Brill Building: Chillin' at the beach, down at Club Med

Chillin' at the beach, down at Club Med

Things have not been so well here at Casa de Brill but hopefully next week will turn things around. It may mean that my meaty posts will have to be on days like Sunday where things are actually quiet for once but I'm still going to give you folks something good to read! I'll get back to the commentary about the track listing for my mix CD (read about the first half here) but first some thought on my comics by me.

Johanna posted about Randy from The Fourth Rail cutting back the superhero reviews in favor of the many alternatives out there. I correlate that post with another one she made about her dislike of DC's editorial policy putting a strain on dedicated fans wallets. Those two inferences are related in my mind. It’s because, I think anyway, that the reason superhero comics get so much copy written about them in the blogosphere and elsewhere is because there's just so much of them coming out, as any visit to the ComicList will tell you. I now think that the gigantic slew of superhero comic coming from The Big Two and other companies trying keep up are now the best reason to ignore them, as least the new ones. I still love the superduper work of past decades (expect an Essential Defenders review here soon!) but to keep up with these crossovers, reboots and the like seem to be causing more and more people to drop out. A lot of us are people who still love comics and will go towards different outputs for our comic joy (I liked David Welsh's comments on the subjects. Expect a review of Dead End coming here soon, as well) but what about the people who are not as invested in comics and just want to be a member of the happily entertained audience? Are they going to start checking out new things or are they just going to drop comics all together, as I did in the '90s when things were going bad for comics? The sales for these event books have been pretty hot (relative to the state of the industry that is) so maybe it's just us pontificators who are feeling down about the wave after wave of intellectual property recycling.

I also took interest in Dorian's post about "controversies" in the comics world. Being out of town for some of last week, it felt freeing to not be part of the hustle-and-bustle of these arguments and outrages going on, most of which add up to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Speaking as a journalist, I think it's interesting to watch what's going on as people behave this way, as if there's almost a beauty to it all its own. As a comic fan I just can't care and can hardly find myself mustering up the energy to go write blog posts about them (to write blog posts about how much I don't care on the other hand, that I can do!). I appreciated the editorial from a certain firearm enthusiastic feline who mentioned that going on and on about these quibbles seems to be important than enjoying the books for some people. I find that a big part of life is trying to stay positive and content in a corrupted world. The world of comics is especially corrupted but to me that is just more the reason to find what you love about the medium and indulge that aspect of it. Comic fans, as the kitten says, may be "very aggravating to deal with at times" but that doesn't mean I have to deal with them at all. I can't see myself spending a lot of time in comic book stores as I get older (perhaps not more than a few times a year after I move) and even blogging will be more about artists' work instead of their behavior and the behavior of their fans (and anti-fans as it were). I want to be a happy person and a happy comic book fan. If that means completely washing my hands of any sort of "fan" business and the vast majority of what passes for discourse on the internet, then I don't mind taking those actions.

Of course you know I'll probably have hundreds more posts about all types of controversies in the future, solely for the reason I can barley ever think of anything original to say myself. I'm to the blogosphere what ants are to meals, hardly ever thought of and, when thought of, seen as annoying. Anyway, who wants music?

14. Common – The Light
Simply put folks, it’s my favorite hip-hop song ever. I was in a pretty good place when this song first came out and I always like the way it makes me feel listening to it. A fantastic love song.

14b. Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster
I like a good, angry punk rock song with a political message behind it and this one from the “Irish Clash” delivers that pretty damn well. The vocals are totally sweet to me, so biting and vitriolic.

14c. ABBA – Does Your Mother Know?
This doesn’t sound like most ABBA songs, mainly for the male vocal being the lead. This almost feels like “punk ABBA” with the pounding eighth-note rhythm and lead guitar work.

15. Ted Leo – Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?
I put this here because I wanted Tom to check Leo out. He’s the best guy doing the “angry white boy with a guitar and a message” thing right now. Totally check him out live, too.

17. Del the Funkee Homosapein – Mistadoblina
An early Del song, it’s one I like a lot. I like how the sample works with the beat and the use of the choir to go along with it. Hey, it never hurts to have something fun and bouncy in a mix.

18. The Crystals – And Then He Kissed Me
Hey, it’s another girl group produced by Phil Spector doing a Barry/Greenwich song. I like this stuff a lot and that hook is so awesome in its simplicity. Used to great effect in that long tracking scene in Goodfellas.

19. The Beatles – Rain
You cannot go wrong with the Beatles. This feels like a song that should have been on Revolver but wasn’t. I love Ringo’s drumming here, the distorted guitars and the backward effects used at the end. Pure Beatles wonderfulness.

20. Sonic’s Rendezvous – City Slang
An off-shoot of The MC5, this one of those rocking songs that makes me love the vast musical history Detroit has.

21. The Smiths – The Charming Man
Johnny Marr is one of my favorite guitar players and this is his crown jewel. The whole song is him laying down these melodic riffs that are also textural. An amazing performance that will never be matched.

22. The Jesus and Mary Chain – Just Like Honey
Hey, doesn’t that drum intro sound familiar? The combination of Brill Building pop and loud distorted guitars gets to me every time. I thought it hit just the right mood to close out the disk. Used to great effect in Lost in Translation, where I remember having my breath taken away as soon as it came on.

I’m mostly satisfied with this mix. There are bands that I tried to get on that I felt didn’t work on a mix CD (Kraftwerk), bands I didn’t have room for (Sleater-Kinney) and whole genres of music that I love but always felt out of place on a mix (jazz, I really wanted to include some Eric Dolphy). Still, I hope people liked it. I’ll be reviewing some of the mixes I got in the coming days and weeks.

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