Jacques Dutronc – L’Opportuniste – Scopitone 1969

This could serve well as the anthem of a global corporation!

Lyrics (use the translation bar at the right if you can’t read French)

L’Opportuniste

Je suis pour le communisme, je suis pour le socialisme
Et pour le capitalisme parce que je suis opportuniste.

Il y en a qui contestent, qui revendiquent et qui protestent.
Moi je ne fais qu’un seul geste, je retourne ma veste
Je retourne ma veste toujours du bon côté.

Je n’ai pas peur des profiteurs ni même des agitateurs
J’fais confiance aux électeurs et j’en profite pour faire mon beurre.

Il y en a qui contestent, qui revendiquent et qui protestent.
Moi je ne fais qu’un seul geste, je retourne ma veste
Je retourne ma veste toujours du bon côté.

Je suis de tous les partis, je suis de toutes les partys
Je suis de toutes les cauteries, je suis le roi des convertis.

Il y en a qui contestent, qui revendiquent et qui protestent.
Moi je ne fais qu’un seul geste, je retourne ma veste
Je retourne ma veste toujours du bon côté.

Je crie vive la révolution, je crie vive les institutions
Je crie vive les manifestations, je crie vive la collaboration

Non jamais je ne conteste ni revendique ni ne proteste
Je ne sais faire qu’un seul geste, celui de retourner ma veste
De retourner ma veste toujours du bon côté

Je l’ai tellement retournée qu’elle craque de tous côtés.
A la prochaine révolution, je retourne mon pantalon.

TOPS – Double Vision Home Video (attn: 潮田さん)

This MV may be interesting to Ushioda-san. Looks like it is made with low quality VHS video recording/editing equipment. Possibly shot with a digital camera and re-recorded using a cheap VHS VCR. Or are the effects digitally simulated? It’s doubtful they would go to the trouble of doing that, but you never know. In any case, it makes a useful catalogue of various kinds of artefacts you can get with low quality ‘analogue’ video.

Seems that lo-fi video may be part of their style, here’s another (less artefacty) vintage vhs MV:

Really lovely vocals and playing on both of these tracks. There’s some nice stuff coming out on Arbutus records.

Fashion Goth Rant

Way back in 2005, when Momus (aka Nick Currie, a former zemi guest), was at the peak of his blogging form, he posted an entry titled Fashion Goth that began:

I’m not into this thing, fashion goth.
It’s probably because I’m not into rock and roll, Romanticism, or Christianity.
I’m not into Asia Argento or Vincent Gallo.
I think their way of thinking is inherently right wing.
I mean, Gallo votes Republican. Fucking fashion goth!

The Fashion Goth Rant was a brilliantly scathing and simultaneously brilliantly funny indictment of the modes of late twentieth century American popular culture and music. Wondering how the rant would sound spoken aloud, I ran the (slightly tweaked) text through a speech synthesis program with the most British sounding voice I could easily find. I happened to be listening to an ambient track at the same time, as was my habit while working, in my ATR days, and noticed a good fit. Here’s how the mix sounded:

I vaguely recall Nick saying he was tempted to include the mix on the ‘Friendly’ album he was planning at the time, but that his FG rant wasn’t friendly enough.

My all time favourite quote from the Fashion Goth Rant, and perhaps all time fave from Momus’ Click Opera blog is the line:

The Marquis de Sade was mounting a critique of the Enlightenment.
What’s wrong with the Enlightenment, girls?

Near perfect deadpan rendition of this by the robotic British voice! And I really love the quasi-mathematical:

When I say “I like X much better”, it’s usually because X has a keen sense of the absurd.
And also because I can’t immediately pigeonhole X’s style.

which serves nicely as a definition of what was great about the anti-rock, post-punk aesthetic of the late seventies and early eighties, Nick’s formative years as an artist.

Click on the link to go the entire text (with images) of Momus’ Fashion Goth Rant.

Artist Dan Graham also considers connections between rock and religion in American culture in the collection of his writings published by MIT Press, Rock My Religion, but from a standpoint that is not anti-rockist. Here’s some related documentary video art with the same title:

Rock My Religion from Diogo Tirado on Vimeo.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2012: Advances in NIME

Prof. Sid Fels (UBC) and I will be presenting our course on Advances in New Interfaces for Musical Expression at the upcoming SIGGRAPH Asia conference to be held at the Singapore Expo in November 2012. Looking forward to spending more time in Singapore.

The SIGGRAPH Asia web site is using our photos as the main banner for the courses page, and these are also visible on the preview slideshow playing on the main conference page.