The Strokes present Tesco

An off-the-cuff post, to elaborate on my recent hyperfixation. Also, elaboration on the intro of the last post: I think what I really wanted out of blogspot was an alternative to LiveJournal. LiveJournal was servicable and I did use it for a bit, but it did not have the option to customize the page to look like a really cheesy wesite from 1996, so blogspot is clearly the supirior platform.

Anyway: The Strokes. I am late to the goddamn party, huh? Well if anything I'm just in time, cuz it is very rare that I get into a band while they're still putting out new music or touring. 80% of the bands I listen to are either inactive, all dead, or in a foreign country. Possibly a combination of those elements. Frankly it feels somewhat odd to be into a band that's still relevant.

Being born in 2000, I did not know The Strokes were a big thing growing up. I was far more concerned with being a caterpillar vet in 2009 than I was about simping for Julian Casablancas, so I feel like I am absolved of any guilt there. Spotify recommended some stuff from their Room On Fire album to me around 2019, and Reptilia and Last Nite lived in my playlists for a while, but I did not give them a second thought beyond that. I think I assumed they and Jet were the same band for a while.

 

from the video for Instant Crush, 2013

It wasn't until I watched the video for Instant Crush by Daft Punk that I began to pay them any mind. I admit the initial draw was a shallow one, the song's title rather prophetic. I joked on twitter that Julian Casablancas is what Rodrick Heffley would look like if he actually succeeded at music - a joke I'll probably re-use if I ever get that movie review made, probably accompanied by Alex Turner's "I just wanted to be one of The Strokes" line from Star Treatment.

Frickin wannabe... (Rodrick Rules, 2011)

 

I suppose I could go into my theory about Rodrick Heffley being an aesthetic caricature of Julian Casablancas, and how that fits into my assertion that Diary of the Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules perfectly captured the bittersweet moment of my generation in liminality, but I won't bore you with that here. I'll probably bore you with it in its own blog post.

Anyway, I'm still discovering The Strokes, so there's not a lot to say on that front yet, but it wasn't Spotify where I first heard them. Arguably Last Nite was ruined for me before I ever got to enjoy it, by British advertising.

Growing up, me, my mum and my brother would always spend a month visiting family in Scotland, usually June. My dad would sometimes come along if he found something interesting to do while there. It doesn't sound like I spent a lot of time there but it was enough to pick up a pretty significant dose of the culture, or at least a semi-antiquated version considering I mostly spent the time with my grandparents and watching tv. I didn't know it at the time but I was in the midst of a full-blown American invasion - Strokesmania, the media tried calling it.

The Strokes were huge in Britain, or at least that's what I'm beginning to understand, which helps explain some things. I can see it in the genealogy of British music, now that I look closely - The Strokes were a freak transient species from a foreign land that managed to cross over a vast ocean and drastically changed the genetic makeup of their new home. After a while, speciation began to occur and new bands emerged, a hybrid of foreign and native genetics. Arctic Monkeys is a good example of this. Perhaps also The Kooks, Franz Ferdinand and The Fratellis. If I were older and discovered The Strokes sooner I imagine I might not have been so blasé upon discovering them. It's not novel now, because now EVERYONE sounds like The Strokes. I guess that's the curse of being the first of your kind, and being damningly successful at it.

 

But anyway, British commercialism. That's how I found The Strokes. I cannot recall the specific advertisement but it was something so incredibly mundane that it forever tainted by perception of Last Nite. I'm not sure if it was Tesco exactly, it may have been a tv channel bumper considering how simple it was, but it was incredibly forgettable. It was just some graphics that slid onto the screen while the song played in the background. No narration, just a caption that said "30% off Orange Squash at ASDA™" or "iTV+ now only £700 a month" or something like that. I guess I could pester Reddit to try and find it but I imagine there's about three dozen mid-2000s British ads that used Last Nite and I don't hold the memory particularly dear. The song portion the ad used was between 0:28 and 0:54. Listening to those lyrics again, I feel like a tv provider was probably the most likely source.

I was never huge into Last Nite (and apparently Julian is sick of it now) so I don't consider it a huge loss, but I hate that I have the exact same experience with Under Cover of Darkness, a song I actually would like to love but has been tainted in the exact same way. The first 15 seconds were used to advertise something similarly mundane, like a new sitcom about hot 20-somethings getting caught in scandalous love triangles and avoiding adult responsibilities.

The Strokes were not the only victims, by a long shot. Like I said, I only ever spent one month out of every year in Scotland, but that was more than enough time for my perceptions of Alright by Supergrass, Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John, Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis to be tarnished forever as well. I feel sorry for all the full-time Brits out there. First impressions are everything - Strokes album reference partially intended.

(I'd never seen the music video for Alright before hunting down that link but my god that's the most British music video I've ever seen. Yes I unironically want that pearly outfit at the start.)

So, yeah, adverts were my real first exposure to The Strokes, sadly. I mean I guess it all ties into my morbid fascination with how the human condition is now intrinsically tied to the parasite of western commercialism. I've looked into a few of Julian's extracurricular efforts, and while I haven't done a deep dive yet I must commend his truth-seeking attitude. I imagine he leads a very comfortable life, and could very easily ignore most of America's political and economic problems if he wanted to, but stays resolutely engaged nonetheless. It's a very welcome reminder that I have no good excuse not to self-educate myself on current world issues.

That's been my short journey with The Strokes so far. I've been spewing a lot of Strokes stuff on twitter lately so hopefully this helps get a bit of it out of my system. I was going to close this off by discussing The Strokes' legacy as represented in real person fanfiction (RPF), but I think I'll save that can o' worms for another day. No truly succesful band can escape the curse of RPF, and after minimal investigation it appears The Strokes have been dragged into some particularly sordid waters.

There's a lot of content out there for me to catch up on, but as a former Beatles fan, I'm wary of idol worship. At the same time, though, I wonder if I'm not giving them the credit they deserve. It's really hard to say. 

I think I'll close off with this currently pop-culture relevant parody, which is modern art if I ever saw it. (If the video doesn't work for you, just search up " 'peaches' except it's the strokes " on YouTube.)

Ruffy Launch

 RUFFY HAS LAUNCHED: LINK

I want to start using this blog as the central hub where I share my thoughts. Yeah, it's like I'm stuck in 2009, but this was the appeal - It's not as restrictive as Twitter, more customizable than Facebook, not as hopelessly obscure as DeviantArt's journals, and also it isn't Facebook.

So yeah, launched a second channel! I've had the idea for Ruffy in the back of my mind for a while now.

This was my very first sketch of her - I was trying out different bird species, both Canadian and British, but I'm kinda partial towards Ruffed Grouse for multiple reasons. First off, they're chooks. They're lil chikkens. Who doesn't love a lil chikken.

The first place I heard of the Ruffed Grouse was probably The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat, which my dad read to me when I was little. In the scene, a man expreses doubt at Mutt's skill as a hunter. Farley's father, insulted, takes out a rifle, mocks firing it, and Mutt takes off - never mind that this scene takes place in the middle of town, far from any wild game.

But Mutt is still victorius - he comes back with a Ruffed Grouse, "already stuffed and mounted".

I could only assume that the Ruffed Grouse was a particularly magnificent bird.

 

I've actually seen a Ruffed Grouse. Once. It was at our friends' cottage and I was able to get some very blurry photos of it. I think Ruffy was in the blueprint stages at this point so I was very excited to see one in real life.

 

Originally I was going to animate Ruffy in plasticine (which is the reason she's almost entirely orange), but that's like pulling teeth, yo. I have so much respect for Will Vinton, who worked almost exclusively in plasticine. I might pursue a stop-motion route if I can come up with a sturdier puppet, but I imagine lip syncing in plasticine is a nightmare.

So yeah, I want to try and use this blog more. Still to talk about my interests, but perhaps also to house my life updates as well.