You can’t go wrong with zombies in sunglasses.
Actually, you could—you could go very, very wrong with it. When I hiked down the Harry Potter-esque alley to The Boiler Room in Asheville’s historic Grove House, I didn’t know what to expect. I was there to hear Zombie Bazooka Patrol. Great name, but would this be some ’80s Goblin rip-off? A bunch of “musicians” with unhealthy appreciations for Argento’s soundtracks?
In the interest of the struggles, both ideological and political, occurring right now in Iran, F.M.I. would like to direct you to Leah Borromeo’s “Images For A New Age (Tehran Street Art)” and “Turban Warfare (Tehran Street Art pt. 2).
Street art is pure cultural expression, a pure assertion of self and situation in the tradition that disregards mankind’s theories of legality for a clean space to be, two-dimensionally.
That is to say, anti-aesthetics. Rock on, artists. Rock on, Leah.
Defining the weird in music may be even more challenging than in literature, and as this blogspace fills you’ll likely see several different takes on it. Post-rock, as a genre, seems to warrant a place, if only because it has informed, or at least played loudly during, the writing of at least a couple on the Farrago’s Wainscot staff.
So when a band that self-identifies (via a sticker that proclaims “Post-rock that actually rocks!” on their album cover) as post-rock is as resolutely cute and cheerful as The Octopus Project, they provoke some questions.
How can this be post-rock, when it’s so pink? Shouldn’t this be more dour and depressing? Why aren’t I looking at my feet while it’s playing? Can the weird be, god forbid, danceable?
Dr. Steel is not properly Farrago-style weird. But he’s close.
He’s definitely odd, energetic and entertaining, and his steampunk fascism infused with Buckethead-style faux innocence is a product of clear influences, mixed to be eminently watchable and engaging. If Pee Wee Herman had aspirations for world domination after spending six months in Guantanamo being sleep deprived via toy commercials and KMFDM, the personality that resulted from the schizoid embolism might be Dr. Steel.
Dr. Steel is also a fine example of successful independent marketing. While I suppose I’m obliged to resist marketing and the commodification of art, the blitzkrieg of DVDs Dr. Steel slathered over Dallas’ anime-themed, ubernerd fest Project A-kon worked on me. I thought I was picking up a how-to guide from an indie gaming company; instead the disc, in its recycled Blockbuster case, contains Dr. Steel “propaganda” and most of a live show.
