22.1.10
4.1.10
time signatures, heart rates and violence
Brendan Mullen, interviewed in Penelope Spheeris' The Decline of Western Civilization (1980) relates the BPM of punk and the adrenaline rush that results from the adjusted dance to increases in violence during shows. He also relates punk and folk music, both being protest genres.
"I think alot of the time that it gets out of hand is because of the speed of the music, which is way above the normal rythym of a dance. If you take a 4/4 disco time signature, which is comfortable, you can kind of dance easily to the disco rythym, which is, I understand, 126 to 132 heartbeats a minute.
Whereas the kind of music the Germs or the Black Flag is playing is playing is upwards of 250 or 300 beats per minute, which is not comfortable or normal to dance to. And this is why this dance that you'll see in the film, the pogo dance, which is jumping up and down and bouncing off walls and stuff, is kindof an abnormal level of adrenalin and sometimes some violence breaks out.
Nowadays I think the kids are more desperate or something or more bored. Some of the better of the punk bands developed into sort of like "folk music" I dont mean folk music as a traditional folk music but the allegory can be drawn in the sixties when the protesters used acoustic guitar. Now instead of acoustic guitars they have high speed three hundred beats a minute speed rock. Yelling about the same things. About how the air is poisoned out there. The air in utopia is poisoned. The final joke."
3.1.10
Matthew Brown
Matthew Brown,Untitled, 2006
Willem de Kooning, Woman V 1952-53
Matthew Brown of Vancouver rips stuffed animals apart, sews them together, photographs them, alters the photographs digitally, then repaints them.
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