Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Wednesday's Child: Full of Whoah

Is there a finer time than early autumn to go about your business by bicycle in New York City? I don't think so. You can keep the sunburn, perspiration, and "swamp crotch" of summer. Fie on winter, with its ice, and its snow, and its crunchy road salt, and its beards filled with frozen mucus. Even spring is ruined by its "bike to work" days and "bike months" and legions of wobbly fair-weather cyclists extricating their mechanically unsound bicycles from the recesses of their co-op bike rooms for the first time since the previous year's "bike month."

Autumn, however, is just right, and it was on a particularly lovely late afternoon yesterday that I took to my Scattante to run some errands. "How lovely," I thought to myself as I rode along an unobstructed bike lane--until I saw a "bike salmon" pedaling towards me. Nothing ruins a pleasant ride like a salmon in the bike lane. It's like a busboy's crusty booger falling into your gazpacho just as you're reaching for your spoon. (The crucial difference being that you can't fish the salmon out and flick it at your dining partner for laughs.) As the scruffy-faced salmon approached, I glowered at him, but as he drew closer I realized he looked familiar. It took me a few moments, but I finally placed him: it was Hollywood acting person Jake Gyllenhaal.

At least, I'm pretty sure it was Jake Gyllenhaal, though I suppose it also could have been his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal with a three-day beard. It's hard to know for sure, since he wasn't riding a road bike, and he wasn't wearing The Rapha:


And if it was him (though I'm fairly certain it was), there's no telling whether or not he recognized me as the current owner of his pie plate:

Either way, the entire incident was highly traumatic, and I resented the intrusion upon my right-of-way.

Speaking of resentment, like everything else it tends to refine itself over time. For example, at this point in my life I tend to resent highly specific things: celebrity bike salmon; boogers in my gazpacho; the convoluted ordering process at Starbucks; and so forth. However, when I was much younger my resentment was decidedly more scattershot. In those days, things I resented included but were in no means limited to: school; authority; life; homework; having to wake up; and the grievous social injustice which was having to wear pants.

Of course, in resenting those things as a young person I was by no means unique. In fact, as a young person it was my job to resent those things. I was also not unique in enjoying music that both stoked and pandered to my adolescent sense of resentment. This music consisted mostly of wild bashing and screaming sounds, though at the time the differences between one type of wild bashing and screaming and another type of wild bashing and screaming were enough to start fistfights at nightclubs. If pressed, the typical wild bashing and screaming fan in those days probably couldn't tell you the difference between the IRA and the IRS, but he could expound on the differences between Wild Bashing And Screaming Band X and Wild Bashing And Screaming Band Y until you eventually just started feeling bad for him.

Anyway, I am now (at least chronologically) an adult, and like many adults who shared my tastes when they were younger, I have two sets of feelings when it comes to wild bashing and screaming music. On one hand, it was very important to me then, and I still have a great deal of affection and nostalgia for it. On the other hand, I also think almost all of it is comically stupid. In fact, I remember almost exactly the moment when I started feeling that way. It was during college--that heady time when the influence of the "Wednesday Weed" mingles with reading about intellectual stuff such as Freud and psychoanalysis. I was probably under the influence of both of these things, at which point I put on whatever album by whatever wild bashing and screaming band I favored at the time. Then I had the unsettling revelation that I was basically listening to the musical equivalent of a protracted scatalogical temper tantrum in which an out-of-control child is screaming while twirling a soiled diaper over his head. (Or, to put it more simply, a "total shitfit.")

From then on, the spell was broken. No longer could I put on a bashing and screaming record and feel that little thrill you get when you're giving the middle finger to society. Instead, I just heard someone trying to sound scary while refusing to clean his room, and quite frankly, it was embarrassing.

This is not to say I hold such music in contempt. Far from it. It's crucial to have a type of music that flails wildly against decency and good taste so you can hold in front of you like a shield of unbearable noise while you search for who you are and go through the often confusing and painful process of forming your own identity and set of opinions. For that reason, I still keep and protect my old records--for better or worse, they were my social intermediaries. Somehow though, to write about this music in an "intellectual" manner in a highbrow periodical seems only highly pretentious, but also to undermine the spirit of the music itself. Most of all, though, it's completely ridiculous, which is why I was simultaneously amused and disgusted by this Sasha Frere-Jones article on "black metal" in the New Yorker:


In reading this, I was amazed by two things: 1) this form of music has not advanced creatively or aesthetically by a single millimeter in almost 30 years; and 2) a man in his 50s who is writing a book on Michael Jackson actually sits around listening to "black metal," presumably while quaffing a $50 bottle of wine, and then writes things like this:

...Nathan Weaver sings in a strangled tone that is somewhere between the high, almost avian sound that Liturgy’s Hunt-Hendrix makes and the classic black-metal growl of a traditional Norwegian black-metal singer like Immortal’s Abbath Doom Occulta, as on 1992’s “The Call of the Wintermoon.”

Whereas once people wrote endless variations on the word "brutal" in fanzines and talked about how Wild Bashing and Screaming Band X made them want to smash stuff, now Frere-Jones writes this:

I kept thinking of Janet Cardiff ’s 2001 installation “The Forty-Part Motet,” currently playing at MOMA PS1.

Then again, I suppose this is the treatment wild bashing and screaming music wants now. Awhile back Klaus from Cycling Inquisition sent me this interview with one of the bands Frere-Jones writes about:



This, then, is the spirit of the times. Formulaic music from the 1980s evokes not rage but comparisons to exhibitions at MOMA. Mayonnaise is sold in boutiques. Pretty much everything qualifies as a "culture," and the members of a "culture" celebrate when someone appropriates their "culture" and sells it back to them. We live in a strange age of intellectual political correctness, where everything is brilliant and nothing is crap, and all creative expression no matter how derivative warrants the same degree of sycophantic fawning.

Speaking of dressing up everything, the Forces of Tweed have reminded me that it's almost time for New York City's own "Tweed Run:"

Furthermore, they were kind enough to invite me:

We're drawing close to the big day itself, and I was hoping we could count on seeing yourself dressed up to the nines in some stylish tweed plus fours, with perhaps a flat cap and some hefty facial hair (real or fake) for the occasion?

I had no idea what "plus fours" were, so I looked them up:

Plus fours are breeches or trousers that extend 4 inches (10 cm) below the knee (and thus four inches longer than traditional knickerbockers, hence the name). As they allow more freedom of movement than knickerbockers, they have been traditionally associated with sporting attire from the 1860s and onward, and are particularly associated with golf.[1]



Inasmuch as I don't own any plus fours, have little interest in obtaining any plus fours, and don't really understand what's so exciting about riding a bicycle in plus fours, I'm probably not an ideal Tweed Run candidate. I'd also probably be unable to help "recreate the spirit of a bygone era:"

The Tweed Run is a group bicycle ride through the centre of London, in which the cyclists are expected to dress in traditional British cycling attire, particularly tweed plus four suits. Any bicycle is acceptable on the Tweed Run, but classic vintage bicycles are encouraged. Some effort to recreate the spirit of a bygone era is always appreciated.[1]

I'm not sure what this actually means, but I'm guessing it involves either not having a full suite of inoculations and thus being susceptible to polio, or else giving small children lumps of coal and then kicking them in the face.

Personally, I'd be far more interested in a "Cockpit Run," which would be a ride consisting entirely of bikes with crazy cockpits. Some effort to recreate the spirit of a Rube Goldberg machine is always appreciated, and this bike, forwarded to me by a reader, would of course be more than welcome:


Really, the only problem with a Cockpit Run would be that it wouldn't get very far, since all the wacky cockpits would get tangled almost immediately. In this sense, it would be more of a "clump" than a "run."

141 comments:

Jolene said...

Hot Damn! I'm wearin' clothes, too.

PK said...

Podium!

Jolene said...

No bra though.

Anonymous said...

top turn

Anonymous said...

woohoo

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

No comment.

name said...

top ten... heavy legs from yesterday's sprint finish

grog said...

Clump this!

Blog Drafter said...

9

Blog Drafter said...

and 10

Anonymous said...

And 11

hillbilly said...

Is a "peasant ride" related to a tweed ride? I like the sound of it.

The English Major said...

At least Gyllensalmon wasn't on the sidewalk.

OBA said...

Podium +4

Anonymous said...

Hate pants? Revert to your Scottish ancestry (the McSnob clan) and adopt the kilt.

Swans?

Anonymous said...

huggy up there today..

le Correcteur said...

Top twenty! Great take on American adolescence, WRM!!

OBA said...

When I saw pictures of the first tweed run in London, I thought it looked like fun. Now that it's being marketed, packaged, and sold to me I want to show up on a purple lowrider tricycle and blast Black Norwegian Death Metal (TM) at it.

jno62 said...

Meh.

Rob said...

Top 20? Oh well. Friggin hilarious post WCRM...

Kenny said...

I ordered just a sandwich at Starbucks once, without any coffee.

The guy who makes the coffee looked at me like I just shot his puppy, stole his balloon, and told him his mom was fat!

GhostOfTyrone said...

We're supposed to outgrow pants rebellion?

I mean, knew that. Totally.

frank said...

zappa


wp

Anonymous said...

"(The crucial difference being that you can't fish the salmon out and flick it at your dining partner for laughs.)" Your poor wife...

Anonymous said...

Is it appropriate to offer up a golf clap for the intellectual discussion of black metal offered above?

I always order a MEDIUM coffee at starbucks. They always correct me, talk about smug.

Marcel Da Chump said...

I read that Black Metal article. Frere-Jones made me laugh when he likened a singer's voice to that of the Cookie Monster.

skink said...

Jolene,
g-string?

Anonymous said...

Oh man, Sasha Freare Jones is a pain.

I remember him going on and on about this Swedish singer, (Robyn?) as though it were the second coming of Stevie Nicks.

So I went to youtube and listened to a couple tracks. I don't know what he could of saw in her aside from a new wave haircut hat took him back to his college days. The guy is awful.

Anonymous said...

Peasant ride, eh?
I guess that explains the Scattante and those unpronouncable Euro-milktrucks that you seem to favor

mikeweb said...

I always thought a Tweed ride involved fat corrupt politicians.

Anonymous said...

*that* took him back to his college days (edit)

rcyran said...

Having a musical style that doesn't change an iota over three decades is OK. Messy teenage rooms still need to be cleaned, and the various soundtracks don't need much updating.

Having the same bands still performing confuses me, however. I think the Cro-Mags are coming out with a new album (or whatever the kids call a collection of music) this year.

Anonymous said...

Re Sasha-Frere Jones.

Writers gotta write.

Bloggers gotta write.

Pot Kettle Black

Lots in common there, Snobster.

But I agree. Intellectual political correctness exists. But only where it's important.

leroy said...

Jake Gyllenhaal guilty of bike salmoning?

It must be for the sequel "Brokeback Mountain Bike."

I wish I knew how to acquit you. How about a promise to not salmon again?

Anonymous said...

We live in a strange age of intellectual political correctness, where everything is brilliant and nothing is crap, and all creative expression no matter how derivative warrants the same degree of sycophantic fawning.

This is brilliant! Thnx, Snob.

And all the people said "A-meh!"

Jolene said...

No, skink, but I bet the naber lady gots one around here someplace. She came home all excited about some guy she met on vacation, then she follered him out to Tulsa, where they had some warrents out for her. Only took em a few days to catch her, so I think I'll be house settin' a while this time. Somebody gots to feed the cats and take care of the yard man.

Anonymous said...

It looks like Plus-Fours would serve the same function as regular trousers, but you don't have to roll up the cuff to keep them out of the chain.

BikeSnobNYC said...

Anonymous 12:59pm,

Very true. I don't think I'd be nearly as annoyed by Sasha Frere-Jones's stuff if it wasn't in the "New Yorker," though. It's like going to a fancy restaurant and getting a 20 minute discourse from the sommelier on the difference between Coke and Pepsi.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

Old Hipster said...

Sasha Frere-Jones is definitely absurd, silly, preposterous, and guilty of overthinking, but I don't get pretentious. What's the pretense? His whole shtick is that of a person who over-thinks pop music, and he's done it again.

He has an amazing gift of making terrible music sound really interesting.

ant1 said...

ant1st!

Save teh Freds said...

So...*shifty eyes*...this would be a bad time to run my idea for a black norwegian deathmetal band with a lyrical focus on intellectual political correctness in the 21st century by the peloton?

Esteemed Commenter DaddoOne said...

The Difference Between Coke And Pepsi

Zach said...

I think we need to Spandex-bomb one of these tweed rides. Show up in full road kit and act like the roadie asshole we all love. "On your left!" "Hold your line!" etc. That or show up on my FS bike with a full-face helmet and call all the tweedys "bra". Let's ruin this fucking period piece folks!

One Who Knows said...

"Pretty much everything qualifies as a "culture," and the members of a "culture" celebrate when someone appropriates their "culture" and sells it back to them. We live in a strange age of intellectual political correctness, where everything is brilliant and nothing is crap, and all creative expression no matter how derivative warrants the same degree of sycophantic fawning."

Brilliant!

Snobby, you are in a feedback loop of your own devise.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!

Save teh Freds said...

@zach spontaneous 20+ rider pace lines at smell-your-lycra draft distances?

Anonymous said...

"those unpronouncable Euro-milktrucks that you seem to favor"

burn, good one anon @ 12:55

Matt said...

You could ride with your menstrual cup on your head. Say it is your period dress.

skink said...

Jolene,
well, then, put it on. I'll live vicariously through that lucky yard man.
I've been called a "yard man", but not for my gardening skills.

Dapper Dan said...

Come on, you clods. Showing up at a tweed ride dressed as Freds and acting like douchebags is just childish. We need to mess with the Tweed crowd by showing up looking like we really tried but just couldn't get the look. Earnestly rubbing old rugby gear, hockey helments, wrestling tights, whatever we can dig up down at the Methodist Thrift Store or some relatives basement. Get them to feel sorry for us. They might even give us some of their not-quite-but-close clothing. We might score some polo lessons too.

television_writer said...

Who is the worst offender:

- The bicycling cycles reviews vainly attempt to distinguish between mostly identical bicycles at any given price point with phrases like 'vertically compliant' and 'feels faster'

-Another vain attempt to distinguish between mostly identical musical entertainment.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Terre Haute Karl said...

I see Alice Cooper is touring again. What could be more embarrassing than seeing a 60+ year old guy in makeup singing "Eighteen" and "Schools out"?

Save teh Freds said...

What about increasing Fred awareness by handing out sample chammy butter packets to the tweedies?

Anonymous said...

@ rcyran

An album is nowadays called an mp3 folder.

Album covers are now all a picture of a big apple.

Marcel Da Chump said...

Mike,
I think that's the Hugo Boss Tweed Ride for fat, corrupt, fashionable politicians.

Anonymous said...

How would you call a ride for greedy bankers?

Anonymous said...

free

waxmouth said...

Wow. I checked out the link on Sasha Frere-Jones's book on Michael Jackson. The person who wrote that post is called "Thessaly La Force"

pete said...

'The Tweed Run is a group bicycle ride through the centre of London, in which the cyclists are expected to dress in traditional British cycling attire, particularly tweed plus four suits.'

I'm British, well English really, and have been cycling the roads and lanes of England, Scotland and Wales for the last 47 years. I've never seen a cyclist in a tweed plus four suit.

Robin Hood green tights have been de rigeur for the last 30 or so years.

4fuxake said...

Perhaps a black-metal Cockpit Clump would be just the thing to help recreate the spirit of a bygone era.

Rodney Dangerfield said...

I favor more recent golf wear, myself.

But it really doesn't favor me.

sufferist said...

Cockpit clumping...what will the kids think of next....Amazing.

screaming skull said...

Dapper Dan,
I like your idea! I'm thinking-- potato sacks, old wool scarves- the scarecrow look!

Anonymous said...

Sasha Frere-Jones is text book definition of pretentious:

"characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious."

His postulating is so full of masturbatory profundity, it's really funny (unintentionally so, as snob points out).

"Ponderous, man" - Kasem

rltilley said...

This post really hits home for me. Not only do I own riding "knickers" of the Rapha & Chrome varieties but I have also been revisiting the music of my youth lately.

Right now I'm making my way through Europe & catching up with the Teutonic Thrash trio of Kreator, Sodom & Destruction. I just got done revisiting D.R.I. & The Mentors.

Gotta agree that some of it sounds lame now but there was a lot of good stuff as well. One thing for sure though, nothing is more lame than an old guy driving around in his Miata cranking out vintage metal & hardcore.

Mike said...

all i wanted was a pepsi.

just a pepsi.

and she wouldn't give it to me

(screaming chorus)

wishiwasmerckx said...

Snob, thank you for the definition.

Until today, I thought that "Plus Four" was something Austin powers hoped to attain with his Swedish Penis Pump.

Now I know better.

wishiwasmerckx said...

Since I do not live in Noo York City, I need to ask a favor of those of you that do...

Should you encounter Sasha Frere-Jones on the street there, please punch him in the dick for me.

wp said...

official logo of the cockpit ride

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_378/12378919323DRZ7c.jpg

wp said...

or maybe this

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_373/1236717206r0njUp.jpg

Anonymous said...

These days (32 yrs old) I typically don't drunkenly run around in circles at Thrash shows. Oh wait, yes I do.

Cynical, Foul Mouthed Goofball said...

Writing about shitty movies as though they mattered would be pretentious, too. Publishing such tripe in something as pretentious as the New Yorker just makes everyone a little bit dumber. Thank you, pretentious assholes.

Anonymous said...

a registration lottery for a dweeb-ride, i mean tweed-ride.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha

oops, i just split my plus 4's

Anonymous said...

Mike,

I'd like to give you a Pepsi for bringing that song to mind, but all I have these days is Diet Coke.



Old balls.

Marcel Da Chump said...

In my late twenties I got curious about other musical genres. I found the music of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus Jokn Coltrane and it was like a whole new point of view taking hold. Since then I've gotten into Bud Powell, Clifford Brown, Lester Young, Art Blakey, Ben Webster, Dizzie Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Max Roach, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones,
Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, and a host of others. The sound is different and the technical prowess more refined, but the passion is the same. THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME.

luciferyellow said...

This is a more poignant than any of Frere-Jones' observations and yet still funnier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chiVMrWMHko

Buy-cycle said...

music snob?

Gabriel Will said...

About Jones: Well said. But couldn't you have waited to rip Sasha via a band that actually IS terrible? There are plenty out there that he's reviewed. As far as black metal goes, the Wolves in the Throne room HAVE made a real contribution to the genre. Unlike lots of other crap that he likes.

Anonymous said...

So... "plus four" = "shants"?

Bubbles said...

A tweed ride for greedy bankers?

The Credit Tweed Ride.

Floods said...

The really nice thing about the New Yorker is that it's a weekly. You don't have to read Sasha Frere-Jones. I also avoid Bruce McCall. I also don't miss Tina Brown and her Titans of Industry profiles.

So, how much money do those 50somethings get for swinging that diaper around?

SingleSpeedMark said...

Cool. So when are we doing the Cockpit Run?

The "2011 Wild Cat AYHSMB Cockpit Run"

Tuesday, October 25th looks good to me. Let's meet at the Manhattan Bridge at 4pm and then ride to... The Brooklyn Bridge?

Sir Jasper said...

Since you don't own any plus-fours yourself, it is not surprising that you choose to illustrate the phenomenon with something I might dare to suggest look more like plus-eights a la Tintin - are those trousers really just four inches below the knee? I think not.
As for bygone eras, it is also not much of a surprise that Americans don't know what this means, as they tend to throw away or demolish anything past its immediate sell-by date - until someone decides to sell it back to you (+1 to OBA).
I am curious about which bands your adolescent rebellious self liked to scream along to, WCRM. I offer The Pop Group, The Fall and The Birthday Party from my own youth.
And finally - it must be the Wednesday speed kicking in - expecting the New Yorker to be on the pulse of alternative music must be the equivalent of expecting Fox News to do investigative reporting on Wall St malfeasance.

Dexter Gordon said...

Our old whipping boy John Cassidy has an article in the current New Yorker on the economist John Maynard Keynes. Reading Cassidy obviates sleeping pills.

Reggie said...

I was watching the truly cringe-inducing interview with that Liturgy douche and my wife asks, "Is this a joke." I had to say "No, this kid is serious," twelve times before she believed me.

Anonymous said...

Hunt-Hendrix sounds like he attended an art-school.

I noticed how his band-mates just let him go.

Hip Priest said...

Have to listen to No Bulbs by the Fall
at least once a year.
That's my religion.

hahahahahahaha said...

wishiwasmerckxz said "dick".

crosspalms said...

I liked it when Nick Hornby wrote about music for the New Yorker.

For the twee ride, how about berets, monocles and cigarette holders? Spats optional, dahling.

wp said...

@ singlespeedmark

no no, i don't think actually riding together with these cockpits of random gangliness, that might prove as dreadful as those bucks permanently entangling their tines...which they sometimes do.

Pussy Cockpit ride (PC): staged starts ala time-trial. sound horn(s) upon overtaking, wear pants ghely. (nttawwt)

Cockpit Fights ride (CF): play speedeathmetal loudly and circle, stomp, snort and use your bars like the deer do*.

deer do.

*except that the winning deer gets laid after his fights. or more evolutionarily correctly put, prevents the loser from getting laid.

wp

leroy said...

Marcel --

Check out Bill Dixon's "Intents and Purposes" (1967) if you can find a copy.

Bill passed away last year, he would have been 86 today.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly sure that the Tweed Runs* evolved in collaboration (or in parallel) with "The Chap" magazine.

*the skidmarks are a bugger to clean

hey nonny mouse

wp said...

otherwise, wrt the Great Cockpits Ride V 1.oh

the 25th works for me as i'm down here on the porch over the hounds waitin' for the moon to come up so we's can get our hunt on.

witch is another way of sayin' you boys have now, ya hear.

Southern Rock Machine

leroy said...

No one ever wanted to buy the world a Pepsi and keep it company.

91...

wp said...

but for the want of a word.

have _fun_ now, ya hear.

my helper ferret Ricky got treed by the hounds last week and has been protesting ever since... he helps with the big words.

old guy with big ears said...

ninety WHAT?

Pablo Picasso said...

was never called an asshole.

Born in Chicago said...

i never ride with anyone without they seatbelt, that's one of my rules...

leroy said...

Whoa -- I almost got head butted on the lead out to 100.

1997 -- New Yorker publishes "Brokeback Mountain"

2011 -- WRM encounters Jake Gyllenhaal salmoning in the NYC street canyons.

2011 -- New Yorker publishes "The Dark Arts"

2025 -- Where will WRM spot Frere-Jones?

97 ....

Etherhuffer said...

I was relaxing to Norway's best, Turbonegro, and in the middle of Prince of the Rodeo you arseholes go picking on my homies at Starbucks. Well, thanks! I have never understood the smug quotient there. I mean having a PhD in English or womyn's studies still does not change the fact that you're still just a glorified coffee pourer! Jeez....
Same for local bike shop guys. Hey, even ricer dudes can tune a Honda so oiling my sprockets is not college level work.

Me, at Starbucks: I would like a cup tea, and could you use the steamer so it's boiling hot?
Barista: we use the hot water dealy. It's 190 degrees.
Me: that is why I prefer the steamer.
Barista: but the spigot is 190....
Me: oh, does water now boil at 190?
Barista: (crickets chirping)

They make coffee rocket science, but ask for tea made with boiling water and the universe grinds to a halt.
TEA SMUG

Black Flag said...

Let's have a war!

yo said...

It can start in New Jersey!

wp said...

Nevermind me, i'm replaying the soundtrack to ____?

Winner gets a coupon to kiss Ricky my helper monkey when his protest ends.

wp said...

Sweep?!

Anonymous said...

Coke!

wp said...

BOOM!

We all gotta duck
when the shit hits the fan.

the joke said...

New Coke

Anonymous said...

Why does anyone ever go into Starbucks? Their coffee is awful. I wouldn't drink it if it was free, nevermind all the silly ordering bs. That's just stoopud.

Anonymous said...

So anon @ 4:25, when you fart with "an extra feature attraction", is that "sharting your shants"?

Etherhuffer said...

TUSA. Ginger Baker on drums/vocals for a true tea snob anthem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azrPr7O0pfY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Marcel Da Chump said...

Leroy,
I have yet to tread the waters of avant-garde jazz....looks like I'm getting the green light.

Anonymous said...

Gotta love the slick Jonathan Richman reference,Pablo @5:43!

Etherhuffer said...

Mexican Coke. Cane Sugar. FU Archer Daniels Midland!

Leslie Wong said...

I saw Huggy Bear at Pioneer once.

Anonymous said...

TWEED CULTURE NOT FOR SALE.

Seriously, anybody else want to ride behind in a pack of terrible Fred taste with me? Perhaps we could try to work our way through with some solid "on your left!!!" action.

Bisso said...

Joining the grupetto, i still have to chime in to golf clap Matt's comment at 1:53.

Nice work

Tweedy said...

,,,a double-kick drum
by the landing in the summer
she fell in love with a drummer
she fell in love with another
she fell in love

I miss the innocence I've known
playin' Kiss covers
beautiful and stoned

crosspalms said...

@Dexter Gordon
Anything that keeps Cassidy away from writing about bikes is good

Lou Donaldson said...

...kinda like the thought of someone whipping
John Cassidy. He might be into that stuff...not
that there's anything wrong with it.

Labia Major Taylor said...

I almost thought thank fuck Snob reads Sasha Frere-Jones so I don't have to but really, that's pandering...

NOBODY should read Sasha Frere-Jones on any subject and while I personally igore The New Yorker altogether I know some folks can't break the habit.

The funny/sad thing is the dude is truly horrible both as a writer and "critic"; it's like George Steiner's work there was an accident and Sasha and David Denby are having fighting for Prospect Park "KOM" points, the fucking simps.

cock said...

Over intellectualizing Black Metal you say?

http://blackmetaltheory.blogspot.com/

Vegas said...

"Full of Whoa" and no mention of Joey Lawrence? For shame.

My Love is like...WHOA

leroy said...

Marcel --

Also recommend Cecil Taylor's "Spring of Two Blue Jays."

mander said...

The really off-putting thing about tweed rides is that British sport and practical cycling was not traditionally the activity of upper-crust gentlemen and ladies. Historically accurate british cycle wear would be grimy workingmans clothes for commuting, or all-black wool for sport cycling. Dave Moulton has blogged a lot about this: http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/blog/2007/10/23/history-of-british-cycle-racing-part-i-the-ban.html.

I get annoyed at this kind of nostalgia for imaginary pasts. There is something really vain, solipsistic and false about it and sadly it is becoming a hallmark of our times.

bikesgonewild said...

...gary fisher can afford custom made/bespoke $1800.00 outfits to cycle & look dapper in, why not you ???...

leroy said...

My dog claims to have ridden a Tweed Ride pantsless and no one said a thing.

It's amazing what dogs can get away with.

Don't believe me? Try licking yourself in public and see what happens.

bikesgonewild said...

...lick myself in public ???...i'd need a longer tongue or.........

...well, i'm just sayin'...

cramitsucko said...

That video was like the most painful thing, to like happen to me, like this entire week. It's like, they were like trying to like rape my ears with their fucking stupidity, and like they totally did.

Nebraska bike commuter (non-DWI edition) said...

I caught just enough of the late 60s/early 70s hippie vibe in my adolescence that I never needed "dark metal" and was always kinda bemused at how fiercely partisan punk and metal fans could be. Plus, growing up in a wildly varied musical environment, I never understood the appeal of using music as lifestyle identification. It can be so much more than that, yet that is all 90% or so of humans seem to get out of it.

As for popular music criticism - I need to get my thoughts together on that one; maybe next time the subject comes up. Now for my commute. It's not raining, so I'm glad there's no bus.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear......
http://www.dnainfo.com/20111006/upper-east-side/ues-community-board-members-want-cyclists-be-licensed

RCMC467 said...

"Records?"

What be these things to which you refer, Sir?

"Records?"

Never heard of them.

Anonymous said...

Too much non-cycling related stuff for my liking

Marcel Da Chump said...

Leroy,
Cecil Taylor, yes--I've heard some of his music on
WBGO. Also, if you're a Charlie Parker fan, Columbia University's radio station, WKCR 89.9, has a 9am show called BIRD FLIGHT; hosted by Phil Schaap, a jazz scholar and Parker historian.

Christopher said...

Hey Snob. The way I've seen your writing evolve over the past year makes me think one thing...you're currently working on a novel. And so from this point on I will only comment..."So Snob how's that novel you've been working on going?"

Burt Columbus MXL said...

Nebraska bc(nDe), you and I must be about the same age. After buying my first transistor radio with money made mowing lawns (a lot of them!) I could tune in the local AM station and hear CCR, the Beatles, dozens of folkies, Johnny Cash, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and on and on. We didn't know how good we had it!

Later on, some people mistook disgruntled yowling accompanied by incoherent noise as the reinvention of popular music, or something, and polluted the airwaves with all sorts of miserable crap that missed the point completely. It was pretty much the same kind of sad misappropriation as the "Christian rock" nonsense. It sucked then and it still sucks.

Matt Groening had some interesting things to say about rock music critics somewhere, maybe in one of his "Life in Hell" comics or somewhere like that. He had been one, and his description of the "art" is pretty damn funny.

Jasper said...

Whatever you think about the New Yorker, don't tell me that when you read a line like Nancy Franklin's put-down of Hugh Hefner: "he comes across as dull and complacent, marbled with the fat of amour propre" you don't wish you had written it yourself.

Angie Kritenbrink said...

I'm shocked. SHOCKED! Sasha Frere-Jones is a man? I was thinking of a black woman in her mid-30s with a liberal arts degree from some almost-Ivy-league college on the East Coast.

Jasper said...

Alas, another illusion cruelly dashed. Does that make the writing better or worse now you know?

Guitar Amps said...

Interesting thoughts. I love the expression you made from the quality of music. The guitar amps were amazing.

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