Permanent Historical Record: 09/01/08
Government Is Evil...And Other Shit You Already Know...
This is the second re-write of this post. The first one was very personal and talked about how our state government is directly fucking up DNA's family's lives. This, however, didn't make for very fun blog reading. So, DNA has edited out the bitter bits, and just left the FUN!
Let's see, the fun parts included the words "douchebag," "dickhead," "moron," and stuff like that. The rest of the post was a rant about how much our government is directly affecting DNA.
That was the not very fun part, and actually, was kind of petulant, petty and self-centered. DNA ended up arguing, rather boorishly, that "renovations we have planned and saved for for years are now (possibly permanently) on hold (halfway done). It means all of the hard work and time one of us put into her job may have really been for nothing, retirement-wise. It means that we have had to drastically change the way we watch our money, because we don't know if or when the axe will fall."
Waaaaahhhhh!
What a baby. Isn't the possibility that we will lose our jobs true all the time? And being forced to recognize that permanence is an illusion, isn't that really a gift?
Yes, this is true, but some gifts are not necessarily wanted. Illusions are comforting. If illusions are strong enough, they are every bit as real as reality, perhaps more so.
DNA knows this is true, and so do you. This is why people always say, after some horrible event, that, "everything felt like it wasn't really happening...." because the illusion of stability is more believable and more accepted as "real" as actual stuff that doesn't fit our point of view.
So, come this November, and every November in which DNA can vote to support the right people in office, DNA will deliver his own message about reality back to the state. It will be a reality in which almost all of the douchebag dickhead morons in Springfield are no longer employed as our state servants. Voting is not as exciting or personally fulfilling as laying somebody off in mid-job, but it will have to do.
In more super fun news, the new record will be done soon, and after about a half a dozen working titles, all more awesome than the last, DNA has settled on what would have been the title of an old DNA record, had DNA stayed together as a band years ago. The new, and hopefully last, working title of the record, is, "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Super-Double Kick-Ass!" There will probably be close to 20 songs on the new record, cuz DNA just caint stops writing the rock.
Permanent Historical Record: 09/10/08
Big Rants In My Pants...
Folks, DNA has got two pretty big rants, one is another fun post about rock idioms, and another is about politics. They are taking some time to percolate, but DNA expects that in the next few days they will bubble over.
So, check back every couple of days, and DNA will let you know when the shit is ready to go. Thanks for hanging back and slowing down with DNA after the awesome show the DNA Vibrators played in August. Hey, if you're here reading this, DNA will keep this from being a complete waste of time: go check out Nonagon's new record at CD Baby! and iTunes if you want to hear Mr. Kamikaze play drums real good.
After looking for the links to Nonagon, DNA found several other bands named Nonagon. See? That's the problem with naming your band something so obviously on the lips of the cultural elite. You guys were too cool for your own good, setting a trend that has launched all of those other Nonagons. Really, what the fuck? There are, like, at least two or three other regular geometric shapes to choose from, right? What about heptagon? Undecagon? Where's dodecahedron or any of the other Archimedean solids? Not to be found. Only Nonagon has lifted itself from among its bretheren shapes to be elevated to a position of cultural significance. The Chicago Nonagon, the first, my hombres, they have fulfilled one of DNA's most basic band name rules: Make your name be relevant even before you or anyone else knew it would be relevant. Hard to do. Way to go, guys. Also, great fucking album.
Permanent Historical Record: 09/13/08
Happy Anniversary!
Tomorrow is the 3-year anniversary of this website. By DNA's estimation, we have only reached 2 billion people so far with the message of the Vibrator. Whether DNA has reached 2 people or 2 billion people really doesn't matter. The Truth marches on, and we are just one of the bands in the parade.
It was by accident that DNA found himself giving his son, Carlito, a history of his musical endeavors. Carlito, a saxophone player in the junior high band, marched in the Murphysboro Apple Festival parade today. Later, while we were discussing how that went, DNA asked Carlito if he was thinking about starting or getting into a band. He said he really hadn't thought about it. DNA remembered when he first started a rock band. It was right around freshman year, so perhaps he was jumping the gun a little bit with Carlito.
It was about that time that DNA launched into a chronological history of bands he has been in. DNA also remembered some unpleasant details of how bands break up. Breaking up bands is about as traumatic as breaking up any long-term relationship, as anyone in a band who has experienced it knows. Examining how bands break up will be the subject of a further post.
To help illustrate for you, reader, what DNA told his son, DNA decided to create a basic family tree of the bands he has been in. Quickly, it became apparent that the DNA family tree is inbred. Or, a nicer way to say it would be interconnected. Or, since DNA lives near one of the last northern cypress swamps, a better analogy might be the way a cypress grows---sending new shoots from an original trunk, twining around each other, and essentially, being one tree with many trunks.
For those of you with some time to kill, go to the blog graveyard, and look at the September 2006 and the September 2007 blogs. As DNA has written before, people ascribe too much meaning to dates---08/08/08, the end of the Mayan calendar, etc., but on the other hand, some dates, like anniversaries, have value, not because of the date, but because we measure our lives in the seasons as they pass, and it's comforting to remember again what happened a certain time a year ago. So, DNA sits here, and remembers what he thought on the first day he wrote this blog. The form was different, the tools were hard to manipulate, he didn't like the layout, and he found himself trying to establish that DNA had to be thought of as a separate entity, and in an almost schizophrenic self-reflective voice. DNA is separate, DNA does exist outside of this person who sits here, but in no different way than this person is also a cub scout leader, and a trained staff person working with students with learning disabilities. All of us are an amalgam of people who fulfill the roles they must. To paraphrase DEVO, "We're all DNA."
So this anniversary, DNA takes stock in his trade: What has DNA done for you lately? Released 4 albums, all of which have sold dozens of copies worldwide. DNA has played out twice, once in the summer of 2007, and once in August of 2008. DNA is continuing to follow the maxim to release more records than it actually plays out. Also, DNA has attempted to follow the maxim to put a Christmas song out on any record it makes.
DNA's mission is not yet complete. Another record, which is mentioned from time to time in Spin, Rolling Stone, and on this website, will be released soon. Perhaps DNA will play out again. Let's make that the goal by next September: Two more records, and one more show.
Permanent Historical Record: 09/27/08
More Rock and Roll Idioms, or Idiots, or Both...
The first time DNA covered this subject, it was in regards to the word "shelf" which in the rock and roll vernacular, is the place your love goes when you are being mistreated by your girl/boy, depending. The phrase, "don't put my love up on no shelf," or some derivative of it, only appears in rock songs, and DNA's theory is that the rock lyricist, not one to really stretch the fabric of poetry, (DNA doesn't care what any of you think about Jim Morrison---he was a sloppy poet, but a good lyricist), anyway, the rock lyricist needed something to rhyme with "self," and was in a bind to stretch a metaphor. So, shelf became that place in which your feelings are "shelved" by someone who doesn't like you or treat you right anymore.
Enough of the recap. If you really want to read the whole thing, go here. This time around, DNA is centering in on another offending phrase only heard in rock and roll songs. The line is "Don't you mess me around," or something to that effect. The problem is the construction---"mess me around," which is really just another way of saying "mess around with me." Unfortunately, in the 1980's, Pat Benatar owned the phrase "Don't you mess around with me" and pwned everyone else who would try to use it because of her song, "Heartbreaker."
Like her or not, Pat Benatar fucking rocked this song, so much so that nobody ever messed around with her, which was unfortunate, because someone should have messed around with her before she penned "Love Is A Battlefield," or titled an album "Gravity's Rainbow," after the great post modern American novel by Thomas Pynchon. Someone should have definitely messed around with her before she did that. Pat, why did you do that? Were you the post modern American voice? You? Not David Byrne, not even Stan Ridgeway, but you?
Regardless, inventive lyric writers had to come up with some other way to say the same thing. So, cleverly, you invert word order, assume the prepositional phrase, and bingo, you got another kick ass AC/DC lyric.
The problem with this construction becomes apparent when you try to do the same thing with similar verbs....
Don't fuck around with me becomes Don't fuck me around...
Don't hang around with me becomes Don't hang me around...
Why don't you clean up around the house with me becomes Why don't you clean me up the house around...
Do you want to walk around the block with me becomes Do you want to walk me the block around...
sillier and sillier, and contrived to the point of sounding well, bad.
In other words, this bit of rock and roll vernacular is just one step away from Yoda sounding like. Would you ever say, "After school, some guys were trying to mess me around, but they chilled out when they realized I was in a band?" (Note, DNA didn't say "but they chilled out when they realized I was in band" because being in band, as opposed to being in a band, was the difference between getting swirlies from the jocks during 8th period and getting hand jobs under the table from slutty girls in the cafeteria....and that's a pretty big difference that just one little word, "a," can make. This is why language is important, even in a rock and roll song).
DNA doesn't need poetry in his rock and roll, and some silly lyrics are actually welcome. For example, Bono needs to sing some silly lyrics. The guys in Disturbed need to sing some goofy shit. But singing silly lyrics doesn't mean you have to be the lyrical equivalent of the village idiot.
The lesson? Don't mess DNA around or he'll put you up on a shelf.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment