Andrew WK

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

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