According to a Wikipedia entry,

“Peanut Butter Jelly Time” is a Flash animation that emerged in the early 2000s and became an Internet phenomenon. Based on a song of the same name recorded by the Buckwheat Boyz, the best known version of the animation (usually distributed as a Flash clip) shows a pixelated dancing banana moving back and forth to the song’s repetitive chorus.

The dance that the male Tauren from World of Warcraft does is basically the peanut butter jelly time dance. But without the maracas.

The show was actually quite fun. Despite the plural in the band’s name, Alex Carpenter is the sole member, though he was accompanied on one song by friends on other instruments. I bought a copy of his CD–you can hear some of his music on his Web site and myspace page–though it lacks the energy of his live playing. (He also played the show in a Hogwarts uniform, sweater and all; I don’t know how he withstood the heat.)

Still, he’s a talented musician, and it was interesting to learn about another facet of fandom. (See Wikipedia articles on cosplay and slash fiction).

When I heard the news that Sony had been fined $10 million for bribing radio stations, I thought, and how is that news? Sony settled with the office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. In a statement released by his office on Tuesday, Spitzer said, “Our investigation shows that, contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity, air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs to radio stations and their employees.”

I’m glad Sony was fined, no matter how useless the act. But Spitzer’s suggestion that listeners expect that “songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity” strikes me as a little preposterous.

A few years ago, I held a menial summer job that allowed me to
listen to the radio while I worked. Now, I like Britney Spears as much as the next person who won’t admit to occasionally singing “Baby One More Time” in the shower, but the hourly repetition of what seemed like a single playlist (and the constant commercial interruptions) over eight consecutive hours quickly became dull.

In his statement, Spitzer refers to payoffs — gifts and free trips — that Sony offered radio stations. I view bribes, however, as just one more tactic record companies take to aggressively market music chosen for its salability. The radio stations, also out to make money, willingly play the same songs by the same artists over and over again, claiming all the while that that’s what the people want.

Spitzer can try to eradicate “pay-for-play” but the online sharing of songs, the defection of increasing numbers of people to satellite radio and the popularity of iPods all point to deeper problems with the music and commercial radio industry.

I look through my iTunes playlist as a stranger might. What kinds of assumptions are other users making about my music? One person connected to my playlist, though only briefly. Did this person see Kylie Minogue — sandwiched between Kurt Elling and Les Savy Fav — and think, there’s nothing to work with here?

I see a lot of top 40 stuff, like N’Sync and Avril Lavigne, in other people’s playlists. Some other bands that are popular right now, like everyone seems to have some songs from The Killers or The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I assume that the people with music from bands like Weezer, Blur or 311 are older, music that I listened to in high school.

And there seems to be an art to the naming of one’s playlist. Not just generic stuff like So-and-So’s Music (the iTunes default) but “Music from the 8th floor” or “Gloves found owner missing?” There was even one — and I should have noted the specific wording — that seemed to be a message to someone telling him where to go.

The next day, an article titled “Death Shows for Cuties: Why can’t indie bands stay on the soundtrack — and off the stage — of trendy TV teen shows?” appeared on Salon.

When I realized it had been them on the show, I was really bothered. It’s not even that I think the band sold out with their appearance, or that I begrudge them more fans and further success (though the tiniest part of me does feel that way). But seeing this great indie band on this slick, superficial TV show was like seeing spilled blood. I felt this sense of revulsion at seeing something that shouldn’t be, whether blood outside skin or indie band on FOX. At the very least, it’s distasteful.

In her article, writer Hillary Frey makes the following point: “On the stage, there’s no drama. A band is nothing more than a prop, a song is never loud enough, the very cute guitar player is never visible. The setup takes all the joy out of a live performance, and all the excitement out of a truly dramatic moment. It’s a waste.”

Gotta love those mutants:

Tuned into 99.1 in the car yesterday and was surprised to hear Spanish music. Later a friend informed me that the conversion had happened awhile ago, back in January, something about how alternative music was no longer profitable. The Washington Post covered it in an article here. Marc Fisher, Washington Post Metro Columnist, also wrote about it in an article titled “In a Way, WHFS Was Already Gone.”

“What’s going to happen to the HFStival?” I asked my friend. I still remember going, the day after senior prom, just a few days before graduation from high school. It was the first time I’d gone to an arena-size concert, and I still marvel that I heard some of the acts that I did. [Okay, this is where I would have named some of the bands that I saw, but I can't seem to find a lineup online, and the only band I remember seeing, without a doubt, was Goldfinger because its single was on rotation on WHFS at the time of the festival. Apparently No Doubt also performed at HFStival in '96 (according to a photo I found online), maybe Primus? maybe the Smashing Pumpkins? maybe Cypress Hill?]

Anyway, even back then, when alternative seemed to be at its height, I sensed that WHFS wasn’t where it was at. I knew, even without being really familiar with the music, that DC101 was the station that played “authentic” rock, like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, stuff that was too “hard” (and out of date) for WHFS and many of the other stations people my age were listening to. Maybe it shouldn’t be suprising then that WHFS ultimately crashed, not just because of the music but also because the station was too attuned to what was popular at the time and not what was enduring.

I finally visited The Gates in Central Park yesterday, as the installation was taken down today.

The Gates in Central Park, 2/27/05
I decided to take a close-up shot of the fabric, as I hadn’t been able to tell what it was like from pictures in the paper. The fabric looked kind of like the mesh jersey material that a lot of sportswear is made out of. The fabric also hung in pleats from the Gates, which I hadn’t realized until I saw them in person. Overall, I enjoyed my visit. I didn’t think the individual gates were beautiful (those 90-degree angles in the Gates really bothered me, as well as the metal blocks that held the gates down). But, as a lot of people have commented already, the installation did make you look at the park differently. I’d like to think a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise go to the park were drawn by the Gates to actually stroll around.

I also went to Orange Park’s show Saturday night (so I could add some “color” to my profile on the band). The experience reminded me of why I never go to shows anymore, namely, when people deliberately confine themselves to a small space, they really turn into a pack of idiots. One guy gave my friend’s boyfriend the evil eye for the duration of the show. I had people deliberately bumping into me, and the woman in front of me repeatedly flicked her hair into my eyes when she was trying to pull it up into a ponytail. I also don’t know why people insist on shoving their way to the front of a crowd, as if they will be able to enter another dimension and two people will be able to occupy one spot simultaneously. The music was great, but I don’t plan on going to any more shows for awhile.

On a lighter note, I’ve seen some cool things lately:
-Several couples dancing some latin dance in unison on the top floor of a building.
-People practicing Tae Kwon Do moves in unison on a higher floor of a building, as seen from the street.
-A guy sitting with a bust of Abraham Lincoln — which he’d carved himself! — on his lap while he was waiting for the subway. He said the finished bust would become part of some memorial.

Had a fun interview with some of the guys from the band Orange Park this past week. I’ve been following the band for a few years now and decided to profile them for one of my classes. After awhile, it felt less like an interview than just my hanging out with the band, shooting the shit. It reminded me of something I’ve been told in my classes, which is that as a reporter, you’re not there to become friends with your subjects. You’re there to be a reporter, and your obligation is always to your readers. I’m sure there are exceptions to that rule. But I also remembered something Republican “political strategist and media consultant” Russ Schriefer had said in a talk at my school, which is that as reporters, you shouldn’t just talk to people you’re comfortable with. Otherwise, you miss the stories of all the other people out there.