FADE IN

BONO SITTING IN A CHAIR IN FRONT OF CHROMA KEY/ FLASHING PICTURES OF PEOPLE IN VARIOUS STATES OF EMOTIONAL DISCONTENT

SAME SETTING FOR ALL THREE ARTISTS

CHROMA KEY FADES TO WHITE

BONO: Every day, thousands of people run away from their homes and workplaces in a desperate attempt to find their long lost dreams and passions that have been sucked away by slaving mindlessly over paper work and worrying about sucky bosses.

TRANSITION

RICKY MARTIN: Some smoke weed to ease the pain, others get in the car at six in the morning to never return (maybe go to Miami?). The most unlucky ones stay exactly where they are and do nothing, because that is what they have been taught to do. (TSK TSK FACE)

TRANSITION

STING: But not all is lost, with only one click YOU (POINT FINGER AT TELEVISION AUDIENCE) can help stop this world pandemic of escapers and runaways.

FADE TO BLACK/ CAMPAIGN LOGO

Okay, those are great commercials for a good cause. Shame on me. But the truth is, we do live in a world of runaways and I’m not talking about the sad cases of children who escape their homes, or get lost or people who commit suicide. That’s a whole different problem. I’m talking about the ones who tough it out in the world every day, go to jobs they absolutely hate because they have to sustain themselves and their children, the ones who wish themselves away to whatever paradise is just so they can survive the day without leaving their brains splattered on the computer screen. I’m talking about those runaways, the ones who occupy our same space/time continuum, but who aren’t really here at all.

I’m also talking about myself. Lately, I’ve spent most of my time running away from some things I don’t understand and from some things I do understand. It’s that fight or flight theory, you know? The thing is, these days in my country, the only option is to stay and fight and anything else is treason of the worst kind.

So, for your entertainment, here are three recent acts of treason perpetrated by my own damn self. In no particular order:

#1: LEAVING

Two summers ago, when this wasn’t even a tangible possibility, my friend Henry the Gay (obviously not his real name) gave me shit about this: “Why do you feel the need to move away?” he asks. Then he answers his own question, “Well that’s because you don’t know how to plan your life”. Gee, glad to know. If there are words meant to hurt, than that should be a text book example. That was the first not so subtle way of ostracizing me for wanting to leave this paradise.

The more subtle ways which have made me feel like an overnight pariah are as follows: indifference, fake joy…well, and the whole shebang. I mean, I can’t say I wasn’t warned about this by an experimented runner, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

#2: BEING TIRED OF PROTESTING

Which translates to: you are a selfish person who doesn’t care about anyone else but herself. Not true. There have been some big and very significant university protests, which I fully support despite my own interest in getting the hell out of dodge. But, in my defense, if you’ve known me long enough, you know I protest about everything. EVERYTHING. The very important and the not so important and I’m just tired, you know? Which makes me right now very un-Puerto Rican.

#3: DID I MENTION LEAVING?

I think I did. Leaving is not the real crime now, don’t get me wrong. Wanting something better for yourself, now that deserves the death penalty.

I sound extra bitter, I know. I also have a very good support system in the form of three powerful friends and allies of mass destruction, so I should not be complaining. What I’m really complaining about is the attitude, one that I used to share and that I fell for many years ago. It’s this line of thinking that says that if you leave, you are giving up. Never mind your dreams or your passions or that the hand of God (meaning THE MAN) already decided to throw you out by making it impossible for anyone to live decently, that’s beside the point. The point is that something, someone, has made us believe that we are worthless; therefore, we deserve nothing more than this. This is our destiny and we should accept it lying down and when someone decides to do the opposite, well, that’s just unacceptable behavior.

So, as you all must have read or noticed, I am on a quasi kamikaze mission to become a rock journalist. Having recently semi finished journalism school; I pride myself on the fact that at least this part of the profession has not been tainted by sour professors and a close to zero opportunity job market. Despite five years of enduring both good and crappy writing classes and having my spirit broken down so many times, I still want to be a journalist. A rock journalist, mind you.

In accordance with this life goal, I am currently writing for the website of a radio show that showcases, you guessed it, rock music. I am currently producing (or so I like to think because the truth of the matter is that I am still just a journalist) a couple of really elaborate stories on a “new” subculture of punk called Taqwacore. For this, I am interviewing some of the musicians that form this scene. Well, mainly the high profile bands because my educated guess is that this goes much further than I can reach from my small little corner of the world.

But this is where the stories start: actual interviewing. When I conceptualized the project, I did not factor in my inexperience on “live” interviews. Yes, I am a reporter, but usually I edit myself out of the news. We are taught that we don’t exist and that is what we present to the public, for the sake of objectivity. Never mind that there is actual editing going on in those sound bites and we pick and choose the information that we give out. Anyway, in a philosophical cue worthy of Aristotle or Plato, my producer (remember Clerks Loving Friend?) gently reminds me that I do exist:

Producer: “You did great but you need to stop laughing. You sounded like you smoked some weed. Did you smoke any weed?”

Me: (Eyes wide open, high pitched sound) ‘NO.”

Now, this is the part where I die.

But, let me do a recap first: The guys were from State M. I am in Island P. First task, figuring out time difference, which meant we stayed till at least 10 o’clock at night at the station. No problem there. Second task: cell phone lines are a bitch. There were two of them and one phone, what a conundrum. Third task: actual interview. I was well prepared with hours of research and very elaborate and specific questions on the table directly in front of me. I was also very, very, extremely nervous.

Now, the interview went very well. The guys were awesome and extremely intelligent and well informed. I am impressed. The questions were dead on. On the other hand, I have not reviewed the interview. I am paralyzed by panic thinking that I may have ruined amazing sound bites by laughing. Yes, laughing. It was a conversation, but, as a nervous laugher (and by my producer’s account of the events), I laughed at extremely weird cues…which are followed by awkward silences. I hear crickets.

Now….THIS is the part where I die.

This is the reason why I am not a comedian. I have been told that we journalists take ourselves way too seriously, but then again: isn’t it a serious profession? This proved me right. To my credit, I think most of the interview is salvageable. And, this embarrassing experience taught me a valuable lesson: kill your idols. I tried to be “the cool interviewer” and I failed. Miserably. So, from now on, I’m sticking with what I know and fuck it. The rest, I’ll learn like I learned on this experience, by making mistakes and correcting them.

This takes me to interview number two. This is another punk band from State I, City C. Time difference: check. Weird cell phone lines: check. This time, I knew exactly what to expect and knew better not to laugh. So I did not. Little did I know that I would find a very nervous interviewee who spoke very good Spanish but insisted that he was terrible at it. And, you know what he did? He laughed. For at least 10 of the thirty minutes our interview lasted. I felt bad for the kid, mainly because I was him two weeks ago. Full circle.

More interviews are on the way so I better get cracking. But not before I leave you with one final though (like Jerry Springer):

Apparently interviewing is like riding a bike. You start, fall down, get back up and wear knee pads and a helmet next time you ride. You know you’re going to fall down again, so it’s better to prepare oneself for the ground. And to the Lester Bangs (I hope he doesn’t tell me anything yet), Rob Sheffield’s and Robert Christgau’s of the journalism world: if you tell me that your careers have been flawless, allow me one last word: liars.

Otra acto importado desde Montreal, Canadá, Woodhands (ya hicieron su casa en Toronto) es un dúo de una vertiente del electro pop poco tradicional. Para ellos, lo que hacen es más que música, sus intereses son crear “emotional, sweaty dancefloors” y música que te haga “cry while you are having sex, and it’ll be the best damn sex of your life”. (En sus propias palabras).

En su música, esta banda, compuesta por Dan Werb (voz, sintetizadores y “drum machine”) y Paul Banwatt (batería y voz), evita a toda costa el sampling y opta por componer canciones con ritmos derivados del pop de los años 80, el new wave, el dance-punk y un poco de influencia del electroclash. En sus presentaciones en vivo (se pueden encontrar en su página de internet www.myspace.com/woodhands), armados con un “keytar”, Woodhands mantiene la vibra con sus beats orgánicos en canciones como el súper sexy opener de su primer álbum Heart Attack, “Dancer”, que evoca la mejor época de Fischerspooner (más específico canciones como “Sweetness” y “Emerge” de su disco #1 del 2002) e “Into the Woods”, que con sus voces, filtradas para tener un sonido metálico (no es Auto Tune a la Kanye West), te invitan a transportarte a un lugar a transportarte al espacio y bailar con las estrellas.

A primera vista, el primer sencillo de Heart Attack, “I wasn’t made for fighting”, pudiera haber salido de alguna producción de los semi one-hit-wonders del new wave revival del 2005, The Bravery. La diferencia es que “I wasn’t made for fighting” tiene un toque importante que muchas de estas canciones no tenían, es una pieza memorable con letras que no te pesa escuchar. No es que estén vacías de contenido, al contrario, lo que tienen que decir te lo presentan de una manera clara y sin pretensiones de poesía. De una vez se evitan el drama del cual mucho Indie bailable a veces peca. No me malinterpreten, no es huirle a las complejidades, pero a veces también se necesita descansar un poco y desbaratarse en la pista. Este álbum logra eso perfectamente.

Además de esto, también se han destacado en la prensa musical por sus covers de “I Kissed a Girl” de la cantante pop Katy Perry, “Nothing” de Peter, Bjorn and John y “Electric Avenue” de Eddie Grant. Las canciones también las puedes encontrar en su My Space o las puedes bajar aquí.

Una de las pocas debilidades que tiene la producción es la canción “Straighten the Curtain”, un slow jam, que aunque no está malo, pudieran haber prescindido de él sin ningún remordimiento. A parte de eso, escuchar (y bailar, reitero) Heart Attack es un respiro, no glitz, all glam, all dance. Y cómo dicen Dan Werb y Paul Banwatt en ‘I wasn’t made for fighting”: “there’s no rule against doing it one more time. I want to do it one more time”.

En estos momentos Woodhands se encuentra trabajando en su segundo álbum.

See, all of this does not come from a place of bitterness, in fact, it is a fully constructed and round argument based on pure trial and error analysis. When I turned 20 I decided to celebrate my birthday (as in party!) for the first time…ever…in…life. Turns out my best friend gets mad at me, decides to be a total bitch and we stop talking for at least a year. Exhibit A. When I turned 21, thinking I could sidestep past troubles, decided to celebrate “the party” at my house, only two have my two gay friends (they were off again) bicker, bitch and evil eye their whole way through the party. Needless to say, we also have not talked for the past year. So this year, I did nothing… except…telling Saosin-loving-Mo Mo that I wanted to go to the river.

Sounds fun…right? RIGHT?

That’s where we were wrong. So wrong, our GPS broke down half way down, near the corner of “maybe I should have stayed at home and gotten drunk”. I am not a “nature person”, but I did not know that. As comedian Mike Birbiglia would say: “I’m in the future also”. So we got up at 6 in the morning and headed to Guajataca, which is way up in the mountain. They told us there were canoes. They did not tell us we had to row at least two hours through a filthy (not to mention very deep) lake, only to get to the beginning of a river that was full of little creepy crawly animals and fucking spiders. Also, we had to leave our canoes and swim through the creepy crawly freezing water…under the rain…just to look at a stream of water coming down a rock. Also, I slipped and fell and almost broke my ass. Happy Birthday!

Saosin-loving-Mo Mo, her boyfriend and I (the three of us that had bitched our way there) now had to row back. This meant two more hours of my friend and her boyfriend fighting and getting on each other’s nerves, them getting on my nerves, me trying to diffuse the situation and all the while, our arms felt like bricks tied to very weak fishing rods. Did I tell you that rowing requires TEAM WORK? Yeah, fuck team work. We all wanted to drown each other in the middle of the lake and we would have, if we had only let a little more water into the canoe (we almost tipped over).

When we arrived at shore, we were ready to pack up our shit and leave; which we did fairly quickly. We got to the park gate and realized that our moron head of a guide (he’s our age) had no key to the place. We were locked in. Long story short, we got to shore at 4:00pm and ended up heading for San Juan at 8 o’clock at night. FOR THE WIN.

Now, I have to say that Saosin-loving-Mo Mo apologized the whole way through this and I want her to know that she did not have to. This hell was a collective making…I say we blame Domehead, our “tour guide”.

Anyway, in the end, I think we owe ourselves a pat on the back and I’ll tell you why:

1)      Nobody died (and nobody hit anybody over the head with their paddle).

2)      Now we know that we can actually survive in the wilderness…maybe an hour and a half, two hours tops.

3)      We saw how fucked up people are and how they pollute the water they are going to drink (stupid).

4)      There was some bonding…in a strange and awkward…way…

That said, on the day of my actual birthday I went to the university, worked at the radio station and came back home and ate some cake with my family and a friend (the gay friend from the party that still talks to me…it’s a long story). This is exactly what I wanted to do.

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s party and I’m not a pessimist (or a Jehova’s Witness), but I spent half of my life thinking birthdays were special days where everybody should stop what they are doing to celebrate you. Don’t get me wrong, the people that really love you should…and that’s the point: the people that really love you.

I probably sounded like an ingrate up there, but it really meant a lot to me for my friend to actually give shit and plan this for me. But my point is this: birthdays, like Christmas and St. Valentine’s Day, are really pushed by evil corporations like Mattel and Hallmark to guilt us into buying crap for people we mildly care about, and give them cards that say “Your Special”. My Cultural Studies professor says that none of us are special. I think he’s wrong. We are special, and that is the point…why do we have to wait for a birthday to tell someone that we’re special? If they really love you or care about you, they would say it every day and bypass the clichéd (and copyrighted) song.

Right now, I’m glad to be able to say that I have people in my life that don’t wait for my birthday to tell me that I matter to them. So, after all this bitching, I say: thank you friends, you know who you are.

Now, on a pure note of pop culture bliss (kill me now): for some reason I dusted off my very old Spice Girls cd’s, just cause I’m 22 and I suddenly started to feel old (and jaded and glad that I left my bubble gum pop days behind). So I went back, and I’m glad to say, they still make me feel like dancing from “Wannabe” all the way to “Spice up Your Life”. I smell a 90’s dance party coming!

The radio was on. Loud guitars and the piercing screams against humanity, known to distinguish those three minute masterpieces known to him as punk rock, were blaring out of the speakers. Going 70 miles on the 496, Dev tapped his fingers rapidly on the stirring wheel, suppressing the urge to roll down his window and yell at the car that cut him off on the expressway. “It’s midnight for all of those of you who are partying the night away at some sleazy club, smoking a joint or, for those of you unlucky enough to be heading to work. You suck. What you just heard was “Death of a Nation” by Anti-Flag, urging you not to sell out to those corporate bastards that already own your ass anyway. This is your host, Mickey Rotten and don’t forget you’re listening to KRXP 88.9”. Suddenly realizing the flashing lights in front of him, Dev burned rubber and made a sudden and loud stop in front of a row of orange cones and flare lights. There was a construction road block he hadn’t heard of and, having been trying to sober up for the last 45 minutes, Dev had overslept and was late.

“Fuck, Mickey is going to kill me. Fuck!” said Dev. He waited in line impatiently for the traffic dictators in phosphorescent jackets to let him through. There was something odd in the way they were stopping everyone and, apparently, asking for directions. Maybe he was hallucinating…they all looked like their hands were made of strobe lights. “What? Nope, they’re just flashlights. I have to get off this crap like now,” he said rubbing his hands across his eyes. The car made a sudden jerk as the tire ran over something hard and metallic, Dev rolled down the window and was momentarily blinded by a construction worker.

“It’s local traffic only. Where are you headed?” said the man. “I’m going to the radio station. It’s about a mile after the bridge, Steeltown Industrial Park. What happened?” asked Dev suddenly realizing the huge cranes lifting chunks of cement off the expressway. “Have you been under a rock, kid? A diesel tanker exploded three days ago, blew off the whole overpass northbound. Only one lane open. You’re lucky there’s not much thru traffic or else you still would’ve been waiting in line back at your house”, he laughed. “Well, what time is it?” asked Dev. “12:15”, answered the construction worker.

Panic made a run down Dev’s spine to his legs, making a pit stop at his stomach. He pressed on the accelerator and found the speedometer at the 70 mile mark once again. It wouldn’t be that bad if he made it in about two minutes, he thought. His plan was off to a great start until a loud boom and a sudden clash of metal and cement interrupted his train of thought. The car was running lopsided. He managed to stop and align himself at the shoulder. He turned on his emergency lights, opened his door and quickly smelled of burnt tire. “Crap man, I just bought this tire. What the hell!” thought Dev. Looking closely he saw a single wide and rusty nail sticking out of the rubber. Also, the hubcap was bent. His second thought was to flip open his cell phone.

“Perverts Anonymous, how can I help you?” said the voice. “Mickey? It’s me you dumbass. Can you cover for me for like half an hour? Is Resnick watching you?” asked Dev. “No, Resnick decided to stay home with his wife. Two, this is like the third time this month that I’ve covered for you, what the hell?” yawned Mickey. “It’s a real emergency this time, I ran over a nail and I have to change the tire. I’m like an exit away from the station. Please? My punk brother?” pleaded Dev. “Aw, don’t throw your comrade bullshit on me. Half an hour and don’t forget you’re on the air at 2:30am,” said Mickey. “I owe you one.” “You owe me your life Dev. Half an hour,” said Mickey.

As soon as he hung up he spotted the blue lights of a police siren a couple of meters away. “This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” thought Dev, and he flagged the cop car. It stopped cold a couple of feet away from Dev’s beat up Ford Explorer and backed up. A prototypical Hollywood cop stepped out of the car. Handcuffs hung from his belt, standard issue Smith and Wesson revolver, badge, nightstick, black hair, blue eyes…black flashlight. He was odd. “What seems to be the problem?” said the cop in a false, tough bass. “Umm, I have a flat tire and I need to get work. Can you help me? I mean…I have a spare in my trunk, I think,” wondered Dev. The cop looked Dev up and down, saw his torn jeans, the cut off Bad Religion t-shirt, the Mohawk and the Doc Marten boots, and thought he was going to give this lowlife a hard time. He must have something on him; his kind always does, thought the officer.

His badge said his name was Rodríguez. “Sergeant Rodríguez? Are you gonna help me?” said Dev, wondering why the sergeant was staring insistently at the crotch of his jeans. “Yeah…just pop the trunk and get me the tools”, he said. All the while, the silhouette of a woman was staring at them from the backseat of the police car. Handcuffs and all, she discreetly blew kisses at Rodríguez. He shooed her off with a stern face and a wave of his hand. To Dev, who was watching the scene as he put the key in the keyhole to open his trunk, again, this seemed very odd.

The door lamps of his car had gone out long ago. He opened the trunk and felt for the spare but instead grabbed a handful of sticky wet hair. Yet again, he panicked, and this time he stumbled back and fell flat on the pavement. Out of Dev’s throat came a cracked out high pitched sound that the cop recognized as: “Holy crap I swear there’s something in there.”

“I swear to God if this is some prank of yours I’m gonna take you down to the station and book you for possession of illegal substances. I’m pretty sure I’ll find something in there…you look like you’ve been binging on crack for the last five days.” Dev scrambled back up and sneered at Rodríguez and mimicked his last sentence in a weird voice. “Do I look like I’m joking? You go check.”

Rodríguez turned on his flashlight and looked in the trunk. Back at him stared a pair of clouded black eyes and a wide open mouth with cracked lips. There was blood on her hair and a deep gash on her head that appeared to be made by a blunt object. The body suddenly jerked, as dead bodies sometimes do when they are full of pressurized air. The cop panicked and proceeded to strike the body repeatedly with his nightstick. “DIE YOU ZOMBIE FREAK!”

Dev jumped on the cop and tried to stop him by grabbing his arms. “What are you doing you moron? She’s not a zombie, she’s dead. Dead!” he said. “SHE MOVED! Wait, what is she doing in the trunk of your car? I think I have to arrest you under the suspicion of murder…” said Rodríguez, looking quite perplexed but relieved now that he did not have to deal with a flesh eating zombie. “Hell no, I didn’t kill that girl. And, and…you beat her up. How do you know she wasn’t alive before you bashed her head in with your”, Dev stuttered, “your club?”

They both stared at the body and wondered. The cop assessed the situation and realized that, even if he had killed her with his nightstick, he couldn’t be held responsible. He acted under the suspicion that he was in danger, just like in the movies. Dev just stared blankly at the body and thought about the ways he could pin the murder on the cop. None of them ever questioned who was the woman laying in a bloody pool of death in the trunk of the Explorer.

“I swear I didn’t kill her. I mean, I’ve never even seen this woman, ever…in my life!” said Dev. “Do I look like a killer? I mean, come on, I’m scared shitless and I’m pretty sure my boss is going to fire me tonight for being late…again.” Dev banged his head helplessly on the side of the car and a single tear came out of his left green eye. Rodríguez looked horrified at Dev’s weakness, but felt sorry for him. He too had been in a jam many times. Not like this one, though.

“How did you not smell her?” asked Rodríguez. “I haven’t used my car. It spent a month at the body shop. The owner said he had a hard time and couldn’t fix it quickly because somebody had broken into his shop and had messed up the place,” said Dev. Yet again, they both stared at the body and wondered some more. It was one in the morning and there was little traffic, except the delivery trucks that came out of the pier full of merchandise.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Rodríguez, “we have to make this body disappear or else we are both going to be up shit’s creek without a paddle, kid. I don’t want to go to jail, you don’t want to go to jail, we can agree on that. Now, what would a real criminal do?” Dev looked at him, then looked at the car and realized the whole scene was retarded. This cop was retarded, and now that he really looked at him, and the handcuffed woman in the car, he thought he looked like a male stripper in a uniform. He thought out loud: “Are you sure you are a cop?” Rodríguez looked at Dev in disbelief. “How dare you question an officer of the law?”

An eighteen wheeler sped by them. They both looked at the body and the blanket on top of it, and then looked at the truck. In a quick reaction each of the men grabbed an end of the blanket, lifted the body and looked both ways before crossing the four lanes to the middle of the expressway with the bundle. They looked at each other and dropped it on the pavement and ran back to the shoulder. “Let’s just forget this ever happened, okay?” said Rodríguez. Dev nodded. “Oh, and clean up your car. They say Coca Cola makes blood untraceable under black light.”

Quickly, they both ran back to the shoulder. Dev and Rodríguez fixed the tire as quickly and as badly as they could and fled the scene in their respective cars. Minutes later, a distracted produce truck driver was speeding on the expressway. It was 1:30 in the morning and he was doing 80 miles per hour. Under the truck, he heard a loud thud and came to a sudden stop that almost made the sandwich in his stomach come back out and decorate the window. He thought, “Jesus Christ, I think I just killed someone”.

“Never trust other people’s maps. Those map people always try to rewrite the history of the land, erasing places and such”, Grandpa Kenny had told Elizabeth before she left for Goat’s Head. The town was small and it was not very far from where she lived, but legend had it that it was a tricky place to navigate. The streets were named after outstanding citizens of the city, and since there were so many of those, each street changed its name mid way. Four houses down, Charles Street turned into June Street, Juan Street turned into Chester Coconut, and so it went. All of them connected to Main Street anyway, that much she knew. So Elizabeth decided to ignore her grandfather’s warning and bought a map at the Truck Stop a few miles from the freeway that was supposed to get her to Goat’s Head.

“There’s nothing there, it’s a worthless little town. Why do you have to be driving there for?” asked Grandpa Kenny before she left. “I want to take some pictures before I leave. And you’re wrong. It’s not a “worthless town”, no place is worthless. You should know better”, she answered back. Grandpa Kenny gave her a warm smile, which Elizabeth recognized as a way of telling her that she was hopeless. Always stirring the dirt and looking for meaning in things that seemed like they lacked one. Seemed was the operating word.

A very long and confusing street somwhere in town...

She had always been curious about Goat’s Head and she had a creeping suspicion that the town carried some sort of pain for her grandfather, but she never dared to ask. Grandpa Kenny refused to go with her, so she never told him what she was going to photograph.

After she bought the map she left the truck stop and headed towards the freeway. Thirty minutes later, the map, TripTik, told her to take Exit 1 and Goat’s Head would be at her right. All was right in the world of maps so far. Looking out the window, she felt melancholy for the first time in her young life. A town that had once been filled with happy children, colonial buildings and colorful houses was now in ruins. It was six o’clock. The sun fell upon buildings to reveal empty store fronts and for sale signs. Economic strife materialized in front of Elizabeth’s eyes.

Following the map, she got lost. Street names had been changed, honorable citizens forgotten. She realized Grandpa Kenny was right, except that cartographers weren’t the culprit of erasing places from this town. The people were, and she hated them for it. But, in her heart, she knew that her hate was misplaced.

After driving in circles, she realized that she had been in front of what she was looking for all along. Now she knew why her grandfather held such a grudge for this place. She didn’t have the heart to take out her camera and photograph the debris behind the chain link fence. There only thing that was left was a small rusty plaque that read: “In 1987, here stood the Goat’s Head Press. After 30 years of operation, its owners were forced to close it down.”

TOYKULT is one of those randomly awesome things you find on the web in the weirdest moments. Actually…it found me. It’s the project of United Kingdom born, Montréal multimedia artist Tom Hamlyn, a.k.a, Henri Spartan. The band, comprised mainly of himself (as he said, not by choice) and some collaborators, plays a mix of electronica, 90’s alternative, Brit Pop, punk and everything in between, to create a unique concept that mixes music, art, video and performance. And those weird bunny like toys…

Their songs, with the intentionally quirky and often funny titles, help shape the whole concept behind TOYKULT: to create an intrinsically planned, socially conscious dance party minus the preaching. And if you happen to catch them live somewhere, be careful… they might be impostors.

As there were some pieces missing on the web (I know magicians and musicians never give their secrets away), I contacted Henri Spartan to shed some light on his own project, in his own words. TOYKULT’s second cd, Narcisstika (their first was SOW LOCO), is available for free under a Creative Commons license at their website www.toykult.com.

This is what he said…

Amaya: Google tells me you’re quite the multimedia artist…what did you do before TOYKULT?

Henri Spartan (aka. Tom Hamlyn): I trained as a painter and sculptor and specialized in creating collage artworks, then studied a masters degree in Computer Graphics so I could collage both image and sound. The TOYKULT sound shows elements of this experience.

Amaya: I see…so you told me you’ve been playing music long before this. How did Toykult start? Or, better yet…what inspired you?

Henri Spartan: I was jamming with two friends of mine Martin Bennett and Franck Chionna and decided it was time to concentrate on what I love most… music and art. I had been diddling around doing computer graphics and selling toys on EBay, but I was bored and unhappy with computer graphics as a conduit for my creativity. Essentially the only reason I was doing graphics was to make an income like we all have to, but I was selling enough toys and art invention on EBay that I could dedicate most of my time to making music, so that’s what I started in October 2006.

I was also fortunate to be surrounded by good musicians with experience in sound engineering, so I was able to learn how to build a studio at home on a budget which gave me great creative freedom. And because I had already written and produced an EP using the music of Booker T and the MG’s I was familiar with the process somewhat.

So I began work on my first album SOW LOCO, sow as in sowing seeds. Nine months later the album was finished and all the while I would post tracks to MySpace to see what feedback came back. It was very positive.

[The album] it was self released and promoted mainly thru the TOYKULT myspace profile. Got some excellent reviews and radio play in Canada, USA and UK and in March 2008 I was approached to sign a record deal with Some Bizzare in London UK. The label had its heyday in the 80′s with acts like Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, The The etc so it was very exciting. But I decided to quit the label about 7 months after signing because they kept delaying the official release of the 1st album and were not honest with me.

It was a great relief and spurred me on to write new material a lot of which is on the new album Narcisstika, which brings us up to date ; )

Amaya: Well that’s good, because in this album there’s quite a mix of electronica and alternative…there is even hints of Blur, which I found great.

Henri Spartan: Well spotted! That mix is even more pronounced in this new album I think.

Amaya: There is a little bit of everything. Lots of Britpop…so how did you manage to mix all your influences in? How was the process of recording Narcisstika?

Henri Spartan: I grew up in London and the north of England so Britpop, new wave and punk have had an enormous influence on me. What I’ve tried to do with the TOYKULT sound is add something to that mix, and there’s plenty of North American influences too, especially from the US. Beck for one, Captain Beefheart…something in the creative spirit of these artists; and I love rap to. Public Enemy were and are amazing and I love the first OUTKAST album and Afro Rock from the 70′s and German experimental progressive stuff like CAN.

The recording process is a fairly spontaneous one. I need to find the right energy before recording. It’s almost like you have to leave you normal self behind and go somewhere new or let the dog out…

Amaya: Hahaha…I hope you didn’t have to fight with it…

Henri Spartan: I don’t always write about specific things, often it is about the energy of the performance…

Sometimes I do have to fight with it, but most of the time it’s quite easy to let ideas, lyrics, melodies arrive spontaneously. Of course some of them I end up not liking and they get archived.

Amaya: They’ll make for some nice B-Sides someday…

Henri Spartan: Some of them I can’t stand ; )  But some are a lot of fun. The ones that take themselves too seriously don’t work with me. Songs like Narcisstika and Like a Dog could be too serious but I think we’ve managed to keep a sense of fun in them.

Amaya: I was wondering about the song called Eyes of Vin Diesel…

Henri Spartan: What were you wondering about?

Amaya: About this sense of not taking it too seriously…

Henri Spartan: That’s true. EOVD comes from a random thing a friend said to me: “you’ve got the eyes of Vin Diesel”. Not sure he was right about that but I liked the expression, so it became a line of the song. And my first try with the ubiquitous autotune…

I like the ‘Cor Blimey Mater’ line in the song too.

Because it can be heard as ‘Cor Blimey Mate’ but ‘Mater’ is Latin for Mother (I think). So it’s saying Eyes of Vin Diesel… cor blimey mother/mum…so it’s a dedication to my mum…that bit of the song that is…Mater sounds better than mother too and has the double meaning.

Amaya: See, I think that right now the musicians that are getting famous, I think they take their art way to seriously. You seem like you take it seriously but you can hear through the music and the lyrics that you’re having fun. Cheers to that!

Henri Spartan: Thats great to hear. I agree. I think for many musicians it becomes way too much about the business of music which really kills it; kills the fun, the creativity.

For us it’s not about money it’s about making great music and art having fun and an interesting life while remaining independent and connecting with the audience in a real and unpretentious way.

Our creative process is pretty informal and for the LIVE show I’d really like to bring the sense of fun, happy accident and spontaneity we have in the studio.

Amaya: I know you also have videos. Are they part of your live performances? What elements distinguish you guys form other artists?

Henri Spartan: I’m in the process of developing the VJ show to accompany the LIVE set which will include the visual DVD at the TOYKULT website but also a lot of new material.

I guess the thing that most distiguishes TOYKULT from most other artists is that it is primarily a solo project… in that up to now all the music and visuals are created by me. I collaborate on some songs with different friends and musicians, but I am the organizing factor, and also producer, engineer and promoter. So essentially the music you hear comes from the horse’s mouth… No producer, record company or studio engineer has come between the music and the audience…nor designer.

The guys I work with are friends who are all excellent musicians, some with their own projects. We work together on an informal basis and it’s really a privilege for me to work with them like this.

For the LIVE show there will probably be only two of us, me and Franck Chionna who is an amazing musician with a lot of LIVE experience already and his own project Madovsky.

I hope all that didn’t sound egotistical. It’s not that it was a choice.

I’ve been in a few bands and it was always very difficult to get the sound and energy of the project right so when I started TOYKULT the idea was to go for a sound that I loved that took the influences that have struck a chord with me and develop those ideas while also exploring how I could bring my experience in art to the project too.

Amaya: So that’s where the toys come in. I was going to ask you, because there is a theme in your record…toys, electronic mediums…are they characters on their own are they just part of the visual project?

Henri Spartan: Well the name TOYKULT came to me in a couple of ways…I was selling customized vinyl toys and accessories on EBay and had an interest in counter culture literature, art and film. There was also something messianic about the idea of a ‘Band’ that interested me so the toy and the kult was a play on words. A ‘toy’ as in not the real thing and ‘kult’ as in a bit serious, a bit scary, like an ideology.  I think this perspective helps to distinguish us from other bands.

Amaya: It does actually. I’ve never heard anyone take that approach…

Henri Spartan: We can look at ourselves from outside the box, partly because we are not in it. We haven’t played many gigs and definitely want to play more, but I had an idea that TOYKULT would play with different musicians in each country we visit. It’s an arty approach because of my background I guess.

Even going so far as to invite another band somewhere to perform our show instead of us… fun fun fun.

Amaya: Playing tricks huh?

Henri Spartan: Exactly. For fun and I think it would be fun for the audience too…

Amaya: So it’s kind of like a Gorillaz thing…

Henri Spartan: Very much so. They were an inspiration to me. I love a lot of Damon’s [Albarn] work and ideas. And on the visual side I would love to invite artists, street artists to contribute or perform at the live show. It’s all about communication, invention, creativity… so it would become less about me and more about us, which is what music is all about I think.

Amaya: I completely agree.

Henri Spartan: What you make happen together when you are in tune with a vibe, a piece of music or collaborative art piece; or politically even: the people rule.

I’m still a bit of an idealist…

Amaya: Don’t lose that…

Henri Spartan: I won’t even when I become stardust again. And these things shape what I want to happen for TOYKULT.

Amaya: So, “I don’t need no electronic shit”. Is there something about our world specifically or about our politics that you wanted to say with Narcisstika?

Henri Spartan: Well I kind of need my electronic shit! (laugh).

Amaya: (Laugh)…true…

Henri Spartan: I guess the intention is to explore how both old world skills and new can work together in a way that is more human, humane. Technology is amazing and could be incredibly helpful in the human enlightenment project, but there’s something dehumanizing in it too. Especially in the way it is used to propagandize, the way it’s used to manipulate, to exploit through fear the threat of force and war by governments and multi nationals.

Showing my anti capitalist colours here.

Amaya: (Laugh) Hey, so am I, that’s why I asked you. Basically that’s what I took from Narcisstika, especially in the name…

Henri Spartan: This is partly where the ‘kult’ comes from [...] festishisation of technology, which also reflects the Sci-Fi electronic elements of the TOYKULT sound.

I’m glad you got that from the title.

Amaya: It’s a great album…and it’s music with meaning that you can also dance to.

Henri Spartan: Yeyeyeyeeyeyeye…without being too preachy, I hope.

Amaya: Exactly…see, in Puerto Rico we call that “panfletero”

Henri Spartan: Mum and dad like it so it can’t be too bad. They don’t like it when I go on a rant.

Great word… perhaps I could use it a as song title…like pamphlet.

Amaya: That’s exactly what it means.

Henri Spartan: I love it. I’ll tell Franck tonight… it’ll become a song. I love beautiful words whatever language…

Amaya: I want to hear that song when it’s done…if it’s possible.

Henri Spartan: I’ll let you know. Perhaps it’ll go on the studio mastered version of Narcisstika. I’m not that happy with the Unky Little title: “Unky little sound of the future”. “Panfletero” might work well to define its irony a little better.

Amaya: Well I’m glad I could be of service…(Laugh).

Henri Spartan: This is what I love about the creative process… it’s not all about one person.

Amaya: So…I don’t want to take the rest of your day, as I have already. So for the last question: What are your future plans for TOYKULT?

Henri Spartan: We’re going to France in October to record and work on the LIVE show. Then on to Berlin to play some shows and then the UK. And meantime we’ll be releasing Narcisstika on CD and iTunes with slightly different versions of the songs.

Hey all! Just wanted to share some of the music that makes the world worth waking up for in the morning. Hope you all enjoy!

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Now, this is not a blame game. Who knows what happened or what will happen in the future. If all is right in the world (and it is not), we will see a reunion a couple of years down the road with a huge spread on Q Magazine that will detail the breakups and makeups of the two and their inspiration for the record they are releasing in a month. But, this kind of sounds very final:

“The details are not important and of too great a number to list. But I feel you have the right to know that the level of verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades has become intolerable. And the lack of support and understanding from my management and bandmates has left me with no other option than to get me cape and seek pastures new,” said Noel on the band’s website www.oasisinet.com.

So, to all of us who actually lived in the 90’s to hear the grandiosity (much to Blur’s chagrin) of songs such as “Wonderwall”, “Live Forever”, “Champagne Supernova”, “D’You Know What I Mean” and “Shakermaker”, these will only live in our outdated record collections filed under the musical cemetery labeled as “The Second British Invasion”.

Like The Beatles, whom they borrowed from many a thing, this band imploded on their own worldwide success. So Noel, being “bigger than, dare I say it, fucking God” sure does have its price. There is no denying that you were (a little humility may have helped), but, continuing on the Beatles comparison (which to my knowledge is still the more famous than God), it couldn’t last forever. As creativity wanes and stars burn out in the sky, sometime, it had to end. We will never know what happened (unless Noel decides to publish another statement), it will remain a mystery. Much like the “Did Yoko break up the Beatles?” one…many will try to solve it. Most will fail miserably. (By the way, Rolling Stone published a great interview on the subject in this month’s issue.)

But that’s okay. As long as we don’t have to hear Noel and Liam fighting again, we can deal with it. Although, it’s a sad fact that there will be no more live performances of the classics and some great musicians and voices (that worked together) will be silenced for good. Again, unless they make up; which is a possibility. Another sad fact is that, for some of us, this is the end of an era. It is also a final punctuation mark to a part of 90’s youth. As I have expressed before, I feel sorry for the kids today. A friend told me that the music died a long time ago. I wouldn’t go that far but it has some chilling truth to it.

To Noel, Liam and Oasis), I say thank you for all those years of wonderful music that made me wish I had lived in the sixties, and that somehow provided a soundtrack to my misfit youth and the youths of many others like me. Even if I never hear another sung word from the original Oasis, my only request to them is to take their own advice and “Don’t Look Back in Anger”.

In journalism classes, just asking this question would be blasphemy. The journalist doesn’t matter, you don’t matter. But, this is not the type of journalism I want to make, so instead of talking about how great his body of work was and how he invented a paradigm for the eighties youth and the teen dream (and consequent deception), I decided to answer my own question.

Now this is hard because when The Breakfast Club (one of my favorite movies of his) was released, I was two years away from being conceived. It premiered in 1985 and I was born in 1987. I will be 22 years old in September. But that particular movie changed my life, and that is why we are still talking about John Hughes today. His movies are timeless, the music is timeless…the themes are timeless. And, to some extent, I believe they changed everybody’s outlook on certain things, maybe including their place in life.

The Breakfast Club details a typical and very culturally American high school experience. This was not my high school experience at all, but that is what makes everything interesting. I did not spend a minute in detention, there were no popular or unpopular cliques at my high school (although everybody thought they were popular) and not fitting in wasn’t enough of a reason to have a gun in your locker. There were no lockers.

The setting does not matter; it’s the story that tugs at the strings of your heart and yanks them out. This is why it spoke to me: I’ve never been popular (I wasn’t even the least bit sociable until I went to college), I was never the one to be invited to many parties (there weren’t that many) and, personally, I could relate to almost nobody. To me, all of it was false, we were all false, and time would prove me right.

Much like Claire, Andrew, Bender, Brian and Allison, we were thrown into a room, with little in common, to fend for ourselves and resolve our issues. Few friendships came out of that, and like the characters in the movie, we also did not lie to ourselves at the end. We knew that there was little chance that we would ever want to see each other again. And that’s fine.

Some of us are still figuring out our place in life. Most of us graduate from high school thinking that we are going to escape to a better world, realizing that the “real world” is just an extension of high school politics and cliques. Most of us will never escape the labels of “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal”.

Brian couldn’t have said it better: “You see us as you want to see us- in the simplest of terms, in the most convenient definitions”. And that is life, in the most convenient terms and the simplest definitions. It saddens me.

It saddens me that we haven’t evolved from the picture of the world John Hughes painted in 1985. That is why we still talk about his films today. I feel sorry for a whole generation who will probably never see them and will never get a chance to understand them. The puppets have changed, but the world hasn’t changed, and it is very unlikely that it will change.

John Hughes left this world empty handed because he left it all to us in celluloid and music. But most importantly, with The Breakfast Club, he left us something else: hope. He had hope in youth, and right now youth is us. It is up to us to prove that the brainwashing stops here.

Rest in peace.