Jim DeRogatis - C/D

mark prindle likes him.

i have no use for his writing because i don't like his criticisms or the music he champions (fucking wilco?)

But I'm indifferent to DeRogatis, I guess.

kenan, but in this other thread you say you want to punch the guy. whats-a goin on?

don't like derogatis's writing. plus im convinced he is in fact the hamburglar.

photo here: http://www.jimdero.com/General/author.html

Also if you crit ONE Lester Bangs acolyte, you crit ALL of them.

Here's the story -- it's about Googling and opportunism. See, I was drinking last night (surprise!), and talking to my sometime buddy Neal Pollack, and he was talking about Chicago, and then he started talking about Jim DeRo, and what a big loveable lug he is, and how approachable, and yadda yadda, and I should look him up when I get to Chicago, and we could have lunch (a horrifying thought), and I thought, "Yeah. Lunch with a man who makes a fair amount of money writing about rock." But then I started worrying about all the awful things I've said about him on this board (becuase he has the most awful tastes ever: Rush and Queen made his 'great albums' page), and I thought maybe I should start a thread about how he's not so bad after all and I listen to his show all the time (even though I don't), so that in case he's out there lurking or Googling, I might still have a slim chance of his not stumbling on rotten things I've said about him. Cause you don't want to have lunch with people who hate you, and guys like Jim might get me a job one day. But now, in the cold sober light of day, I'm all like, "Waitaminnit! Jim DeRo sucks!"

And this is why coffee is better than beer.

all the fat jokes however are bullshit

Seconded.

hmm, theres a point to what your saying there john, but i also think its pretty difficult to get offended when you can't see the people in question, for me anyway, cos theres nothing personal about it. of especially if its just a few passing comments, theres no systematic abuse here. i mean its just a bunch of words by a bunch of random guys and girls really, who are near strangers. i know my views on these things don't apply to everyone, its just my bullshit opinion, but from a lot of the stuff ive read on this board, it strikes me that ilx0r is not the kind of place where the easily-offended hang around, so that affects the way i post. i admire the irreverence here. of course, jokes can go too far, im not arguing with that, but all im saying is there are no hard and fast rules about these things.

da DeRogatis thread

A Scottish Gollum?

But as for Jim D, I hear he's a nice guy, too. And his book on psychedelic music, Kaliedescope Eyes (sic) is pretty good.

No, just a brainless simp who laments the fact that mtv doesn't play "sincere" music like Springsteen and Pearl Jam.

Thanks! I like to think so...

Bless us, my precious.

No, not apologizing, just fully-disclosing. I wanted to clarify that my meeting him only confirmed my feelings about his music. I mean, hey, otherwise it's, "You thought he was a dick so now you here that in his music!" And the point was: I always heard "dick" in his music.

"Musician is asshole SHOCKAH!"

Did I spell it right?

"fat = friendly" = WRONG

I could lose a few pounds and no one likes me!

You busted me. Here I thought that fright wig and "I Hate Jim O'Rourke" mumu disguised me properly...

>>what's really most despicable about Derogatis--what most sets him apart from all the other hacks putting in a an honest day's work covering rock music for dailies around this great nation of ours -- is his bizarre and entirely unfounded belief that he's some kind of renegade going against the grain. As somebody (I forget who, or maybe I don't) pointed out, as a writer he's way, way closer to Anthony Decurtis than to Lester Bangs. Which would be no big deal, of course, except, hey, guess which one of those two guys he wrote a book about? (And the book has some fun stories in it, don't get me wrong. But nowhere in it does Jim D. really talk about Lester's ideas--which are why he might deserve a bio the first place!)<<

Also, his Third Eye Blind piece is by far the most embarrassing piece in any of those Da Capo "best music writing" books. And that's far from the worst thing he's done; again, see that other thread.

Who said it was dangerous? It's just ANNOYING, Yancey. More annoying than what just about any other music critic out there has done.

So who can/should claim ownership over Bangs?

I don't know what you mean by "ownership over Bangs."

I said "ownership over Bangs" because the gist of your post, I thought, was that DeRo is piggybacking on Bangs' corpse/legend in a bid to get his name if not within the same breath, then at least the same paragraph as Lester's. I'm wondering who you feel is more worthy of that, or if Bangs is best left alone (I vote for the latter).

And is it Let It Blurt or something else that DeRo wrote that makes you view him this way?

I believe there is one in the liner notes of SY's Murray Street -- still can't get over the fact that he's officially in the band. The pants are candy-striped, perhaps?

Scott Seward, Don Allred, Amy Phillips, Frank Kogan, Rob Sheffield, Metal Mike Saunders, Tim Finney, Dave Q, Liz Armstrong, Greg Tate, lots of people...(None of whom could maybe have written a Lester BIO; none of whom would probably want to. But if Lester's legacy is anything, it's certainly not drab fucking JOURNALISM, you know? But you'll note that none of the above writers NEED to ride Lester's name. What I'm saying is, they come closer to doing what Lester DID.)

>>And is it Let It Blurt or something else that DeRo wrote that makes you view him this way?<<

Let It Blurt, as devoid of ideas or interesting prose as it is, is one of the BETTER things I've read by him. Again, look at the piece I link to on that other thread, for instance, and what I say about it.

http://www.chicagomag.com/pressbox/112802pressbox.htm

if only Jim DeRogatis could dance like Rerun ...

haha, my XGF to thread -- circa the eureka tour at the justice league SF; note: she has since new found respect for JO'R, regardless of his weight (he's lost a bit since then).

he exposed r. kelly, which makes him a hero, regardless of whether you share his taste.

he writes for a daily, which means he has to put out ridculous amounts of copy on tight deadlines, for an audience that isn't muso-specific. you can't compare that to magazine journalism; they're totally separate genres.

i know Let it Blurt sold fairly well, but that's farily well for a music book -- and they just don't sell that much in general. i can't imagine he'll ever make enough money on that book to justify the amount of time he put in on it over the years, but it was a labor of love -- and not a bad read, even if Psychotic Reactions kicks its ass.

and the last time i saw him -- a couple years back -- he'd lost 90 pounds. fat jokes are just dumb, especially online.

full disclosure? i used to edit a column of his, back when i had no business editing as much of a pro as he is. jim made me a better editor and was an absolute joy to work with.

But he slams Nebraska!!! What gives, maaaan?

"Andre “3000” Benjamin (a.k.a. Dre) and his comic sidekick Antwan “Big Boi” Patton" & "Big Boi comes on strong, showing a lot more range and depth than he has in the past. (In wanting to step outside of his Flavor-Flav role, he may well have been the one pushing for the double -disc format.)"

UGH.

everyone should aim to sound like betty boop!

COMIC...SIDEKICK?!

I feel like destroying one of my Wire CDs in DeRo's honor.

He's a cannibal? He eats peope when he's sad? If he's a Wilco fan it's no wodner he's fat and the population is falling.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/graphics/lesterjim2.jpg

"The Flaming Lips rock! They have a song about science!"

Plus he has lost weight. He was talking about R. Kelly in a VH1 special on celebrity sex tapes just the other day, and while he's still not a dashing young mesomorph, you could tell he's clearly a lot thinner nowadays.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/lesterbangs.html

nick - ha (i mean, sadly), that garrincha/bangs comparison works too well!

jaymc - yes and yes, at a holiday party thrown by a printing company -- I went w/a friend who works at the Goodman,

if this isn't an indictment of american culture/media/whatever, then i dunno what is.

still, how could this cultural monstrosity have been allowed? isn't chicago a CULTURED place and all?

Ha, I defy this statement.

that's only b/c i don't post much on ILM

(XPOST sundar)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1240065,00.html

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/0,12103,1033618,00.html

one song that's less than a minute long?

I cannot applaud you heartily enough for the absence here of, say, Kylie and the Spice Girls (sure, you're as quick to embrace pop dreck as we are, but at least you don't call it art)

the Streets's faux Eminem routine, for example

actually improved upon our sounds (PJ Harvey's take on the blues)

oy, and what an improvement over that ghastly tommy johnson!

I'll resist sniping about the folly of all such lists, especially when they're constructed on nationalist terms

"i will resist doing what i am doing, right now, here."

that said i also think stone roses are boring.

Mmm, that's some sweet sweet crack.

yeah, congrats to the OMM for leaving Australians off of its Best British Albums list.

And yeah, re living in Chicago, I think I mentioned that I recently got into an ill-advised heated argument about DeRo with one of his journalist friends. Ill-advised because the magazine she edits has always said great things about my band and selected us to headline a "best local music" show at the Metro.

http://www.pointedmagazine.com/vh%201%20big%202003%20matchbox%2020%20rob%20thomas.jpg

i only ever think about him when someone revives one of the d.r.g. threads. or i accidentally flip to his radio show, eek.

like the other day, Geir said he likes !!! - Who knew?

Then earlier this week I saw him on Chicago Tonight With Bob Sirat. He always seems kind of pissed off, but about things that aren't really worth getting angry about, like the city of Chicago not booking hip enough bands to play at Meigs Field/Northerly Island. Duh, it's a city government.

funny you mention that, because yesterday i was in barnes in noble looking in the music book section and saw a rather large fellow out of the corner of my eye who looked amazingly like DeRogatis. but when i turned around it was clear he didn't actually resemble him.

Since when is rehearsing important in indie rock? Jeez, is this Kenny G.?

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~raza/pwned-facekick.jpg

So close, DeRo, yet so far!

Here's a great example, talking about the 1967 San Francisco scene: "In other words, you really had to be theree; the recorded legacy doesn't support the scene's vaunted reputation. Plenty of readers took issue with this assessment in the first edition of this book, but while there was plenty of psychedelic filigree . . . much of the music doesn't really hold up as psychedelic rock--the critical focus of this book."

Oh really? Then what pray tell IS this "psychedelic rock" that you deem so important, Mr. Derogatis? Because the best description you've offered so far is no description at all: "[T]he best psychedelic rock (again with the fucking italics!) . . . . works first and foremost as rock 'n' roll, retaining the power, immediacy, and honesty of the music at its best. In Dionysian fashion, it celebrates the vital forces of life through all forms of ecstacy. But it also attempts the Apollonian goal of transcending the everyday and creating something pure, beautiful, artistic, and spiritual."

Excuse me, but THAT DOESN'T FUCKING MEAN ANYTHING! Take out the phrase "rock 'n' roll," and you could say that about Miles Davis or Wagner or Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan.

Plus, the writing is boring.

Okay, here's the latest and perhaps most ridiculous: he calls Pink Floyd's "'Arnold Layne,' perhaps the catchiest song ever about transvestitism." Uh, wha? First, the song's about a perv who steals women's underwear. Second, hasn't this guy ever heard "Lola"?

This book wants me to remove the eyes of those responsible with a grapefruit spoon.

-- Brett Hickman (Bret...), July 19th, 2005. (Bhickman)

Revive!

yeah, i really fucking hate this guy's writing. grotesque.

:-)

Zuh?

"substance?"

"yes!"

Not exactly. He did write a negative review, which was pulled and replaced with a more positive one. The firing came when a writer from the New York Observer called DeRogatis, asking about the switch. And you can read the rest of the story here:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/hootie.html

I guess in his eyes that makes him some sort of rebel.

Perhaps he was really referring to the actual English town of Portishead. Goldfrapp is like the ambient sounds of bicycles whooshing by and the grates of cheeseshops opening in the morning, only set to beats.

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=336§ion=feature

i like kent jones, though. every cloud has a ray of sunshine, or whatever.

The Sound of Music
Writer Jim DeRogatis stares at the Flaming Lips

Tom Lynch

Jenny Lewis is late to Navy Pier. Chicago Sun-Times pop-music critic Jim DeRogatis and his partner, Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot, prepare to interview the Rilo Kiley crooner for her new solo record on their Chicago Public Radio show "Sound Opinions." The show's staff--mostly a handful of fact-checkers and engineers--dodge in and out of each other's way as DeRogatis and Kot discuss how to get the ball rolling once Lewis arrives. "Musicians suck," they both say, as if they've both said it a thousand times before.

The two journalists are taping shows in advance before they trek down to Austin for the annual South by Southwest festival. "It's fucking Texas; it just looks like it isn't," DeRogatis, also lovingly known as just DeRo, quips. They discuss their flight plans, the merits of flying American Airlines, whether or not to ask Lewis about her life as a child star, a question she's had to answer countless times. (She was in "Troop Beverly Hills," among other things.) "Well, if anything, you're honest, Jim," a co-worker shoots at DeRogatis.

"Yeah," he says, "honest to the point of fault."

This month, DeRogatis, who grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, releases his biography of a legendary orchestral-pop, indie-psychedelic band: "Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips," published by Broadway Books. It's his fourth book about rock `n' roll--he tackled his idol, music journalist Lester Bangs, in "Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic"; he took on the alternative-music explosion of the nineties with "Milk It!" and he dove into the altered minds of rock `n' roll psychedelics in "Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock." He also edited, with his wife, the anthology "Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics," in which multiple critics tear down widely considered masterpieces, like offerings from the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley. As the pop-music critic for the Sun-Times, he writes multiple columns a week. (DeRo's the reporter who received the infamous R. Kelly-pissing-on-kids video from an anonymous source in 2002.) Combine all that work, plus his efforts on "Sound Opinions," and he has to be "honest," because he doesn't have the time to invent lies anyone would believe anyway.

DeRogatis is polite, jolly and generous, not the stereotypical rock critic who inhales three smokes a minute and hasn't left his room for two days. When talking about something he adores--like music, obviously--he's energetic, and the effect is charging. Get him to talk about the Flaming Lips, and you don't have a chance.

"I've been a fan since 1989," he says of the Lips. "I always thought that they were a band that didn't know what they wanted to be. They were somewhere in the middle of the New York and L.A. underground scenes. There was the Flaming Lips, the Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth. They didn't fit neatly into any camp. I thought they were The Replacements on drugs. I thought they were this sloppy band that couldn't play and substituted psychedelics for beer."

In 1993 DeRogatis named the Flaming Lips' record "Transmissions from the Satellite Heart" as the best of the year, which led to the band playing a "thank you Chicago" show. "It think it was one of the best albums of the nineties," he says. "One of the best albums, period." DeRo has long considered the Lips' one of this era's most influential bands. "My first book was on psychedelic rock," he says. "I tried to draw the connection from the acid tests of the sixties to the raves of the nineties. From The Beatles' `Revolver' and `Pet Sounds' to Aphex Twin, My Bloody Valentine and the Flaming Lips. I was trying to say that this was the future of rock."

While he was writing "Let It Blurt" in 2000, he passed along the Lips' "The Soft Bulletin" record to his editor Gerry Howard, who promptly dismissed it. Years later, during the "Yoshima Battles the Pink Robots" tour, the band played the Aragon for a New Year's Eve show and DeRo's praise was quoted in the New York Times. Howard saw the piece in the Times and insisted that DeRogatis write a book. He immediately agreed.

"I've wanted to do this book for years," he says. "I find the band fascinating. Name another band in existence that had their biggest successes on their tenth and eleventh albums. Pink Floyd? Fleetwood Mac? But those were like six different bands. This band also covered three eras of rock `n' roll--the eighties indie scene, with everyone sleeping on each other's floors, the nineties insanity when they found themselves on "90210," and now, whatever they are now. Plus, they are really fascinating people."

DeRogatis called Wayne Coyne, the Lips' leader, and told him his plans. The band members were all for it, since DeRo had interviewed them many times before. "They didn't read a word of it until it was published," he says. "I don't think there are any bands today that would do that. I think that's extraordinary, a testament to the band's fortitude and courage and faith."

In "Staring at Sound," DeRogatis does tackle some serious issues of the band's history, from past lovers to heroin addictions, and he spent time on tour with them, as well as in the studio for the band's upcoming record, "At War with the Mystics." "No question was too personal, no information was off limits, and the band never asked to look at it," he says. "They knew there would be some dicey areas I'd have to go.... but there was never a single question they declined to answer, or a door they barred, literally or figuratively."

DeRogatis dove headfirst into each member's family history, drawing up information long forgotten, long buried or that had never surfaced in the first place, such as a court case with Coyne's father from the early seventies in which he was framed. "It was a hell of a lot of work to do it right," he says. "I didn't want to do some Marilyn Manson hagiography, you know, I don't do books like that. I mean, these guys were reading the book and discovering things about their own lives that they didn't know. To me that's the greatest compliment. It's like, `Okay, I did my job.'"

DeRo estimates that it took him three years to write "Staring at Sound," but longer if you count all the years he's been writing since he became a fan back in 1989. "I like the process of writing a biography, but there are very few people I find fascinating enough to live with in my head for that long of a period of time. I don't want to write the R. Kelly story. I don't want to live with that motherfucker in my head."

Sometimes the hardest part isn't the writing process, however, but the downtime after the book is finished and shipped off to the publisher. "There's this horrible moment when the book is done and the band hasn't seen it yet. You send it to each of them in the mail. And it's not the reaction. It's the five or six days while you're waiting for the reaction. But, you know, obviously I like these people and I admire them, but at the same time, though I've had millions of hours of conversations with them, I haven't called any of them up, nor have they called me, just to shoot the shit. I've been to their houses, and they've been to mine, but never when the tape recorder wasn't rolling. I'm friendly with them, but they are not my friends. The difference between a journalist and a hagiographer is, my loyalty is ultimately to you, the reader. I would like the band to like this book, but not at the point of pulling a single punch for you."

To DeRogatis, Jersey City wasn't the ideal place to spend his young adult life. "Jersey City, where I grew up," he says, "where I was born, where I lived while I was at NYU, is a complete hellhole! Just horrible, pathetic and miserable. You're at the gateway of New York City, but it has all the urban aggravations of living in New York--the crowding, prices, crime, poverty, racism--without any of the cultural charms. At least if you're putting up with that shit in New York, you have the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I mean, the Statue of Liberty's ass faces Jersey City."

He saw his first concert at Madison Square Garden--Jethro Tull, though he admits it would be a lot cooler if he could say he saw Pink Floyd's "The Wall" tour first, which came shortly after--and he began playing the drums at thirteen. "That's when I started buying music obsessively, which led to writing for fanzines. I was a pathetic fat kid in Jersey City with no girlfriend, so I would just spend hours and hours in the basement learning drums. That's the only way how to learn to play an instrument. Not having a life and not having sex."

DeRogatis studied journalism and sociology at NYU--"which, to me, are the same," he says, "talking to and studying people and then writing about them"--and he got his first journalism job as a beat reporter for the Jersey Journal, a daily in his hometown. The Village Voice would ignore his pitches, so the music writing he would do was for free, for various fanzines. After five years he burned out, tired and broken after covering brutal crime for half of a decade, and in 1990 he shipped to Minneapolis and got a job writing for a magazine called Request, published by the then-dominant retailer, Musicland. He calls his two years there his "graduate school," and following the completion of his "master's degree" he found himself the pop-music critic of the Chicago Sun-Times by the summer of 1992.

"I knew how to write," he says. "I had the music thing but I also knew how to be a reporter. I knew how to edit clean copy. I had the professional chops and I had the music chops, which I think a lot of people in music writing don't have. They either have one or the other. Either you're a professional amateur or you're a boring professional."

He left the Sun-Times in 1995 and moved on to Rolling Stone, a move he openly admits was a mistake, left there after only eight months and moved back to Minneapolis with his wife, then pregnant. In 1997, the Sun-Times came calling again, asking if he wanted to come back. His only stipulation was that he wouldn't have to work in the office, where he wouldn't be able to blast loud music. He's been there since.

"I'm a journalist and a critic and a fan. As a journalist, it's a beat. It's the same as if I was covering religion. Religion today covers every aspect of life, you know? You have a woman's right to choose and you have people from the eastern world flying planes into buildings because of their convictions. There is no aspect of life that isn't covered by religion. Well, I think music even more so. If you were listening to N.W.A. in 1989, what happened after the Rodney King verdict was no surprise. If you know what Kurt Cobain was singing about, then his suicide wasn't a surprise. What other job could I have where in a week I can talk to Mary J. Blige, AC Newman and Brian May of Queen? Theoretically, music is what ties these people together. But really, I'm writing about people and life."

DeRogatis lives with his family--wife Carmel Carrillo, an editor at the Chicago Tribune, ironically, and their daughter Melody Rose--on Chicago's North Side, where Lakeview blends into Lincoln Park. On top of the books, columns and radio show, he plays drums in a band, Vortis, that is set to release its third album on L.A. label SOS in the near future and plays gigs every once in a while.

To DeRogatis, everything he does is closely related. "It's like Lester Bangs would say," he says. "It's all part of the same impulse. I collect this stuff. I write about it. I play it. I believe in it. It's all the same."

(2006-03-21)

so they were...the Replacements?

does he mean geographically?

Kot is talking about the virtues of Lady Sovereign, and DeRo sighs and says, "Greg, I just gotta inject: I don't think she's all that."

Kot: Oh, I think she's great.

DeRo: I don't get it.

Kot: She's funny, she's got sass, I mean this is the kind of girl who I wish was more represented in American hip-hop. I think it's all about this pimp/prostitute thing on the mainstream level, and she is not about that.

DeRo: Yeah, politically, I'm down with you, politically ... I wish she could rap better!

Kot: Oh my God, she's, I think she's really quick. She's got a razor tongue, man.

DeRo [condescendingly]: All right, all right, ... well, when we have a full album, we'll deal with it here and we'll give it the proper review.

Kot: I'll tell you, all the singles I've heard have been terrific...

DeRo: I think you're jumping on that critical bandwagon.

Kot: Nah, I --

DeRo: Village Voice-endorsed.

Kot: No, Village Voice was behind the curve on this one.

National deal turns up volume on rock talk show

April 25, 2006

BY ROBERT FEDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Chicago's top rock critics -- Jim DeRogatis of the Sun-Times and Greg Kot of the Tribune -- soon will be sharing their "Sound Opinions" with public radio listeners nationwide.

American Public Media has signed a national production and distribution deal for DeRogatis and Kot's weekly program, billed as "the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show."

"Sound Opinions," which airs at 7 p.m. Saturdays on Chicago Public Radio's WBEZ-FM (91.5), will pick up Minnesota's KRSW-FM and KMSE-FM at once, with additional affiliates to follow.

It's a huge coup for WBEZ, which adds to its prestigious lineup of productions in national distribution. American Public Media is the Minnesota-based syndicator of "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Marketplace," among other public radio hits.

Before shifting to WBEZ last year, "Sound Opinions" aired for seven years on CBS Radio adult rocker WXRT-FM (93.1).

"And, most exciting to the folks in this office, the musicians inject a bounty of intricate, complex, and imaginative guitar work—whether it’s a single player weaving surprisingly technical lead lines throughout a song, or two guitarists whose parts intertwine like a couple of copulating eels, with little regard for traditional lead and rhythm roles."
-- Feature article on "screamo," Guitar World, Nov. 2002

"Meanwhile, twin guitarists Steve Pedulla and Tom Keeley blur the lines between lead and rhythm, coiling around one another like copulating snakes." -- Review of Thursday's War All the Time, Dec. 2003

"But the Strokes themselves had never aspired to walk on water; from the beginning, they simply wanted to get drunk, play loud and perfect insanely tuneful variations of their basic formula of delightfully droning vocal melodies, speeding subway train rhythms and catchy guitar lines that intertwined like copulating snakes."
-- Review of First Impressions of Earth, Jan. 2006

kudos

Kot: I couldn't disagree with you more. I mean, the songs you cited as examples of what's good about this record I think are what's absolutely dreadful about it. I think she's a terrible ballad singer, I think the ballads that she attempts to write aren't very good at all, I think they're boring boring boring. And I don't see why a woman speaking openly about enjoying sex is so bothersome to you. I think this is --

DeRo: Aw no --

Kot: I think it's wonderful stuff.

DeRo: It's pandering!

Kot: It's not pandering at all --

DeRo: It's pandering!

Kot: When you got this groove goin', I think it's a great liberating sound. She's not a skanky ho, she's saying --

DeRo: Chirping about being promiscuous is saying you're enjoying sex? No it's not, I mean, you can be sexy without doing, you know, porno.

Kot: Jim, it's called flirting, it's not talking about --

DeRo: Aw no, it's not flirting --

Kot: This is a very flirtatious duet she's having with Timbaland and --

DeRo: And do you think Hustler magazine is flirtatious?

Kot: The song "Maneater" is commenting on a character and not necessarily her. You seem to be, again, offended by the notion that sex, as a topic in pop music, is somehow, you know, it always has to be about skanky hos and prostitutes --

DeRo: Oh no no no, I'm offended --

Kot: Especially when it's coming out of a female's mouth.

DeRo: No no no no. Make no mistake, Mr. Kot, I'm offended by selling sex.

Kot: Well, you know, selling sex or putting it on the dancefloor.

DeRo: "Move your body around like a nympho"?

Kot: You know, I love it.

DeRo: You love that?!

Kot: With that beat, that's got, that's a great sound.

DeRo: Have you defined for your daughter--

Kot: I would request that song!

DeRo: Have you defined for your daughter what moving her body around like a nympho means?

Kot: Moving around like a nympho and being a nympho are two different things.

DeRo: I disagree. I'm extremely bothered by a very credible artist who had an incredible start to her career on two good albums -- the second not as good as the first -- who has willfully, after having a child and flopped on the second record, allowed herself to be remade by the male-dominated, sexist, pandering corporate machine of Geffen Records. I think it's a tragedy. I think all of the uniqueness of Nelly Furtado has been sold out in a pandering move.

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/william-bennett/william-bennett.jpg

(sorry, I transcribed all that quickly for ILM's benefit)

"...make no mistake, it was very well-marketed to the mainstream from day one." Thanks for pointing out the obvious as if you have seen through the big scam.

"Worldbeat."

I would guess that his success stems from writing for and having opinions that Chicago-area editors understand.

(For the record, I believe it's the writer that brings such baggage, not the publication, no matter the location, esp. seeing how NYC has produced as much crap writing - prude or no- as any other city, small or large, in the country. It's also a sign of *good* editing to allow the writer's voice and personality through.)

Jim DeRo? He's just a bit like Klosterman. They write well enough, but who the fuck cares what they really think?

Nice to finally hear some caller to Sound Opinions blast DeRo on his bullshit "I'm a feminist" routine.

Oh yeah, I meant to mention that here, but I forgot. Yeah, good on her.

Or on whatever thread we were last talking about it.

What did she say?

"You're not a woman."

Basically. Just, "you as a male rock critic have no right to say whether or not a female artist lives up to the ideals of feminism".

I won't cop to some dude defining feminism on the basis of liking the first Nelly Furtado record.

She worded it better than I can summarize, but you get the point. I have just always hated how he uses the feminism thing as a crutch whenever he reviews female artists. Like, "as a feminist, I love Peaches for not shying away from taboo topics", but then turning around and blasting Taylor Swift for not living up to his ideals for feminism (which is what the called mentioned).

"caller"

Is it the latest show posted on the website?

Thanks for explaining that, jon! Would be interested in hearing that part of the show too.

it's probably an issue with a lot of (most?) male critics of any art form who are reviewing something created from a female POV.

Oh right, it originally came up on the Taylor Swift thread:

"Taylor Swift really bothers me. I have a teenage daughter who is enamored of her, and I don't think that's an accurate protrayal of young womanhood. And as a feminist, it just offends me. If she looked like Ida Maria or Bjork, I don't think she would have this popularity. She's popular because she's a model!"

--Jim DeRogatis

― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:21 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh, i'm pretty sure ida maria's success has a large part to do with her looks

― birther blood (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:23 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Seriously that's willfully obtuse even for DeRo

― maciej recognizing trill, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:25 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

One of the things that annoy me most about DeRo is that one of his main criteria for judging popular female artists (Britney, Avril, Pink, etc.) is whether they're good role models. He justifies this by calling himself a feminist, but the fact that he never cares about whether male artists are role models creates a double standard that seems kind of unfeminist to me.

― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:34 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that is otm and EXACTLY what i have been ranting about w/r/t jezebel and co

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:36 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Caller:

"I'm calling in response to Jim's review of Taylor Swift. This is the second time in recent memory that you've mention that you consider yourself a feminist. For you to say that these female artists aren't strong enough or powerful enough or determined enough to live up to your feminist standards is about as patriarchal of you as you can possibly have. Who are you as a male critic to sit back and say that these women aren't living up to your ideals of feminism? I really think that's something that you're not in a position to say. So I sincerely hope you keep your mouth shut about your feminism."

His response?

None. It's a listener hotline; they just play selected calls at the end of the show.

Thanks jaymc! Yeah, I really wish there were times they responded to these criticisms. Of course, we should just be glad they are airing the negative criticism at all I suppose.

I seem to recall the show featured more live call-ins before it moved to public radio; don't know how often callers took Kot and DeRo to task, though.

So I sincerely hope you keep your mouth shut because you are fat.

i wouldn't know where to begin with this dude. maybe just call and make a really, really long exasperated sigh. and then hang up.

One of the things that annoy me most about DeRo is that one of his main criteria for judging popular female artists (Britney, Avril, Pink, etc.) is whether they're good role models. He justifies this by calling himself a feminist, but the fact that he never cares about whether male artists are role models creates a double standard that seems kind of unfeminist to me.

^

Do daughters end up emulating male pop stars, though?

that was an idiotic question which makes me think: a) you are joking, b) you are idiotic

Oh come on that's a good joke.

Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too

it's kind of a condescending pseudo-feminism he's got going. like he doesn't worry about male role models because boys will be boys, boys can take care of themselves, etc. whereas women are delicate and need protection from men. men like jim derogatis.

He's a man with a daughter and is obviously feeling parental about it. Maybe it's not an appropriate sentiment to convey under his "Fat Music Critic" hat but is he totally wrong to say that while wearing a "Fat Dad" hat?

Oh you weren't joking. Damn.

I'm not totally joking, but I do want to see a picture of DeRogatis in a "Fat Dad" hat.

http://www.avclub.com/milwaukee/articles/jim-derogatis-picks-the-worst-rock-movies-ever,37849/

^^^i thought the revive was about this originally. this dude is a secret conservative imo.

I’m from the punk era. I believe what’s great about rock ’n’ roll is community and the tearing down of boundaries

jesus christ he's too old for this twaddle.

JD: You listen to Buddy Holly’s music and Ritchie Valens’ music, there’s a raw aggression, and pure, unbridled horniness, as there is in much of the great rock ’n’ roll. But the sanitized, white-bread version in these biopics has none of the danger. Ritchie Valens was a pretty swarthy, scary, Mexican mechanic-looking dude.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Ritchie_Valens_Promotional_Photo.jpg

swarthy scary mexican mechanic

It's so sad that this guy has lived with myths his entire career. No wonder he's so myopic about allowing anyone else to have theirs.

does dero feel danger whenever he goes to get his oil changed?

swarthy sexy Mexican Lou Diamond Philipps.

http://stereogum.com/img/derogatis.jpg

Oops. Let's try again. This thread needs a funny DeRo pic.

http://stereogum.com/img/derogatis.jpg

Gary Busey pretty much = unbridled aggression and horniness to me.

mexican mechanic
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photos/chicoandthemanfreddieprinze.jpg

http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs162.snc1/6051_111267766701_662916701_2137264_7993426_n.jpg

Look, guys, he's smiling!

On the drums:

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs122.snc1/5256_105544356935_609361935_2235937_471165_n.jpg

Oh you thought he was smiling in *THAT* photo...

http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2641/247/77/587631380/n587631380_1668219_7743069.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rv1ycXec_4s/SaSbDh1dtzI/AAAAAAAAEZ8/lLtntI4k1C8/s400/jonah_goldberg_in_car.jpg

Such conflicted feelings about the guy. He's really not much of a critic, but his heart is in the right place (even if his brain isn't usually); he often likes and dislikes a lot of the same stuff as I do (love that he despises the Doors) but often for such assbackards reasons that I almost want to switch allegiances. I love the show, love the siskel-and-ebert-ness of it that really works somehow, even as I want to phone in nearly every week, outraged over DeRog's or Kot's latest manglings of the English language, good sense and taste, or simple reason. I'm like "dud all the way, but the rest of the world would somehow be less classic without him."

Alzo: "males can't be feminists and can't criticize female artists": Dud.
But then again, I think critics should criticize the art, not the artist. Does the work work or not? DeRog and Kot come from this Rolling Stone big-picture ("mythic" otm, Lord Sotosyn) ad-hominem school of criticism that rankles endlessly.

They always seem to take pains to air both positive and negative feedback, which I like.

DeRog seems like the kind of guy I'd like to go to shows and have beers with. But how does that translate onto the big screen? "Your Music Buddy: Classic or Dud?"

My music buddies strike me as nothing like DeRo and thank fuck for that!

"DeRog seems like the kind of guy I'd like to go to shows and have beers with"

Ick.

He seems like an alright dude, but there's some questionable behavior. I read in somewhere in his book how he called up Steve Albini to be the first one to tell him Kurt Cobain was dead, and the way he recounts it, it sounded less like a concerned bro and more like a fly angling for a reaction quote.

"DeRog seems like the kind of guy I'd like to go to shows and have beers with"

Ick.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF)

Sorry, let me amend: DeRog seems like the kind of guys I go to shows and have beers with.

Still, Ick.

I originally thought that said, "DeRog seems like the kind of guy I'd like to go to showers with"

mmmm those hands

OH MY FUCKING EYES!

Alzo: "males can't be feminists and can't criticize female artists": Dud.

you're the first person to refer to this idea. to be clear: male critics holding most/all/some female musicians (but not men) to their own standards of feminism is somewhere in the pompous/lol/tedious/offensive area.

I'm sure if his daughter started behaving like Pete Doherty there'd be some rethinking on Papa DeRogatis's part. Maybe he's not calling male artists to task because he might not have a son? (Is there a DeRosaur Jr.?)

i know a dero clone here in los angeles. he's also in a shitty band. one of the most intolerable dudes i've ever encountered.

It's so sad that this guy has lived with myths his entire career.

and really shaky ones, too. and really dumbed-down, self-contradictory versions of those myths. it's like rock 'n' roll is his scientology.

his heart is in the right place

where is that? aside from behind his ribcage?

I was watching some band play at the first year nu-Lollapalooza was in Chicago and at one point I turned around to find DeRo standing about 4 feet behind me. I must have registered some look of recognition on my face because he game me this half-nod/smile look that said "why, yes, I am that marginally famous music writer". I wanted to slug him.

"game" = "gave"

dero gamed you? did he neg you?? did it work???

I think the Sound Opinions show is pretty good sometimes- when the guests are good
& I appreciate the fact these dudes put out a talk show about music I can listen to whilst sitting in traffic

I don't really have an opinion on Derogatis as a critic,
but I do think it's a bit silly to rail so hard against hero worship (The Last Waltz, etc) basically because yr hero (Bangs) told you to

i always thought sound opinions was a good fit for wxrt because his notions seem to come from a place that was left behind a long time ago, and chicago has two extremes: really forward thinking music and really dire bland rock, the best and the worst that can be found anywhere. i'm always amazed when i return to chicago and listen to 93.1 and their playlists are virtually identical to what they were in 1993. are they still playing poi dog pondering every hour?

Ha. I actually heard "Summertime Clothes" on XRT the other day.

Every other hour now. My old boss constantly played XRT and it drove me nucking futs. I mean, the djs would go on and on and on about his great of a music library they had, but listening to the station you would think people like Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Elvis Costello, etc only ever released three singles each.

that's like how minneapolis will never get over soul coughing or worse yet m. doughty solo stuff

in the interview, Derogatis says "Woodstock" is

"the birth of one of the most destructive myths shoved down the throats of Generations X and Y ever, that this thing that happened in 1969 is the best thing that ever happened in pop music..."

speaking if I may for generation Y, I don't believe many of my peers are laboring under these delusions. For most of my life, hippie hating from gen X types & others has been de rigueur, and hearing Woodstock characterized as "a buncha damn hippies in the mud" just ain't original, cutting commentary anymore. I think Dero should stick to his critical instincts, but I think he will have to accept that these days his P.O.V. actually comes across more conservative than anything

as if he is till a kid in a Replacements t-shirt saying hey fuck you dad!

and another thing, you know the Doors? well I think they suck! yeah whattaya think about that?

Here's what XRT played between 5 and 7 tonight:

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - American Girl
Phish - Backwards Down The Number Line
The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button
Iggy Pop - Real Wild Child
The Steve Miller Band - Livin' In The U.S.A.
Pearl Jam - The Fixer
Bob Marley & The Wailers - I Shot The Sheriff
The Cribs - Cheat On Me
Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
MGMT - Electric Feel
The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
Vampire Weekend - Givin Up The Gun
The Rolling Stones - It's All Over Now
Depeche Mode - Wrong
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Matt & Kim - Daylight
Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop
Michael Franti & Spearhead - Say Hey (I Love You)
The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue
The English Beat - Save It For Later
The Kinks - Lola
Norah Jones - Chasing Pirates
David Bowie - Let's Dance
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

It's not nearly as progressive as it thinks it is, but it's pretty decent for putting on when you're just driving around running errands or whatever.

I would take it over the commercial stations we have in Ca$hville

ugh but so WHITE.

Shocked that "Steal My Kisses" from Ben Harper wasn't in that two hour block!

So goddamn dull is what it is.

your cool uncle's ipod

Just imagine that being the soundtrack to every work day for 8-12 hours/5 days a week.

i was a big xrt fan in junior high and then one year they did some april fools thing where they said they were going to pay-only satellite radio (this is probably ca. 1991) and you had to call before midnight or something to get in on it at a special low rate. being young i sort of half fell for it. and then when i realized it was a big joke i got really mad because the joke was made precisely at the expense of the enthusiasm that their listeners had for the station. as though it were all about hitting the audience over the head with the fact that xrt was so wonderful and irreplaceable. i basically could never listen to them again after that. not that, within a year or two, i would have had much interest in doing so.

actually the fact that they play stuff from the early 1990s can be read as both conservative in a negative sense and as loyal in a positive sense. i mean they still play tracks off of richard thompson records he cut in 1993. granted they are probably less than scintillating but there's something to be said for not simply following trends in radio formatting.

actually the idea that anyone would be that passionate about a commercial radio station seems really passé. does this just reflect my changing interests? or would that have seemed passé even in 1991?

See I could defend this loyalty if they actually dug a little deeper. Playing the same 1993 lead single over and over and over and over isn't exciting. Maybe playing the 3rd or 4th single from that album once in awhile might be better. I mean, hell, they even had dedicated artist Fridays and, while they sometimes stretched out a bit, it was still the biggest hit singles played more frequently that day. I can understand what feel they are going for, but the repetition makes it just as useless to me as any other commercial radio station.

yeah, just in case jim comes by here and wants to think that we're ridiculing him because he doesn't like 'hip music' or because he has a funny goatee or because he's large, i just want to reassert that we're actually ridiculing him because he's a mediocre critic with utterly horrible ideas.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, May 12, 2005 1:42 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

is it wrong that i'm sort of proud of this?

xpost

the last time i listened to wxrt at all (this might be ca. 2002) they did play slightly deeper cuts on occasion. maybe that's gone out the window?

I'm sure if his daughter started behaving like Pete Doherty there'd be some rethinking on Papa DeRogatis's part.

Yeah but see the thing is he wouldn't blame Pete Doherty, he'd blame, like LiLo or Courtney or the like.

I don't know, I sometimes listen to wxrt in the bathroom or the car, and it seems pretty good for what it is. Probably much better than similar stations in other cities anyway.

there's really no reason to listen to commercial radio in chicago.

Well I honestly never listened outside of work hours, so maybe they were just a little more safe and or boring for the 9-5 crowd?

well, I've never listened to it for more than like 15 minutes in a row, so I could very well be wrong.

Yeah, I drive once or twice a month to run errands and XRT is great for that IMO. But I like hearing stuff I know when I drive, I get plenty of new music discovery elsewhere. Kicking off a rock block with "American Girl" is OK by me when I'm on the way to the hardware store.

Dero may not be the best critic, but he's getting paid to do something a lot of us would like to do. And I like that he's passionate about what he writes/talks about. He doesn't seem cynical like a lot of the other music critics working today.

I agree with some of the above constructive criticisms - such as those mythic ideals he seems to so cherish. But give me a break with the fat jokes. Some of you come off as the jealous, unemployed former music critics you are.

Oh gimme a break -- as if you could measure "passion" by odometer.

question for those familiar with dero: what does he LIKE (besides wilco)

i get a feeling that i hate this guy

Loves him some Flamin' Lips, Robyn Hitchcock, stoner rock

flaming lips and wilco? so he doesn't like classic rock but he likes shit that sounds like classic rock?

Oh gimme a break -- as if you could measure "passion" by odometer.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 17, 2010 7:18 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

It comes back to me not being cynical and believing people who show excitement when discussing subjective topics - like music criticism.

DeRo strikes me as being very, very cynical at times. Particularly when he rails against popular, radio-friendly music.

He shows plenty of excitement, and no judgment.

I never expected the "y'all just jellus!" defense being trotted out for DeRogatis. JLo, maybe, but not DeRo.

"It comes back to me not being cynical and believing people who show excitement when discussing subjective topics - like music criticism."

We need more like you in this bitter cold world we live in. FIGHT CYNICISM!

The Best Albums of 2009
By Jim DeRogatis

1. Ida Maria, Fortress 'Round My Heart
2. Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
3. Kid Sister, Ultraviolet
4. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5. Lily Allen, It's Not Me, It's You
6. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
7. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love
8. Screaming Females, Power Move
9. Japandroids, Post-Nothing
10. U2, No Line on the Horizon
11. The Flaming Lips, "Embryonic" (Warner Bros.)
12. Kid Cudi, "Man on the Moon: The End of the Day" (Universal)
13. Peaches, "I Feel Cream" (XL)
14. Vivian Girls, "Everything Goes Wrong" (In the Red)
15. The Dead Weather, "Horehound" (Warner Bros.)
16. St. Vincent, "Actor" (4AD)
17. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "It's Blitz" (Interscope)
18. Slayer, "World Painted Blood" (Columbia)
19. Passion Pit, "Manners" (Frenchkiss)
20. Arctic Monkeys, "Humbug" (Domino)
21. K'Naan, "Troubadour" (A&M)
22. Franz Ferdinand, "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand" (Sony)
23. Dan Deacon, "Bromst" (Carpark)
24. PJ Harvey and John Parish, "A Woman a Man Walked By" (Island)
25. Moby, "Wait for Me" (Mute)

there you go fwiw. it's hard to characterize his taste.

i know he dislikes g rap, likes "conscious" chicago rappers like Common & Lupe

denigrates so called "classics," elevates silly goofy shit

also a bit of a Chicago homer

yeah, thanks for posting that. i mean i like a couple of those records but yikes. why would slayer be the token metal pick?

i mean he has boring taste but that's the least of his problems as a critic.

it's that he dislikes so much, and for the pettiest and most deluded of reasons. i've always felt that if you are going to cut down somebody else's fave in print, you should probably have something interesting to say. not that i've ever applied that principle when posting to ilm.

yeah, i guess from the perspective of not really being familiar with him it would be fine to know he hated on a bunch of popular stuff if the stuff he liked comprised a particularly interesting or unique perspective. but uh it doesn't.

that's like how minneapolis will never get over soul coughing or worse yet m. doughty solo stuff
― El GarBage (M@tt He1ges0n), Thursday, February 18, 2010

I like SC fine but OTM. Wallet chains, too.

Also re: that Chicago station playlist: Radio KQ. (That one's for Matt and any other Mpls person reading this.)

I love the listener voice mail at the end of Sound Opinions. Seems like every time they review a pop album it fills up with angry calls about how they're wasting time talking about Commercial Corporate Trash.

When DeRo went off on Vampire Weekend (for bizarre Nixon-jealous-of-the-Kennedys reasons), the callers were all afire about how he could trash such a great band on the same show that he gushed over the superficial nail painting odes of Kid Sister.

I just get a sense that they're in their own little world on that show when they pretty much praise Passion Pit as the next big thing. Not that I have anything against Passion Pit.

dero's maddening yet entertaining taste (based on a year of listening to sound opinions off and on):

hung up on class and authenticity: hates springsteen for pretending to be a working man, hates vampire weekend for not pretending to be working men.

likes headphones: big soft spot for prog especially jethro tull - and newer psychedelia like flaming lips and shoegazery stuff.

likes chicks: gleeful about spunky female singers for rock bands because he's a "feminist" and likes going to see their shows at SXSE, dislikes much of what his teenage daughter likes because he's a "feminist", digs Neko Case in the borderline creepy way many critics do.

showboaty about liking pop: goes ON and ON about how AWESOME and FUN the Black-eyed Peas are (though I get the feeling that's a little bit LOOK AT ME), also thinks jaws drop when he says ABBA was good and did a whole show about how disco didn't suck

thinks chicago is the centre of the universe (which could be a lot worse, since chicago is pretty great).

there you go fwiw. it's hard to characterize his taste.

Not really, it just looks like an NPR playlist with a couple "curveballs" like Kid Sister thrown in for style points.

Dunno that he's got "boring" taste per se, certainly for mainstream media rock critic. Reading his book of collected criticism, it becomes obvious that he's way off on a limb half the time: almost everything that he calls as a major rock breakthrough in the 90s (and it's always rock; you'd have to be an idiot to take his opinions on hip-hop seriously) turned out to be a footnote at best. It makes a pretty good "secret history" reading of rock, precisely because he gets it so wrong so often.

(and it's always rock; you'd have to be an idiot to take his opinions on hip-hop seriously)

Fixed.

"Dunno that he's got "boring" taste per se, certainly for mainstream media rock critic."

Oh well when you add that caveat then yeah he's got amazing exciting taste.

"not boring" doesn't mean "admirable"! Thought that much was clear in my words ...

hey ithappens who are some of his "major breakthrough" picks??

At work - haven't got book to hand, sorry. Will try to remember to dig it out later.

honestly though i thought his list was even MORE boring than a "mainstream" critic....like honestly i almost admire those dudes who just rep who they are and live it, and you see their lists and yr all like "Oh dip John Prine released an album this year"

those kinda lists actually seem more real and interesting to me than "hey maybe I should put MGMT at 12 just to seem like I'm up on it"

sorta funny that ILM is always so down on DeRo (though I'm not gonna defend him). this board is home to a thriving thread called ILX Wire Covers Compilation 2010 after all ... anyway, i think anyone who has been a professional rock critic for a major newspaper for more than a decade is gonna have said plenty of dumbass shit. You'd be the same way if it was you, ILM!

i think anyone who has been a professional rock critic for a major newspaper for more than a decade is gonna have said plenty of dumbass shit.

It's not that he's wrong about stuff; most critics are "wrong" from time to time (and this is all subjective anyway). It's that DeRo seems to enjoy being a smug, self-satisfied, holier-than-thou asshole jerk about his opinions.

Yeah, but he's a feminist, and he cares about your daughters.

pretty sure playing in a Wire cover band is the coolest thing DeRo has ever done

he also wrote the (harmless) liner notes for the recent Crazy Rhythms reissue. That's almost cool.

"Oh dip John Prine released an album this year"

is this a typo or is oh dip like the new oh snap?

That dip John Prine.

"dip" as a replacement for "snap" is at least 15 years old

oh dip! I think the thing that bugs/delights me about DeRo is that he has a grab-bag of often contradictory dogma to justify liking/hating stuff and you just never know which one he's going to reach for. Makes for good radio in the way that Andy Rooney makes for good TV.

xpst

no way dogg walk through any high school in the land and the yunguns are always sayin' "oh dip john prine" it's real cool and with it

oh dip y'all forgot about loudon wainwright III, doggs.

Oh totally, Brio. I love how he blithely dismisses Tortoise as "pretentious" one minute and then waxes ecstatic about King Crimson the next. Or bitches that Nelly Furtado has sold out and is "pandering" to the masses but later heralds the Black Eyed Peas (who had more underground cred than Furtado ever did) as fun, harmless bubblegum pop.

as a feminist, Dero is full of contradictions.

Jim DeRogatis, Facebook Feminist

the raging hate-on for Vampire Weekend kinda cracked me up, bagging on them for being children of privilege the week after giving half the show to George Harrison's son's horrible band

oh wait so it's Dero publicizing that line of criticism?

he was so mad at them it's all a blur, but I'm pretty sure he talked about them lounging around on yachts

it's here: http://www.soundopinions.org/cm/reviews/search

OK, I couldn't resist:

"Greg, I hated Vampire Weekend's debut album with a depth of hatred rare even for me, and it wasn't because of the questions of cultural appropriation -- is it any less valid for privileged Columbia University grads to rip off Afro-pop than it was for Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel? No, OK, let's stay away from that whole authenticity question. It wasn't for lack of hooks. The band has a lot of melody, and they finally started to win me over a bit when I saw them live at the Pitchfork Music Festival. You cannot deny Chris Thomson's drumming -- he's usually a guitar player, he became a drummer for this band, and he's a wonderful player. However, the whole shtick that they have of being polo shirt-wearing, cardigan-sporting yacht guys -- you know, they're taking the weekend off, not going on the links this weekend, they're going boating instead, up at Cape Cod. They live this, and they're serious about it. I made the point in The New Yorker recently*: great art can be made from the privileged, preppy experience. JD Salinger, right? John Irving, John Updike. But they were exposing the hollow facade, the lack of soul underneath the privileged WASPy upper class in America. Vampire Weekend is just reveling in it -- they're like a Benetton commercial. They do the same thing this time around, on that song we heard, "Horchata," which is a Spanish drink made from rice, hugely popular in Mexico. This is the insight into our polyglot global culture that they offer -- they're talking about drinking horchata while wearing a balaclava, right? And that's as deep as it gets. These guys have nothing to say, and they say it with a maximum amount of smarm, and I despise them."

*I boggled at this, then figured out that he meant an article he wrote in the Sun-Times was quoted in The New Yorker's profile of the band.

ex drummer for ex lion tamer otm

you cannot deny Chris Thomson's drumming

dero obv doesn't read ilm

How you guys feel about DeRogatis in comparison to fellow fatty Harry Knowles?

http://www.buzzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/jim_derogatis_20091018.jpghttp://www.cherrybombfilm.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/harry_knowles_lgl.jpg

But they were exposing the hollow facade, the lack of soul underneath the privileged WASPy upper class in America.

it's always funny how we have to imagine that all these super rich people are super miserable and having a bad time all the time. like i bet being rich on cape cod is pretty boss overall and i bet a lot of people are happy there.

yeah, on balance it seems that being rich is pretty fucking awesome except maybe around tax time

but are they soulful

if i was chillin' on a yacht right now i wouldn't have any problems except maybe running out of limes for my corona and getting up to hit repeat when "you can call me al" was over

basically i want my life to be like the last 5 minutes of Trading Places

john updike wrote that one right?

However, the whole shtick that they have of being polo shirt-wearing, cardigan-sporting yacht guys -- you know, they're taking the weekend off, not going on the links this weekend, they're going boating instead, up at Cape Cod. They live this, and they're serious about it. I made the point in The New Yorker recently*: great art can be made from the privileged, preppy experience. JD Salinger, right? John Irving, John Updike. But they were exposing the hollow facade, the lack of soul underneath the privileged WASPy upper class in America.

Uh, has he read Updike and Irving?

Much respect to Dan Ackroyd, but really it should have been Eddie Murphy who rides off into the sunset with Jamie Lee Curtis.

Negros didn't ride white girls in eighties comedies.

i think he meant Cheever

Richard Pryor's love interest in Brewster's Millions was white enough for Commander Decker.

eddie murphy with a hermaphrodite is plausible tho

"Uh, has he read Updike and Irving?"

Why can't Jim Dero read?

"But they were exposing the hollow facade, the lack of soul underneath the privileged WASPy upper class in America. Vampire Weekend is just reveling in it."

But they're plainly not if you listen to their lyrics instead of just looking at their shirts. As discussed on the VW thread, most of the new album is about the hollow facade, etc.

Much respect to Dan Ackroyd, but really it should have been Eddie Murphy who rides off into the sunset with Jamie Lee Curtis.

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:34 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eddie's chick at the end was mad hot iirc

woah check out this crazy detailed web page about the economics of how winthorp and valentine pwned the dukes on the frozen concentrated orange juice futures:

http://www.dangerouslogic.com/trading_places.html

man if you google image search Trading Places you'd think the movie was all about Jamie Lee Curtis' boobs.

and not about frozen concentrated orange juice futures

WOW
xpost

man, if that fateful interview with Lester Bangs had only been scheduled for a couple of weeks later, how different this world might have been

is it any less valid for privileged Columbia University grads to rip off Afro-pop than it was for Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel?

Pretty LOL-worthy, considering that Art Garfunkel also went to Columbia.

Simon and Gabriel went to Columbia?

i'm kinda embarrassed to not have read much updike but i have read rabbit, run and iirc him and the mother of his child to be seem to be barely lower middle class in lifestyle, right?

yeah but he makes it big and then is exposed to the soulless world of upper class privilege ...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/RareBookCellar/PICS%20UNNAMED/RabbitisRich1.jpg

Well, he becomes financially successful, but not to the point where he's going yachting every weekend and escorting his daughter to debutante balls. He just owns a car dealership, right?

i think it's his father in law's dealership, but updike does write about the rich in some of his stuff. dude wrote a lot

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/115/l_fc42141802aa1831fe9a56e394bef232.jpg

Wait till DeRo finds out Updike wrote a play about James Buchanan: he'll accuse Updike of being a Confederate sympathizer.

updike also wrote a novel about Buchanan! I'm a pedant. I know.

i am pretty sure the witches of eastwick was about ladysmith black mambazo. they wound up casting nicholson in the paul simon role if you can believe that.

ha, silly me i always thought the witches of eastwick was about babes in toyland

ws ladysmith black mambazo

let's face it, the lifesavers company did more damage to south african pop than paul simon or vampire weekend ever could

oh well, at the end of the day it's like the kids say: oh dip john prine

haha

Wow I just realized I said Passion Pit up there but I totally meant Parts & Labor.

parts & labor just make dog websites now iirc

The band.

i'm pretty fucking sure jim derogatis has not read updike and irving--or if at all, not since college. he's just bluffing.

this guy basically repeats every fucking tired, hollow canard of rock criticism (even the ones that contradict each other!) in such a way that it's clear that he's taken them to heart and constructed an identity around them. he has never had anything of any interest to say or write.

i think stephen thomas erlewine (sp?) of the AMG is about as bad but he doesn't put himself out there in the same way, so we don't pick on him.

he also wrote the (harmless) liner notes for the recent Crazy Rhythms reissue. That's almost cool.

― tylerw, Thursday, February 18, 2010 11:12 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

well, i guess i'll be downloading that one.

I don't buy his analysis of "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" in his list of worst rock films. The filmmakers are semi-sympathetic to the fans they're not being mean

http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:tD6gIYYVr7AJ:www.avclub.com/milwaukee/articles/jim-derogatis-picks-the-worst-rock-movies-ever,37849/+derogatis+heavy+metal+parking+lot&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

He's quitting the Sun-Times to teach and blog full-time.

H.R. "PopNStuff"

pity the students of columbia college.

he'll probably be one of those profs that goes off lecture to tell long, "crazy" stories about sipping bud light with jeff tweedy or something.

Surely he's teaching Feminist Studies.

he'll probably be one of those profs that goes off lecture to tell long, "crazy" stories about sipping bud light with jeff tweedy or something.

Uhh Tweedy takes pain pills, he is waaay too hxc for DeRo!

Shoehorning Pink Floyd and/or Flaming Lips References Into Everything You Will Ever Write 101

Jim DeRogatis, ilxor's favorite strawman that isn't named Chuck Klosterman

that much straw would be a fire hazard

Jim DeRogatis, ilxor's favorite strawman that isn't named Chuck Klosterman

He's not a strawman. He's a real terrible writer with many real dumb ideas.

He's a real terrible writer with many real dumb ideas.

remarkably, this line was actually on his job application to teach at columbia college.

not at all surprised that columbia hired him

he sure does have a way with really awful book titles:

A prolific author, DeRogatis recently edited and wrote the central essay for The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side. His new book (co-written with Kot), The Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones: Sound Opinions on the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Rivalry, will be published this fall.

Among his other books are Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma’s Fabulous Flaming Lips; Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic; Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the ’90s; Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock; Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics (co-edited with his wife, Carmél Carrillo DeRogatis), and Sheperd Paine: The Life and Work of a Master Modeler and Military Historian.

The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side

that doesn't even make sense

Holly Came From Miami FLA: An Illustrated History of the Velvet Underground

Counting Crows: An Illustrated History Of August And Everything After

Yeah, I think my biggest problem will be the earnest, smooth vocals. I like harsh, growling vocals in my metal. I don't like being soothed. Have a feeling I'd like an instrumental version much better. But away we go...

Wrong thread sorry.

the earnest, smooth vocals of jim derogatis

Earnest, yes, but more like grating.

If Adolph Hitler wrote record reviews, they'd still be less evil than Jim DeRogatis. It's like he's a combination of Jack The Ripper, Bubonic Plague and General Zod.

Sheperd Paine: The Life and Work of a Master Modeler and Military Historian?

^Yep.

http://media.timeoutchicago.com/resizeImage/htdocs/export_images/257/257.x600.feat.SecretPassion.DeRo.jpg?width=480&height=300&yOffset=-150

Pitchfork Reviews Reviews reviews reviewer

thanks for that link, j. but who wrote that?

JdR makes me sad in the same way that kansans voting for sam brownback make me sad.

Am, Pitchfork Reviews Reviews is written by a kid named "David Shapiro." (The name always appears in quotes, so I don't know if it's a pseudonym or what.) ILM has a whole thread dedicated to him (which I didn't notice had already discussed that DeRo post).

I'm wondering if the intention of that article was to make me wish that DeRogatis had spent more time in the gym, so he could beat the crap out of the idiot writing it.

Unless Jim ordered truffle fries during the concert, in which case fuck him.

sad

david shapiro is in fact a psuedonym iirc

From what I gather, his real name is David, but Shapiro is made-up.

From what I gather, "Shapiro" may be an homage to The Wackness???

his name is pitchfork reviews

fresh vinyl daily

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?seller=JimDerogatis

Threw in his Velvets book with the rest of an Amazon order - the book was $10. Glad I only spent that amount on it.

velvets book was pretty pointless (i checked it out from the library). horrible design too.

Not sure why I find Jim Derogatis's record sale amusing, but I do. (I wish it were Richard Meltzer selling stuff instead.) The Vivian Girls single is the kind of thing I'd buy, but not for $7. He's got the Shoes' Boomerang for the same price--in my experience, Shoes Elektra LPs tend to be dirt cheap when they turn up in second-hand stores. What I really wanted to say, though, is that I learned for the very first time today that Gary Coleman was also from Zion, Illinois.

I'm actually kinda surprised dude has so many cassettes. Are labels sending those out as promos now? I just can't see DeRo as the kinda guy to purposely go out and buy chillwave cassettes.

from facebook:
Savages' debut "Silence Yourself": If you listen and don’t feel something, I doubt you’re really alive, and I don’t think I care to know you.

so gross. i like that album but this dude is supposed to be a critic, not a snippy teenager.

Sometimes I think he learned all the wrong lessons from Lester Bangs.

"I doubt you're really alive"
this guy is a parent.

this is a middle-aged father who tells facebook he can't fathom your life having any meaning or value if you don't have intense feelings about Savages.

I don’t think I care to know you

I do like Savages but this not-knowing-DeRo offer sounds so good that I'll pretend I don't.

DeroGutless is a turd. He was even able to ruin a book about Lester Bangs - a seemingly impossible task.

the guy's writing is awful and his criticism is some of the worst i've ever read, but the bangs book is actually a decent read imo. his huffing about greil marcus being an unworthy keeper of the flame, or whatever, at the end of the book is pretty annoying though.

Bangs bio is the only worthwhile thing Jim's been involved with. And yeah, the Greil griping is decidedly nagl, like the thorough research of the bio was just a lead-up to Jim angling to get possession/control of Bangs' archive.

The Bangs book is fine--most of it is basic reportage, which Dero doesn't screw up, and when he does interject his personality, it's not near as obnoxious as it could have been.

in a way i think it's a better book for being written by a fairly pedestrian writer who's not trying to compete with bangs or imitate his style. i can easily imagine a much, much worse bangs biography.

"I doubt you're really alive"
this guy is a parent.

he seems like the kind of guy who would force his kids to listen to "real music" like wilco

I tried everything and none of it worked. My kids are still in a terrible phase of taste. Please help.

He has griped abt his daughter's Taylor Swift fandom on the radio show.

DeroGutless is a turd. He was even able to ruin a book about Lester Bangs - a seemingly impossible task.

that bangs biog was a drag. he's really quite disgustingly dismissive of lester towards the end. if he (dero) were a better writer i'd be able to swallow his condescension with a bit more grace perhaps, but he's a dull hack all swole up with his own importance, whose insights are few and whose prose is leaden.

I don’t think I care to know you

I do like Savages but this not-knowing-DeRo offer sounds so good that I'll pretend I don't.

― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 12:03 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol.

i am so mean on this thread. jim dero is much more tolerable now that he mostly writes journalism, not criticism. note that i said tolerable. i wouldn't want to go overboard.

as his facebook post indicates, his years away from being on the rock-crit beat have not sharpened him.

btw he teaches writing at columbia college i believe. i suppose he can do even more harm in that position--imagine him training lots of little derogati who will be trolling ILX in no time.

no Wilco thread will be safe...

granted some people can edit/teach writing better than they can write

hope jim dero fits into this category

actually his writing is a minor problem, his big problem is his thinking

Rockcritics.com recently unearthed this gem:

But as far as whether this piece of music moves me emotionally, I never look down on anybody else’s opinion. If a 14 year old girl comes to me and can make the case about some Britney Spears song moving her to tears, or making her life better, filling her with joy, if she honestly feels that emotion, then God bless her! I mean, that’s what all of us are trying to find in life, those reasons for living, those pieces of art that make our life better, that connect with us. I think that’s wonderful, as long as she can make the case. But if she’s just buying that Britney Spears record because it’s the hip new sound that’s been sold to her, along with her Abercrombie & Fitch clothing and her Sony PlayStation and her Starbucks, then that’s a horrible con, and it’s as bad as being raped. I just think that’s horrible.

oh god hahaha. that's almost brilliantly crafted the way it starts out alright then he suddenly hits you with the rape thing at the end.

It's kind of silly but then you realize that he's right.

he's so fucking awful

first half of that is otm until he gets to 'as long as she can make the case,' which i find kind of hilarious. i imagine him listening to a 14-year-old britney fan trying to plead her case, and then going 'nuh uh! not good enough! go listen to layla!'

my hackles rose as soon as he was like "even a 14 year old girl" like their taste was instantly suspect because of their age and sex

haha otm. "I never look down on anybody's opinion, even if they're a girl!"

i really, REALLY fucking hated his bangs bio, am sure I have expressed this sentiment several times already

I was surprised he popped up in the Replacements oral history, not surprised he quoted Lester Bangs.

DeRo, thinking out loud: http://www.wbez.org/blogs/jim-derogatis/2013-07/kelly-conversations-more-questions-answers-about-r-kelly-headlining

well that was painful. Thanks!

I'm not clicking on that. He's not even bad in an enjoyable way.

got fussed at last time i posted this in this thread but fuck this guy and fuck you if you don't think his tiny dinosaur arms are hilarious

http://images.popmatters.com/blog_art/j/jim_derogatis.jpg

This is what reddit refers to as "circle-jerks", class.

Not going to bother fucking linking, but of course this dude sleepwalked out a negative Replacements "review" of the show last night. So tell me, if you saw the Replacements back in the day, and they sucked, repeatedly, and the same number of Replacements as left off (2) return 22 years later to do the catalog justice in a way those shows you saw never really did, is that really nostalgia? Or is that something better than that? I mean, god, there's nothing lamer than still pining for the loss of Bob (who was kicked out of the Replacements closer to 30 years ago, partly for making the band suck so much live), and as far as "nostalgia" goes, I can think of few songwriters less sentimental about their past than Paul Westerberg, who barely tours and rarely dusts off any of the couple of dozen awesome songs he wrote for the Replacements. And then the band gets back together for three shows at a sub-A list festival, and that's the big sell-out? The cynicism would be worthless even f there was any soul to the pro forma take-down. Pisses me off.

Yeah, I had the same reaction. Especially after seeing clips from that first show, how good they sounded and how much fun they seemed to be having. Plus, anyone who encourages Westerberg to do all-acoustic tours and shows needs a smack. His acoustic stuff is the boring-est of his generally boring solo output.

What made the piece so lazy was its contractions/crutches. So what was the problem, DeRo? Should the band never have reunited? Should any band ever reunite? Would Mars being there but still no (dead) Bob have been OK, or would that have also been not the Replacements? Were they too into it? Too not into it? Too sloppy? Too tight? Would they have been better covering Hang On Sloopy or Louie Louie for 30 minutes? They played two songs last night they didn't play the other night. Was that enough? Not enough? They skipped a whole bunch of the beloved ballads in favor of punk stuff. No Unsatisfied, no Skyway, no Sixteen Blue, Answering Machine, Within Your Reach, no Here Comes a Regular. No I'll Be You, their only "hit." Was that bad or good? Why?

It's so lazy to just say something sucks because it's not 1983. And also fucking hilarious to complain about nostalgia and then conclude by recommending seeing the secondhand nostalgia of Savages tonight.

Like with everything else this rank fucking amateur writes, it's all about "I was there, man, and you weren't. Don't delude yourself into thinking your experiences are as significant as mine."

still pining for the loss of Bob (who was kicked out of the Replacements closer to 30 years ago, partly for making the band suck so much live)

I'm sure ppl who never saw them are enjoying these shows, but when I saw them with Bob they did NOT suck. Or maybe they did and it was still great. I'm sure things got worse eventually.

Faux lineup or not, the band put on one of the best reunion shows I've ever seen last night.

Xpost, Morbs, you're sort of right. My understanding of the band in its heyday, even from die-hards, was that at least half the shows were trainwrecks, maybe more. Some put it as high as 75% to 90% (to book It's All Over But the Shouting is full of these die-hard accounts). I know people who went to shows where Paul offered everyone's money back at the end. When they were on, they were the best band you ever saw, but their erratic nature was legion. That's the great contradiction of the Replacements. There was no "get better" or "get worse." There was only what you got. Some shows the band would start drunk and end sober. Others they would start sober and end drunk. For a while there they kept things in check. When they opened for Tom Petty to empty sheds they were apparently as bad as ever. And every once in a while you got a good one.

Like with everything else this rank fucking amateur writes, it's all about "I was there, man, and you weren't. Don't delude yourself into thinking your experiences are as significant as mine."

this, he just keeps getting worse and worse with age.

I was under the impression for a long time that the Toronto show I saw in 1986 was without Bob. One of the friends I went with pointed out that no, he was there, and checking online, I see that's true. (The show was in April '86.) I honestly don't remember whether it was good, bad, or in between. I'm sure I probably had a great time whatever it was, and I'm sure I'd enjoy these new shows, too.

http://colormeimpressed.com/covers/mt038b.jpg

Thanks, that's great. Went to alt.music.replacements for my free download, but it seems to have left the building.

derogatis sucks monkey balls

i was never wowed by the remplacements back in the day but at this point in time derog's i-was-there schtick reads like a failed reunion tour sounds. he shouldve retired after the lester bangs bio

Looking for something else and immediately came across this:

What I didn't expect was that the Valentines of 2008 would sound so horribly dated onstage -- as much an oldies act as the Eagles or the Rolling Stones -- and as blatantly a comeback cash-in as other recent reunion tours by alternative-era peers such as the Pixies, Rage Against the Machine and the reconstituted Smashing Pumpkins.

From his review. What a doofus.

Blah blah I saw the band years ago and blah blah they still sound the same so blah that is not good because blah I saw them already and blah your ears are deceiving you and blah if you've been fooled into thinking they are good than blah you are stupid because blah blah they are good but only blah when I saw them years ago. Also, Flaming Lips and Wire.

The guy was in a fucking Wire cover band for Christs sake fuck him in his fat face

And also fucking hilarious to complain about nostalgia and then conclude by recommending seeing the secondhand nostalgia of Savages tonight.

I like Savages but yes, lol @ this.

Only occasionally did the best originals on the set list seem dated. “On and on and on and on/What side are you on?,” Westerberg sang in “Left of the Dial.” “And if I don’t see ya, in a long, long while/I’ll try to find you/Left of the dial.”

That song was a battle cry when it was released in ’85—an anthem lauding the sense of community in the underground world of self-published fanzines, college radio stations, mom-and-pop record stores, independent record labels, and small rock clubs. Much of that doesn’t exist anymore, and what does is in another universe from the pricey three-day passes, $7 PBR’s, national expansion plan, hardcore radius clauses, and synergistic marketing of Riot Fest.

Does anyone really give a shit about lyrics being relevant when you're watching the Replacements?

he shouldve retired after the lester bangs bio

before. before. that bio was a bummer.

OK so Jim DeRo is against (a) reunions (b) technology. Got it.

and (c) things he can't reach with his t-rex arms

He and d) JF should do some e) and then f)

So stupid to say that song is dated because its rallying cry power has been somehow degraded by extraneous shit. Doesn't make it any less valid a rallying cry! If anything, "Left of the Dial" has been given a newfound tragic undercurrent that makes it an even better contemporary rallying cry, especially coming so soon after its alleged inspiration (Let's Active bassist Faye Hunter) committed suicide. If he wasn't such a lazy dick of a writer he could have found room for that in place of his whining.

Also, oh shit, it uses a radio metaphor. Should it be about web streaming? How about songs about books? Are they dated, too? Husker Du should perform "Kindle Singles About UFOs."

"Dated" seems to be his put down of choice. Did he call the fucking haven't changed in decades the Feelies dated?

"Dated" joins the list of useless descriptors (along with "underrated" and "overrated") that should fuck off and die.

Seems like "Left of The dial" should have added poignancy because of all that's changed. But then again, I wasn't there, man.

xpost Alfred OTM!

Here's his fucking Feelies album review:

http://www.wbez.org/blog/jim-derogatis/2011-04-09/album-review-feelies-here-bar-none-84982

And here's his shitty live review, which notes how the Feelies, somehow, magically, impossibly, avoided sounding "dated" or "the taint of nostalgia" despite playing 25 year old songs exactly the same way they did before.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/music/2009/06/the_feelies_those_rhythms_are.html

I mean, I love the fucking Feelies, but this ass gives them a pass with no explanation. And in both of the afore-linked he even notes the value of bands finally getting their due, but then repeatedly poops on the reunion parade of acts that barely paid the bills back in the day and broke up in the pre-internet era when discovering new music took a modicum of effort. If he wasn't such a puss he'd concede the value of many of these reunions without discounting them.

And also, holy shit recommending seeing Savages for the fourth time this year. After last night I couldn't imagine seeing that band again as is, let alone three more times this year. Guess DeRo missed Siouxsie and Bauhaus the first time around.

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dero4.jpg

Seems like "Left of The dial" should have added poignancy because of all that's changed. But then again, I wasn't there, man.

That's exactly what I said! Plus, the woman who inspired it just killed herself, no doubt partly because she and her band were forgotten in the dustbin of other Left of the Dialers.

DeRogatis called her dated.

I saw him around dusk on Saturday in the backstage area. He plopped down under a tree and smoked a cigarette by himself. He looked lonely.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, July 18, 2005