Seriously, WHAT is Taboo up to?

Lately, I’ve been pausing in porticos, haunted by a particular line from a particular song.  The ditty in question, “Boom Boom Pow,” was released by the redoubtable Black Eyed Peas more than a year ago, yet certain peculiarities of its lyrical cadences still manage to wash up upon the shores of my mind, as clear and startlingly whole as twisted lengths of beach glass.

There are at least a dozen turns of phrase from “Boom Boom Pow” that reoccur to me at odd times throughout the day.  As I stand in my poorly-lit kitchen, washing the perpetually stained white plastic cutting board, I reflect upon how it truly is “next level visual shit,” at least insofar as its lack of visual appeal seems to be indicative of some sort of advance in ugliness.  When I walk the broad leafy avenues of my small suburb, dodging inchworms like a ninja, I feel strong and fluid, as if I “got that rock and roll/that future flow.”  In moments of deep frustration, I’ve been known to give my boyfriend an eldritch look, attempting to settle the matter at hand by declaring that “this beat be bumping bumping/this beat goes boom boom.”

Perhaps most damningly, I find this injunction by Fergie–”People in the place/If you wanna get down/Put your hands in the air/will.i.am drop the beat now”–to be highly stirring.  It’s not the words themselves that move me; rather, it is the absolute conviction with which Fergie wails them.  When you hear it, it’s nigh impossible not to respond.  After all, whoever you are, you are probably a “people” in a “place.”  You might not feel like getting down at the moment, but certainly you must have experienced the desire to get down at one point or another.  It seems like little enough to ask that you put your hands in the air, especially if, in return, will.i.am is willing to drop a beat for you.

I should clarify here that I do not go out of my way to experience “Boom Boom Pow.”  Oh, I watched the video[1] when it came out, and I heard the strange snippets of it that accompanied various ads for several months after its release (let no one accuse the Black Eyed Peas of meeting a licensing opportunity that they didn’t like.)  But I own no Black Eyed Peas albums; I don’t listen to Top 40 radio stations; and I usually refrain from attending dance parties or clubs.  In other words, I do not generally lead a Black Eyed Peas-centric lifestyle.

(Leading a Black Eyed Peas-centric lifestyle.)

And yet I thrall to the “space ship zoom,” “the boom boom bap.”  I am the “chicken” who is “jacking” Fergie’s “swagger,” I am the “into the future cybertron.”  The hold that “Boom Boom Pow” has taken over my imagination is so strong that I fear it may only be broken by my demise.  Months may go by without my hearing the song, yet my dreams teem with sinister whispers, adjuring me to “get that base overload,” to taste “that digital spit.”  It’s gotten to the point that the mere sight of the word “boom” in a comics panel causes me to blush wildly.

But the symptom that’s worried me most deeply in recent times is my obsession with a certain key phrase.  By far the single most baffling line in a song full of them, this line resonates with intrigue, like one of Blake’s more mysterious incantations.  Observe!

Beats so big I’m stepping on leprechauns

Shitting on you with the Boom Boom.

Leaving aside the degradation implicit in this announcement (for now), we are still faced with an array of questions.  For instance, just on a basic linguistic level, what does this statement mean?  Who is the “I” in the song, and who is the subject?  Is the shitter of “boom booms” the line’s singer, will.i.am, or is it the song itself?  Where in time and space is the protagonist located, that it affords him the opportunity to injure leprechauns?  Does “Boom Boom Pow” take place in our reality, or is its setting a more mystical realm, like, say, Ireland?  More importantly, what is it about the size of these “beats” that allows the speaker to step on leprechauns?  I myself have been in the presence of many beats before, and no matter how big they got, they were unable to physically impair the least of God’s life forms.  None of this information seems consistent with Western epistemology as we know it.

In order to understand this line then, we must make a few decisions.  Firstly, we must assume that the world of “Boom Boom Pow” is not our world; rather, it is a shadow realm, in which fantasy and the forces of faery reign.  Secondly, we must discard the theory that will.i.am is speaking in the voice of his own experience; rather, he is speaking as the personification of the song itself.  He is constructing for us a meta-narrative, wrought from the mythos of his performance even as it occurs. “Sing to me, O Muse!” indeed.

Nonetheless, we are still left with the problem of how to resolve the Leprechaun Ambiguity.  Although we can all agree that leprechauns caper through the world of “Boom Boom Pow,” we still don’t know why it is that beats are so dangerous to them.  After some fevered pondering, I do have a somewhat sketchy theory.

It is my belief that the various beats of which “Boom Boom Pow” is composed have certain uncanny powers.  Likely, we will never know the full scope of them, but the Peas provide us with a few tantalizing hints.  We know, for instance, that the beats can make “them girls go apeshit, uh.”  That this piece of data is provided by the group’s scariest member, Taboo, gives it automatic gravitas–but might this fact itself offer a clue?  That which is taboo is that which we are forbidden from speaking of–yet the taboo always manages eke out a bubbling, seething existence beneath the thin veneer of our civilization.  So–which taboo does Taboo’s assertion bravely speak to?  Why, none other than that most taboo of taboos–raw, unbridled female sexuality!

(That which is Taboo.)

Given the above, we can safely say that these beats the Peas speak of are incredibly powerful.  According to apl.de.ap, the beats have even allowed him to be “sexing ladies extra longer.”  Most likely, he is not referring to the practice of determining ladies’ genders (so beloved by agriculturalists!), but rather to servicing the beats-enhanced sexualities of various women.  Therefore, it is not too ridiculous to suppose that the beats possess some sort of chthonic Goddess energy, which brings me to my point: I contend that the beats are so potent that they are capable of embiggening will.i.am to giant scale, allowing him to crush leprechauns as if they were ants!

Please take a moment to recover.

Are you feeling better?  Good.  Gather your strength, ye readers, as there is still one more vagary which we needs must nail down: namely, the insult embedded within the immortal lyric “Shitting on you with the boom boom.”

At face value, this is not a very nice lyric.  Detailed analysis reveals it to still not be a very nice lyric.  I regret to inform you that this line is repeated subsequent to its placement above–not once, but twice.  Because will.i.am thrice tells us that he will be “shitting on [us] with the boom boom,” we know that this is no mere slip of the tongue–he truly means it, and wants us to think about it.

Interestingly enough, the radio version of “Boom Boom Pow” censors this statement, changing it to “Y’all getting hit with the boom boom.”  While this is still a somewhat unkind and threatening phrase to say, it’s leagues less offensive than getting “boom boom” shat all over you.  Why would will.i.am go to such lengths to alienate his audience?

We must remember that will.i.am is speaking for the song, not to his own inclinations.  I firmly aver that in real life, will.i.am would not make the choice to shit on me.  If we seek to unravel the phrase, we must harken back to the taboo nature of the beats.  If the nature of the beats is Godlike, it is also id-like–it drinks deep from primal waters.  In their urge to shit all over us, the beats reveal their defiance of traditional social codes and mores–they remain at the anal phase of development, when the ego is not yet fully formed, when man still retains his animal nature.  Not for nothing does Taboo say “I’m a beast when you turn me on.”  His is not an idle admonition–instead, it rings with the primordial truth of the beats.

Shut up you guys! Taboo is trying to show us a primordial truth!

will.i.am and the other Peas want us to know that the beats are to be treated with caution.  Thus, we finally see that “Boom Boom Pow” is not a celebration of the beats, but rather a condemnation of them.  Although they sing lovingly of the beats, the Peas also embed their extolling of the beats’ virtues with a subtext of forewarning.

If only we could hear it.

MTD45: I wish ther wasnt any RAP now like there wasnt any RAP then.

9. “We’ve Got Tonight”:

Mr.Valiant61: I had a slow dance to this, with the wife of my boss, at our company`s christmas party, a year or two back. It could have been any guy in that room, at the time, she just happened to pick me. Her husband didn`t want to dance, he just wasn`t that sort of guy. I`ll never forget the way she held me, and i found myself in the moment, forgetting who she was. I just sensed she needed to hold someone close, anyone, just for a few minutes, i`ll never forget that evening.

kegger37: your just a little creepy…gotta say it….you just are.

8. “Mainstreet”:

JoeJC: I missed the last bus last night and had to walk for 2 and a half hours from Dublin city centre to get home. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down but I had old Bob Seger to keep me company and that was all I needed.

7. “The Fire Inside”:

patblackwell1: Dont imagine this song making no 1 in the ass bandits top ten any time soon. Only for the boot wearing belt brandishing beer slugging real men.

6. “Night Moves”:

davepegleg: Who amongst us all have ever or dreamed of this “night Moves”?? Think about it ?

5. “Like a Rock”:

ajmzeno: says it all about life!

4. “Turn the Page”:

HardyBoyFan101: The difference between music between this time and the late 90s and modern music is this is talented. Anybody can play a stupid DJ, I’d like to see a guy playin’ a DJ try to learn how to play guitar in less than 10 seconds.

3. “Katmandu”:

somshiva7: desperatley want to go katmandu.

2. “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man”:

jeffhedien: I love these old wammer-jammer songs that got my testies all fired up back then & even now!

1. “Her Strut”:

lindaterbush: I have a cat…she’s an Egyptian Mao. Very slinky…special breed with elongated muscles etc. She sways…she struts, looks you square in the eye and struts AND wants you to pet her behind. She also licks my toes…..WHO COULD ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE????

MK Speed Dial presents “Dark Dream”

Some notes: I neglected to grab a copy of the video from Scotty at the event, so this remained the one undocumented presentation. Fortunately, I was able to correspond with Mr. Rickard and a master DVD was procured via the post. I ripped the disc and re-encoded the video. The result is what you see above. Thanks to Scotty for adding a great presentation to the Winter Commission, and for going out of his way to get me that disc. Now all of the presentations from WC2 are available on youareweare.com for posterity! Now I can sleep.

-Ross
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IRIC performs at the Second Annual Winter Commission

Some tech notes: There were a lot of steps involved in creating this video and the resulting performance. First of all, the background music. This was created wholly in Ableton Live 7. I first imported Ms. Newsom’s performance into Live. Fortunately I had already beat mapped it a long time ago for some other aborted project. I lowered the pitch to my desired key. Then, using Ableton’s notorious ability to turn wankery into art, I jammed over the basic performance on guitar, bass, piano, and drums. My limited musicianship for each of these instruments was negated by Ableton’s ability to rapidly isolate the ten seconds from each run-through which sounded really good and re-combine them, “Live” as it were, in “Infinite Combinations” as it were. Ableton’s the best for a lazy musician such as myself. Thirty hours of tweaking and arranging later, I had the musical backing for the video.

Next up, the video itself. Basically, the bulk of work for the video was done in Adobe Premiere. Throughout the editing together of these videos, I have had a lot of trouble with Premiere. Notably, it hates Xvid-encoded AVIs, which most of my content was stored in. Thankfully, there is an amazing plugin for Premiere which allows AVISynth to act as a frameserver into Premiere. If you are having trouble getting Premiere to handle any kind of AVI content, I highly recommend it: Premiere avisynth import filter.

Finally, I had to create the Karaoke part. For this, I used Karaoke Builder Studio, which I think is what the pros use. The output looked just right. I had never made Karaoke before, so this was a treat. This program is old and weird. It’s designed to make traditional CD+G Karaoke CDs. During my youthful Karaoke obsession, I had always assumed that the glitchy-ness of Karaoke discs was due to scratches on the physical medium. Not so! The program creates glitchy output, wonderfully so – look for the screen artifacts in the videos shown here.

Once I had created my base track, I downloaded a CD+G DirectShow filter (I think this one). Then, I created an AVISynth file which referenced the resulting CD+G file and loaded it using DirectShowSource. It was harder than this, there was an extra step and my memory is a little blurry of that week… getting the CD+G file to load into AVISynth was tricky. Doom9 had a guide on how to do it, though, worked like a charm after I finally read it through VERY CAREFULLY. “Filter Graphs?” I dunno. Oh wait, I found it. I hope to recreate this step and post a tutorial in the future. Anyway, once I had it loading in AVISynth, all I had to do was load it into After Effects using the AVISynth/Premiere plugin mentioned above, add in the scrolling IRIC graphics and song title (I admit I created them in Photoshop at low-rez and used After Effects to make it look crappy and genuine rather than doing it in the Karaoke editor proper) render the whole thing to an AVI, import that AVI into Premiere, key out the background color provided by the Karaoke software, and overlay the whole mess over the video I had edited together. Cake, right?

At any rate, I hope you all enjoy it. And I hope to make more of these. Now, at least, I know how. I have included below the original video in case you ever want to perform this song in the privacy of your own home.

IRIC performs at the Second Annual Winter Commission

Thanks to everyone for their kind words about this performance. It was scary but fun.

-Ross
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Grandpa Wheelchair Performs at the Second Annual Winter Commission

Some recording notes: There are three video sources here. Jubal’s camera, Alan on my HV20, and also some footage sent to me from Evan from his camera. Evan was doing some insane stuff. My understanding of the situation (and feel free to correct me, Evan) is he hacked together a control interface out of an old joystick, which along with who knows what other triggers controlled a Max/MSP/Jitter session consisting of weird effects put over old films, switching back and forth with the live performance. The whole thing was then shunted over the projector system. I’m glad we were facing the other direction because I think its brilliance might have distracted us from the task at hand.

The instruments played were Erik Wallace’s drums, first by Luke, then Amanda (thanks Erik for the loan), Jubal on bass, Mark on Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard. Violin, first by Amanda then myself, and roommate Eric’s electric guitar, first by me then by Luke (thanks for the loan, Eric). The first number was totally free-form, both as a warm-up and an attempt to do a true improvisation. The next number we called “A Drone”, basically attempting to play around the chord of A Major but still playing whatever we wanted. The results were weird! Which is what we were shooting for. Thanks to my friends for making this happen.

-Ross

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Camp Meeting performs at the Second Annual Winter Commission

Some recording notes:  Mark made the video which was projected above the band as they played. It was down to the wire, his computer kept crashing, but the render finished just in time. Also, the camera Alan was using to shoot the band kept glitching out, so only a certain amount of footage was usable. Which is a shame, because it really looked good. As a result, I cut to Mark’s video quite a bit. We were also kind of racing to get the live audio working in time for the performance. The band finally got a live sound they were happy with so they started the performance before we could mic for the recording. As a result, the audio could be better.

But in case you wanted a copy of it, here’s an mp3 of the performance:

MP3 of the Camp Meeting Performance

There is, thankfully, a more clear recording of Camp Meeting, created when I miked the band’s practice the day before the Winter Commission, in my basement. I have coupled it with Mark’s video to create the following video.

Camp Meeting performs at the Second Annual Winter Commission
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If you would like an mp3 copy of this demo recording, the links follow:

Track 1
Track 2
Track 3

-Ross
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Biagio Biondolillo performs at the Winter Commission

Some recording notes:  I included Biagio’s sound check so that you get a feel for our commitment to TOTAL AUTHENTICITY in our presentation of the events of the Winter Commission.  That said, I cheated quite a bit in making everything look good so don’t set your phasers to lionize just yet.

Biagio’s set took place at the Second Annual Winter Commission, an art event we have held twice, this time at the American Museum of Radio and Electricity in Bellingham, WA on February 20, 2010.  This year’s theme was “A Night of Art and Science”.  Video was provided from two different sources, my Canon HV20 camcorder, and Jubal’s ancient (but durable) classic camcorder.  There wasn’t a lot of light for this set, so everything is a little grainy.  Eric shot the video on the HV20. Multi-track sound was recorded directly at a high bit rate directly from the board, a Mackie Onyx 1620i. Katie took some great shots from the mezzanine earlier in the night, so I spliced those shots in to give a feel for how many people were there. The resulting presentation is weird and a little disjointed but hopefully conveys the spirit of the evening and captures Biagio’s performance as best we could.  Stay tuned for more performances from the Winter Commission, here on youareweare.com

Also, included is an mp3 of the entire performance:

Biagio Live @ The Second Annual Winter Commission
-Ross
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This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a long time.  It reminds me of being a kid and trying to achieve subtle hair shading using crayons and screwing it up.  Also reminds me a bit of that movie “The Snowman” which all the teachers would haul out in December when they wanted to make little kids cry (as if that’s hard.)  Anyway, enjoy!

Pan Pan is an instrumental band from Bellingham, WA.  Sarah Jerns plays piano, trumpet, and fluegelhorn, as well as composing all of the music for Pan Pan.  Sarah has also played with The Love Lights, The Presidents of the United States of America, The Ghost and The Grace, and Rooftops.  These are our questions to her:

1. What is Pan Pan?

Pan Pan is when I decide to record my music or perform it and share it with others. I keep a lot to myself, but I enjoy sharing a bit. I like to try and show you what I enjoy.

2. Why is Pan Pan?

I spent a long time playing in other groups, which is great, but I like doing my own thing. It was fun to be in other bands, but none of them were really my own personal genre. I’ve gotten a taste of what it is like to play on a huge stages to thousands of fans, and now I want to make it there myself. Sure, I could keep latching on to other people for aid, but it would be more fun to rock out on stage knowing that I accomplished it myself. And by myself I don’t just mean me; I mean the rest of the amazing musicians in my live band. They make the music I hear in my head come out on stage.

3. What is your ideal setting for composing music?

Sadly, I normally need to head to my parents house. I enjoy writing on my piano that’s carried me through the years of lessons and homework. But first I have to get worked up or energized about something. I once waited a really long time for the new Ipod touch to come out with a camera…and then it didn’t. I’ve never been so angry with Apple. I honestly headed straight to a piano and wrote the tune “Water Buffalo Run” right then.
I really enjoy studying music theory too. Learning new concepts of how others thought allows me to play around with my music. I once had to write a lot of composition homework assigned for a guy I call the Hemp Wizard. Doing that kind of school work is actually what makes me come up with new songs. Pan Pan is a very academic band. We nerd out all the time about what concept are going to be used and what sound that is going to make.

4. Béla Bartók or Steve Reich?

Bela Bartok all the way, man. Have you heard his Concerto for Orchestra? OMG SET THEORY! Give me some more of those atonal pitch classes!

5. Where did you record your new CD, “New Arms“? How?

My parents house! I also recorded one tune outside WWU’s PAC when it was raining and then finished it off in one of the practice rooms. I once told someone it would be ridiculous to record in a practice room because the pianos are terrible and the sound has no where to expand. Guess I messed that one up.

6. What is your favorite book, film, or piece of music?

Sarah Jerns doesn’t read books, kids…..or really watch movies. I couldn’t name a favorite piece either. But right now my favorite chord to play is E major in second inversion with a minor and major seventh. It can turn out some juicy things. Look forward to that.

7. Have you ever won a trophy? If so, what for? How many?

YES! I won second place in a soccer tournament in third grade, I believe. I also totally won a Drill Off the summer of Junior year. I was with a bunch of drum majors and we had to complete the commands that the squad leader called out. I dominated! Hella nerdy.

8. You are contacted by a race of extra-terrestrial Pan Pan enthusiasts who inform you that in 7 days you will be teleported to a planet in an alternate dimension, nearly identical to Earth, called Bearth. Everyone you know and love will be there, but you will only be known to them as the Canadian singer/songwriter Alanis Morrissette. This future is definite. There is nothing you can do to change it. After arriving on Bearth, how long do you wait before you start planning the “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie Reunion Tour”?

Dude, right away. I would be so gritty when I did it, though. I’m talking about no showers for weeks. That would make me super angsty. I would probably gig non-stop and demand that all my green rooms be filled with strongbow, sierra mist, and pocky (strawberry flavored).

9. You have the power to stop time,  à la Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell. Do you use this skill to help others? Or do you engage in relatively harmless and often hilarious hi-jinx, either preceded or succeeded by an unlikely series of comedic misunderstandings?

Are you serious? Full on hi-jinx Harry Potter sort of stuff. Some would be harmless and some hilarious. But I would probably also go back to when I was in high school and tell my old self to stop being so lame. Getting asked by your dream boy to Homecoming really isn’t that important after all.

10. What can we expect from the upcoming Pan Pan Holiday EP?

I think I’m going to focus more on just piano recordings. I’m going to share the moments that come out when I’m alone with the piano and I let myself create music as I go. The first song done, “Cedar Crowns & Pocket Noise” is airy and delicate. Tones stick with you and conflict with others. I want to stick your head inside my piano and have you listen to the music that happens inside the strings. It’s not all about notes, its about the sound that the notes leave behind and how they interact. That’s what I am creating.

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VIDEO POST!: PAN PAN LIVE AT THE UCH (10.23.09)

On October 23, 2009, Pan Pan played a CD release show at Western Washington University’s Underground Coffeehouse with Rooftops. Here is the footage:

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10 Questions with Pan Pan’s Sarah Jerns

COMING SOON: ROOFTOPS LIVE AND ACOUSTIC AT THE UCH (10.23.09)