Friday, November 26, 2010

!earshot year end picks by your only pal(me)


Yo! These were my picks for the !earshot end of year review thanggg

I am Alicia Williams, host of Mood Swings on CIVL Radio which broadcasts from the Abbotsford campus of the University of the Fraser Valley, I am also the Music Director here. My show focuses mainly on punk, garage and lo-fi – but it ventures to other places as well! I am currently a student at UFV taking Media Studies and Visual Arts and it’s a swell time! I have a blog, but it has too much swearing for you to look at it, sorry!




My Top 3 records of the year

Grown-Ups - Not Friends - (Self-Released)

Easily the best band in Calgary right now, and yeah, I know who else is from there! Josiah Hughes has trail blazed cool since he went to my high school however many years ago – and he’s definitely come a long way since The Hand.

The Black Angels – Phosphene Dream - (Blue Horizon Records)

One of the first albums I’ve listened to from start to finish in a long time! They remind me a lot of the Brian Jonestown Massacre – not in a rip-off sense – but in the way they sound like they could be from any time period late 1960’s onward.

The Bitters – East General - (Mexican Summer)

Everything Ben Cook does (now) is amazing! The Bitters are one of the most unique, dark, pop, garage bands I’ve ever heard – they say on myspace.com they are ‘cave pop,’ which is a totally perfect description.


Most under-rated record of the year

Petroleum By-Product – Superficial Artificial - (Mona Mona Records)

They’re a Vancouver based darker sounding new wave band, they’re super good, and I would love to see them chart more at our station and everywhere in the world! Their sound ranges anywhere from the B-52’s to Siouxsie and the Banshees, definitely check them out!



Most over-rated record of the year

Arcade Fire – Suburbs - (Merge)

This album has been charting around the top 5 since it came out in August. Personally, I don’t like Arcade Fire and think all of their music sounds boring, bland and cliché. I just don’t get it I guess.

Best local release
Ex-Friends – XFREN - (Self-Released)

I went to high school with 2/3 of the young adults in this band. They’re from Vancouver, and they have a very snotty, sassy, punk, everywhere kind of sound. My favourite tracks are Never Been Arrested and I Want to Move Out. They’ve since broken up because one of their members has moved to Toronto, Ontario, but you can still get both of their releases on this blog http://ghostplus.blogspot.com/ as well as a plethora of other Abbotsford area releases!



Best personal campus/community radio moment or experience of the year.

My favourite radio moment this year would have to be my interview with Joe Jack Talcum formerly of the Dead Milkmen. I’ve been a fan of the Dead Milkmen since I was a teen, so that will probably be my favourite radio moment forever!


Record you are most anticipating for 2011

I’m not really sure, I know Wire is releasing a new album called Red Barked Tree, but I don’t know how good it’s going to be – keeping in mind I haven’t really listened to anything they’ve put out in the recent decade. I’m just crossing my fingers hoping it will be as good as their 1978 release, Chairs Missing.

LATELATEL.A.T.E. --- Last Mondayfunday!

You loved it!
right?

I had fun, Becky was there for a while and I forced her to intro somethaang -
ANYWAY: THEME: OCCULT = 1st Hour


second HOUR was a mixxy mixxx of supa hitzz




It was a stellaaar show!

Well well well, remember that song by The Cramps?  "Five Years Ahead of My Time"
it was written about this band, Petroleum By-Product
This is their new music video, you love it you love it!

Friday, November 19, 2010

I know, sorry --- NOV15.10/1+2

k,
Sorry for not posting the traxxx played on MON on Mood Swings,
but here they are fresh from my iTunes to your eyes/ears!

THEME:  TRU.LUV.  it was sweet


SECOND H. : MessyMixxxx


DOESN'T THIS MAKE SO MUCH MORE SENSE THAN TYPING EVERYTHING OUT!


Now we can talk about more important things!  Like Angelina's new hit single!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

ADreview - MACS(z)

This is thee ad review I had to do for Darren's Advertising as Social Communication class!!

Here's the ad:
The ad I chose to analyze is from the back cover of a Naked Eye magazine issue from last summer. Naked Eye is a young, hip Canadian quarterly magazine that promotes itself as being “Canada’s only pop culture magazine.” This magazine tries very hard to be as hip as it is, of course, it isn’t Vice circa 2005, but the writers do their best to try to inform 20-somethings about what’s in and out in a variety of categories. This being said, you can see why Belvedere would choose to use this magazine to advertise in, rather than something like Women’s World or Popular Science.


The ad itself is for Belvedere Vodka and it features a girl with a surprised look on her face putting on red lipstick whilst her face is right beside an assumed male’s private area. We all know what sexual act this is a not-so-subtle reference to and it is quite obvious that the ‘hidden’ meaning behind this ad is alcohol equals sexual activity, but not just any alcohol, specifically Belvedere Vodka ‘The world's first super premium vodka.’

I find this ad to be important because I think it’s weird that there was no controversy surrounding it. Though, maybe these days an ad doesn’t spark a social backlash unless it uses a staged gang rape a la Dolce and Gabbana to sell products. Maybe I am just too old and set in my ways to see the humour or relevance of using oral sex to promote and sell alcohol. Despite not agreeing with this image’s message, especially in accordance to the product being sold, I find the colour usage to be very aesthetically pleasing. The ad subtly uses two sets of complimentary colours which drew my eyes in a lot more than if they had chosen to use a batch of random colours. The complimentary sets are blue/orange and red/green. This colour usage makes the ad pop out more which in turn leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Terry Richardson, the person who took the photograph for this ad definitely knew what to do to grab people’s attention. The use of complimentary colours I am sure is not an accident – it wasn’t an accident when Van Gogh painted his room using the same colour schemes, so the he obviously knew something about art and how to draw people in through use of colour. This and the ad’s lack of intimidating or graphic sexual content make it so it doesn’t cause a lot of people to be speaking out against it, but it keeps you thinking about it, which is exactly what Belvedere paid for when hiring a professional photographer to do their ad.

I think there are two social issues at play in this ad. The first one is the fact that she is the one about to perform the act on the male, not vice versa. Feminists from the second and third wave would probably say something here about the fact that he probably treats her like a sexual object, he dominates her, and she more than likely feels as though she has to perform this act on him for him to like her or to not seem like a freeze or a prude. The second, which ties into the first issue, is the promotion of alcohol in a magazine for hipsters in their twenties, as well as relating alcohol to sexual acts. Personally, I feel weird not drinking because I know almost everyone else my age is perpetually wasted, and this ad enforces the stereotype that everyone college-aged should be drinking and having fun, which makes those who do not engage in such activities feel like social outcasts. To tie the alcohol to sexual acts specifically, the ad portrays a generation of people who get drunk and ‘fool around,’ in a society that hasn’t been as openly and acceptably promiscuous since the age of the Roman Empire.

Conclusively, I feel that this ad is a terrible image of the state of what we now consider social norms. I’ve scoured the internet for any sort of negative feedback regarding the image and found nothing. The ad has good usage of colours but sets a bad example of what normal, beautiful twenty year olds are actually doing. If the female/male roles were reversed I might have a completely different opinion on the subject, but until then, this ad is too concerned with enforcing negative stereotypes for me to put any more thought into it.

 
 
I got an A!  It's kinda everywhere sometimes because I did it the day it was due.
Evening classes are beautiful.

PAINTINGII

I'm taking painting two with Chris

it's sweet

we've had to do lame colour chartsboring(ugghh)
a tri coloured image of our choosing(2x2) Kim Gordon/Kathleen Hanna - a few weeks(lazzzyyy)
an impressionist painting - replica or our own image(2x3) Mad Max II: The Road Warrior - a night and a day
a b+w greyscale smooth transition painting (1x1) A Spaceship! - a few hours - not done

So, I will now show you these paintings.





The grey one isn't done yet! Its gonna have hoops chillin'/coming out of the bottom so it
1) doesn't look so empty there
2) so it looks cool
and it's a little uneven so I'll fix that shit up too, I hope the teacher approves - he insinuated I was a slacker!
I'm actually surprised that one is almost done!  Its not due until the end of the month!