Kate Nash - Foundations

YouTube - Marilyn Manson - Running To The Edge Of The World

YouTube - Marilyn Manson - Running To The Edge Of The World

Well, I used to not hate Marilyn Manson all that much. I really like his the beautiful people song. I had this ex-boyfriend that would wear the make up and the whole bit, and I thought it was kind of dumb but whatever people want to do to express themselves is usually fine with me. However, after seeing this video it kind of makes me hate Marilyn Manson. He is probably like 40 now, and exploiting kids with this garbage. The video is him beating up a girl that looks a lot like his ex. At some point she loses her clothes and she is rubbing the blood that is dripping down her face onto her chest. At any rate he is really sexualizing him beating her up which if your music is decent you don't need to glorify domestic violence to get hype.

http://www.dose.ca/celebrity/2193252/story.html

You Think You Know Somebody

This is a sad song about someone whose friend was abused and then they ended up killing thier own kid years later. I think this song is very pertinent. I knew this guy a while ago, and I heard through his girlfriend that he was abused by his family and then years later he did end up shooting someone. He wasn't a bad guy, from what I knew of him, but what I heard that was done to him was very bad. So, I think that songs like this are true. This artist is very good, I think but what does it all really mean, this idea of violence and music, I think it is more than this, it is more than singing about a violent society. It is more than songs that talk about violence creating violence, and more than a violent image combined with violent lyrics that create these circumstances.
Perhaps there is such a thing as a violent song, or maybe not so much a song but a sound within a song. There is something to music that makes it powerful. Why is it the people that have alzheimers can't remember thier daughter's name but can sing a long to you are my sunshine? There is something in music that it stays with you long after other things are gone.
But where is guitar's role in this? I think the guitar is such a popular instrument for rock bands, the whole, lighting it on fire and smashing it on stage, that it is the usual suspect by default. Those kids and thier rock & roll, and really, it is probably the #1 instrument associated with drugs as well, from the stoner, hippy who is hanging out playing acoustic to all of the super great artists that were addicted to heroine, and drugs are very much realted to violence.

YouTube - Todd Snider - You Think You Know Somebody

Seek & Destroy Barney & Metallica Take on the War

Who knew that a purple dinosaur was just as tough as Metallica. Rumour has it that the US Government has new ways to make people talk. They are exposing Iraqi prisoners to many hours of Barney and Metallica music. I have posted some excerpts from the attached article below.

In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney "I Love You" song for 45 minutes. I never want to go through that again," one US operative told the magazine.

"They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That's when we come in and talk to them."

The US's Psychological Operations Company (Psy Ops) said the aim was to break a prisoner's resistance through sleep deprivation and playing music that was culturally offensive to them.

However, human rights organisation, Amnesty International, said such tactics may constitute torture - and coalition forces could be in breach of the Geneva Convention.
This idea of musical torture is a familiar one. The government has tried these tactics for years. I would guess that it must work or they would have given it up long ago. What about this scenario makes it torture, is it the sleep deprivation, the music, or the fact that I would guess, it must be played very loudly. The idea of Barney or for that matter the music of Metallica being torturous, is something I am sure many parents could relate to. Torture is a violent act, is it the intent behind our actions that becomes the weapon or is it the perception of the listener?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3042907.stm

Banks of the Ohio

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I think this is a version of the knoxville girl, The Banks of the Ohio by Joan Baez. He asks his love to go walk with him, she doesn't want to die, but he kills her anyway. Joan Baez has an awesome voice though.

Polly

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Polly is a song about a 14 year old girl that was raped and tortured by a man named Gerald Friend. As the girl was a juvenile her name was never released and Nirvana had made up the name Polly. Later on two guys raped another girl while playing this song. I tried to fine corroberating evidence about the 2nd girl but I wasn't able to find anything. I only found the following quotes that are said to be in the liner notes to Incesticide: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience." I don't know where I was in the 90's but I don't remember hearing this about the song. I do remember it was the only song I didn't like on the album. I have attached the link to the video and then to a link about the song. I found some other disturbing things but I think there is enough of that out there already. I think that it shows how screwed up people are. I guess Nirvana did benefits to help rape victims, so I am sure the intent was not to be a catalyst for anything. It is hard because many people heard this song and that was that. I am not a big believer in blaming the music, obviously Gerald Friend didn't need a song for inspiration. The whole thing is kind of depressing.





http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2715

Knoxville Girl

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The Knoxville Girl song has been redone many times (per Wikipedia) under several different names. Based on multiple google searches that seems to be true. The Knoxvile girl was said to be based on a Elizabethan poem called the Cruel Miller. A poem about a man killing the girl he loves because she is pregnant and he doesn't want to get married. In the end he is hanged. I guess that would be called poetic justice. But the youtube version I have attached is worth watching because it is sort of a cheerful song. I think it is interesting, because it shows that violent songs are in no way a new phenomenon.



http://www.tadpoletunes.com/songs/cruelmil.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knoxville_Girl

20 Best Angry Love Songs

In the spirit of it recently being Valentine's Day I found this great list of the 20 Best Angry Love songs, Obviously by the title of this blog. Nothing wrong with some angry Guitar Music. Speaking of violence, Lily Allen's video smile is all about her hurting her cheating boyfriend. So maybe not all violent songs need to be directed at women but I wonder if this is a new phenomenon? I wish I could find some statics on the percentage of songs about violence towards women and the songs about violence to men through time, and see if the levels are increasing and in which direction. Also, as women become more empowered is it then natural that the inclination toward expressing violence in general and through music would increase? That would be unfortunate.

Lily Allen Smile
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Baby Bitch- I think should have made the list
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http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/06/25/the-20-best-angry-love-songs-ever/

Dreamworlds 3 Desire Sex and Power in Music Video

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Attached is a link to documentary that talks about how music video teaches us about gender roles. It is really sad, I haven't seen the entire full length video, but you can see how violence is so entrenched in modern music, and violence against women in particular. If people are reduced to sexual object then they cease to be human, and therefore what is done to them is o.k. I have been out many times and have strangers come up and grab me in some way, men of all ages. And the thing is what is happening to me is not unique. I think it is the acceptance and complacency toward violence against women that is the most upsetting.

Even reading the YouTube comments on this is frustrating, I have posted a portion of one below.

"I have never been raped because I don't act like I want to have sex with everybody."

Comments like that are stupid and are also a huge part of the problem, though unfortunatley comments like that are also not unique.

Music Violence & the Devil

I found the attached article that speaks about the correlation between Rock Music & Violence and satanism as well. The article was published in 1991 and I think that has a bit to do with it. To me the idea of satanic music leading to violence is a circular argument, does the music make someone violent or is a violent society reflected in the music? If a troubled person hears some music and decides to go hurt someone I don't know that the music is to blame, any more than the barking dog was to blame for The Summer of Sam.

However, that being said, what is our obsession with glorifying violence?
"One study revealed that of the 700 most popular songs of "heavy metal," 50% speak of killings, 35% of satanism and 7% about suicide. Sheila Davis, professor of lyric writing at New York University, is convinced that "better give serious attention to the content of pop songs and to evaluate not only what lyrics are saying to society but, more important, what they may be doing to it" (USA Today, October 11, 1985, p. 10)."

If the statistics are true, doesn't it prove that there is a problem, especially considering that there is such a market for violent music?


http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/rock/violence.shtml

Violence in Music

I think we live in a society that in many ways is more peaceful than that of our ancestors but still the threat of violence is always there. I notice it anytime I am walking by a woman at night. You can tell that she is worried about who is walking behind her and you can see she is wondering if she is going to be attacked. Not that it happens so often that we should be as worried as we are but even now in these modern times, the advice is to stay away from dark alleys at night, go in groups, lock your doors, always be on the look out ready to defend yourself etc. because you never know who will be out there. It is sort of sad that we have half of the population living in fear and essentially told to guard themselves by staying indoors. In many ways we have about the same amount of freedoms as our ancestors. I think of all of the women I have been close to that have had some sort of violence done to them by a stranger or a friend and it is almost all. We do live in a violent society and this violence is reflected in music. I have attached two pictures. The first picture shows Jack Ruby getting shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. The
2nd picture has an image that is on a popular t-shirt. Oswald's gun has been replaced by a guitar and Jack Ruby has been given a microphone. The Oswald Band is born. It is sort of horrible that the image has been altered this way, but I think it relects how we view violence, as entertainment and it shows the link between the two.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

New Direction

I think I need a new direction, I would love to keep looking at guitar and its relationship to prison, because I think it exists. However, I am having a hard time finding information that I feel good about. I guess I don't care to promote child molestors turned guitar players. It is great that they are suppossedly not hurting kids anymore but I don't really want to glorify that. So I am going to look at guitar in other areas of society.

Prison Arts Program- San Quentin

The William James Association Prison Arts Project gives inmates at San Quentin the chance to create music and other works of art within the prison walls. This gives inmates the chance to express themselves and their creativity. 90% of inmates will return to society so that may be reason enough to give them a opportunities to go in another direction.

"There are general feelings of hostility and hopelessness in prisons today and it is getting worse with overcrowding. . . Art workshops and similar programs help take us out of this atmosphere and we become like any other free person expressing our talents. Being in prison is the final ride downhill unless one can resist the things around him and learn to function in a society which he no longer has any contact with. Arts programs for many of us may be the final salvation of our minds from prison insanity. It's contact with the best of the human race. It is something that says that we, too, are still valuable."

- a prison inmate

William James Association- Prison Arts Project
http://www.williamjamesassociation.org/prison_arts.html

http://photophilanthropy.org/slideshow/gallery_peter_merts2.html

Axl Vs Johnny

It is pretty interesting that both Axl and Johnny had songs about killing women. In Delia's gone, Johnny shoots her twice because Delia was a trifling woman. Now poor Johnny was in jail and she is haunting him, he can hear her walking around all of the time.
Years later Axl sings I Used To Love Her But I Had to Kill Her. A lot of people say this song was not about killing anyone and it is really about a dog, or just a joke. I don't think that matters, because obviously Axl doesn't have some girl buried in his backyard. what is interesting is that in both songs the murderer doesn't get peace because they are haunted in some way. Axl can hear the complaining and Johnny can hear her walking around. They are both really great songs, and really address the other side of love. I think it is funny that both artists are talented, and put on a good show but there is a great parallel between them. I think it really shows how ahead of his time Johnny Cash was.

Delia's Gone
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Used to Love Her
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My Guitar

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I have finally bought an electric guitar of my own. It is a used jagmaster. I guess Kurt Cobain designed it by combining two different guitars. Rumour has it anyway. It is pretty sweet though to finally be able to play rock songs the way they are meant to be played.

However, the song that I am going to be working on now is Once Upon A Time by the Pogues. One of my favorite songs ever.

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