like this, I think it has actually been quite cleverly, carefully and successfully pieced together. My main gripe was the lack of cohesion between the throwback-style UPA (UPA are a ye olde worlde American animation studio) backgrounds and the very distinctive already-discussed Mr. Men themselves, but as this article from the show's associated blog (More shows need blogs like this, it makes for fantastically interesting reading.) points out, the contrasting styles actually cause the Mr. Men to 'really pop' and stand out from the image, as oppose to simply standing apart.

While I have an immoveable soft spot for the series' original backgrounds (seen below [kinda]) with their blissfully thick black outlines and primary colours (almost looking like the kind of background a child would draw), I also think that to have remained consistently over-loyal towards the series' 70's stylings could have possibly had a detrimental, dating effect on the end product. Looking at the original composite image presented in the books, I think that an entirely faithfully reproduced animated version would indeed be somewhat murky and overwhelming on the eye and wind up difficult for the eye to read.

I see The Mr. Men Show as a collation of the classic UPA style design aesthetic, independent late 70's British cartooning and contemporary digital US animation. While I would have liked to have seen a slightly heavier influence from the 70's Brit aspect of the mix, perhaps influencing the UPA stylings to give it an added unique little twist, I think that ultimately this cohesive effort is pretty damn successful and provides a rejuvenating, fresh glance at a classic series of kids books.

People need to make more shows like this one.
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Primus suck

2008-02-29T17:11:00.006Z

Well it's that time again where I write some half-assed post with either a prefix or suffix explaining why I never post on here and how I certainly intend to, to keep my readers from leaving altogehter (both of them), then disappear until the next month. Honestly though, I do mean to post on here more, so stick with it!

I'll keep this short because I think perhaps over-long posts are the reason I post so infrequently, and I can't see them being that much fun to read. Also I am strill trying to nail down a voice here. Anyhow, on with the half-assery:

If you put the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in some sort of machine that stops bands being shit, Primus would come out the other end. They follow a similar style; Primus are basically jam band with a heavy reliance on bass, which gives their output an entirely unique bend. They're the underdog nerdlinger to RHCP's meathead fashionista; they do the job better but draw too much fun out of acting like dorks, so get snubbed by the cool kids. Primus are obviously a big band, but relatively unknown and underrated, however anyone who's sat through South Park's intro sequence has had a listen of 'em. Any band who's bass-domineering frontman names his house by means of a Simpsons reference has got to be alright in my book.

With the kind of thought process that drives them to wear long-johns on stage, assign themselves the slogan 'Primus Suck' and record videos and pen lyrics so nonsensical they go all the way round and start making sense again, Primus are the kind of stupid band that make you realise it's kind of a shame to see so many musicians today taking themselves so seriously again. I know "they don't make 'em like that any more" is an annoyingly ignorant and defeatist, old-man kind of thing to say, but they really don't. Which reminds me, stay the fuck off my lawn.

There's another layer to my adulation of Primus which I can't quite verbalise, a sort of misplaced nostalgia, misplaced because I obviously wasn't around to get nostalgic about them in the first place.
Bands like Primus make me want to travel back in time to an early 90's middle-America just to sit in a car park and throw rocks at cars. They make me jealous of the people for whom having friends like Bill & Ted isn't just a wonderful fantasy, but a blissful reality. They make me want to buy a pair of shorts so garish they'd give even the most Japanese of children a seisure.

If I was Bill Murray and got perpetually stuck in any given day in a 1994 America, I would be pretty happy. Actually that goes for any situation in which I am Bill Murray.

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Clover Dangerfield

2008-02-03T22:23:00.003Z

Today's post takes a look at the hot film of the moment, Cloverfield, produced by everyone's current favourite filmmaking pinup, Lost creator J.J. Abrams; which I see as a little unfair towards its director, Matt Reeves. Nobody thinks of Schindler's List as Schindler's List produced by Branko Lustig do they? I'll jump right into it, cause I just spent 3 hours writing the below and can't be bothered to give any fluidity to the addition of this post-written introduction and I'm starting to not be able to think of any words over 4 letters in length without the use of a thesaurus.

One observation I couldn't shake from my thoughts whilst watching the film was how heavily it smelt like Valve's Half-Life (the first one - more on that later) which I see as no bad thing, due to the biting impact and top-notch level of craftsmanship exuberated within the game, so I'm all for ripping stuff off if it results in even just a handful of more palatable productions at the end of the day. I guess if nobody ever ripped anything off, everyone would still be running around in leopard-skin loincloths, painting bison on cave walls with blood from their spouse's newly-caved in skull. I suppose 'drawing influence from' would be the more amiable term in such a situation as this.

The one key ingredient in Half-Life's trademark technique of using a direct, unfaltering first-person to frame the narrative which Cloverfield fails to take note of as it 'draws inspiration from' the method is to never, ever show the face of this aforementioned first person. Not to disregard the array of selling points present within the series such as the general haunting aesthetic, the atmospheric (- possibly the laziest word ever?), claustrophobic level design and the bravely appropriate colour pallete; it is arguably the immersive, insular feeling envoked by the use of this 'first-person only' trick that is responsible for so much of the game's weight and magnitude.

Half-Life itself sets down the rules for using this technique, displaying that you can push it just about as far as showing a single image of the protaganist's face on the loading screen and that's pretty much it. To take it any further, for instance to have the character turn the camera round and deliver an address, face clearly shown, as Cloverfield does a few times, shatters any effect assimilated by the technique.

The success of the method lies in the assumed ambiguity of the protaganist, allowing the viewer to slot themselves neatly into this person's boots; any over-abuse of this ambiguity can have only negative effects. I believe Half-Life 2 also proves testament to this, with its over-characterisation (meant in terms of both frequency and humanisation of characters) resulting in far less an insular experience.

This failing doesn't however seem to detract too considerably from the film, it still remains an extremely agreeable and interesting filmic event to partake in. I think the fact that you leave feeling that you have indeed partaken in something, a cinematic experience, rather than just watched a film, is proof of the areas in which the film succeeds. Noticeably, the most enjoyable sections of this film are when our wise-cracking cameraman shuts up for a few seconds and just takes in the carnage surrounding not only him, but also us. I find the grounding asides excuseable due to the success of these sections of the film.

The only other major shortfall for me was that the cast were way too good-looking. Now this could just be some bitterness drawn from my own lifelong chiselled-jaw and designer-stubble impairments but I think the glut of beautiful people in this film wrecks a lot of the ground gained through the successes on other fronts.

I hear a lot of people shouting about how the film is ruined by the showing of the monster; that it's not a terrifying enough beast, the CGI is crap, even that it sucks you receive no closure in terms of where it came from or what happens to it after the bomb drops. This moaning is why Alfred Hitchcock never lets you read his top secret plans in The 39 Steps. It doesn't matter what the plans are, the only thing that matters is their presence as a driving force within the narrative. To reveal them, just as to reveal the origins of the Cthulu-esque behemoth in Cloverfield would, aside from a slight sense of satisfaction at the given closeure, ultimately bring nothing but disappointment. This technique is called a 'MacGuffin'. See also Pulp Fiction's much sought-after briefcase.

If anything I think the 'bad' monster actually allows you to appreciate and revel in the fun you had with the mystery and hype of the build up; to go in to the cinema knowing as little as possible about a film can actually be quite nice sometimes, it makes you realise,as soon as your hopes are dashed by some shoddy CGI that for a brief time, you believed again that you really could be terrified by a filmmakers vision and I think the anticipative moments of the film are pretty damn tense, if not genuinely scary. I would almost go as far to say the anticipation and concept behind the film actually turn out to be more fun than the event itself. Kind of like your 14th birthday.

There is a little bit of cheating going on with the much advertised Cinéma vérité shaky handheld Blair Witch-esque camerawork, being the use of unnaturally steady establishing shots, used in contrast and accompaniment to the uneasy shaking image shot by our real-world cameraman. They are of course still from the perspective of our associate and luckily, are sparingly enough used to go nigh-unnoticed. I actually think they are 100% neccesary in the fabrication of the environment and readability of the film, to leave them out would result in far less of a grounding within the world put forward.

Basically, I found this film to be a very interesting experiment. It's in no way original and I don't think it professes itself as such, openly advertising its loaning of long-forgotten techniques (such as trailers that don't show you every single worth-watching bit of the film for instance) with a view to bundling them up along with a few new ideas and presenting them to a fresh audience.

The film clocks in I think at just over an hour; a prime example of the many convention-busting quirks that show that this really is a film with no fear of boldly-going-where-lots-of-films-have-gone-before-
-but-no-films-have-gone-recently and taking risks with a view to creating an experience significantly more intriguing and beguiling than most you'd find on the market at the moment.

If you laid out all my posts end-to-end, not only would they fail to reach the moon but I still wouldn't even have a post for every day of the month, not even the charade of a month that is February with its poxy 28/29 days, which is just embarassing. Though not as embarassing as the fact I had to look up how many days there are in February. I am working towards changing this recent drop-off in activity; I'm not going anywhere or doing anything until about Marchish it looks like, so we should have a steady flow of questionable content 'till then.

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Don't get your hopes up...

2008-01-06T23:16:00.000Z

...Just one of those annoying posts making excuses for my absence again...deadlines and whatnot.

Lots of good ideas for posts though, keep your eyes peeled!

The embiggening effect of cromulent voice acting

2008-01-01T01:21:00.001Z

I have always considered The Simpsons to be the most successful show, or in fact the most successful media product altogether, ever made, not in a Guardian T.V. critic 'huh-huh-look-everyone-it-appeals
-to-adults-and-children-and-even-twatty-Guardian-readers' kind of way, but in the way I am completely sold on the universe it puts forward, which seems to be deeper and more tactile than any other artificial world I have ever been faced with. This of course might be due to sheer volume of episodes consumed and the luxury of limitless development this brings with it, also the fact I pretty much grew up on nightly Simpsons double bills (thanks BBC2) - but I've also (unwillingly) watched a lot of the new Doctor Who and I still think that's utter shit, so there must be some other factors involved aside from volume.

One of the major factors in the show's success in the realisation of this world is, to my eyes, the superb voice acting talent it employs; not so much in the cases of the Simpsons themselves but the supporting cast, mostly voiced by Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer. The actors behind the family are of course equally prominent in fleshing out the Simpson's world, though more for their unique identifiableness and intense characterisation, as opposed to their versatility, as with Azaria and Shearer's work.

Having the same people voice such a number of characters often backfires, resulting in a listless, 2-dimensional end product, as is evident in examples such as Family Guy, or anything with UK 'impersonators' John Culshaw or Alistair McGowan in it, all shining examples of blandly predictable, repetitive and generic voice artistry. Having everyone sound the same shatters any suspension of reality, and grounds the viewer firmly back into consciousness. I find it interesting that it is often shows with blandly predictable, repetitive and generic design and aesthetic qualities that tend to utilise these actors.

There are two types of voice acting, being caricature, exaggerating a voice or vocal style to make a point, or facsimile, a flawless reproduction of a familiar vocal. Another problem within the vocal work, aside from a lack of variety, in the aforementioned and other similar examples, is that often they either unsuccessfully take the caricature too far, or don't reach a necessary level of accuracy in terms of facsimile impersonation.

Observing The Simpsons, we are presented with a solution; the only time a cast member is called on to perform a celebrity voice is to outright satirize, so vocal caricature is needed for comedic effect; or to depict a character such as McBain, who is a caricature anyway. The rest of the time, the actual celebrity provides his or her own voice, assigning much more credence and validity to the depiction, regardless of whether within a serious or comical context. The Simpsons recognises the need for appropriation within voice acting and as a result succeeds where others fail. Having two actors with inhumanly versatile and consistent voices, who are able to combine caricature with realism in just the right measure (look at Kent Brockman for example - humorous vocal caricature of a newsreader, yet at the same time grounded enough to remain believable) so seamlessly can't hurt much either.

Anyhow the spark for this post was in the episode 'Sideshow Bob Roberts', a pastiche of political debates and election campaigns within America, which features a caricature of the classic politics pundit, a character called 'Birch Barlow'.

Birch is a bright example of how The Simpsons and Shearer and Azaria accomodate the shortfalls of the medium such as time and monetary constraints; the animation here implementing only the most necessary movements and nuances to communicate the joke, almost like an animated sketch, with highly proficient and appropriate voice acting stitched in over the top to flesh out the image.

I couldn't find a video of Birch moving or talking anywhere on the Internet, which is a shame as it would make a good study of animating for comedic effect, so to make up for it, here is a clip from the Ren & Stimpy episode "Space Madness".

It is a prime example of how powerful, varied and dynamic voice work can bring so much to an animation, in this case turning a sequence that is essentially comprised of stills with a little limited animation layered on top into a dramatic, energetic and tense comic scene.

Voiced by John Kricfalusi himself (also the show's creator), Ren's delivery of the line "It's the history eraser button, you fool!" is in my mind the greatest single piece of cartoon-based voice acting there is; an almost criminal level of caricature, characterisation, passion and madness, which just bleeds a quality and depth so rarely found within animation voice acting.

John K.'s voice work is executed in such a way so as to make up for the shortcomings of the medium (in this case time and budget), building on the possible strengths of one aspect to account for the unavoidable weaknesses of another; like adding speed lines to a static drawing to communicate movement. His voice work is vocal cartooning at its best.

For an extra example of making the most of limited capabilities, look at Stimpy's leap right after pressing the button (1:29). Just one drawing, but assigned to motion timed and spaced so perfectly as to read and communicate just as well if not better than more seemingly substantial animation might do.

A lot of the time, particularly with a considerable amount of graduate films I have seen, the voice work seems to have been left until the very end and seen as wholly insignificant. Often it is performed by the student themselves, which is fine - where appropriate - but often it isn't appropriate at all and ends up missing the mark by a long shot. I feel there is a great deal of weight and force vacant from the vast majority of student film voice acting, which often totally undermines any other strengths of the film. People need to recognise the strengths and weaknesses of their own voices, and the effect of having all your characters sound like a 21-year old animation student can have on the credibility of your film.

A good mainstream example of this can be seen in Brad Bird's Edna Mode character in The Incredibles; considering the rest of the voice talent is so brilliantly cast and cohesive, it seems a shame to have the torment that is E's chronically undeveloped voice stick out so sorely from the film. Ace film though. It's hard to stay mad at Brad Bird for too long an amount of time.

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Not only born but also raised in Philadelphia. West Philadelphia.

2007-12-27T01:18:00.000Z

After a few weeks of absence due to a combination of laziness, technical problems and laziness, this evening I finally saw something deserving enough of comment, that being Will Smith's latest demonstration of how to royally skullfuck any given example of classic 20th-century sci-fi literature; 'I Am Legend'.

As a warning to anyone who cares, there will probably be some spoilers in here, so perhaps steer clear if you haven't seen it yet.

Whereas I found myself genuinely entertained (as oppose to 'fraudulently'? - Ed.) at points by 'I, Robot' (despite the inevitable lack of loyalty to the source material), the same Fresh Prince + guns + impending apocalypse + car crashes + explosions compound doesn't seem to work here. Probably mostly due to the lack of mano-a-mano robot brawls this time round but there are a whole bunch of other problems too.

In both the literal visual sense and the narrative based sense, some parts of this film just plain don't read properly.

Visually, a lot of the fight scenes don't read, due to the film signing up to the current fashion within cinema of zooming all your fight scenes right in and cutting like crazy all over the place making things completely incomprehensible.

In terms of the basic communicative aspects of the film's narrative, there are lots of flaws. One of the zombie things seems to have a vendetta against Smith's character (who's name I have forgotten - always a good sign), which after much discussion, my brother and I later worked out must be due to the fact that he had earlier nicked his zombie girlfriend to do an experiment on but you're never quite sure if you're seeing the same zombie thing jeering at him, or a different zombie thing jeering at him, due to the fact that they all look so similarly droll and generic.

To steal the zombie guy's girlfriend, our hero rigs up a rope snare to a car, draws out the zombie thing and then triggers the snare by pushing the car off a bridge. Later on, we see Smith ensnared by one of these traps too, though again in this case, it's not explained clearly enough whether Smith's character has been snagged by one of his own pre-set zombie traps, or one set by someone else. You end up relying on your past experiences of watching zombies learning how to do stuff in films to join the dots and come to the conclusion our vendetta-zombie friend must have set it, resulting in my parents being completely thrown by this event and my brother and I being just able to bend our Romero-versed minds around it.

It's simply not explained properly in the film whether the zombie things are mindless beasts or do in fact have some mental capacity, which creates a plethora of issues and problems with how the film reads, a major flaw that should have been edited out long before the end of production.

The film borrows heavily from a lot of contemporary horror flicks, most notably Danny Boyle's '28 Days Later', what with the whole shared 'deserted-streets-littered-with-ravenous-super-zombies' premise. However 'I Am Legend' trips up in its arrogant emulation of Boyle's poignantly desolated shots of central London due to the fact that this time round the film-makers add overgrown grass to the New York streets which, as oppose to presenting the viewer with the familiar landscape under eerily unfamiliar conditions, instead purports an entirely new landscape, completely nullifying the original concept's unsettling effect and magnitude.

A fairly hefty celluloid-based hatred of mine that this movie managed to accomplish brilliantly was the classic "show 'em every good bit of the movie in the trailers" technique, employed here to infuriating extremes, to the point where you pretty much knew exactly what was going to happen in every (already somewhat predictable) scene. Again, not quite to the extent of some other movies; most-notably 'The Simpsons Movie', wherein literally every scene and even remotely amusing joke (of which there were, what, like 3 in the whole movie?) had been spoiled by watching the trailer.

I suppose it has to be done though as obviously in today's moviegoing climate, pictures that don't get gratuitously publicised don't get watched, as Grindhouse recently showed us. The latest J.J. Abrams movie, the one about the whatever-it-is attacking New York City, seems to be doing well so far; myself having seen 3 different trailers at this point, still not even being given a glimpse of 'the monster'. Taking a look at a movie like Peter Jackass' 'King Dong'; for some odd reason the producers decide to show you more than enough of the mon(k)ey-shot of the great big gorilla in the trailers, which seems silly for a film you only go to see to look at the great big gorilla.

The thing that bugged me most about the movie though, yes, even more than the obligatory Will-Smith-pumping-iron-with-no-shirt-on scene, was the gallon of shoddy CG ladled on top of this movie.

First off, the film is another prime example of effects-related complacency within modern film-making and an unnecessary over-reliance on CGI. Fair enough to use a CG deer for ethical reasons when it's getting mauled by a (CG) lion, but where is the need to CG the shots of the deer standing around, or running about the (CGI) grass?? Surely it's cheaper to get down HSS and rent out Bambi and some of his mates for the day? Still, not a patch on Naomi Watts juggling CG rocks in Peter Jackass' King Dong.*

Secondly, Will Smith's tormentors in this movie, the 'Duskcrawlers' or 'Darkcreepers' or whatever the hell other generic name they were given (I have literally forgotten [As oppose to metaphorically? - Ed.]), were entirely CG, at all times. They were about as fluidly integrated into the fabric of the movie as Nick Griffin would be at the MOBO awards, your standard rubberised blandly-coloured CGI demon fare, about as original and terrifying as a wet pancake, getting shocks only from making you jump, as oppose to inducing any real terror. Actually I tell a lie, there is one sequence with Will Smith fumbling around in the dark looking for his dog that is genuinely fearsome and nerve-tensing, which does a pretty good job of removing you from reality for a few minutes, but I was hastily grounded again by the cro-magnon twathammer next to me who's phone went off. So I'm a little biased there I guess.

Anyway I'm not suggesting a return to horrific mid-90's 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'-esque prosthesis work, but this over-reliance on CG is intensely unhealthy for cinema. Looking at an old movie like Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead', half the reason it works at all is because it inhabits an entirely literal, CG-free, smashing-melons-filled-with-corn-syrup physical realm.

CG is wonderful for allowing film-makers to achieve the most outlandish of visualisations but it also removes any sense of challenge from the endeavour, which in turn removes a lot of credibility and weight from the realisation. Think of it like spoiling a child; buy a kid a brand new Power Rangers Megazord with flashing lights and actual firing missiles every day of his life and eventually he will get mighty-morphin' bored. Film-making is becoming too easy, imagination and ingenuity are now second to spectacle. I think eventually someone will clock that what special effects need is a halfway-house combination of the two methods, drawing on the security of Tom Savini-esque real-world effects and the luxury of modern CG techniques to create a far more forceful end product.

I don't think it will take too long, my hope is that with the next generation of creatives being brought up surrounded by nothing but painfully morose CG, hopefully sometime soon people who can spot the method's flaws will start getting jobs and things will change fairly sharpish.

*Cartoons, wrestling, and now knob gags, what more could you ask for in a blog? (How about more snooty references to Private Eye? - Ed.)

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Hogan's heroes

2007-12-16T00:50:00.000Z

Wrestling isn't something I'd normally choose to write about here and don't get me wrong, I'm not what you'd consider a fan of it, though I was lucky enough to catch an episode of it last night.

It was actually a lot more entertaining that I was expecting, if not for the impressive acrobatics, for the hilarious over-the-top campy stylings of the 'storylines' inbetweening the action.

Anyhow one character I found particularly fun to watch was the madcap musclehead WWE CEO character, 'Vince McMahon', and one thing that was particularly fun to watch about Mr. McMahon was his madcap musclehead walk:

This is the only video I could find of it on YouTube, apologies for the quality, but it gives you a fair enough look at how it works.

A combination of a hilariously disproportioned body and years of breaking bones and snapping tendons, Mr. McMahon's strut is the strut to end all struts. It's not often you see such a level of caricature and exaggeration within real life, so it really jumps out at you when you see it. Ironically, a lot of animation is often lacking in such qualities.

I think if more animators took the time to invest such a performance within their work, there would be a great deal more appealing and stimulating material being produced nowadays.

Motion is the language by which we assign credence to reality but without accentuating and adding inflection to this language to create a more engaging didactic, you're wasting your time and totally missing the point of and opportunities allowed for by animation.

I find it genuinely depressing every time I see animation which neglects to take full advantage of the expression and communication the medium allows for. You wouldn't read a book full of bland, uncolourful language, so how can people be expected to take interest in the barrage of droll, listless animation there is today?

Well, worthwhile or not, I guess people don't seem to mind.

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BL'AST! off

2007-12-14T23:37:00.000Z

I've never really understood what people mean when they use the phrase 'post-hardcore', with it normally being employed as reference to bands such as Fugazi et al*, which strike me as post-hardcore only in the chronological sense.

If you ask me, in fact even if you don't, a band has to do a lot more than simply exist after 1984 to become post-hardcore in my mind. The true post-hardcore bands are the ones that take the principles and lessons (in terms of both sound and theory) learnt from hardcore and build upon these foundations to create a new, though heavily hardcore-reliant, still fresh and interesting environment. Musical evolution if you will.

This might be another dose of my trademark hardcore-related elitism kicking in, but I feel that bands such as these, which apply their hardcore upbringing to the convention and innovation of the day, genuinely seem to posess that extra little spark which seems to separate them and put them apart from the co-inhabitants of their chosen genre. Bands like The Hives, Nirvana, GWAR and suchlike**; placed within genres awash with repetitive clones, shining out thanks to that extra spoonful of intensity which, by my reasoning at least, is due to a solid grounding in hardcore.

GWAR, for one, are not just your average metal band. This is obvious on the surface, but underneath the wacky get-ups and metal riffs, they still so clearly exude that unique attitude and tinted view so evident within hardcore, also apparent within their unique, difficult to describe punked up speed-metal sound.

Observing The Hives, a highly energetic and concentrated outfit coupling scratchy, yelped vocals with decidedly punk rock guitar playing (lightning fast, energetic downstroke powerchords); by who's reasoning are they tagged with the denegrating 'indie pop' label?

This ambiguity makes it hard to legitimately categorise and assign genre to bands such as these. You can tell there's something different there, but you just can't quite put your finger on it.

Anyhow, getting back to the originally intended focus for this post; one band in particular I feel stands out in (my interpretation of) the post-hardcore club, that I was lucky enough to catch live a few weeks back is Fu Manchu, a stoner-rock 4-piece from, unusually for an intensified, high-energy surf/skate-rock band, Southern California.

Below is a video of Fu Manchu performing 'Hell on Wheels', chosen because it typifies their sound and gives as solid an inclanation as YouTube videos can as to how the band comes over live.

Note the communicative link between guitarist/frontman Scott Hill and drummer Scott Reeder during the anticipative intro; a prime example of the harmonious cohesion between members which I think contributes a lot to their highly-collaborative sound.

All gigs obviously have that sense of jittery anticipation among the crowd before the band comes out, but it felt somewhat different in this case.

Watching them take to the stage, watching Hill pick up his lucite Dan Armstrong guitar (weapon-of-choice for Greg Ginn, Black Flag originator and hardcore demi-god forefather) and tease out some feedback before the first number began, there was an odd almost uneasy sensation within the crowd as though everyone was secretly a little intimidated by just how intense and heavy they all knew things were about to get, yet at the same time innumerably over-excited.

Things were swiftly climaxed by a bracing screech shooting out from Hill's guitar as he lifted a foot high in the air and stomped it down with immesurable force, burdgeoning in the super-heavy crescendo to the tortuous build-up of prior moments, resulting in an en masse adrenaline rush as the band catapaulted into their set.

I don't know what it was about that foot stomp, but it seemed to be the perfect movement for the simultaneous explosion of sound, I just remember being totally shocked by the intensity and force it seemed to put out. I recall, upon seeing Hill put all his weight into that stomp, instantly knowing we were in for a good show. It was clear from that very first chord that these guys understood the true meaning of heavy metal. There was no warming up for this band, everyone dived right in from the get go. I found myself unable to resist after about 5 seconds jumped right into the middle of the pit.

All shows need to have pits like this one; it was violent and intense (To do list: 1. Buy Thesaurus. 2. Look up synonmns for 'intense'. 3. Buy milk.), yet at the same time not vicious or overly-brutal. Casual enough to go nuts and punch and push and kick to your hearts content, though with enough of a feeling of community and light-heartedness to avoid the all too common unpleasantly confrontational or combative atmosphere you find at a lot of shows. Basically, you could punch someone in the back of the head and shake hands with him afterwards; no-one was taking anything personally, it seemed like for once everyone was there just to let loose and have a good time rather than flex their muscles and beat down on someone.

Fu Manchu's trademark sound is a creamy, superbly-heavy maximum-fuzzed growl, blissfully slow and indulgent at certain points, then life-givingly fast and racy at others. On tape they come across as irresistably hard and heavy, but to really listen to Fu Manchu, you have to do it live.

There's 'loud' loud, then there's Fu Manchu, 'so-loud-your-spleen-rattles' loud. If ever there was a band to see in the flesh, Fu Manchu is it. This is down to a combination of a few different factors; to name but a few, the tenacity and sincerity of each member's gnarled performance, the sheer volume and thickness of their sound, the drums that drive right through you and most notably that all of their songs basically consist of a series of build-ups and climaxes (linked with some insanely vicious riffs), which are taken to a whole other level, amplified and accentuated even more when taken in as part of an exhuberant crowd.

Criminally heavy, agonisingly powerful, invigoratingly driving, delivered with a vicious snarl and unbridled veracity;

Fu Manchu are post-hardcore.

*I say 'et al' to try and hide the fact that Fugazi are the only 'post-hardcore' band I know...
**I can only think of these three examples at the moment, I'm sure there are more, feel free to pitch in if you think of any.

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Hiatus

2007-12-10T03:40:00.000Z

Just to mention to those whose lives have fallen apart since I stopped regularly posting, it's because I have a whole bunch of work to do, that I haven't done.

Regular service resumes on the 14th.

PEACH.

3-Way Tie for Last Place

2007-11-29T23:27:00.001Z

As a quick update to anyone that might be interested, even though there's a veto here on me posting my own work up, here is a rogue's gallery of the latest batch of postal Head-Body-Legs between me and my friends.

See? It's great fun, you get hilarious results and best of all, 'not being able to draw' actually HELPS!

DO THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

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Family man

2007-11-28T20:53:00.000Z

Here is an intensely enjoyable video I recently came across of 1985-era Black Flag, most predominantly Henry Rollins, being interviewed by some total schmuckface after a show. I'll leave my two cents till after you watch it.

Just as a quick side point, do you think that it is our duty to be archiving our favourite YouTube videos as oppose to just favouriting/linking them? Surely one day the user's account they are hosted on will expire, and some videos could be lost forever. I think perhaps people are a little short-sighted in their view of YouTube as an archiving tool, I prefer to think of it as a massive junk shop full of old cassette tapes that you have to snap up and archive yourself before they're gone. We're lucky that in the digital age, the degradation of the quality of such articles is pretty much over (on a time-scale basis, obviously downgrading quality can still happen) which we should use to our advantage to cryogenically freeze and duplicate these videos, as oppose to becoming complacent and assuming they will be there forever. Which I don't think they will. Anyway:

Henry Rollins is the literal embodiment of hardcore for me. He addresses every issue, ticks a box for every facet of the scene; the fiery rage, the unstoppable D.I.Y. work-ethic, the piercing focus, the unabridged anger and intensity, the Apollonian body image*, I see him as a summary of the entire movement.

I feel for the kid a little and you could call it a bunch of 20-somethings picking on an innocent 14-year old, but the kid totally asks for it with his various come-ons and total ignorance towards the subject. Also calling Henry Rollins a sellout probably isn't a good idea at the best of times. He is on absolutely top form in this interview, pulling no punches in his intimidation of his probably wet-trousered interviewer, the most vicious move for me being his curtly re-adjustment of the kid's shirt, it's uncomfortable even to watch. I love the way the kid just stands there petrified for the rest of the interview; notice that his shirt stays exactly where Henry puts it 'till the end. His question "Well this is your interview, dont you have anything to ask us?" after ripping the unfortunate sap to shreds is another masterstroke.

Proof that Henry is more than your average hardcore frontman meathead. The thinking man's thug. I'm sure Bill Stevenson (also the drummer for the Descendents, among others)'s concluding burp is saying something too, but I'll leave that one down to you.

This might just be me being an elitist bastard, but you have no way of knowing who's genuine within a scene unless the associated fashions have passed. This kid, for instance, strikes me as a bit of a little hanger-on, who would have been 'into' any movement that came along at the right time, hardcore just happened to pop up. Would the kids who are into indie and pop music nowadays have been into punk 30 years ago, just because it was the cool thing to be into? It's the bed-hopping fashion-followers such as this that lead towards the degeneracy and eventual destruction of a scene; distorting and warping the purity of the original state into numerous cataclysmic shoot-offs, having never been all that interested in the scene in the first place beyond image.

Just on the off chance that anyone catches this who might be interested, inbetween various radio and T.V. shows and numerous books, Henry has just recently announced some UK/European spoken-word dates for January/February 2008, a list of which can be found here - the first in a good few years by my reckoning. His tour dates are really quite somethng, literally day after day consecutive performances for weeks on end. I remember seeing a leaflet advertising his last tour on the floor at a gig I went to years ago, having no idea who he was ("Spoken-word is rubbish!") and treading on it haha.

*For anyone interested in a bit of further reading on the prominence of figures such as Rollins and also the subject of homoeroticism within hardcore, an issue I think everyone involved is aware of yet chooses to ignore, I recommend Stephen Blush's book, 'American Hardcore - A Tribal History'. It gets a bit tyrannical and "you-weren't-there-so-you-don't-know-jack-about-anything" towards the end, but it's quite refreshing to read a book about hardcore that delivers more than just the usual admirative reeling off (or praisegush as some might say) of the various bands and movements, looking a bit more into the social and psychological issues surrounding the scene.

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"Wait a minute, this sounds like rock and or roll..."

2007-11-28T02:57:00.000Z

Ashamedly, I can't really claim to be much into 'proto-punk' (or to quote Jello Biafra 'Primal Music', which I think sounds ace); the elite group of musicians labelled as the forefathers/concievers of punk-rock. Iggy and the Stooges, the New York Dolls, the Who (the Ramones to some extent) etc. etc. I suppose subconsciously my theory has always been why would I bother listening to what is essentially an unrefined version of a later, to my eye (well, ear), superior product? Obviously it's important and interesting to look at the preceding texts in all areas of the media, but I just never saw much appeal in proto-punk.

Except for the MC5 ('Motor-City Five'), that is. The MC5 are a band that I have no recollection of how I came across, I just remember being quite taken aback that such an 'old' band could be so forceful and deliver such explosive energy.

Here's an incredible live performance (the kids at school still call me "Ol' Cliche-face") by the band, performing their track "Lookin' at you", it's really quite something:

The syncronised burst of electricity the band is hit by as the song crashes into life sums up their music perfectly.

Look at the video at about 2:55, on the left hand side you can see the only two people in the whole audience that are getting down into it (it's really hard not to use a 70's lexicon to write this post), the only two doing anything other than standing around looking slightly confused. I find it fascinating and really appealing to watch; I'd like to think that perhaps the rest of the crowd is just too stunned to think of what to do with themselves, though I suppose it's more than likely they just wouldn't know what to do anyway, due to nobody having invented slamdancing, or even pogoing at that point. I tip my hat to those two kids for having the guts to go with it and do whatever.

The band are also noted for getting tied up with the anarchic leftist organisation the 'White Panthers' (an organisation set up as a way for white people to show support for the black civil-rights group, the Black Panthers). Now THAT's Rock n' Roll! I've decided more 'rock' bands need to align themselves with controversial political groups. I'd like to see U2 pull shit like that!

If you're interested in seeing more, I suggest you check out this video, as well as the numerous others there are, up on YouTube. It's a shame there aren't more jam bands around nowadays, listening to this stuff to much really makes you feel cheated by more contemporary rock bands with the paltry three-and-a-half minute listless songs they usually throw your way. Some good modern jam bands I can think of right now would be Nebula and Wolfmother, though I'm sure there's lots more, go check 'em out.

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Watch them work it

2007-11-26T15:44:00.000Z

Just as a note to anyone who might be interested, DEVO's first-released new track, 'Watch us Work it', off of their future-bound album is now available to listen to in full on their myspace.

I won't write a full article on it, because it would literally just be a deluge of praisegush. To get a feel of what it would have read like, go and look up 'mind-shatteringly awesome' or 'pant-wettingly brilliant' in a thesaurus.

Be stiff!

You know it, I know it; there will never be a band this incredible ever again.

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I like short shorts

2007-11-25T15:21:00.000Z

Here is a short film (I love the classy connotations that phrase assigns to things) by an animator/cartoonist called Danny Antonucci, probably more widely known for creating the T.V. series 'Ed Edd and Eddy', which airs on Nickelodeon, amongst other things.

This short is called 'Lupo the Butcher', was made in the mid 1980's and is pretty much responsible for launching Antonucci's career, making him a household name (so long as your household is full of delinquent animation nerdlingers) and cementing his place in the 'alternative animation' circuit.

Films like this are the reason God invented animation. No other medium can convey whatever the hell it is that this film manages to convey. Grotesque characters (visually and personality-wise), absurd situations, juvenile throwback humour and unadulterated insanity are what animation should be all about. There's a certain charm to films such as these, it always conjours up this somewhat romanticised view in my mind of some mid-1990's slightly-overweight Hawaiian-shirt-wearing married-with-kids type animator pouring his nervous breakdown into existence frame by frame.

The film was entered/showcased in the now iconic short animated film festival 'Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation', the institution which also funded and brought to people's attention a ridiculous amount of alternative (and as a result, now mainstream) animation and animators, most notably Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls) and John Lasseter (Pixar), to name but a few. Even South Park got its first taste of exposure at the festival.

If you have even a fleeting interest in puerile humour, truly alternative craftsmanship and cartoon animation for cartoon animation's sake; then Google Spike & Mike, pump whatever names you come back with into YouTube and laugh out loud (or snigger embarrassedly) like the retard you are.

Butt; is it art?

2007-11-24T01:13:00.000Z

This is more of a rant/inner monologue than a readable article, so it might get a bit stodgy as you go on. Read it if you want, or don't.

Cartoons are the underdog of the art world. Their intention is always to cause some level of unease and offence, whether the cartoonist will admit it or not.

The artist is held in high regard within society for his ability to see what 'others' cannot; his eye and his paintbrush can pick out hues others would pass over, his hand can sculpt extremes others can't even fathom. What interests me most about cartoons and cartooning is that the role of the artist in this case isn't to draw what others can't see, the cartoonist draws exactly what everyone else sees but are too negligent to detail. Be it Charlie Brown's cynicism or the goofy overbite of a caricature, the cartoonist's role is not to show people anything new, or to widen the audience's view of the subject, but to play on the knowledge they already have though perhaps don't realise, or choose not to realise at least. Cartoons show you stuff you already know but try not to mention.

Ages ago I read an article on The Simpsons which, when considering the numerous throwaway jokes littered throughout each episode that you don't even notice half the time, referred to it as a show "clearly made by cartoonists". This observation shows just how integral attention to detail is to cartooning. Though you might consider a totally photo-real drawing of a man's face to be the most 'lifelike', in my opinion cartoons are far more accurate in their reproduction of life, showing us what we really see, addressing every minor detail, beyond the literal transmission of information between the eye and the page. The Simpsons have yellow skin, yet people forgo qualms such as this and end up assigning far more credibility and believability to their world than they ever would to a universe of supposedly 'lifelike' realisations such as Eastenders for instance (I know Eastenders isn't presented as 'real', but you know what I mean and I couldn't think of any examples). I think this is due to the accuracy with which their world is drawn, something unachievable through any other medium. The cartoonist has full control over his viewer's eye, whereas many other disciplines leave the viewer to see what he wants.

Yet still cartoons are the whipping boy of the art world. Call it bad luck, but through the various arts courses I've partaken in over the past few years, I've always ended up feeling my tutors and fellow students didn't quite see cartooning as a credible art form. It's no secret that you'll never find people more narrow-minded than at an art school but I am always shocked at just how little validity these people assign to cartooning. I regularly find myself almost embarrassed explaining to these people that my chosen is cartooning, inadvertently submitting to the assumption that just because they strive for realism, classicism, fashion or modernity in their work, it somehow lends it greater significance and credibility.

I have a hard time pinning down what it is people resent about cartoons so much. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that it goes against many of the rules other drawing disciplines abide by. Unlike most, where there is a heavy emphasis on direct reference, with cartooning a large chunk of reference comes out of the cartoonists head. Obviously cartoons couldn't exist without reference and some styles are just as reliant on it as any other kind of drawing, but my point is that with a lot of cartoons there is far less weight given to this reference and far more breathing space given to interpretation and intervention. I didn't learn to draw by sitting there doing endless observational studies of my cat, I learnt to draw by being bored in maths. My maths teacher resented it then, and my art teachers resent it now. For another exmaple on a more technical, literal level, outline is a big problem for a lot of people. Every good art teacher will tell you outlines are the work of Satan, which I found pretty conflicting growing up, due to outlines being the cartoonist's best friend.

It's the latent pissing all over artistic convention like this that I think so many non-cartoonists have a problem with.

Considering the literal process of drawing, for a long time I thought cartooning (my chosen style at least) came down to a series of shorthand symbols, with the task being to simply learn each of these shorthands; an ear looks like this, mouths look like this, etc. etc. much like learning the words of a language, which you would then combine to make a comprehendable utterance, or image.

I still think of cartooning as a language, but I think my analogy relied on an incorrect analysis of language. On some levels I think cartooning relies a lot on shorthand drawing techniques, but arranged and linked together in a more complex way than I previously assumed. Just the same as spoken languages consist of more than words simply slapped next to each other; you have components such as intonation, accent, inflection, dialect etc. all combined together to make a fully flowing utterance, so too are the shorthand techniques of cartooning linked together with an unlimited array of variables to create a composite, coherent image. A comprehension of these variables, as oppose to the base components, is I think where the mastery lies.

Obviously there are many more facets to be conquered in becoming a successful cartoonist, it's not all down to just simplified symbolic drawing. The biggest being life reference, which clearly enters heavily into things at one point also. I don't want to come across as ignorant of classical drawing, in fact the opposite is true, nothing saddens me more than people who refuse to open their minds to other art forms, as to be a fully-rounded artist in any field, you obviously need to have your finger in a lot of pies. Not to totally contradict myself or anything...

I consider earnestly-drawn cartoons to generally be far more personal an art form than most others. A cartoonist's cartoons often look a lot like the cartoonist themselves, inheriting features and mannerisms in much the same way as a child does from its parent. I have chubby cheeks, a big head and large round eyes and whether I mean to or not, naturally lean towards drawing cartoons with chubby cheeks, big heads and large round eyes. A gaunt, shadowy-faced chap in my class (the only other cartoonist) draws mostly... gaunt, shadowy-faced people. It might not be overly obvious to a third party, but taking a close look at your own cartoons, you can often pick out your own reflection. It's almost spooky once you start noticing how all this time what you've really been doing is subconciously hiding your own face within your drawings. Makes sense though; you see and touch your own features all day long, it follows that you would end up using your own self-obsessed narccissitic ugly joke of a face as a point of reference.

I am still trying to put my finger on what it is that separates a 'normal' drawing and a cartoon of something, where the line is drawn (no pun intended). I think a large component doesn't so much come down to analysing the end product in terms of style, line quality, formal elements etc. but instead the context and attitude in which it was created and has been placed.

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Weapons grade Drumbonium.

2007-11-23T12:27:00.000Z

Some more self-indulgent story-telling for you now, but this is verging on being an interesting anecdote, so it's not so bad.

On a trip to Amsterdam a year or so ago, for a cousins wedding, me and my little brother, Chibs, were hanging out in the hotel room one night, bored out of our minds and with nothing to do (he was 14, not exactly nighttime Amsterdam material) except enjoy each others charming company. Well funnily enough we soon grew tired of this, and started flicking through T.V. channels, not really finding much except an episode of Red Dwarf (the one where everything goes backwards) dubbed in a fairly odd language that sounded a bit like German.

Anyhow just as we decided to give up on that venture, we ended up on channel 1, a listings channel telling you whats on and where, local events, shows, etc. etc. when something caught my eye.

-Free Open Air Festival-
-Blue Man Group-
-Dam Square-
-10:00pm-

"Chibs what's that square up the street called?
"Dam place or something."
"And what time is it?"
"9:58."

Upon realising what could quite likely be the biggest coincidental happening since Charles T. Skippyworth III accidentally dropped a bag of peanuts in a vat of butter, we threw on our jackets and shoes and literally bolted down the street, where we found a huge open air stage, a massive crowd and the show to end all shows.

Blue Man Group really don't receive much exposure over here in England, our only admittedly confused, yet intrigued experience of them up to that point being a few months previous on some variety performance or other and on those Intel ads years ago.

Blue Man Group truly do put on an astonishing show, a blend of mime, performance art, rock music and comedy, the highlight of their act being the 'Drumbone', seen in the picture above; an arrangement of PVC pipes whacked at one end by a Blue Man with a pair of drumsticks, all the while being moved and manipulated by the other two, altering the sound much like a trombone. The piece they perform on the Drumbone live is a track found on their 1999 album 'Audio', the ambiguously titled "Drumbone". It's one of those special tracks that though you may have no prior exposure to the artist or song, still manages to make you sit up straight and take notice (though perhaps more so live than when listening to the recording).

Protracted even more when played live, the timing of the piece is just peachy; once you've relaxed into it, got your head round the context of the song, they put you on tenterhooks for the inevitable crescendo, which, when finally reached, is like jumping in a cool lake on a hot day, turning the entire crowd into one giant spine-tingle. These guys sure know their song structure.

It really was quite an experience to catch the show under such circumstance, the en masse euphoria and glee created a unique atmosphere quite unlike anything else I've ever experienced. The fact that we could have so easily missed out on catching this show isn't worth thinking about. Just consider all the other awesome stuff we narrowly miss out on during our lives.

For a good while afterwards my little brother quoted it as "The best night of my life." and if you've seen Blue Man Group live, you'll probably agree with him.

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Surf Party

2007-11-22T01:03:00.000Z

Wandering totally by chance around uni last year at 2am in the morning, I spotted a poster advertising an Agent Orange (old-school SoCal surf punk band) gig. For those who have never been here, the UK sucks for gigs, so this was quite something. Held in this little pub/club type thing in town, there were about 30-odd people there, mostly 40-ish year old guys standing around in their Vans high-tops talking about skateboards – Incredible.

The band literally demolished their exhaustive set list; song after song, it was like being punched in the face and kicked up the backside at the same time, genuinely like no show I've been to before or since. The crowd was obviously pretty pumped, but for the most part we just stood there with our jaws on the floor, totally blown away by what we were seeing. Some guy shouted out at one point “Hey can you tighten it up a bit please?” which I think summed up the collective mindset of most of the audience.

Anyway this somewhat staggering experience led me to discover not just a new band or a few new songs, but an entire new genre – Surf music. Up until that point I listened with a blissfully ignorant and vicious exclusivity to nigh-on solely '79-'84 era American hardcore, rarely ever accepting any new bands even, let alone entire new genres.

I find just listening to surf music to be absolutely invigorating. I see it as a reinterpretation of all the qualities I find appealing in hardcore, it ticks all the boxes of what I look for in musical experience; the high-energy licks, the unavoidable feelings of speed and adrenaline, euphoria and overall uplifting aura. Not to sound too much like a complete tosser. Basically it gets me pumped and makes me wanna jerk back n' forth (in the dancing sense, not the Devo sense you pervs), which is, at this moment in time, what I want from my music.

Makes sense I should end up liking it I suppose, due to the fact that surf music obviously associated itself with surfing way back when, much as hardcore did with skateboarding. Also after listening to surf music for a while, it becomes apparent how heavily reliant a lot of bands (i.e. The Dead Kennedys) are on its conventions and practices. Perhaps surf music is where punks go to die.

Anyway enough of that, maybe I'll actually critically analyse something for a change. One song that stuck with me from the Agent Orange gig was an instrumental called 'Tidal Wave', a beautifully surfy piece (also available on YouTube) which I stumbled across later on, discovering it to in fact be by a band called Slacktone, a surf music ensemble comprised of rabid Agent Orange/Dick Dale regulars Dusty Watson (drums) and Sam Bolle (bass), with surf maestro Dave Wronski on guitar. The song is called 'The Bells of St. Kahuna'. Note it's actually performed on Huntington Beach, birthplace of the mighty Black Flag (also the H.B. Strut – a.k.a. slamdancing – a.k.a. 'the mosh pit'). How can you refuse?

The musical prowess on display here is something I find really quite astounding. Three insanely proficient musicians pouring their all into a song, resulting in an astonishingly high-energy performance,

I love the way Wronski bops around during this performance, his face a fierce battle between the all over muscle-tension involved with tremolo picking, against his all-out immersion and ecstasy in the imagery of the music. The way he gets into it, 'bopping' about the place, is something missing from so many bands, I feel; Static musicians, standing there monotonously knocking out chords, not at all feeling what they are playing, which obviously has an effect on the end product. In my opinion, if you can't 'get into' the music that you play, then you shouldn't be playing it.

Check out Dusty on the drums too. Going back to the Agent Orange gig, the guy was in a total trance the whole time, face contorted into a furious snarl, neck muscles pronounced, totally destroying the drum kit, as it literally began to fall apart towards the end of their marathon set. Focusing on the drums when listening to Slacktone just shows how much a good drummer can add to a performance, even though I think many people often view the drums simply as a formal component for the rest of the band to keep time to.

It worries me somewhat that I'm finally becoming open-minded enough to appreciate other types of music (albeit just the one), something for a long time I've worried about happening, seeing it as a sign of actually growing up and growing out of hardcore. But I suppose doing what you want and flipping the v's to anyone who doesn't like it is what hardcore's all about. So though it might make my 17 year old self turn in his preverbial grave by admitting it, I'm enjoying my time here in the reverb-drenched elephant graveyard.

For those of you bored enough to have read through this whole thing, have Slacktone's take on Misrilou as a reward. If you think Misrilou has pretty much already been done to death, think again suckers.

Maybe someday soon I will write something that isn't just gushing praise of stuff I like... Ah well.

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Give me Jello or give me death.

2007-11-04T14:46:00.000Z

Many people can often recount tales of the defining moment in their lives, a revolutionary happening that defined them as a person and shaped the way they fit into the world around them, literally assigning definition to their existence.

Though these 'defining moments' by their very nature have an everlasting effect on your life, this is not to say you have just the one. Lives are shaped by numerous defining moments, however we often overlook the less obvious or seemingly significant happenings in favour of the more easily recognisable ones. We experience a number of shaping experiences throughout our lives, combining together in one cumulative effort, regardless of individual magnitude or the value assigned to them by our culture.

Anyhow I digress from my intended point for this post. An important defining moment of my life was when I was fifteen years old, hanging out in a park with some friends avoiding doing revision for our GCSEs, when my friend Fred rolled up on his bike, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the coolest symbol I had ever seen.

As soon as I got home that evening I Googled 'Dead Kennedys' and after finding them out to be a band of some kind, downloaded a handful of tracks, then went for it at the weekend and bought the 'Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death' album and, to be honest, hated it.

I remember doing work for my GCSEs listening to this album, getting pissed off that my work was going badly, mentally commenting how tuneless and horrible this music was, and pulling the CD out the player and tossing it onto the floor, angry at having wasted twelve quid on a CD that sucked total balls.

For some reason though, I kept on returning to it, almost forcing it upon myself trying as hard as I could to like it. Then the penny dropped. It was like being kicked right in the teeth, like being struck by lightning. Every song I'd ever heard until then had been either about girls or love or both, material which no angsty little nerdlinger would ever have had a chance of (or any interest in) getting to grips with. In hardcore there were no songs about unrequited love, no weepy ballads about betrayal at the hands of your first love. Maybe a misogynistic passing mention of an ex-girlfriend if you were lucky.

Here were songs about burning down schools and ironic send ups of all the jocks who your whole life you've been told possess the qualities you should be aiming for. Songs about anger and frustration, venom aimed squarely at everyone else, rabid vocals, lightning fast chords, riffs that chew you up and spit you out, some songs even quite literally about just cutting loose and releasing energy. Now that is every teenage boy's fantasy.

This was music that made you jump around your room like a nutjob, kicking stuff over, punching the air, pumped with a new lease of life, finally comfortable in the indescribable feeling of realising that there are other people out there that think like you, that taking on everyone else all by yourself is actually the point, not the problem. I don't think this is any major revelation, I think everyone has to realise it by some means at some point in their life, I did it through hardcore punk aged sixteen.

The song that to this day for me best recreates the feeling of discovering hardcore for the first time is the very first hardcore song I ever heard, that evening after seeing Fred's cool new t-shirt, “Chemical Warfare” by the Dead Kennedys.

This post was actually meant to be a critical look at that song but I got sidetracked with all of the above, which pretty much covers all the points I was going to make anyway.

To this day, I genuinely don't understand how people can settle for anything less than old-school hardcore punk.

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Drawing games

2007-11-03T00:02:00.000Z

I think there are few things in life more enjoyable or personal than drawing. Today I would like to discuss a great yet oft overlooked drawing game which I spent most of my time on art foundation (a year long pre-degree art course) playing, the imaginitively-titled "Head-Body-Legs".

You have probably played this game at some point in your life; one person draws a head on a piece of paper, conceals it by folding it over, a second person draws the body leading on from this, folds it over, then the next person draws some legs. Finally you unfold the completed drawing and laugh your balls off. I find a round of HBL to be an impressively fun tool for getting to know good friends even better and documenting all the stupid little in-jokes only you and your dumb friends find funny.

Also you have the advantage of being able to play literally anywhere, with the only required tools being a pen and a piece of paper. One of our little clan last year even came up with the genius idea of slicing up a spiral bound sketchbook into thirds providing not only a convinient collection of all your creations in one place, but the ability to flip round various elements to create almost unlimited new combinations! I don't know who was lucky enough to bag the book we made on foundation, I sure would like to see it!

Some of the funniest hybrids occur when a new player shows up and doesn't quite get it and ends up doing something like drawing a body when they should be drawing legs or such like, producing some satanic bastard-child of an illustration, happy mistake theory in full effect.

Anyway the thing that reminded me of this great game was (yet again) something I spotted up on Drawn.ca, Superest, a website documenting an illustration battle between two artists, where one draws a character with certain powers or features, and the other draws a character with abilities that counter them. It looks like great fun, I look forward to one day finding someone as lame as me again to play it with.

I just think it's great fun to play games like this when you're 14 and bored as hell in Maths, so why stop when the bell rings?

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Can't think of much to write...

2007-10-16T14:57:00.000+01:00

...So I'll just post a link to a great little abstract animation from Canada. I have genuinely never seen a film with the National Film Board of Canada's logo slapped on the front that I haven't liked. All of the films I've ever seen come from them genuinely seem to be quite something. I'd like to go there to work someday maybe. And live in the mountains and get eaten by a bear.

It's called Tower Bawher, it's only a snippet there, but you can see the full thing here, as part of the celebration of WORLD ANIMATION DAY 2007 on the 28th.

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October 20th 2007 - 24 hours, 24 pages.

2007-10-14T22:42:00.000+01:00

Just spotted this in the archives of Drawn! (a fantastic illustration/cartooning blog you should check out right now), an advert '24 Hour Comics Day', a day wherein a whole bunch of people around the world spend 24 hours drawing a comic. I think I will probably be doing it. Starts on Saturday, so you can easily lock yourself in a room Saturday afternoon and not come out till Sunday afternoon. Or die of exhaustion.

Would be good to attend one of the events, however in this country (England) it appears the only plkace holding one is run by twats who are only letting 'professional' artists participate, which is a bit of a bastardly thing to do really, seeing as I think that a lot of people could learn a lot of things from each other, were they all sat in the same place, drawing and working together.

Bastards.

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If you fell over in the woods, would you make a sound?

2007-10-14T01:10:00.000+01:00

I don't know why I'm directly addressing 'you' (what's the grammatical term for adressing a reader directly? I'm sure there is one but am too dumb to remember...) as the reader of this blog, as, obviously, nobody reads it, so you don't exist. So I'm going to try and stop doing that now I think. Also I have to stop detailing random unrelated crap that happens to me in this thing. Anyway, on with my opinions.

I'll keep it brief, cause I just wrote all that crap about Nirvana, and it's like 2AM already.

Anyway this post is about comic book art, in particular block shading. Interesting huh?

Observe the below picture, which I spotted randomly on the internet. I have no idea who drew this so can't find the original. Anyone who knows, please let me know. There I go pretending someone's reading this again...

I find this to be a really powerful drawing. I think part of it is because there's nothing better than a nice gritty Batman picture. Except maybe a sort of cartoony Batman picture (notice the embiggened* head). Also seeing Batman with a big fat gun is always going to be fun. So this image ticks all the boxes in terms of depiction of subject matter for me.

But from a more artistic point of view, it's pretty interesting. I don't actually think it's the best bit of traditional comic art ever, but then I don't think it's trying to be; I think it's actually more of a 'comix' style image, all cartoony and whatnot; the purposeful ignorance towards too much perspective (kinda), the way the image is sort of sprawling, with Batman's arms spreading out all over the desk, shot from above, but still feeling somehow like a nice comfortable to look at low-angle shot. It's hard to explain, but I just think it posesses that indescribable use of perspective that a lot of comix utilize.

I also think that 95% of the drawing's success lies in the shading. Block shading like that looks absolutely badass under any circumstances, and I think more than covers up any shortcomings this particular drawing's base unshaded/coloured line-art might have. The forearm is lacking a little, but the back of the head, the skin on the face, and of course that beautiful arm are all wonderful examples of this type of shading, its uses and advantages.

Here's another nice little panel, with some hilarious text added (not by me unfortunately).

This is a panel from a Dan Dare comic strip. Dan Dare was a post-war 1950's space-adventurer hero type guy, you know the drill. I'd always thought he was American, but apparently he was created, as was this drawing (though also apparently, the work was created in a mini-studio of up to 4 artists - cheers Wikipedia), by English illustrator Frank Hampson.

I am really impressed by this image in a number of ways. For one, the ability to smack a big fat black line down the side of a face you're drawing, and for it not to totally dominate and ruin the drawing is quite something. It is a pretty solid drawing all round to be honest. I love the background too, and again how using such 'radical' colours as red and yellow somehow doesn't wreck the drawing in this particularly skilled artist's more than capable hands. Also, who would have thought that blue would be the appropriate colour for showing light on someone's face? Blue one side, fleshtone the other? GENIUS. I have a lot of admiration for people who are up on their colour theory, and painting in general, seeing as I have always been so bad at it. Probably due to just never trying it. Or having that much of an interest in it, as I've always sort of more been focused on making a drawing strong enough using just line to hold its own. Though I now think that colour isn't always added just to enhance a drawing, that it is sometimes just as fundamental an element of a piece of work.

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*It's a perfectly cromulent word, look it up.
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Just give him some wood and he'll build you a cabinet.

2007-10-14T00:33:00.000+01:00

OK I missed a post yesterday, so I'm gonna discuss what I wanted to discuss yesterday now, then do another post for today. Hopefully this won't happen often, I genuinely intend, and want, to keep this thing daily. That way it won't matter so much when there's crap posts, I figure this to be a case of quantity not quality. As in the more I do it, the better I'll get and the more good posts there'll be to block out all the bad ones.

Anyhow, this is nabbed from this blog, (which coincidentally is where I got the idea to do this blog! So thanks for the inspiration Music Snob!) but is a great song I think, by a band I have mixed feelings about.

Nirvana, of course, led by Lord of the Retards Kurt Cobain, a band I can't decide if I like or not. Seeing as they are basically the culmination of the entirety of American Hardcore up to that point, on paper I should love them and I am drawn in by a lot of their songs, but hate with a passion the majority of them. Their pretentiousness kinda puts me off a bit too. And the way they're credited with invented grunge (by morons), when everyone knows that was Black Flag. Who also happen to be the best band of all time.

It's songs like the one above that that confuse me. Really awesome, energy-filled hardcore*, played with some friggin' feeling. Drums, gits, bass, as few chords as you can manage, scratchy, shouted vocals, playing it for yourselves more than anyone else, which is probably a good thing as chances are nobody in the audience is enjoying it; Now that's hardcore.

But the problem is it's from Nirvana. Nirvana suck. That's common knowledge. Or do they? Cause some of their stuff is ok I guess. GEEZ I DON'T FRIGGIN' KNOW.

Not a fan of how they kick over their stuff at the end. Real rock n' roll guys, but there's a difference between and just plain unnecessary obnoxiousness. No need to be dicks.

But I do like this song. It reminds me of the Beastie Boys' newer hardcore stuff. Tough Guy, Soba Violence, all that stuff. I really love those songs. They're all exactly the same, but that's part of their charm; they're just really simple, enjoyable hardcore songs, played by people who clearly love (and as we all know, come from) the genre. I see the same appeal with DBX.

I assume it's a good clip, but I can't bring myself to watch it; long story, but it basically involves bagging tickets for me and all my best friends to see their London show this summer, then getting the worst case of stomach cramp ever as soon as we arrived at the venue, almost blacking out and then spending the entire show sitting in the first aid room doubled up, missing the best concert of my life... I had to close it as soon as Mike started singing... Enjoy...

*Please note, whenever I say "hardcore", I am talking about real hardcore; Black Flag, Reagan Youth, The Descendents, etc. etc. not any of this neo-'hardcore' (also known as FUCKING METAL) shit we have nowadays. Last time I checked, getting your arms covered in tattoos, wearing one of those stupid army hats, just screaming as loud as you can (thus sounding and looking just like every other 'hardcore' band as a result) being musclehead jocks in general and even going so far as to invent a series of dance moves, is about as hardcore as my butt.

Bad example though, cause my butt is pretty damn hardcore.
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You know exactly what I'm telling you.

2007-10-12T01:10:00.000+01:00

S: We've already heard that song a hundred times...Just like that, just like how you sang it.

J: Well, you didn't let us bring it home.

S: Bring... bring it home? All right, let's bring it home.

If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying...and you had time to sing one song, huh, one song...people would remember before you're dirt...one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth...one song that would sum you up...you telling me that's the song you'd sing?

That same Jimmie Davis tune we hear on the radio all day? About your peace within and how it's real and how you're gonna shout it?

Or would you sing something different?

Something real, something you felt?

Because I'm telling you right now...that's the kind of song people want to hear. That's the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain't got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash.

It has to do with believing in yourself.

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R U Experienced?

2007-10-10T22:15:00.000+01:00

Today I rediscovered a fantastic little band; The Dave Brockie Experience, which just so happens to be comprised of a a few members of the almighty GWAR, making it an official GWAR side-project, along with RAWG, X-Cops and Death Piggy.

The Dave Brockie Experience (DBX) is made up of Dave Brockie (no shit!), A.K.A. Oderus Urungus, lead singer of GWAR on bass and vocals, with Mike Derks/Balsac The Jaws of Death on guitar and Brad Roberts/Jizmak De Gusha on drums.

I think a lot of people are pretty unappreciative/unaware of the sizeable skill displayed by GWAR musically. Brockie displays more than a proficiency in the vocal dexterity and versatility needed to be a successful punk/metal vocalist, he's up there with Rollins and Dez and Sears (RKL) for me, coming second only to H.R. of Bad Brains in the holy-shit-how-can-one-man's-voice-be-so-bendy rankings. This, coupled with some truly impressive metal drumming, and some incredible shredding on guitar (along with GWAR's other guitarist, Flattus, of course) makes for muchas awesomeness on GWAR's part if you ask me, yet people still seem to dismiss them as just a kind of gimmicky joke, and not even really metal.

Anyway, this oft-overlooked supreme metal proficiency carries over well to DBX, though they interestingly manage to carve out an individual sound without resorting to the typical side-project technique of just changing the lead singer (Stormtroopers of Death/Anthrax - I'm lookin' at you). They're not so dark as GWAR, instead opting for a more light hearted aesthetic, yet not quite the same brand of jovialness some of GWAR's lighter material posesses. I think a lot of this comes from the basic yet comforting guitar work from Derks, who utilizes simple little riffs that one the one hand feel a bit like anyone could have come up with it, yet on the other hand have a certain charm to them that just makes you want to find some friends and some instruments, and ask your mum if you can borrow the garage for an afternoon.

Here's a live vid of DBX off of The 'Tube, and I think sums them up pretty well. I couldn't find one of them playing any DBX stuff, so here is a cover of GWAR's 'Sick of You'. I dread to think how many drugs the guy must have taken beforehand to squeeze out a nutjob performance like this.

These little riffs are sandwiched inbetween some really nice heavy but fast classy american punk rock chords, giving a lot of the songs a real nostalgic feel and tone. Though sometimes I think they take it a little too far, favouring the riffs over the chords, which I don't think are stong enough to hold their own to be honest, so I find myself skipping over a few tracks on their albums, something which I never really enjoy doing, or see as a particularly good sign.

But the fact that when they're good, they're really fucking good is reason enough to stick with this band. They do seem to have a few different styles, as do GWAR, and though some are more successful than others, this doesn't make their trimphs any less triumphant.

A favourite track of mine is 'Iranian Masturbator', which starts off with a really nice reverb-filled 90's-esque little lick and then has Brockie's unique vocals layered on top, before leading into some absolutely solid, scratchy chords. The pretty little riff from the intro then carries on throughout the song, with the vocals becoming more and more of a gnarl alongside the guitar, which becomes more and more beautifully distorted as time goes on.

I think there's something really special about bands that place such an emphasis on the heavy linking of vocal aesthetic and lead instrument, as seen with Mark Mothersbaugh's binary vocal style against DEVO's keyboards, or Primus' Les Claypool's slap bass alongside... Primus' Les Claypool's slap bass-like voice... I think it really just increases the capabilities of the involved components and brings out aspects that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Brockie's vocals are not the same as when he's in the Oderus mask, which I find pretty impressive. Not that he doesn't have fun singing as Oderus, but he just seems to have a bit more fun, and messes around with his voice even more than he does as Oderus, when singing DBX.

I'm finding it pretty hard to describe music here, this is harder than it looks and I want to do more than just explain what happens in the song. It's just 90's-a-riffic and really pleasing to listen to. It's good for the same reasons Nirvana's good stuff is good.

If you like early 90's rock/grunge/metal/punk, then I think you should check these guys out. For me, one of the best things about this band is that they're just great fun both musically and lyrically - not trying to be anything they're not, not trying to change the world - just jerking about on guitars, knocking out enjoyable fired-up punky songs about masturbation and cheese. Among other things.

If you could play for shit, you know you'd start a band like DBX.

Finally, if bands are going to insist on posing for promo shots, then I think they should all pose like DBX:

Or maybe people should be posing like Converge. Now those guys are hardcore.

"Hey guys what ya doin'?"
"You know. Just sitting on some steps. Squinting into the distance. Thinkin' 'bout some stuff."
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I've started so I probably won't finish

2007-10-09T23:14:00.000+01:00

I don't really know how to start this out so I will just begin by outlining my intentions I suppose.

Basically I have decided to write this blog because I have far too much time on my hands with the crappy university course I'm doing, and nowhere near a high enough workload to keep myself stimulated, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do some extra-curricular writing, research, critiquing and general observation of various arts-related stuff. I would like to think I would do this even if I had a lot of work to do (even though I know I wouldn't) as I think it's a good exercise to be undertaking, and a healthy way of keeping up to date, involved, and aware of art and all that crap. As we've been told just now, entering into the second year of a three year degree; being an involved, critical practitioner is pretty damn important.

Music, movies, traditional art, anything, I intend on just discussing whatever is on my mind on any particular day; and interest I've had for a long time, something I noticed out and about, whatever.

Anyhow enough of this intro crap, I'm sure you'll pick it up. I'll start as I mean to go on, with a look at some work by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.

John K. is good at drawing ladies.

I'm sure Mr. Kricfalusi will pop up an awful lot in this blog, mostly due to the fact that, though in many ways he is a bit of a stubborn douchebag who refuses to accept modernity and thusly ends up producing lame-ass content that nobody ever sees, he has an incredible wealth of knowledge stored up inside his weird Canadian head and a real passion for keeping the traditions of animation and the associated techniques alive, something I can appreciate and relate to. Though his refusal to embrace the new even a little bit has resulted in him basically becoming totally unemployable and commercially obsolete (or so it would seem from reading his blog), his old stuff is really fucking good in a whole lot of ways. So it's in many ways a good thing that he digs the old school so much, as he doesn't become just another one of these classy animators of 15-20 years ago (Bill Plympton etc.) who just talks about how things used to be, and how difficult it is to succeed nowadays in the digital age and how evil computers are etc. etc. Instead, he spews forth an INCREDIBLE amount of what I see (from my naive uneducated [despite the fact I'm apparently studying Animation at degree level - don't get me started] viewpoint) as absolutely solid, worth-its-weight-in-gold information and advice, which I think should be hoovered up by anyone with an interest in the field and seen as just as valid as any of the old books by Preston Blair and co. John Writes:

"...each successive generation copies the previous one's mistakes instead of learning to animate and adding to a book of knowledge by animators amassed from generation to generation."

He appears to be totally dedicated to teaching and learning within animation, and the development of knowledge, which he suggests has stopped within animation. He's right. Name me one other field or industry where 'all the best stuff' (technically, not objectively) was from 50+ years ago and is still used as reference for the modern day, which is still trying, and failing, to catch up, with focus being shifted instead onto implementation, as oppose to the techniques and skills needed to create what you're implementing in the first place! It's like sculptors accepting that marble is just about all you can do with the art and learning how to make really shiny plinths instead . It's this whole "everything's been done and re-done" post-modern bullshit attitude and ignorance and laziness like this that has resulted in the death of animation. Obviously you need the crap like cheap quickly produced kids cartoons and adverts and stuff (going back to the sculpting allegory, just the same as you need cheap and quick sculpts [toys, disposable razors etc.]), but where has the high art gone? What I mean is, of course there will always be a market for cheap and fast animation, as with anything, but I think that such a shift away from the 'classic' techniques, and onto the skills needed for instantaneous success in terms of employment within the current industry is insanely short sighted and will only result in further stagnation and problems later on down the line.

If you're wondering where exactly I'm getting this impression of a 'shift' from, one example would be the traditional 2D animation module of the Ba(Hons) in animation I'm currently 'studying' being totally dropped from the curriculum in favour of a class where we are instead taught how to implement and composite animation (which we're ironically not taught how to create) in a digital format. Being shown examples of 'successful' films which (apparently) have solid stories behind them, but piss-poor art direction and animation, to prove the point that traditional 2D animation is entirely useless nowadays makes me want to cry, as I don't think, in fact I am pretty sure from looking at what wins the awards at festivals nowadays, that enough people are strong enough to stand up and call out the retards forcing this opinion on everyone, resulting in anyone who thinks differently being scalped, and their input being entirely disregarded. I.e. Mr. Kricfalusi.

Obviously, as Lord Pixar teaches us, 'Story is King.', but is there a curiously ever-unprinted second line of that motto that reads something like '...So fuck the implementation.'? I think not.

John K. makes no secret of his opinion on the current state of the industry, art schools and in particular animation in said schools (Hint: It's not a particularly positive opinion.), though you do have to take his comment on such topics with a pinch of salt. Obviously, as anyone with half a bag of peanuts in their head would do, I agree with an awful lot of what he says about the industry and the dumb ruling majority, but acknowledging the concept that the ruling majority being in the wrong doesn't change the fact that they're still the ruling majority means you will have to accommodate their crappy needs to some extent, to try and find a compromise wherein you can maintain and convey your original message, yet still get a frikkin' job. It sounds a little bit like I'm contradicting myself here, and I was planning to knock out some mighty sentence to sum up how I feel on this subject overall, but now I don't know. I suppose a question will have to do.

Is it better to stick to your guns and end up losing your seat at the (according to you, invalid) table holding on to the hope that maybe one day everyone will realise you're right, and it'll all work out anyway, or to compromise with and accommodate the current school of thought, combining it with your own individual thoughts and ideas to attain whatever you consider to be success?

I think my message and opinion is getting a bit blurred here, and I'm too lazy to go back and pull it out of all that, so I'll lay it out. OLD STUFF GOOD. NEW OPINIONS BAD. REVIVAL AND FURTHER CONTINUATION OF TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDED.

LIKE I WAS SAYING HE'S WELL GOOD AT DRAWING.

I really wasn't intending on typing all that out, or even discussing it. This was supposed to be a post about how good John and his team are at drawing, and how (confusingly) shit they are at animating nowadays.

I was watching a new Spümco-produced Ren & Stimpy cartoon up on youtube a few days ago, and spotted this incredibly well rendered beach-based hottie.

These two drawings are proof if proof be needed that life drawing does indeed make you better at cartooning. But then we all knew that to be honest. The bastard sure can draw girls. Actually I think it is mostly down to some hot girl (hot looks-wise, and also a shit-hot cartoonist - do girls get any hotter than that?) called Katie he occasionally mentions in his blog who can draw in John K.'s style but better than John K. can. This is why Spümco now has a clearly identifiable look which is radically different to Ren & Stimpy era Spümco. In fact I think the Spümco aesthetic of nowadays is in fact entirely down to this aforementioned hot girl.

Anyway, it is just an amazing bit of drawing. The charicature of her tubular waist is spot on, and amazing in how it slots into her erotically charged muscular hips It is just a great piece of observation, and displays a pretty impressive grasp of the female figure. Huh-huh, grasp of the female figure.

It's 3AM, I've been writing for ages, I can't think anymore. I'll talk about how shit Spümco are at animating and how that girl's arms are too short tomorrow.

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