The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 — 5A
Social media and what we think of as DIY culture today are
incredibly interconnected. Shows are organized on Facebook,
with attendance being estimated based on the number of “goings”
and “maybes,” videos of bands performing are publicized
through Instagram stories. Even Twitter plays a part in allowing
bands to personally connect with fans via memes and rants. As
society progresses further and further into the digital age, DIY
stands as a prime example of social media’s influence on our
communities.
However, sometimes I wish this weren’t the case. In an
ongoing effort to limit my social media usage, I’m constantly
held back by the thought that if I’m not constantly online, I’ll
lose touch with my local community. If I delete my Facebook,
how will I ever know when there’s a show going on? Or if I don’t
check my Twitter, how am I supposed to stay informed about
which independent labels I should or should not support?
Of course, word of mouth is still a viable way to hear about
shows and events in the community, and every once in a while
posters for shows emerge around campus (groups like MEMCO
do a great job of this). But I feel like these two tactics have taken
a much more subservient roll to the internet. In 2019, I feel as if
DIY promotion is mostly contained within screens. These events
were probably talked about in-person much more extensively
in the past, and flyering was probably a much more important
promotional tactic a few years ago, but now it almost feels like a
novelty of sorts.
Part of the appeal of local music and DIY is the community that
it fosters, and the relationships it builds between people through
art. It’s entirely possible to build and maintain a community
through social media, but I think to really build a strong
community, connecting with people face-to-face is something
that cannot be undervalued, especially in environments outside
of shows. Seeing the community in person outside of venues is
something that seems to have come to a halt. It seems as if DIY
only exists on the Internet and in basements for a few nights
every month.
Some artists, like Philadelphia-based Absinthe Father, have
an incredibly strong presence on social media, and attract fans
(like me, for instance) that have never been to one of their shows
in person. Their tweets regularly go viral, and attract new fans
to their music daily. On the opposite end of the spectrum, groups
like Hotline TNT, a band that I discovered through a car ride
with a friend, merely have a YouTube channel that they upload
their music on, with no other social media. I have no idea how
long the band has been around, who’s in the group, or where
they’re from, but I know that I really like their music. The band’s
lack of an online presence is something of a rarity among bands
nowadays, and almost seems like a factor that’s restricted them
from growing, unfortunately. It seems much harder to succeed
without some sort of online presence.
I’m definitely coming off as a grouchy old man here. I really
do think the Internet has exposed a completely new audience to
DIY, and has even made it more accessible to certain groups of
people that may not have heard about these shows and events
before. But I think there’s a bit of an imbalance between the
online and offline community. Tell someone you don’t know as
well about a show coming up, or maybe talk to your local record
store about having a bulletin board of local events and shows.
I’m not saying that everyone should hang up and hang out, but
I do think that there’s something special about expanding the
community outside of the Internet.
Hey, want a flyer?
DIY COLUMN
RYAN COX
Daily DIY Columnist
Despite a tendency to allow songs and albums to demarcate
periods in my life, I’ve found that Waxahatchee’s fourth
album evades this contract. Any such associations I might
filter through the 10-track album — a person, a relationship,
an emotional season — are absent. I’ve come to believe that
this is because Out in the Storm, uniquely and brilliantly,
evades a sole moment. The relationship that songwriter Katie
Crutchfield surveys is one available only at a distant retrospect
— that is, once one has stepped far, far back from the ring of a
relationship and can trace the life cycle of their love
carefully, almost scientifically. Falling in love with
Crutchfield’s album means falling in love with her
audit of infatuation from start to finish. Out in the
Storm throws punches at early love and laps at the
feet of breakups; it screams with hatred and stomps
out a rhythm to insecurity. It’s a broad and timeless
narrative, one which, rather than pairing with a sole
person or emotion, I appreciate for its amalgamation
of so many emotions that seem both greatly distant
and staggeringly familiar.
***
Hovering over a sudden outbreak of violent electric
guitar, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee opens her
fourth album, Out in the Storm, with a taste of both
sloppy adoration and fear in her mouth. There’s an
air of determination and aggression to the track:
“I spend all my time learning how to defeat / you
at your own game, it’s embarrassing,” Crutchfield
sings in “Never Been Wrong.” “I love being right,
especially with you.” It’s Crutchfield’s confident
acknowledgement of a thrilling roulette game of love,
one where she’s at her partner’s mercy but is up for
the fight. It’s comparable to Sia’s “Fair Game,” in
which the Australian singer likens her relationships
to a game, one where she wants the tables, for once,
to be leveled. Waxahatchee, on the other hand, seems
OK with the presence of disparity. “I saw you as a big
fish / I saw you as a conquest,” she later confesses. Unlike Sia’s
sorrowful longing, Crutchfield’s thrilled acceptance of these
conditions on her opening track raises the stakes for the rest of
the album. And we’re eager with her, anticipating what turmoil
will transpire.
What separates the track from Sia’s cry for a fair game, too,
is the fear that “Never Been Wrong” also drizzles over its harsh
instrumentals: “Everyone / will hear me complain / Everyone
/ will pity my name.” Beneath the gritty willingness to crouch
down over the board and move a pawn, there’s a moment of
hesitation. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
The rest of Out in the Storm, as it turns out, pans out a high-speed
synopsis of the game Crutchfield lays bare in her opening track.
In “Sparks Fly” she’s in the thick of love; in “Brass Beam” she’s
fighting back against her partner’s narcissism and unsteadiness.
“8 Ball” confesses toxicity and “No Question” chronicles anger
so fervently that it’s as if you’re a lover, a thrown champagne
glass having just missed your head. The album becomes a
roadmap of a relationship with distinct checkpoints. At the same
time, these points in the narrative don’t feel locked into their
respective slots on the tracklist — at times, Crutchfield’s writing
feels true and nonspecific enough that these checkpoints could
be rearranged to puzzle together a new relationship.
A softened punk sound pervades Out in the Storm, a noise
distinct from both the band’s lo-fi precedent and piano-ballad
follow-up album. It’s as if Bikini Kill were dampened or, heading
the opposite direction, if Sharon Van Etten’s vocals were torn
up and pasted back together. Each track centers on an organic
thrash of drums that amplifies Waxahatchee, even when things
feel sobering and despondent. With it, there’s an overpowering
electric guitar. The album has another noticeable consistency,
though, and one that goes almost unnoticed without tender
listening: Just about every line is insulated with a harmony from
Crutchfield’s sister, cut and laid over the original vocals. It’s not
just for emphasis; it is, literally, nearly every line. The padding
of these harmonies softens the punkish aura of the album. It
renders it aggressive but never overwhelming. Where the album
already seems cohesive lyrically, such tactical blankets link
Crutchfield’s confessions together musically, too.
The album reaches its creative and lyrical summit with
“Sparks Fly,” a track in which Crutchfield watches herself fall in
love through her sister’s eyes. Like a practiced poet, Crutchfield
trusts her audience. The terms she offers are never specific
or explained; she knows we’ll mold the rest of the narrative
for ourselves.“Sparks fly / sparks fly,” she repeats throatily
throughout the song. “I’m raw like wire / electrified.” It’s a
deliriously genius track that admits the indelible hunger that love
calls forth. Perhaps the most striking line of the album is a simple
but heavy concession: “I’m a live wire / finally.” There is a gush
to the lyric, and though Crutchfield sings it in an even register,
one might sense a shake hidden behind her voice on “finally” —
instrumentals pause for the briefest moment. It’s a tone monitored
carefully to prevent thrill from leaking through. It’s a
descent into infatuation: finally, wonderfully.
Bits like “Sparks Fly” showcase, too, the album’s
truth-through-storytelling practice, a feat like that
accomplished in the narratives that percolate Big
Thief’s 2016 Masterpiece. Songs lay out unassuming
landscapes and actions that, though briefly mentioned,
make the album’s experiences both personal and
accessible. “We sat in the hot summer twilight / radio
loud and the brim bite / the Coosa water is choppy and
wild / I jumped abruptly, unreconciled.” Crutchfield
similarly understands the capacity of small, tangible
things — the way light falls in a stranger’s bedroom,
say — to represent something bulky and unwieldy.
She capitalizes on this. These objects and details are
in the periphery, perhaps insignificant, long before
they are injected into the song. Crutchfield’s strength
is fishing them from these spaces and noticing the
power they can possess in recalling a long-buried
intimacy.
“Fade,” the album’s conclusion, serves as a delicate
outro. The intensity of prior tracks is pulled out from
under Crutchfield, who sings flatly over acoustic
strums. “You wring me out / I tell the truth,” she
sings. “I kissed you goodbye / and hid for the rest of
your life.” It’s a track that feels like closing a book,
just-finished, slowly. It’s the exit from the storm. It
should be despairing, and Crutchfield’s harmonies,
spread across the song thin like butter, make it sound so. But
there is a sense of acceptance, a breathy hope peeking through
the nostalgia. “I first saw you through childish eyes / I was in
love with a song,” the lyrics admit — though not necessarily in
defeat. Rather, for the conclusion, she distances herself from the
relationship: “I stayed out of your way.” The guitar strums fall
into a rhythm and slow. The game ended, Waxahatchee tells us,
and guitar reverberations overtake the track. But there is a sense,
having lingered with Crutchfield through the surefire center of
her album, that there will be another round. Another player,
surely, will enter the arena. Until then, there is little choice but
to revel in the searing, expansive chronicle of the game already
played.
Two years in the rain: Waxahatchee’s ‘Out in the Storm’
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
JOHN DECKER
Daily Book Review Editor
MERGE RECORDS / INSTAGRAM
“Charlie’s Angels,” directed by Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch
Perfect 2”), is a movie meant for all the women who have ever
had a condescending man talk down to them, for all the women in
male-dominated fields who have to deal with misogynists every
day. It’s meant for all the women who have had to sit through
countless male-driven films in the past, forced to be appeased
by the presence of a single
female who serves as a
vehicle for “equality.” It’s
for all the women who have
been told to “smile” and
“look pretty” and who have
been called “good girls” by
men who don’t know them
or care to know them. It’s
for women who need to be
empowered.
This film takes all the
best parts of the previous
renditions
of
“Charlie’s
Angels” and incorporates
all
the
feminist
ideals
present in modern day
society, so you’re left with
an action-packed, intense but shockingly real movie that makes
you feel.
One thing that makes this movie so interesting to watch is
the thread of inverting common media tropes. There is a minor
love story, sure, but it’s not the primary plot. It’s not even the
secondary plot. Noah
Centineo (“To All the
Boys I’ve Loved Before”)
plays Langston, one of
Elena’s colleagues, and
has an almost laughably
small role. In fact, he
takes the role of the
damsel in distress and
is, in essence, the token
male. It’s about time we
had a movie where there
were hardly any men,
and the few guys who
are present are either
hilariously incompetent,
like Alexander Brock
(Sam Claflin, “Me Before
You”), or reduced to
minor love interests like
Centineo.
The three leads of
the film all take on a
different strength found
in women and a different
“flaw” typically attributed to them. Then, they cleverly invert
the stereotype forced upon them. There’s quirky and chaotic
heiress-turned-convict-turned-Angel Sabina (Kristen Stewart,
“Twilight”) who is confident but self-centered. Then you have
Jane (Ella Balinska, “Juction 9”), a fearless and fierce former MI6
agent who was let down by her agency one too many times and
lost hope and trust in people, leaving her seemingly emotionless
and guarded. And finally, exceedingly bright but soft-spoken
Elena, a scientist — and newbie to the Angel world — who lets
her sexist superiors patronize and push her around (Naomi
Scott, “Aladdin”). By the end of the movie, the characters make
something more out of their so-called flaws. Forever-confident
Sabina finds a reason to care about other people, Jane lets herself
be vulnerable and open up to people while maintaining the
fierceness that defines her character, and Elena stands up for
herself and shows off the intelligence she’s always known she has.
The movie doesn’t shy away from letting the women be
women. They’re not just
agents
who
fight
crime
while looking good — they
have real emotions. One
of the most meaningful
scenes in the film finds the
three leads on a quiet boat
following an intense fight.
They’re sitting together, all
half-asleep on one another,
just enjoying each other’s
presence. What makes the
moment especially tender is
the presence of a little girl.
She
interacts
seamlessly
with the Angels, all of whom
talk to her and play with her.
While these women might
be machines when it comes to taking down bad guys, they’re not
robots.
Even though that scene is one of my favorite moments from
the whole film, it’s not the best part of the movie. It’s not Sabina’s
humor or Jane’s epic fight scenes or even Elena’s opportunity
to stand up for herself,
either. The best part of
the movie, as cliche as
it might sound, is the
message it leaves for
all the women in the
audience. There is no
one perfect model of
a woman. Anyone can
be an Angel. Whether
you’re a little weird,
physically
strong
or
intimidatingly
intelligent, you have the
makings of an Angel.
Previous “female team-
up” movies try to get
the
same
message
across, but I’ve always
found that the women
favored in those films
are the scarily strong
and physically fit ones.
That’s not the case in
“Charlie’s Angels.” Here,
you’ll find yourself loving and relating to various aspects of the
incredibly different — but equally inspiring — women on screen.
While “Charlie’s Angels” can and should be enjoyed by
everyone — men and women alike — it is, first and foremost,
a movie meant to empower women. This movie strengthens
women’s beliefs in themselves and gives them the opportunity to
find what makes them Angels.
‘Angels’ showcases strong women
FILM REVIEW
SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Arts Writer
Charlie’s Angels
Columbia Pictures
Ann Arbor 20+ IMAX
SONY PICTURES / YOUTUBE