Save the Robot – Chris Dahlen

Interviewers usually act like they know exactly what they’re doing. All their dead ends and fumbles are neatly wiped away, leaving the subject to be the one who sounds like a dope. This may give you the impression that the interviewer you’re reading is some kind of rational, all-knowing master of the subject. But interviewers goof up too.

I thought I’d print an excerpt from my recent Dirty Projectors interview. This got cut from the final piece, and it’s not exactly embarrassing, but it’s an interesting moment where I asked a weird question, and the subject wasn’t sure what to do with it (or didn’t want to do anything with it at all), and halfway through I kind of forgot why I asked it as well. But I do like the last part of his quote here, and I wish I’d shoehorned that back into the final version.

Pitchfork: In terms of the line-up, it’s becoming a very sexy band.

DL: (Laughs) I guess I like the idea of like, music that’s overdetermined, you know what I mean? And I like the idea of all of the things we’re talking about coming from all of these messages or whatever being delivered by everyone you see on stage, in this collective way.

Pitchfork: But have you thought about – I’m thinking of a press photo where you’re sitting on a blanket in the park with a guitar, and Amber and Angel are sitting on both sides of you, and it’s this very ‘60s image.

DL: Except there’s that jug of Poland Springs right next to us. (Laughs) Well, the ‘60s were sexy. Yeah. No, I mean, first and foremost, the girls are great musicians. And they’re friends of mine, and that’s really what it’s about. I like the idea of like, feelings having persuasive representatives or whatever, but you know, having a bunch of sexy girls in the band – (laughs) – I don’t know. I think it’s sort of awkward in a way. It’s like this theater, it’s an unintended sort of aspect. I mean I’m totally cool with it, but, I don’t think any of us think about it very much.

Pitchfork: And I don’t mean to diminish anyone’s talent. You could go out in leather pants, too.

DL: Yeah, I’ve definitely thought about the whole leather pants thing. (Laughs) Or you know, a leather shirt, as well.

I think most music often is pretty sexy, whether you’re talking about Wagner or Zeppelin or something. It’s one of the elements – music is somewhere between conversation and intercourse. (Laughs) So, if we’re nailing that part of it, I guess that’s cool.

By the way: I posed basically the same question to Max Tundra and got a terrific response, so check that out too. Honestly, after seeing ‘em both live, I couldn’t say which band’s sexier!

So I forgot to update last week. If you follow my column through my blog, this is like a double feature! Check ‘em out:

The Undeniable Case for Pink Floyd: Rock Band

Now that Harmonix Music Systems has shipped The Beatles: Rock Band, they have nowhere to go but down. PR guy John Drake says they spent 17 months on research and development for the game, investing more personnel than they’d ever sunk into a single title. Who else deserves that kind of treatment? Led Zeppelin? U2? Herman and the Hermits?

My money’s on Pink Floyd. Not only could they move enough copies to make it worth everyone’s while: they would also push the music game genre in directions that even the Beatles couldn’t muster.

Tell Me a Story: Corvus Elrod and the Honeycomb Engine

Elrod raises a classic problem of how to make an interactive narrative in games. Those of us who look for a good story with our gameplay will keep pushing for more subtlety and freedom in the choices we make. But if you take away the rules, you don’t have a game – you have something closer to improvised theater, or campfire storytelling, or at worst, a student drama club exercise. Creativity’s great, but how do you judge it? And what about the players who don’t want to tap their imaginations? I can only guess what would’ve happened when I played D&D as a kid, if we didn’t have rules to keep us in line. We would’ve spent the whole night just punching each other in the face.

This spring I had the privilege of writing the one-sheet for David Sylvian’s new album, Manafon. It shipped on Tuesday, and you can learn more about it, hear clips, and read my write-up on the official site. You can also hear opening track “Small Metal Gods” in the YouTube clip above. It’s incredibly beautiful, plus the planes in the video made my kid laugh.

It’s a really beautiful album – and it’s challenging. But the reviews I’m reading so far are mostly positive. This one by Jason Bivins at Dusted Magazine is a really good, thoughtful read.

While you’re on the album site, don’t miss the trailer for Amplified Gesture, a documentary featuring the artists who worked on the album and other recent Sylvian projects. Free improv may be an austere high-brow art, but it’s also a very human, personal and intimate way to communicate, and that comes out in these interviews. They’re totally fascinating even if this kind of music isn’t your bag. I hope this gets more screenings.

This was a good year for Sylvian’s label, which also released the Mercury-nominated and utterly gorgeous English pop group Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Here’s a clip, “Truth Only Smiles,” from that album. It is really good:

Oh wow, I almost forgot to post this stuff from last week.

“The Superjoke” – My new Edge Column, about how The Mighty Boosh, Blueberry Garden and game as a whole can make the left and right lobes of your brain rub happily together.

The Beatles: Rock Band – My review for Pitchfork. Lots of folks were curious if this review heralds more game coverage at the ‘Fork. Boy, I would love to see (and contribute to) that. Also: big thanks to Tom Clancy for hosting the party that I talk about in the review, where we played through pretty much the whole game ’til late at night and had a hell of a lot of fun.

The Brainy Gamer Confab – Michael Abbott, Manveer Heir and I hold down the fifth installment of this excellent set of podcasts, and listening to it now, I didn’t ramble as much as I thought I did. Also, I was glad to hear so many people on the Confab still remember The Path. For all its shortcomings, I don’t think we’re through talking about it – and I want to put it right back on the radar at the end of the year.

I’m hard at work at this week’s column right now. I have one written but I don’t know if it’s … special enough. So wish me luck.

By the way, I continue to post to Twitter, and every week or so I shoout out a bunch of one-tweet reviews of comic books. I might post some of them here for posterity. After starting out with 800-1000 word record reviews, it’s fun to sum up a comic in a single 140-character tweet. But some of the books I’ve been reading deserve a little more attention, so maybe I’ll come back to the blog for those.

So I had to cover the new chiptunes album Kind of Bloop, a Mario-meets-Miles revision of the iconic jazz LP. I had my own thoughts and rants, and then I realized, I should get a comment from someone. Who could comment on a novelty project like this? Well, who else but Dr. Demento?

That’s in this week’s Edge Online column. Check it out!

Side note: a number of people have written up the project, but almost nobody has really reviewed it. I didn’t write a full record review, but I tried to bring some critical judgment to it, specifically to say that no, this isn’t blasphemy (see also John Zorn’s Spy vs. Spy if you think for even a second this is radical); but at the same time, taking this route doesn’t automatically make it great. “All Blues” is much stronger than the other four tracks, and no coincidence, it’s also the least faithful to the Miles jazz milieu. But I’ll also fess up to a prejudice: I’m just not sold on the whole “wow, 8-bit art, chiptunes!” movement. I’d still rather hear artists who use chiptunes and 8-bit-style beeps and bloops as just one tiny element in their arsenal, like the eyeglass screwdriver at the bottom of their toolbox.

But don’t worry, this won’t turn into Grumpy Old Dahlen’s column – I have more fun ideas ahead. Though it’ll be hard to top Dr. Demento.