Lunar Bovine - Jason Cobill's Weblog » Music

Press Pause Play

jcobill — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:26:44 +0000

I watched a very interesting documentary online a few weeks ago, and have since been recommending it to people while I digest some of the thoughts the film put forward about art and culture and the internet. This backlash against the internet seems to be a prevailing theme in the content I’m consuming lately, and I think it’s really interesting to take a break from all the hype and really think about whether things are going where we want them to.

Press Pause Play brings together a number of notable speakers who pontificate on the “democratization of culture” that we’re witnessing while all the pillars of traditional media (newspapers, television, radio) come crashing down thanks to Youtube and podcasts and ever-lowering barriers to entry. It’s worth checking out!

The documentary is put together in a slightly uneven way – we take detours from interesting subjects so the editors can interject some pointless slow-mo concert-crowd shots and bits of found-footage experimental nonsense for aesthetics sake. We see planes. We see city skylines. We see flying triangle particles and blob meshes. There should be a drinking game based around every time the camera does a slow push in on the back of some headphone-wearing kid’s head.

Draaaaank!

There are definitely big changes happening – for better and for worse. And I agree that you can’t trust crowdsourcing to choose your culture for you. (Now sitting at 35 million views, Niki Minaj’s youtube record-setting “Stupid Hoe” video is a vapid, seizure-inducing heap of popular dreck.) But I don’t think that tearing down some of the establishment is a bad thing – decades of consolidation in radio by companies like Clear Channel have severely restricted local programming, choking out young fresh artists and local musicians in favour of endless loops of Aerosmith’s greatest hits. Thank goodness the internet came along when it did – probably 90% of the stuff I listen to is from obscure bands I only found thanks to pitchfork, iTunes, hypeMachine and people’s mashup blogs.

A few choice quotes:

“… it’s a reality that many people don’t like, [...] most people don’t have talent. So for a serious young film-maker, these are very depressing times. When you leave everything to the crowd, when everything becomes democratized, where everything is determined by the number of clicks, you are by definition undermining the seriousness of the artistic endeavor.” – Andrew Keen

“If everyone’s a musician, and everybody is making mediocre music, eventually the world is just covered in mediocrity. And people start to become comfortable with mediocrity. And that to me is the danger.” – Moby

And of course, you can’t film a documentary without a bit of outrageous hyperbole:

“There’s no evidence that we’re on the verge of a great new cultural age, if there’s any evidence, [...] we may be on the verge of a new dark age in cultural terms. A new collapse of Constantinople. Where the creative world is destroyed. And where all we have is cacophany and self-opinion. Where we have a crisis of democratized culture.” – Andrew Keen

Scott Pilgrim

jcobill — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:56:44 +0000

Andrea turned me on to a very clever graphic novel called “Scott Pilgrim“, which is drawn by a Canadian author, Bryan Lee O’Malley. I tried describing it to another co-worker and it came out like this: “So this guy is in a band and he’s a rocker and he’s dating a girl who’s too young for him and then he falls in love with this other girl and he has to dump the first one and it’s kindof a love triangle thing…” and I watched his eyes glaze over. So I added “…and he needs to DEFEAT 7 OF HIS GIRLFRIEND’S EXES IN BATTLE TO THE DEATH!” which I think may have sold him.

What’s extra-cool is that it’s all set in Toronto, so you’ll recognise local landmarks and hangouts as they trudge around in the snow and ride public transit. Wicked!

What’s extra-extra cool is that Scott Pilgrim wears a Plumtree shirt, and the name was inspired by the Plumtree song “Scott Pilgrim”. And anyone who’s snooped in my CD collection (which is pretty much nobody) knows that I have a huge crush on the Plumtree girls. They’re so dreamy!

What’s extra-extra-extra cool is that it’s all coming to a movie theatre near you next summer, they’re in mid-production filming the live-action version with Michael Cera. (In Toronto!) Wouldn’t it be amazing if Plumtree re-united and went on tour following the film release?

Bobby McFerrin Science Lecture

jcobill — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:54:36 +0000

I stumbled into this very cool video of Bobby McFerrin (the “Don’t worry be happy” guy) demonstrating the power of collective musical expectations – playing the audience’s brains like a piano. Super neat.

I’ve always been a fan of his musical experimentation – but you rarely hear about him unless you’re looking. I wish he had a little more traction in pop culture.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

My First Public Guitar Performance

jcobill — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:40:43 +0000

At my family going-away party I convinced Uncle Jim and Ron to pull out their guitars and jam to an impromptu set list of simple 70’s music I’ve learned. It was my first time playing for anyone other than Natasha or my music teacher, so it was a bit of a rush (even just in front of family and friends) when people jumped in with singing and dancing around.

They totally played circles around me, but I managed to hold my own through most of the stuff that I knew. I was pretty proud of myself! I don’t want to sound really narcissistic, but I can’t help but think that this picture makes me look really cool.

As a side note – Uncle Jim and I are playing each other’s guitars in this particular shot, we’d traded off for a few songs so I could try another instrument. I kindof like the look of the black guitar, but love the tone of my own. That’s my baby in the middle, the orange one!

Jay playing guitar with Uncle Jim and Ron