March « 2007 « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

A bloody shame

March 21st, 2007

Isaac Brock Sioux Falls (Pitchfork) Sunday’s Modest Mouse show was hampered by my oldness.

It didn’t seem so great for Isaac Brock, Modest Mouse frontman, either. It turns out that some small act of triviality I had written off was much more serious than I had first realized.

Somewhere about halfway through the show, I noticed that Brock had turned toward his amp, stopped playing (he may have taken off his guitar, I can’t remember) and started acting weird.

Suddenly, a sound tech hopped up, grabbed Brock and hugged him – talking close to his ear and seemingly comforting him. Brock turned around and there was a visible blood spot on his shirt.

I didn’t think anything of it. I mentioned something to Kerrie — “there’s blood on his shirt” — and wrote it off as a crazy artist doing crazy artist things. I likened it to a Jim Morrison freakout – swinging guitars, stumbling cord tangles, mumbling and general unawareness. I had read in an article that Brock didn’t drink before shows anymore, so I just figured he was being a weirdo – it wouldn’t be the first time, you know.

He had just hit himself in the head a few quick times in the vein of a tortured artist, so I scoffed. And then I wrote it off. I assumed the blood was from something related to that.

Well, not so much.

According to Pitchfork (and found on Scott Hudson’s Rant-A-Bit), it was a little bit more serious.

“Does anybody know a way that/A body could get away/Does anybody know a way?!”

Isaac Brock attempted to answer his own “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” query in drastic fashion at a recent Modest Mouse show in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to several eyewitness reports. While performing the Moon and Antarctica standout at Ramkota Exhibit Hall on March 18, Brock allegedly began hitting himself in the face with his microphone, then proceeded to draw a knife and cut his own chest.

According to reader Joshua Cole, after deliberately bonking his head, Brock “then walked back to his amp, grabbed a pocket knife, and cut a 12 inch cut across his chest. His assistant had to grab the knife and stop him. He was bleeding the rest of the concert, and later fell off the stage into the barrier before singing in the crowd.”

“The show carried on despite Isaac’s bleeding and various people’s concerns,” said Cole.

What was that all about? I have no idea. Have things really gotten so messed up in Brock’s head that he snapped, dragging knives across his chest and smashing his head. Had the stress of beginning a new tour hit him all at once?

Or was this a calculated effort to get publicity? I find it hard to believe that someone as reportedly angry and cynical as Isaac Brock would resort to self-mutilation, a cry for help – the type of attitude that it seems Brock would hate.

At times, Brock seemed almost zombie-like. His rambling diatribes during songs bordered on the insane. His crowd-speak was robotic and forced. But that’s Brock, right? That’s what he does. That’s part of his art.

Was Brock on drugs? Was he really drinking? It he mentally unstable? What the hell happened up there? Is this all just crazy speculation that drives record sales?

While I didn’t get a chance to truly see what happened, I do remember the dazed look on the rest of the band’s face. I remember noticing Johnny Marr’s attitude – a slow decent from rocking guitarist to sheepish bystander. Everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells, and Brock was slowly spiraling out of control. I chalked it up to a spirited front man with a low sense of self-preservation and a band that had seen it all a tiring number of times before. I never though it was an act of mutilation.

If there’s one thing I can’t handle, it’s the attention-seeking self-mutilation attitude. I don’t understand it. I sympathize, and I understand that help is needed, and that it’s a serious problem. I realize that everyone has personal demons, but I also recognize the selfishness of the act. It deserves help. But I often wonder how many times it’s truly a mental imbalance and how many times it’s for attention only.

Knowing what I know now, I feel as though I’ve just watched a snuff film – that the act of Brock cutting himself was the act of cutting off his fanbase, of elevating himself from indie rocker to tortured artist, from Ben Gibbard to Pete Doherty. He was acting out some crazy notion of self hate.

Hell, who knows why he did it, really? Who can ever understand the mind of someone else?

–

(Update: Yeah, according to the Link blog (which I’ve finally found) he was sauced, apparently. Oh well. It makes sense now — his performance, his cutting, etc. That’s too bad. And quite annoying.)

Comments: 4

Issues Considered: Concerts, Music, Sioux Falls

L is for list

March 20th, 2007

The key to a long lasting mystery series is a great gimmick. Susan Wittig Albert? Herb gardening. Lillian Jackson Braun? Cats that are smarter than the sleuth. Both appeal to the mystery genre’s greatest ally — the spinster.

My mother loves mysteries as well — she’s not a spinster, I promise — so I grew up familiar with a wide array of mystery authors. Obviously, Sue Grafton was one of them. She had stumbled into the greatest gimmick to date — a book for every letter of the alphabet, starting with A is for Alibi.

I don’t think they were my mom’s favorite books, but they were certanily a big part of the bookshelf. Heck, my mom used to get a Christmas card from Grafton every year. Probably still does.

So, it was with great pleasure I found the following list from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Possible
Titles for Future
Sue Grafton Novels
After She Runs Out
of Letters.

BY CHRIS STECK

- – - -

“/” Is for Slash

“:” Is for Colon Cancer … or Is It?

“F1″ Is for Help

“,” Is Almost for Coma

“#” Is for #27

“^” Is for Caret-id Artery

“~” Is for Tilde-ath

“Ctrl+X” Is for Cut

Check out the rest of the lists — all of which are brilliant.

A fading helpful smile

March 19th, 2007

In 1984, a new Hy Vee store opened on the corner of Minnesota Avenue and 33rd Street here in Sioux Falls.

Since that time, I have been a loyal Hy Vee customer. And that Hy Vee has been my Hy Vee. I recognize its layout – its idiosyncrasies, its odd way of organizing, its changes and updates. I used to rent video after video, Nintendo games – and then Super Nintendo games – at its video rental counter. Later, when that counter turned into a floral boutique, I bought my flowers there. I grew up knowing there was a helpful smile in every aisle. Every aisle.

Over the years, we’ve gone elsewhere for more specialized items. After all, this Hy Vee was the smallest in town, and it didn’t have everything that the larger branches contained. There was no bank and no healthcare provider. There was no health food section. There was barely a mailing center, and the customer service counter was hardly a speck on the back wall.

But above everything, that Hy Vee was my childhood grocery store. It’s the first place I ever thought to go when I needed food. And even though it’s just a grocery store, I hold fond memories of it – of walking through its cold aisles during a sweltering heat wave and of choosing fish to grill while holding a six pack of Grain Belt Premium.

It’s a memory now, for sure. Yesterday was the last day it was open. And, in the face of sweeping change and improvement, another of my childhood haunts has moved. Disappeared. Wiped clean and replaced with an Avera Medical Equipment storage area.

I can’t be sad for long, though. The coziness and quaintness of my childhood Hy Vee will be long forgotten. Because now, just a few blocks down, a giant new grocery store is about to open – a Hy Vee of epic proportions. Cooking classes, CuraQuick health care, specialized sections for health food, baby items and alcohol.

Sure, I’ll miss the old, cracked linoleum, the smell of floor wax at two in the morning as they’re refinishing the tiles and the sub-zero freezer temperatures.

Not for long, though. I may be a sucker for nostalgia, but I’m an even bigger sucker for convenience.

(Not paid for by Hy Vee. I promise.)

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Sioux Falls, Vilhauer

Feeling older faster

March 19th, 2007

I’m 28 years old. I’m by no means an old fart – I still consider myself a strapping young man whose ability to frolic is the same as it was ten years ago. I’m not stodgy. I’m not ultra-conservative. I’ve changed a little over the past three years, but not so much that I can’t appreciate the reckless, youthful ways of all night parties and video game football.

So tell me why I felt so old last night.

This is not a “wah wah, Corey feels sorry for himself” post. Kerrie and I went to the Modest Mouse concert last night at the Ramkota Event Center, and I truly felt old. Not old in a “turn that damned music down you whippersnapper!” way, but old in a creaky-body, headache sort of way.

We got to the show a little late and had to stand in line. This made us annoyed, where as before it would have rolled off our backs.

We stood near the back, and not in the front.

We enjoyed the show, but realized how bad the sound was in the Event Center. We realized how off Isaac Brock sounded. We realized that Modest Mouse is better on CD than they are in concert.

Our legs ached from standing. Our heads hurt from the feedback. Our minds were exhausted from watching college-aged kids bounce around, drunkenly running into each other.

We stood away from the crowd, watched the show, and then left.

I wondered why I go to concerts. I ached. I felt old. And all I did was stand in the back.

Is this what happens when people graduate from college life to grown-up life? I can’t help but think that somewhere along the way, I lost my spirit – the hidden spark that caused me to get drunk, run to the front of the crowd and experience an uncomfortable yet strangely fulfilling surge. I left the show last night the same way I always had – a little sweaty, with ears pulsing from the elevated decibel levels and voice scratchy from a room full of smoke and noise. But I felt worn out, like I had been thrown around in the crowd without actually having the benefit of seeing the band close up.

Maybe we’re just old enough to understand what a good show sounds like. Maybe we’re old enough to remember the small Pomp Room shows, the intimacy of being just feet away from a band, from hearing everything in a more surrounding manner and never being in bad position.

Last night’s Modest Mouse show was good. They played a fair amount of the new album. They stayed away from most of their older songs, but the ones they played were the ones I wanted to hear. The new songs translate well to a live setting. And they closed the show with my favorite new song, “Spitting Venom,” which turned into a 15-minute-long jam session.

It was not great, though. The feedback and the sound left a lot to be desired. Brock’s anger at his feedback-laden mic and God-knows-what-else turned him into some sort of crazed Jim Morrison wanna-be, thrashing around, getting tangled up in his own cords, yelling at his sound guy, causing himself to bleed, etc.

There was a weird vibe. I felt as if I was watching my last Modest Mouse show. They have disconnected from the small, three-piece unit they used to be and graduated to a full-out spectacle. It’s the direction they needed to go. But it’s different from the band I grew to love.

Their albums are still my favorites. I will never lose the heart I had for their older stuff, and I will still continue to champion their new efforts. But as a live show, I think I might pass next time.

I’m just wondering if my feeling old was due to this show only. Or if it’s part of a more general shifting – away from the loud, brash exhibit hall-style concerts of my past and toward a more subdued, peaceful engagement.

Have I gotten older and less understanding? Or did the show, the culture and the moment pass me by. Is it the concert’s fault? Or mine?

Comments: 8

Issues Considered: Concerts, Music, On...

Dear MLB 2K7…

March 15th, 2007

Dear Executive In Charge of Selecting Video Game Music at 2K Sports,

I think it’s really neat that you’ve selected a group of indie rockers to represent your newest creation, MLB 2K7. It’s not new — you’ve done it before, tapping Matador Records (MLB 2K6), Sub Pop Records (NHL 2K6) and Dan the Automator (NBA 2K7) in the past.

I like the idea that Tapes N’ Tapes, Death From Above 1979 and Wolfmother are featured artists. I also like that The Pixies and The Stooges are, in some small weird way, brought back to relevance through video game baseball.

However, I have a problem with one thing. I keep seeing the commercial for your upcoming release. I keep hearing the same song, stammering to myself as it hits its chorus, wondering aloud how it could possibly be used to sell any sort of product.

It’s Nirvana. Nirvana? Is that really necessary? Despoiling Nirvana’s “Breed” — one of thier best songs?

Nirvana in a video game? That’s like Jeff Buckley selling Snickers. Like John Lennon hawking Michelin Tires. Stevie Wonder singing about Diet Pepsi.

Oh, wait.

It just feels like some artists should be left alone — that they shouldn’t be selling products. Nirvana, for some reason, is one of them.

I have a hard time with that. It’s unfounded and wishy-washy — how can I accept The Pixies, a band I like more than Nirvana, but not Nirvana itself? But it’s still hard to believe.

Did Kurt Cobain like baseball? Did he play video games? I suppose Courtney needs to make money somehow.

I’m just saying.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Consumer Who, For Some Reason, Really Wants To Purchase the New MLB 2K7 Video Game.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Annoyances, Baseball, Music

Broken levees

March 13th, 2007

I’m in the middle of finally watching When the Levees Broke.

I know. I’m late with this.

I should have expressed more outrage, I think. I shouldn’t have let the anniversary pass with such a light recap of the horrific plans nature had in Southern Louisiana. I should have, instead, said what I felt – feelings I hadn’t had time to flesh out, but all the same important, nagging doubts that made me question everything that had happened in the days following the hurricane.

Or, more specifically, what didn’t happen. Even more specifically, what didn’t happen in the face of so many dying – processes that were slowed up by bureaucracy, opinions that were based so deeply in poverty, a disaster that couldn’t have been anything but horrific but could have been prevented.

There are a lot of groups to blame for what happened. And that’s a fact that no one can dispute. Just who’s to blame is immaterial. It doesn’t matter who did the killing – the dead are dead, the city is in shambles, and the population doesn’t want to come back. Pointing a finger won’t change any of that.

Regardless, I still feel anger. I feel helpless. I watch the heartbreak and feel ashamed that I didn’t do anything. I feel a personal distrust in government. Regardless of Republican, Democratic, Independent – I feel pure rage that something more wasn’t done. I feel pity. I feel sadness. I feel ineffective, complacent and privileged.

And lucky. I feel really lucky.

New Orleans holds a special, though somewhat superficial, place in my heart. It was where my wife and I took our honeymoon – a location so drastically different from other traditional honeymoons that it elicited strange looks whenever we mentioned it. We were freshly married, and we fell in love with the city, transferring our joy and excitement onto the location we were inhabiting for our honeymoon week.

Because of this, the disaster pains me more than I’d expect. It hurts to see such a wonderful town – a city with tons of problems, but also a city with a rich culture, a brilliant history, an extraordinary musical and artistic pedigree – torn apart by nature, indifference and skepticism. It hurts to see so many take advantage of the city, using it for nefarious devices, skyrocketing crime into unforeseen realms and treating a beautiful and original city like the doormat of the South.

But it also strengthens me. It strengthens me to see New Orleans residents doing what they can to rebuild. To hang on. To embrace a city that has been their home for generations, a place that was built by and kept up by their ancestors, a living group of culture purveyors that continue to make the prospect of a new New Orleans possible.

To see the dead – the bloated, down turned bodies and the unrecognizable corpses – and to see the destroyed homes and buildings that had completely disappeared or were being held together by walls that are covered with mold, to see streets lined with nothing but rubble, unable to be pieced together again, is rather disheartening. To say the least. And to think of everything that was lost – not just homes and businesses, but family heirlooms and pictures. Memories. Family members. Loved ones. Mothers. Daughters. An entire way of life, for some people.

I want to return to New Orleans. After watching When the Levees Broke, I can’t help but want to see it in person, that the television isn’t doing the destruction justice.

But I don’t know if I could. I’d be too scared to be that deep. Even after two years, the despair seems palpable.

I should have said this earlier. But I didn’t know how. Now I do.

If you haven’t watched When the Levees Broke, I suggest you do it soon. It’s the only way to truly know what happened during the end of August 2004, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Without actually being there, of course.

And the Madness begins anew

March 12th, 2007

Take 65 teams with varying degrees of talent, add in a group of bubble teams that nearly made the cut, and top it all off with a bracket system that rewards hot teams and creates an immeasurable amount of excitement and despair.

That’s March Madness. That’s the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. That’s the month long event that has quickly become the most important sports spectacle in the world. I love World Cup soccer, and I love the NBA’s Western Conference Finals. But nothing compares to the one and done, need-a-perfect-game attitude that prevails in college basketball’s biggest event.

It’s a community rallying experience. Everyone fills out a bracket – even if they don’t know anything about the sport. Everyone tunes in for some of the first round games. I had the luxury of being off work for the entire first round last year. It was the greatest sports event I’ve ever watched in my life. It was pure bliss. I drank a few beers. I enjoyed hours upon hours straight of college basketball players fighting for the right to move on. I even live-blogged the entire damned day.

Put your work away. Stop watching television. Don’t read your book. Nothing can be done until your NCAA Tournament Bracket has been filled out. Nothing, I say!

Since I’m not able to watch the first round games this year – at least, not until after work – I’m bringing the tournament into my backyard. Right here. At Black Marks on Wood Pulp. We’re bracketing out the teams and we’re ready to kick some blogger ass.

I’ve set up an ESPN Tournament group, and you’re all invited. Each and every one of you. Join by clicking this link. The password should fill in automatically for you, but if not, you can search by looking for:

Group: Black Marks on Wood Pulp
Pass: blackmarks

Welcome to the Thunderdome, fellow BMOWP readers!

Comments: 7

Issues Considered: Basketball, Sports