2009 Was The Sort of Year That Passed In One Month Increments

Music For Infants: My preliminary field notes indicate that babies, by and large, don’t give a shit about music. However, there are two exceptions in Vashti Bunyan and David Tibet, particularly Sleep Has His House. Weirds me the hell out, it does. Not because Sleep is a bad album, or because it is rightfully considered one of Current 93‘s finest works and this indicates supernatural prescience, but because it’s about a dead father, sung by his living son.

But it soothes the savage beast, and so I worry not.

This past year was one of preparation and rediscovery. Health and Death and yet another triumphant Boredoms experience. Throbbing Gristle, set in motion during my own infancy, played “Discipline” in an old Masonic Temple and drew a circle around what I imagined my youth to be. Will Oldham demonstrated extreme American exceptionalism while millions inexplicably mourned a dead pedophile; Antony showed an overwhelming capacity for international superstardom, hemmed in only by being a beautiful woman who doesn’t look like one.

Ask An Alternative High School Teacher

Today we’ll speak with someone who has seen the future that is our children. The future sez “Start buying krugerrands now!”

So…the kids these days. What are they listening to? How bad is it?

I think teenagers’ taste in music are as all over the place as they always have been, only they’re typically listening to the derivatives of derivatives. Very few of the students would be able to tell me who M.I.A. is, but they all have about 13 different songs that sampled her second album liberally.  Then you have some students who genuinely confuse me because they like groups that are just so…odd. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony? Really? Or like if a student tells me they LOVE Nine Inch Nails; I really have a tough time understanding how anyone under the age of say, 21, might even know who Trent Reznor is.

Michael Gira Is Not An Idiot

He sees people paying 30 bucks to see Throbbing Gristle.