It’s been a little over a month since PaperThinWalls ceased to exist. The site is still up, but given that there’s no telling how long it’ll be there – and in the interests of personal posterity – I’ve taken the liberty of copying every article I wrote; I’ll be posting ‘em all here, bit by bit.
RESTIFORM BODIES - “Bobby Trendy Addendum”
from TV Loves You Back (Anticon)
Hip-Hop // Out Now
Remember flamboyant, antagonistic fashion designer/interior decorator Bobby Trendy from The Anna Nicole Smith Show? Restiform Bodies—the Anticon second-stringer supergroup of Passage, Now, Bomaar Monk and Telephone Jim Jesus—are reuniting and are resurrecting him, too, on “Bobby Trendy Addendum.” But they could just as easily be raking any number of other bitchy celebs or quasi-celebs over the coals here. In other words, if Bobby Trendy didn’t exist, they might’ve just as easily invented him. The ear-teasing Noah’s Arcade-on-fire electro-noise crunch of “Bobby Trendy Addendum” is pure pop-cult concept, overwhelming Information Age bombast as constructed reality. The song sounds like living today feels: too much, too fast, too loud, too bright, nothing making any definite sense—but like watching Anna Nicole, it’s guilty-pleasure, button-slamming fun, you know? It’s excitement in excess. Bars are jammed together, independent of one another, so that Passage’s narrative comes off like a provocative string of ideas and exclamation points more than anything else. “Apple of my mother’s eye, even if they convict,” he spits—bitterly and blithely and carelessly, all at once—before all logic gets gone and you just grab onto whatever scraps of language you can in the advert-jingle flood of splintered images: “Most oblivious, neurotic,” “smash my maths,” “juicy, delicious,” “appetites lashed to the hood of the Bentley,” “charm a snake, weave a basket,” some buckshot-blasted bullshit about Joan and Melissa Rivers. Overthink at your peril. Just hold tight to your swivel chairs, enjoy the ride, and regard the experience as the musical equivalent of the Internet/nightly news/ celebrity-factoid shuffle we're all pretty much caught up in.
Restiform Bodies’ David “Passage” Bryant on “Bobby Trendy Addendum”
Is the title character a strawman for American pop-culture avarice?
I didn’t intend to paint him personally as an icon of greed, avarice or anything exactly—certainly not anything negative, if that’s what you mean by “strawman.” I wanted to beam a signal off peripheral, absurd characters on the D-list, hoping it might bounce off them and hit us in the retinas. I was saying I feel like Joan Rivers on the red carpet, digesting entertainment and shitting out celebrity caricatures. You’re supposed to want to be them, but you hate them or you don’t give a fuck, but you want to be something you’re not, or can’t have. Bobby Trendy and Joan and Melissa Rivers seemed like perfect personalities to channel that through. I think it plays as funny satire.
Can you envision a future in which expensive automobiles are no longer presented as chart-rap status symbols. Like due to sky-high gas prices, everyone's rhyming about tricked-out Vespas?
Sure, absolutely. Jay-Z has the Euro taking over for the dollar, why not the Vespas? The Cool Kids give bike culture a nod with “Black Mags,” which is almost as huge as “Throw Some D’s,” at this point and cooler all around in my book. That’s where I have to hope it’s all going. Nas is calling out Fox News on Stephen Colbert. I think everybody can look forward to big change for our culture. I am not into causes and such—no pictures of Mao for this dude—but a Hummer in a video is the same as Pyrex measuring cups in your inlay. It’s insult-to-injury. Our record seems a lot like an indictment in some spots—which could be construed as insult-to-injury, too—but I hope it’s not received as rubbing the problem in. All the information on TV Loves You Back is stuff I’m trying to make peace with as a person, and that I think we all have to make peace with as a society. And you know artists have to be feeling a little ridiculous with all the car shit by now. Big old Caddy and shelling out all that dough to fill it? That's starting to hurt; no matter who you are, it’s just dumb. Bikes, Vespas, all that is smaller, more agile and creative, that’s the shit I want to see.
Do you watch much television?
Yes, I watch a lot of TV. I try not to, but when I want to shut my mind off or get inspired by the media, TV is my go-to device. I watch Comedy Central a lot and E! I love The Office and 30 Rock, but don't get to see them much. My guiltiest pleasure might be Intervention, though. I was all about Shooting Sizemore, but I guess that got too fucked up to be on TV or something because it disappeared. Good TV exists, but bad TV is usually better. - RAYMOND CUMMINGS Friday, August 15th, 2008
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