Currently up at NPR is a great mini-set of 70s Iranian funk, collected by Egon of Stones Throw Records. It’s part of their ongoing Funk Archaeology series, and features tracks by some folks I’ve never heard (like the sitar-and-Afrobeat-infused Mehr Pooya and beach-psych-y Kourosh Yagmhei) as well as my old favorite, Googoosh (or Googoush, or گوگوش, all of which apparently mean “Swanhawk,” which is extra cool).
Yesterday up at Gulou, I finally got around to buying the new albums by Hedgehog (just released) and Ourself Beside Me (came out in January)… Only to discover a few hours later via the salivating tweets of more media-savvy Beijingren that Google China had just launched its free mp3 service, which, of course, happens to feature both albums.
Oh well – still nice to support an actual music shop, and made an additional purchase of some Cui Zi’en (崔子恩) DVDs I haven’t seen around before. A few years ago at HKIFF, Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang described to me his first exposure to Cui’s films as something like this: “I put on the tape, and was watching it until I felt I had to turn it off, but then I couldn’t turn it off… it’s so bad that it’s fascinating, and then it becomes interesting.” Intense paraphrasing going on there, but it sticks in my mind as fairly apt. The weird, self-conscious crappiness in the aesthetic and tone of “Withered in the Blooming Season” is kind of amazing.
The Hedgehog and Ourself Beside Me albums are available for streaming and download below. (Legally! Though the concept of something that is both “digital” and “legal” in China is still confusing to me.) I’m still making my way through them…
Ourself Beside Me “Ourself Beside Me”
(Loving the Rundgren/Barrett-by-way-of-Lisa-Frank cover art; also I’m amazed that they actually did use ‘Ourself Beside Me’ as the official name on it – they had barely decided it while my THEME article on them was going to press)
Hedgehog “Blue Day Dreaming”
(I wish time machines existed just so that Hedgehog could travel back to 1993 to appear on 120 Minutes, and we could now watch it on grainy Youtube VHS capture…)
As my last spurt of journalistic productivity before going on my present “sabbatical,” I have two pieces in the current issue of Theme Magazine (NYC). One is on Beijing band “Ourself Beside Me” (also known as “Ourselves Beside Me”; there is no definitive right spelling and I suspect the girls prefer it that way); the other on Thai television show “Dreamchaser.”
Profile: Ourself Beside Me, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!
Theme: Dreamchaser, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!
Performance & Installation (VHS copy of “Yessongs”, television, fabricated vintage stickers, headphones, candles, shag rug, pillows, photograph, text)
“Pop I.D.” curated by Andrew Guthrie, Kapok, Hong Kong, April-May 2007
The re-enactment of a teenage memory, and awkward insertion of a highly-personal bubble into social space. This piece seeks to explore the sacred rituals of fandom, the nature of performance in everyday life, alone and in public, and also the boundary between audience and participant.
Press:
Installation Text (download PDF):
The Girl with the Yes Tape
One night in high school, I went to a party at my friend’s house. The party was typical in many ways—kids hanging out, raiding the parents’ liquor cabinet, smoking cigarettes in the backyard. But at some point in the evening, an unfamiliar girl came into the living room where many of us were lounging. My friend A and I were laughing about another friend who was making out with some guy upstairs, so at first we didn’t really notice her.
This girl, dressed in her vintage-70’s finest, strutted into the room purposefully. She sat down in front of the TV, rummaged through her large leather-fringed bag, pulled out a VHS tape, and pushed it into the VCR. The opening credits of the VHS began and she pushed herself up even closer to the TV. The tape finally blared into shaky-color brilliance: a rock band, a concert movie.
A few of us in the room got curious– what exactly were we watching? When asked, she handed the tape cover back to somebody. YES: Yessongs. She sat there and watched intently, drinking out of a cup, occasionally rocking out. At one point I left to talk to somebody, then returned. She was still there. She sat and watched the whole thing. Then, as the tape wound down, she put it back in the case, back in her bag, and left.
I never found out who she was, or why she had brought the tape. All I know is that I hope she’s still out there, trucking Yessongs around from party to high school party. Pushing herself up close to the TV to watch the strobe lights gleam off some sequins and a six-string bass. Sipping whiskey from a plastic cup. Occasionally rocking out. And then disappearing into the endless night. The girl with the Yes tape.
- Samantha Culp
April 2007
