Andrew WK

I am of course talking about So Solid Crew, not Andrew WK, whose collected misdemeanours I suspect amount to nicking an apple from the front of the greengrocers in 1983.

Agree that "TDK" the single isn't much cop, and from what I've heard of the album thus far I'm afraid that's not great either.

I recently wrote a short story which ends with the suggestion that to those from middle-class backgrounds (or rather the specific character from such a background I'm referring to) So Solid Crew must seem like "strange animals who speak another language". What Marcello says is therefore eerily accurate. To be honest, I fear for them: the more a collective of people is promoted by the mainstream media as "the product / representation of urban violence", the more instigators of such violence are going to surround them. There *is* a dubious element in some coverage of SSC, who I think *deserve* the coverage on musical grounds alone, but it does show the voyeuristic streak that music hacks often show when writing about street rap, here coming closer to home.

I like "Party Hard" just fine, I think Alacran defined its appeal pretty well. I've never heard Bright Eyes.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/2488016999_ef294c9efa_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3026/2488861340_c1151b5530_o.jpg
http://mrsskin.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/andrewwk_2008_2.jpg

WAHT

egads

lol, multiple fanboy bonarz

I actually dug up my old copy of I Get Wet today and, call me crazy, was surprised at how well Party Hard had aged.

He's obviously cutting back on the 'roids.

:O

Andrew W.anK.er - rubbish music, for rubbish people - America take your unwanted trash back ! total crap singalong hard rock inane bullshit.
-- DJ Martian, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

I really thought he would be huge, bringing an end to the daddy-issues nu-metal era.

Still a totally awesome album.

he has produced the new Lee Scratch Perry album and it is going to be awesome. i have an unreleased pitchforktv video of the making of the album and it brings tears to my eyes it makes me laugh so hard.

LOL, Pfork fucking hated him when the first album came out. "HUH? THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE MODEST MOUSE??!?!"

This guy is the fucking sweetest and I love him forever, even if he is now pretending to be eastern European pedo boy porn.

Those picks have to be pre-2001. He's at least 30 now, right?

pics, even.

Has anyone seen that Steev Mike/AWK got replaced conspiracy shit? The sites are bonkers.

Andrew WK is emo about emo

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Man, this motherfucker is cool. He lets people be people and doesn't say bad shit about anyone. I try to be like that, but I draw the line at furries.

lolz kids show

What's the story with this mixtape he's released?! The eMusic previews aren't working on my computer right now, unfortunately.

http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/281/114/523/11452310/300x300.jpg

Here's the link to it on eMusic, incidentally...

I love Andrew WK. He's like a good version of Journey.

oh you

Girls Own Juice EP
first album whatever it's called
The Wolf
Close Calls With Brick Walls

all really badass (especially the last one)

When something’s covered
Does it just go away?
Or does it just hover
Behind the veil of today?

And she said, “You don’t…”
“You don’t have any houses.”
And he said, “No, you don’t…”
“You don’t have any home”

oh you

It's hard to listen to the first two songs off "the Wolf" without feeling like you need to run a fucking marathon or something.

(in a good way)

Um, he's releasing a solo album of improvisational piano (a la Keith Jarrett) called 55 Cadillac. He says: "I want the listens to feel like they're in the car with me, and I'm playing piano-- just for them-- inside the car, together. That feeling is '55 Cadillac.'" Bizarre.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=280473611&blogId=492679536

listens --> listeners

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i264/GYtrfe23453bhgvf/55Cad_VinylOrder.jpg

lol at pic of him hanging out the window. haven't heard of much of this guy's music, but i've always kinda liked him. seems like a cool oddball sort of dude. i mean, going from jamming with wolf eyes to hosting a kids show is an interesting career arc.

that video is rather Lynchian.

His music is fucking great if you're depressed. It will totally kill any sadness on contact. Seriously.

from metafilter

When I was 14, Andrew, myself and two other friends started a band called "Lab Lob Otomy." To Andrew, we were a 'noise' band, gleefully deconstructing and defying everyone else's notions of what was and wasn't music. I think to the rest of the band we were just making as much noise as possible in lieu of actually knowing how to play our instruments. Even then, Andrew was prodigiously talented as a multi-instrumentalist (he played drums in the band, but he was an incredible pianist.)

On top of Lab Lob Otomy, the members collaborated on a bunch of one-off projects, but it became clear around the time Lab Lob Otomy dissolved (around my16th birthday) that we really just couldn't keep up. Andrew was something of a musical perfectionist, and we were just not disciplined or talented enough performers to stay toe to toe with him. I think that says a lot as to why he continued to perform largely solo after that.

As a person he's a very good guy, and even though I initially thought his whole sincerity kick was an Andy Kaufmann-esque pose, I came to realize that he knows it's a joke but he still means it.

I still see him sometimes. I went to his wedding a few months ago. He's good people, and he's managed to carve out an amazing little niche for himself that few performers get, where he can (and does) try just about everything. More power to him.

split 7" coming out on mint/nardwaur june 23rd with the evaporators and andrew wk.

Holy shit; that "55 Cadillac" thing is KILLING me, from album concept to cover. He wants me to feel like he's in the CAR PLAYING PIANO JUST FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think the best thing to say about him is that he seems to do whatever he wants all the time despite how weird or uncool it is, some of it is just interesting, some of it is really great, and i've not really heard a bad word said about him as a person/person to work with.

that video is rather Lynchian

He put out a tour doc called "Who Knows?" that is pretty amazing, and leans heavily on this kind of old school video editing with psychedelic audio effects and David Lynch tone. The intro is hilarious, he's talking about World War II and all this conceptual & historical stuff while an orchestra slowly builds up in the background while still images of his rocking out (and occasionally making admittedly silly rock faces) slowly zoom in. At one point a stream of light emits from his mouth that fills the screen.

Lots of awesome performances on this, including footage from when he was touring The Wolf in Japan, had a crippling accident, and finished the rest of the tour IN HIS WHEELCHAIR. Inspiring stuff.

In between all the songs are lots of Lynchian spookiness, eerie drones and sound collages while Andrew (or an imposter?) just glowers at the camera silently or contorts his body across the floor. These parts are really freaky and adds to the weird mystique about his act. Once you see this video it's no longer 'Is he really a 24/7 movitational partier?' but 'is he really a performance art schooler who ended up with a pop record deal?'

Yeah, actually I have that video, and it really is a perversely funny performance art thing that completely defies your expectations. Just like the whole Steev Mike thing that was going on for 2+ years. If you don't know what I'm talking about... honestly, I have no way of explaining the twists and turns of that dramatic rollercoaster ride.

I saw Andrew WK performing last night. Un-friggin-believable. I love this guy. "This is not a concert, this is a party", beer and beercans flying around, enormous build-ups followed by everyone going ape-shit mental, half the audience onstage, lost shoes, ripped clothes, everyone covered in beer and water and some serious fun. The show ended with Andrew backed by the Evaporators with Nardwuar the Human Serviette and Wimpy Roy of the Subhumans/DOA on vocals and guitar. So much fun.

res OTM on this thread

also a W.K. concert is always a joy. I've been to two and just so much fun and everyone was so happy! Also at the second one he did a weird & creepy version of 'Blueberry Hill' on solo piano, and he and the band did a three minute version of their Kit-Kat song.

In a statement on the guitar W.K. said, “For over 8 years, I dreamed of creating a guitar made out of a slice of pizza supreme."

http://andrewwk.com/news/andrews-pizza-guitar

lol

i wish i could live this guy's life.

you can, apparently, as there appears to be no difference between being an Andrew WK impersonator and Andrew WK judging from the pizza video.

that video is awesome. goddamnit i wish i could live this guy's life.

(the dude in the video is an andrew wk impersonator)

please direct applications for becoming an andrew wk impersonator to louise harland corporation c/o steev mike

i'm serious though. the dude sounds really off. this isn't the same dude in the build/destroy show or the nardwuar interviews.

He's used them in the past but this guy looks like him a lot. Are you sure it's an impersonator? Where you get that from?

It's him.

i don't even understand why someone would do that.

maybe real andrew wk is allergic to wheat gluten

that's not an impersonator. there are rumor of impersonators, but I don't think this is one of them.

that's his voice, for sure. also, bear in mind that he's nearly 35 now, and the cover of I Get Wet was when he was 22.

1. andrew's voice is weird in this. if he's the same as TV andrew, it's as if he's doing an impression of himself.
2. the recorded voice on I Get Wet sounds way different from LIVE andrew
3. they could ALL be impersonators

http://i.imgur.com/MrHI0.png

this week's AWK shirt.

http://andrewwk.com/news/item-of-the-week

somehow AWK has been involved in this Brony horseshit

WHole time I was watching this video, it just seemed "off". I'm not convinced it's the real AWK either.

doesnt look like him

That metafilter quote upthread is totallt otm. I worked w. Andrew for about a year and a half. He was never short of the most humble, positive guy I've met. Completely filled with wonder at all the awesome things he came across.

I'm gonna float a theory here, you guys tell me if I'm off-base here... Is Andrew WK the reincarnation of Jesus Christ?

there may be 2 AWKs but I don't think there are 3+

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7358684120_96e199d0e3.jpg

Zoolander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xemLz_fR1Ac

he finally got out of the Island contract?

ANDREW W.K. Includes Dirty Jeans and Hair
in "I GET WET" Limited Deluxe Edition

New York, NY (August 2, 2012): Following the unveiling of the packaging and track listing of the I Get Wet 10th Anniversary deluxe edition last week, Andrew W.K. has given details of a super limited 500 double-disc autographed edition.

In addition to a special autographed 20-page booklet that accompanies the two discs, the 500 double-CD copies will include very unique personal items from the party king himself. These items, inserted at random, may include a piece of Andrew W.K.'s own personal, stage-worn and filthy white Levi's 501 jeans that were cut into 496 pieces! Three of the remaining limited packages will contain a lock of W.K.'s unwashed hair, while one lucky purchaser will receive an autographed airplane ticket stub that W.K. used to fly from Prague to New York City. Out of consideration for the recipients of his dirty jeans and hair, a Bloody Nose Air-Freshener will be included in all packages to help with any potential odors contained in the CD case.

"I wanted to give a piece of myself and this party to everyone who got one of these limited editions," explains W.K. "Originally, I had wanted to include used tissues and one of my hangnails, but I was told that international customs doesn't allow sending human flesh or bodily fluids in music packaging. So I decided to give the party people my dirty white jeans and hair instead. My jeans and hair give me party power-kind of like Dumbo's magic feather. They're blessed with the power of positive partying, and I hope that these objects bring even more magical partying to anyone who possesses them."

To be released by Century Media Records on August 28th, the I Get Wet 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition comes in a stunning double-gatefold LP edition or a two-CD edition. In addition to the original landmark debut album by W.K., the deluxe edition extends the partying with a second disc/LP of never- before-heard live recordings, early demo recordings, alternate mixes, and other previously unreleased material. For the live recordings on the second disc W.K. and his team recorded their live concerts using a special custom-designed technology. With the aim of recreating the sound inside his own ear canals while he performs on stage, they constructed a unique microphone enclosure disguised to look like a piece of monitor equipment and designed to replicate W.K.'s skull. The resulting audio is raw, chaotic and full of live energy.

The deluxe packaging includes a photo-realistic oil painting of the original album cover by artist Gonzalo Garcia as well as extensive liner notes and dozens of never-before-seen photos from the original recording sessions of I Get Wet as well as throughout Andrew W.K.'s career.

I GET WET 10TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION TRACK LISTING:

DISC 1 (I Get Wet - The Original Album):

1. It's Time To Party
2. Party Hard
3. Girls Own Love
4. Ready To Die
5. Take It Off
6. I Love NYC
7. She Is Beautiful
8. Party Til You Puke
9. Fun Night
10. Got To Do It
11. I Get Wet
12. Don't Stop Living In The Red

DISC 2 (The Bonus Tracks):

1. It's Time To Party (Live)
2. It's Time To Party (1999 Version)
3. Party Hard (Live)
4. Party Hard (1999 Version)
5. Girls Own Love (Live)
6. Girls Own Love (1999 Version)
7. Ready To Die (Live)
8. Take It Off (Live)
9. I Love NYC (Live)
10. She Is Beautiful (Live)
11. She Is Beautiful (1999 Version)
12. Party Til You Puke (Live)
13. It Just Got Hotter (Sundogs Version)
14. Got To Do It (Keyboards Version)
15. I Get Wet (Live)
16. Don't Stop Living In The Red (1999 Version)

Pitchfork gave it an 8.6 this time around (the review itself is pretty decent too). I'm proud of them.

That first review was such a travesty.

tbh I'm surprised the original review is still online. That would've been one of the first things I scrubbed if I were in charge of tidying Pitchfork's editorial integrity.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/184-i-get-wet/

yikes

that first review is one of the things that got me to check out AWK! basically "this guy sounds like a real prick, therefore if he hates this, i'll probably like it"

Now, Brent and I like to hook up and get cynical from time to time

will never ceased to be amazed at what Schreiber and DiCriscenzo hath wrought, really. it's amazing that two such shitty, shitty writers managed to create a media juggernaut that makes/breaks careers.

Though now I'm curious to see what Ian Cohen's original review of that album was like...

xp I think the same...though with DiCriscenzo I always hold out a tiny bit of hope that he's just trolling everyone, Schreiber is cringe-worthy like 99% of the time

this bonus disc is pretty incredible, by the way. just big sounding live takes and some of the original demos, which are a lot rawer and more deconstructed. the live "I Get Wet" is so incredible

wasn't vice more powerful than pitchfork at the time? i'm surprised there wasn't early pitchfork/awk synergy.

maybe it was a situation where if you were aligned with one, the other was compelled to shun you?

He mentions the Pitchfork re-review in this interview, which is mainly worth watching for the amusing clip from a music-free version of the It's Time to Party video:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/red-eye/index.html#/v/1802800834001/andrew-wk-on-red-eye/?playlist_id=86926

I like the new vids from a troll-the-multiple-AWK-conspiracy-nuts angle, but that's about it. Seems like his career has plateaued and he's just willing to coast on this one album from ten years ago.

Though it did give me some hope when i recognized the bald dude w giant sideburns when he was on TV recently. That guy was in his original band from back in the day. Maybe a genuinely new album soon?

Maybe not. Maybe AWK makes all his money purely from appearances and his PartyTM brand.

imagine the kids' show host gig pays pretty well, too

IGW is obviously always gonna be his claim to fame but he's hardly coasting, his last album (Close Calls) was really excellent

that album came out quite a while ago

Yeah that album rules, but it came out 6 years ago!

There was the Japanese-only CD since then but i don't think he wrote any of those songs.

He's done a lot of production work and owns a big nightclub in NYC too.

right, i'm just saying that i do expect more good shit from him in the future

idg why the reissue wouldn't include "we want fun" one of his best songs

rights are prob tied up w/ whoever owns jackass somehow

That song rules!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/master-of-positivity-andrew-wk-makes-us-a-partysta,84493/

Scooter’s one of the greatest groups of all time, in my opinion. In all the history of German musical acts, they have the most Top 10 singles.

nice discussion! good choices from him

re: fight for your right
"For a long time during the era when they first released this song, partying wasn’t necessarily that cool... So I was very thankful to Beastie Boys, like everybody that loves them, for being able to come out so strong with so much excitement and such a celebratory, fun-loving attitude."

there's something kind of revisionist about this... i remember reading the liner notes to an anthology where the beastie boys explain that the song is a pisstake on "partying" (which doesn't make sense unless partying is majority culture), and they regretted how it was taken seriously and also how they themselves ended up being the thing they were making fun of.

and it's not like the world was exactly hurting for party music in 1986

i don't take his cultural analysis all that seriously though. kind of amazed that he's still pushing "aleister x".

re: fight for your right
"For a long time during the era when they first released this song, partying wasn’t necessarily that cool... So I was very thankful to Beastie Boys, like everybody that loves them, for being able to come out so strong with so much excitement and such a celebratory, fun-loving attitude."

there's something kind of revisionist about this... i remember reading the liner notes to an anthology where the beastie boys explain that the song is a pisstake on "partying" (which doesn't make sense unless partying is majority culture), and they regretted how it was taken seriously and also how they themselves ended up being the thing they were making fun of.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

couldn't you as easily read this as the beastie boys feeling mildly embarrassed about it & wanting to backpedal slightly

yeah assuming you're talking about 'Sounds of Science' it came out not long after they were fake-beefing w/ The Prodigy and publicly renouncing their earlier personae

kind of amazed that he's still pushing "aleister x".

This is painfully OTM. I wish Andrew would get the fuck away from this loser.

ahem

still neat to hear him big up Scooter and the KLF, and he's totally OTM about "Celebration"

only surprised that he didn't manage to work in "gangnam style"

When has partying ever been not cool?

in Mennonite communities like the one Andrew WK grew up in

i would imagine partying in the beastie boys sense was not COOL in teh grunge era

smh at you guys

so did the whole Steeve Mike / conspiracy thing ever reach closure?

he seems to indirectly reference it whenever he's interviewed, dunno if he's just trying to troll people or if there was a legitimate thing here, ultimately I stopped caring about it because it got too confusing

just suffice to say that however AWK got his start, it was sketchy in one way or another

I dug into the whole Steev Mike thing a few years ago before Close Calls finally came out. consensus on the AWK boards was that he wanted out of his contract around the time of The Wolf, but in doing so wouldn't be able to perform as or use the Andrew WK brand for several years until the contract expired (thus the weird solo performances and motivational speaking engagements). 'Steev Mike' was a media prank to keep the flame alive and people interested until he could regain control and Party Hard again.

I imagine this is also why Close Calls took an extra four years to get a U.S. release. I always thought that album was the beginning of a very strange new direction for AWK. The promo videos/cover art creep me out to this day. I do find it strange that he would continuously say things like "I'm not the same guy who made I Get Wet", like he's moved on, but then basically tour the whole album and do a big re-release thing shortly after

Also see the "Who Knows?" DVD. Really creepy in places.

Is that the one with the version of "I Get Wet" that starts on piano then cuts to a live recording? If so I really need that DVD

It is INSANE. Starts off with completely OTT montage of Andrew giving this bio and talking about how he realized the power blah blah while still photos from live tours pan, including on that just zooms in closer and closer onto his face making a silly guitar face until light starts poring out of his mouth. Then some really kickass live shows, all severely schizophrenically edited (noise band influence here) of him playing festivals in Japan, etc. Then all of a sudden it will slow down and he'll start narrating it again. Every time he narrates it sounds like someone they recorded talking high pitched and then slowed it down, or something. Super un-natural. Then every so often there will be a still camera shot of a room with a really bizarre drone playing in the soundtrack and AWK will be, like, crawling across the floor in slow motion and screaming or something. Really bizarre and spooky.

It's probably my favorite piece of the AWK myth. Bridges the gap between 'early' and 'later' AWK, if you think there is such a thing. I just think he's always been a weirdo, some kind of performance artist that tended to hold back in the beginning and then just went off the deep end w CCWBW. And now he's cashing in as a mainstream meme.

I want to hear the Bulb records again.

Sounds amazing. There's a bunch of really creepy AWK videos out there if you know where to look. I remember this one interview that I couldn't even watch; the interviewer spoke in this real monotone voice (I think she was reading submitted questions) and AWK's responses were hurried and he looked notably nervous, like someone was pointing a gun at his head off-camera, it was so weird. At one point he does this really weird nervous laugh that goes on for 15-some seconds. And all the while there was this really unnerving noise going on in the background. Lately his Facebook posts turned a lot darker, going from his standard life-affirming party messages to things like "I just rubbed habanero peppers in my eyes" along with pictures, soon he was posting photos of himself with Taco Bell where he looked in real rough shape, bruises and burns everywhere, like the look of someone who really needed to go to the hospital. But ultimately I think it was all photoshopped. He definitely seems to get a rise out of messing with his audience. I almost wonder if that bizarre "AWK Steev Mike conspiracy" website that sprung up a few years ago was actually his.

ok - can someone pls fill me in on the Close Calls album? Is it some kidn of experimental masterpiece? I don't think I ever heard anything past I Get Wet but I was always puzzled to see him regularly palling around with Current 93 and the like.

It's pretty badass. If you hold it up to some ambient music or krautrock or Japanese psych or whatever, it won't really seem that experimental, but it definitely is in a lot of way. Has some AMAZING tunes, some really cool bizarre experiments, some throw-aways that i really could live without, etc. It's basically a huge FEAST. Eat it up. It's a double album in the White Album tradition. Some quiet and eery studio noodling followed by pop song, etc.

I get "Don't Call Me Andy" stuck in my head all the time.

It's not wildly different from his other stuff but yeah, it's just a neat and experimental hard rock album. I think the lyrics make it seem more "out there" than it really is but it's a great listen. Lots of stuff about self-purification or the search for identity, and some that take IGW's themes to the extreme. Lines like "I'll push you off the roof if you are too afraid to jump". The Mother of Mankind rarities collection that comes with it is really great too. You get to hear him do reggae, there's a great tune that sounds like a IGW outtake, and some really bizarre stuff from early in his career. Also a few songs where it sounds like he's imitating Sparks, I kid you not. All very entertaining. In total there's about 40 songs there and a couple can probably be tossed aside but lots of it is very good.

It's cool IMO, got some good tracks, got some trying-to-be-weird tracks, got some succeeded-at-being-weird tracks. Hard to take in, yeah. It has a thread, too: Andrew WK, Close Calls With Brick Walls

I noticed a weird thing on the two live tracks at the end of The Wolf, where it sounds like his vocals are pulled from two different performances, just piled on top of each other. The live tracks on the IGW 10th anniversary remaster do the same thing, though at some points it sounds like everything is doubled, especially on "I Love NYC" which is really disorienting, in a cool way. But it sounds like there's two AWK's on stage the whole time.

maybe... there are?

LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_JhQVUklEI

The small golden eye dog.

With a body shaped like a cat.

http://andrewwk.com/cms/andrewwk/news/i_330.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJRkR-Km2gg

as far as the "st55v mike" stuff goes, i remember seeing some interviews circa close calls (don't remember where, sorry) where he talked about andrew w.k. as a collaborative performance piece, a collaboration between the artist and his audience. andrew's suggestion was that there was no fixed narrative to the story he was creating, and that he wasn't really in control of it himself. of course, this plays into the idea that he is or was a puppet, but it seemed to me that his primary point was that he was happy to go along with whatever story his fans wanted to project onto him - that this was the essential nature of celebrity, to be a story told by others. so maybe the st55v mike stuff was done by andrew himself, maybe it was done by his friends, and maybe it was done by fans. doesn't matter. it's equally real and "true" either way.

i found close calls with brick walls and especially the associated non-musical ephemera (art, videos, websites, theories, performances, interviews) extremely disturbing. it's lynch-like in that it suggests the presence of something awful, some terrible psychological disturbance or rupture, without ever really describing it directly. it has the sickening, trypophobic gravity of a good wingnut conspiracy theory, where everything starts to seem like an encoded clue after a while, but the solution remains forever out of reach.

I dunno it feels like the stakes are too low to be properly engaging. Basically the conspiracy is... to make a lot of money?

Well, granted I should allow that it should be at least as engaging as Scientology on those grounds.

Basically the conspiracy is... to make a lot of money?

by the time of ccwbw, he seemed to be on the outs with his label and management and wasn't yet making lazy money as a kids show host. it's hard to sort out any clear single thread, but the essence of the "conspiracy" seemed to revolve around questions of identity. the album and its "related ephemera" played on this in a number of ways, suggesting both a fragmented personality and literal duplicate identity, the idea that there might be more than one person "playing" andrew w.k. the fragmented personality stuff was very well developed, imo, and retains a disturbing edge even when you take it simply as art-play. self-actualization collapsing into literal solipsism, the idea that seeing is being, weird tangles of gibberish covering up mysterious gaps. helps to dig into the associated web stuff as you absorb the album, and much of it is still archived as far as i know.

there's also a fair bit of crowleyist philosophy in his motivational speaker schtick, which only adds another layer of creepiness to the whole enterprise.

xp exactly. scientology, too, is creepy as hell, and because it seems so serious, it's a bit less fun to examine as art. personally, i don't find art with apparent commercial intent any less interesting than that which seems to exist in a vacuum. and i think andrew managed to play some interesting or at least entertaining games with the idea of commercially commodified identity.

it's less interesting to me in that the motive behind everything just boils down to "how can we make money"
so anything disturbing about multiple identities gets submerged into "well, of course it's more lucrative to promote
AWK as a brand than can be played by multiple people than tying it to an individual" and it becomes no more sinister
than the fact that there are probably multiple ronald mcdonalds walking around.
I'm not super well-versed on crowley, but it seems like his motives were similar?

A few years ago on his message board, someone claiming to be from his high school posted a story about how they were asked in class by a teacher what they wanted to do when they got older. Most people said things like, "doctor" and "lawyer" and "policeman", but when it got around to Andrew, he said "I want to manufacture my own non-existence." Then everyone rolled their eyes at the 'typical Andrew' response.

very similar!

thing is, i don't know that there ever was any intent to promote AWK as a duplicable brand. maybe yes, maybe no. the thing about paranoid investigation is that the singular/coherent truth, to the extent that it ever existed in the first place, quickly gets lost in the embroidery of conspiracy. maybe the point of all the creepy psycho stuff was to poison the AWK brand. maybe it was an attempt to drum up viral interest in a flagging career. maybe it was all just a lark. maybe he was going through some shit, or fighting it out with the illuminati, or being indoctrinated into the golden dawn, etc. i like the indeterminacy, because it allows anything, incorporates anything, molds itself to whatever you want to make of it. this only makes it all the more scary, like a rorschach blot in which you can see whatever you want (or don't want). this is the sense in which AWK's play reminds me of david lynch. lynch is great at guiding the viewer's imagination towards whatever they might find disturbing.

that was xp PN

David Foster Wallace once wrote that 'Lynchian' describes a situation where the very disturbing and the very macabre is wrapped up in something that is on the surface very innocent and very innocuous. In this sense, AWK's entire performance art thing is extremely Lynchian.

you can find equal indeterminacy in tom cruise's marriage which you could also say is Lynchian. (also, see nicole kidman's role in AWKspiracy)

I feel like at least with tom cruise, there might be a genuinely deranged individual at work.

nicole kidman's role in AWKspiracy

what's this?

there was this whole thing about nicole kidman being tied to AWK and they tried to make it spooooky, but I think it just boils down to Andrew having a thing for redheads.

I'm glad someone brought up scientology - not that I think there's any direct connection but some of his songs on Close Calls seem to relate to those same principles. I do think the "Multiple AWK" thing is interesting and maybe part of the point of the live recordings with two vocal parts. He always seems to refer to "Andrew W.K." as though it was a corporation. Like you wouldn't hear Peter Gabriel referring to "Peter Gabriel music". Something like "I Sold My Soul" off his new EP seem to refer to this directly; "I sold my soul/and now I won't get hurt anymore/and now I won't be afraid anymore"

Pitchfork just ran an interview, and again he said something very cryptic/ominous:

When people do things to make your dream come true, you owe them in one way or another. Everyone understands that for every dream that comes true for you, there might not be a dream coming true for someone else. When we trade one wish for another, there's a price to pay. It works like that. When you make an agreement with yourself, or with a dream, or with a group of people, there really are consequences, and it's really hard to see that when you have no experience and you're young and you hope people don't take advantage of that.

The (I'm assuming) not-made-up stories about Andrew's troubled youth are frankly a lot more interesting than the Jane McGonigal/VICE-level viral marketing street team pranks.

i don't know that there ever was any intent to promote AWK as a duplicable brand

That latest video of "Time to Party" with literally dozens of people playing AWK. Also, the "Close Calls" reissue with that weird purple-tinted fake-AWK i posted earlier. Just bizarre. I really like the packaging for that a whole lot, including the weird photo for the "Mother of Mankind" CD that looks kind of like he's in a scene from a horror movie.

"When you make an agreement with yourself, or with a dream, or with a group of people, there really are consequences, and it's really hard to see that when you have no experience and you're young and you hope people don't take advantage of that."

what's cryptic about this (other than not naming names)?

When people do things to make your dream come true, you owe them in one way or another. Everyone understands that for every dream that comes true for you, there might not be a dream coming true for someone else. When we trade one wish for another, there's a price to pay. It works like that. When you make an agreement with yourself, or with a dream, or with a group of people, there really are consequences, and it's really hard to see that when you have no experience and you're young and you hope people don't take advantage of that.

this is the stuff i love best, the seemingly mundane blather that impinges ominously on any number of conspiracy theories without really saying anything. it's fun, and also just a little unnerving. it's like a good thriller or horror movie, and you don't have to take it as anything more than that. unless you want to...

nicole kidman's role in AWKspiracy

what's this?

― Poliopolice, Thursday, September 6, 2012 11:56 AM (10 minutes ago)

like PN said, there was at one point the suggestion that AWK was obsessed with and had perhaps even slept with nicole kidman. this was tied to the "seeing is being" solipsism i mentioned earlier, though, so "sleeping with nicole kidman" may have been nothing more than "seeing eyes wide shut". CCWBW lyrics touch on this indirectly.

That latest video of "Time to Party" with literally dozens of people playing AWK. Also, the "Close Calls" reissue with that weird purple-tinted fake-AWK i posted earlier. Just bizarre. I really like the packaging for that a whole lot, including the weird photo for the "Mother of Mankind" CD that looks kind of like he's in a scene from a horror movie.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, September 6, 2012 12:05 PM (5 minutes ago)

oh yeah, he definitely played up the "multiple andrews" thing. i just don't know that there was ever a sincere, real-world attempt to legally wrest the "andrew w.k." brand away from anyone.

The Andrew WK giving the talk at the Brony convention has a really thick midwestern accent, what is up with that?

Or, maybe it's a real thick "Da Bears!" accent

Great talk. When they declare him a brony, he stands still like a triumphant doll and rotates back and forth. About 20 mins in, he spontaneously leads the crowd in some drone chanting. He almost breaks into the theme from "Lawrence of Arabia".

I gives himself a hand for releasing the a 30th Anniversary Gundam tribute album. After he tells the crowd it's only out in Japan, he says "You can illegal download it!" AWK is an old-school nerd.

http://i.imgur.com/lV0zHoY.jpg

:)

The Andrew WK giving the talk at the Brony convention has a really thick midwestern accent, what is up with that?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, October 1, 2012 9:54 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

he's from michigan