Iglooghost is an artist that I’ve paid attention to for a long time.
His debut album, “Neō Wax Bloom,” came out in 2017 and was one of the very first EDM albums I listened to that wasn’t, like, from a video game OST. However, I didn’t really pay as much attention for his next solo album, “Lei Line Eon.” As far as I can tell, it wasn’t received nearly as well as “Neō Wax Bloom,” so I figured that I wasn’t missing much by having it on the backburner of my listening backlog.
This one I found out about from someone posting a link to the YouTube premiere, and I decided to listen to it because I saw a friend say it was really good. In my personal opinion: Iglooghost is back.
While I like to call myself an “avid reader,” I find during the nine-ish months of the school year I hardly get to read anything at all.
Well, let me rephrase: I do plenty of reading, just not reading of my choice.
But, the bright beautiful, summery light at the end of the tunnel has appeared and I’m back, baby.
So why not start off with my favorite read of last season; “Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture” by Grace Elizabeth Hale.
One part research, one part lived experience, and all Southern legend at it’s finest, Hale dutifully recreates the Athens of her youth and the college town that changed the game – sorry, Chapel Hill.
Whereas other music-history books err on either the side of salacious rumors or strict fact, “Cool Town” wasn’t only an easy read, it was a fun one too.
Those Summer Nights:
I picked up a hardcopy on a complete lark, and for a couple weeks it was my faithful companion between beach, pool and patio.
Looking back, it was a prescient read; My first summer coming home from school, struggling to find my footing as a weird, music kid in a Southern college town and this book fell into my lap.
Not to suggest I can even attempt to eclipse the likes of Michael Stipe or Vanessa Briscoe Hay, but it felt good to hear about “outsiders” forcefully carving out a space that ended up defining a generation.
Of course, you can’t tell the story of Athens in the 1980s without R.E.M, Pylon and the B-52s, but Hale is able to also highlight bands that were lost in the backwash like to every potent Love Tractor or her own band Cordy Lon.
Really, it is the underdogs and ancillary acts that make “Cool Town” and Athens of a certain time sing; young, broke and hungry for more people on the fringes determined a revolution in how we see and hear the South.
The most memorable and beautiful moments form the book are recollections of seemingly insignificant moments of DIY debauchery: a church-turned-crash-pad housing a still unnamed R.E.M’s first gig, the B-52s nearly caving the floor during a house party after raiding every thrift store within driving distance for costumes or Matthew Sweet being bullied by his pen-pals to join the fight and leave New York City for the college rock hamlet.
Before it became music for the masses, the Athens sound was queer, feminist, cartoony at times and achingly raw depictions of the chaos that surrounded their stomping grounds; an active folk archival of bohemia as it blossomed and withered.
Build a Better South:
Beyond my own need to feel seen and heard by people who (most likely) would have understood how I felt moving to NC State, I am acutely aware that what we do at WKNC wouldn’t really look the same without what happened in Georgia – and bled into Chapel Hill/Carrboro – nearly fifty years ago.
College kids across the nation, but especiallyin the Southeast glommed onto this new driven, jangly music through shared tapes and party bands.
The cretins (like myself) who found their way into the DJ booth then proliferated the new sound across the air, offering respite from the crude and careless old guard – looking at you, Howard Stern.
For the first time in a long time, the radio was fresh and new…and from a current DJs perspective, we’re still riding that high today; most of the listeners who reach out first found us through that eighties boom.
At universities across the South, armed with college rock/jangle rock/power pop/whatever you want to call it, DJs and musicians have been redefining what it means to be Southern in radical ways.
Simply put, y’all means all at WKNC and I will proudly stake part of that in the work coming from Athens some 45 years ago.
Do you want more college rock beamed to your brain?
Fear not good readers, I’ve got the best of the best for your listening pleasure all inspired by the cool sounds of “Cool Town.”
Album cover for Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” from the movie “Midnight Cowboy,”
One of my favorite movies of all time is “Midnight Cowboy.” It’s not a comforting movie, but it’s one of my comfort movies.
The story follows an unlikely friendship between a wannabe male prostitute with a dark past from Texas, played by Jon Voight, and sickly hustler with a limp, played by Dustin Hofman. The movie was highly controversial at the time, as it has deep and undeniable queer undertones, and it was given an X rating. Still, the movie took home a host of prizes, including three Academy Awards: one for best picture, one for best director, and one for best writing.
Throughout the entire movie one song persists, and that song is “Everybody’s Talkin’”. From the very first moment it plays, encompassing the entire universe of the film, the longing, the desire, the loneliness and aimlessness.
The year was 1974, and the good old sport of the Great North was bloodier than ever.
From semi-pro to the NHL, fists swung with the same if not more force than the mighty stick.
And no one more personified small-time, minor league Old Time Hockey quite like the Johnstown Jets.
Where We Started From
Based in Johnstown, PA, the Jets were known to be some of the nastiest players to take the ice.
Tough but talented, they beat the opposition into submission just as frequently as they out-scored them.
However, amongst their ranks are four men who would help take the Jets from NAHL darlings to legends of the silver screen: Ned Dowd and the Carlson Brothers, Jeff, Jack and Steve.
While Ned Dowd and the Carlson brothers were the origin of so many hockey-hijinks that made it on film, it was his sister Nancy Dowd who put pen to paper and crafted what we would all come to know and love as “Slap Shot.”
“Slap Shot” (Hill, 1977) trailer from YouTube.
Written by Dowd and directed by George Roy Hill, the 1977 film “Slap Shot” follows minor league underdogs the Charlestown Chiefs in a bid to go out with an end-of-season blaze of glory, the failing team resorting to dirty plays to win the affections of their fans.
It’s simple math; a fist to the face puts butts in seats.
The aforementioned Ned would appear in the film alongside two of the three Carlson brothers, Jeff and Steve, as two-thirds of the fictitious “Hanson Brothers.”
Jack, was unable to participate in filming due to contractual obligations with the Edmonton Oilers.
Instead, he was replaced with Dave Hanson who played the fictional counterpart to Jack.
While all three “Hanson Brothers” would have respectable pro careers, Jack Carlson became a legend in his own right upon the ice, totaling 1111 penalty minutes across 508 combined professional games within the WHA and NHL.
With most of the on-screen antics pulled from real-life incidents on the ice, the film has garnered a somewhat checkered reputation within hockey circles.
The official NHL company line suggests that’s not what hockey is about and never has been, but, player commentary suggests it’s a mainstay on busses and charters.
Do with that what you will.
On the other hand, within the minors the film has garnered the singular reputation as “the bible.”
Once again, do with that what you will.
A Legacy Worth Leaving
But beyond goons, the film is funny and crass and violent and most definitely a product of its time.
I’m almost tempted to place it on the list of “films that couldn’t be made today” but beautiful blue-eyed Canuck Jared Keeso sought to prove that thought wrong.
In modern comparisons, you wouldn’t have the TV show “Shoresy” without “Slap Shot,” but as I said before, it’s simple math: fist + face = butt in seat.
Bawdy and brawny, yes, but really at the core of both pieces is the love of a good old hometown hero; something for people of a failing town to fall behind when times are tough.
Much like the fictional Charlestown of the film, the real Johnstown was troubled from the turn of the century by flooding.
Nicknamed “the flood city,” Johnstown saw the flood of 1977 bring about the demise of the Jets during the off season, coinciding with the inevitable fold of the NAHL.
Yet, their story lives on decades further than I would bet any player ever thought a rinky dink minor could all because a sister took stock in her brother’s stories.
Now, that being said…here’s some songs to start a fight to, in the name of Old Time hockey, of course.
Bodhi’s Best:
“The Stripper” by David Rose Orchestra
Big, Bawdy and indisputably raunchy, “The Stripper” is a mainstay on burlesque stages across the globe, but Michael Ontkean brings the lascivious display of the stage to the ice in protest to the so-called goon-like antics of his team.
Beyond violence, “Slap Shot” is without a doubt a film about sex. The players are hounded by (and hounding) groupies, a housewife is turned into chirp-material for experimenting with other women while her husband is away on the road, and a couple’s marital tensions underscore Ontkean’s Ned Braden’s real emotional strife throughout the film.
In the final knock-down drag out against the fictional Syracuse Bulldogs, Braden makes a show of his own with a striptease worthy of even Ms. Gypsy Rose Lee.
While blood spilt rips the crowd into a frenzy, it’s the playful sensuality of the strip that shocks the masses.
It’s not until a high school marching band in the stands launches into a ramshackle rendition of “The Stripper” that the crowd finds their feet once again.
But then again, I’ve always thought there were two “f-words” in the English language…but I’ll leave you to figure out what those are.
“The Stripper” by David Rose Orchestra from YouTube
“Trampled Under Foot” by Led Zeppelin
In a movie that’s equal parts sexual as it is violent (at least by 1970s standards), what’s better than a song that serves up both in equal doses; you can woo your woman and win a fistfight all in one fell swoop.
“Trampled Under Foot” is the fifth track off Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album, “Physical Graffiti.”
A play on Robert Johnson’s 1936 song, “Terraplane Blues,” “Trampled Under Foot” uses cars as a metaphor for you guessed it, sex.
But, that’s not to say it is also one of what I would consider one of the band’s toughest tracks throughout their discography.
It’s one those songs that comes right out from the stereo, grabs you by the throat and refuses to let up.
From Jimmy Page’s absolutely ripping chords to Robert Plant’s screeching wail it’s breakneck in every sense of the word.
In Bodhi’s words, a real romper stomper.
“Trampled Under Foot” by Led Zeppelin from YouTube.
“The Hockey Song” by Stompin’ Tom Connors
Speaking of stomping, what good is a hockey set if I don’t have at least one song directly referencing the game?
Because for all the fighting and the…other f-word I’m not legally allowed to say, I deeply love this sport and I especially love the smaller teams.
From NC State’s Icepack to the Winston Salem Thunderbirds all the way up the the Carolina Hurricanes, I think there’s something so absolutely beautiful about this rough-n-tumble, raggedy damn sport.
Maybe it’s the fans, maybe it’s the on ice celebrations, maybe it’s because I’ve got a weak spot in my heart for scarred and toothless men, I don’t know.
But what I do know is the collective energy of being in the old barn or the stadium is only paralleled to the most energetic concerts and even then, it doesn’t always match up.
Simply put, it brings people together in a way I’ve never quite seen before, and I think that togetherness is something we as human beings need more than ever.
“The Hockey Song” by Stompin’ Tom Connors from YouTube.
Machine Girl’s latest EP is a perfect blend of frenetic beats and ultramodern digital rhythms. “SUPER FREQ” channels Machine Girl’s classic anime-infused breakcore stylstics with an uncanny twist.
Produced for FREQ Records, the EP stands as a pesudo-soundtrack for “FREQ,” a new manga project by Nicola Kazimir and Dai Sato. Written by Sato, acclaimed for his screenwriting work on “Ergo Proxy,” “Cowboy Bebop,” “Samurai Champloo” and numerous others, “FREQ” takes place in a universe governed by sound.
Finished Manga panel from FREQ Volume #0, illustrated by Good News For Bad Guys
According to the official “FREQ” Kickstarter, “The setting of Freq’s lore unfolds in a futuristic realm where the influence of sound frequencies governs all aspects of life. In this world, everything from traffic, AR visuals to warfare and of course music is orchestrated through the manipulation/extraction of sound frequencies [sic].”
Synthetic Heaven
Consisting of three tracks and with a total runtime of around 10 minutes, “SUPER FREQ” is fast-paced, energetic and futuristic. Though lacking in the stylistic complexity seen in earlier releases like “Wlfgrl” or “U-Void Synthesizer,” the EP is wholly solid.
While “SUPER FREQ” lacks the digital hardcore influence that underscores much of Machine Girl’s work, the EP’s “cleaner” vocal quality allows for Stephenson’s incisive lyricism to really shine through.
The EP’s first track, “Black Glass,” puts an esoteric spin on the digital age. The plight of the chronically online and technologically oversaturated becomes a “black mass,” with the human soul endlessly reflected as “shadows” across an endless expanse of “black glass.”
Crawl into the cave before it’s gone
Before the future turns to aches
Before your blood turns into plastic
“Black Glass,” Machine Girl
There certainly is no dearth of sci-fi futurist dystopias in media: decades-away worlds plated in chrome and illuminated in vivid technicolor. However, as Machine Girl suggests, the sci-fi dystopia is already upon us: our blood is inexorably laced with forever chemicals and our lives are consumed by synthetic stimulation.
Despite the song’s prescient message, it’s consistently upbeat. In fact, the whole EP maintains a sort of cavalier jubilation throughout. The next track, “Dance in the Fire,” is a techno-laced dance anthem. The third, “Big Time Freq,” a chipper instrumental.
Of the three tracks on “SUPER FREQ,” this one excited me the least. Compared to the mysterious “Black Glass” and the manic “Dance in the Fire,” “Big Time Freq” is…kind of bland.
There’s nothing particularly striking about this track, and it lacks the hypnotic frenzy of other Machine Girl instrumentals. My younger brother aptly described it as “video game idling music.”
Final Thoughts
While “SUPER FREQ” certainly doesn’t take away from Machine Girl’s artistic credibility, it admittedly falls short of its predecessors. The EP is fun and danceable, but it’s only “Black Glass” that really strikes me as iconically Machine Girlesque.
After nearly two years since Machine Girl’s last release, a soundtrack for the platform shooter “Neon White,” it’s fair to say that I hope the duo returns to producing the more involved and experimental LPs that have come to define the breakcore genre.
