386DX

Ahhh at last I managed to find some time. I have quite a few things line up to write about but everything in its own time. Let's go.

A couple of weeks back I went to a concert-slash-club night at the Royal Festival Hall. The headlining act was Ladytron; an electro-pop band from London, which is doing pretty good at the moment. There were other acts playing in the foyer and the concert halls all through the night. But one of them just mesmerised me. I was absolutely dumbstruck by the performance of the 'band' called 386DX. The 'band' is made up of a man and a PC; yes, a 386 Dx PC with 4MB RAM and 40MB hard-disk, running on Windows 3.1. The guy was apparently originally a Russian street musician but now he is somewhat famous with his act.

And the act is this; the guy programmed some of the most popular rock,pop and metal songs in midi and uses text-to-speech software for the lyrics. So during the concert he simply uses a projector as a screen and runs songs. Then, he very awkwardly uses a keyboard in a way resembling a mix between a guitar and keyboard to que riffs and etc. However, the star of the show is definitely the PC, 'singing' the songs in a flat, monotonus and otherworldy voice, which is completely devoid of any feeling whatsoever. Yes, it's so bad it's actually compelling.

Now, I can't really explain how I felt watching this performance. I felt sad, excited, afraid, angry, happy, amazed. Why you might ask? For the answer just download "Smells like teen spirit" cover from their website and listen at full volume. It's so weird. I had felt sad because listening to the song I remembered how Kurt Cobain sings it; with pain, anger and rebellion in his voice. But this version is just like a terrifying prophecy. Think about it; if a Russian guy with a crap PC can do this, we might be listening to synthetic singers and bands in a decade time. Singing the songs governments or corporates think are appropriate. Mellow, nonconfrontational, meaningless songs with sickeningly catchy choruses so that we won't be able to foregt them. Am I being paranoid? Maybe. But I think it's already happenning. A couple of examples; Gorillaz, Coldplay, all the girl bands and boybands etc. And this is coming from a guy who loves Gorillaz and sings along to Yellow or Trouble whenever they come on. But I long for unconformity; I want rock stars behaving like rock stars. I want them to do the things I can't do or say the things I can't say. I don't want them to be vegetarians with healthy monogamous relationships and uninteresting lifes. I want them to wreak havoc everywhere they go. I want them to do drugs, have sex with all the groupies, drive cars into swimming pools, jump off stages, smash speakers with their guitars. Where has all this gone? Why all we are getting is fancy light shows, fireworks, giant screens, security fences, CCTV cameras, orderly proceedings and singers with castrato voices? Why are the bands from my mum's youth more rock'n'roll then the bands of today?

I was going to do a separate post but I decided to mention this news item at the end of this post as seems more appropriate. During the week, I read in Metro (the free newspaper for commuters) that a guy was arrested and walked off a plane because he was listening to Clash and Led Zeppelin on the way to the airport. Apparently, the cab he was in had a iPod socket and he decideed to play some music, he played a couple pop songs and the cabbie seemed to like his chocies. Then, first he played London Calling - by Clash, and which the cabbie didn't like - followed by the Immigrant Song by Led Zep - which, unbelievably, the cabbie didn't like either. Afterwards, the cab driver reported the guy to the police after dropping him off at the airport. But what was the reason you may ask? Both songs are include lyrics which can be interpreted as war cries or rebellion against the state so the cabbie thought, the guy is a terrorist and that he will blow up the plane. I wonder if the bands of today will have an effect like this in 30-40 years time - if anybody remembers them that is. However, I think the most stupid point in this story is that the police actually took him seriously. Oh I forgot to mention that the guy that got arrested had colored skin - small detail, I suppose.