2013-05-19T20:36:16-04:00 Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=rex-pester Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rex Pester Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1307006 2012-02-28T12:39:24-05:00 2012-04-29T05:12:01-04:00

Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rex-pester/
I was told about this band I should have heard of previously - Summer Camp - and started to listen, really delicious and happy, my inner misanthrope was screaming and dissolving until the end of one song, then the advert came on. Yeah, I'm too cheap for Spotify premium so on came an advert by Metropolitan police telling me: Oh Rex, your neighbours PROBABLY trying to kill you.

"It wasn't that, it's actually a really reasonable advert!" cries my critic, "the advert even says 'it's probably nothing'!" and they're completely right, but it isn't even nearly about that. You see the difference between a "the terrorists have won" stereotype and people like myself is that we see the need for counterterrorism measures, airport security needed to be heightened and there have been several high profile arrest.

I am absolutely certain that the Metropolitan police are doing what they're doing to protect the public but when they come through on Spotify adverts - one of the most in your face advertising schemes I have ever come across - and tell me "hey, that guy you know could be stockpiling chemicals to blow your bus up or maybe buying a used car to ram into an airport" I am sat here, in a pit of dread thinking "oh no, could they?". And yes, of course they could! So did I sneak a peak into next door's garden looking for some plastic bottles? Yes. Were there any? No. Did that set me more at ease? No, I've seen that gilet wearing ponce eyeing up my "I LOVE AMERICA" T shirt loads of times before, I think...

The whole thing takes an even more horribly dark turn when you consider the nature of Spotify ads. Working on the basis that - I hope you agree - an advert like this is actually quite distressing, I could shell out £10 a month to make sure I never had to hear it again. Would that ten pounds make it less likely that my neighbour wanted to bomb me ? Almost certainly not. It reminds me of this SMBC comic. Haven't the terrorists won? I mean I know that before there was no Spotify, but imagine my peace if that advert had just been for another rubbish teen movie?

Spotify is the wrong place for an advert such as that, the fact that I needed to write this rambling angry blogpost shows that in some small part the world post 9/11 is a lot more crappy than it was before.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1240188 2012-01-29T13:26:19-05:00 2012-03-30T05:12:01-04:00

Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rex-pester/
To be fair, I'm owed it. At what point does it become reasonable to have your social inadequacies shoved in your face? Reddit said "TIL [Today I Learned] that, when Washoe (the first chimpanzee to use sign language) was told that her caretaker's baby had died, she signed "CRY"."

The sympathy and humanity? I feel like I have a grasp on that. However that level of social awareness and general etiquette is one that I will never reach. I am a product of hundreds of generations of people who communicated and were immersed in language - I probably would have mustered a "shit..." and then descended into a pit of awkwardness. It is - at the very least - conceptually demanding that Washoe would be more adept at the social stuff (family gatherings, skype conversations, the horrible faux-metropolitan "our-lives-honestly-aren't-that-dull!" nightmare known as 'drinks') than me.

But then again, Washoe had game. She knew 350 words of sign language, recognised herself in the mirror and came up with thermos' short-lived rebranding "METAL CUP DRINK" so I don't feel too bad about it.

I'd recommend reading up on her, I had an identity crisis just watching this video.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1209069 2012-01-16T15:15:39-05:00 2012-03-17T05:12:01-04:00

Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rex-pester/ Into You, regarding a certain special someone with whom he shared a love which was inexplicable (note: the line "I can't really explain it" repeated ad nauseum). The bond between Fabolous and his significant other was so great that he ponders what it would be like if "both of [their] names had Jackson on the end". There's no doubt - Fabolous is besotted.

The problem, however, is in the details. Into You has a particularly sleazed out RnB chorus which has the presumed-other half sharing the burden of confusion as to why they are both so into each other. "Standard!" would cry the R+B scholar, and of course I would agree - but Fabolous recorded and released this song twice, with different other-halves. I considered writing this article on this scandalous revelation alone, however I quickly realised that Fabolous' dilemma suggests that he and David Cameron may be the same person.

You see, reader, Tamia was Fabolous' first 'baby gurl'. She released the song So Into You in 1998, which was met with moderate success without Fabolous. Its obvious to me that Tamia is the fusty old Conservative backbencher (Reginald Tory) to David Cameron's Fabolous, he's populist, potentially a bit vapid but people like him and god damnit Tamia those "flawless diamonds" won't pay for themselves. David Cameron's reworked Into You became a hit, it came 4th in the US Billboard Hot 100 ( 44th in the French singles chart - Reginald doesn't go down well in Europe) - it wasn't what Tamia had dreamed of, but for god sake everyone has to compromise once in awhile! Then came election day.

ICameron and Tamia's Into You was just a single, and in my eyes - an unjustifiably selfrighteous R+B nerd - a single is just a big up for the album. It's a track to say "if you think THATS good, remortgage your house and pop over to HMV for the real thing", the real crunch time was on album release day, when Fabolous realised that the amount of seats his party had won did not come up to the 326 to form a parliamentary majority and compromises were going to have to be made. Imagine Reginald Tory's hurt when David Cameron had not only taken his vocal hook and remade it into a sleazy R+B song, but made the same sleazy R+B song with Ashanti (the Liberal Democrats).

Yes, the album contained Into You ft. Ashanti, an attractive young R+B singer who absolutely did appeal to the masses. With their popularity Fabolous and Ashanti took a meagre 'Conservative win' at the 2010 Election and had turned Britain into 'Liberal Wonderland', where people looked forward to a future where everyone embraced cultural diversity, where our politicians were fiscally conscious and where children were taught the meaning of Love in free schools. Needless to say, Tamia was PISSED. You see Tamia saw Fabolous coming into government like so: Get in, pour active thermite into the channel tunnel, piss on the ashes of the NHS and retire with an MP's pension, but Fabolous didn't want that.

I have, up until this point, neglected the final point which clearly shows that our Prime Minister is the embodiment of a Noughties R+B star: the song itself. Into You is dotted with references to being in government and sharing political affiliations - Cameron raps at one point that Tamia/Ashanti "[loves] my smile... it ain't because my whips is ruthless", a cohesive government where Fabolous' MP's are ready to vote for his legislation without needing to have the whips office. The song plays out like a keynote at a party convention, Cameron expresses his needy devotion to anything Tamia/Ashanti could ever ask for, he would "trade it all in an orderly fashion" just so the party would remain faithful in return.

David Cameron faces Fabolous' implied dilemma, David Cameron really is Into Ashanti, Tamia is just a washed up old R+B singer - David needed the Tamia's song for the popularity but his eyes were always on Ashanti - Fabolous wants the young, fresh side of politics where he and the Liberal Democrats can hug a hoody and a polar bear, and even though Tamia is providing the vocal hook - I, as a false-historian of R+B and relentless optimist, believe Reginald Tory's time in the Billboard Hot 100 has come to an abrupt halt.
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Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rex-pester/
A hipster hater sees an environmentally conscious individual who enjoys fine art and supports independent businesses and they feel nothing but vitriol. They see a healthy youngster who recycles bikes, clothing and philosophical opinions and they wish death upon them. A hipster hater will go to the end of rhetoric as we know it simply to decry a sociable creature who is aware of the nature (and timeframe) of popularity.

Let me take a moment to clarify. I am not a hipster, I miss the mark on several key points: I'm too awkward to be socially active, I'm too stingy to spend money on music or independent coffee shops, I hate bikes and I adore 90/00's pop music but I can't help but think I might see where they're coming from.

I think it's growing up middle class under New Labour; we were pounded with the idea that we all have a contribution to make to the world and that life takes its toll. Up until a couple years ago, I did genuinely feel like there could be a chance I could do something amazing, that there was some part of my life that could be remarkable and I wouldn't be only remembered in the obituaries as "Rex Pester, once bought champagne from Marks & Spencer" (still yet to happen, but a man can dream). I'm now mostly resigned to it, but there are still pangs of wonder... will this article be a Pulitzer winner? It is this feeling that has spurned on the culture of hipsterdom, the idea that you can be something special, so logically you should try to be something special but inevitably when you have nothing special to give, you either give up or decide that subverting norms, in any way no matter how contrived, is special.

In that case, fine - they're tools, I get that. But the one underlying philosophy is strong and it is correct: "too mainstream" IS a legitimate complaint.

It's going to become blindingly obvious that I'm a hopeless romantic but I don't care. I'm too stupid for theatre, too vapid for art and I don't believe I can read, but music is something else. A good album can tell you a disgraceful amount about an artist, not even the lyrics but the whole package, when you find a truly incredible album you feel like you're sharing a moment with the person who has recorded it, and yes I feel like vomiting for typing that sentence.

Now let's consider that analogy. Let's say you've shared a moment with the artist, you had a chat - talked about your pets and your hobbies and planned to meet for a coffee on the next album (if it's the second album, it'll likely be a coffee without a heat sleeve bought from the West Cornwall Pasty Company in Paddington station, whilst the artist punches you in the face, takes your money and laughs at you). How about then, from that meeting you find out the artist has not only met up with millions of other people that day, but said the SAME THINGS to every one of them including you but then furthermore, people are quoting your conversation on Facebook, people who normally talk with people like Jason Derülo or Skrillex. (... I'll leave my violent Skrillex hatred for another article.)

Could you talk with someone like that again? What's the point? I know its a convoluted analogy but it can't be entirely discounted - music is something that is inherently personal and it distresses me to think that it's just my brains kicking out endorphins because through some weird evolutionary quirk. A human brain sees a snare hitting on 168bpm as equivalent to an - admittedly homeopathic - injection of heroin. Now, it's unquestionably stupid to let the popularity of an artist change your opinion - massive albums are normally massive for a reason and if one was to completely discount pop music they would live a very sad existence indeed.

But when it's probably true that 1/10 babies will have been conceived while Justin Timberlake plays (40% of these are from Lovestoned), that you could build the bikes in This Charming Man out of the iron-oxide in tattoo ink which has been used to write lyrics from it on mid-life crisising fathers, and that the average person has listened to 21 seconds to go for at least 22 seconds of their life, the offending artists lose something crucial. So carry on wearing low V-necks, Horace, you've got my backing. But perhaps a shower?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.997636 2011-10-06T05:23:05-04:00 2011-12-06T05:12:02-05:00

Rex Pester http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rex-pester/
Its such a typical news story but it makes me cringe every time it happens. The most recent one is of course Primal Scream, who said that the Tories are "the enemy". Is this the war where one side dithers around on the economy and the other produces - year after painful year - boring "do you remember me?" music? How could anyone possibly care about who Primal Scream wants to be in power? Until they have a test at the HMV checkout on "Das Kapital", musicians like Primal Scream will have to accept that maybe even dirty Tories will be listening to their music. (Louise Mensch may have even run a PR campaign for it.)

The really sad stuff comes when a great artist is caught up in all this. I get it, no-one likes Sarah Palin, maybe sometimes in darker moments one could be lead to believe "well, if there was a candidate that I HAD to screw... (omitting Obama, obviously)" but on the whole she's generally disliked. So why oh why Diddy did you have to go onto youtube with your insane ramblings ("Alaska?! Alaska?!") and expect it to come off well? I listen to the music that he was involved in (not so much his solo stuff) and think he's a genius but then theres always his voice at the back of my head that says "John McCain, you are bugging the f%*k out" and I can't say it doesn't bother me.

The thing that scares me about it is that it could easily make a difference, So many people go through a vegetarian phase after listening to Meat is Murder so I think it may be interesting to see the swing-o-meter of the "Screaming Teenage Girl" voter bracket (I've forgotten what code that is in politico speak) of the 2005 election. Maybe Busted are political revolutionaries and have changed the face of Britain: James, Matt and Charlie have put us on the path to a brighter tomorrow and through their activism secured our place in the world of the year 3000, their avant garde concept albums seen as mere pop to us mortals. Thanks, but if any of you do touch my great great great granddaughter I will eviscerate you.

I'm glad musicians care about stuff like this, I genuinely am. But I really wonder why it is necessary for anyone who isn't involved in the political process to so vehemently stick for or against a party. I can't shake the feeling that the sentiment is like supporting a football team, the big 3 are essentially the same anyway, its just the media polish thats different.]]>