Jesus and Mary Chain - In a Hole

Ex Drummer

Something about capitalism, liberalism, and consumerism

There is not much that can tell more about a capitalistic/liberal/almost free society, than how we consume - especially how we consume ecstasy pills.

Here is a big selection of the companies, icons, and symbols that tries or ends up changing the way we experience things like fun, love, sex, beauty, justice, reality etc..

Fun today is something else than it was just 20 years ago, the rules of love has changed significantly since the most modern people gave up the religious marriage ethics, and sex today is defiantly different than it was in 1913 maybe because of the porn industry and the inventions of different kinds of contraception.

It's clear that the Middle Ages had some other beauty ideals than we have today if you look at a painting from the period, where you as well could justify actions that today would be seen as inhuman crimes.

I guess the chemical processes that goes on in our and make us feel things are the same, but the settings and the culture within we can express and unfold ourselves change all the time.

I think this is the reason why I find all these symbols on the pills so interesting. You can see a much bigger selection on Erowid.org. Just click here.

FIE NORSKER

(Landscape With Rainbows, 2005)

(Hair Ghost in Landscape, 2005)

What does nature mean to me? Emptiness, infinity, mysterious stuff, an evolutionary past...

I feel that all these things are depicted in Norsker's paintings. It looks a bit like a mixture of a spruce forest and a small town disco...

More of her paintings, drawings, and ceramics right here.

HÅKAN HELLSTRÖM // KÄNN INGEN SORG FÖR MIG GÖTEBORG

(Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg, 2000)

Whoooo... Some songs about being sad, in love, and drunk. How simple can it be?

Håkan Hellström is a Swedish singer-songwriter, who in Denmark is seen a bit like Scandinavia's Morrissey. In Sweden he has by some gained the same reputation, but the majority of Swedes I know, consider him as a pathetic ugly plague, who can't sing.

Personally I think he sings fantastic, and if I was gay I would rather fuck him than any other guy in the world...

Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg was his debut-album, and was released in 2000, where it became a big sensation in Sweden. It reached number one on the Swedish album chart, it received amazing critical acclaim, and won several awards.

The reason why he became so popular, beyond he is simply a fantastic songwriter, has probably something to do with the fact that he's so sincere and heartfelt - much more than anyone else of his colleagues on the Top 10 charts.

Particular this album is very honest...

”Ge mig arsenik, för stan är full av tanter och tragik
Pulver hjälpte mig verkligen, skriv det här i tidningen
För jag var nere men uppe på fem
Lillebror, bli inte som jag när du blir stor
Du stod i dörren och sa, är det här allt det bli så dör jag”

“English: Give me arsenic, 'cause the city is filled with old ladies and tragedy
Powder really helped me, write this in the paper
'Cause I was down but up again at the count of five
Little brother, don't become like me when you grow up
You stood in the doorway and said, I'll die if this is all”

From: Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg (Don't feel no grief for me Gothenburg)

... and poetic not at least - like this phrase, which I always have found fantastic:

"Eva jag hänger mig för kärleken", "Men va inte så högtidlig - du med din dramatik och stesolid"

“English: “Eva I hang myself for love", "But don't be so solemn - you with your drama and diazepam"

From: Uppsnärjd i det blå (Tangled up in blue)

Behind him is an amazing band, which among other instruments plays exceptionally lively guitar, melodic saxophone, and wild bongo rhythms, and like no one else in the in world Håkan manages to surpass the energy from his band. Just imagine a drunken Morrissey dancing sadly around in a disco, and you pretty much got the spirit of the album.

Anthony Burgess

William Seward Burroughs

The majority of legends within the post-punk movement are prone to be so heavily depressing that it's extremely hard for an average escapist to relate to their universe in a normal state of mind. That isn't a problem with Josef K:

"Sorry for laughing
there's too much happening
sorry for laughing
there's too much happening"

(Track 10: Sorry for laughing)

It's actually music you can introduce for a friend, who isn't into this kind of music... But Josef K, who has taken their name from the main character of Kafka's novel The Trial, are defiantly also mysterious and obscure:

"So I'll disappear through the crack in the wall and the memories I leave will be nothing at all"

(Track 4: It's kinda funny)

The instrumental part is scratchy and melodious in a lovely way that makes the almost 30 minutes together with Josef K to an absolute pleasure.

George Sluizer's Spoorloos

Dutch cinema is like most of European cinema a neglected chapter, unfortunately. Sluizer's Spoorloos (The Vanishing) is a fantastic film that successfully depicts emotionally frustration and the mind of a sociopath, which moreover in the context of the horror genre ends quite beautiful.

Thurston from Sonic Youth present the film like this:

"Totally unnerving psychodrama where a man’s girlfriend is abducted and, after searching for her for three years, he begins to receive messages from the abductor. And then it gets veeerrry weird. "

Veel plezier...

Oscar Wilde

epo-555 - Tess La Coil

Pim Shows his Home

Mark Kilner

(Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis), 2009)

(Numbskull, 2007)

I was a little surprised when I saw this skull in a gallery predominantly consisting of peaceful nature shots…

Look through his gallery and get surprised yourself.

Belle & Sebastian - Electric Renaissance

Björk - Human

Maybe it sounds a little religious, but in some perspectives I do actually hate science. Darwinian literary studies make me sick, and when doctors, biologists, psychologists, mathematicians etc. define love and beauty it’s getting decidedly depressing.

Their conclusions are moreover often fucked up or in conflict with their colleagues, common sense, and reality. Perhaps ignorance is the best way to deal with it…

I don’t think it’s Björk’s intention to give a response to this kind of science, since I’m as an inveterate Björk listener is quite sure about the fact that Björk simply just lives out her own universe.

“And there's no map
And a compass
Wouldn't help at all

Human behaviour, human, human
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour

There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic”

… nevertheless she’s right. Definitely, definitely, definitely right…

Something about nihilism within literature

[00:16 – 01:11]

Writer and political activist Tariq Ali has realized, writers can’t change something remarkable in a western society… and I think he’s right. His examples with Huxley and Orwell are both simple and very precise.

I still think words can be powerful though, but the powerful words of our time are not written by writers of fiction, but by spin doctors.

Is that a good or bad? I think it’s fantastic, as it isolates a lot of literature from political morale, from fringe idealism, and parts of society who aren’t interested in literature.

Sure there are still, and I guess there will always be, a lot of writers who are political, but it’s like their fight for changing the world is so impossible that their political aspect of their works fades out in (beautiful) meaningless and controversial aesthetics.

Echo and the Bunnymen - Stars are Stars

Crystal Castles - Crimewave

Crystal Castles has with their sound and attitude caught something in their music, which I truly can relate to.

Emptiness, dreams (hope), and more emptiness… Moreover their music actually sounds like something, which has been made in this millennium.

I think Crimewave is a perfect pop tune and one of their best songs. It’s extremely stylish, sexy and fits exceptionally well to Crystal Castles’ visual identity.

Many seem to dislike the fact that you can’t hear what lead singer Alice Glass singing, but I think that’s a very conservative and superficial way to dismiss the song as an aesthetic statement.

The structure of the song is also very special. They have (just) taken the lyrics from Health’s original version and repeated it eight times.

“Eyes lit
I pawn short breaths
A fawn's dark eye lids
But life's breath like a sun against my head”

… a little pop minimalistic master stroke!

The Dwarves - Fuck You Up And Get High, 1990