This started as the "two songs a day" post, for reals

[petronia]

I HAVE TICKETS TO OL LENNIE

...That felt like being mauled by tigers. XD;;; It's my own fault for being avoidant, I was so afraid of finding out that he'll be playing Montreal while I'll be in Brazil that I didn't get to the forum pre-sale in time. But they're doing the sensible thing and having him play the Jazz Fest, three nights running in June. And... headlining Glastonbury after that.

I don't even want to think about how much it costs. XD;;;;;;;;;; One-way ticket to credit card debt. But if there's a recording artist out there who both legitimately needs and deserves his fans' money at this point it's Leonard Cohen.

(There's actually a regularly-scheduled mp3-bonus L. Cohen rant in the pipeline that's entirely unrelated to the above. XD)

Over the weekend I watched five episodes of Baccano! with T, and the entire first episode where the Vice-President and Carole argue over the appropriate narrative angle with which to begin the series struck me as an exact metaphor for why I keep failing at posting about bandom. XD; (Can I call it that? Some months ago I had a conversation with subterrain and kickthebeat re: what we decided to call Pitchforkslash. "It" should probably be called NMEslash. Time to find a nice bridge to throw oneself off.) In Baccano!, of course, the narrative angle is the series - or nearly; there is also gunplay - but it's hardly the only story where the form of the content follows the... Put it another way. People have meta-ed over how anime/manga fanfics have tended shorter with time, until drabbles and flashfics became the norm rather than the exception. One theory I've seen mooted is that this reflects the fragmentation of the fanbase: everyone is following several series at once, and when the new anime season starts it all gets ditched for the next big thing. Except even consensus on said next big thing is hard to come by. Thus concision, precision, and rapid turnaround become key in the quest for audience, much as they are to fansubbing groups.

The ur-form of fanfiction in Libs fandom, meanwhile, is the meticulously constructed multi-part AU where the end is left hanging. I don't mean the usual sort of WIP where the ficcer loses steam halfway through, I mean it'd literally be missing the last chapter. XD; Or else the plot unravels rather than resolves, at a point of terminal ambivalence. From where I stand it looks like collective neurosis. So much for metaphor.

Did I mention the kittens? >_>

Having talked a bit about the anime I've been watching lately (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), I'm going to post some mp3s, because after all that's the easiest road out of here. XD;

The Libertines - I Got Sweets: at some point I have to post some tracks from the albums, if only to underline the element of genius at work [1], but it's kind of a drag on my neurotic hipsterdom. XD; So this'll be like when I posted these random crap-quality Franz Ferdinand acoustic demos and people were downloading them like, Hey thanks, I always meant to check this band out! Ahaha. orz

Ironically, this is not a crap-quality acoustic demo. As with most singular Libs songs it sort of turned up sans context and my sister and I were listening to it like, What the heck is this? A cover? It has to be a cover of something else. But it wasn't a cover.

"WTF," I said, "if they could write a song like this why did they..." I don't even know how to finish that sentence. Make indie rock? DOWN WITH INDIE ROCK.

It turned out it was the b-side to the "Can't Stand Me Now" 7" single, which is some sort of perfection, given that it's a) the happiest Libs-era cut and b) the one song that's impossible to play without the full original lineup (for self-evident reasons). And... I'm not sure what else to say about it. XD; Vocabulary failure. My musical education isn't complete yet. It's a pop song? Like something from a 1960s Disney movie? Only with drug references The lead guitar line is the jauntiest most charming thing. I like it lots.

The Libertines - Breck Road Lover: this is the track I listen to second-most (according to last.FM). It's never had a proper release; this version is from a demo cut in 2000 iirc, before they were signed to Rough Trade. Never gets played live either, I have no idea why. Basically the entire experience is like this, which is why there's this huge seeming disconnect between fans of the band and those-who-ain't - literally not hearing the same music. [2]

Again, not sure how to describe it. Argh I'm not doing a good job at selling this. Kind of like earlyish Beatles? Acoustic Suede? I haven't listened to enough Suede not to be talking out of my ass. It's one of those melodies that once you've heard, you've heard forever (and ever and ever). In general the best Libs songs are like this - I keep getting reminded of after-school singalong hour in the eighth grade, with my Catechism teacher strumming his acoustic, and my BFF at the time leaning over and being all like, "Did you know this song is actually ABOUT DRUGS???" Re: Mr. Tambourine Man or whatever. Aha. idk we were kind of innocent kids. orz

And an illustration to go along with - it's hard to remember to do this, I don't know how people who post photos with every blog entry do it XD;



[up arrow] Carl Barât, variously known as "the other one", "the sexy one", "the relatively sane one not that that's saying much", "the one who looks weirdly like Sirius Black", etc. He's not biting Neil Gaiman's style in the above; they're both biting Lou Reed's style. Sorry, it had to be said. XD; Sororial unit says the photo I picked is non-representative, which I guess it is (it makes him look like he's eating real food), but the point is to be SFW.

Out of the two tracks I posted, Carl Barât sang (and probably wrote) the first, Pete Doherty sang (and probably wrote) the second. But it's kind of like trying to figure out which bits of Good Omens are Gaiman and which Pratchett; iffy at the best of times.


[1] To wit, FSTing themselves. In the future. I like to think I'm good at FSTs but Barât/Doherty FILL ME WITH AWE. Sororial unit referred to this effect as "the Libertines musical"... at least, until someone hired them to write an actual musical. About a band. A heartbreaking work of staggering meta. orz

[2] That and Babyshambles fans are crazy. Srsly. They're, like, the Harmonians of UK indie.

Comments

[dipping_sauce]

Dude. Seriously. You need to lay off the caffeine.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Whaaat? XD Srsly, I hadn't had any, is this entry particularly maniacal?

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Randomly, I have a huge pet peeve about framing stories that are used to introduce a work of fiction, but not to conclude it. I'd forgotten to apply this to Baccano! because the large amount of insanity in the middle made me forget that I was waiting for the conclusion to that story, but now that you've called attention to it, I'm getting kind of cheesed off. XD; It's a totally illogical thing to be annoyed with (when I didn't even notice the first time!), but there it is.

Thx for the mp3s, dude! I've been meaning to check these guys out Kidding, kidding -- I actually bought the CDs back in high school. One of the few times in my life I've been hip.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Is it only 13 eps? That's how much I have, but I dled it ages ago so.

Hipper than me! Well, I was in the electroclash stream, so this is almost like one of those movies where you go back in time and relive your life making different choices. XD;

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

It's only 13 episodes. Well, and a bonus 14th episode, just out on DVD, featuring a character who is really popular with the fanbase, but who was cut from the initial run.

Nothing else I was listening to in high school sounded remotely like The Libertines, it was like this total fluke.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

How can a character be popular but not in the original run? ...Was it based on a manga? ^^; Somehow it didn't seem like a manga-based series, not sure why.

Up to this point the story seems like it would be only 10% as interesting if it were conventionally narrated. I'm trying to decide if that's a weakness, or merely necessary (the audience has to be able to follow XD).

[cis.livejournal.com]

oh oh i can answer this one: it's based on (young adult?) novels! i just worked out why the name was familiar: i saw it in the bookshop t'other day when i was trying to find something new to read, in fact i read the back of a few volumes but they didn't have the first book.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's based on a light novel series. People at baccano have been translating (http://baccano.fenali.net/story/view/1) them. It all makes sense when you realize that the books are also unconventionally narrated: each chapter is from the viewpoint of a different character, and the average chapter length is like, 5 pages.

also, WHY SABINA WHY

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I was listening to some Babyshambles songs and I started thinking, maybe Carl was paradoxically bad for Pete because he had too much invested in being the more stable half of the relationship -- maybe he liked being stoic and long-suffering and always having to answer questions about why he put up the shit he put up with, etc etc. A martyr complex. And meanwhile Pete is defined as "a burden", nothing much is expected of him, he has no reason to change. But maybe the role gets old after a while, maybe he gets restless, so they split, with Carl and everyone else foretelling complete self-destruction and an early death for Pete -- but to everyone's surprise, most of all Carl's, it turns out that Pete *can* take care of himself, he just never had to before.

Please don't tell me how many Babyshambles fics I just summarized -- I don't want to know.

Re: also, WHY SABINA WHY

[petronia.livejournal.com]

See actually that is the weird thing - Carl is kind of a depressive alcoholic who at various points was (to the best of common knowledge) suicidal and a cokehead. XD;; In any other group of people he would've been the unstable one. In fact he was the unstable one right up until they were signed, at which point he "became" the sane one and Pete went off the rails. But they'd been writing together for 5-6 years at that point, and the impression you get is that Pete provided the emotional underpinning for Carl, not vice versa.

I'd say the surprise was that Carl managed to pull himself together and out of the hole, not that Pete's still alive and kicking. I think there is this idea that's not uncommonly subscribed to, that le Doherty knows what he's doing more than appearances would tend to indicate. I'm kind of on the fence regarding that one. XD; He does have the true wank magnet's ineffable talent for landing on his feet.

[credoimprobus]

Brief fandom terminology nitpick: bandom = centered specifically around the Fueled by Ramen stable of bands + My Chemical Romance, and various connections thereto, bandslash = everything else. :) (As I've understood it, 'bandom' started being used because the old school bandslashers were complaining about the term 'bandslash' starting to be unwittingly co-opted by the more narrow definition. Don't quote me on that, though! ...and then after the new word had got a foothold, the old school bandslashers apparently tried to rewrite history and claimed the emo lot had co-opted that as well, to which I can only say WHAT. Oh fandom! How so full of crazy and inter-fandom resentment?)

It is way too early for this level of fandomnerdery, really, but uh. I'm too much of a tool when it comes to terminology to resist. XD;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ah yea, the bandom vs. bandslash debate! I'd read up on it at one point but the information just dissipated after a while. XD; I actually don't really like the word "bandom", it's weirdly inelegant, but I guess the point of differentiation is necessary. For social reasons.

Honestly I think "Albion Fic" is its own thing. It's like Australia - a closed continent with a complete parallel ecology. XD; Then again I also think it takes people in from bandslash and spits them out into bandom.

[cis.livejournal.com]

are there any other pairings, or is it Pete/Carl all the way?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

There're others. P/C is obviously the massive OTP though; sort of a fait accompli so there's not even any controversy even if people write other pairings (also these people, like, have girlfriends and stuff). ^^; I did say it was like Mirage of Blaze - it is like Mirage of Blaze.

[helvetius.livejournal.com]

*IS HORRIBLY ENVIOUS*

Quick checks on the web show that there's no planned tour to Singapore or Malaysia. Methinks the PR guys should be informed that the world is not complete without Asia. -___-

[helvetius.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this (http://www.softline.com/~shumway/lou-reed.html)?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I have! But ages ago - it's good to read it again. Should be printed out and handed to all wannabe music journalists by way of seminar. :P

Well L. Cohen is in his seventies! If he were my grandfather I don't know that I'd want him suffering jetlag on a sixteen-hour flight. ^^; He's playing Scandinavia, but then his albums go to #1 in Scandinavia upon release.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

One theory I've seen mooted is that this reflects the fragmentation of the fanbase: everyone is following several series at once, and when the new anime season starts it all gets ditched for the next big thing. Except even consensus on said next big thing is hard to come by. Thus concision, precision, and rapid turnaround become key in the quest for audience, much as they are to fansubbing groups.

Huh, but what about manga? Anime is unlike Western TV in that it tends to have mostly 12-26 episode runs, and then there's also manga, which unlike anime works more like a Western TV show in that it takes a long, long time to finish.