Consumption Junction: The Cultural Significance of Britney’s Ass

I caught this post on Tech Crunch and in light of the hilarity of the 2007 VMA’s recently I thought it’d be appropriate to expound my opinion on a couple of things (btw, my opinion is awesome). I’ll first address the Arousal Industry’s latest blundervestment: making ringtones available on CD and selling them as ‘Ringle’s.’ If you haven’t followed the rapidly declining sales of the dinosaur-wearing-gucci-industry into the rabbit hole of failure you’ll know that these gentle giants and habitual employment curtailers are scrambling for the next best thing to supplement their bottom line. For that they have thought long and hard while on the toilet, squeezing out a seared ahi and quail egg champagne shit as the collective stone was passed from urethra, chinking on the porcelain, inspiring the latest money maker – The Ringle.

 

To the uninitiated or layperson, basically the ‘Ringle’ will, “contain three songs: one popular track, a remix, an older track from the same artist and a ringtone.” The distro method will be a “CD with a slip-sleeve cover.” If you’re smashing your balls with a meat tenderizer right now (or if you are a female, feel free to smash your nipple or equivalent in a desk drawer) in light of that news, well, you’ve been paying attention to the comings and goings of the music industry. If not, don’t despair. This can still be considered one of those ‘what the fuck’ moments. The first of those will be a single from recently re-celebritized Britney Spears, her song; “Gimme More” is already testing really well in the major markets. Sony and Universal are going to pump titles into the stream this fall and they’ll be available at your favorite wallet raping store. The propensity for continued revenue loss in the face of continued bad decision making isn’t as appalling as the fact they’re going to sell singles by CD. CD??? Or is Britney’s gunt more appealing packaged as a pitch corrected ringtone. I dunno.

 

Okay.

So now that your brain has come to a nice simmer and your eyes are bleeding a bit, drool slowly congealing somewhere on your shirt or blouse, hands limply at your sides, legs prostrate beneath you, a jolt of pop narcotic will bring you back. A shot to the jugular with a syringe full of excitement – a glass pipe filled with potent crystallized entertainment – a tincture of attention drawing, edge of your seat mayhem filled with blinking lights, celebrity and pageantry. For the kingdom of your brain we present the 2007 VMA’s. A nightmare ride into The Palms casino/hotel in Las Vegas for an amalgam of hyper stylized vampiric pop-lust orgy of coordinated chaos – presented by Chevrolet. That’s right. America’s car company. The company that brought you the Tahoe, and the tagline “An American Revolution.” AND John-fucking-Mellancamp leaning his jackboot on the fender of a truck while a montage of ‘life style images’ flood the screen. Look! Some sepia toned portraiture of African Americans that look doggedly low income smiling bravely for the high paid photographer, middle-American white folks ‘eating’ hot dogs, and team sports! Yes. Chevy has now taken it upon themselves to sell us cars by insinuating that this whole “save the world thing” is a punch line for some smog breathing fat cats with pockets full of cash.

 

Those genius marketers at MTV and Chevy teamed up for what they’re marketspeak calling a, “…Superserve Key 12-34 demographic with creative integration and multiplatform innovation campaign.” Essentially, they’ll use the power of their marketing muscle and advertising budget to sponsor something that MTV knows is well worth every penny for hooking new consumers. So they show a series of seemingly Eco-friendly spots. The spots are kinduh irreverent, edgy; MTV’s demo will totally jibe with this posish. (WOW 30MPG on highway! I can hear dolphins singing as baby seals swim in crystal clear water and unicorns shit rainbows).

 

This is part of MTV and Chevy’s “Break the Addiction” campaign, which sadly promotes the benefits of Flex Fuel or E85 and touts their continued development Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology. Want to know about E85? Click here.

 

MTV has always been the bane of my entertainment consumption. They’ve had some good shows and of course they used to play those dinosaurs of the entertainment dietary pyramid, THE MUSIC VIDEO but if the fact they’ve been dictating youth cultures taste in music doesn’t make you vomit your righteous indignation instantly, these commercials will. One example in particular is a scene of a young woman with dyed hair, fairy-winged, and glossy eyed. Hers is a character meant to exemplify some green friendly tree hugging marijuana addict blowing a tune into some plastic bottles strung together while a voice mockingly says something like “You can still save the environment without having to drive an ugly car you little sheep.”

 

And this brings me to Britney Spears ass. It has always been a shining example of slutty suburban chicks everywhere. Her ass is insignificant. Her music represents an industry’s reliance on tone corrected voices. It is robotic. She is ubiquitous. You could interchange her with Rhianna and only by ear you’d never know the difference. The reason she and Rhianna lip synced their shitty songs was because in the fantasy world MTV has made for viewers and the public, they’ve instituted a zero tolerance policy on imperfection. This is smoke and mirrors. It’s no wonder Viacom’s ad agency shares similar tactics as the US government’s agency that handles all of their “Be Army Strong” campaigns, or Chevy’s highly insidious and clever “Break the Addiction” campaign.

 

Britney Spears showed us all that you can sound like a robot, dance like a star in a giant production but if you gain just five pounds you can lose all credibility. She also showed the world our addiction to perfection through her socially imposed imperfections. Break the addiction of what? Oil? Bad performances and MTV? Soon we’ll see teen stars, weighing 90 lbs., chain smoking Marlboro Reds, eating a leaf of ice burg lettuce a day, while a Ringle from Mastodon plays “Holiday in Cambodia” on my sweet new iPhone. Chevy and British Petroleum will be champions of the Green movement and George Bush will go down in history as one of the most thoughtful presidents in history.

 

This isn’t science fiction.

 

This isn’t the future.

 

This is the perpetual “What the Fuck?”

Searching for a Form of Clarity:

Or Music Journalists Aren’t Your Friends and Don’t Forget That – Ever!

Hmm. Yes I remember it well. Not quite as well as I should and being a writer I probably should have documented every nuance and snippet of conversation while I was in the ‘moment.’ Alas, I’m not much of a journalist when it comes to that sort of thing. I’m more interested in having a good time and writing usually takes a back seat to my rabble rousing but since this is a story that was mostly experienced three sheets to the wind, I’ll preface it by taking some liberties in the facts. South By Southwest Music Festival is always a trial in patience and a test of ones alcohol endurance. The past two years I’ve been I’ve ended up hanging out with folks that don’t have badges, therefor my show going is limited by their ability to get into a venue, which usually means I miss the good shows at Stubbs (06′ Beastie Boys) or La Zona Rosa (06′ Drive By Truckers) or even Emo’s for (06′ Minus the Bear).

I’m a gregarious asshole and fiercely loyal to my friends, or at least I’d like to appear to have their best interests and happiness in mind and try to lend my brand of drunken revelry as the situation dictates. While 2006 was spent sharing a hotel room with The North Atlantic (J. Richards, who is almost 7′ tall, sleeps in the fetal position and takes up almost the entire bed, leaving me to half sleep on a parcel of mattress like some indentured farmer) and Under The Drone (their stand in bass player snores so loud, even pass-out drunk I couldn’t get to sleep and end up staying awake for roughly 48 hours. As a result of which during the a set by The Sword two days later I nod off on a chair at the back of the room. Luckily I’m there with my friend Ben who walks me across the Congress St bridge back to our room and I make my flight – yay! Crisis averted).

I did manage to break away from the non-badge holding crew, who had spent most of the time at the Red Eyed Fly watching Dixie Witch or Black Lamb and make my way to Lucero at Red 7. While I was there a man approached me at the bar. After I had placed my order for a tallboy of PBR he says, “Can I buy your drink for you?” Drunk and skeptical I look at him funny, turn around to look for Vanessa or Jamie (Badge holding crew/Lucero fans) for some guidance, but he quickly reassures me that his intention is purely marketable, stating, “I’m the regional rep for PBR, just want to thank you for your loyalty.”

“Uh huh. Thanks!” I say, adding,”It’s cheap and I can drink an assload of it.” Then make my way through the crowd to the front as Lucero busts into “Bikeriders” and my arms flail all marionette-like in excitement as my mouth tries to remember the lyrics and my brain warns me that this is the last tall boy I’m gonna drink.

These little one offs are common in Austin during this time. Chance meetings with people. One notable was at the patio of the Red Eyed Fly, watching Dixie Witch, riff through their songs, amplified by a sweet Mojave, I drunkenly turn to the guy standing next to me and bum a cigarette, as he lights it I realize its Elijah Wood (who apparently was there scouting for his own label) “thanks dude.” I mumble, with a twinkle in my eye, thinking, “Fucking Frodo loves stoner rock, he’s even cooler than I thought.” Though for a character of LOTR one might expect some fascination with drug culture and all its sub categories (statement is not to suggest or imply that Mr. Wood condones drugs or the use of them).

That leads me to SXSW 2007. On a much more business oriented, diplomatic approach, with my new boss, coworker and CEO in town I had to keep my booze intake waaayyy down. Meaning that it was bloody’s in the morning and only beer thereafter or I’d be a wreck by 5pm. I’m a good host and I had been to Austin the year before: I could handle it, I knew the score. Savagery by night, civility by day. Though the night before all those work folks got there I was rousing with the Lennon Bus Boys at the Purevolume lounge, drinking free booze (which is the best, btw) and trying to convince them to join me at the Emo’s Annex parking lot thingy where Hydrahead was having a showcase (Jesu, Pelican, Oxbow, Stephen Brodsky), I got in and Fester got stopped at the door, which sucked cause there wasn’t that many people there. Course this year, SXSW was undertaken with the pretense that we were going to actually conduct some sort of business and meet with industry people to discuss the problems and opportunities – blah blah blah – facing the industry I really had to put on the officious air, while toning down knowing that my best friend had flown from DC and the Drone crew was waiting elsewhere.

Now I will get to the point. The point about being a music journalist and all its trappings. Attempting to do something like what we’re doing with HYPEzine.com and what I attempted to do with themusicedge but was thwarted by shortsighted corporate ineptitude is at most times an opportunistic venture. Just like a shark’s feeding habits or a thief’s intuition. But the main point in this piece is about not trying to be friends with people in bands that are subjects of an interview and just trying to get the story and all that shit. You know – that shit that real journalist learn in journalist school and publicity people train their clients ‘these people aren’t your friends, whatever you say is on the record, no matter if they say its off the record” – kind of ethics. While both statements are pretty harsh they are quite true and are pretty much par for the course when it comes to the general journalism practicioners. As a side note, I’m not the most prolific ‘blogger’ not because I’ve got a lack of material, but because sometimes, which is most times, its good to have someone look at your stuff before it gets released into the wild. However, one good thing that comes from this medium is the ability to give another perspective. A first hand account. The gonzo side of things for those of us that get paid to write and can’t write about puking in the graffiti covered stall of some shit hole bar in a Tulsa strip club, or taking hits from a hash pipe and blowing it into the window of a K9 unit while the officer is busy securing the scene of a drunk driving accident amidst a thousand drunken pedestrians.

Right. Just as Fucked Up writes weird pseudo-hard core, I digress a bit. I meet up with Vanessa (AM!’s publicist and longtime friend/colleague of mine) for the Shirts for a Cure showcase where I am to do an interview with Tom Gabel of Against Me! Its 2pm and I’ve already had four Lonestars and to be quite honest, I am a bit intimidated (read: buzzed) at the thought of interviewing him in person (fanboy syndrome), being the telephone coward I am when it comes to interviewing bands I actually care about. In hindsight I probably should have done the interview right then and there. After a brief introduction, I explain that I’d prefer to do the interview at a later date. I don’t pull any punches with Vanessa, since I’ve known her and worked with her now going on ten years since my time at the college paper. She’s cool. That short 4 days in Austin I watch Against Me! a total of five times. Some shows I’m at the stage and some shows I’m way far away (Mountain Dew free show in the Park with Mastodon and Riverboat Gamblers, Eric* and I pass out during the Gamblers set and are awoken by Gamblers singer Mike Weibe who, with wireless mic in hand has come down to the grass and dances with all the kids. I instantly like the RBG more just for that fact). Eric*(best friend from DC) and I go for a gyro and are standing up eating and watching the last few RGB songs when we are tackled by Justin and Ben of Under the Drone. Not just tackled but violently tackled by two uber drunks. Gyro’s fly everywhere. Its quite humorous; sob/laughing a bit, I feel like Chunk in Goonies when his food is taken away. I’m stoked that we’ll be seeing AM! for the third time that week. They come on next, wind blowing, people screaming, making for a very dramatic effect. The band runs through the gamut of great tunes like “Miami” and “Cliche Guevara” and play some new ones like “Americans Abroad” and “White People for Peace” and I begin to realize that this band is my age and they grew up on Fugazi and Black Flag and The Replacements and maybe their replacing The Replacements but thats just the booze talking and the sweat and fists of strangers swirling around me singing at the top of their lungs to “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong.” I think how it feels to listen to music and how great it is to be part of this thing – whatever the fuck it is – taking place in the little pockets of world.

So…finally, I end up doing the interview with Tom for HYPEzine.com (Link). I did it on the phone, after almost two months of missed times I caught him at home prior to their tour with Mastodon, Cursive and Planes Mistaken for Stars. The best lineup and tour package I’ve seen in the past five years (even though I didn’t make it when they played San Diego). He seemed somewhat guarded during the interview, even though I had drunkenly bored him to death with my musings on punk rock and selling out at the No Idea party in Austin. [Where Chuck Reagan played a solo set right before The Draft and I was convinced they would do a Hot Water Music song, and I drunk texted one of my old estranged friends but never got a reply. Of course they didn’t. AM!’s James told me he knew they wouldn’t although Warren and I kept saying how cool it would be if they did.] Though gregarious I may be I realized there is sometimes a line between interviewer and interviewee and I suppose I’m okay with that. Tom was quick to assert his disapproval of illegal downloading and like an idiot I mention that the new Neurosis is amazing.

“I didn’t think that was out yet.” He exclaims.
“Yeah, I got an advance copy from one of my sound engineer buddies.” I explain, then realize what a total asshole I must sound like after he just told me what he thinks of downloading.

All in all it was a good interview. I was hungover when I talked to him and I’m always a bit sensitive after a bout with the cohol and I took some of his comments the wrong way but when I went back to transcribe the interview I realized how articulate and thoughtful he was. So there ya go! Here are some pictures from the best show in Austin I’ve ever witnessed from one of my favorite bands.

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