oasis-story.com is history
It is with some relief and great sadness that http://www.oasis-story.com has ran its course and will cease to operate, effective today.
As a project born out of immense passion, it lasted a good two years and witnessed few rather interesting events like the STC exhibition, two live gigs, DVD releases and so on.
Can’t say whether it has been successful or not. I’d like to think of it as to have achieved some moderate fame within the circle though.
http://www.oasis-story.net continues the legacy.
Sheer Genius
Things have not been going well for Our Fuhrer lately. After a narrow escape from a theatre fire organized by the basterds (that was a decoy!), he was greeted with a much graver news: Noel Gallagher has quit Oasis.
Video after the jump:
I heard DOYS today, here's my impression (post from STC)
Ok, so this afternoon (I’m not in the UK btw) I tagged along a journalist friend of mine and went to a listening party organized by Sony BMG. It was held in a small club and I got to listen to the entire album through overhead speakers. There were only a few Sony representatives present, with about 40 ppl from the press in general.
After showing us the TSOTL video, the host dimmed the light and we sat down and listened.
the following are straight from the notes I managed to scribble while listening. I probably misheard most the lyrics.
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1. Bag It Up
Song began with a fade-in followed by a blusey riff. Liam’s voice came on earlier than expected. He sounded coarse and very rough, like Go-Let-It-Out-rough. The words I managed to pick up were “someone told me I’m dreaming…”, “everything I believed in, I wanted more more more…”, “tell me what you desire, I’ll bag it up”, “the freaks are rising from the floor”. This might sound better if Noel’s on vocal. It came to a slow, atmospheric close. I felt like I was watching a intro of a Tim Burton freak show.
2. The Turning
The drums on the intro sounded a bit like Columbia. The heavy atmospheric mood continued. Some lyrics: “Eyes over the city…rises over your soul”, “Come on, shake your — baby, before you change your name” (chorus), “…messiah”. The guitar riffs which served as the solo/bridge reminded again of Columbia, though much shorter. And then the song drained to a close over sounds of passing cars and tinny piano notes.
3. Waiting For the Rapture
Song began with some heavy power riffs, in the style of Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. The riff continued and Noel’s voice came on. He sang in crazily high keys, pushing it further than the chorus of Part Of The Queue. Reminded me of Force Of Nature. A lot of people will HATE it. The outro is a bit like that of Mucky Fingers. Lyrics to the chorus: “she said I’m tired….come pick me off the merry-go-round”.
(they skipped TSOTL, but we’ve heard that a million times)
5. I’m Outta Time
The opening of the sound is exactly what we heard from the NME clip. Lyrics: “can’t get myself some piece of mind, or would you hide behind the light…cos if I have to go….blahblahblah…..and that’s where you belong….” then it closes with “guess I’m outta time, outta time, outta time…”. It fades out and then again leaving only some fainty piano notes hanging in the air. WTF? That’s IT?
6. (Get off your) High Horse Lady
The intro is a bit like Come Together and that funky shuffle beat continues throughout the song. Drums were mixed with hand-claps. The first line of lyric is actually “get off your high horse lady”. Sounded quite heavy. The chorus went something like “I don’t need a right to —-, lay down — —-”. It dragged on a bit and got tedious. For the outro there’re some footsteps (NME said it’s the sound of closing drawers, anyways).
7. Falling down
Well, this song fitted right in with what was heard so far. Make no mistake, apart from TSOTL, this is the most melodic song on the album. The ending faded into the start of the next song.
8. To Be Where There’s Life
(I didn’t listen to the bootleg versions)
Great! Some Live Forever like drum intro. Liam’s vocals are excellent and the the rhythum is quite upbeat. I could only make out the lines “Let me come through….let me take you…”, “…wayyyYYYYY (stretches for a long time) over the line”. The bridge/solo type was filled with sitar like Indian sounds. It sounded quite good and special.
9. Ain’t Got Nothin
This sounded like the leaked version. Nothing dramatic was changed in the arrangement or anything. Was over too quickly. I couldn’t really make out “a brawl being played out” scene as Liam described.
10. The Nature of Reality
Intro began with some cicada or buzzing insect-like noises, before a wave of guitar feedback poured in. “The nature of reality…is —- fantasy…it’s only in your mind…..” is the first line of lyrics. There were tons of high pitched guitar fills and jams not unlike something you get from a White Stripes album. Finally! There was a guitar riff long enough to be called a tiny solo. The song ended with Liam’s howl of “mind” melting with long guitar feedbacks. Quite cool.
11. Soldier On
The verse featured a line “Shine a light for me tonight”, and the chorus is just six fucking LA-LA-LAs in rising and falling tones! And before you know it, it slowed to a close, with Liam repeating the words “soldier on” for a while, then some squeeching noise and then, silence.
The listening sesion finished with the host inviting two reputed local music journalists to share their views (more on that later).
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Impressions:
- My head felt stuffed. After two hours, the weight of that sound hasn’t subsided. It’s like the after effects of watching The Dark Knight or I’m Not There, where you feel punished with heavy headaches for being too focused. The message/effects/weight were overwhelming, and worst of all, I could’t really decide whether it was GOOD or BAD.
- This does not sound like an Oasis album. Seriously. Not at all. If TSOTL hinted a comeback of the BHN sound in a more polished way, Noel really should apologize for the misleading suggestion. DBTT sounded like HC. DM, WTSMG and BHN are a trilogy. This is something else entirely. This sounded like and an old obscure record by The Verve and Ride. Something only the hardcodest fans learnt to appreciate. Anything off DBTT sounds incredibly tame and thin compared to the sound on this album. Actually, even Viva La Vida sounded commercial compared to DOUS. Love is Noise sounds like a pop-song now.
- There were no singalongs, no big choruses, no standard verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus composition. Or may be there were but they were hidden behind or drown by the massive sonic facade that the trademark Oasis elements become barely noticeable. I don’t remember any specific melodies or hook lines from any of the songs. Fans expecting a resurgence of anthems, or even melodic b-sides like I Wanna Leave In a Dream In My Record Machine woulld initally be greatly disappointed. For those people, I say, hang on to TSOTL like dear life. Mind you, it may be the fact that the music was played from over head loud speakers, but still…
- Noel wasn’t joking when he said he doubted the radio would play anything other than TSOTL. Either he wants to kill off Oasis, or he desperately wants Oasis to be taken seriously and inducted in some Rock and Roll hall of fame somewhere.
To bring in some third opinions, here’s what the two reputed music journalists said when they were invited to share their thoughts on stage:
- “ambitious attempt to pull the 60s sound to the 2000s, at the same time re-defining it and made it belong to this new era”
- very heavy 60s psychedelic sound consistent throughout the entire album.
- Oasis was trying to create an authentic analog sound, and succeeded.
- good production. loads of thoughtful and delicate details scattered around.
- liam has matured a lot and is more like a professional singer now. In the past he just shot the words in a don’t-care attitude, in this album he would change his tone and level of stress in his vocals depending on the pace or mood of the song.
- first three songs were a bit hard to get into. It got better after TSOTL.
- “hope they produce a 5.1 version of this album. it would be the perfect immersive experience.”
- Falling down, TBWTSL, I’m Outta time are stand out tracks.
- Soldier-on sounds like Noel’s revelation of life in mid-age.
- bold, radical new direction for the band who had survived for longer than 10 years.
- their verdicts: 7.5/10 and 7/10.
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there's no "self" – I'm not there, I'm everywhere
Analysis and observations written about I’m Not There.
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Each actor represents a different part of Dylan’s (or the media’s perception of his) persona.
- interpretation #1:
- musical nomad (black child Marcus Carl Franklin)
- Greenwich Village prophet (Christian Bale) who tells the truth through folk music
- movie-star-turned-lousy-husband-and-father (Heath Ledger)
- star who neglected his fans (Cate Blanchett)
- confusing man submitting to an uncomfortable Q&A (Ben Whishaw)
- outlaw not unlike Billy the Kid (Richard Gere) living in a fantastic world of his own creation
- interpretation #2:
- Marcus Carl Franklin: embodies the early stages of Dylan’s musical career, imitating Woody Guthrie’s songs while in search of his own voice.
- Bale: personifying Dylan as the character Jack Rollins. When first presented, he is the folk troubadour, the early 60′s folk hero. He becomes a musical legend and the voice of a generation. Then he seems to disappear. Later in the the film, Rollins reappears to the public eye. While still singing, the character is now a born again Christian and pastor.
- Heath Ledger: symbolizes the part of Dylan that attempted to settle down and lead a somewhat normal life. Ledger’s character is often away from his wife and children.
- Cate Blanchett: reproduces the mid-60′s Dylan, the one who defied his fans by going electric, who embraced the art of rock ‘n’ roll, the one who mumbled his way through interviews full of contradictions and sarcastic quips.
- Ben Whishaw: Dylan the poet. Self-aware of his artistic importance, he confidently and eloquently reflects on his role in musical history as he shifted from one character to another.
- Richard Gere: the outlaw, Billy The Kid. A man on the run from his own identity. He lives in an unrealistic world. A symbol for the Dylan that wishes to disappear from popular culture.
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- This movie really is about how the media has taken a quiet, loner singer-songwriter and made him into something that can’t be reasonably explained.
- The film almost as a spoof of the biopic genre, since it basically pronounces the entire concept of summarising a person through a series of biographical details to be an essentially flawed one. (kenny: in other words, this is a ANTI-BIOGRAPHY film in disguise of a biography film!)
- What the film is most interested in: the problems arising from living in a media-saturated world, and particularly being a public figure in a media-saturated world.
- The approach of this film is a perfectly succinct representational strategy for conveying the postmodern notion of the self as multiple, and the idea that the ‘true’, ‘inner self’ is essentially an illusion.
- The film is not about giving us an understanding of Dylan, but it tries tell us the very impossibility of such a project.
- Dylan, as represented here, is painfully aware of this function of the media, and undertakes not to allow himself to be fixed or pinned down in one image, instead always shifting and reinventing his persona in an attempt to never be misrepresented.
- Through the way he is presented in I’m Not There, Dylan effectively becomes a sort of unwilling postmodern hero whose almost every move is a sidestep away from singularity and coherence – or, more specifically, away from being represented as coherent or singular.
- We are in a hall of endless distorting mirrors, where identity is provisional and appearance is deceptive: whichever Dylan you think he is, he’s not.
- In a sense these quotations exist to conjure up a period, and specifically a period in which media and representation became widely recognised as a political and ideological battleground
- I’m Not There says, among other things, that the presence of politics in works of art, like the presence of the artist’s personality, is at once unavoidable and virtually inexpressible.
- Gere/Dylan/Billy isn’t shot down, he escapes the 19th-century law and finds the 20th-century guitar that once belonged to Woody Guthrie. This moment, with its strikingly “impossible” temporal logic, celebrates the essentially impersonal freedom of art.
Styles and Influences
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- The documentary-style of Bale’s portion, as well as the continual nods to Godard (the gunshot-cutting of Vivre Sa Vie [1962]), Bergman (the close-up spider of Persona [1966]), and particularly Fellini (the Jude section is shot almost entirely as if it were 8 ½ [1963]).
- Haynes’s references to films like Masculin-Féminin, Petulia, A Hard Day’s Night, 8 1/2, and Darling…serve to underscore that Sixties cinema was always already influencing the cultural-political reality from which Dylan sprang.
- Of course, the earliest, most memorably succinct formulation of this idea—the demolition of a stable, coherent, metaphysically grounded self—came from the 19th-century French poet who inspired Dylan and whom Haynes invokes early on in I’m Not There, Arthur Rimbaud: “Je est un autre” (“I is an other”)
- The film’s commits to devices from the Godard playbook: pastiche, allusion, quotation, the use of actors to construct allegorical or phantasmatic images of people rather than plausibly represent or incarnate them.
- The spiders and Giraffes are a homage to Fellini and Bergman.
Sources:
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http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/im-not-there.php
http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2008,2,201
http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/so07/imnotthere.htm
http://dev.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/imno-d28.shtml
wikipedia
Where the light really is
With a copy of NME in hand, I was torn between John Mayer and The Subways as my album of choice for the week. On one hand you get some blusey-well-produced-feel-good-guitar pop with a not so annoying vocal, and on the other there’s this little uk indie trio who had a decent debut out a couple of years back. Decisions decisions…
Eventually I settled on The Subways, even though I have yet to give their new material any listen at all, a purchase out of sheer (blind?) confidence and faith. Actually I was surprised by how little attention the album conjured, as they were, like many others before them, once praised as the next new hope. Obviously time has then moved on. Yet more souls had their lives ruined by easy taglines and cheap press.
But I bet on how good music would be produced through hardship. Apparently the band had gone through some real shits before arriving to the album. Or at least their publicists wanted it to appear that way. But that attitude alone was enough to win me over and had me turn away from some corporate marketed family-safe manufactured pop.
As the album aptly titled, life is harsh and there’s no fine for softies. It’ all – or nothing.
X-Japan 2.0
This is exciting stuff. A re-union AND a world tour! Just when they seemed to have faded into absolute oblivion, they come screaming back screaming to make up for lost times. Will there be a HK or TW gig? Can’t wait to hear more good news from the guys.
Kudos to Chino for translating the press-con below:
X JAPAN Press Conference on April 3.
YOSHIKI: We will perform in Madison Square Garden NY on Sep. 13 besides Paris France.
Q: How was 3 days in Tokyo Dome?
PATA: Once it begins, it certainly ends. I was tired.
TOSHI: I was deeply moved that we first got together again in Tokyo Dome in 10 years.
Y: In a great cheer, I thought that I had to carry on the show until the end. Thank of fans’ support, we did it in a unity with fans. I really appreciate.
HEATH: Many happened even after the first night show but we could perform very well.
Q: About oversea performances.
P: I’m so happy to do it as X JAPAN. Because we said before that we would perform in oversea but we didn’t.
H: I’ve been told that music can cross a border. Finally we can prove these words. We want to send our great sounds to everyone.
T: As HEATH said, crossing a border and language barrier, I want to send our music to everyone’s heart.
Q: Do you feel nervous about oversea performances?
T: I can’t imagine what it’ll like be yet. I wasn’t so nervouse 3 days in Tokyo Dome.
Y: I don’t think it’s “away” performances. We always perform in “away.”
T: Right.
Y: Because X JAPAN has never been belonging to anywhere. It can be said that every performance is “away” and every performance is “home.”
Q: Why MSG?
Y: Because it’s easy to recognize? (laugh) We changed our band’s name from X to X JAPAN to extend our activities abroad but we didn’t satisfied with something and then broke up without going to abroad. Now we’re reunited. I feel that there’s a big stream and everything happens accidently. A year ago, we couldn’t imagine that we would be reunited. These oversea performances are booked just a few days ago, after shows in Tokyo Dome.
Q: Will HIDE join oversea performances?
Y: We’ll bring his set.
Q: Besides Paris and NY?
Y: TOSHI-san, do we have to go to Asia too?
T: Asia is great.
Y: So why don’t we begin a world tour?
MC: Really??
Y: No, no. I’ll be scolded again…
(About world tour) What do you think? (to TOSHI)
T: What do you think? (to PATA)
P: …..
Y: It can be. Many new things are happening everyday now.
Q: Will X JAPAN continue?
Y: Now the best album both Japanese ver. and world ver. are in progress. Even if I say X JAPAN will continue, it won’t when it’s meant to be. I can’t tell what happens to this band. I don’t think about the future too much. I’m going up stairs step by step. I can see the next vision after going up one step.
Q: What do you want to say to HIDE?
P: Well…..
Y: It’s unfair that you don’t get old anymore?
P: Yeah, that’s it. I used to be one year younger than him but now I become 9 years older!
T: In Tokyo Dome, I was hearing his sound as same as 10 years ago, so I don’thave something special to say at present.
Y: We felt that we played together, right?
H: During the shows, I thought that 5 members were on the stage. So I want to say “Good shows, weren’t they?”
Y: We surely forgot that only 4 members are on the stage. I felt like HIDE would say “Hey!!” when I made a mistake.
Q: HIDE’s future?
Y: HIDE will stay. But adding a 6th member to these 5 would be possible.
Q: Why MSG?
Y: When I went to KISS reunion concert, I thought that I wanted to play here someday. Our fans say “Thank you, our dreams come true.” But I want to saythese words to fans including fans in oversea.
Q: To fans.
P: Wait for a while. Thank you.
H: I’ll go to Paris and NY with the same energy as Tokyo Dome.
T: These 10 years, I’ve been touring homes for the aged or children. Those experiences become my root. It helped me in Tokyo Dome and it’ll help me in Paris and NY. I really appreciate their support.
Y: Thank you for your support in Tokyo Dome. I want to share happy and exciting dreams with you.
＊＊＊About 2 hours 40 minutes delay on 1st night.＊＊＊
T: I said “YOSHIKI was late” on the stage but it was just a joke and actually he came the first. Because of many technical troubles, the show was delayed a little… not a little, the latest in our history! Sorry.
Y: When something bad happens, I’m the first one to blame. I don’t mind. That’s my character. Yes, I’m to blame. Sorry. (laugh)
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