Irritability Keeps Me Alive & Kicking

jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine

2009-08-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello. I fail at keeping anything updated except for Twitter.

A drawing that I later ruined with paint:

And these. Funny story! My neighbor hands me some nude photos of his wife and asks me to paint her. And gives me a lot of money. Uhh, sure! So the backside one is referenced from one of those photos, and the frontside is from another reference with a similar body type. Not that it matters or anything, I'm just babbling. He specifically asked that the right boob be saggier than the left. Oil on canvas, both 11 x 14".

Man, I'm so thrilled to go back to Syracuse on the 20th.

down by the river I shot my baby

2009-06-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

WHAT UP ART DUMP

First there's this, an acrylic'd version of a sketch I posted a few weeks ago. Painting on a small scale like this is really, really annoying.

And everything else is downhill from here, so leave while you still can. I thought it would be a good idea to try to caricature all the members of the Bad Seeds, but uh... didn't get very far.

Oh no. In the first: young Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, old Nick, then two of Mick Harvey because his face is funny. In the second: tiny, horrible Blixa Bargeld and then Nick making a face. Also there is this crappy thing of RSH from about a year ago that I found in my moleskine:

Speaking of really old art that I found in my moleskine (...), I have no recollection whatsoever of doing this, but it's dated from almost a year ago and that's all I got.

And the rest is from within the month. Super-loose Jeff Buckley line drawing:

And some other stuff from the sketchbook: crouching, shooting, a thumbnail for a painting, some naked ladies drawn from vintage photos, squid, mustachioed gentlemen, and what I'm sure I'd look like if I had XY chromosomes.

FEELS GOOD, TOO

2009-06-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

OH MAN, SO I SAW FISCHERSPOONER LAST NIGHT.

Uh, well. I didn't quite catch the name of the first band that played, but they were a dark synth-electro-whatever three-piece from Miami. Googling the song titles "Discordia" and "The Gypsy" isn't getting me anywhere, so.... I give up. They were pretty dece, though.

The next band was called SSION and they were fantastic. I'd never heard of them before, because both Fischerspooner and the venue failed to advertise the supporting bands (poor show, guys), but they did an... er, interesting cover of "Credit in the Straight World" by Young Marble Giants and I danced my little heart out while a pair of cute girls made out next to me. ALSO, they covered "Nick the Stripper" by the Birthday Party WHAT. If anything, they made the song even creepier. Amazing. The vocalist had the most impeccable handlebar moustache and was wearing a flowery shirt with keys hanging off of it. Sexy.

Fischerspooner took aaaaages to set up, but was absolutely worth it. The roadies set up a row of four gigantic mirrors and when Casey appeared, the four dancers spun them around so the stage lights reflected off them in all directions and it was just dazzling. The dancers were spectacular and were all made up like the bastard lovechild of Siouxsie Sioux and Kabuki theatre. The crowd was much smaller than I'd expected, but I suppose that made it easier for me to squirm all the way up to the front of the crowd against the railing. Towards the end, Fischer came out and danced like Ian Curtis for about a minute and a half and then disappeared back to whence he came to fiddle with synthesizers or whatever it is he does. The set list as best I can remember was like this:

Amuse-Bouche
Happy (favorite! yesss.)
Supply & Demand
Money Can't Dance
Everything To Gain
Danse en France
Emerge
Sweetness
Just Let Go
Never Win

encore:
The Best Revenge
We Are Electric

Hark, shitty photos from my cameraphone:

SO GOOD.

And then my car was towed, but that's another and more expensive adventure.

self-deluded, confident, and blind.

2009-05-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Random nude lady torso.

And this other thing that I did just now.

I'm posting this primarily for the song, not the video, but I suppose the footage of space-whatevers is pretty cool, too. I'm just in love with Swans. "Blind" is from their Various Failures release, and fits right in with the aural aesthetic of their The Burning World/White Light from the Mouth of Infinity era, which is to say crashingly beautiful, tormented, and desperate on a level that I can't even articulate. And right now I just can't get it out of my blood.

hello it is lame comics about my life time

2009-05-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

So... Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. Kind of liked it after the first listen when it came out last year, then promptly decided to hate it, now I'm obsessed with it. Much like Nick Cave's oft-scorned new pornostache. Good times.

I may or may not keep doing this comic thing. My hair actually parts on the other side, I forgot that using iPhoto is like looking into a mirror.
aaaand a page from my sketchbook.

GOD I HATE SUMMER, there is no one around for me to look at so I have to draw myself all the time.

thoughts on new electro releases, a painting, some complaining

2009-05-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

Not in that order. Here's a tiny little acrylic painting on a 4-by-6-inch canvas, which I did over winter break and only just now got a picture of. (Also, better pictures of Tom Waits & Amanda Palmer in their original post.)

Okay. NEXT.

Depeche Mode - Sounds of the Universe
...eh. I claim to be a huge DM fan, but mostly I just listen to Songs of Faith & Devotion over and over again. Their late-eighties-to-mid-nineties period is the best, I think. Violator, Music for the Masses, and SOFAD are by far my favorites. Earlier stuff is too puerile, and their more recent releases are tremendously hit-and-miss, generally sprawling and kind of overdramatic, with some exceptions. Call me a bad fan, but I really enjoyed Playing the Angel. I really do not enjoy Sounds of the Universe. "In Chains" is fantastic, and it goes downhill from there. Hate "Wrong". Why is it a single? Self-indulgent PISS. Oingo Boingo did it better with "On the Outside".

IAMX - Kingdom of Welcome Addiction
In stark contrast, there is nothing that I don't love about this album. Except for maybe the a'cappella intro to "My Secret Friend", which tarnishes an otherwise great song. "Tear Garden" is sublime, the beats make my blood run faster. Chris Corner is angry, vitriolic, and spot-fucking-on.

Patrick Wolf - the Bachelor
Haven't quiiite listened to it enough times to make a real judgment, but I like. "Hard Times" hooked me, and "Vulture" is excellent, a touch reminiscent of "Tristan", and the video's pretty hot. "Damaris" is EPIC. Pwolf's obviously been working on his voice, he pulls off some pretty interesting vocal acrobatics throughout the thing and awwww. I've been a fan since Lycanthropy came out, I'm so proud of our little ukelele-playing, electro-queer-forest-man.

/musicbabble.

I just might stop to check you out

2009-04-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

Song of the day:

Because it's fucking hot out. I've got some weird personal aversion to wearing shorts in public, but there I was in a pair of bleach-stained capris cursing global warming and the allergies I seem to have developed. Syracuse doesn't seem to realize that there's supposed to be a season in between winter and summer, and that it's supposed to last for more than a week. And I have a paper due tomorrow. Balls to this, I want a gin & tonic.

Uh. I was going to talk about the Violent Femmes for a bit but appear to have gotten caught up in bitching about my life. It's really difficult to believe that the album this song is on was released in 1982--it just sounds inherently nineties to me. There weren't really any other bands like the Violent Femmes around at the time, were there? I think my knowledge of eighties music is skewed because I associate the decade with all of my favorite post-punk and weird arty bands (Einstürzende Neubauten and the golden age of the industrial mullet, anyone?).

It's pretty much my life goal to look like Blixa Bargeld circa 1985.

At the beginning of this clip he quotes Walter Benjamin, which is a little distressing because 1) the paper I'm supposed to be writing is on WB, and 2) he's a pretentious twat and I hate him. His writing style is convoluted and incomprehensible, which is annoying because his ideas are genuinely interesting but I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THEM because reading them makes my head hurt.

Okay, seriously. Essay. How difficult can it be to write another two pages of pseudointellectual bullshit?

sketchbook, spring 2009

2009-04-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

art crap, spring 2009

2009-04-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

art crap, winter 2008/9

2009-04-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

art crap, fall 2008

2009-04-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

So... like... I'm an art student, so I produce a lot of creative shit. Here's a lot of it from first semester of of this year.

movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches

2009-04-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

So I saw the Presidents of the United States of America play on Wednesday night! I am loath to use the word "epic" to describe anything that isn't Beowulf, but THEY WERE PRETTY EPIC. I almost didn't go because I needed to start/finish a painting due the next day, but missing out on legendary bands for stupid reasons is inexcusable, like the time X came to my city last summer and I didn't go because no one I know in Cincinnati has heard of them. How depressing is that? Also, Syracuse is the worst city ever and no bands want to come here, so if anyone halfway worth seeing passes by on tour, you're pretty much obligated to go.

The opening band was a cute little indie-electro-pop duo from Ireland called Oppenheimer. They were pretty decent, but played for AGES and the crowd was a bit rude to them. The guitar/keyboardist spoke in a robot voice through his mic the entire time, which was gimmicky but still kind of entertaining. They sounded a bit like Ra Ra Riot without as many instruments, I thought, which reminded me that I had to miss out on Ra Ra Riot at the same venue a few weeks ago because of my damn play. BALLS.

Anyway, the people-watching was fantastic because Syracuse locals are a weird-looking bunch. I think Renee and I might have been the only SU students there, the rest were mostly aging, beardy hipsters hovering around the bar. Lots of beards, lots of beaten-up fedoras, lots of awkwardly-cut pant legs. Will someone please outlaw the mid-calf-length trouser? I will start the campaign myself. Please.

The Presidents finally wandered onstage, said hey, and launched into "Love Everybody". I'm not really all that familiar with them outside of their popular songs, but they played "Kitty", "Lump", "Peaches", and "Dune Buggy", and covered MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" and "Video Killed the Radio Star", which was everything I wanted to hear. So... well done, Presidents! They played a fantastic show, were hilarious and incredibly energetic. Oppenheimer was a bit of a downer, but as soon as the Presidents came on, the energy in the room skyrocketed. The set list as best as I can remember went something like:

Love Everybody ("Are you adequately prepared to rock?"
Kitty
Dune Buggy ("This is a trilogy about bugs!")
Bug City
Ladybug ("This is dedicated to my lovely girlfriend, Katie, who is so far away from me right now... She's all the way at the back, selling our merchandise.")
Sharpen Up Those Fangs
Flame Is Love
Lump
More Bad Times
Feather Pluckn
Froggie
Back Porch
Poke & Destroy
Volcano
Peaches

encore:
Kick Out the Jams
Video Killed the Radio Star
We Are Not Going to Make It

Pretty bangin'. Definitely one of the best live shows I've seen. I took a few videos as well, but the sound quality is terrible so I'll spare you. Here, have a crappy picture from my phone instead:

Terror as a Category of Love (alt. title: OMG ZIZEK)

2009-04-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

Oh maaan. So I got to see Slavoj Žižek speak last night as the opening lecture for a conference held at my university called "Politics of Love: Postmodernism, Culture, & Religion". He called his lecture "Terror as a Category of Love" and veered alloverthefuckingplace on fascism and revolutionary techniques and revolts as acts both of love & hate & fear and just dkajdsflsdf;. He was brilliant and funny and Slovenian and probably expelling spittle all over the front row but I was too far towards the back to tell. I wish I'd had a pen to mark down things he said, but alas, I do not think ahead.

Here's a documentary on him (inventively titled Žižek!) that some kind soul put up on the youtubes. MY GOD WHY IS HE SO FASCINATING. I need to read his books.

This I found hilarious, because poop + philosophy = neverending funny.

hmm.

2009-04-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, I am resurrecting this blog. Not with the intention of continuing it as a music-babbling dumping-ground, because pretty much all I listen to nowadays is Lady Gaga and Billy Idol--trashy eighties-inspired pop and the even trashier eighties new-wave-punk-pop that spawned it in the first place. Honestly, I don't think my opinion on anything music-related should be taken seriously anymore.

Also because Blogger mysteriously removed one of my music-sharing posts and so I guess that means being upfront about and enabling blatant music piracy is a no-no! Who would've thought. Not me, apparently.

So I suppose I could make this a sketch blog. Or a blog for random thoughts that I don't put on Twitter. Grand essays about culture and the modern condition. Recipes? Booze blog? Sex blog? Links to other and better blogs? A catalogue of my scarf collection?

I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at.
Irritability Keeps Me Alive & Kicking v.2.0: Fuck Themes, I'll Post Whatever I Feel Like Posting.

Also, there is a snail made out of a kneaded eraser perched on one of my speakers.

Sneaker Pimps - Splinter (1999)

2008-09-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can't decide whether this one or 2002's Bloodsport is my favorite SP album (Becoming X doesn't get a spot on the ballot because Kelli's voice doesn't even compare, even with her stellar take on the Prodigy's "Firestarter"). Bloodsport is rougher, rawer, fitting some smooth honey into the grooves carved by Chris Corner's sex-voice. Splinter is quieter but just as intense, opening with the at-first-forgettable-but-terribly-compelling-after-half-a-dozen-listens "Half-Life", to compare with the shock-you-into-listening, Bowie-referencing "Kiro TV" of Bloodsport.

Splinter is easier to file with Corner's IAMX project, I feel, because the general subject matter (i.e., want, desire, lust, sex sex sex and want) and you can hear it floating above the music like a smoke cloud or a heat haze.

Anyway, tracklist:

01. Half-Life
02. Low Five
03. Lightning Field
04. Curl
05. Destroying Angel
06. Empathy
07. Superbug
08. Flowers and Silence
09. Cute Sushi Lunches
10. Ten to Twenty
11. Splinter
12. Wife By Two Thousand
13. Diving
14. Unattach

Particular attention should be paid to: Half-Life ("bee-sting touch", what a delicious image/sensation), Lightning Field, Curl, Flowers & Silence, Diving

on mediafire, 99.26 mb zip file.

songs from under the floorboards

2008-09-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

HELLO GOOD GENTLEPEOPLE, and welcome to yet another music-sharing vanity project on the interblag.

First up: this blog's namesake.

"A Song From Under the Floorboards" was first released in 1980 on Magazine's The Correct Use of Soap:

I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it

This is a song from under the floorboards
This is a song from where the wall is cracked
My force of habit, I am an insect
I have to confess I'm proud as hell of that fact

Here are three versions:
01. Magazine (original)
02. Morrissey (this is such a Mozzer song, isn't it?)
03. Strange Boutique (possibly my favorite of these three. Miranda Richards just does something with it.)