Kamikaze Girls

There’s a great Stuff White People Like feature on “yellow fever” or white men’s obsessive attraction to Asian women. Though the subject of my own bouts of yellow fever are the subject of another feature it is only part of what attracted me to Tatsuya Nakashima’s 2004 film Kamikaze Girls.

Browsing the decent collection of mostly foreign films at the library I stumbled upon this and was intrigued by the Asian girl on the cover but not just because of her status as a cute Asian girl, it was because she was dressed in the elegant gothic Lolita fashion (google it but specifically sweet Lolita for this film’s style). I may have some strange elevated arousal because of this but this has mainly to do with my curiosity in all things weird and bizarre and pretty much anything having to do with Japan is pretty bizarre.

This movie too was delightfully bizarre. The film follows Momoko a 17 year old girl into Lolita fashion and incredibly self aware of the complexities of human nature. Despite her fashion driven obsession with Rococo England she is the only one grounded in reality, albeit a very cute and candy colored one. This is an incredibly wacky film similar to something Takashi Miike might do (minus the sexual perversions). For instance, Momoko is walking to the train to Tokyo to go on a shopping trip. Her purpose is questioned by a local guy who then starts to talk about the merits of the Japanese version of Kohl’s to the point where it morphs into an advertisement where all the people standing around join in and prices flash on the screen. There’s also her ex-yakuza father who ran a clothing stall that sells fake Versace cloths.

This part is incredibly ridiculous; the Versace knockoffs sell so well that her father pretty much just puts Versace, which he misspells as Versach, and goes as far to put out fake Versace Universal Studio t-shirts. What made the film work so well is that this wackiness was matched by a variety of visual styles (fairytale, anime, biker movie, even a part that resembles the trippy Mardi Gras scenes in Easy Rider). It’s a testament to the director that these various stylistic changes never felt like too much and all were essential to telling the story.

Along the way she meets a “yanki” girl who is in a motorcycle gang, despite only have a scooter. The girl Ichigo acts like a greaser’s girlfriend but whose fashion resembles something like trench coat pantsuits. Most of the movie goes toward a rather traditional story of the developing bond between the two opposites but the wacky narrative and filmic devices help to ease this a little. I didn’t care as much for Ichigo because she was so over the top and wacky, like all the other characters, that it was difficult to see genuine feeling towards Momoko. Not being able to care about Ichigo made the film suffer but Momoko is such a great character that there is still some enjoyment to be had from Ichigo just by her putting Momoko in such strange situations.

Watching this I kept thinking who the hell is this movie for? Certainly it’s very cute but also quite violent and bloody. Apparently there’s a subgroup of gore Lolita, which further boggles my mind. What would a gore Lolita be interest in? I have no idea although I would certainly like to find out. If you’re a fan of weird cinema this is definitely one to check out though.

8/10

I would post the trailer but the narration makes it seem really stupid. Avoid at all costs. Also seeing Converge tomorrow, which will be the topic of my next blog post.

Jónsi was enjoyable

April 28, 2010
Chicago
The Vic Theatre
Opener: Death Vessel
7:30 PM

Set list:

1. stars in still water
2. hengilás
3. icicle sleeves
4. kolniður
5. tornado
6. saint naive
7. sinking friendships
8. go do
9. boy lilikoi
10. k12
11. new piano song
12. around us
13. animal arithmetic
14. grow till tall

This is my third time at The Vic and once again I was not disappointed; not the prettiest but good visibility and pristine sound that is never pointlessly too loud. Theatre was seconds from the Belmont CTA stop so it was incredibly easy to get to. I met up with a friend from college and took a survey of the stage setup. Several pianos, pump organs, xylophones littered the stage as well as a massive drum kit on one side and another set of more esoteric percussion, including a suitcase that, yes, was sound checked, lay at another end. On both sides of the stage there were these burnt out looking wardrobes and to the back a large, sandpaper colored screen covered the back of stage.

I had a vaguely heard of the name of the opener but had never heard anything by them. I had assumed it was a band but at 7:30 sharp a small Native American looking man came out carrying an acoustic guitar. I was expecting a husky voice to come out but Death Vessel sang beautifully with the voice of a woman. I’m sure that’s why he was selected to open for Jónsi because certainly nothing else was particularly interesting, he sang beautifully over fairly generic coffee house folk songs. He only played for thirty minutes but after awhile it felt like an eternity. For a guy that should be playing in a coffee house he didn’t say very much.

Death Vessel

After half an hour of waiting, Jónsi took the stage, alone in the spotlight with just an acoustic guitar with his percussionist in the back hitting the xylophone once and awhile. Once this new song was over, the set was a good mix of new songs and songs from Go, the rest of the band came out. There four out there with him and they went through an absurd amount of instruments though the majority of the time there was usually someone on guitar, bass, drums, and some key based instrument. Like the last time I saw Sigur Ros when they had no orchestral backing I was a bit apprehensive about the lack of live strings, however the Jónsiband faired much better; the group was still able to have a very full sound and showcased very engaging arrangements that still did justice to the album. In some ways by focusing more on the percussive, it really brought out the importance of drums on the album. Many around me seemed to be skeptical that the drummer would be able to pull of the intense percussion that the songs required but Jónsi’s drummer did not disappoint and played at insane speed throughout the show. They were often trading instruments between songs and what made part of it so great is that Jónsi and his band of effeminate Scandinavian men, except for the muscled drummer, looked like they were having a ton of fun; Jónsi was all smiles throughout the show. The album is incredibly fun and while Sigur Ros can be pretty serious I’m glad that the band was enjoying the evening too, certainly everyone in the audience was in a state of bliss for those wonderful 80 minutes.



What I enjoyed about the first Sigur Ros show, this didn’t apply to the second, was that they make the show an experience and Jónsi’s show upped the ante on the concert experience. Remember those screens and wardrobes I mentioned earlier? Well after the second song these “textbook” pictures of animals appeared but then the screen “caught on fire” and from there on various animations of animals hunting, moving filled the screen. These were projected on the wardrobes as well and the images were often so realistic that it looked like actual creatures were roaming around in there. During this part of the show there was a burnt out forest looking part that took up the right side of the screen and I couldn’t figure out if it was real, behind the screen or what. About halfway through the screen was dropped to reveal the burnt out forest part, which was attached to this warped, melted warehouse looking backdrop. Behind this was yet another screen but this time around images were projected both on the industrial metal backdrop and the screen behind it. The animations here were amazing as well, at one point it was “raining” and the water was rising on the metal screen. What I found especially mind blowing was that the “water” sloshed around while obeying the boundaries of the screen and that the projections were not visible over or through the holes/gashes in the metal. These images or whatever was projected provided a lot of the lighting and just made the show an extra special experience.



The whole performance was so flawless that it’s hard to pick favorite moments; I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience clap that enthusiastically for any band before. One of the turning points was when they played “Go Do,” the first of the more energetic songs they played from the album. The crowd went insane. It’s hard to think of another time that I’ve been as happy as I was during that song; there’s nothing like that transcendent feeling of when seeing a band play can make all your stresses go away and fill you completely with joy. In a show filled with great moments, the best were the last three songs. The last before the encore was Around Us, which ended incredibly epically. Towards the end of the song Jónsi grabbed this thin mic that had been attached to the side of the mic stand, that he hadn’t touched during the show, and began singing into it. It’s hard to describe but it had some sort of compression on it maybe that gave his voice this faraway, gritty sound. As the Jónsi sang the final melody over and over again, his voice was manipulated and became more and more fractured till the song ended in a flurry of static.

After this the band came out for the encore with Jónsi wearing a headdress and still using the other mic. They jumped right into it with the hyperkinetic “Animal Arithmetic” which wasn’t as fast or manic as it is on the record but was still really enjoyable. Next came the closing song “Grow Till Tall.” Both times I’ve seen Sigur Ros they’ve closed with Untitled #8, one of their most epic songs. In my opinion, a band should always go out with something epic and “Grow Till Tall” fulfilled that role. Starting off with just Jónsi and his guitar the rest of the band lay in wait, obviously ready for the oncoming onslaught. As the drums began to build the onscreen scenery depicted a growing storm that continued to build with escalating levels from the band. This all coalesced into this massive storm of strobe lights and huge sheets of guitar noise that thoroughly decimated my eardrums. The noise ended and the guys returned from a brief retreated offstage and took a couple bows. For having very little audience interaction during the show this was a nice gesture that acknowledged just how special the evening was. They left the stage and Mike Czajkowski and I left with huge grins on our faces.

Afterglow: Margot and the Nuclear So and So's

Well, it turns out that Margot and the Nuclear So and So's still exist. Despite their obnoxious possessive/plural confusion.
I gained news of their renewed livelihood in the unassuming form of a band mate's telling me that our rehearsal was over because the (by now implicitly) previously defunct Margot and the Nuclear So and So's were beginning their set. To me, this offered me little information beyond the fact that it would be possible, within thirty minutes of the aforementioned declaration, to hear some people singing some song about mice in a disjointed, self-consciously artistic fashion. However, after last hearing these heartland neighbors of ours (they're Indianapolisians, precisely) at Pygmalion Music Festival 2007 (after Andrew Bird and Dianogah and before playing hacky-sack with then-Margot trumpeteer Hubert Glover), I was intrigued enough to trade a two precious hours of pre- Wide World of Urbana Community Concert sleep for a chance to listen to a bunch of foreign, mediocre songs from their new album in order to hear "Quiet as a Mouse". However, standing in the Krannert Center lobby amongst a decent throng of flannel-wearing professionals pretending that they had attended the recently-ended U of I production of Benjamin Britten's opera Albert Herring, cliquey café employees intruiged by the all-encompassing freeness of the event, and freshmen pretending that they had been listening to Margot since 2004 even though they had only been listening to Margot since 2008, I realized that I was in fact familiar with a few other tasty Margot favorites, including "Vampires in Blue Dresses" and "Skeleton Key" . After all of this time without really minding the fact that Margot and the Nuclear So and So's may or may not still exist, I can safely say that they do, in fact exist, and that there is a small possibility that their forthcoming album, BUZZARD, may be worth a good solid listen.

An Evening of Theatre Related Entertainment

Last night I spent among the theatre kids at my school though they paid little attention to my presence. The first event I attended was entitled Horror Freaks and B-Movie Geeks and showcased junior and senior musical theatre majors performing songs from horror related musicals. This was widely advertised around campus and I became excited at seeing the likes of Bat Boy, The Toxic Avenger, and The Evil Dead up there, which I had always wanted to see but had never gotten the opportunity to go.



Upon entering the lab theatre a program was thrust at me by the music theatre director who looked at me as if I had no reason to be there. I then proceeded to go into the theater which still had a lot of empty seats. I then realized that 90% of the seats were reserved but a kindly sophomore theatre major waved at me and directed me to a seat beside him that had poor visibility and was off to the side. There were a few other theatre majors beside me who seemed equally pissed about their seating; I wonder why they were not one of the few who did not have a reserved seat. Really though what was the point of advertising this when clearly anyone not in the department had very little chance of getting a seat?

Anyway the show itself was fun but a mixed bag. The show covered several musicals that were quite entertaining. It opened up with “Come Look at the Freaks” from Side Show, which I had never heard of but was a very good way to usher in the evening. The highlights of the evening were when they did three song story arcs from a few musicals. The most popular of these was of course The Rocky Horror Show which featured Season 5 So You Think You Can Dance Contestant Evan Kasprzak wearing some sparkly gold man panties that barely covered anything. My personal favorite cycle was from Evil Dead, the Musical but I’m a huge fan of the movie. They also did a couple from Bat Boy, the Musical. “Hold Me Bat Boy” was a good one but I wish they had actually shown Bat Boy.

However, this was a lot better than the song they did from Toxic Avenger, which had absolutely nothing to do with the titular character. This happened a couple of times where the song chosen really had nothing to do with any sort of context of the musical and could have been from anything; when I’m promised The Toxic Avenger, I want The Toxic Avenger. I realize that they couldn’t do the makeup or anything but that doesn’t matter; I wasn’t expecting fully accomplished mini-productions.

One thing I noticed was the divisions in the sophomore class of theatre majors that were not really there in the other classes. There is the strange, weird group that busts into song at random inappropriate times and tend to wear bizarre, ironic (I hope) outfits. Then there was the other group of trendy, sophisticated theatre majors that are all incredibly attractive but are too cool and vastly superior to myself. At least at this school these are the kind of theatre majors that have always been around; they always look like someone you would want to hang out with but have a huge superiority complex and scoff at non-theatre majors. The other, annoying, group bears more of a resemblance to the theatre geeks you knew in high school. This is of course mean and not necessarily true of the entire school of theatre arts; many have been very nice to me but the only ones that have ever had substantial friendships with me have all been to a degree outcasts within the program.

In general though, while I still go to a lot of theatre stuff, I want to be fucking cultured don’t I?, I went to a ton of shows even Phoenix shows attended by twenty people that required my waiting outside in the cold for hours. When I go to house shows around town eventually by seeing the same people over and over again they start talking to you. This is not the case with members of the school of theatre arts. Even if someone does acknowledge me there seems to be no recollection of the dozens of times we have stood in line together, instead there is just a puzzled look expressing who the hell is this person and how did they find out about our exclusive performances. Anyway onto JM7, the improv group on campus.

I first went to JM7, my freshman year and went often. It was consistently great and funny. A few really good members graduated and they recruited some more for my sophomore years, such is how the world works. Of the new recruits they were mostly finding their way but you could tell they had potential if they worked together long enough. The main problem was that they recruited two people who were just fucking awful. Of course part of it was theatre politics; one of my aforementioned friends that had auditioned didn’t make it due to some guy not liking him, at least that’s how it appeared to me, but hey if you want to sabotage your group over stupid shit that’s your business. I became really disenchanted with it and this was the first time I had gone this year. I was pleasantly surprised though how well it went over. It started off a little shaky but soon proved to be a really enjoyable evening.

The best was a skit where one of the members had to go into another room where the audience then gave some suggestions. The girl then came in and had to guess why she was late to work and where she worked at with an angry boss guy yelling at her and two of the employees trying to help her guess. The next thing they did was a confessional which thankfully had Ryan Simpson playing the priest. I should explain that the confessional is a long form game that starts off in a confessional where a man confesses to something that the audience suggests, last night his sin was laughing at Jesus, from then a new scene forms enacting out the moment of his sin and then subsequent scenes form from a certain aspect of each scene. A little hit or miss but the group worked together well except for the one bad member that still remained in the group, the other one got kicked out or left or something. The evening ended with the seniors performing another game based off the song “Da Doo Ron Ron”. I had only come to pay my respects to Ryan Simpson, the most talented of the bunch, but was pleasantly surprised by how good the show was, I wish I had gone to more of them this year. Six out of the eight members were graduating leaving the bad member and another guy that is generally quite good.

I saved this part for the end for reasons that will become obvious. When I was in line, which by the way I only had to wait for fifteen minutes before they let me (good stuff), some theatre major kept asking literally every theatre kid if they were going to S & G, standing for those two famed cities of biblical lore, which is the annual ultra-exclusive theatre orgy party. This party is supposed to be so exclusive that no non-majors are supposed to know except everyone knows, which I have never been sure if they know this yet. Did this girl thing I was so naïve that I did not know what she was talking about? Anyway last year the word finally got around to the higher ups in the administration, don’t know how it took so long based on how much they talk about this party in front of people, but the party got canceled. From what I’ve heard the party isn’t actually scandalous at all but I choose to ignore this and stick to the fantasy of them actually having large scale orgies. I’m sure there still is some level of debauchery going on but from what I’ve heard it also serves as the time when theatre traditions, known as wills, are passed down. These can be something important or just some act of hazing that the underclassmen are required to perform. Even if it is just a lame ceremony, the exclusiveness and the threat of an orgy are so worth falling for that I will join in the envy of the non-theatres that can only wish that they could engage in contact with attractive women that otherwise would not pay them any attention whatsoever.

Zola Jesus-Stridulum EP

Zola Jesus started to gain quite a bit of buzz during the latter half of 2009 with her debut album “The Spoils” as well as a few EPs. She was talked about quite frequently on blogs and internet music sites but was not too widely heard. There’s good reason for this too. Zola Jesus is the primarily solo project of Nika Roza Danilova who is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “The Spoils” was recorded in her apartment using very lo-fi, think lots of noisy tape hiss, production methods. While lo-fi production is not a bad quality, think Guided by Voices, Zola Jesus was meant for a much bigger and fuller sound a sound that has been achieved on their latest release Stridulum.

The album opens with “Night”. Numerous voices whisper over a droning synth note but then that voice appears. Despite being such a tiny woman, Danilova’s voice is massive and operatic emerging from ten years studying opera. On her last album her voice was largely disguised by noisy fuzz but here it is the drawing factor. She is backed on the tracks by dark, haunting keyboard waves and an always pounding drum machine. Surprising though is how huge the drum machine sounds. The drums throughout the album are akin to soldiers marching to war, encompassing and always pushing forward.

Zola Jesus’s music has a lot in common with industrial and neo-folk plus there’s a very gothic atmosphere in her vocals and throughout the music. From this meager description and reading about her music elsewhere online this probably will turn anyone interested in her music. What needs to be made clear is just how catchy her music is. It’s haunting and beautiful sure but what stands out after even just one listen is to how big her hooks are. On “I Can’t Stand”, one of the best songs on the EP, I couldn’t help but get sucked into the chorus. Her lyrics may be simple, the repeated claim in the chorus “that it’s going to be alright” but this grounds the music in accessibility rather than gothic melodramatic topics like vampires. Most of the songs seem to be about love and by keeping the lyrics simple anyone can identify with these songs.

Granted that there is a very present gothic feel to Zola Jesus, Danilova is a diva but not in the vein of Miley Cyrus, there really is something for everyone on Stridulum. For instance, on “Manifest Destiny” when the synths and drums build and she belts out the chorus all apprehensions about “gothic industrial” music are out the window.
4.5/5

Tokyo Gore Police

>With the release of 2008’s The Machine Girl, the United States became acquainted with the special effects gore work of Yoshihiro Nishimura. After that he was given the chance to go out on his own with Tokyo Gore Police, an equally bizarre and ridiculous film.

Tokyo Gore Police takes place in the future where a privatized police system is left to run rampant though there target is mostly engineers, a group of serial killers that can regenerate lost limbs with weapons. These range the gamut from a chainsaw to a massive penis gun and a girl that gets an alligator mouth for legs. Similar to The Machine Girl, the gore effects here are pretty terrific and often hilarious. Though there are some pretty weird moments that might make you uncomfortable, all the gore is meant to look really cheesy similar to Dead Alive. I really appreciate how the film keeps throwing out new weird kills like a man’s face getting gutted by a wine bottle and then the woman blowing into the bottle causing part of the guy’s face to fall out of the bottom.

What struck me especially the second time around is how complex the story was and besides that the rather odd juxtaposition of serious and comedic elements. This might be more commonplace in Japanese film but for an American it’s rather hard to process. For instance, when the bartender’s limbs are tied to the car it’s played almost entirely straight and is only seen as a horrific, brutal act. At another part we have the bad guy explaining his motives which are based on tragic circumstances but then get some pretty hilarious flashback footage. This might seem to be problematic, that the film does not know what to be however with this type of movie I thought it just made it more absurd and entertaining.

However, one thing that is problematic is the radical shift in film that gets used. The movie starts with some really awful digital video scenes, or what I thought was DV, where there is a fight on the roof top and it looks awful. The rest of its better, switching to a cheap film that gives the movie a visual style similar to the Power Rangers, which helped with the goofy feel of the movie but then there would sometimes be these yellow/green tinted really hi-def scenes that looked amazing that made you really want more of those. I don’t know why this was maybe they tried filming it one way first but my guess is budgetary issues.

Many will be interested in seeing this for the lead Eihi Shiina who also played the lead girl in Audition. Her character kicks ass and all but there’s zero emotion or characterization and in a movie that actually tries to have a plot amongst all the gore craziness this was a problem. Fortunately, everyone else in this movie are playing total weirdoes so it all gets balanced out. Also the running time is close to two hours, which is a bit much. While I appreciate that Nishimura was trying to do a lot more by creating a “sophisticated” splatter comedy, two hours of this stuff is too much. If trimmed down to ninety minutes this would be as good as The Machine Girl. I’m glad that Nishimura is trying to go out on his own but it might be better if he has Noboru Iguchi with him or someone else to help edit.

8/10

New Day Here New Music to Here

In the past few years, Bloomington-Normal has had a thriving music scene. While this may not have been apparent to the average Illinois Wesleyan student for those looking for off campus musical entertainment, a well connected DIY house show scene existed. Houses like Simple Days, The Kitchen, and Das Fun Haus put on shows nearly every weekend during the school year. Shows were actually in houses; the Kitchen gets its name because bands literally perform in the kitchen of the house. Each house had a specialty as well. Das Fun Haus would mainly have hardcore punk shows, Simple Days would host post-rock and post-hardcore groups, and The Kitchen would occasionally put together a hip hop show together.

The bands that performed were a combination of local groups along with bands from around the Midwest that toured around playing similar DIY venues. To an extent Bloomington-Normal had become part of a large Midwestern underground DIY subculture. By the end of Spring Semester 2009 many things changed: the operators of Das Fun Haus graduated from Illinois State, the guys at Simple Days moved to Chicago, and The Kitchen had already become mostly defunct after IWU student Jason Prechtel graduated early in winter 2008.

In order to regain this community spirit, local musician Teaadora Nikolova has been putting on a series of monthly concerts called New Month Here New Music to Hear. The first took place in January at Maison Fausse where eight acts performed. Many of these same artists also performed again at the second installment which took place February 1st. This show was a little different taking place during Big Jim’s Jams, a radio show on WESN 88.1 FM, regular ten to midnight show.

The newest of these concerts took place last Friday at The Kitchen, which still puts on shows to a limited degree. In order to exhibit as many local talents as possible each performer is limited to only one or two songs. Teaadora tried to change up the format for this latest show, “Unlike the last Blo-No community event, we are asking everyone to play new songs, on top of this we are attempting to bring in as many new faces as possible to play, this time things really will be new,” she said.

Teaadora Nikolova performing at The Kitchen

With the recent breakup of local indie folk act Ohtis, Teaadora Nikolova seems to be the new defacto leader of the Bloomington-Normal music scene. As she has for the last two events, Teaadora began the show playing two new songs by herself on electric guitar. Teaador’s music is of the psychedelic folk variety combining beautifully direct melodies with very droning ambient music. Though with some exceptions, acoustic folk punk duo The Night Brigade, most of the evening’s bands consisted of more noisy, ambient acts compared to the singer-songwriters of the two previous shows.

From the more ambient side was Kyle Brewer performing under the name Tents. With his guitar and an array of effects pedals, Brewer densely layered his guitar and voice to create ambient pop songs. Later Brewer, collaborated with Kyle Riley under the names Hastas and created more loop based music though incorporating some samples a la Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black emperor. Illinois State sophomore Kyle Riley has played at the last two events, using similar instrumentation as the other Kyle though his more direct, emotive melodies are helping him to become a rising figure in the local music scene.

Kyle Riley playing in Hastas

The more noisy spectrum was fully realized by Chicago based The Kremlin. The group features members of Pommel, Death Factory, and William Sides Atari Party. The trio created terrifying noise soundscapes using a wide variety of equipment. Playing around the living room table the group employed the use of keyboards, numerous effects pedals and turned mysterious knobs on even more mysterious metal boxes. The most interesting box they used was an Altoids tin with two knobs.

Michael Krause of The Kremlin

As evidenced by the large turnout at last Friday’s event the biggest issue now facing the music series is the lack of a proper venue. The Kitchen is very small and difficult to fit many people in its performing space. Teaadora tried to rectify this by setting up bands in the living room and in a bedroom. For the next event, to be held sometime in March, Teaadora will need to find a venue that will help to maintain the DIY spirit while allowing a growing number to enjoy the sounds of Bloomington-Normal

We're all just having a good time