Side A - 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)'
Side B - 'New Years'
For last year's Christmas post, I gave you the Guinness seasonal television ad and Weezer's Pinkerton/Hiroshige's 'Night Sky at Kambara' (the cover picture of that album). This year, I've already given you The Snowman cartoon, and now here's an Asobi Seksu 7" of the Ramones 1987 song 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)'.
Asobi Seksu, based around the guitar of James Hanna and the vocals of Yuki Chikudate, combine the two elements of 60s girl-pop (another 7" of theirs is an original, 'Stay Awake' b/w 'And Then He Kissed Me' by The Crystals) and shoegaze into a fantastic modern indie-rock/punk-pop band. The Spector-ised pop-punk is resonant with the Ramones themselves (End of the Century is a favourite album of theirs for me) but also with current bands like Glasgow's Camera Obscura or Brooklyn's Vivian Girls. At the same time, the shoegaze reaches level of sheer indulgence and My Bloody Valentine-worship - nearly always a good thing - particularly on the second album Citrus. 'New Years' is one of the best tracks on that album, too.
Though I was familiar with some of their songs already, probably from the radio, it was hearing the 'Stay Awake'/'And Then He Kissed Me' 7" via Burning Down The Dreams of Forever that hooked me on the band. The author of that blog, Sweet Baby Jaysus or just 'Jay', is also the author of the quote/mission statement in the top right corner of this site. He also tour managed for Asobi Seksu in the US, and below is a picture from his collection of him and Yuki:
If anybody reading this is an Anglophile, you should love this. If you're British or even Irish, you should already know it (and made up your opinion on it). It is (or at least the first four minutes of it are) the song 'Walking in the Air' from the animated children's film The Snowman:
"'Walking in the Air' is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film of Raymond Briggs' 1976 children's book The Snowman. In the film the song was performed by St. Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty. For the subsequent single release, which reached number five in the UK pop charts, the vocals were sung by Welsh chorister Aled Jones, who became a popular celebrity on the strength of his performance...
The song forms the centrepiece of The Snowman, which has become a seasonal perennial on British television. The story relates the fleeting adventures of a young boy, and a snowman who has come to life. In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. "Walking in the Air" is the theme for the journey. They attend a party of snowmen, at which the boy is the only human. They meet Father Christmas and his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern."
The story was enchanting for me as a child, though a temperate climate and global warming have meant I've hardly ever experienced a 'White Christmas' (I've experienced snow, of course, just usually in January or February and often only up in the hills). 'Walking in the Air', with all its fantastical beauty and choral grace, is a little bit like 'Silent Night' or other religious Christmas songs, although The Snowman is completely secular: simply a reflection of the domestic, rustic even, non-commercial experience of Christmas,which has itself become part of seasonal popular culture in Britain and beyond.
The song has strong pre-Christmas connotation as well, though, because in Ireland it has been used for years as part of An Post advert for Christmas stamps, which obviously starts showing early in December. Unfortunately that clip (which uses an excerpt of the film) isn't on YouTube, but you can watch the full film, in better quality than the video above, introduced by David Bowie, that king of pop and oddly quaint British culture (see the film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (aka 'Senjou no Merii Kurisumasu', aka Furyo). The 'Walking in the Air' song itself is spread between further sections 2 and 3.
In continuance of the spirit of giving, here's a sort-of Christmas song from that dude who played electric viola in the Velvet Underground:
John Cale - 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' from Paris 1919 (1973)
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However, since it is a bit early for all this, be assured that I should have something far more punk rock (and vinyl) to post closer to Christmas. In the meantime, the schedule should also include these following posts:
- Slint - 'Glenn'/'Rhoda' 10" and Mogwai - 'Batcat' 12" (this one's been dragging on for a while, and The Hawk is Howling doesn't seem to be ranking very highly in year-end lists thus far; but - obviously the important thing - I do have some nice photographs of these records. Plus 'Batcat' is still an amazing song)
- Possibly some more end-of-year mixtapes, more genre-specific (e.g. best of punk). However, I'll try and wait for more lists to be put up by other people, so I can get the fullest inspiration, range of inputs, etc.
So, first of all, it looks like I got no white Christmas. Not that it was ever really likely, thanks to our oceanic climate; the bookies put it at 50/1 against, and 10/1 on a single snowflake being recorded at the airport metereological station in Dublin. However, if we did have a white Christmas... this is what it would look like:
All the same, this seems like a good time to post a big, snowy, dark album such as Weezer's Pinkerton.
If getting up on Christmas morning as a kid to open presents and open curtains on a bright shiny day had a sound (other than tearing paper and screaming child-voices) it would probably sound like Weezer.
Melodramatic, loud punk-pop pop-rock power-pop is, not surprisingly, something I would like (my first CD was Warning). Although Pinkerton is the only Weezer album I go for, perhaps because it's known (jokingly) as their 'emo' album.
I asked you to go to the Green Day concert
You said you'd never heard of them
How cool is that??
('El Scorcho')
It's also known as their worst album: as in, the leader singer, writer and creator, Rivers Cuomo, went on record saying -
"It's a hideous record... It was such a hugely painful mistake that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and just won't go away. It's like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself."
But I love it all the same. Okay, a concept album based on the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly does not sound like that great an idea, but the fact is that Pinkerton is so damn enjoyable it's easy to forgive almost all of its faults. (At the same time, their record label was sued by the Pinkerton Inc. Detective Agency, proving that litigousness and stupidity go hand in hand in the American pysche) Just lose yourself in the big, big guitars, the achingly introspective lyrics and the good, good pop songs.
This is beginning to hurt
This is beginning to get serious
('Getchoo')
Moreover, it has a Japanese woodblock print as its cover - Ando Hiroshige'sKambara yoru no yuki ("Night Snow at Kambara") from his Fifty-three Stations of the Tokkaido. It's a well-known print, anyway (second only in the genre, perhaps, to Hokusai's The Great Wave of Kanagawa) but it gives a unique aesthetic style to the album. And I'm all for the aesthetic style - particularly when its Oriental/East Asian - as you can see from the first post. Here's the original picture, with the text from the French catalogue of an exhibition of the prints I saw in Vannes (my own translation):
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"Dans le silence d'un nuit de neige, deux paysans abrités par des manteaux de paille, l’un portant une lanterne. A gauche, un voyageur attardé, juché sur ses socques de bois, cherche à gagner une auberge.
L’atmosphere ouatée et silencieuse fait de cette estampe l’une des plus célèbres de l’ensemble."
(In the silence of a snowy night, two peasants weighed down by coats of straw, one carrying a lantern. To the left, a traveller halted, perched on his wooden sandals, hoping to get to an inn.
The cotton-soft, silent atmosphere has made this print one of the most famous of the collection.)
So, the results from the second poll (favourite Mike Kirsch band) are in. A landslide victory for Fuel. Consistent with my own preferences, of course (even though I didn't cast a vote myself, this time) but a little surprising nonetheless. Navio Forge's As We Quietly Burn A Hole Into... is "the emo-est of all emo records". I can't or won't say a word against it, and there is already - just recently - an excellent post on it by Jared Dillon of Last Train to Cool.
Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with the winning entry, here's a link (with d/l) to Fuel's Monuments to Excess from the wonderful Kissmysoundsystem. And here's an eMusic review by 'Puckett from Illinois':
"A Hardcore Classic
Sure, wags called them Fuelgazi when they came out due to the stylistic similarities to the D.C. quartet, but make no mistake, this album falls firmly in the East Bay's punk tradition. Combining speed, melodic hooks, shouted / growled vocals and politically conscious lyrics, this record has been an influence so strong that it was reissued TWICE (initially pressed on Rough Trade, Allied reissued it and Broken made sure it stayed in print). For fans of Leatherface, Hot Water Music, American Steel, Fugazi, East Bay hardcore and, honestly, punk."
[This album has also been featured on The A.V. Club's Vinyl Retentive]
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I haven't read that book, but it does sound kinda interesting. (I haven't heard Thurston Moore's latest solo record, either, but it sounds interesting too... I'm still ripped on RR). Anyway, that picture is just by way of introduction to a few things that will be happening soon on Hardcore for Nerds.
Right now, of course, it's Christmas Eve... and I'm feeling slightly foolish sitting at a computer, but I have to stay up to go to midnight service and exchange presents, afterwards - nothing music-related, as far as I know, mostly books... but the blog will return shortly, and probably at least once before the new year.
The observant among you might have noticed that this is post #49, so the next will be the big five-oh. I did the special Fuck this Band post for #40, so expect something special again. I like to get a bit meta- every now and then, it keeps the sense of a progression in the blog, as opposed to just ongoing repetition of album, album, etc. I'll make sure it's something good to listen to, though, and not just a lot of
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and funny pictures.
In addition to that (hopefully) I have a few mixes in the works. One of the top 10 of 2007, with a couple of 'honourable mentions' thrown in to round out the hour. Another, for the Hoover Genealogy Project, just to give people a taster of the collective awesomeness I will be and have been posting. And most interestingly, mr. x indeed has committed himself to doing a mix of current Irish indie/experimental music. (Well, when I say 'committed', I mean we agreed to it in the pub). On which note, we're all going to see Fight Like Apes again on New Year's Eve! Woo!
The wisdom of dead Germans
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First as tragedy, then as farce? There's nothing to be found in Victorian
ideologies.
Are there self-identified "farces" I should view that meet the criter...
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Hey! I entered a tee shirt for submission at Threadless.
If you like it, please take a moment and click the above image to go vote.
VOTE HARD!
If it wins...
Murder By Death/O'Death Split 7"
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"Murder By Death are releasing the first of 7 records in a 7" series where
they trade covering songs with other bands they know. The second 7" will
featu...
