The bands it focused on were The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and (a little), TV on the Radio. It was quite hard to tell if there were any new interviews conducted for it, but you heard from most of the main members of those bands, with very little mention of anyone else, and not that much real attempt to describe the extent of the scene and how everyone and everything joined together. Fine - there are limits to a 2-hour documentary.
Wisely, there were was significant focus on Karen O and James Murphy, who both, at times, said some things that threatened to be pretty interesting. Karen O is one of the great rock stars of this century, and (though I think a lot of overt arseholes play the card of "I'm actually really shy") a genuinely shy person who created an on-stage persona which was a complete different animal. You can tell that the shyness and introversion remained, off stage, such that the unsettling collateral of being an unhinged, captivating, onstage presence was very hard to deal with - the relentlessness, the physicality, the expectation, the substances, the voyeurism, the creepy men ... she had a lot of interesting things to say about how male rock stars had a template to follow, while she had no template.
I'm not sure that's entirely true, but true enough - she wasn't the first female rock star, but there hadn't been many like her. I've often thought there's a certain similarity to Debbie Harry. The thing from DH's autobiography, though, is that, unless she's completely lying to her readers and herself, her formidable lifelong toughness is genuine. She endured a lot of unpleasant, as well as thrilling, personal circumstances, and her reaction to it always seems to have been phlegmatic and stoic. She even acknowledges the limits of that approach, for the purposes of storytelling, several times ... "I expect you want to know about how that affected me and my reflections at the time, but the truth is I just got on with it ..." that comes up quite often. While Karen O was clearly always reflecting and struggling (though seems to have reached a reconciliation after not too long...)
As for Mr Murphy, the underlying fact is that he would go on to write what is my probably my favourite song and one of the greatest songs of all time, 'All My Friends'. To me, everything about him hangs in the shadow of that. The documentary does not mention 'All My Friends' (the chronology is a bit vague but it's mainly dealing in roughly 1999-2003), but it's somehow relevant to the things he does say.
A failed indie musician-turned-sound engineer, he describes himself bluntly as, in his own view, just not able to function socially, not able to make friends. He is into rock music, not dance music, he is a perfectionist and tyrant in the studio, who needs it to be exactly how it is. Not taking drugs or drinking, he finds himself out of place at clubs. That changes in a revelatory fashion.
In producing The Rapture with Tim Goldsworthy (with whom he set up DFA Records), both the band and his production partner suggest after so much pigheadedness and determination to get his own way, he should really just make his own fuckin record.
So he does, which is Losing My Edge. Fascinatingly, Goldsworthy (with whom he's since fallen out) said at the time he hated it because "dance music has a long history of beautiful lyrics" (Does it?!!!!) and Murphy's lyrics were dumb (Are they???)" ... funny old world.
Anyway, Murphy formed LCD Soundsystem within a handful of days when he was offered a tour on the back of Losing My Edge, and in an endearing moment, he says he finally found his friends. So, that's, for me, the fascinating bit ... All My Friends, which appears to be the ultimate song of nostalgia for lost youth, was written, in fact, by a guy who finally found his friends in his mid-30s, and he got to perform it with all his friends to adoring audiences to this day.
Another notable thing about Murphy, of course, though it shouldn't be, is that he got famous and became an unlikely icon of cool when he was a big, cumbersome bloke in his mid-30s. Breaking the mould. So tying that back in with the main stars of the scene, The Strokes, one considers the tyranny of skinny in indie rock'n'roll. (always i give the caveat when i talk about The Strokes, cos they seem to bring out the carping envious meanness in me ... i like The Strokes a lot).
The Strokes were the apotheosis of five skinny rich well-dressed handsome guys forming a band ... now, it was possible for some people to be part of that club, but it wasn't possible for many. It sounds completely ridiculous but there's nevertheless a truth that some bands came along where I was conscious that I looked too much like a rugby player to be properly into them ... Pulp were another one.
That's me overthinking myself, sure, but 95% of indie rock frontpeople and lead guitarists have been skinny with good hair since the dawn of time. The drummer and bassist can occasionally get way with a bit more heft and normality, but only sometimes.
So, notwithstanding writing my favourite song, I think James Murphy is quite a trailblazer in his own way, though he still did look like an aging, out-of-shape hipster, rather than an aging out-of-shape small town accountant, and until that indie rock icon comes along, I won't be satisfied.
...
Ok, one more thought about The Strokes. Clips of their early shows in small venues just look amazing. Thrilling. And, of course, I've seen them three times at big outdoor shows and found them a bit crap each time. So maybe that's been one of the biggest problem with rock music in the 21st century - that the trailblazing crossover cultural icon band were never meant for a mass audience, that they got too big for the small they ought to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment