Hey, long overdue congrats to Melissa Maerz, who won first place in the 2005 Association of Alternative Newspapers Music Criticism division. Read an interview here with Maerz, where she was asked:
How do you incorporate your opinion of an artist in a review without sounding preachy if you like them or cruel if you don't?
I try to avoid the cruel part by not writing reviews of relatively unknown artists who I don't like -- it seems ridiculous to give people another reason not to hear a band that they've never heard of in the first place. Bigger bands are fair game. But if I'm going to write a negative review of a bigger band, I focus on specifics: which parts of which songs don't work and why. I think cruelty usually comes from sweeping generalizations, and if you eliminate those, you get more critical and less cruel.
Interesting question, an a very sound answer. This is something I think has a wide margin in criticism - what do you OWE anyone - the listener, the reader, the band, in terms of your writing? Are you a reporter when you're a critic? Are you obligated to include facts, to represent fairly? I think of something like Nick Sylvester's piece about Louis XIV, which was clever but a little obv. shot at the sexist little boys from SD, and how I know he got some shit from the band themselves about it. Same with Caramanica and Velvet Revolver (he). It's like 'fuck those bands, the boys were right about them' but then there's times when I feel like critics haven't listened or done their homework, or their pub has it out for the band in general, and it really hurts the band. Case in point: one bad pitchfork review can KILL a young artist. Which maybe is fine from the point of view of the listener, if the listener tends to agree with what that critic writes: they were warned against somethign that would be crap to them. But to everyone? What about the band?
10.31.2005
10.29.2005
grain and laffy taffy
okay. as someone who's spent a lot of time thinking about it, clap your hands say yeah's Alec Ounsworth does not sound like david byrne, really. or thom yorke. he is these things: whiny. ragged. treble-y. which are often used to describe both of them. but then there's all the other words.
what language is there to talk about the voice that isn't learned from jazz/opera? we talk in metaphors because language fails us. i saw a a Jeremy Blake film with Sodium Fox and sort of about David Berman today, which I have to say was depressingly mid-1990s in a lot of ways, and there was a line about language failing him. Now mind you, Berman, "gen x everyman." waxing slackjawed one-offs about the bland world of amerikka in a series of straightfaced observations laced with little explosions of irony about these really sad subjects, sad as in adbusters when it was just starting. not even stay free. anyway, maybe the language was weak because it had been worn too thin - the visual language of the film, this sort of glitter/grease mc mansion pastische with some pop reference/some video game art/some personal symbolism, dense dense but flat and then berman, whose utterance brought on or set meaning to the collage arising. It was soo much but not enough.
(grain. i want more.)
Minimalism to conceptualism in one sentence:
Less is more, but it's not enough.
Has anyone else thought the lyric in the last verse of Laffy Taffy was "toss it feminist taffy" instead of "Toss it flip it and slap it?" Sigh. Alas, looking up the lyrics online, I find that there's no mention of feminism in the song anywhere.
what language is there to talk about the voice that isn't learned from jazz/opera? we talk in metaphors because language fails us. i saw a a Jeremy Blake film with Sodium Fox and sort of about David Berman today, which I have to say was depressingly mid-1990s in a lot of ways, and there was a line about language failing him. Now mind you, Berman, "gen x everyman." waxing slackjawed one-offs about the bland world of amerikka in a series of straightfaced observations laced with little explosions of irony about these really sad subjects, sad as in adbusters when it was just starting. not even stay free. anyway, maybe the language was weak because it had been worn too thin - the visual language of the film, this sort of glitter/grease mc mansion pastische with some pop reference/some video game art/some personal symbolism, dense dense but flat and then berman, whose utterance brought on or set meaning to the collage arising. It was soo much but not enough.
(grain. i want more.)
Minimalism to conceptualism in one sentence:
Less is more, but it's not enough.
Has anyone else thought the lyric in the last verse of Laffy Taffy was "toss it feminist taffy" instead of "Toss it flip it and slap it?" Sigh. Alas, looking up the lyrics online, I find that there's no mention of feminism in the song anywhere.
10.28.2005
people hate blogs because they just circulate old news
but here, today i have real news. le tigre broke up. discuss.
10.14.2005
drowning pool
The Auteur Issue of Stop Smiling is out. Yes yes, I'm stumping, but it's pretty damn genius, as usual. Check out Andy Beta's awesome Jack Nitzsche feature - I was blown away when I got it.
The new Blood on the Wall sounds like the true wounded crackhead soul of Williamsburg, I mean, read this (from their press kit):
Courtney Shanks (bass, vocals) met Miggy Littleton (drums, vocals) on the way home from shopping for records with her girlfriends. As they got off their stop on the L-train, she noticed a man selling records on the corner. That man was Miggy. Once her friends got done throwing themselves at him, Courtney and Miggy struck up a conversation about music and soon became best friends and band mates.
How much more disgustingly not even made up can that be? Anyway, Miggy's managed to find the space between Kim Gordon and Georgia on their best whispers, taken that to the YMCA on like South 1st, drown herself and come out singing like a vixen. The dude, tho, whoa onto his vocals.
The new Blood on the Wall sounds like the true wounded crackhead soul of Williamsburg, I mean, read this (from their press kit):
Courtney Shanks (bass, vocals) met Miggy Littleton (drums, vocals) on the way home from shopping for records with her girlfriends. As they got off their stop on the L-train, she noticed a man selling records on the corner. That man was Miggy. Once her friends got done throwing themselves at him, Courtney and Miggy struck up a conversation about music and soon became best friends and band mates.
How much more disgustingly not even made up can that be? Anyway, Miggy's managed to find the space between Kim Gordon and Georgia on their best whispers, taken that to the YMCA on like South 1st, drown herself and come out singing like a vixen. The dude, tho, whoa onto his vocals.
10.12.2005
metalheadz
you know, if there's one thing in this world that my blog really *isn't* trying to promote, it's...the inflation of the male phallus (by anything more than one's one body) and so, i have yes, dear readers in the flesh, changed my comments section.
Did i mention that i've started writing for associated press? they just launched a new, mostly-web oriented wire service for all types of reporting - including cultural reporting - and I've written two pieces for them.
The first was on DJ Radar's Scratch Concerto at Carnegie Hall, and the second was Roadrunner Records Metal All-Stars, which was actually something of a dream assignment for me - spend a day with a whole room full of high profile, hard touring dudes who never get to see each other and just let the tape roll.
I was really impressed with how charming and cordial everyone was, and was a little overwhelmed by dudes like Dino from Fear Factory and Dez from Coal Chamber, two really sweet, smart guys who've basically been on tour for ten years straight and who had such an amazing passion for music and musicianship (with like zero degree of cynicism about these things - and able to tell the difference between them and 'the biz,' at which they have been bigger winners than most but still certainly not, as they put it "at Slipknot stature" I mean, imagine that being the bar YOU'LL never surpass. geeezzz).
Did i mention that i've started writing for associated press? they just launched a new, mostly-web oriented wire service for all types of reporting - including cultural reporting - and I've written two pieces for them.
The first was on DJ Radar's Scratch Concerto at Carnegie Hall, and the second was Roadrunner Records Metal All-Stars, which was actually something of a dream assignment for me - spend a day with a whole room full of high profile, hard touring dudes who never get to see each other and just let the tape roll.
I was really impressed with how charming and cordial everyone was, and was a little overwhelmed by dudes like Dino from Fear Factory and Dez from Coal Chamber, two really sweet, smart guys who've basically been on tour for ten years straight and who had such an amazing passion for music and musicianship (with like zero degree of cynicism about these things - and able to tell the difference between them and 'the biz,' at which they have been bigger winners than most but still certainly not, as they put it "at Slipknot stature" I mean, imagine that being the bar YOU'LL never surpass. geeezzz).
10.08.2005
Banana Republicans USE doll parts
Maybe you've seen these excellent Banana Republican stickers around NYC and out and about. You should email this guy and ask him for some to put up. (Reminds me of the no-alien stickers that seemed to circle endlessly in the zine community of the mid-late 90s, or...obey, but must less obviously design-y)
Saw U.S.E. last night at the Knit and while I will love them til the end of time, I have to say that their newer, mid-tempo songs don't catch me nearly as hard as does "Emerald City" or any of their earlier jams. Noah was still as adorable as ever and the girls I think keep getting better and better. Sigh.
Listening to the new Celebration record, ex-JAKS and Love Life but without Anthony, who is now in Bellmer Dolls (who could def. take the Dresden Dolls in a fight but who would want to beat up those two?). Katrina is less screamy and the organ sounds are now not guitar-organ, just organ, which gives it a more b-movie haunt feeling that the true horrorsound of Love Life. That JAKS reissue, that I reviewed for Seattle Weekly, is really killer. I wish I had seen Katrina back then - what a fury she must have been.
Saw U.S.E. last night at the Knit and while I will love them til the end of time, I have to say that their newer, mid-tempo songs don't catch me nearly as hard as does "Emerald City" or any of their earlier jams. Noah was still as adorable as ever and the girls I think keep getting better and better. Sigh.
Listening to the new Celebration record, ex-JAKS and Love Life but without Anthony, who is now in Bellmer Dolls (who could def. take the Dresden Dolls in a fight but who would want to beat up those two?). Katrina is less screamy and the organ sounds are now not guitar-organ, just organ, which gives it a more b-movie haunt feeling that the true horrorsound of Love Life. That JAKS reissue, that I reviewed for Seattle Weekly, is really killer. I wish I had seen Katrina back then - what a fury she must have been.
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