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Archives for 2012
Happy Joss Whedon Day
Marvel’s The Avengers opens tonight in the US, and by all critic and audience accounts (having opened abroad last week) it is one of the most enjoyable comic book movies ever made.
That comes as no surprise to me – it was written and directed by Joss Whedon.
For all of you about to say, “Oh, I love Joss Whedon!” please allow me to share my Whedon Credibility, which will trump all of y’alls’:
I made my father take me to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the movie theatre when I was ten years old, because I loved vampires. Then, in 1997 when I saw that Buffy would be a mid-season replacement in TV Guide I saved the issue and checked the WB’s schedule religiously each week until the show appeared. I never missed an episode until I left for college.
As one of the 1% of Joss’s oldest fans, I am incredibly happy he is about to become the director of one of the top five highest-grossing debut weekend films of all time. He deserves it. He is a freaking genius, and it would benefit the entire world if he was given enough respect, money, and autonomy to make whatever art he wants to make whenever he wants to make it for the next several decades.
There is no amount of over-exposed he can get that will annoy me. I will always love him, even though I stormed out of the theatre when we saw Serenity screaming that I would never watch anything of his ever again.
He also gives outstanding interview, and the first-ever big screen comic book crossover movie is yielding what is sure to be the biggest haul of Whedon sit-downs in the entire past and future of this timeline.
Behold:
GQ: I ask him if there’s some validation to getting The Avengers, at long last—if he felt like his early work had opened up a door that, until now, he himself never got to walk through.
“That’s a really beautiful thing to say,” he says, and pauses for a second, stares at his lap, processing. “I’m kind of a little bit—I, a little bit, feel that way. I didn’t, really, until you said it, but now I totally do.”
…
So he goes in and pitches [his pre-Nolan vision for Batman]. He’s on fire, practically shaking. “And the executive was looking at me like I was Agent Smith made of numbers. He wasn’t seeing me at all. And I was driving back to work, and I was like, ‘Why did I do that? Why did I get so invested in that Batman story? How much more evidence do I need that the machine doesn’t care about my vision? And I got back to work and got a phone call that Firefly was cancelled. And I was like, ‘It was a rhetorical question! It was not actually a request! Come on!'”Next up…
Forbes: “The Dark Knight,” for me, has the same problem that every other “Batman” movie has. It’s not about Batman. I think Heath Ledger is just phenomenal and the character of the Joker is beautifully written. He has a particular philosophy that he carries throughout the movie. He has one of the best bad guy schemes. Bad guy schemes are actually very hard to come up with. I love his movie, but I always feel like Batman gets short shrift. In “Batman Begins,” the pathological, unbalanced, needy, scary person in the movie is Batman. That’s what every “Batman” movie should be.
…
I have one particular theme, and it ties in with what I was talking about with the corporations, and that’s helplessness. The empowerment of someone who’s helpless. And that has everything to do with how I feel about myself. Buffy was a pretty blond girl of whom nothing was expected, who didn’t try very hard at anything, and then suddenly became the most powerful person around — that theme, whether it’s empowerment or the discovery that one is powerless, that drives everything I do.
But, this one was most epic in length and scope…
Wired: I mean [Dollhouse is] potentially the most offensive show in the history of television. And to me it’s also the most pure feminist and empowering statement I ever made. It’s somebody building themselves from nothing. As has been told in legend and is actually true, I thought of it because I was having lunch with [Dollhouse star] Eliza [Dushku], and she was talking about what everybody expected from her. “Well, these people say I should be this, and these people say I should be that.” And I was like, oh, click, that’s the show. And I know what the name is. And when I know the name, that’s usually a bad sign. I literally went home and said to my wife, “Honey, I accidentally created a Fox show.”
And one of the things that we talked about at that lunch, one of the things that was the mainstay of the show, was sex. It was about how people relate to each other sexually, what they want from each other sexually, what they want from each other romantically, how these two things are interlinked and how they’re separate. The show was on some level supposed to be a celebration of human perversion, because perversion, like obsession, is the thing that makes people passionate and interesting and worthy. And people who are nothing, like Echo and the other dolls, are learning to be someone. And part of learning to be someone is learning to be someone that nobody else wants to be. Eliza said, “I want to explore sexuality. Not just wear sexy outfits,” although she’s like, “I would like to do that too.”
…
It may be that I’m not as invested. But I guess the thing that I want to say about fandom is that it’s the closest thing to religion there is that isn’t actually religion. The love of something and what it’s trying to accomplish or mean are usually very separate. The people who are like, “Well you can’t do it. That staircase was seven steps, not five.” They totally missed the point of this. When I first met the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, we were talking about comics and he told me his favorite letter was, “Daredevil would never say that. Die. Die. Why can’t you just die?”(Wired: Well, it makes a good point.)
And Bendis can’t, by the way. Sunlight, stake through the heart, beheading, he won’t die. He’s actually very powerful.
Happy Joss Whedon Day!
Amanda Palmer and the True Fans
On Monday it was Amanda Palmer’s birthday.
I have written about Amanda before. She was half the astounding Dresden Dolls before she released a frankly stunning and sadly slept-on solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and then got intentionally dropped from her label, meandering off to make an album as half of a conjoined twin act, marry Neil Gaiman, and then dabble in the world of ukuleles and Radiohead cover songs.It’s not the most linear or discernible path for an artist to take, but somehow Amanda not only makes it work, she acquires more new fans at every turn. Not just casual fans. Insatiable, intelligent, invested true fans. I say it is because she is so indelibly real, even when she is being completely ludicrous.
Back to her birthday. It was Monday, and it marked not only the start of another year in Amanda’s life, but the completion of recording a new album with her band Grand Theft Orchestra.
To celebrate, she created a Kickstarter campaign to fundraise for the album release, promotion, and supporting tour. She set the goal at $100,000 – pretty massive for a Kickstarter campaign – but did she have 5,000 true fans willing to chip in $20 each to help her get there?
She made the limit in seven hours. By the next day she had a quarter of a million dollars. At the end of day three she currently sits at the $400,000 mark, with four weeks of fundraising to go. There is an honest chance that Amanda Palmer may briefly become a millionaire before she creates all of the albums, art books, and USB record players that go with the campaign and travels the world with Grand Theft Orchestra to share her new music – and that will be a million dollars well spent.
I gave almost immediately, mostly out of principal. Based on the past few ukulele things I thought the record would be weird and indulgent and I would just be satisfied that I am supporting an artist I admire.
Then I watched this Kickstarter commercial, rife with clips of new songs … every single one of them amazing.
Now I have not only pledged in exchange for music, but I am going in purchasing an Amanda Palmer House Party for Philadelphia, which means after seeing her four times as the Dresden Dolls and two times solo I am now going to see her in a living room with about three dozen other people sitting on the floor.
(Not only that, but she inspired me to shattered a long-running streak of writer’s block, and I already have two peculiar new songs to show for it.)
Amanda Palmer isn’t operating from anyone’s model but her own, and she breaks the mold every time she dreams up a new project.
She is the new music industry. We are the media.
Happy Birthday, Amanda Fucking Palmer.
Arcati Crisis: The Wedding Band Edition
It was our third time through “Don’t Stop Believin'” when I really did start believing Arcati Crisis could be an actual wedding band.
Rewind ten days. Onstage at a near-empty Tin Angel, my voice felt as though it was going to snap in half. I sang “Better” and “Bucket Seat” robotically, relying on muscle memory to find some in-tune notes in the pain.
Fast forward four days. Gina was too sick to rehearse, so Jake and I gathered in my attic to stare down a list of twenty new songs we had exactly four weeks to learn. It seemed daunting.
Reverse a month. We are playing “Apocalyptic Love Song” to a packed Fergie’s Pub, and everyone knows the words.
Finally, reverse the calendar back to February. I am a little tipsy at Gina’s dining room table with the entire team of bloggers behind PolySkeptic, half of which are two of Gina’s significant others, the pair of soon-to-be newlyweds Shaun and Ginny.
Ginny and Shaun were not planning typical wedding, and both Gina and I successfully threw a pair of atypical, untraditional, unusual weddings for ourselves. With all the uniqueness at the table, we decided it was a great idea for Arcati Crisis to act as the entertainment for their festivities. I pulled out my spreadsheet of 3,500 pieces of sheet music and we all had at it, picking out our favorite dance songs.
As the night (and, let’s be frank: the beer) wore on, our picks became more outlandish. AC covering “The Sign”? Awesome. AC covering “Don’t Stop Believin'”? No problem. We left planning to learn 4-6 new songs for the wedding, but there was also the little matter of the 4-6 new songs we were already learning as a band. We were tearing through an amazing batch of new originals, plus a pair of new covers – “A Little Respect” by Erasure, and “Love Game” by Lady Gaga.
That new batch debuted on March 16 at an awesome gig at Fergie’s Pub. It was one of those shows where everything went right. We shared the bill with Andra Taylor and Amanda Wells, and the energy in the room was incredible – as were we. I barely had a critique of myself on the way home, which is a rare occasion. I even broke a string mid-set and didn’t sweat it, simply switching to my backpacker guitar to debut our new songs.
We expected to have two entire months to learn our 4-6 cover songs, but just before the Fergie’s show we decided to take a April 19 gig at The Tin Angel. It was a month out from our last show – plenty of time to recuperate and recruit an audience, even if it pushed out our cover-learning a little.
Sadly, the Tin gig was the polar opposite of Fergies. I was in terrible voice, no thanks to a stressful week of events and meetings. We had gear problems throughout the set, probably helping accelerate the already-speedy exit of the fans brought by prior acts on the bill. After I managed to eek out the last notes of “Song for Mrs. Schroeder” from my dying voice and out-of-tune guitar I was off the stage before everyone else in the band.
Those nights are hard. You can be a well-rehearsed machine and still have an off night. I’ve seen it happen to artists a thousand times bigger than us.
What I’m sure is true for artists of any size is that it’s not only the actual night that’s hard, but the wait until your next rehearsal or show. All you have is that bad taste on your brain and fingers. It doesn’t help when that next rehearsal involves learning a slew of new songs for one of the most-anticipated days of someone’s life – especially when your star cover-singer (AKA Gina) is home sick.
Jake and I started out slowly sans Gina. We only needed 4-6 songs, after all. Oh, but what if we add another? And what if we tried that one? And wouldn’t it be fun if we really covered “You Sexy Thing”?
Here’s where being a well-rehearsed machine comes in handy. Jake can pick out the skeleton of any song on bass – it doesn’t matter if it’s a cover or an original. I can arrange anything for a band, even seemingly single-note songs. Between the two of us, we learned the basics of 20 cover songs.
You know what else? I listened to the recording of the Tin Angel. Yes, the gear problems are evident, but my voice? Sounded just fine. It might have been the best version of “Better” I’ve ever sung, even if I felt like I would cry while I was singing it.
Add to that the fact that Gina’s performance at our next acoustic rehearsal reminded us that she can sing anything… anything, and our prospects as a wedding band were looking up.
That brings us to Sunday, our weekly rock rehearsal with Zina on drums. Zina can perfect any song in three tries, and she is a wunderkind at adapting covers to our peculiar needs. Together, we crushed the list of the ten new cover songs that made it past Gina, Jake, and I on our first run-through. Yes, there is plenty to tune up, but we got through them. And…
Peter: Zina, we’re not going to try “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It was kinda terrible when we tried it acoustic.
Zina: Well, I learned it.
Peter: Why am I not surprised.
Jake: Actually, I learned it too.
Peter: I know it. I just don’t think it’s going to sound good.
Gina: Oh, hell, let’s just give it a try.
We proceeded to play a very shaky version of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Not one I would put up in front of people. Then we tweaked a few things and played it again. It sounded almost as good as a bad bar band. We added Gina on guitar and some harmony from me and played it again…
Reverse the calendar to February. The Polyskeptic gang and I, tipsy and laughing around the table about the ridiculous covers Arcati Crisis might undertake.
Fast forward to March. We are debuting our cover of “Love Game” on stage to a packed Fergie’s Pub, and everyone is dancing.
Fast forward another month. Jake and I learned 20 new songs in three hours. We didn’t skip a single one.
Rewind four days. Gina looks over at me and smiles as I sing the wailing high harmony to “Cosmonaut’s Wife” on stage at the Tin Angel – it’s the first time I’ve done it at a show.
Fast forward ten days. My eyes twinkle with tears as Gina and I harmonize on songs I’ve been singing my entire life. “Is it strange to dance so soon?” “Do you remember when we used to sing?” “No one’s gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong.” Zina asks if we can try “Tonight Tonight” and we stumble through it impressively – a wall of sound, all of us singing harmony, all of us laughing every time we mess up and have to start again.
It was our third time through “Don’t Stop Believin'” when I really did start believing Arcati Crisis could be an actual wedding band.
What I Tweeted, 2012-04-29 Edition
My tweets of the last week: