Paper Me and Paper You: 3D tune for a 2-D Culture
Homogenized product and hackneyed melodies take note: today is the end of days. Rec-execs, feel free to point the finger of blame at Reel Karma's latest offering: the youthfully exuberant Paper Me and Paper You. The time is now to commence the conjecture regarding what responsibilities a band bears to its audience, and specifically how those responsibilities relate to the sociopolitical context of 2008. The task impetrative, Reel Karma leads us to the critical, euphorically free answer we have tried so hard not to exhume.
"Arrrrite erieeone," calling together the finicky crowd with a crisp, bluesy anchor, “this next number were goaahh do for you, is called Paper Me and Paper You." BANG. HOOK. EYES.
"Heyyyyyyyyyyy!” An explosive declaration of liberty, as the dissonance between independence and conformity is immediately established. The sharp, slashing guitar and throbbing bass lines come suddenly in a brilliant flash that signals the start of the journey. The set oozes forth, Rickenbacker chiming, misty warmth spreads overhead, as our zeitgeist steps up to the plate.
A profound yet wholly fundamental inquiry proceeds, “Don’t you think its time / To stop worries and cares.” Empowered, we shake off the apprehensions of America’s one-size-fits-all culture. Playfully anticipating skepticism, we are assured that this journey is for real, “Haaaaaah / So you think we’re joking?” Able only to deal with today’s two dimensional issues and shallow quagmires on a constant level of abstraction, the solution itself may be just that, “A Paper thin result / is in our guarantee.”
Now converted and channeled, we are lured aboard the freedom train spewing liquid hot authenticity into the sky as exhaust, chugging robustly, scissoring our paper thin problems to tickertape. No threats persist, save our own present lack of coordination, “Hop right in and take a seat / nothing to be scared of, just watch your feet.” A jubilant chorus erupts, affirming what we have been suspecting so long, but can reconcile with “reality” so seldom: its all just paper. “Paper you, and paper me / How could this happen, how could it beeeeeee?”
It starts with machinery and automation, the pedantic and the mundane, “Lights, dials spin.” The story, though, is yet unfinished. “I think its time, that errriebody took the Paper Dance fooah spin…take it awwwaayyyyyy!.”
With a release of pristine, maddening Durkheimian anomie, we are given no direction save the flow of the tune. Hands, assorted prosthetic limbs, hips, and pelvises cut throw the air, shredding the contract between society and individuality. Each move unique and motion irreplaceable, the dance is a identity creation mechanism in the same vein as Chubby’s Twist. Instructions never arrive, leaving us to wonder: what were we been waiting for all this time? Thankfully, Reel Karma gives us a long overdue wakeup call. Paging youth culture. Paging youth culture.
