Your popsicle's melting

March 6, 2005 12:31 PM

Hey Guero! NY Times article on Beck past and present. Did you know that Christina Ricci did the japanese girl voice on "Hell Yes"? (registration/bugmenot required as always)
posted by buriednexttoyou (32 comments total)

Beck's portrait in the story is excellent, check it out on paper. it's by Frank W Ockenfels 3. His website is here.

oh, and once I ran into Beck at my neighborhood gelateria
posted by matteo at 12:40 PM on March 6, 2005

...and was he cool?
posted by ghastlyfop at 12:44 PM on March 6, 2005

not particularly, no: he carried a large plastic bottle of mineral water with him, he seemed bored, or jet-lagged. or simply tired. people recognized him but thankfully they were too cool to start bothering him.
the ice cream was excellent, tho.
posted by matteo at 12:47 PM on March 6, 2005

...and was he cool?

No, he was a loser. Perhaps you should kill him.
posted by jonmc at 1:13 PM on March 6, 2005

I'm disappointed that "Mutations" barely rates more than one, lone sentence. It is perhaps his best work next to "Mellow Gold", if underappreciated.
posted by AlexReynolds at 1:24 PM on March 6, 2005

Looking forward to that release. It is shaping up to be an exciting year for albums (Bloc Party, Brendan Benson, Decemberists, Prefuse 73, QOTSA, Ryan Adams (x3!), Eels, Ben Folds, Iron & Wine, Spoon, and Stephen Malkmus to name a few).

Also, a few pages over is a story on The Most Expensive Album Never Made. I think we can expect to see actual democracy in China before that one is released.
posted by boost ventilator at 1:35 PM on March 6, 2005

I agree, Mutations is my favorite. I can't wait to hear the Dizzee Rascal remix on the DVD version of Guero.
posted by TetrisKid at 1:44 PM on March 6, 2005

ah fuck. he's a scientologist.
there goes another hero.
posted by andrew cooke at 1:45 PM on March 6, 2005 [1 favorite]

There's a Boards of Canada remix of 'broken drum' on the delux release of Guero apparently. And rumors of a BOC album this year too.
posted by davehat at 1:47 PM on March 6, 2005

I'm with Alex. Mutations is criminally under-rated.

I was initially a little bored by the new stuff, simply because it didn't take the leaps that Midnite Vultures and Odelay did with sonic style. But after a week on the pod, I'm smitten. BRING ON TEH BECK.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 1:55 PM on March 6, 2005

Jonmc wins this round.
posted by drezdn at 2:18 PM on March 6, 2005

That portrait of Beck looks like nothing so much as a fake oil painting of Ringo that MAD used to parody some ad campaign in the 60s. Unfortunately I can't remember anything else about it, but the resemblance is quite strong.
posted by kenko at 2:28 PM on March 6, 2005

oh, and once I ran into Beck at my neighborhood gelateria

oh, yea? well I'll match that with...

a Mackenzie Phillips in line ahead of me at the local Tribeca coffee shop (in full length 1970's denim trenchcoat),

and raise with a Davey Jones at the Palm Beach airport mens room.
posted by R. Mutt at 2:33 PM on March 6, 2005

Round 2.

ah fuck. he's a scientologist.
there goes another hero.

Anyone else worried that both Beck and Tom Cruise, who are pretty cool people, somehow buy scientology? Granted, there are also many losers. But why on earth would Beck or Tom Cruise buy into this? It's not like it's their only way to get attention.
posted by NickDouglas at 2:37 PM on March 6, 2005

and raise with a Davey Jones at the Palm Beach airport mens room.

At his locker?
posted by NickDouglas at 2:38 PM on March 6, 2005

I'm not sure Tom Cruise is all that cool, but Beck seems to be. Who hasn't needed the warm embrace of a secretive cult every now and then? Mrs Beck's Scientology website isn't the best of the web, though.
posted by liam at 2:47 PM on March 6, 2005

Also I want to claim my cool points for seeing Beck perform at the Chameleon bar in New York's East Village back in the antidiluvian days of anti-folk (late '80s).
posted by liam at 2:57 PM on March 6, 2005

looks like nothing so much as a fake oil painting of Ringo that MAD used to parody some ad campaign in the 60s.

Was a parody of a Breck ad, wasn't it? Making fun of those crazy long haired kids. Ah, nostalgia.

But why on earth would Beck or Tom Cruise buy into this?

I thought he made a good argument in the article. A lot of what makes his work interesting is that he respects and draws from many different cultures and traditions. He asks for that same sort of appreciation for his choices. Don't know how Scientology fits in, but the people who follow their own way are always cooler than people who think there's a checklist that makes one cool or not cool.
posted by TimTypeZed at 2:59 PM on March 6, 2005

Mutations practically changed my life. Seriously, that album was so key for me during a few major life experiences... that and R.E.M.'s Reckoning - I still associate the two with each other despite the obvious chronological issues at play.

Anyhoo... I've had Sea Change in MP3 form for eons now and I just can't get attached to it. I really love "Lost Cause," but the rest loses me. I hope this new release is better, but I don't think I'll be paying cash monies for it without a test listen.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:29 PM on March 6, 2005

Grapefruit, Sea Change was what finally married me to Pitchfork. They rated Mutations at 9.9, I didn't believe them, and then later realized it was probably one of the best five albums I own. I bought Sea Change, they dissed it, and I was all mad. But.
Sea Change really isn't good. Without Lost Cause and Golden Age, I wouldn't have listened to it beyond the first week.

You can always just pay 99 cents for E-Pro single or anything off the Hell Yes EP, from the iTunes store. They were absolutely worth it, and, to me, proof positive that Beck's got something even bigger in store for Guero.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 4:14 PM on March 6, 2005

I think that I figured out the whole scientology thing:

a. Scientology uses celebrities to promote it worthless product by giving largely trite and common-place attitudes an aura of cool. As a result, joe schmoes like you and I give scientology money in the hopes of becoming "clears" and/or "operating thetans."

b. The music industry uses celebrities to promote its worthless product by giving largely mediocre music an aura of cool. As a result, joe schmoes like you and I buy their worthless product in the hopes of becoming "cool" and/or "hip."

Why should anyone who shills for the music/culture/lifestyle industry (in Beck's case by promoting himself as a "personality" and feeding us articles like this one which provide us a with a constant diet of minutiae about his daily life and extra-musical opinions, interests, attitudes, etc.) have a problem shilling for Scientology? They both amount to the same thing: bunkum.
posted by mokujin at 4:23 PM on March 6, 2005

dougunderscorenelso : Unfortunately, the iTunes store is out of the question for me as I live in a country that does not deal in US dollars and furthermore does not allow the use of PayPal. (Fuckers.) I'm sure that LimeWire will have some tracks soon though. :)

I also love pitchfork, though I tend to skip the reviews (although when I do read them, I've been in agreement) and go for the downloads. I've gotten introduced to some pretty good stuff this way... and a bit that sucks, but the good vastly outweighs it.

mokujin : Perhaps I misread, but I understood the article to say that Beck wasn't marketing himself as a "personality." He seemed to be saying that he's just a musician. Also, he was a Scientologist before he became a celebrity (article makes this perfectly clear), so a) seems a bit out of place on this one.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:26 PM on March 6, 2005

The Secret Life of Beck Hansen - A Guide for the Professional Journalist
posted by tomharpel at 5:28 PM on March 6, 2005

Judging by Mrs. Beck's website, it seems like scientology is especially successful amongst entertainers because joining is viewed as a good luck charm for getting parts, much the way sleeping with ugly girls is superstition amongst baseball players for ending a losing streak.
posted by mowglisambo at 8:34 PM on March 6, 2005

These NYT magazine articles are usually posted on Friday night/Saturday morning, what gives here? (Glad to see Beck get his exposure in the NYT magazine, who better?).
posted by caddis at 8:43 PM on March 6, 2005

fuck a pitchfork.
posted by Embryo at 9:08 PM on March 6, 2005

That portrait of Beck looks like nothing so much as a fake oil painting of Ringo that MAD used to parody some ad campaign in the 60s. Unfortunately I can't remember anything else about it, but the resemblance is quite strong.

Herewith, the Ringo Starr portrait by Frank Frazetta that was undoubtedly chosen by Mad for its freakish resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman. To the Beck photo, not so much -- though I see how you made the connection. God, the things that I remember.

Anyone else worried that both Beck and Tom Cruise, who are pretty cool people, somehow buy scientology?

Apparently, he was born into it (RTFA). At that level, I guess I can take it like Mormonism. I do know a handful of cool Mormons.
posted by dhartung at 9:31 PM on March 6, 2005

I found the Blecch! ad. Kill me now.
posted by dhartung at 9:55 PM on March 6, 2005

If you like Mr. Beck, you might like his onetime room-mate, Paleface. Trouser Press bio says "Beck took large chunks of his Beat ramble and guitar shuffle to the bank". I'm impressed by his stuff after One Foot in the Grave in an aesthetic/compositional way, but it never hit me like "asshole". "Girl from Mexico" and "Was Oblivious" have pieces of what I imagine Beck might have headed towards. Beck does have his relapses into guitar based simplicity, but I haven't tracked them down yet. Recommendations are welcome.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 10:18 PM on March 6, 2005

Good ol' Beck. Where would he have ended up without Carl Stephenson?

Stephenson's own album was released under the name Forest For The Trees. It got crappy reviews and then sank like a stone-- and it is a little uneven-- but it contains some great, great songs. "Green Light Street" is one of my favorite songs ever. Imagine 'Mellow Gold' era production plus sweet and innocent Brian Wilson-like experimental audio samples plus Transcendental Zen Hip-Hop...
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 6:06 AM on March 7, 2005

dhartung, you're awesome.

Now that I actually see the painting again, you're right, the resemblance isn't so strong. Still, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw the portrait.
posted by kenko at 8:02 AM on March 7, 2005

Fuzzy, I remember seeing the video for Dream and being vaguely freaked out, but I had no idea how close he and Beck were. Thanks for the links.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 2:20 PM on March 7, 2005