Month: August 2013

I was totally dark and stuff…

/ angellcolon / Leave a comment

So I’m minding my own business; multitasking and listening to some Pandora when it drops this on me:

Followed by this:

My “goth” phase lasted maybe 2 years at most, but I will say some of my fondest memories were going to The Bank (Google it) on a Friday or Saturday night (hopefully the fake ID would work) dressed like a Cure reject and harrassing the DJs to play my favorite tracks. Some nights I even danced!

As most of my teenage endeavors to forge a predetermined identity for myself, this was all because of a girl or multiple girls…to be honest, it was probably multiple girls.

Luckily, my time dressed in obscure t-shirts and wearing nail polish exposed me to some fantastic music from the Cruxshadows, The Cocteu Twins, Apoptygma Berzerk, The Virgin Prunes, Alien Sex Fiend, The KIlling Joke, Christian Death, Wolfsheim and London After Midnight.

I can keep going, but I’ve got other things to do.

Anyway, if you’ve never listened to Dark Wave, Shoegazer, or Industrial music, give some of those bands a shot. Obviously, music from a niche like this is never everyone’s cup of tea, but I think if you can pull away from the whole “scene” you find some phenomenal talent and some really influential stuff.

Or you might even start rocking Legendary Pink Dots t-shirts and wearing black eyeliner all the time. Your mileage may vary.

– Be easy

Cliche, cliche, cliche

/ angellcolon / Leave a comment

I’m finding that as I increase my writing output that almost every single idea I have is rooted in what I’ve been exposed to via the arts.

And what I’ve been exposed to is firmly rooted in what those artists were exposed to and on and on and on and on…

You get the point, right?

Now, I’m not one to say that originality in writing, art film or music is long dead – far from it, actually, but is it so wrong to appreciate a person’s creative output even if it’s firmly entrenched in the hero’s journey or a specific “style”?

Why do we, as critics of pop culture and art, bemoan the cliche – the overused tropes on a basis so regular that it actually jumps headfirst into an empty pool and becomes exactly what we claim to hate?

In the meantime we drop millions of dollars on sequels and remakes, only to complain and moan right after.

Have we become a civilization with so much luxury that complaining or relishing in schadenfreude is all we have to entertain us now?

I’ll admit that as I write my novel and sketch out plans for other projects; I spot a plot point or two that I know I’ve lifted from my favorite authors or movies. If so, shouldn’t I at least be mindful of that and then try to give the material my own spin? Hell, if I’m confident enough of my own voice, then I shouldn’t have to worry about coming off as cliche.

Ah well, I’m procrastinating on other items and made an excuse to blog again for the first time in three months.

At least something was accomplished today.