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[adiva_calandia]

So I was looking up ambrosia and nectar in Wikipedia for a tag I was writing this morning, which led me to ichor, which led me to The Dunwich Horror, which led me to the library to pick up some Lovecraft for the hell of it. Yay?

I also picked up some books for the paper I'm gonna be writing. I was originally gonna do it on pirate kangaroo courts, but I'm not sure I know where to look for resources on that, so I'm gonna go back to my original idea of exploring how thieves' cant and other slang worked as a method of separating the socially deviant underworld from the rest of society. Which sounds so much better than "I'm using this paper as an excuse to learn thieves' cant for a character I roleplay online," doesn't it?

I need to make a Milliways post about zombies later, but I have to write this paper proposal and work out first.

Man, I already miss working on MacB. *sadface* It was so nice to feel involved in theatre again.

So I have this theory about all these classic rock songs from Supernatural. The rhythm of them fundamentally implies motion; they're all in very steady 4/4, at a pace that very often equals a brisk walking pace, at least for me. I'm not sure if my legs are just exactly the right length or what, but if I listen to them while walking, I'm pretty much always stepping on the beat.

Comments

[kali921.livejournal.com]

So I have this theory about all these classic rock songs from Supernatural. The rhythm of them fundamentally implies motion; they're all in very steady 4/4, at a pace that very often equals a brisk walking pace, at least for me. I'm not sure if my legs are just exactly the right length or what, but if I listen to them while walking, I'm pretty much always stepping on the beat.

Do I sense a convergence of cock rock? Because if you're gonna listen to Poison, you better do it with a sense of irony. :-D

[agonistes]

Because god forbid women listen to Poison for any other purpose.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I...don't think I mentioned gender in my comment? I actually like Poison and throw the horns with the best of them when I blast Unskinny Bop. I had a huge Sekrit Crush on Bret Michaels, a crush that I couldn't confess to in public for years because if I had, my friends would have probably disowned me.

[adiva_calandia]

I'm not sure I know what genre of music cock rock can be applied to? Judging by the Urban Dictionary definition, though, I think most Nazareth fans would be offended.

And the only Poison I have is "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," which is so ridiculously earnest it's awesome. :D I cannot comment on the irony or non-irony of the rest of their oeuvre.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

The, um, definition of "cock rock" on Urban Dictionary, if I'm looking at the right entry, is not really...the wider definition of the term. Start here.

[adiva_calandia]

Thaaaat looks more like it. *grin*

[kali921.livejournal.com]

I think it's funny that there's a demographic of people who wouldn't have been caught dead listening to any of the bands from the big hair metal scene of the eighties and nineties (Poison, Cinderella, Hanoi Rocks, et al) back in the day - people like me - suddenly softening their stances and listening to said bands now with a certain wistful nostalgia for a simpler time. In the nineties I was deep into the Wax Trax scene, New York art noise, Sonic Youth, King Missile, Laibach, Italian industrial, hardcore minimalist Detroit techno (fun fact: techno was really invented by gay black men from Detroit, NOT Kraftwerk!), serious dub, dubstep, Dutch rapcore, Treponem Pal, noisy blues, funk, hip hop, and all permutations of the darker side of drum' n bass. I used to look at the boys in Poison and Hanoi Rocks and think "God, they're pretty in a very metal way," but since the actual L.A. metal scene, if you participated in it at the time, was heavily infused with drugs, alcohol, and rampant sexist dickery on the part of some of the musicians, it just wasn't my kind of thing. It wasn't new, it wasn't doing anything that hadn't been done before, and thus is was viciously mocked, even if we secretly thought that Cinderella occasionally rocked the fuck out.

But now? I will crank that Hanoi Rocks like nobody's business.

Although, seriously, Ted Nugent and REO Speedwagon? I can't take anyone seriously who is going to argue their artistic merits without a certain sense of self-aware irony. Cock rock can be fun NOW. At the time? The people that listened to Ted Nugent and Cinderella were the ones that occasionally invaded the clubs where I hung out, started fights, were obnoxious to women, and vomited on people.

PS

[kali921.livejournal.com]

PS - right after I typed the above comment to you, I opened up issue #19 of the new JLA book and see Kendra taking out a giant alien dinosaur with one crippling mace blow. I just, y'know, needed to share that with SOMEONE.

Also, Rikki Rockett of Poison when he was rockin' that long, long Viking blonde hair behind the drum kit? Oh, lord, did I crush on him for years and years. I still do. He's also a vegetarian and outspoken animal rights person.

Re: PS

[the_croupier]

Actually, if you want to get insanely technical about it, it wasn't even born in Detroit, but in a teeny little community called Belleville, halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor, which is where Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May grew up.

And if you'd ever been there? You could see why they'd be motivated to find anything, anything, to make their lives more interesting. =)

Re: PS

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, Rick, you rock my world so damn hard. The fact that you even know what I'm TALKING ABOUT makes me love you all the more. I was thinking of people like Jeff Mills, too!

I bet you like Green Velvet. You like Green Velvet, don't you.

Re: PS

[the_croupier]

I haven't heard a lot of GV? But 'La La Land' never stops being funny. So I've liked what I've heard!

Re: PS

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Green Velvet's been around since the mid nineties! He's got a degree in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, even. Everything he puts out is awesome. But also? He's a supremely excellent DJ. He puts up mixes and podcasts frequently over on his MySpace page. I'm sort of sad that he shifted all of the content from his website over to MySpace, because his website was beautifully designed. He does everything from hardcore funk techno to trance to just all out INSANITY.

I will never be able to say the phrase "is a BALLOON" again without laughing hysterically, thanks to Green Velvet.

[aberration]

Yay zombies!

Um.

[agonistes]

silveraspen and I were actually talking about the Supernatural soundtrack the other day, and contrasting it with the show Life. Those two shows have soundtracks that are quite thoroughly bitchin' -- but they serve different purposes.

I'm not sure that the rhythm of the SPN soundtrack fundamentally implies motion, and I don't listen to it as regularly as I do the soundtrack to Life -- but what I am sure about is that those songs are to some degree chosen because of the culture(s) they invoke. In your spare time (ha!) I'd recommend picking up Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman -- it's both memoir and commentary. Klosterman grew up on a farm in North Dakota, and loved (and loves) heavy metal, and the entire time I was reading it I kept thinking Lynne needs to read this like she needs to breathe. The songs and groups that Dean Winchester loves go hand in hand with the culture that Klosterman experienced and talks about -- bars, booze, babes, and the Midwest.

(Life, in contrast, isn't invoking a culture so much as adding to characterization and pace, with its soundtrack. 3/4 of the songs are between 70 and 90 beats a minute -- or a really, really high heart rate, which corresponds nicely to Charlie Crews in his more manic moods. But I do not think you have seen Life, so I will refrain from tl;dr-ing further!)

[adiva_calandia]

those songs are to some degree chosen because of the culture(s) they invoke.

Oh, absolutely. What I'm interested in is if there's something in the structure of the music itself that ties it to the culture of the open road, invoking a certain pace. I don't have enough music theory to talk about it intelligently, though. *wry grin*

My other theory about Dean and classic rock is kind of summed up in that line in "Dream A Little Dream" when dream!Dean says "Your music -- Dad's." Dean's tied to the past, and his music reflects that. I wish we knew more about Sam's taste in music; the only song I can think of that's tied to him rather than Dean is "Look At You" from "Heart," which is a considerably more recent song, but still not exactly current.

(I have not seen, though I begin to think I may have to.)

[camwyn]

mmmmm. Dunwich Horror. That was fun.

[genarti]

I find it almost impossible to not walk on the beat if I'm listening to music while walking, if the song in question is remotely conducive to it.

This gets occasionally awkward, of course, with the internal conflict of "I want to walk faster -- but this song's rhythm is too slow -- but it's too fast for double-time -- but if I try walking to a different rhythm it'll make me twitchy -- augh!" So, uh, it's nice to find ones that suit themselves well to my walking pace. *grin* Or songs to sing that have that kind of rhythm; there's a type of Scottish music called "walking songs," for example, that unsurprisingly are perfectly suited for walking or working to their beat.

I haven't tried with the SPN soundtrack rock -- alas for my lack of iPod -- so I don't know if those fit me too.

Meanwhile, that paper sounds AWESOME. Any chance some of us could read it when you're done? *cuteface* I mean. Thieves' cant! That is fantastic.