“If we’ve got to burn out,” Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal croons in “Suffer for Fashion,” the bombastic introduction to Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? , “let’s do it together.”
Now, friends, there’s no use in beating around the bush. We are definitely, definitely in the midst of an Apocalypse, albeit a rather slow and sometimes dull one. It is definitely the case that the world is passing into decay, but keeping the decay of society in the forefront of our collective mind is what will allow us to recognize that there is so much newness and absolute, infinite possibility on the other end. So, if you’re like me and my greatest pals, you’ll just start dancing around the rim of the abyss.
That said, this is a radio-affiliated blog, and my spiritual affiliations are definitely of the sonic persuasion as well. Accordingly, you’re right to be shouting at me, as I exist in your computer: “who will be the central musical prophet that will celebrate this decay, as an emergence of new and grander life?” My answer is, of course, Kevin Barnes.
In Skeletal Lamping, Barnes’s recent-ish follow-up to the PoMo rock opera that was Hissing Fauna, we find him thinking Psychoanalytic theory, dealing out some heavy Freudianism in “Plastis Wafers” (“I confess to really being quite charmed by your feminine affects/ You’re the only one with whom I would role-play Oedipus Rex”) while also taking swipes at the intellectual establishment in admittedly heavy-handed tracks like “Women’s Studies Victims” (“Can't you see I've got some text reconstruction?/(What does that mean?)/No clue/It must be an illicit pentagram/(What are you talking about?)/No clue”). There is a beautiful relevance to this kind of philosophizing. It recognizes several things which need to be recognized about society, in order to allow us to understand ourselves as passing away and beyond something. If ole KB is channeling philosophy in a way that oscillates between faithful sincerity and critical scrutiny, he’s picking up on the same wavelength as folks like Derrida, Lacan and Žižek. And the thoughts I’ve had while pondering those kinds of intellectual celebs are: 1) that we’re in constant throes with the attempt to confront the Other and make sense of its otherness, and 2) that our subconscious is one busy bee, particularly in the realm of sexuality – as Barnes himself says, “it’s easily pervertable.”
We’re always grappling with what’s foreign, particularly the way that the foreign can be so darn bound up in us, that it’s hard to know how to see it at all. The darkness confronts the light, melancholy confronts bliss (Thanks John Keats for pointing me to that one!), but it confronts it like a disembodied hand confronts its one-time owner. It is insistent. So, here’s a kick-shuffle-change for the standard idea of the Apocalypse:
Decadence (by which I mean luxury, excess, the space over and above comfort) confronts decay (by which I mean a gradual death, a deterioration, a loss). And it confronts it like an old lover who remembers former intimacies like a forbidden secret. If the Apocalypse is decay (which, all 2012/Mayan/hoodoo/Second Coming of Christ sorts of musings very far aside, is sort of how things seem to be shaping up – just read the news), then we need to meet it with this forbidden secret in mind. We need to get intimate with decay, by embodying decadence – its Other and thus its missing piece.
If there’s anybody who’s lucidly tapped into this idea in music, it’s Kevin Barnes. This explains why his lavish glam rock sound isn’t merely a Bowie throwback, and it definitely explains the over-the-top performance art indulgences of his latest live shows. KB wearing a giant lobster arm? KB getting a foot massage from a nun in fishnets (this is where sexual decadence comes in – the conscious mind finally confronting the oh-so-freaky subconscious!)? KB being crucified? Then, KB being reborn in a sequin jacket, neon-pink briefs, and sporting a ghetto blaster? Yep, this is a man who knows how the apocalypse is best handled. I recall him covering “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as an encore when I caught him on his last tour. I realized clearly that he’s set himself up as the Kurt Cobain of the 21st century. In the ‘90s, a time of utter affluence and comfort in American society, Kurt pointed to the underbelly with angst and an acceptance of futility. It’s just that what we need now is glitter, not grunge, to get where we will need to have been gotten when all of this capsizes and transforms into something new.
Knowledge of decadence is something that is essential for all of us to attempt. It’s a head start to reaching the beyond: recognize and revel in the end, and thus be best equipped for the new beginning.
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