Andrew W.K.

Yeah, good post. I've never really been able to make much sense out of the various sides of his personality/art. It's a baffling persona that raises questions every time I listen to him - even more than Kaufman (of course in Kaufman's case we have decades of hindsight to help us sort out the facts/motivations/intentions). Like you, I really like the unresolved nature of it. The joke without a punchline as you say.

I took a friend of mine who's in his sixties to see Andrew WK this summer and he was blown away because it reminded him of "proper" showmen that he'd seen in ye olde days like James Brown etc. Afterwards my friend went off totally inspired, read all the weird stuff and then later said to me that he takes it all at face value and was loving the ride because the whole point is about entertainment. I honestly do find him to be an amazingly inspiring figure. The show I saw this year was about a life-changing as anything is likely to be at my advanced age. Just him, a keyboard and an ipod.

Just him, a keyboard and an ipod.

which is weird, because this is the same format he chose in his early solo career around 2000-2001.

listening to this again, cuz i haven't thought of it in a while. i can't go so far as everything in loving EVERYTHING about it, but it's awful damn good, if somewhat bloated.

the songs that work best, imo, are those that wander a few steps from the aerobic motivational triumphalism that he's made his stock in trade. i get wet throwbacks like "not going to bed", "when i'm high" and "into the clear" get old fast, especially in comparison to the more varied & inventive material surrounding them. "i wanna see you go wild" & "you will remember tonight" are the best of that bunch: the latter's got cool & creepy messianic lyrics and the former just slays non-stop.

have the sense, though, that CCWBW would work better if there were just a little bit less of it to go around (which is probably the ultimate missing-the-point critique where AWK is concerned). the long set of mutated/inverted party jams that closes the album is a good example. they're all worth a listen, but collectively, they oversell the point. gems like "big party" and "we will boogie" struggle to stand out.

this seems to result from two things: 1) CCWBW is a concept album, and 1) most of lyrics are very simple and repetitive. so in order to make a point about the ghastly frozen emptiness of the scenario he's describing, WK needs an entire song like "we're not gunna get old". and it works, drives the point home w/ a sledgehammer - but it also drags the album down a bit. it's suitably grim & suffocating, but not very musically interesting. (i do like "las vegas nevada" though, which seems more cheerfully subversive than straight-up celebratory.)

and on that note, GOD this is a creepy fucking record. cryptic lyrics that read super-funtime-positive only on the surface, hopeless mirror-box solopsism, vaguely fascist calls to annihilation in the moment, not-so-vaguely homoerotic misogyny, digatally altered vagina-like WK mouths all over the insert art. it's more a subtle sort of psychological horror movie than the "party party" pep talk it pretends to be, and i guess i like that too. reminds me of BOC (touchstone for all music appreciation) and the flaming lips. creative, fearless and weird as hell. but you've probably gotta be something of a geek to really appreciate it.

point 1) and uh, point 1)...

It's a very good point.

What do y'all think about Nardwuar as bipolar hyperactive funtime with dark underbelly persona/artproject in comparison to AWK?

It's a fair comparison I guess. They both have their uniforms. Both of them have formidable performance skills. They both share huge generosity of spirit and a fierce dedication to making sure everyone has a good time.Having seen them interact in person it's obvious that they are soulmates in certain ways. They are like brothers. Nardwuar seems more guarded because he comes off as really irritating at times (a trait that he has toned down in recent years, which I believe a natural result of being older).

For both, there is always a question of how much of their personality is "an act". To me, there's no mystery about Nardwuar. I've known the guy long enough to know that his regular personality is similar to what he presents on stage or on TV. It's a more obvious "punk" persona, with his addiction to obscure singles, all-ages shows and outmoded media, his challenging interview style and his songs which follow the fairly standard comedy punk tropes of light-hearted protest songs, homages to unusual people and of course self-conciously bizarre topics such as being addicted to cheese, having unusual rashes and that kind of thing.

Andrew WK's real personality is unknown but I suspect he is quite different - a more modern kind of guy. In interviews he can come across as earnest, focussed and very intelligent. It seems he is an astute businessman who knows how to create songs that will be appealing for ringtones, movie placements etc. Beyond that he really knows what he's doing with the branding of himself marketing his ideas, building his mystique (for example that piano album, touring with a string quartet), creating work for mass consumption (the TV shows and Japanese albums) while maintaining more underground connections (drumming with Boredoms, appearing with Fucked Up, doing split singles with obscure garage bands etc).

Andrew WK is perfectly natural and at-home appearing on TV. Nardwuar's forrays into mainstream media always come across like he's a gatecrasher.

So yeah. I don't really know where I'm going with this. They are alike but different.

Okay, now to respond to contenderizer's epic post. You are listening to the US vinyl version which is made more bloated with the addition of the last five track. The regular version of the album has 18 songs of which three are really just breathing spaces between hurricanes. This version does not seem like too much to me, although at almost 50 minutes that's quite a long album. I'm not sure what the north American version will look like but I suspect that it will be 18 tracks long, with the bonus numbers moved over to the extra disc.

I agree that "Not Going To Bed" is an I Get Wet throwback, but not "Into The Clear" which is a very interesting song about personal transformation whose lyrics say a lot about whichever dark place AWK came from, and where he is trying to go. To me this song exemplifies the conflict between his confused personas and is one of the best songs on the album. It's also the song that is most similar to his Japanese stuff and was perhaps written with that in mind.

There is nothing else I can do but fight against all odds
Against the deadly soul that's living in my heart
I won't give up, I won't give in
I won't give out or fall apart
This is the mountain I must climb
This is my time
And all at once the shadows disappear
I move around the side and into the clear

That's pretty long distance from the party tunes on I Get Wet. From anyone else that might come across like a load of rock'n'roll feel-good redemption nonsense but from a guy with AWK's history it's an acknowlegement that the party persona is not necessarily natural and a recognition that the fun comes with a price, including a huge mental effort it takes be happy. As such I think this is a very important and honest song for AWK.

what makes "into the clear" feel like i get wet is the spirit of triumphant, mountain-climbing maximalism (quite literally what the song's about in this case). that kind of thing's okay - it's arguably what AWK does best - but a little goes a long way in CCWBW's somewhat more musically varied context,and unfortunately the song just isn't that memorable.

yr right that i should distinguish between the album proper (ending w "the moving room") and its bonus tracks. the extra stuff fits in with & fleshes out the concept, so it's easy to blur the line, but the 18-track version of the album definitely feels more manageable. on that note, it's tempting to rope in the korean bonus tracks, too. though they're almost too literal about the MPD/insanity angle, "i want your face" and "this is my world" feel like necessary pieces of the puzzle, and the other two like interesting expansions. american tracks are less crucial wr2 the storyline, but i enjoy the more leftfield stuff like "i've got know fear" and "we will boogie".

it's a strange record, and though i like it, i don't know that it's a great one. AWK's primary "thing", his bigger-louder-moremoremore aesthetic - coupled with his steinman-esque ear for anthemic cheeze - is also his achilles heel. if the tunes & lyrics aren't up to snuff, it all starts to grate. in that spirit, i do wish the last 8 songs were a bit more fully developed. most of my favorites are in the opening 10 and the bonus tracks.

(fwiw, i think the lyrics to "into the clear" are neither feel-good redemption nonsense nor an important and honest statement. i read them as part of a disturbing fictional narrative about fragmented identity and the way different aspects of a broken personality move in and out of the foreground of consciousness. but that's just me, and one of the nice things about an album this sprawling & ambitious is that it can mean different things to different people.)

Isn't "clearing" cribbed from/referring to Scientology? (it feels as though both AWK and Scientology are fixated with eliminating barriers to expressing your "true" potential) I think he's a cool dude, but his "embrace everything to the max -- don't listen to those voices of doubt" message is kind of harmful and insidious. Sometimes those voices of doubt have sensible and principled advice!

okay, that's a real good point. part of the subtext/mythic "backstory" for CCWBW plays w tom & nichole in ways i don't quite understand. blurring the line between AWK & tom, implying that he slept with nichole, etc. which supports yr reading of "into the clear".

one read for the album is that it's about supressing aspects of yourself in order to become more marketable, and that the all the insanity & self-improvement stuff just supports that.

and i take back my hedging about the album's greatness. it IS a great, and the 2nd half holds up just fine, but i'm kinda embarassed to admit how much i like it. which is lame, but so be it.

Tom Cruise? I never really considered that aspect. Maybe that's what the final verse of "When I'm High" is about. The scientology connection has certainly crossed my mind. But only because of that one word. He's obviously no scientologist. I think the strongest theme is about his own mental struggles and the ways he's dealt with stuff in his own life (often described as "nightmares" or "shadows"). It's given an extra dimension because he's embraced this motivational role and so his stories are often presented in that context. It can be confusing as to who he's addressing or singing about, or who's voice he's speaking with. I guess that helps listeners apply them to their own experiences, but it sure makes it difficult to puzzle out AWK's personal story.

The recurring theme of cloth or fabric being removed or ripped to reveal light, clear sky or whatever - I think that's a reference to visualization techniques to do with self-empowerment.

I think the strongest theme is about his own mental struggles and the ways he's dealt with stuff in his own life (often described as "nightmares" or "shadows"). It's given an extra dimension because he's embraced this motivational role and so his stories are often presented in that context. It can be confusing as to who he's addressing or singing about, or who's voice he's speaking with. I guess that helps listeners apply them to their own experiences, but it sure makes it difficult to puzzle out AWK's personal story.

― everything, Thursday, December 17, 2009 5:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's kinda weird to me that you read this as a personal story (not that i think yr wrong to do so, mind). the whole thing, including most of AWK's non-musical public presentation, seems like performance art to me. he clearly works hard to create doubt abt his sanity, his identity, his intentions, dark forces pulling the strings, etc - cryptic talk of nightmares & shadows being part of that. all of which tends to depersonalize the result. i like it, but more as a mysterious form of conceptual media play than as an earnest statement of self.

x-post

the recurring theme you mention is very hard to pin down, though obviously present. sometimes it expresses itself as a simple clarity of mind & intention, related to self-improvement. but at other times ("the moving room", parts of "into the clear"), it seems to concern perception as a form of becoming, as though to see is to be, or to make things exist. at the same time, there's a sense that this becoming is conditional, and not really controllable - that one's existence is dependent somehow on a kind of seeing that arrives from outside oneself ("hand on the place").

When I first heard "Kicks and Bricks" -- at the end of hearing the new sound of CCWBW -- it really stuck out and sounded like the Andrew from the first two albums was a totally different person than the Andrew from the third. Brought back those conspiracy thoughts.

I love LOVE the crazy bonus songs, "Let's Go On A Date", "I Want Your Face", god yeah that record is really cool.

Nardwuar....I saw one interview he did and he just came across a really smug hipster asshole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilKuJOe2goA

Andrew W.K. Admits He's Not the Original Andrew W.K., Says Persona Was Developed By Committee

i dont understand

me either

Andrew W.K. is living, breathing performance art.

was that ever seriously in doubt>?

I was on board with it basically from the beginning. Andrew Wilkes Krier is a really weird dude. Very nice, but really, genuinely weird. I'm not sure how the whole Steev Mike thing fits in, and I think when he says he was a different person, literally, he's not convincing. It's the same guy that's always been Andrew W.K., but it's not the same Andrew W.K. if that makes sense.

hahahaha you seriously believe that he is a living, breathing being?

hahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH FOOL

you know nothing of the profound evil lurking beneath this man's visage......
you know nothing of what he is capable...

listen to me or don't...that is your choice.....
but when i tell you that in due time you will regret having known about Andrew W.K.... you had better beleive me when i say that you will have wished you had believed......

(15)(14)(5)(16)(9)(5)(3)(5)..(13)(9)(19)(19)(9)(14)(7) (6)(18)(15)(13) (2).

The most plausible scenario to me is one or more members of the group of people who organized AWK as a merchandising interest
split not too amicably, forcing Andrew to assume the role full-time, but because these ex-AWKers held some part of the domestic album release rights, AWK group
could not release close calls etc... for a while.

It might very well be that this was planned all along, but it doesn't make much sense to delay an album release to conjure up the mystique of legal trouble.
If there is any consistency in how AWK operates, it is in taking full advantage of any synergistic opportunities that comes his way.

There is a kind of evil in this "embrace everything" attitude. You might not think it's possible to cheapen a song like "It's time to party" by having it appear in an expedia commercial, but both the music and its fans are degraded just a little bit by that.

http://www.fau.edu/freshmanadvising/images/thought_balloon_hmmmm_hg_clr.gif

AWK is way too weird to be merely a media creation, unless the idea was to make an unpredictable crazy guy a rockstar and then go from there. Perhaps he honestly thinks there's been more than one Andrew "playing" the part but that really doesn't mean its so. I just hope that a lot of this actually is planned and staged for promotional effect because I would hate to think Andrew is truly suffering from delusions and split personalities.

I'm not sure what you mean by too weird to be a media creation. I personally think Andrew came up with the basic template of what he would like to achieve, but why wouldn't he enlist outside help to meet his goals, which are pretty simple: "don't be a wimp; achieve immortality"?

The conspiracy nuts were right!

Watching the Rockfeedback interview where he 'lays this out'.

http://www.rockfeedback.com/tv/direct/channels/297400/726538/

He's saying he's a physically different person than the original Andrew WK but then he says everyone is a different person from back then so who knows maybe he is talking about the replacement of cells that make up the human form. Tried reading the forum on his official site but the conspiracy stuff is so thick there it's baffling.

Apparently CCWBW is coming out this year alongside a bonus disc of rare and unreleased material called "Mother of Mankind"

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BzbVmjyhvHI/Szn0LgMmeUI/AAAAAAAABTA/qDGRJ0JC2ak/s400/AndrewWK_CloseCallsWithBrickWalls_2CDdeluxeEdition_SlipcaseFrontCover.jpg

MOTHER OF MANKIND

1. We Party (You Shout)
2. High Five
3. Let's Go On A Date
4. We Got A Groove
5. Sarah Notto
6. I'm A Vagabond
7. I've Got Know Fear
8. Big Party
9. Who Knows?
10. Coming Bad
11. Can You Dance With Me?
12. Kicks And Bricks
13. A.W.K.
14. I Will Find God
15. This Is My World
16. Young Lord
17. We're Not Gunna Get Old
18. Kill Yourself
19. I Want Your Face
20. Jewel Street Man
21. The Party God

http://i45.tinypic.com/2rdivk6.jpg

The way I understand it, a committee auditioned a bunch of guys to play the part of AWK. Theres the "I Get Wet" version. and now a new guy - 2 of the ppl they auditioned, and potentially neither of them a person actually known as Andrew WK, because he's a fiction.

I kinda like the idea.

I mean its no diff to, say, Hannah Montana. Just not as made obvious.

Either all white people look the same to me, or those are the same dude.

Yeah, I'm ... not convinced by those photos, I have to say. And who knows if its not now *this* story thats the fake. I still think it's great.

If he is a music biz creation then the bizarre career turns (motivational speaker, solo piano album) add a nice baffling layer to it all. You could say they failed at making him a huge superstar but really this guy is on a million tv shows and web shows and all over the place. So maybe he's actually a lot more famous (more people know his name/shtick) than if they just kept releasing new albums. What he's says in this new interview about finding something that reaches people more than through the music; it's the MO of a never-ending promotion cycle.

Maybe that's why a younger looking/skinnier AWK is needed for this second phase. Running around all over the place, doing fashion shoots, interviewing for web shows, writing advice columns in Japan, etc., etc. First phase looked like a dude that spent most of the day in the gym.

I think the first phase ended after "The Wolf" and the transition can be seen in the live "Who Knows" DVD and from then on it's this new guy. But yeah as weird as it all gets there's still this continuity that makes it really kind of seamless in a way.

Yeah I just saw a photo shoot he did (recent?) and fuck me, he looks like Adam Ant or John Taylor in their prime. Pretty <3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/buttered2/misc/NotMyAWK03.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/buttered2/misc/NotMyAWK01.jpg

Phworrr.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/1481/andrewwk20082.jpg

i still can't see how it's not the same guy.

He says it in this interview.

http://www.rockfeedback.com/tv/direct/channels/297400/726569/

And if he's lying about it, then there's something weird going on at any rate!

but he also says that no one in the audience is the same as who they were. if that makes any more sense i don't know...

Yeah that pre-2005/post-2005 image is pretty silly – he shaved. That appears to be the big difference. It's like being fooled by Clark Kent taking off the glasses.

Yeah I figure you can read him as saying "I'm not the same PERSON I was then, but aren't any of us?". Its an interesting stunt.

andrew james bond

the last time i talked to AWK:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1272/765586185_aeaee5da3e_b.jpg

07-07-07

'I figure you can read him as saying "I'm not the same PERSON I was then, but aren't any of us?"'
This might be a reference to the idea that everyone's cells are replaced every x years, so they are literally not the same being, and he's drawing some kind of moral equivalency between that and fooling people with doppelgangers.

But I don't think he's been particularly arch or coy about it -- he's trying to propagate the idea that anyone with a white t-shirt and greasy hair ought to receive equal legitimacy in terms of being AWK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NWFbCJv29o

What better way to assert that he doesn't deserve first class citizenship over being AWK than anyone else than to reveal that it wasn't him singing on the I Get Wet album?

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Andrew W.K.'s Statement 1/3/10

"Since 2001, I have been accused of being part of a conspiracy in which I knowingly entered into a contract with creative directors called Steev Mike, who proceeded to invent a new identity for me to perform under. I'm here to say this is simply not true and a gross exaggeration of easily explainable and common-place music industry practices. Of course I work with people who choose not to include their whole names or real names in the credits, or who aren't on stage with me during my shows - but taking advice and guidance from other people doesn't mean I'm a victim of mind-control. That's like science fiction! Andrew W.K. is about partying and doing what you want! We want fun, and that really is what I am about.
These lies have unfortunately been with me since my career started - critics were saying I had to be a fake puppet for the record industry because I appeared over night. These simple untrue allegations have grown over the years to the point now where I have to defend myself. I have done many interviews and talks where I have explained the nature of how I got into music, and I admitted that I did work with people. But people have still taken what I said and tried to call me a liar and a fake. What alarms me most about these accusations is that they remind me of witch trials: The kind of people who accuse me of being a talking head for some secret conspiracy to corrupt people's morals are the same people who claim MTV and Cartoon Network are owned by secret rulers of the world out to poison kid's brains, or that pop stars like Beyonce or Lady Gaga are part of some occult society, or that companies like McDonald's, Coca-Cola, or Hollywood are secretly promoting hidden plans. Or that the President of the USA is just a figure head and reading a script given to him by a secret world power. Come on!
We're working in a business where there are different ends and different means. No one controlled Frank Sinatra or told him how to sing. No secret group of managers has been telling someone like Jay-Z what to do or how to look. And no one tells me what to do, except me and the people who believe in me. I am a real person who thinks for himself and am not the victim of anyone or group of people trying to influence my career or life. I take responsibility for everything in my life, including who I work for and what happens to me because of it. Just because a person has mentors or advisers doesn't mean they don't have their own brain and soul. And just because I work with other people who advise me doesn't mean that I am a puppet for an evil cult or a have some sort of master plan. I make party music - plain and simple. In fact, it is me who is the innocent victim of a conspiracy of critics and haters who don't believe in the power of music and pure true fun. It is us artists who are the victims. It's crazy that still today, brand new artists like Lady Gaga have already been dealing with the same sort of paranoid allegations that I've has been dealing with since 2001. It just doesn't stop! We are not puppets, we are human beings.
Musicians are not acting, we are real people. We are not part of a conspiracy! It's really intense when people are telling you who you are, so I'm going to tell them who THEY are! On behalf of all musicians, the entertainment industry, and everyone else who's ever been falsely accused, YOU ARE NOT HURTING US AND YOU ARE NOT STOPPING THIS. The party will continue! We will endure! It has become too common for musical artists and performers to be labeled as part of some global scam to control the world, or that we're puppets for a larger agenda designed to hurt people. That's why I'm speaking out and loudly declaring: I am not evil and neither are any of my other fellow members of showbusiness. We are here to bring fun and light into the world, not doubt and darkness. I have been accused of having people design my image, tell me what to say in interviews, design my clothes, the way I look and talk, and of course my music. It's true I do work with people, but not to accomplish anything bad, just the basics that any person does in this business and with this opportunity to live out my dreams.
I have always admitted that I worked with people and I have confessed that time and time again, even if the critics twisted what I said. I did this hoping it would quiet people up and put an end to all the speculation and exaggeration. I was never an actor and the partnerships I made with friends, family, and the companies I've worked with have all been to promote entertainment, excitement, and fun - to give people something fun to focus on and to occupy our thoughts, instead of a bunch of fear or negativity.
I will always keep my focus where it matters most:
1) On being grateful for the incredible people who believe in the feeling I work to create
2) And on that magical feeling itself: BEING ALIVE!
Long live music and long live life. PARTY HARD!"
- Andrew W.K.