Ugly & Dumb=Me + My TBM Review

Once upon a time in the not-too-distant future (in distant days longing to sense it all so clear):
By the way- I am too dumb for New York and too ugly for Los Angeles.

Hence, I am in Austin.

But I am still too dumb and ugly for this place, so I actually live in the outskirts of this burg where no one notices or bothers me.

On that note, some words of creative encouragement from our old friend Mr. Jam (taken from: http://mrjam.typepad.com/diary/2007/09/how-to-make-it-.html#more):

“How to make it in the creative industries

THANKS FOR THE great feedback you sent me from yesterday’s piece. Clearly there are lots of creative, talented people in this community, and there’s an element of frustration at the fact that so much rubbish from obviously untalented people gets produced.

Well, I’m here with a message.

YOU CAN WRITE A TV SHOW OR NOVEL THAT MAKES THE CUT.
It doesn’t matter who you are or where you live.
Yes, the world centers of publishing are the UK and the US.
Yes, the world center of screenwriting is the US.
Yes, the world centers of music are the UK and the US.
And yes, it’s true that who you know and who you are connected with does count.

But you can achieve amazing things from a distance.

The questions that arose from yesterday’s piece about High School Musical were put very clearly by Catterpillerboy [hey- that’s me!], who said yesterday: “How does a writer get chosen for a project? …For struggling wannabe writers it sometimes feel insulting to see something so brain dead (and know that the writers got paid for that product) while we are here churning stuff out that will never see the light of day. Not to say that the stuff I am churning out is any good but if I am going to be writing crap, maybe I can get paid for it too?”

Meanwhile, my correspondent Poppy sounded depressed. “There’s so much bad stuff on television. It seems so unfair that the financing goes to the crap, while good, creative ideas are born on kitchen tables and stay there.”

These are good points.

Not all of us can live in Hollywood and have aunts and uncles who run film studios -- and that’s one of the reasons why so much bad stuff gets made. There’s a great deal of nepotism in the creative industries. Have you noticed how the credits at the end of films always include people who happen to have the same surname as the director and / or producer?!

But I think I can best illustrate how to make the grade with the big guys by referring to a real anecdote involving real people.

A friend of mine living in Hong Kong had an idea for a children’s TV series.

She got a group of people together and they wrote scripts, wrote a story bible, commissioned artists to mock up the characters, and even got some 3D animation done. Some of this work they paid for. Other people did it for nothing, because she asked them so nicely.

She racked up large debts by flying twice to LA. The first time, she hammered on doors of professional TV people, showed them her material, and got their feedback.

Then she came back to Hong Kong and revised everything based on what she had been told. At that point, I came in as a co-writer and worked on the characters and storyline and dialogue.

A couple of weeks ago, she flew back to LA with the revised material.

I saw her two days ago. She gave me the good news: she’s sold the whole project to a major US television corporation.

And you know what they liked about it? They liked its Asianness -- the fact that it wasn’t like the normal stuff they get.

The moral of this story: all you have to do to make it is to be serious about it.

To be a success, you have to want success. How much do you want it

-Nury Vitacchi”

On that note:

RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT

Just wanted to yell that out.

This past week had the first day of the year that felt like autumn, despite the season still being a few weeks away and we are probably going to suffer through 90 to 100 degree weather till the middle of November.

But it was a nice preview with comfortable weather, a chill that does not feel forced and the beautiful dreary, grim skies that I love so much. It makes me crave pumpkin pie and Halloween, apple cider and short days.

Currently walking with strangers:

I finally got the new Birthday Massacre CD, Walking With Strangers. It is currently on rotation at home and at work My first listen the other night noticed a more guitar focused sound which is not surprising as did the not add more guitarists to their line up?

Anyway- the synths become more the front of the sound towards the end of the album and the songs go from a harder rock sound to more a luscious, atmospheric feel that really harkens to the moodier songs found in Kiss me, Kiss me Kiss me, Disintegration and Wish era Cure. In fact, the ending song, Movie, really reminds me of Plainsong. The band retains that darker eighties band sound, they were just born twenty years later. They are categorized as Goth, industrial even- I just call them New Wave.

But, of course, it is all anchored by the always beautiful vocals of Chibi. A vocal as well as a visual dark angel- it is awesome how they exploit her abilities on a song like Red Stars, where the smashing guitars threaten to rip your ears with their metal stylings yet her voice guides you through it and you find yourself enjoying this song even though at first glance, it sounds like another, shudder, Korn wannabe.

I additionally love the two remakes of some of their older songs, especially Remember Me. That bass hook is especially haunting.

If there is anything I find amiss with the album, it is that the band seems too comfortable with their material. The songs are as good as the ones on Violet (an album that I plan on taking with me to the afterlife) but these sound like B-sides from that album, there is no progression in them like Cure trilogy mentioned above or like how VNV Nation progressed from the lovely harshness of Praise the Fallen to the lyrical perfection of Empires and finally to the zenith with Future Perfect.

Some songs also end abruptly, but I can get over that.

But, the Birthday Massacre is still a relatively young band, and I know they developed a decent following from their first album. They are probably using this as their ‘safe’ sound to build on what came before. This album still has that spark and energy that made me enjoy them in the first place.

Walking With Strangers bashes in and leaves you wanting more.*

Rating: A- (but then again I am biased)

*In comparison, another female fronted band that I like, Switchblade Symphony also had a terrific first album, Serpentine Gallery, which I will also be taking with me to the grave. However their follow up albums did not live up to their promise and the band just fell into being another cliché Goth band (Witches, anyone? That remix album was decent though).

And also, maybe with more material now, maybe the next time I see the Birthday Massacre they will not have played their entire library of songs during their main set and not have any left for an encore.
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