Category: Miscellaneous

Random sh*t we don’t know where else to put

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Miscellaneous

Why Does Everyone Cover Gloria?

“Gloria” is a 1965 garage rock song by Van Morrison originally recorded by his then-band Them. The song is extremely simple, basic even. It consists of three chords on a loop, multiple verse-like ramblings, and a chorus containing exactly one word. The song is amateurish even by 60s garage rock standards, and it’s not exactly high in the pantheon of British Invasion hits. However, there is one thing about the song that might grab your attention. It’s been covered by everyone, and I mean everyone.

Immediately after release, it was covered by a slew of nearly identical British bands with names so stupid I refuse to believe they’re real, including but not limited to: Shadows of Knight, The Boots, The Gantz, The Fruit Eating Bears, The Human Beingz, The Belles, The Other Half, The Wheels, The Deejays, Thee [sic] Midnighters, The Chellows, and my personal favorite King Beezz. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of cover versions by actual famous people including The Doors, The 13th Floor Elevators, Jimi Hendrix, multiple reworkings by Van the man himself, David Bowie, AC/DC, U2, John Cougar Mellencamp, Rick Springfield, The Tragically Hip, Tom Petty, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bill Murray feat. Eric Clapton (yes really), not to mention countless covers by the guy who insists on bringing his guitar to your party.

This rather impressive list of artists would make more sense if the Them version was, you know, good? Your mileage may vary as to how much you can enjoy the original song, but to me personally, it’s no “You Really Got Me.” It’s structureless, tuneless, and a little creepy. So, returning to the title of this article, why does Gloria persist in our cultural memory? The easy answer is that it’s Wonderwall-easy to play on guitar, and the singing features nothing resembling notes one might be expected to hit, but a more honest answer is harder to come by. Simplicity is certainly one aspect. Decades of prog bloat and studio recording have long severed Rock’s original tether to the blues, and Gloria is a fun throwback to those early days. Another is the versatility; the song can be adapted to almost any style as long as it’s energetic. The sing-along elements of the chorus certainly help as well. And then there is Patti Smith.

Patti Smith’s 1975 song “Gloria: In Excelsis Deo,” is a brilliant song. A heavily reworked cover version of the original Gloria, it’s so far removed from the original song that I hesitate to even call it a cover, it’s more of an adaptation. Smith stays true to the spirit of the original song, but mostly discards the body, and in doing so she reveals what really makes the song work, and why it endures. The song, ostensibly about sex, is given a greater sense of nuance by Smith’s alterations. The famous line “Jesus dies for somebody’s sins but not mine,” reveals the emotional core behind Rock’s macho posturing. The desire for freedom and empowerment, the spiritual tension, all conveyed in six letters,

“G-L-O-R-I-A.”

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Miscellaneous

Musicians and Their Pets

WKNC 88.1 blog

Written by Miranda

Everyone has a special relationship with their pets, and musicians are no exception. As fans it’s heartwarming to see our musical idols caring for and loving their pets. Check out these five musicians who adore their pets.

2 Chainz and Trappy

Trappy is a bulldog 2 Chainz adopted in 2015. Trappy and 2 Chainz together co-host “Most Expensivist” where the two try extremely rare and luxury items. 2 Chainz continuously spoils Trappy, including in 2017 when he ordered a $15,000 birthday cake for Trappy. See more pictures of Trappy and 2 Chainz on his Instagram, @trappygoyard.

Thundercat and Turbo Tron

Thundercat’s pet, a cute little cat, is named “Turbo Tron Over 9000 Baby Jesus Sally Uzi Clip.” Thundercat rescued Turbo Tron as a tiny kitten and immediately fell in love with her. In an interview with Pitchfork, Thundercat reminisced about bringing Turbo Tron to an Odd Future pop-up shop inside his hoodie pocket. 

Greta Kline and Joe 

Frankie Cosmos’ Greta Kline adored her dog Joe, who is featured on the “Zentropy” album cover. Kline said in an interview that many of her early songs featured Joe in the background. Sadly, Joe passed away, but Kline dedicated much of the “Zentropy” album to Joe. 

Mitski and Midori 

Mitski adopted her kitty Midori when she was in 7th grade. Her now-senior kitty is loved and spoiled by Mitski. She says Midori adores food and warmth, but that “there is no love in a cat’s heart.” 

Phantogram and Leroy Brown 

Currently the Phantogram duo is enjoying their quarantine by spending it with their puppy Leroy, who is a Yorkie/Maltese mix. Leroy is a rescue pup who often joins Phantogram on tour. You can see more cute pictures of Leroy on Instagram, @leroythegoodboy.

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Miscellaneous

Binaural Beats & Wellness

Do you ever find yourself listening to music while trying to study, and then realize you’re just jamming instead of actually paying attention?

Music can be beneficial in so many circumstances. If you’re like me, doing homework unfortunately isn’t one of them. I spend waaayyyyy too long trying to find the perfect playlist and switching back and forth between songs. However, I love the feeling of having background sounds to block out my noisy household.

Last year, I stumbled across this app called “Relax Melodies” that lets you create white noise mixes with jungle sounds, rain, and other calming tones. What I didn’t appreciate about the app until recently was their “brainwave” noise section. Filled with these magical sounds called binaural beats, they stimulate brain waves that help with creativity, sleeping, and meditation. When I tried adding the “focus” beat underneath some tranquil sounds of peeper frogs and crickets, I found that my productivity skyrocketed. I could concentrate for much longer and the distractions around me seemed to fade away. It was amazing!

This spontaneous success led me to wonder how binaural beats work in the first place. Basically, it’s like an optical illusion for your ears. A binaural beat is actually two beats operating at different frequencies. When your brain detects these frequencies, it naturally synchronizes to the two of them, which results in a singular tone.

For example, the “theta” brainwave would include one tone at 205 Hz and another at 200 Hz, leaving behind 5 Hz. This specific beat is supposed to help with deep sleep and relaxation. In total, there are five different waves that the brain detects, each with its own specific benefits: delta, theta, gamma, alpha, and beta.

Though there hasn’t been much research on binaural beats, the studies that have been completed are optimistic. If you’re interested in trying them out, there are tons of YouTube videos and apps that can help you out!

Here’s a link to the one I use. Happy listening!

– DJ Butter

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Miscellaneous

The Saw’s Choice Cuts: Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse

Welcome to The Saw’s Butcher Shop. I am your host, your Master Butcher, The Saw. But you already knew that. I’m back with another installment of The Saw’s Choice Cuts, and this time we’re going to zero our sights on Cannibal Corpse, Butcher Crew!

You already know I love some Death Metal, and I’m sure you know I love some Cannibal Corpse, too! Now, in my opinion, one must divide Cannibal Corpse into (at least) two eras: The Chris Barnes era and the Corpsegrinder era. BTW, you should already know that Chris Barnes is my favorite Death Metal vocalist! So, we will divide my favorites list between the two eras – Barnes and Grinder. Here are my favorite Cannibal Corpse songs:

Chris Barnes:

The Bleeding

Force Fed Broken Glass

Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead

Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains

I Cum Blood

The Cryptic Stench

Hammer Smashed Face [one of the greatest songs ever! My favorite by Barnes.]

Favorite record of this era – Tomb of the Mutilated 

George “Corpsegrinder” Fischer:

Evisceration Plague [my favorite by Grinder.]

Skewered from Ear to Eye

Compelled to Lacerate

Five Nails Through the Neck

Death Walking Terror

Heads Shoveled Off

Hideous Ichor

High Velocity Impact Spatter

A Skeletal Domain

Scourge of Iron

Rabid 

Favorite record of this era – Evisceration Plague 

What are some of your favorite Cannibal Corpse songs? 

Stay Metal, 

THE SAW 

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Miscellaneous

Tips for Training Your Puppy

Written by Miranda

*Disclaimer: I’m not a dog trainer or professional by any means, these are just some tips I’ve found that worked with my 10-week old puppy.*

Sleep and Crate Training

Encourage your pup to view their crate as a “den.” Make it comfortable, quiet, and safe. The first few days our puppy was not willing to sleep on her own but we used a snuggle puppy toy, a blanket over her crate to block out light, and treats when she stayed in the crate quietly. Our trick is to keep the puppy awake two hours before bedtime by playing with her, training her, and walking her. Sometimes giving a big treat or flavored bone to chew on will help keep them occupied and awake. After two hours of being awake our pup willingly goes into the crate and sleeps through the night. If your puppy cries in the crate, try to ignore it for 10-15 minutes (as long as all their needs are met). Saying “hush” or getting them out of the crate will encourage them to whine for attention in the future. Usually puppies will settle down after about 15 minutes of whining and fall asleep.

Chewing and Biting

I am fortunate that because of COVID, I’m able to work and study from home and can be with my dog during the entire day. Since she is either with me or in her crate, I usually don’t have to worry about her chewing cords or furniture. For the spots where she loves to bite, I have sour apple spray that is safe but tastes bad to deter chewing. As far as biting, I always try to redirect her biting me toward a chew toy. If she presents purposeful biting or aggression I either redirect it or give her a tap on the nose and a firm “no.” So far she is getting a little better about it, but don’t fret, most puppies will grow out of by six months. 

House Training

I live in an apartment and I’m not on the ground floor, so instead of needing to take my puppy outside every hour, I use pee pads. I created a small, secluded part of my living room that she can access by herself whenever she needs to. During times where I can’t take her outside, like in the middle of the night, I place her there and let her pee. I always give her a treat after she uses it. I also make sure she doesn’t have accidents whenever possible by sticking to a regular walking schedule. I take her outside after sleeping and napping, before and after meals, and after playtime. Whenever puppies are sniffing the floor or walking around aimlessly, that’s a sign they probably need to use the bathroom. Generally puppies younger than three months need to go out at least every two hours. If you are taking them outside enough, they will have dramatically less accidents. So far house training has been a slow process but we’ve seen a lot of progress by giving her treats every time she uses the bathroom outside or on the puppy pads and making sure she gets enough chances to go outside.

These are the main things I’ve learned recently that have been helpful while navigating having a new puppy or dog. Happy training!

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Miscellaneous Short Stories

The Tori Amos X Trent Reznor Conspiracy

WKNC 88.1 blog

“Tori Amos” by krissikes is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

I was making my way through the crazy world of Tori Amos, and I noticed something weird. She kept making Nine Inch Nails references. She name-dropped the band, their album titles, etc. Puzzled, I checked the Wikipedia page for “Under Big Pink,” and realized Trent Reznor was credited with backing vocals on the album’s sole love song. How did these two artists from opposite ends of the music world come together? Little did I know I was about to get pulled into a mostly joking conspiratorial tale of hatred, (Courtney) love, and one of the funniest celebrity duos on earth. There are multiple blogs devoted to laying out these absurd stories, but the one I found most entertaining was this article’s namesake: The Tori and Trent Conspiracy. If you have a spare hour to read this and the other blogs linked, I highly encourage you to go on that journey, but if not, I’ll hit the highlights here.

“20090609 – Nine Inch Nails – Trent Reznor (singing) – (by Elizabeth Bouras) – 3616038356_eeb5ef594e_o” by Claire CJS is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
 

So, let’s lay out the Dramatis Personae, shall we: Trent Reznor, creator and sole member of industrial rock’s breakthrough band: Nine Inch Nails. Perpetually miserable and probably a danger to polite society. Next, Newton, NC’s own Tori Amos. Classical pianist, songwriter, godmother of 90s chick-rock, weirdest redneck hippie witch-woman alive. And finally… Courtney Love. Okay look, I’m probably one of the last seven people on earth who actually likes Love, but even I have to admit that if you listen to more than a few stories from artists who knew her, she comes off as kind of the archvillain of 90s rock. No, she did not kill Kurt Cobain. Yes, her band is better than Nirvana (Come at me). Yes, she is a female version of the villain archetype on Ru Paul’s drag race. Everyone on the same page? Too bad, the story is starting anyways.

Tori and Trent

Tori Amos and Trent Reznor report admiring one other’s music long before meeting. This is a little weird, considering Tori Amos is a progressive pop singer a la Kate Bush, and Trent Reznor is a screaming nutjob a la the Butthole Surfers (real band NIN toured with), but it’s true. There are some shared themes between them though: both are unreservedly confessional lyricists, and they both really like pretending to be Jesus. Apparently, Trent Reznor reached out to say he loved “Little Earthquakes,” and a friendship was born.

Both musicians have given numerous accounts of their relationship, some seemingly contradictory, but all accounts of their friendship are bound together by being just absolutely hilarious. Amos seems to think of herself as a surrogate mother figure for Reznor, saying that she thinks he would be a lot less angry all the time if he had some more nurturing. To quote from Spin magazine’s interview with Amos, “What Trent Really needs is a blanky and a hot chocolate with marshmallows. He doesn’t need another hole to crawl in. I think someone should give him one of those little hard hats with a miner’s light on it, so when he gets lost in a dark hole, he can find his way out.” This is obviously VERY funny if you’re familiar with any of Reznor’s work, but it pales in comparison to “The Chicken Incident,” where Amos, upon visiting Reznor in the house of the Manson murders (which Reznor had rented out because you know, of course he had), spontaneously forgot how to cook chicken. She was going to make him dinner because, in her words, “He just looks so anorexic sometimes. I just look at him and go, baby, you need my cooking honey.” But on this fateful evening, she couldn’t as much as fry a chicken. This incident was apparently so scarring to the born southerner that she called her mother on the spot to ask her why she had just ruined a dish that she had been making for 20 years. Her mother, either a witch, a master comedian, or both, told her solemnly that ever since the Folger’s coffee heiress died in the Sharon Tate house, there has been a curse against anything culinary on the premises. No wonder Trent Reznor is so angry all the time, celebrity ghosts keep ruining his food.

The Conspiracy

So, what’s this about a conspiracy, and where does Courtney Love come into all this? Well, that’s where this objectively delightful story takes a turn for the tabloids, and I don’t totally feel comfortable repeating some of the things Bizarre Love Triangles or even some actual news sites say about the matter. I’ve linked the blog’s crazed spirals of conspiracy if you want to hear them yourself. But, to summarize, Tori and Trent’s relationship falls apart, according to Reznor, because of “Some malicious meddling on the part of Courtney Love.” This is a little confusing given Love and Amos have ostensibly never met, but Courtney has maintained that she had a romantic relationship with Reznor briefly, something Reznor denies. This has led to speculation about Love’s motives, and the precise nature of Reznor and Amos’ relationship, as well as lyrical analysis of songs Amos, in her own words, had “allegedly written” about Reznor. The blog also goes the extra mile to rope in every major 90s alt-rock star in the process. It’s a wild ride, but don’t take any of it too seriously.

So… what does all this tell us, other than to not make chicken on the site of a brutal murder? Well, I guess if I must make a closing remark it would be that genre is a fickle thing, and sometimes artists from opposite worlds can have some common ground. Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame wrote an interesting article about the two of them if you want an introduction, and if you like one, but haven’t heard of the other, give them a listen, you might find something new.

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Band/Artist Profile Classic Album Review Miscellaneous Music Education New Album Review

New Music Alert: 666

album cover

Warning: listening to this music may cause a significant increase in heat. Your body may feel hot and you will feel an overwhelming sensation of “fire.” The Sugar Candy Album “666” is a unique style of music that was perfected by the cross-section of the passing of early 2010’s Psychedelic Rock and the popularization of more mellow Indie Pop. All pretentiousness aside, 666 is a really good album. It is probably Sugar Candy Mountain’s best music that they’ve put out since they emerged back in 2014 with their first full album “Mystic Hits.” 

While “Mystic Hits” was undoubtedly a hit, “666” showcased the band coming into their own unique sound. Most of their songs tend to follow a similar pattern. The beginning starts out with a lackadaisical, relaxed beat that goes on throughout the entirety of the song while multiple layers slowly get added on as the song goes on. Moreover, the songs steadily flow into each other, making it easy to listen to all the way through. 

However, if you’re in a rush and don’t have time to listen to the whole album, I would suggest starting with the first three songs and ending with the eighth and ninth. “Windows” and “Change” make a good impression of the album and “666” is definitely going to be one of my most played songs of the year. With it’s echoed guitar and dreamy lyrics, the song can change around my mood on even the most stressful of days. 

Well that’s about all I have to say for this album, would definitely recommend with a score of 9/10. 
Hope you guys enjoy the music, 
-The DJ Formerly Known as Chippypants 

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Miscellaneous Non-Music News

WKNC to Host Book Drive in March to Support Prison Books Collective

Yellow, orange and green graphic with a person peering from behind a book.

In continuing their efforts to support the Triangle community and at-risk individuals at-large, WKNC is partnering with Prison Books Collective to host a book drive. 

Prison Books Collective is a Carrboro-based nonprofit that distributes paperback books and zines to incarcerated people across North Carolina and Alabama. Prison Books Collective believes that “the prison system in the United States is fundamentally unjust and perpetuates systems of economic, racial, gender, psychological, and social oppression.” The work done by Prison Books Collective upholds the fact that “incarcerated people deserve support and resources and that the many injustices of prison must be resisted.” WKNC supports this mission and looks to contribute to their work with the following donation drive. 

Donations will be collected outside WKNC from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the weeks of March 15-19 and March 22-26. The station is located within the Witherspoon Student Center on NC State’s main campus, in suite 343. Please be aware that the building is closed to the public on weekends and outside normal business hours. If you are unable to donate in-person, Prison Books Collective also has a Flyleaf wish list of titles that have been specifically requested by inmates.

“The past year has been extremely difficult for incarcerated people, with increased restrictions and no access to the small amount of literature available in libraries only a few prisons might have,” says Prison Books Collective’s Outreach Coordinator Ivy Shelton. “COVID-19 has limited the operations but, Prison Books Collective (PBC) has been working hard the past year to fulfill book requests. PBC has continued to send 35-45 packages of books on average a week to individuals based on letters of request. The book drive WKNC 88.1 is hosting makes PBC’s continued work possible. Paperback donations from the WKNC 88.1 book drive will make a difference in someone’s life.”

More information on Prison Books Collective can be found on their website, while graphics and event specific information can be found on WKNC’s social media. On-air promos are in rotation to outline requests and necessary resources for this donation drive. WKNC and Prison Books Collective would like to thank the audience for their support.

WKNC 88.1 FM is 25,000-watt student-run non-commercial radio from North Carolina State University featuring indie rock, electronic, metal and underground hip-hop. WKNC is on social media @WKNC881.

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Miscellaneous

The Saw’s Choice Cuts: Upon A Burning Body

WKNC 88.1 blog

What’s going on Butcher Crew?! It’s your Master Butcher, The Saw here and I have a new blog segment that I like to call my Choice Cuts. Where I pick a band and I share some of my favorite songs with you. 

For my first post in this segment, I wanted to pick a band that is near and dear to my heart – Upon A Burning Body (UABB). I have been listening to this band since I was in high school and they were one of the bands that I have seen and hung out with the most. UABB is one of my favorite metalcore bands, and they have some of the catchiest choruses and riffs. Any time I hear a UABB song, I automatically start dancing and singing the songs, I just love them so much! 

Here is a list of my favorite UABB songs (in no particular order because that would be tough) 

  • Texas Blood Money 
    • This was the first song they dedicated to me when I saw them in 2018!
  • Sin City 
    • They dedicated this song to me another time!
  • All Pride No Pain 
  • From Darkness
  • Burn 
  • Desperado 
  • Scars
  • Judgement 
  • Bring The Rain 
  • Carlito’s Way 
  • Intermission 

Favorite album: The World Is My Enemy Now 

Stay Metal, 

THE SAW 

Categories
Band/Artist Profile Miscellaneous

What Yoko Ono Can Tell Us About Indie Music

Yoko Ono posing for a publicity image in all black
Yoko at 88

I think most people are ready to admit that Yoko Ono is not the worst person to ever exist. There may be a few of us still clinging to the notion that she was a talentless harpy that broke up the best band ever, but this narrative is out of favor. Even the most traditionalist rock publications (Rolling Stone, Ultimate Classic Rock, etc.) have accepted her into music history, putting out lists of her top songs and best albums. To more liberal presses, she’s become something of an icon. In this narrative, she was an artistic genius victimized by a misogynistic hate mob who resented her avant-garde influence on John Lennon.

There has also been a growing interest in Ono’s music as influential. In 1970, avant-garde music was a strictly classical business. Experimentation was a right reserved to “serious music” and while Stockhausen, Schoenberg, and Cage were celebrities in a certain realm, they were not recording artists, and their influence did extend to pop. Ono was, for many people, their introduction to experimental music. A generation of musicians cited her as an inspiration, from pop music weirdos like the B-52s or Talking Heads to underground celebrities like William Bennet and Meredith Monk.

From indie blogs to the Grammy’s, the press is ready to admit that Ono is important, but they seem hesitant to discuss any of the actual music Ono released. Critics have either focused on her more typical rock releases or simply avoid discussing her music altogether. The New York Times ran a fawning piece defending the place of challenging music that made no reference to any of her actual songs or albums. When Pitchfork reviewed her back catalog, they concluded that her experimental albums were less ambitious and less than her experimental work. When critics dare write less favorable reviews, the assumptions about Ono come into much sharper focus. A Collegiate Times review of her music referred to her 2018 album Warzone as “a stupendously pretentious assemblage of avant-garde schlock,” that “Continues [a] career of meritless prominence.”

What confuses me most about the critical apathy (and occasional antipathy) towards Ono’s music is that it does not extend to music that is clearly influenced by her work. Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Bjork, even Fiona Apple- you don’t have to look far to find popular music that imitates Ono’s vocal style. On the instrumental side of things, it’s easy to imagine a track off of Yoko’s 1971 album “Fly” on a Throbbing Gristle or Captain Beefheart album. All of these musicians are critically adored, and their music is analyzed in great detail, especially their more experimental albums. So why do critics seem so eager to talk around the music of Yoko Ono?

To answer this question, I think it’s helpful to consider how Ono arrived in popular music. While Ono was a celebrated visual artist prior to meeting John Lennon, her marriage to the ex-Beatle meant that before she had even recorded an album, she was probably the fourth most famous artist alive (sorry Ringo), and was able to bypass a lot of music industry gatekeeping as a result. We expect avant-garde music to occur at the fringes, to always be underrated or someone obscure, and we expect prominent musicians to always make music accessible to a wide audience. The Collegiate Times review I quoted earlier makes this explicit, saying that, “‘Warzone’ is simply the latest piece in a long career of failing to reach the heights of an avant-garde frontier of music in hopes of reaching the hearts of people around the world.” The claim that Yoko is trying to reach a mass audience flies in the face of the music itself. Her first two albums are, to put it literally, 45 minutes of a woman wailing over elephant noises. Even her more accessible projects like “Warzone” are still leagues away from the mainstream. Her music clearly has no interest in appealing to a general audience, but because she is famous and on a major label, these expectations are put on her.

The frustrating thing about critical interpretations of Ono’s music, at least to me, isn’t that people don’t like her music- I’m only lukewarm on most of it myself- but that she would receive far different reception were she not a household name. Critical attitudes of popular music have warmed considerably in the last 20 years, but this reevaluation has only extended to the aesthetics of popular music, not to the underlying mechanics. Popular music may be acknowledged as good “in its own way” but it isn’t given equal billing with so-called “serious music.” Yoko Ono is just a little too famous to be taken seriously as an avant-garde artist. Instead, she must be analyzed only in terms of her effects, as the New York Times did, or, as in the case of the Pitchfork review, she must be spun as actually secretly having been a pop musician this whole time. We are still brought up with the deep-seated hipster belief that popular culture is inherently the lowest common denominator. Successful, famous artists like Ono that challenge this narrative are deeply threatening to magazines that make their name by denoting what gets to be taken seriously and what is pop culture trash. She proves that people have wider tastes than they are often given credit for, that fans of independent music are not quite as special as we think we are.

It’s impressive when you think about it, half a century later and Yoko Ono is still scary.