Friday, April 24, 2009

Yoshimi Versus the Oklahoma House

It looked like a scary moment for Oklahoma civil rights this morning. News was pouring in that the State’s House of Representatives was refusing to push through legislation officially naming the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” the state’s official rock song. “Realize” was one of dozens of songs nominated by Oklahoma residents and one of 10 final selections voted on. Out of the roughly 21,000 votes cast, the Lips walked away with over 10,000 and won by a very, very comfortable margin.

Legislation to ratify the decision passed swiftly through the Oklahoma senate, with unanimous support. That support evaporated once it was the House’s turn. Instead of following the Senate’s lead and recognizing the very obvious winners of the very legitimate contest, the Republican-led House instead voted against the measure 48-39. The reason they wanted to deny the Lips this honor? Last month band member Michale Ivins wore a hammer and sickle communist T-shirt under his sports coat when the band made an appearance last month at the state capitol.


Oh, and apparently front man Wayne Coyne may have said some bad words during a ceremony naming a street in OKC after the band.

From the Daily Oklahoman:

Rep. Corey Holland, R-Marlow, debated against the resolution, saying he was bothered one of the band members wore a red T-shirt with a yellow sickle and hammer on it when The Flaming Lips came last month to the Capitol when results of an online voting contest showed their song to be the clear-cut winner. "I was really offended by that," Holland said.Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, also spoke against the measure, saying the band has a reputation for using obscene language, recalling band members used offensive language several years ago when the city of Oklahoma City named an alley after the band."Their lips ought to be on fire," Reynolds said.

And my personal favorite quote, from the Tulsa World:

“We have better things to do at the state capitol than waste our time voting for a group that can wear a communist T-shirt in the House of Representatives,” said Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City. “I have no use for honoring the Flaming Lips. It is a total waste of time. It is not what the taxpayers sent us to do, to honor some group that we might find their lyrics less than acceptable.”

Never mind the fact that the contest was a state-wide event, voted on by over 20,000 residents. Never mind the fact that the Lips won by margins most of those clowns could never even dream of. No, the House couldn’t be bothered to follow the will of the people because they had better things to do. Things like drafting a strongly-worded finger-wagging at the federal government regarding “Department of Homeland Security’s assessment report concerning Rightwing Extremism (HR 1043),” frowning in disapproval at the University of Oklahoma for allowing that filthy atheist Richard Dawkins to potentially “indoctrinate students in the theory of evolution (HR 1014)," or taking time out of their busy day to draft a resolution for a former Elks Lodge member, wishing him the best of luck in future endeavors on the state’s behalf (HR 1040). No wastes of time there, right Congressman Reynolds?

Luckily, Oklahoma still has a level-headed leader in the Governor’s mansion. Within hours of the House’s rejection of the resolution naming “Do You Realize??” Democratic governor Brad Henry issued an executive order naming the Lips’ opus the official rock song of the state of Oklahoma.

From the Daily Oklahoman again:

Gov. Brad Henry announced Thursday evening that he will sign an executive order on Tuesday naming the Flaming Lips song as the official rock song. Henry had planned to sign the resolution into law at a Tuesday ceremony that members of the band as well as national music and entertainment writers planned to attend. Henry said that for more than 20 years the Flaming Lips have produced "creative, fun and provocative rock music." "The music of the Flaming Lips has earned Grammys, glowing critical acclaim and fans all over the world," the governor said. "A truly iconic rock n' roll band, they are proud ambassadors of their home state. "They were clearly the people's choice, and I intend to honor that vote."

Wayne had this to say about the entire affair (again, from the Oklahoman):

“Me, I just say look, it's a little minority of some small-minded religious wackos who think they can tell people what kind of t-shirts and what kind of music they can listen to, and the smart, rational, reasonable people of Oklahoma are never going to buy into that,” the singer said.

“These nay-sayers who want to talk about me saying (profanities) and Michael wearing this T-shirt, everybody can see through how silly this stuff is,” Coyne said. “I figured that no matter what happened, people would come to our rescue. People would have a reason to really fight for us and say, no, this isn't what Oklahoma is all about. ... And I think the governor is very cool, how he's come to our rescue.”
Coyne said his main concern is how people outside of the state view Oklahoma.
“I don't want people to go back and say Oklahoma's just the backwards place we always figured it was, because it's not,” Coyne said. “And I don't want people to think that my idea of being from Oklahoma and my pride, has diminished one bit.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Tune in tomorrow, as the Oklahoma House is expected to write disapproving resolutions about uppity musicians and their governor friends, homosexual agendas in parks, and liberals sporting argyle socks.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Legend of the Great Brian Jonestown Massacre Show


My friend Jeremy called the other day from Austin to tell me he’d recently seen a mutual favorite band of ours, The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “How’d it go?”

One of the well-documented appeals of seeing the BJM put on a live show is that you never can tell what kind of a train-wreck it’s going to end up resembling once things get rolling. Generally speaking, most shows end in flames. Front man Anton Newcomb starts to pick a fight with the crowd/band/security and chaos ensues. There’s pushing, fighting, awkward confrontations, swearing, and the occasional assault. The actual music usually takes a back-seat to on-stage hysterics, which is kind of a shame. While they’re great entertainers, the BJM are also damn good musicians.


My first exposure to Anton and company took place shortly after turning 21. On the way to Dallas to see an Interpol show, someone popped the BJM’s latest LP, “Bravery, Repetition and Noise” into the CD player. Still in the midst of recovering from my first big breakup, the droney absurdity of “Bravery” really stuck with me. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also became enamored with The Streets’ debut album and Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” on that particular road trip. Young Judd was a weird kid.) A few months later Anton was on the cover of “Magnet,” a music magazine greedily hoarded in Ada by Hastings book manager Stephen. Anton looked good on the cover, wearing tight-fitting denim jeans and matching jacket, sporting a rainbow-striped scarf. The corresponding feature included an interview with the Man himself as well as a laudatory review for “Bravery” and a mention of the BJM’s latest tour, with most venues TBA.

As luck would have it, one of those TBAs turned into Norman’s Opolis. Keep in mind, this was all about a year before the release of “DiG!,” the BJM/Dandy Warhols documentary that threw the band into the burnt yellow spotlight. At this point the guys were still playing shithole bars and venues smaller than my apartment. The Opolis and the polite disinterest of the Norman music scene was a perfect fit for them.

Jeremy, myself, and our friend Brian all went to see the show. At the time I had no idea about the BJM’s affinity for self-destruction. Brian had mentioned something about how sometimes their shows got kind of crazy, but that was it. As the band made it’s way onto the tiny stage and began to play, I noticed that Anton was wearing the exact same outfit, complete with rainbow scarf, as he had worn on for his Magnet photo shoot.

The show ended as abruptly as it had begun. Anton stopped singing in the middle of “Sailor.” The rest of the band came to a clattering halt. We all seemed to think there was some kind of technical difficulty. Anton mumbled something inaudible through the mic. Everyone looked at one another and asked if everyone else understood what he’d said. From the back of the crowd, someone hooted. The rest of us looked confusedly at Anton. He leaned into the mic again. “Fuck it. We’re out of here. See if we ever come back to this fucking place.” He stormed off the stage. A few people clapped politely from the front of the crowd, but most just looked at one another, stunned. What the fuck was that? we all seemed to ask one another.

The guitarist waved to the crowd after unstrapping himself. “Thank you, Norman!” he shouted, and left the stage. The rest of the band unceremoniously followed while the crowd halfheartedly clapped.

And that was my first experience with the Brian Jonestown Massacre. All 35 glorious minutes of it.

A year or two after “DiG!” came out, several friends and I went to see the BJM play at Trees in Dallas. Jeremy, who was living in Austin by then, had seen them play the night before at Stubbs. He said it was a spectacle, but also a damn good time. So I had high hopes about the Dallas show. After all, it couldn’t be worse than their show at the Opolis.

I was wrong. Apparently Anton had gone a little overboard during the Stubbs show the night before and had lost his voice. Instead of doing something drastic like canceling the Dallas show, he did what any sensible shirtless, strung-out rock star would do; he sallied forth.

After a brief introduction and hoarse explanation about Anton losing his voice, the BJM started playing what can only be described as a spur-of-the-moment, 40-minute, non-stop rehearsal. No singing, no recognizable tune. Just a poorly-executed jam session. Ten minutes in, the packed crowd started to disburse. By the time they stopped, there were less than a hundred of us left. “I hope you realize how fucking special that was,” Anton croaked. “We just wrote a fucking song for you guys.”

Things went downhill from there. After the “new song,” Anton explained that he couldn’t sing. But damned if he was going to go out without a fight. His solution? Karaoke. He solicited the audience for guest lead-singers, warning them all that if they fucked around and messed up his music, he would have them thrown out of Trees and onto the street. At one point he actually did just that, to a drunk girl who butchered the lyrics to “Vacuum Boots” and loudly proclaimed during the chorus that she was getting married. That was probably the highlight of the show.

By the time South by South West 2006 rolled around a few years later, I had almost given up on ever seeing that mythical Great BJM show. I’d written them off as a loss, focusing instead on catching Belle & Sebastian, the New Pornographers, Art Brut, Morrissey, Bob Pollard and all the rest of the other shows. But somewhere along the way, the lines for one showcase were too crowded and I found myself nervously standing in the crowd of another Brian Jonestown show at Bourban Rocks. How would they fuck it up this time, I wondered. Maybe Anton could arrange to overdose while onstage or something. Someone yelled something onto the stage as the band was getting ready to start. “Hey. Hey,” said Anton. “Don’t fuck with me.”

And before I knew what was going on, I was in the middle of one of the top three concerts of my life. They fucking killed. They played from “Take it From the Man,” “Bravery,” “Satanic Majesty’s,” and more. It was amazing. When their mandated hour of playing was up, they refused to stop playing and leave the stage. SXSW twenty-somethings scrambled around on the sides and back of the stage, trying to take back their show. One kid in a STAFF shirt got Anton’s attention and frantically traced a finger back and forth on his neck, feeling miming “kill! Kill!” Anton smiled wickedly and kept right on. Every few minutes some announcer would hop on the intercom. “The Brian Jonestown Massacre! Give ‘em a hand, everybody!” he’d shout, hopping they’d get the clue and wind down. They completely ignored him. Finally after about thirty minutes of non-stop playing, they wrapped it up just when it looked like the venue was about to cut power to the mics.




Above: The poor sap who tried to shoo Anton and Co. off the stage at SXSW 2006.




In retrospect, it was kind of a shitty thing for them to do, seeing as the extra time they stole was actually taken away from the rest of the night’s lineup. But that was the last thought on anyone’s mind at the time. It was plainly evident that every single person in that crowd wished they would just keep playing.

The BJM put another album out in 2008. I haven’t got around to listening to it yet, but I hear it’s pretty damn good. Jeremy said the band’s current tour is one of their strongest in a long while. Anton’s behaving himself, there are no crazy outbursts or fights. I was especially pleased to hear that they’ve often been closing with my personal favorite BJM song, “Swallowtail.” And then there’s the fact that Matt Hollywood, original guitarist and singer of several gems like “Not if You Were the Last Dandy on Earth,” has come back to the band.

Apparently they’ve already come and gone in the Seattle area on this tour while I was busy being poor and not paying attention. They originate from the Portland-Seattle area though, so I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough. If you get a chance to see these guys, I highly recommend it. Good or bad, a Brian Jonestown Massacre show is always, at the very least, memorable.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The Holiday that Needs No Name

Being a member of the MTV generation, three things immediately come to mind when I think of the significance of today’s date:

1. It’s Hitler’s Birthday. Or maybe the day he died? I never was sure. Whatever. Today has something to do with history’s signature douche-wagon.

2. It’s the tenth anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Although “anniversary” really seems like a poor choice of words. There’s nothing celebratory about some poor, fucked up kids killing other kids. While this horrible event happened during the tail end of my high school days, I can still vividly recall the connotations. Suddenly we were locked in during geometry and yearbook classes, and closed-circuit cameras began to sprout up along the halls. D&D kids cliques became potential psychopath cells that were just one taunt away from busting caps in asses. Looking back, it seems like that intro to profiling was a perfect precursor to our “Post-9/11” 2001-2005 mindset.

3. Today’s the day you’re supposed to smoke a lot of pot and watch “Dazed and Confused.” It’s late afternoon here, and I have the windows open in the apartment. The breeze blows through every once in a while, bringing with it faint wisps of marijuana smoke, sometimes mixed with propane. Pretty mellow. I’ve been tempted several times today to step out onto the back patio and see if I could bum a drag from a neighbor, but I made a vow to stay on the straight and narrow (no pot, very little booze) until finding a gainful and steady means of employment. All in all, Bellingham is a very 420-friendly city. Apparently a lot of residents are taking a drive up to Mount Baker today. Get it? Bad puns aside, it’s certainly a perfect day for a drive.

So whether you spent the day hating Nazis, remembering dead children or just getting really, really stoned, happy 4-20!

The Christening

So. I’m starting a blog. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now, record the day-to-day events of my new(ish) life in the Pacific Northwest. Gentle reflection, biting objectivity, wry wit, occasional pictures and stupid videos from the internet. All of this and more.

And then I went on Blogspot.com and set up an account. Wrestled with different names, finally settling somewhat uneasily with Confessions of a Post-Oklahoman. My first choice was Recovering Oklahoman, but that seemed too negative. Recovering seemed to imply that there was something wrong with being from Oklahoma, something that needs to be recovered from. And while it’s arguable that there are many, MANY things wrong with the state as a whole (all 77 counties voting Republican, rampant intolerance, Sally Kern, etc.), there’s nothing at all wrong with being from Oklahoma. Funny that it took moving over two thousand miles away to finally make me proud to hail from Oklahoma.

Anyway, back to the creation of the blog and its inaugural post. I picked a title that I wasn’t dissatisfied with. I picked a generic starting layout. I picked a title for my first post, envisioning a middle-aged woman in furs shattering a green glass bottle of champagne on the massive iron hull of a giant freighter as I typed. Then I opened up a new word file, staring at that blank page, daydreaming about the untapped potential that I would coax forth.

Three days later, the page is still blank. While pondering how I should begin my post-premiere, I thought I should check on my ever-expanding Travian kingdom, just to make sure no one was trying to raid my online stash. Then I checked on my other kingdom and attacked some poor defenseless noob. Then I thought of something clever to say on the AEN’s message board. Then I hopped on Twitter, then Facebook, then I slummed around on Myspace. Then I checked the news on CNN’s site, then watched the newest episode of The Office on Hulu. And so on and so forth. The word file, my newly-created blog, and another page about organic gardening I found last week but still haven’t gotten around to actually reading, are all minimized and waiting on my task bar.

Thank you, high speed internet. Thank you for whittling my attention span down to that of a mynah bird. What’s the downside of a tool that can provide almost limitless information at your fingertips? You inevitably end up wasting all your time trying to touch everything. Or at least that’s how it is with me. I can follow links holistically for hours on end, simultaneously checking and rechecking favorite sites for any scrap of an update. An innocent trip to Facebook quickly devolves into a never-ending string of quizzes that reveal what literary period I’m most like (post-modern), what bad guy I have the most in common with (Castro), and what “evil, evil fucking sea monster” I resemble (a jellyfish). I don't even want to think about Youtube.

It’s become apparent that if I’m ever going to be productive again as a writer, the internet must die.

So in an effort to pull myself away from that endlessly informative and distracting möbius strip, I’ve decided to write from my laptop. In the laundry room. With no wireless card. And while I was lured back to my PC several times in the last couple hours to wallow in online poker and gmail, I’ve somehow managed to repeatedly come back to the laptop and finish this first damn post. And maybe once I’ve saved this onto a flash drive I’ll even remember to upload it after staring at this week’s batch of celebrity upskirts.

Thank you and good night.