My Valuable Hunting Knife// Guided By Voices

Music vid for "My Valuable Hunting Knife" by Guided By Voices. I like this version of the song more than the version on Alien Lanes, which sounds a lot more clean and tweaked. This version in the video has a much slower tempo and really basic, shitty (nice) sounding drums. This version of the song is on the Tigerbomb EP.

Everything I talk about I talk about with you

Club Molluska- Guided By Voices

Watch Me Jumpstart is a movie about the band Guided By Voices. This is the opening scene of the movie that features the song "Club Molluska."


It's just a runway world...

Big Star..Ballad of El Goodo

Big Star playing "Ballad of El Goodo" live in Missouri…in 1993 (shoutout to all my '93 dawgs ). In this performance, the band members are dressed very 'Elliott Smith-normal' (hoodies, jeans…) compared to their seventies swagger as seen in my previous post. They're still talented musicians though, which is what should matter, really..

Kid's Allright// Bettie Serveert

Here is Bettie Serveert's 1993 Kids's Allright video! The lined quality makes it look like it's been taped from another tape being played on a television, which rules!! Like this Curtis Mayfield video. Both the video, the song, and the band are great but never really broke into the mainstream music scene at the time. The video, according the youtube uploader, was "lost"- presumably never distributed or used.  The director, Jessie Peretz has worked on videos with the Foo Fighters (Big Me) the Lemonheads' (Confetti) and, more recently, has directed an episode of Girls. Pretty neat!! 

liz phair// supernova

Your eyelashes sparkle like gilded grass

Sneaker Pimps// Destroying Angel Live

Late 90s/early 2000s trip hop band Sneaker Pimps perform Destroying Angel with lots of red and pink lights. This song reminds me of early Radiohead. I also think that this song would be amazing in a film, maybe at the end of one. Listen to "Splinter," their 1999 release, as soon as you can because it's pretty flawless.

I'm down. Help me I'm down. (@ 3:30)

heatmiser// plainclothes man

someone who'd treat me ok// wouldn't say the things you say

disarm//smashing pumpkins

I used to be a little boy so old in my shoes// and what I choose is my choice, what's a boy supposed to do

This Pinkpop rendition of Smashing Pumpkins performing Disarm is so beautiful and wistful. I love how Billy Corgan's laughing through the chorus when the crowd is singing completely off pace from what he's trying to sing. Learn the chords to this song here.

Harmony Korine + Chloe Sevigny

Korine was 23 when his screenplay he'd written for the film Kids was released as a feature film in '95. Chloe Sevigny, who played the leading role in the film, was 17. The two apparently met by chance in Washington Square Park in NYC when she was still in high school. "The two became close friends which resulted in her being cast in the low-budget independant film Kids."



Filter magazine has a cool recent interview with Korine here.

Smashing Pumpkins at Pinkpop '94

Smashing Pumpkins play "Today" at Pinkpop festival '94. It's a white sky day there like it is today.

Matthew Sweet// We're the Same

Mod girls in Matthew Sweet's video for "We're the Same" directed by Roman Coppola.

Matthew Sweet// Sick of Myself

twins

Seventeen magazine scan, 1999 

Bettie Serveert "Under the Surface"

This video of Bettie Serveert playing at the Pinkpop festival brings up a surge of 90s nostalgia. I haven't listened to this band since I was four-ish, when my parents were really into them and I thought that it was just one girl who was actually named "Bettie Serveert." Even though I was so young, this music still brings back vivid memories of listening to Lamprey driving around Calgary with my dad. 

This beautiful rainy day in Landgraaf feels so much like the atmosphere of today; rain and dark grey skies. This would have been such a good show.

Also: I love the flowered shirt that the lead guitarist is wearing.

The Lemonheads "Confetti"

The Lemonheads have pretty hair! The guy in the red shirt looks like Keanu Reeves.

Style Inspiration: Sandy's Little Brother

Last weekend I was reminded of the style niche of "90s bully,"* when something happened to me and my sister that led us to think of a similarly unsophisticated way to describe our own fashion identity.

Dressed in black hoodies, jean jackets, windbreakers, toques and Vans, me and Moodle were mistaken for "Sandy's little brother" last Saturday night by a bunch of guys passing us by in their car.  Not exactly sure 1) who Sandy is, 2) who would name their kid Sandy nowadays, and 3) which one of us "hey, are you Sandy's little brother" was directed at. Unfortunately we were too amazed to quip back something like; "noooo, seeing as we're GIRLS" or "yea we are him!"

Anyhow, this sparked the idea that from now on, our style icon is Sandy's Little Brother. Moodle was then inspired to let me cut her hair so she could always be mistaken for Sandy's lil bro. On the bottom right is Moodle's new hair, along with her fave little brothers (clockwise from her): Wiley Wiggums in Dazed & Confused, Stacey Peralta, Mitch from Honey I Shrunk Ourselves, JFD aka Sam Weir in Freaks n Geeks, and Tony Hawk.

*See: Nathan WIlliams of Wavves

nu emo pt. 2

My obsession continues! Marilyn Manson dissing My Chemical Romance in NME's list of 'the most vicious put-downs in music EVER' provoked me to reassess once again what emo really means. Putting aside all idealogies of emo that involve barfy neon accents, the skinny jeans + skate shoes combo, and the pierced low angle selfie pout, we can move into a new era where describing things as being "emo" could be positive.

The first step in remedying this scene/emo confusion (see "scene" def.) is revealing the roots of emo music and pinpointing when exactly the "emo" genre changed its image completely. Originating in the 80s, "emotional" alternative music with confessional lyrics could be exemplified by independant bands such as Rites of Spring and even the Smiths. In the 90s, introverted alternative bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and even Nirvana helped to define the sound that this emo subculture stood for.

The Hipster Handbook also brought up this idea that what you wear is a direct reflection of what you listen to. According to this book, "many hipsters shape their wardrobe, and often their personalities, to match the music they like." Keeping in mind that it's not only hipsters who shape their appearance on what music they listen to, we can concur that defining an emo look really depends on whether said emo listens to the appropriate music.

[Emo re-imagined: Androgynous clothes, limited colour (think grayscale), deep side part/hair obscuring face, spikes, thug toques, vans, cats]

nü emo

I hold the belief that the way that you dress is in direct correlation with what you listen to (solid thesis no?). Music is my biggest inspiration in every aspect of life- it affects any art that I create, things I do, see, wear, people I connect with... Music has so many facets of inspiration that affect me both emotionally and intellectually, guiding me along my path of choosing who to be. Lately I've been listening to Sunny Day Real Estate and have become a believer of black-on-black clothing. Coincidence? Nope.

Emo used to be cool in a 90s underground shoegaze way, but its reputation was trashed by a bunch of those 'scene' types listening to My Chemical Romance. I mean, the term originally meant musicians with emotional, confessional lyrics- let's reinvent emo to mean what it meant in the first place- check out my mix (both new and old!) then give yourself a choppy haircut in your throes of teen angst.

Nü Emo [emo revival] MIX: Seven- Sunny Day Real Estate Parasite- Nick Drake Whatever- Elliott Smith Mistaken For Strangers- The National Dead Shark- Liz Phair Novelty- Joy Division Honorable Mention- Fall Out Boy Kale- Nerves Junior Creep- Radiohead Fireman- Jawbreaker Shook Down- Yuck You're With Stupid Now- Aimee Mann

[Freja being androgynous in Harper's Bazaar | Black on black- stringy hair optional |  Kim Noorda w. a turtleneck and chain | THE nu emo-cut via i-D mag | Long black skirt-yep, black sweater- check, pin straight hair-mhm via H&M mag | Crazy about YSL's minimalist Fall 2011- CHOKERS are rad |  Acne Fall 2011 minimalist and monochromatic | Prada Fall 2006- stained lips, that's all | Luella's use of Vans and creepers in her fall 2003 collection. This is how it's done.]

nuvo-mod

I love 90s industrial, new york nightlife vibes with messy bleach blonde hair, shiny clothes, and art-school eyeliner. It's kind of like..nuvo-mod.* How pretentious am I? Don't answer that.

[Scan by me from this 90s French design magazine]

* The late 90s/early 2000s take on retro is still fresh to me. Austin Powers, Charlie's Angels, Josi and the Pussycats...the fashion in those movies rules, don't try to convince me otherwise.

Hole

Soo  about 3 weeks ago, I got the pleasure of seeing.. HOLE (!!) on July 9th (aka C.Love's birthday). Donning my rainbow flower embroidered overall-shorts, fringed mocs, and purple lipstick, I set out in the early evening to a concert I had been apprehensively* anticipating for months since Hole had been added to the bill. Going two hours in advance to be as close as possible was actually needed (unlike Tokyo Police Club the next night..). It seemed like I was surrounded by everyone who was a teenager in the '90s, who were throwing flowers and bringing pink party hats and noise makers. At that point it had been raining for the entire time we had been waiting, so my hair was completely soaked, the party hats were disintegrating, and clothes felt heavy and moist. It was really nice in a nasty sort of way.

*Afraid of them playing Blues & all new material

[Images via acidstars.org]

Luckily the rain stopped for Courtney and eventually my hair  was shaken dry to an elongated version of what I like to call "The Kurt Cobain." She started off with Skinny Little Bitch (off the new album), but went on to play older material. When Boys on the Radio came on , ("in those endless summer nights...") the sun was setting so beautifully and then gradually turned purple-y when she started Violet- how serendipitous! Luckily, the sunset stuck around for Malibu  (...as the sun goes down I watch you slip away..) and I almost cried. Seeing bands live sometimes brings me to tears- not hysterical tears of obsession like those seen at Fall Out Boy circa gr.8- but feeling this amazing connection with the music that can only be described in the moment. The show totally made me love Northern Star, and want to play it on the guitar. Finally, Courtney let the crowd sing her happy birthday when she said she was ready to accept that she was turning 29..again.  I'm not sure whether she'll look back on her birthday of 2010 as exceptionally fun & exciting, but I know that I'll remember it.

[HBD Courtney]