Celebrate the New Polvo Age!

Doesn’t it suck to know that you will never get to see one of your top 5 bands? You know… like when they break up before you have a chance to see them and you’re stuck watching hundreds of 40 second cell-phone-video clips off youtube? I definitely know the feeling! However, one of my most music-life-altering bands of the last 5 years is reuniting for a US and Europe tour.

Polvo are an extremely influential in the world of noise rock. Guitarists Ash Bowie and Dave Brylawski blew me away with their angular, unpredictable, dissonant guitar harmonies, driving rhythm, and their Asian and exotic scalar references.

They formed in 1990 in Chapel Hill, NC and continued to pump out musical pure diamond goldess until 1997 with their release of their last album ‘Shapes.’ If interested in doing some further listening to Polvo, my suggestion would be to check out these albums: Today’s Active Lifestyles, Celebrate the New Dark Age, and Exploded Drawing – Although all are great!

Announced Tour Dates:

5/9: Washington, DC – Black Cat
5/10: Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
5/16-18: Minehead, England – Butlins Holiday Resort (Explosions in the Sky-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties)
5/29-31: Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound Festival (ATP stage)

Ohh how I hope there is more!

 

These are live videos probably taken sometime around 1996 – not super great quality, but if you love the band they’re fantastic! Please take the time to watch!

“Fractured (Like Chandeliers)” – Part of the song and “Solitary Set.”Both are from the album Celebrate the New Dark Age.

“Every Holy Shroud” – From the album Celebrate the New Dark Age

“Feather of Forgiveness” – From the album Exploded Drawing

Misconstrued Perception

Is consumerism and commercialism altering perceptions on the art of coffee and music? In my opinion…without a doubt.

What is “indie”, or “indie rock” for that matter? I used to think that I knew. I used to think that indie music was short-form for independent music. The genre of indie rock is now more of a fashion for consumer culture and another way for capitalists to turn music into a commercialized product. They play with the label of indie rock, attributing it to underground culture and counterculture. Just another way to falsely assure the masses that they are “individual”, “unique”, and part of a countermovement to mainstream culture. It is used now to incorrectly describe the bands sound in affiliation with their independent label, or means of production. It’s a blanket term that covers many artists, grouping them into a category that appeals to a society who is constantly looking to rid themselves of characteristics of the collective; conforming to a symbol of individualism, despite the fact they are doing the exact opposite. Indie has been appropriated by commercialism to mean something that was originally not intended; it has new meaning now. It was only a matter of time before someone was smart enough to see that they could market this idea.

I’m not judging anything about the music itself. There are many artists coming out with the label of “indie” that are wonderful to listen to, and by no means should artists be judged by their label. Also, I’m not saying that there are not truly independent bands emerging from various music genres. I just wish that truly independent musicians wouldn’t get tagged under the genre of “indie”. Am I symbolically representing myself through the music I listen to? Most likely… but I would say that their is very few that could get away with saying no. Do I mean to? Not necessarily… I did for a long time, and now realize there are definitely more important things in life than defining yourself by symbolic culture. Althought I’ll never get away from it.

Now what about coffee? How have peoples perception of coffee changed? There are about 13, 000 Starbucks around the world, and in multiple countries; opening Starbucks every 6 minutes… About 44 million people a week go to Starbucks. Starbucks coffee is the most caffeinated coffee on the market. So what am I trying to get at? I want to argue the fact that Starbucks is altering people’s perception of coffee from something that is a taste sensation, to something to feed an addiction. Among other things that I think is horrible about Starbucks, this is what I’m going to try to argue. Usually when I talked to people about coffee, the response is usually something like this: “I really needed a coffee this morning, I had a horrible hangover and needed to get picked up.” Where is the enjoyment in that? Doesn’t it seem as if people are using coffee strictly for the caffeine, as a means for energy? I’m sure that symbolic imagery also has some sort of ties, but my opinion leans more towards coffee as a means of caffeine. It really is a shame that more people don’t take the time to appreciate all things that go into coffee and all aspects that change the qualities of coffee. We need to remember that we are trying to make something consistently that naturally doesn’t want to be consistent. Starbucks and other coffee chains have constrained coffee to something that can be repeated over and over again with very little frequencies of variability. So what Starbucks is doing is dealing caffeine legally and consistently. Of course this is just my opinion, and I would love to hear discussions!!

And for some neat indie rock picks, check out: Pavement, Guided by Voices, Built to Spill, Jesus and Mary Chain, Polvo, and solid old Sonic Youth

(Am I secretly representing myself symbolically through these bands?? Fuck… This just gets confusing.)