New site coming soon - one worth looking at this time. Bean Bag will feature original video content from interviews to guerilla video. Should be a lot of fun.
BBC Three’s The Wall brings on a cocktail of emotions. All of these emotions are negative. I am overwhelmed by the consistency of sheer crappiness; every lame gag, every shitty gimmick, every forced laugh leaves me genuinely lost for words. I’ve started this piece about a dozen times, not because I am unwilling to tear apart this croque of embarrassment, rather I simply do not know where and how to start.
The premise is at least simple enough. BBC Three’s re-brand has involved new idents, a re-focus on “youth programming” (*groans), and a merciful departure from Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. To fill this seeming abyss, there is some “factual” programming, often featuring the smug Dawn Porter exploring issues like sexuality and body image in an insultingly patronising and narcissistic way, and some high-profile light entertainment, such as Lily Allen and Friends, and The Wall. Now I must resist simply slagging everything off that I have had the misfortune of watching, but there are a number of striking similarities between these two recent entertainment shows. The strongest common thread is their unashamed appeal, absolutely, to the lowest common denominator.
The Wall is a comedy showcase presented by charmless totty Alexa Cheung and that bloke off Star Stories. No not Kevin Bishop, not Trevor Lock, nor the one from Peep Show, the other one. Now the premise of the show is a studio stage showcase punctuated by guest interviews and presenter skits. All of these are terrible. Cringe-worthy just doesn’t cut it. Oh and did I mention that the studio was divided in two by a wall? Cool gimmick eh? No, not nearly cool enough for those boffins at the Beeb, because they made it a talking wall that makes wise-cracks and wall puns no less. Note that the last time a comedy wall was used on TV, it featured heavily on Hear’say Its Saturday. I can’t decide whether this is more or less amusing than Lily Allen’s absolutely fantastic internet comedy showcase involving animals rutting week on week. Still, this programme must be funnier right? I mean everyone is so wacky and cheery and funny that it’s just bound to be a total gag fest!
Unforgettable gags between Alexa and the other one include turds like “I spent time with your dad over the weekend” - up flashes a picture of a monkey driving a car. Drunk with laughter, I cannot imagine how they are going to top this. “Well I spent time with your mum”. Up flashes a picture of a hippo, and, needless to say, I nearly split my perineum laughing. To their credit, both put up with some really ropey writing; they feign amusement when faced with comedy abortion. But you must feel bad for them; the bloke came from Star Stories, possibly one of the best-written comedy shows of the last couple of years. And Alexa, well, she came from the absolute turkey that was “Get a Grip” alongside Ben Elton. S’pose there’s always T4…
The comedy acts are parodies of themselves. I know that reads like I’ve stated the obvious but I mean they are so clichéd and hammy, that the comedy act is a willing parody of a comedy act. A comedy old flustery character. A comedy cockney pikey. Wacky musical trio “We are Klang”. And Lucy Montgomery. Ok that last one is a bit harsh. You really could be fooled into thinking that you are watching SM:TV, the content and presentation of the whole thing is so woefully patronising and low brow. The only difference being that The Wall has some hilarious swearing (I’m still laughing at the word "fuck". Ha!). And SM:TV was much funnier.
The marriage of Internet and music could often be said to be rather uneasy. However, as young people rely on the Internet more and more for their musical needs, there has undergone a revolution that has legitimately taken on music TV and radio as the principle media outlets. Podcasting has empowered a whole generation to collaborate, critique and succeed in an accessible format that can now realistically compete with traditional media.
At the forefront of this podcast medium is Dex Digital. As founder and host of The Mixtape Show, the series has grown from humble beginnings to being the biggest in its urban genre, and has been recognised by Q magazine as the best music podcast on the Internet. Now, with a very respectable global audience, industry recognition, and award nominations, Dex is considered by some as an authority, if that’s possible, on how internet music media can stand apart and compete, if not undermine the old guard.
Are radio and TV "dead"?
In a sense. TV, Radio, and if you want to go back further, newspapers will always have a place in mainstream media because people like to be spoon-fed information, so strictly speaking, I don't expect any of them to "die" very soon.
TV and radio are dead to me, though, and they're dead to a lot of the younger generation, because we've stopped expecting innovation from those platforms. Everything that can be done on those two platforms has been done over and over again. We know instinctively that when the next big thing comes, it will be online; and I have a feeling that this generation's future leaders will be people who got the vast majority of their information and entertainment online. If there are fresh and exciting things that can happen on TV or radio, they will either not happen because the Big Media-controlled industry won't allow it, or they will happen, but be rough approximations or be totally dependent on incorporation of new media, like the Youtube debates.
How has The Mixtape Show grown and developed since its debut?
The show has definitely gotten more listeners, which is great and I truly appreciate. When I first started the show, I was really just in it for the freedom it afforded. I was coming from college radio and I really just wanted to curse on the air. It was just like a late-night college rap show. I wasn't really thinking progressively at that point.
I think the real growth and development in the show has been just the show getting progressively weirder and weirder. Not just the skits, like the 5-minute diatribes from fictional racist CEOs, me getting shot by the KKK and arguing about rap with Stoner Jesus, or the Soultronica sci-fi space drama stuff - but the music. I play stuff that no other quote unquote rap DJ would play because it's non-traditional. It's too weird, or not "hard" or "gangster" or "backpacker" enough. I think the real success of this show has been just feedback and encouragement from listeners that lets me know that I can pretty much go wild and they'll support it. Were it not for that support, I don't know where I'd be right now.
Do you find that Industry types are much more willing to connect with you now the show is so popular?
Yes and no. Yes, because a lot of people want to be a part of the show. Some great labels, like Shaman Work, have opened their vaults to me - anything I want, they give me and I can play it. I've gotten offers, all of which I've turned down, from a lot of major record labels. That said, though, I think there are very few people in the hip-hop world who actually understand how new media works - both in the technical and theoretical sense.
Where I think I've had some success is that while the tech community has figured this out, hip-hop as a whole hasn't. It's sort of weird, and there are notable exceptions, but I've found that what used to be the most progressive genre of music - hip-hop - has a pretty major constituent of people that do not understand or really try to embrace new media. Sometimes I'll be trying to arrange an interview and the manager will step in and ask why I'm not putting it on the radio - when realistically, the podcast has more reach than most major market college radio stations. Or I'll offer a famous producer a guest mix spot on my show, but his people will ask for money (which I refuse to pay because I make no money off this show) - then he'll go down the road and guest spot for free on some tiny college radio show. Hip-hop is stuck in the past.
The rock kids get it, the electro kids get it, but too much of the hip-hop world is just wilfully ignorant about new media. Either rap changes with the times or a significant part of it dies along with the rest of the major labels.
Not that I have a problem with that. I'll just continue to work with progressive people and progressive music.
What would you say has been most important factor in building this kind of medium?
For me, honesty and openness. Honesty - you can lie to people on radio and TV all day long, because that's just part of the format. If you lie to somebody on the internet, they will call you on it right away. So payola is right out - which pretty much automatically solves a lot of the problems that exist with old media.
Openness - people know that they can contact me directly any time. My e-mail, AIM, and phone number are on the front page. I'm going to get kind of nerd status here, but Web 1.0 was really just an extension of Radio and TV, sort of a Gutenberg effect. You put up a page and told somebody something, they read it and nodded in agreement or shook their head in disagreement, and then they closed the window. Web 2.0 is more of a conversation. I say what I like, and listeners do the same thing. I bring in friends to do guest mixes and interviews. Listeners have a direct effect on the show - a lot of the stuff I will put on is material that has been sent to me by people who listen to the show.
Do you see a probable convergence between the mainstream and indie media? Could you see a time when The Mixtape Show is syndicated to Radio or TV? Would you ever consider this?
That's possible, and things like this have already happened to me and to other new media forms, like the Youtube debates I mentioned. My show has been played on a few stations, but not syndicated anywhere major yet. I think it is probable, though, as mainstream media starts to flail around aimlessly for content that will keep the populace engaged.
I could see my show syndicated on XM, say, but that would be like watching TV with your eyes closed - you're getting only half the experience. Where's the interaction? It'd be like that part in A Wrinkle In Time where they accidentally travel to the two-dimensional planet and get the air choked out of them. Regressing to an old media format is enticing because of the "legitimacy" that radio or TV offers, but I think relying too much on that just stagnates the new medium.
Could you, with the internet becoming the premier source of entertainment for younger generations, foresee censorship of music on the internet? Is there a place for censorship of offensive material in music online?
No. There is no place for censorship of "offensive" - whatever that means - material in music online. If it happens, it will be the US' fault and I actively encourage everyone in the world to make sure by any means necessary that this does not happen.
What has been the biggest highlight since starting the show? Are you expecting any particular successes in the future?
I would say that the biggest highlight was the Jena 6 show. I put up a blog asking for people to ring up my phone and leave a message with their thoughts on the case. Within 48 hours, I'd gotten dozens and dozens of calls, from the US, Canada, UK, South Africa. I put together a show featuring listeners' voices over a collection of instrumentals. It's sort of weird to call it a highlight because that's not an episode I like to listen to. It was at once depressing, because of the subject matter, and encouraging. I was actually really afraid that nobody would call - so it was just an amazing feeling to give people I respected as artists and just everyday people - a chance to voice our collective opinions.
The future – well…I'm leaving for Japan in two weeks. I managed to con the Japanese government into giving me a full ride scholarship for two years, studying rap music at Waseda University in Tokyo. The Mixtape Show isn't going anywhere. There will be changes and evolutions, but I'm pretty excited and optimistic about this. I should be having a lot more free time on my hands to produce audio and video shows, so that is something I'm looking forward to.
Finally, what do you love most about the internet?
I should probably say something about the democratization of media and the real potential that such freedom of expression allows, but I'm going to be honest here. I love lolcats. Lolcats were hilarious before everyone else found them. 4chan and 2chan are terrible, but hilarious. I think that random internet memes are the future of humor. I love how the internet is just full of stupidity that you can laugh at. Also, I love that I can get on youtube and spend hours watching videos of people playing nintendo games that I could never beat. I spend a lot more time doing that than I should probably admit.
Catch up with Dex and The Mixtape Show series @ www.mixtapeshow.net
1.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Citing "Climate Change"as one of their influences, these dinosaurs really do know their way around beeps, clicks and the chirping 8bit.
2.
4 Bit Bonsai
Dividing 8bit by name and by sound. Major highlight: "Hey Ya" a la Game Boy.
3.
Kurtech
Thoughtful Aussie electro sounds.
4.
Busy B
Ok, no more geek beats. I'll put the video game influenced to one side. Being the case that Paris and Berlin are Mecca and Medina to electro, here's a French Fancy for you.
5.
Eddie Kid
Those of you who have seen The Streets live, or know of the band at all, you'll know DJ Eddie Kid. Super-funk-power-pop. Tip: check the mixes.
Bonus
Take a miniature keyboard. Circuit bend it. Use every bend possible to make an awesome tune, and use nothing else. If you are Hanniballde, then it sounds like this.
So there you go. I've put a rather crafty "Vol" in the title to indicate there may be further installments. Perhaps I'll turn this into a podcast. Or not.
Any thoughts?
“Cool” stuff. Part blissfully stimulating, part incandescently and homicidally infuriating. However I must disclaim, dear reader: do not, for one second, think that under this fragile umbrella of coolness resides the word “kooky”. Kooky is a word made up for things that might have been cool, only far too much time and thought has gone into making them cool, with special attention paid to making them look as if they’re not cool at all. Balls to cool. Don’t need it. I’m my own cool. I am in no way, shape or form trying to be cool. Perhaps I am alone in this notion (I may well be), but as far as I am concerned, kooky can really and truly fuck off.
Kookiness is everywhere. It permeates every fibre of popular culture, and constantly scratches every nerve ending in my brain, to the point at which I want to stab a member of Team Kooky in the neck with a pair of retro sunglasses. Of course, whilst myself merely a slave to the cool, one’s measure of kookiness is arbitrary. Perhaps its not kookiness, perhaps it is overlooked coolness on my part. More than likely, its too cool, and I don’t get it. However, there are no such misdiagnoses made when an image is crafted in kookiness; a willing and self-proclaiming kook. I’m “crazy”/“scatty”/“unique”. Ha. Sure, you are all of those things, but in just the right microscopic quantities to make you look as cool as possible, and in no way make you crazy or scatty or unique; which individually or in conjunction would infact make you look like a mental patient. Doesn’t kooky mean bizarre? I mean, you’re not bizarre are you? No, you aren’t a freakish outsider, don’t worry, you are safe as cool houses. Phew.
I love cool. We all do, and we’re suckers to ourselves if we don’t admit it. Kooky just isn’t cool, and whilst its superficial objective is to indeed be un-cool, all that needs doing is for the kook to take off its banner, and I can re-holster the Ray Bans.
Durham University has two very large constituent groups; students that went to public school (I count myself as one of them), and Christians (not really my thing). What seems strange is how integrated Christianity is with “posher” students. After all, Jesus, who’s really very important, was the son of Joseph, a carpenter. Jesus was, in essence, working class. Pondering this, I wondered how many more of Durham’s well to-do would be ready to accept Christ into their lives if they knew he was a bit more on their level. A quick and easy change to the already Walter Mitty Bible would be to replace the 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, which sounds like some kind of ASBO, with Jesus setting off on a Gap Year. Ah yes, the Gap Year; mainstay of the bleach-haired flip-flopper, chock full of hilarious anecdotes and glorious pictures of tanned people among the natives. Jesus could “resist temptation” in Thailand, and then do some good by spending an absolutely nominal period in Africa helping to build a bookshelf for an impoverished school, whilst taking as many pictures as is humanly possible of him standing proudly with a load of African kids to put on Facebook, as if to say “I saved the third world”. “Thank you for saving us Jesus!” NB Many people quite legitimately consider Christ as their saviour.
Disclaimer: Iain took a Gap year himself, enjoyed it very much, and continues to bore people with anecdotes to this day, and so is just as guilty as Jesus would be. Also, this is not a dig in any way at the Christian faith, just a cumbersome metaphor.
Why did I do a review of Britney? Because its a cruel world and she's an easy target.
Britney: non compos mentis, stretchered out by paramedics, gleefully Papped, for the world to see. How we mourn the fallen angel. “Too much too soon” and other assorted clichés come to mind.
But wait, she’s fine isn’t she? She’s absolutely fine. Phew. Well, that’s what Britney’s second and latest release from her 5th studio album Blackout, would have us heartless bastards believe. According to Piece of Me, Britney is on top of the world, and wants to have a good old rant at the Paparazzi and media rumour mill. A worthy rant, arguably, and certainly subject matter that will resonate with the fans. Whilst most of the lyrics sound desperate, and rather ironic: “I guess I can’t see the problem with earning and being a mama” (don’t think the judge sees it that way Brit), the comeback kid reminds us “I’m miss American dream, since I was 17”. And yeah, it’s true. And although the line “no wonder there’s panic in the industry, I mean please”, referring to her absence from the charts, comes off as a little cavalier considering the jury is still out on Britney (not the court case), she is again pretty accurate; its not to be underestimated the gap in pop that was left when the songstress chose marriages, kids and Kentucky Fried Chicken over pop domination.
The style of the song is in keeping with many of the tracks on the new album: sweeping synth lines, slick drums, and sickeningly insistent vocal effects. Produced by Bloodshy & Avant, responsible for the rather good Toxic, the song, unfortunately, largely dissapoints. It just feels far less well thought out as an arangement than the first single Give Me More, where less was definitely more. Piece of Me seems a bit brash in comparison; cluttered, unstructured, with no real hook to the chorus, infact, not much of a difference to the parts of the song. And of course HAL 9000 on the vocal effects mean it could be any old heffer singing the song, not the sweet southern pop princess we once knew.
However, it is very likely that the single will do well. The “message” (*groans) of the song will surely resonate with fans, who, like many others feel that Britney is the victim of major-league celebrity bashing and is due for her big comeback. And Jive records, previously pretty doubtful of renewed success, seem to think so too. Give Me More’s video budget was reportedly $25,000 (about the price of a Ford Focus), and Piece of Me is an altogether reasonable $500,000. Out with the motorway strip club and Windows Movie Maker visual effects, and in with Hollywood glamour and glitz. That’s the Britney we want to see. We’re well past the point, sadly, of pigtails and school uniform though.