3/25/12

Apparently Look Mexico is into hunting, subject matter suitable for the video to their first track of their 2010 release, which is in my daily rotation. Illuminating the everyman, he who hangs with friends and kisses hounds, it makes the band seem pretty fun. But I think there's more to say for this song than the video says, though.

There's fed-up anger here, and it speaks to me in time signatures.

"When you live out your time/In hope of impossibility/We stripped down lies/We treated you like family/Credit where credit is due/Now the bureau is looking for me/So as you thank us for our patience/Expect something else, not a thing/and I thank you/I'll thank for/Thank you for absolutely nothing"
~You Stay. I Go. No Following
Look Mexico, To Bed, To Battle

Literary worlds are inflamed wtih income inequality tales, academic journals are quick to point out problems and debate each other's solutions. Everyone's talking. But where's the music on this? It's there in a pop track or two, an occasional reference to money or fame ("I Wanna be a Billioniare," that damn song) or escape (think Coldplay's "Paradise"). Fleet Foxes did a pretty good job capturing the feeling of it all on "Helplessness Blues," but commentarywise, the album speaks to the individual far more so than the whole of the culture or its direction.

One of the constant drawbacks of pop culture is it's always trying to define itself into what it wants to be, rather than be what it is. Underground, you find the antidote. Underground, you can call the spade a spade. But I've yet to come across a force inspired recent events in recent years, unless I'm forgetting somebody.

Essentially, where is my Guerilla Radio about derivatives?

3/18/12

Oh everything will really be just fine, won't it? It's kind of like a joke, the stomach-sinking pitfalls of petty socialization that plauge the mind for a day or two before you realize, oh, wait, this is a familiar place. It's dangerous territory, that familiarity that can comfort a frightened heart, but disappoint the eager mind.

On the one hand, you can find your footing when you know it's the same old, same old, day in, day out - on the other hand, what the hell do you have to lose by daring to live different?



"and she dealt with it
cause she could't ignore
the better world they left before"
~Time For You To Go Do Your Own Thing
Look Mexico, To Bed To Battle

This is some band, this Look Mexico, they are kind of groovy in a post-emo, pre-hardcore way, like Minus the Bear but a little spacier/angier. Fueled by punk sensibilities. I know I am a bit late on their discovery, but strumbling across their YouTube videos a couple days ago proves a pleasing discovery.

I am focusing my mind on a soft-volume rendition from the built-in speakers on my work computer, hoping that a little bit of something new but familiar enough will assure me that yes, settled isn't so bad sometimes. I am hoping this day goes by fast. I am hoping for other things, too.