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YACHT was kind of everything I hated about trying too hard to be cool. From Klaire’s/Claire’s (see their website for the multiple persona problem details) over contrived dance moves to the glass smash sound effect following every single song. I couldn’t stand it. Claire/Clare/Klaire was horrifyingly reminiscent of the girl in high school that picked her nose and most people thought of as a bit odd, who just erupted with a burst of confidence when her awkward skinniness morphed into a complimentary feature on which to hang skinny jeans and high waisted shorts, and she became old enough to wear her quirks as character rather than an odd personality. I absolutely hated how they reenacted their meeting in a club. In fact, I hate it when people say “y’know, like I was in the club” full stop. Elements of their conversastion stunk of self-awareness and tunred out to be YACHT’s operational rationale. They actively refer to themselves as “2000’s style grunge music”. Ok, the 2000’s weren’t long enough ago for you to claim them as cool territory. Re-doing 70’s funk might be cool, or mashing up 80’s pop, but claiming yourself to be 2000’s grunge just makes you sound overly self-aware. They aren’t 2000’s grunge anyway, they’d be more accurate calling themselves second-rate dub-step grime, or just rubbish. Jona was performing this Madonna-esque throwin’ elbows type move while claire did this awkward, more demure Karen-o wannabe impression on stage while their Mac played their music. On occasion, their music would offer a glimmer of hope with a halfway decent bass beat, only to have the life stifled out of by YACHT gagging it with their voices. They also both claimed their favorite color to be Sea-Foam Green. Joking or not, they couldn’t be any more pretentious if they tried. It’s a bit nuts they’re toured with Architecture in Helinski, done Cream festival etc. I wonder if they get ticked off when people refer to them as Yacht instead of YACHT.

This really bothers me. Like I said, transgender surgery, and all this gender bending perversion going on is a gross consequence of far too many people having far too much time to obsess and money to invest in themselves.

Recently, we have been falling asleep to the serenade of screaming tomcats. They are either fighting or complaining loudly about the amount of circus music our street is subjected to on a weekly basis. Either way, one cat triumphed and left the dead, rigor mortis stricken body of the black-cat-with-white-feet by the side of our driveway. I was bothered, and remain in that state. I can not wait for the dustbin men to come for I fear the stench of a dead-cat in a rubbish bag wafting from out of our trash can. That, and I feel weird walking past the bin to and from the car knowing that there’s a cat in our bin.

After yesterday’s very serious post, I wanted to add this as a post script after Andy brought it to my attention – because in the ‘hood and on the dance floor there are no second chances. har har

Preface
I was googling a picture of a violin for a post about teaching the violin, when google dragged up this youtube dreg. Yeah I am impressed with the basketballa’s efforts in the clip, and I think it’s cute that Mira Ben-Ari can bop with an attitude during this, but I have a couple comments to make on the ‘genre’ of “hip-hop violin”.
It Doesn’t Exist.

Part I
I promise you. Wearing a tube top, hoop earrings and sprayed on denim capri’s just doesn’t revolutionize the violin into an accredited hip-hop instrument. I sorted through a lot of video’s and no one claiming to play violin hip-hop style suceeded. You can slap it over a dirrty beat bass line or a nasty track and its still no more hip-hop than Schubert’s mother. It’s just a classical addition to a 2/4 beat and some scratching. I acknowledge that I’m not the most emotive when I play, I’ve somehow managed to avoid that whole “im-so-into-the-music-sway” but I know playing the violin doesn’t make me want to booty-pop in anyway shape or form.
Then I saw this clip and it all made sense. Growing up in Israel gave her an edge, and she has a magic hip-hop violin.
In all seriousness, give it a rest lad. Saying you play hip-hop violin is a stupid as saying you play hip-hop harmonica. Sure, it can be a great feature in hip-hop (although I’m a bit dubious about the harmonica), but it’ll never belong to that genre. It’s classical all the way. Mira Ben-Ari should have taken a hint from Myleene Klass who tried really hard to mash up classical music (i.e. Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach) with some electro-drum beat junk with whispered pop lyrics over the top. It was horrible.

Part II
Anyway, I was going to say something about teaching violin. It is really aggravating trying to teach the violin to someone who is tone deaf.

Conclusion
After watching part of Mira Ben-Ari’s performance of the Apollo, I was shocked. Not only did they actually let her play there, and there are people in the audience, but Wyclef Jean appreciates her ‘fusion’. Wyclef Jean, I have lost respect. At the same time, I could easily play what she played, and had someone offered me a couple thousand for offending classical music by shredding my violin I totally would have done.
I was also made aware of several 4 year old ‘genius’ kids on youtube who could play the violin. I watched the videos and immediately felt a bit weird. I was definitely one of those creepy musical kids but violin kind of moved from piping-hot entree, to back-burner, to off-the-heat, to tupperware left-over to “I don’t know if I can eat this anymore” quality. I might do something about that.

I can’t skip rocks, but one I did chuck bounced three times on the surface of the water. Andy’s had a penchant for skidding gracefully over the ice between rounds of surface skimming which made for record breaking distances. We can’t seem to time Deer Creek just right. Either we’re too early and its Antarctic thick ice, or too late, and its a 20ft wade through icy waters to reach the good stuff. Maybe next year.

I know several girls that get cute to go out with other girls, but are really aggressively competing to out-cute each other because they’re really going to runway themselves before boys. Fair Enough. But I can not contain my laughter when I see a set of 3+ girls all sporting the same accessory or style and spend their time glaring daggers at each other in between light-hearted conversation wishing that everyone else would remove the cool accessory so they would be the only one wearing it, thus increasing their indie cool by +3 scene points. My current favourite mockable indie accessory is the shoe-lace hairband stretched neatly over the circumference of ones head in effort to puff up the hair for that elusive trendy bohemian chic, ‘i-just-don’t-care-how-sexy-I-look’ style that I heard one girl claim to be “a post art nouveau native indian tiger-lily look”.

Last year during a perusal of DI wares and finery, we found a huge record table/cabinet for only $25. We plugged it in and the radio immediately serenaded us with Mr. Cash and “Ring of Fire”. In spite of a broke needle, arm and faulty electronics, we bought it. The sound quality of the radio was fantastic enough for $25. Anyway. We were using it as a cabinet with the top down all the time until recently when we acquired a Sony record player. Andy cleverly fiddled with the electronics, I made stupid suggestions (that yielded one decent one ) about the aesthetics and team Martin now own a fully functional, literally vintage record set up. It’s amazing. Most frequently played records have included First Impressions of Earth, The White Album and Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits.

I feel bad for being so ungrateful all the time. This French lady (Ms Sebire) is afflicted with ‘esthesioneuromablastoma’ which is apparently a rare form of cancer (only 200 documented cases worldwide in 20 years) – cancer of the nasal cavity. She was sad because children ran away from her, she couldn’t really see or smell or taste and her quality of life was negligible to her. She was contesting not being able to request euthanasia. That made me really sad.