hippie is the new ironic and “face-heart,” or, the human person

You know how irony as trendy M.O. is cooked-er than turnovers-for-change at Popeye’s? How it went the way of the MIA Fannypack gal—who knows where, who knows when, but we prolly won’t be seeing it ’til the 2032 reunion tour? Okay well. I think hippie is the new ironic, unironically.
The hippie supplanting irony thing has been coming for awhile—and for awhile, I thought it was a joke. Blame it on the time frame; the first post-millennial wave of hippie as-behavioral-value and musical-social ideology overlapped with irony’s death rattles, so it was hard to believe they were mutually exclusive. By mid-’03, symbols and actions were so fucking appropriated up at Hipster Berry Farm, it made sense that in a social group programmed toward misanthropism and self-deprecation… so given-over to meaninglessness… the ACT OF LOVING would be the final, dramatic act of irony. A sort of identity suicide.
But love makes people weird, and this was no exception. Almost directly coinciding with the US gov’t’s Iraq invasion, Love, or at least a no-longer-repressed desire for acceptance/harmony/inner peace, began actualizing itself among even the most stringent of millennial-irony casualties. However, even as the US gov’ts imperialist/corporate colonization efforts become more dire, folks have not necessarily mobilized (partially because, as this is lefty pdx, “hipsterism” is nearly synonymous with “activism”). It’s just that—what with the Cascadian secessionist mentality and all—the trend towards smaller, tighter-knit social groups with cooperative values of love, support (as reaction to disenfranchisement) has ballooned. It’s tribalism in technology’s era, even VIA technology. (This is a microcosm of the larger, HEALTHY American trend towards localized economy and increased self-sufficience [see: various NYTmag articles on organics, decrease in fast-food profits, ReadyMade magazine].)
I want to give partial credit A. Forkner, and Jona Y.A.c.H.T. and Steve State’s Rights et al for ushering in the truth—DOLPHINFEST ’03 (a celebration of the dolphin) kicked it off, tho I wouldn’t say they were consciously trend-prescient so much as just feeding off their own hot vibrations. But in many ways, LOVE inna hippie stylee as behavioral concept has spread its wings into the PDX noise jock fest. I knew it was all over when J4m3s Sqw34ky*** [SEE ADDENDUM] shifted his focus from a1arM1zt—the noise proj in which he expressed confrontation to gratuitous heights—to his newer band, S3x w/grls is rad—a duo with his “brother,” on acoustic guitars, in which they celebrate their social ineptitude and proclivity to self-embarrassment (a ’90s concept, but in this analysis, J4m3s Sqw34ky’s short attention span for artistic endeavors is an important sociological tool). Other signs: tie-died t-shirts, and last summer’s LSD trend. Whether dropping acid or simply mugging psychedelic, we are probably one of the last generations to truly experience the hot-fried twitch of strychnine-pinched tracers, before LSD joins ephedra and fen-phen on the “extinct” placard at the zoo.
However, as nu-hippie further manifests as real-applicable values, music is deeper and deeper OF THE EARTH, and I’m not just talking Portland’s disproportionate faction of white reggae (whiggae) or the old-timers throwing hoe-downs and converting Wobblies in publick houses. I am talking some true-value, rjyan.com, Jodorosky double-entendre tribalism, as though the ravaged path leads to one end: mysticism, truth, reflection, love. I was thinking of this while reading about the Nahuatl, who “use disfrasismos, a complementary union of two words or symbols which express one meaning to communicate the most profound thought or feeling” (Rodriguez). I thought of this after talking to Pete Swanson, of noise improvisation duo Das Yellow Swans, and who co-propriets the CD-R label Collective Jyrk, which works with the mentality of a block party. (I said, “So Pete, if I made a tape of myself barfing and put the Collective Jyrk stamp on it, it would be a Collective Jyrk release?” He said, “Totally!”)
Pete and Gabe (co-conspirator) make magical mystery tones both tall and small, abrasive and delicate; they collaborate with John Wiese, think Sharon Cheslow is the greatest person on earth (cause, like, no doy) and are opening a basement show for Thurston Moore on their tour later this month. For Yellow Swans, Pete is not into being gratuitiously assaultive. “We’re not trying to confront people with sounds. We’re trying to make positive and kinda fun music, but be challenging at the same time. We feel that when our music is really successful, it’s ecstatic, and more like a celebration than an assault.”
Then we talked about how it’s weird discussing improvised music, to concretize it in language, because improv is nebulous as shit. Somehow I was going to tie this into concepts of post-apocalyptic sound vs. hippie idealogy, in regards to Crash Worship/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum/Freedom-From/Rjyan Kidwell, but my mom just called and now I’ve forgotten. Happy mom’s day to everyone. I hope this makes ANY sense to people besides me, Rjyan, and The Alchemist. Signed, Art Bell
***[ADDENDUM: J4m3s Sqw34ky would like to clarify:
“On only one song do we use an acoustic guitar and
we’ve only played that song live once. (ok, on the cdr
there are a couple of weird covers thrown in towards
the end that feature acoustic guitar, but we’ve never
done any of those live)…”
antifolk vs. guitar ok.]