NUMBER 1:
Devendra Banhart:
A lad I once hung out with used to get very angry when he was drunk and come out with the most mad unfettered comments towards the subjects of his clownish rage. One was a girl he knew during the leaving cert who 'changed' after getting into art college. She quickly lost her country accent, started wearing petticoats, cycled around on an old-fashioned racer with a basket of organic fruit on the front, and pretended to like Belgian neo-realist cinema, that sort of thing. So one night this mate of mine was in her vicinity and lubricated on blue wkd, went all purple in the face, lost his rag and screamed at her "I wish your head was a fuckin' rugby ball so I could take a run at it and drop kick it into the middle of next week." Yikes. It sure wasn't Shakespeare, but its a line that comes to mind every time I hear Devendra Banhart, who, to me is the musical equivalent of
this. I really don't think weirdness comes naturally to Devendra, such is the whiff of willful contrivance off everything he does. I bet he eats bamboo shoots or something for breakfast because weetabix isn't weird enough. I've read interviews with him, and in each, he has come across as arch, insufferable, phony and pretentious. So does most of his music. So the hairy headwrecker gets the boot and replaced by a genuine beardy weirdo...
MP3: Robert Wyatt-
Heaps of Sheep
The Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design Autumn/Winter '07 look.
Number 2:
Led Zeppelin:
In the universal gaeltacht experiences of our Irish youth many of us shared a room with a fret-fiddling cab driver's son from Templeogue. A guy, who despite obviously being a ferocious cretin, managed to score girls because of workmanlike guitar skills that made him a temporary demigod in the hormonal hothouse of Gweedore in summer. For those tender acoustic moments by the campfire he'd pour his soul through fingers that strummed the deepest, most meaningful ballad known to man "time of your life" by Greenday, and for that end of Gaeltacht electric rock out, it could only ever be the 'Zep, a noodly over-serious travesty of a band designed with adolescents in mind. Wow, but I can't abide them. For me, Led Zeppelin will always be embodied by a taxi-driver's son from templeogue in a Nirvana t shirt. And as for being all mystic? If eating a bowl of koka curry noodles in front of an Irish psychics live advert is mystic, well then yeah, Led Zepplin are mystic.
Here's proper scary mystical guitar stuff by Japanese people who take lots of drugs...
MP3: Acid Mothers Temple-
Dark stars in the dazzling sky
Féach ar Lorcan! Ta sé go h-íontach ar an guitar.
numbers 3 and 4 will follow in the future...
7 comments:
Add Floyd to the list. I despise Devendra's full band material but he's a good guitar picker and I've got a fair bit of time for his earlier folkey stuff with the cooing warble before he started on the laurel canyon bullshit of recent releases. Best not to think about the lyrics.
As for Zep, I think their wankey musical excess is perfectly summed up in that brief bit of Spinal Tap when Nigel plays a guitar with a violin. Had Plant never read Tolkien I wonder if they would have had to have been an instrumental band.
Floyd are a given. I spluttered when reading a recent interview with Waters in Mojo where he sneeringly assured the interviewer that Syd Barretts contributions were no great shakes and he didn't rate Piper at the gates of dawn as an album. Listening to their post-barrett output is like having a 48year old stockbroker fart on your head in slow motion for eternity.
Ah Darra, so glad you did this one. But what you and ian say about post syd barrett pink floyd is horseshit. Dark side of the moon is an amazing album, still. Or at least it was last time i listened to it - that being the last lunar eclipse. I distinctly remember you were on call down in the mental asylum that night. Listen to it stoned, divorced of all your prejudices and come back and tell me how shit it is then. I'll have to believe you after that. P.S. Just finished a book called perfect from now on by a total and complete GBV obsessive. Couldn't help but think of you while reading it. I'll loan you it next time you're about.
man, that irish led-zep guitarist cliché is right on. well done.
Frank, I want that book for sligo reading!!
Davendra is a wankbag. Rambling and pretentious-from his music to his fashion he is neither entertaining or inspiring. He caters for the people who would like to think they are a higher breed of music lovers but show their pathetic conceits by loving him.
I lost Radiohead after The Bends. Its like they retreated into their own egoes and drunk on success just threw out a load of shite. The Bends is one of the finest pop albums ever made. Now they know they can make a monkey dance with a banjo to bang and they will get heaped with praise. Sometimes I think they DO that to make fun of us.
you know who i don't get?
the fucking clash, they're just for trendies
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