Most ridiculous "news" item on Pitchfork regarding the horribly overhyped crapfest known as Wavves

he's their Britney, I guess?

Can't put my finger on it, but something tells me not everyone likes this record as much as I do. Maybe not reading fucking Pitchfork all the time would enhance your appreciation.

WHY DO YOU MAKE ME READ ABOUT THIS BAND EVERY SINGLE DAY??!!!

I wish "he's their Britney, I guess?" was a poll option

I guess Wavves is to them as unnecessary polls are to ILX

these gossipy news items about nathan williams being an emo shit are an attempt by pfork to make people forget about the fact that they gave his album an 8.1.

^bold and italics - taste that scorn

Yeah it's all about the number they gave it.

Maybe not reading fucking Pitchfork all the time would enhance your appreciation.

Like any critic's site, I scan for stuff I like and read it accordingly. I just hate having to wade through crap like this all the time. Haven't actually read any of the Wavves "woe is me" crap in these news items... not my thing.

the way Tom wrote the Black Lips item cracked me up though, because it kinda called back to imo the funniest thing he's ever written: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/statusainthood/archives/2007/09/live_the_black.php

* "A friend of mine gave him MDMA (ecstasy), and he just couldn't take it."
* "It wasn't so much of a breakdown as it was him being a baby. And that's why I don't like him. I've heard stories from others that he's like a real dick. And just like a baby, thought he was really cool. But then when it came down to it, when the pressure came on he just couldn't take the heat. Some people can't do this.
* "That's cowardly to me. If you're gonna do this, you put your all into it. Otherwise, just stay at home. He's like a little puppy."
* "There's so many people that would wanna be doing that: being able to get flown over to Europe, and have people like your records and buying them. And then just blow it on your first show in Europe-- someone like that needs to not do this. He needs to go back to school or move back in with his parents and sit down and think about things. He shouldn't play music. He shouldn't tour."

gotta vote for black lips dude's blasting.

fwiw i have never heard any of these bands and have no problem with them becoming embarrassing Baby TMZ spectacles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3IxqXgchto

dude's music is awful fwiw

haha I was about to post that Youtube

lol @ "That band is just one big unfunny publicity-grubbing joke. And fuck that band."

I've never heard of this band before this very moment, but really, shite music, shite band, shite attitude.

please try to stay topic, there are already plenty of threads about wavves being shitty, this is a completely original thread about pitchfork sucking

^bold and italics - taste that scorn

if only i could have made it scroll across the screen as well...

Thought i was on Terminal Boredom for a sec.

I mean....FUCK WAVVES

starting @ 2:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4KkFy0jN5g

three of the 12 most-read news stories of the past three months are about Wavves; for context, the others are three about MJ, one is Jay Bennett's death, one is Adam Yauch's battle w/cancer, one is a roundup of Summer LP releases, and then items about Radiohead, Sonic Youth dissing Radiohead, and Wilco.

There is no better website out there that covers the indie music sphere than Pitchfork right now. Period. And that's not to say Pitchfork does a slightly less shitty job than all of the other shitty sites out there, no: Pitchfork has, for the most part, relevant news & tour updates, excellent record reviews, and well-researched and thoughtful features.

It's also one of the only major rock publications that doesn't consistently dump excess bullshit into my RSS reader everyday. (This shit about Wavvves, though, is stupid and should be relegated to a sentence or two in one of those summing-up-the-festival pieces instead of being placed in their own individual news stories.)

Semi-major publication in pandering to its audience for extra page views and the attendant ad revenue shocker.

I like Dusted.

please try to stay topic, there are already plenty of threads about wavves being shitty, this is a completely original thread about pitchfork sucking

― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, August 6, 2009 11:47 AM

haha

Trip Maker, I'll have to check Dusted out.

I've checked out Tiny Mix Tapes, Cokemachineglow, The Quietus, and other pubs like those occasionally, but they're not nearly as good as the venerable P4K.

dustedmagazine.com
they've been around for a long time. Even when the writing is laughable or embarrassing or just wrong-headed, it's still a LOT better than the writing on Pitchfork, imo.

kshighway, there is no pandering-- we had no expectation that a Wavves story or two would be that popular, since that makes no sense. If we sat around and determined what to cover based on the expectation of how many hits it would generate, Wavves would be very, very far down the list-- it surprises me as much as anyone. It's just, you know, context for the thread.

reporting that a band had a bad show at a festival is so silly though, i mean it's barely newsworthy, really--how is it "news"????

and then the subsequent interviews and updates and such are all so ridiculous. it's like a band has one bad show so there have to be five news posts about it?

It's newsworthy in the context was that it was on the Pitchfork stage and it was really, epically bad esp. in comparison with all of the other performances that night. It keeps coming up because of the death spiral of incidents it launched.

It isn't super-important but it is pretty funny.

but guys ... new wavve sluts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPJLAW1THME

i agree--it is funny

i didn't realize it was on the "pitchfork" stage until just now--I guess I can understand it a little better now but still.

d-damn (xxp)

she's doing better now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyg-pRhN6rM

I only found that out by going to the site and reading he first article; after that, the whole thing made a lot more sense to me.

also sometimes I miss indie chix

yeah but i "read" the first article, too--I guess i skimmed it

indie chix will always be there for you

haha it mentions the Pitchfork stage in the second sentence!

<3 indie chix, esp. since I no longer have to hit on them

i think he's good live but i find his recorded material to be basically unlistenable. also i think he's cute. that's how i feel. as for these stories. idk. they all seem like "news" to me as far as pfrok is concerned.

A member of the band quit. That is news. Previously announced tours and shows were scrapped. Also news. This stuff is regarded as news on our site regardless of how it happens, or where, or when.

There is a tempest/teacup aspect here no doubt, but reaction quotes, an explanation for what happened and why Wavves cancelled months of promo work, and info on what was happening next seems more than fair to me vs. not taking the time and putting in the effort to actually ask the guy about it.

Then it was just dumb luck that the guy went off and got himself hurt asap, but again he cancelled shows. We announce the shows, we frankly should tell people when they're cancelled as well.

from my perspective as a (probably not careful enough) reader of Pfork, a lot of the news articles we're talking about here read more like blog posts/entries than actual "news" articles though. like the Jared Swilley reaction--that's not exactly news. and that's okay, i think that's the tone y'all are probably going for, and this is just one person's opinion, obviously.

well frankly scottpl, I don't give a damn

(and also i think it's fair to say that some of these articles fall in both categories--some of them are straight up news, and some are more gossipy, etc.)

The Black Lips reaction is the first thing I've ever come across that has made me want to listen to them!

That's all fair of course, Mr. Que, yes.

On the whole, weird thread to start now-- I could def see it a month or so ago. Those eight stories ran between May 29 and July 21; and they, plus one more (a tour announcement), are the sum total of Wavves news we've run since that Barça incident in late May. Not really a "daily update" then.

"should anyone care about wavves in the first place"? OK, that's a different matter altogether.

Iconic in a cool, badass kinda wavves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8xY4WhOXk

<3 Kristen Stewart, will never ever see anything "Twilight"-related.

The Black Lips reaction is the first thing I've ever come across that has made me want to listen to them!

Real talk! ^^^

Late-breaking note: without boring anyone with my opinions about any of these topics, I'd guess the whole Wavves teapot-tempest has been interesting to people mostly because it brings up a bunch of larger issues people like to argue about with indie music. Stuff like the level of professionalism people want or expect from indie/punk types, or arguments about whether lo-fi bedroom types are clever or just bandwagon-riding charlatans who don't know what they're doing, or stuff about how the life cycles of bands are very different than they used to be and you can go from four-tracking to a festival stage at a whole new speed, or stuff about how the media relates to the fact, or just more visceral issues people have about who they consider hipsters or jerks. Etc. It's like Gates's arrest, or something, a small incident people can project a whole lot of other stuff onto.

or stuff about how the life cycles of bands are very different than they used to be

this is about 50% of it for me, with the other 50% being "the life cycle of music news and assorted gossip about bands is way way more complex than it used to be." this news cycle sometimes works to the music's (and the people who make the music) advantage, and sometimes to a great disadvantage.

also, we talked about this on another thread when this all went down, but something about the original story really bothered me. the tone and attitude just seemed really weird. the writer was breathless with his disbelief that a band would play a song live in a different way than it appears on record, i.e.:

Still unsatisfied more than 15 minutes into their scheduled 2:20 a.m. set time, Nathan finally succumbed to shouts from the restless crowd and began lifelessly strumming his guitar in what appeared to be totally random chord progressions. As drummer Ryan struggled in vain to find a tempo for Nathan's seasick improvisation, the music slowly turned into a half-speed, instrumental approximation of the Wavves ballad "Weed Demon"--a song which, on record, doesn't have a drum part.

dude got too high, couldn't play right, big fucking deal. it's funny, but it seems like the article made a really big deal out of one bad show

it is not at all unusual for people to want to read about a really bad show by a hyped band.

xpost - I think the point there is less that it was played differently from the record and more that, per this narrative, the drummer is struggling to match what he's playing, and then he starts playing something that might not have a drum place anyway

yeah--but bands do that all the time

what bands are you seeing?

Que, I didn't get "how dare they play a song differently live than on the album" as much as I got "lol @ the guitarist completely confusing the drummer about what song was about to happen"

xpost or what nabisco said

sympathy in that first report definitely seemed to be with the drummer trying to salvage things and get through something resembling a show. I think they made up later, right?

i'm just saying--it doesn't seem that odd or that weird, and to point it out like that just struck me the wrong way

they should release that show that's youtube'd up above - like, deluxe 2-CD edition with outtakes and remixes and extensive liner notes and photos and shit.

i mean i have seen shows where the guitarist starts off at a different tempo than the song is typically played and either two things happen: one, the drummer gets the right tempo and they play the song different or two, it's a hot mess. either way, it just doesn't seem newsworthy to me.

Usually those types of things are rehearsed and don't emerge half-assed out of some terrible disjointed improv, is the thing.

no no no guys dontchasee he was soing some Dylan-at-Newport-level audience-challenging

(And also, like I said before, it was probably initially reported because everyone else who got onstage did so well and they... didn't.)

honestly i think a lot of my problem here is more with the internet's news cycle and tendency to report/throw all this information at us and effluvia and stuff so maybe i should just ignore pitchfork if it bothers me so much?

a friend of mine was on that "infamous" tour, or most of it, and he said dude is basically a nice, really shy person that just got really tired and was drinking too much.

because i mean let's think about this, in the history of bands and stuff, how many bands have done dumb shit like this?

the guy seems nice he probably got too big too quickly, you know? touring can be hard, even at the level he was touring where he was probably staying in hotels every night and stuff

Wavves Realizes Bandname Is Misspelled, Cancels Tour

Max B Attacks The Game For "Wavy" Rap Wavves For Name, "N*ggas Is Using My Slang"

because i mean let's think about this, in the history of bands and stuff, how many bands have done dumb shit like this?

all of them

~~~thank you~~~

I hear Mark E. Smith was drunk and unintelligble at a show once

woah Mark E. broke edge??

i heard the Grateful Dead were so high at Woodstock they didn't play their instruments well and they ruined Woodstock

yr thinking of Wavvvey Gravy

or perhaps Sha Na No Age

^^ (xpost) this is exactly the sort of stuff I mean it brings up, especially in terms of an "indie rock" world -- basically if we were talking about bands in the late 80s or early 90s it might be considered awesome or "legendary" to have shows devolve and go horrible, especially with inter-band fighting and beer-dumping; I recall it being considered fun and awesome back when Pavement had to start every song twice; but then again those things would more often have been happening in indie venues and people's expectations would be really different and there wouldn't be an internet's worth of competitors all around -- fair to say things are very different in a world where you can go rapidly from four-tracking to being a shambly duo on a European festival stage, rather than having your shows collapse someplace it's funny and undocumented

glad this thread altered me to the tragic misfortunes of this wonderful band~~~~

its so sad but at the same time im glad i no, u no?

(but I do think a duo performance where the drummer can't figure out what the other guy is even attempting to do, and eventually gets frustrated enough to dump beer on him, throw sticks on him, and give up, is a level of interest beyond a normal show going bad)

would've been funnier if it was the White Stripes

i think people will be much happier at rock shows if they take the attitude of "i hope something unexpected happens," rather than "i hope the band performs the songs in a manner that pleases me, and gives me what i need"

Then you just have the same problem in the opposite direction, namely ppl complaining/writing about boring shows where nothing odd/unexpected/catastrophic happened.

haha my friend sent me some mp3s of this band earlier and I liked them :[

yeah, but i'm *not* sad if nothing unexpected happens at a show, but i still hold out hope. and unexpected can run the whole range of things, from something tiny like an improv or a new lyrical twist, changing the words around (pavement is a good example of this) to yes beer dumping

xpost

kshighway, there is no pandering-- we had no expectation that a Wavves story or two would be that popular, since that makes no sense. If we sat around and determined what to cover based on the expectation of how many hits it would generate, Wavves would be very, very far down the list-- it surprises me as much as anyone. It's just, you know, context for the thread.

― scottpl, Thursday, August 6, 2009 11:37 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Fair enough Scott! Thanks for your reply.

i saw The Fire Show have a crazy show like that and every one lived

those that died reached sainthood

i saw modest mouse back in the day and it was one fuck-up/audience confrontation after the next. everyone had a good time.

basically if we were talking about bands in the late 80s or early 90s it might be considered awesome or "legendary" to have shows devolve and go horrible, especially with inter-band fighting and beer-dumping; I recall it being considered fun and awesome back when Pavement had to start every song twice; but then again those things would more often have been happening in indie venues and people's expectations would be really different

just to be clear, there are still plenty of people for whom this sort of stuff is awesome and fun and, you know, even though it's not the late 80s or early 90's. it has nothing to do with the year or indie rock or anything. there are lots of people who are aware that these sorts of things can happen at rock shows, and they're okay with it!

music is fun! duh!

well, yeah, that's the thing -- was anyone at this show particularly outraged by Wavvvvves? I mean, in its own way, it was probably entertaining, right? It's a funny video anyway.

I'd guess from the bottles and shoe thrown at them that people weren't endeared by them.

I am outraged that these kids have waited so long to have a raucous rock and roll jamboree in a dingy club-house, couldn't they have gotten this out of their system in 1983 like normal old people?

how come niggas like to see indie rock at 2:35AM in Spain.

like I said, Que, I am not offering my own opinions on these issues, but I do think the expectations of professionalism for indie-type bands are different now than they might have been in other years. the audience is different and the stages are different. the percentages of who-expects-what are surely different for people checking out Wavves at Primavera than they once might have been for a punk band with the same songs at a dive bar. there is a Flaming Lips then-vs-now joke somewhere around here.

by "not offering opinions" I mean not arguing about what I expect, just saying it's an issue on which people differ wildly in their expectations and their views of what they'd prefer the "indie" world to be like

hmmm i mean the thing is, i don't know if the percentages are higher than they used to be? and i don't know how you would go around proving that? i mean just because (as you call it) indie-type music is more popular now, does that mean more people swing one way versus the other? and how do you know?

i mean i'm sure there were people who walked out of a pavement show when gary started making mashed potatoes on stage or whatever--the idea that this was more acceptable back in the day is pretty weird to me

basically the shins turned everyone into big pussies, that's how it all happened. i actually like them okay but it's the truth.

isn't this thread like at least a couple weeks too late??

shh, you'll ruin it

pavement could always make 2 drummers sound like half a drummer

and the randomness of gary (i hope) would be just as appreciated (and hated) now as it was back in the day

just because (as you call it) indie-type music is more popular now,

wait what? is this even true? I thought album sales were declining across the board, I know tons of bands who can't afford to tour, etc.

yeah i may be jumping to conclusions there; i don't see anything in nabisco's posts about popularity increasing, but it seems like it has? i dunno

i still think there are a lot of pussies out there though--and i do like the shins!

Exposure has increased, that much is obvious.

exposure has increased in the sense that now there are outlets like Pitchfork that report on this crap and have festivals in Europe - which was not the case in the 80s (when you might have been fortunate enough to read about it in a 'zine or maybe some two-line joke in SPIN)

but more popular, as in more people paying attention...? eh, I dunno

i still kind of think my point stands though--i'm not really aware of a major shift in terms of what's acceptable/what's not acceptable at a show

yeah I agree with you there

Wavves Realizes Bandname Is Misspelled, Cancels Tour

― （　´_ゝ˙） (Dr. Phil), Thursday, August 6, 2009 3:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dying @ this

It's stuff like "Video: M83's Anthony Gonzalez Kicks, Slaps Security Guard in Ohio" that I find really unnecessary.

hahaa

hey just be glad pitchfork isn't solely an indie huffpo

but more popular, as in more people paying attention...? eh, I dunno

In terms of actual album sales, the Postal Service record and two Shins records have gone gold for Sub Pop, the last Interpol album went gold for Matador, and Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism went gold for Barsuk. Not to mention that both Arcade Fire records (on Merge) have sold in the neighborhood of 400,000 and that nominal indie band Modest Mouse (though on Epic) has had its last two albums also go gold or platinum. (The two Death Cab releases on Atlantic have each sold at least half a million as well.)

For context, the only other album on Sub Pop to have gone gold is Nirvana's Bleach, most of the sales of which probably came post-mainstream success, and the only other albums on Matador to have gone gold are the first two Liz Phair albums, both of which took several years to get there.

I don't know, I think it's obvious that more people are paying attention, and that's before you even get into stuff like Music from the OC or Pitchfork writers reviewing albums on ABC World News Tonight.

I don't necessarily think overall sales for indie rock have gone up; plenty of pretty indie albums went gold and occasionally platinum in the 80s and 90s. I think the biggest difference is that the most popular albums chart pretty high, both because overall sales are down and it's a lot easier to make a dent on the Billboard 200 now than it used to be, and because indie records actually have a big first-week push with advance press now, whereas before they might build and slowly sell over the course of a year or two.

i mean Sonic Youth had a top 20 album for the first time this year! and you know that album isn't going to sell more than Dirty, or even Daydream Nation!

i can guarantee you that indie sales on the whole are down TREMENDOUSLY from the mid-90s, just like every other genre of music.

like okay you guys know Arcwelder? Yep probably not right? I know that their biggest album in the 90s did like 5000ish, now they'd be lucky to do 500...

hell the band I was in in the 90s (this was before i was in the band) basically sold through a run of 1200 of their 2nd CD....that shit would be ridic now

now i guess the other question though is are more people listening? because that's really hard to say.

one thing though, is that it's definitely a really codified and established teen subculture now, or at least it looks like from the outside (i don't actually ever talk to teenagers)...but you know, like every bumfuck school probably has the "indie kids" and all that...back in the day it was still sort of a thing forming itself on the fly

which frankly maybe is the biggest problem with all the nu-lo-fi shit really, it all seems very schooled and "pro" to me (and i know it's shambling and not very well played but i guess even the shambling quality seems schooled to me)...

in comparison to, say, when you heard early GBV and it was like this window into these crazy guys from ohio's weird insular little imaginary rock kingdom they had constructed for themselves

underground rock always gets more attention when the industry is in crisis, that's basically how you know the industry is in crisis

yeah i guess it's the only part of the industry that's basically formed around the idea of losing money

Wavves: In Crisis

Pitchfork Presents: A Philosophical Inquiry into the band you wanted to forget about, playing the drum beats that no one has ever heard

Financial Tsunami Hits Wavves

was sitting on my porch yesterday and saw some teenagers walking by and thought to myself: "Do those kids listen to Wavves? What do they think about that guy's Primavera meltdown?"
http://files.myopera.com/Wakajawaka/blog/1herbinchair.jpg

i wish i had a porch

porches are the BEST. get yourself some Adirondack chairs, a brewski, crank up the Wavves and you're good ...

that's a mighty big outhouse mr. moneybags

plenty of pretty indie albums went gold and occasionally platinum in the 80s and 90s

Name some.

the grifters?

a horribly overhyped crapfest necessitates a mighty big outhouse

i was thinking of stuff like Doolittle and the first Violent Femmes album that took 10-15 years to get certifications

i'm pretty sure lungfish's "indivisible" sold 1.2 mil

lol

What's the definition of "indie" we're using here?

if the band sounded like they liked at least one REM song

At any rate: http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH

Find the info here.

I mean, you're right, The Eternal probably isn't going to sell as many as Daydream Nation or Dirty has, but those aren't gold albums either. (And I wouldn't necessarily be confident that their first-week sales figures were higher than The Eternal's. They've sold a lot over time.)

(the first page of gold-certified albums between 1980 and 1999 has 4 10,000 Maniacs albums on it)

interesting. . . would we call them indie (i wouldn't. i'm an old fart who hardly uses the word indie and when i do use it, it refers to the record label, not the music.)

i was thinking of stuff like Doolittle and the first Violent Femmes album that took 10-15 years to get certifications

Well, yeah, I guess this is part of my point. The Liz Phair albums took about four years to get certified, too. Now you have Wincing the Night Away selling half a million copies within nine months.

i think that has to do a lot more with the music the Shins and Liz Phair makes, though, versus any kind of industry machine behind either group

I mean, you're right, The Eternal probably isn't going to sell as many as Daydream Nation or Dirty has, but those aren't gold albums either. (And I wouldn't necessarily be confident that their first-week sales figures were higher than The Eternal's. They've sold a lot over time.)

― jaymc, Friday, August 7, 2009 11:20 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I meant they sold more overall, I don't know what the exact first week numbers for those albums were. I'm just saying, The Eternal got its chart peak in a much much less competitive marketplace.

10,000 Maniacs was "college rock," which definitely has affinities with American indie rock, but those records were all released on Warner subsidiary Elektra.

I'm just saying, The Eternal got its chart peak in a much much less competitive marketplace.

True, which is why I never bothered mentioning chart peaks to shore up my point.

I guess Surfer Rosa was the only strictly indie in the US Pixies album, but that went gold, too. R.E.M. had one gold and one platinum album on IRS. and if we're talking labels more than aesthetics, Offspring's Smash sold 6 mil. and Green Day's 2 albums on Lookout! went gold after Dookie.

Yeah, but I was saying that chart peaks figure heavily into the public perception of how popular indie rock is now.

railroad jerk must've at least gone gold

If we're talking labels more than aesthetics, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Gym Class Heroes, and Paramore have all gone gold on Fueled by Ramen, and Dashboard Confessional has gone gold on Vagrant.

god all those bands eat hot barff

i actually feel kinda sorry for Nathan at this point. dude's had a helluva year, getting it on all fronts.

i saw hot barff open once for butterglory

i think FOB and all their bands as being very much part of the Interscope machine, moreso than, say, Matador bands were when they had distro from Capital, although I guess FOB did go gold before they were kicked up to the majors. Vagrant has definitely moved some pretty big units w/o major backing, though. Victory, too, although their distributor is owned by Sony.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040423020845/http://img26.photobucket.com/albums/v78/ourfirstkiss/hippicks.jpg

i saw hot barff open once for butterglory

― Mr. Que, Friday, August 7, 2009 3:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol is it finally time for that sure to be controversial Butterglory Vs. Butter 08 poll?

even though i mentioned them as a joke on this thread, it reminded me of lungfish and i went to dischord and bought "unanimous hour" by them on MP3 and goddamn can i say this band rooooooooooooooools?

One Million Lungfish Fans Can't Be Wrong

(ps - they do kinda rule! i haven't heard them in forever though)

That Lungfish album is incredible.

I only heard Butterglory for the first time like a year ago, even though I remember being very curious about them every time I read a review in Magnet in the late '90s. Pretty good, but I loved that Butter 08 album back in '96, since I was really into that whole Matador/Grand Royal scene.

man, i loved that first Butterglory album so much when it came out. still have the vinyl i think! don't know if I ever heard Butter 08.

who was all in butter08, i'm pretty sure russel simmins from JBSX, those chicks from buffalo daughter i think? i dunno, it was a very "of its time" record

Definitely. It was the chicks from Cibo Matto, Russell Simmins, some dude from Skeleton Key, and the director/designer Mike Mills.

no, it was the girls from Cibo Matto, one of the drummers from Skeleton Key, and the guy who went on to direct Thumbsucker. I'm sure I've said this before, but imo Butter 08 has aged better than almost any other goofy 90s supergroup/side project, or for that matter a lot of the members' other projects.

haha xpost

I seriously thought you guys were making this up

xp That's possible, but it's also still very of its time.

yeah, i suppose.

i have it on vinyl i should listen to it

hahaha oops cibo mato, yeah...buffalo daughter was rad though imo

can i say, not crazy about the fact that the thread i am clicking on the most today while at work has a pic of a shirtless dude at the top

I could change it to that animated GIF LJ posted on the ILTMI oral sex thread if that would help...?

Butterfucker is a great song

Unanimous Hour fr all time

it makes me think of Marlon Brando

x-post

okay even though Google has shown me that these bands existed I still think you're all making this up

I could change it to that animated GIF LJ posted on the ILTMI oral sex thread if that would help...?

I don't know what this is in reference to, but how do you think this would help anything you crazy man

It would help me lol!

Unanimous Hour fr all time

― bear, bear, bear, Friday, August 7, 2009 4:18 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i haven't heard these dudes in years....

WHEN BALTIMORE BEGINS TO RIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE

the dischord digital store is really nice, $7 for full albums and for opening a new account you get a digital copy of the Egg Hunt 45 (ian and dudes from embrace and others rare post hardcore joint)

that Egg Hunt 45 has the best cover--HI DERE you should change the thread so Ian is on top

http://www.southern.com/southern/band/EGGHT/pics/40503L.jpg

you guys heard the collab betw. Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartment's bass player and Tsunami's drummer and singer from the Muffs? so good.

yeah, Crab Chips, I remember that. didn't make much of an impression

EGG HUNT 4 EVER! SHIRTLESS VAMPIRE WEEKEND LOOKING MOFOS IN SPUDS MCKENZIE SUNGLASSES NEVER!
EGG HUNT 4 EVER! SHIRTLESS VAMPIRE WEEKEND LOOKING MOFOS IN SPUDS MCKENZIE SUNGLASSES NEVER!
EGG HUNT 4 EVER! SHIRTLESS VAMPIRE WEEKEND LOOKING MOFOS IN SPUDS MCKENZIE SUNGLASSES NEVER!
EGG HUNT 4 EVER! SHIRTLESS VAMPIRE WEEKEND LOOKING MOFOS IN SPUDS MCKENZIE SUNGLASSES NEVER!
EGG HUNT 4 EVER! SHIRTLESS VAMPIRE WEEKEND LOOKING MOFOS IN SPUDS MCKENZIE SUNGLASSES NEVER!

yeah, Crab Chips, I remember that. didn't make much of an impression

Well the cover was a bit off:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0DwAprDsc7k/SfCSR0bW6ZI/AAAAAAAAHmE/_qkUum5uF94/s400/Chip.jpg

yeah i can't even look at the cover without bad memories of seeing Fun With Teeth opening up for Year of The Purdue Wonderchicken

http://mobclub.com/resources/productmaster/Ceiling%20cat%20900.jpg

i'll give it another listen though

they were pretty great, though that second stage Irvine Lollapalooza meltdown in 94 was embarrassing.

my friend made up the best fake Am Rep band name ever once:

Lard Mountain

yeah i can't even look at the cover without bad memories of seeing Fun With Teeth opening up for Year of The Purdue Wonderchicken

Hey I didn't know you attended RangeLife'96

they were pretty great, though that second stage Irvine Lollapalooza meltdown in 94 was embarrassing.

too bad pitchfork wasn't around back then to let us all know how bad it was

they were pretty great, though that second stage Irvine Lollapalooza meltdown in 94 was embarrassing.

Nonsense, they were perfectly positioned for the Ironic Moshpit Tent.

wait was that the gig when the bass player got in a fight with Mr. Lifto from the Jim Rose Circus?

yeah and then he ran off with the original bass player for Bunnygrunt

Also I think they sold a lot of specially branded smart drinks at a spot next to the booth for the Felch Pole label, with the curiously colored vinyl.

the whole sordid saga can be read about in my zine Decomposing Sleaze, issue #4, 1995

I think Dan ran away.

i hope he's googling and freaking out and googling

Time becomes a loop etc.

fwiw this section of the thread is almost exactly why I started listening almost exclusively to trip-hop and drum n bass

But you missed out on all this!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1b/NorthwestPostGrunge.jpg/200px-NorthwestPostGrunge.jpg

and this
http://tonemarrowreviews.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/wavves.jpg

leave wavves alone

i'm sure this has been said before, but it looks like he's making a gang sign

i love when ILX/ILM threads just say fuck it and go off on tangents!

yeah, yeah, i had to change my display name over this shit

wow: I don't really feel like sales are super-important to the stuff I was talking about above. maybe more media stuff and relation-to-mainstream stuff. I dunno. but the general original point was just that I think right now there are lots of tensions among this umbrella "indie" audience, people with different tastes and expectations, and those things seem like they're getting argued out a little more than usual lately.

I'm not saying that's new. there were probably more tensions around such stuff when alt-rock went big in the early 90s. that certainly stirred the audience in new ways. there were plenty of 80s audience tensions between, say, punk and college rock, though those audiences were less likely to spend all day in plain internet sight of one another. (I do think that's more new and now, the plain-internet-sight thing, which is probably relevant to this whole news saga.) so basically yeah: I think there were various times when a show like this might have gone to hell at the 40 Watt or Middle East and no one would have cared. I think we're in a slightly different time now, where not only does the show go to hell on a festival stage and have the video go on the internet, but there are a whole lot of other symbolic things people might project on it, stuff having to do with what they do or do not want/expect from the whole concept of "indie bands." you know?

honestly i think a lot of my problem here is more with the internet's news cycle and tendency to report/throw all this information at us and effluvia and stuff so maybe i should just ignore pitchfork if it bothers me so much?

― Mr. Que, Thursday, August 6, 2009 7:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so yeah, i agree with you--just disagree with the idea that there are more people arguing about this stuff than before. . . it's just that there are more *venues* for people to argue about this than before.

Yeah, I think it's more that these arguments more visible because of the internet and because even the smallest blog bands get interviewed on a daily basis. Malkmus woulda thrown so many blog darts at Corgan before "Range Life" even dropped if that happened now.

(also explains why you run into so many of the same ppl on these different venues)

huh: you don't think there was slightly more of a pitched argument over what "indie" meant or should mean or should be like in, say, 1993 than there was in, say, 1998? I mean, I honestly feel like there are times when circumstances make that stuff more contested than at other points. Or more widely contested.

nope. from my perspective, in the ways i experienced music, and the people i talked to about music, indie always always always referred to the label the band was on. so there was really no arguing.

i think there were times when it mattered more, and people quibbled more about, say, majors having 'pseudo-indie' imprints or Matador or Sub Pop having major distro

i guess i remember some grumbling about that back in the day, but it didn't seem overwhelming or anything--it didn't seem like a *lot* of people cared about it. it always seemed like hair splitting to me. i always considered matador an indie label, no matter if Capitol distributed them or not

of course let's not forget this

http://web.archive.org/web/20070928182458/http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

indie always always always referred to the label the band was on.

So you didn't consider Sonic Youth or Built to Spill or Stereolab or Flaming Lips or Spoon to be indie bands in the late '90s?

there's one band on that list that i consider an indie band. guess which one!

I honestly don't know. Spoon, because they were only on Elektra for one album?

correct.

(although it's kind of weird now with Sonic Youth on Matador: what do i call them? i solve this problem by not really worrying too much about this sort of thing, like i'm set in my ways and have been for a long time, and almost never think about it.)

and the reason i do this is because how else would you come up with a collective definition of indie that everyone can agree on?

Que I think you're so totally missing the point of my question -- I'm not talking about the definition of the term indie, I'm talking about the expectations of and tensions within audiences. Like even just the shifting usages of the terms "alternative" and "indie" in the early 90s strike me as good evidence that competing visions were being sorted through at that point. New people came into a sphere, other people had their expectations shift or realign, people turned toward or away from the mainstream, etc. -- the audience got generally stirred. Arguments about "selling out" were, inherently, arguments about different visions of what certain scenes were supposed to be like. Jump forward five years, in my opinion, and you get to a point where a lot of those issues had sorta simmered down and different parts of the audience had settled comfortably in their niches and such things didn't seem so hugely at issue. Sometimes things are shifting more than others, sometimes certain tensions (like class affiliation or "selling out"/popularity or whether people want things visceral or cerebral or whether dance music is considered fashionable) are more pronounced or fought-over than at other times.

I'd guess a full third of my ILM posts have been on "what is indie" threads, past and present. Sometimes I like to try for esoteric ways of capturing it, like when I said it was all about prizing effort or when I said it was all about continually stylizing guitar-pop in different ways. Sometimes I don't care at all. But this, to me, has begun to seem like the simplest way of getting at what people mean when they say the word:

Independent rock = rock music created mostly independently; this includes metal bands, bar bands, and early Hanson, which is good, because it allows you to say some weirdo untypical band just made "the best independent rock record of the year."

Indie rock = commonly understood to vaguely refer to the umbrella of particular styles of independent rock around which a particular "indie" following coalesced and around which it now revolves. Not totally useful as a musical term, because that umbrella of styles is large and constantly in question. Doesn't always matter if the bands are independent or not or whether what they play "really" has to do with another genre: the point's more that they're situated within and related to the network of ideas going around this particular listening group. Of course, this listening group has, over the past decade, been listening to a lot more than rock, which is why I think there's more use in the following --

Indie = the whole network of fan-base and values and ideas involved here. You can complain that this is a sort of extra-musical distinction, but so what: the idea of "chart-pop" is, too, and yet it serves us just fine for talking about different fan groups and different ways of thinking about the music itself. The argument that was put to Chuck on another thread: bands like Rachel's and the Postal Service play music that's better off described as what it is, not just as "indie" -- but in neither case can you really specify how the band's work without making reference to the idea of "indie," the kids that are primarily interested in it, the audience it works within and is a part of. Similarly, when loads of people who stood within this system of ideas started making IDM, it'd have been silly to say that IDM just changed; no, what happened was that a particular group with particular values and a certain shared history -- a group that can be vaguely termed "indie" -- started getting into the stuff.

Which takes us a little off from the original question, but you know we're going there anyway. "Independent rock" strikes me as a good technical term to refer to just that; the diminuitive "indie" strikes me as a good way of talking about something that evolved out of it. This also handily bridges the US/UK divide in usage of "indie," because in the UK it's just a slightly different set of values and ideas in that listening group.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, June 20, 2003 10:18 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Que I think you're so totally missing the point of my question -- I'm not talking about the definition of the term indie, I'm talking about the expectations of and tensions within audiences.

Hmm, which question, because i was responding to this question, which appears to be a question about the definition of indie

you don't think there was slightly more of a pitched argument over what "indie" meant or should mean or should be like in, say, 1993 than there was in, say, 1998?

yeah perhaps the phrasing there is ambiguous but the pitched argument was more about what "indie" (or "alternative!") as a concept or scene or community or thing meant, or should have meant, or should have been like, or stood for -- not different definitions of the term, but competing visions of the music and audience and idea

hence the "shoulds"

not different definitions of the term, but competing visions of the music and audience and idea

sorry but i don't see a major difference between these two things!

i mean obviously you've invested a lot of time and energy into thinking about this sort of stuff, and that's cool i respect that, but it's a lot less complicated for me--i mean, i can imagine you love this complexity that you bring to music and stuff, but for me, it's pretty cut and dry

(not your complexity--it's not dry at all, i mean the definitions and stuff of music)

THIS IS MY DEFINITION OF INDIE SHOW ME YOURS

hey maybe a british person wants to chime in with their definition of indie? bonus points for including the band travis in your answer!

here's a simple example

i once (back in the day) saw Treepeople open for Cracker. i didn't interview everyone at the show, but i would bet a million seven inches that pretty much everyone there thought Treepeople were indie (they were on C/Z) and Cracker were not.

insert tipping/pizza/bottle opener joke here

I don't think it's a super-complex difference, though, Que! Maybe it's clearer if we talk about something other than "indie." Like say "the conservative movement." When conservatives argue about the future or direction or goals of "the conservative movement," it's not just a semantic debate about what "conservative" means, it's a debate about competing visions of what that movement should do/mean/be. Or if you hear a country fan say that Ronnie Milsap represents everything wrong with 80s country music, she's not arguing about the definition of "country," she's arguing about what country music should be like. When metal fans argue about real metal / fake metal, or punk fans argue about real punk, it's not just about a dictionary definition (there is no definition to argue about, like you say), it's like ... all of these people are arguing out actual tensions within the audience, competing visions within the realm of people who identify as conservatives, or country fans, or metalheads, or punks.

haha there are like 200 pages of Frank Kogan Book about this, I think -- these community things that don't have a strict definition, and are always redefined by the communities themselves arguing out their concerns. and my point (which isn't a big one, but I didn't expect it to be controversial) is that there's usually an ebb and flow to those tensions. e.g., there are times when conservatives (or progressives, or indie fans, or whatever) feel pretty firm and together in their visions, and other times when splits and arguments are more apparent. and when anyone says, like, "this Wavves kid is everything wrong with indie music these days" or "Vampire Weekend are everything I've started to hate about indie" they're not just bagging the band, but saying something bigger about what they want "indie" as a concept to be like, right?

(like if you google the phrase "indie rock is supposed to be" you will find a whole lot of claims that are so not about the definition of the word)

(I mean Que I am somewhat agreeing with you here -- like with "punk," the argument is the definition, and it is an argument about the definition, but it's not just a semantic or dictionary-definition argument, it's like ... a tension between competing values, see?)

nabisco, like i said already, the indie definition is set in stone for me. i don't see it as being fluid at all like the conservative moment.

indie label=indie band.

and when anyone says, like, "this Wavves kid is everything wrong with indie music these days"

and all i'm saying is, these Pitchfork articles on this Wavves kid are everything that's wrong with Pitchfork/internet/land of a thousand blogs these days.

okay well just keep in mind that when other people use the word "indie" that is not necessarily what they mean

you may wish to correct them with your competing vision, thus exposing a tension

Voting in this poll is caring about this poll is caring about this band is caring about what pitchfork has to say about them.

okay well just keep in mind that when other people use the word "indie" that is not necessarily what they mean

i'm well aware of this, thanks!

you may wish to correct them with your competing vision, thus exposing a tension

why would i ever want to do this? why would i ever (and when have i ever on this thread) try to inflict my vision on others? like i said earlier, i hardly ever think about this sort of thing, but if others want to, it's okay with me.

voting in this poll is having a laugh mate

nonono, voting in this poll puts money directly into Wavves' pockets and signs your future children over to them

haha actually Mr. Que I can't believe we're talking about this because you are totally 100% just plain lying! I am poking around ILM and you frequently use the term "indie" to refer to an audience/ethos/concept, not just to mean "released on an independent label." Like all the time! Yr totally lying!

okay

you got me

you've discovered my sinister plot

quick, release the hounds

this thread, about a Royal Trux song, is not really indie because Royal Trux was once on a major label

Juicy Juicy Juice

hahaha Que I'm not feeling this in a dicky way but c'mon:

nabisco, like i said already, the indie definition is set in stone for me. i don't see it as being fluid at all like the conservative moment. indie label=indie band.

― Mr. Que, Friday, August 7, 2009 3:17 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no i think the elephant in the room is that it's harder to define what indie rock exactly is more so than it is to define psych or country.

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 1:01 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"When the hell did indie rock's terms get defined, though?"

They haven't been.

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 2:00 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Those aren't contradictory statements, fwiw.

(IOW set in stone for Que does not actually mean that everyone agrees with his definition or that he cares whether they do or not)

i'm not going to go back and reread the context of those threads, (unless you want to provide links), but you're kinda putting words in my mouth

like for me? indie rock is defined. but probably what i was saying is that for lots of other people (yourself included) indie rock is this other thing, therefore harder to define

yeah HI DERE my point is that Que is obviously pretty familiar with general use of "indie" in this nebulous audience/ethos sense that's not easy to set in stone, and has previously reminded us of exactly that fact. I'm not posting that as a gotcha, and there's no point cutting/pasting every other incidence where he uses the term in the nebulous audience/ethos way. I just mean this is clearly not a concept he's averse to, so I'm not sure why was previously arguing against the idea that it's a tension that other people argue out.

can we go back to making dan google possibly fake band names?

definitely some undefined definitions

nabisco: please stop putting words in my mouth. thanks.

(fwiw I googled Bunnygrunt)

ha ha i threw some real names in there just for that purpose

whoah Que what words did I put in your mouth? wtf

i think probably what i meant in that SFJ thread is that when music writers are talking about indie rock, there's no consensus of what it means to them. it's fairly easy for everyone to agree on what psych is. but for indie, there's no common definition that all writers use--no would i expect there to be. and it's sort of silly for people to assume that there would be one. and i would never ever try make people use my definition of indie.

you put words in my mouth by trying to get my words from some stupid indie thread back in the day to fit your argument, and you totally did it as a gotcha. i feel like even though we've been disagreeing a lot on this, i've tried to keep it fairly civil.

can you please just understand that you and i see things differently, and stop playing gotcha with the indie rock?

Que's point, until you pulled him into the "the definition of 'indie' has always been in flux and contentious", was that he didn't think significantly more people argue about what is or isn't indie now than there were in the 90s; it's just that those arguments are more visible. He then offered as an example his indie experiences, where the people in the scene he was in had a pretty well-defined definition that didn't generate much controversy. I think he was a little forceful/oversteppish* in his rhetoric because your point was basically coming across as "c'mon, you know you argued about this stuff all the time, admit it".

*-in German there would be a real word for this

derjerkenkaufen

xposts

sure, yes, but just to be frank and honest here -- because you are a bro and being polite as ever about this -- I am basically just confused/irritated because it feels like you've been on my ass all thread about my contention that "indie" is a concept that people have argued out at different times. you know? that's why I asked if you didn't think people were maybe having that argument more in 1993 than 1998. and you were like no, in your experience and with everyone you've talked to, "indie" always always always meant the label and there was no argument. if you just meant that was your personal experience and that's all, well, that's cool, but it has felt a bit like you've been on my ass arguing that those tensions/arguments don't exist at all. possibly this is just my problem and you haven't actually been riding my ass about it (cuz you do do that sometimes, man, getting-on-my-case-wise!), but I suppose it seemed that way.

okay cool that is my combination of trying to be forthright and helpful both in terms of the argument and interpersonally -- you have my apologies if I have been misunderstanding you about anything here. keep on rockin' and rollin' Mr. Que and here's to you

cool. sorry if it felt like i was riding you, i was not trying to do that at all.

if this were the death metal thread, one of you would be traveling to the other's home to burn it down as I type this

"riding my ass"

yeah but this is the indie thread, so we're gonna go over to each other's house and do a zine about this thread and how it brought us together

(500) Copies of Slacker

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/22492939/Wavves.jpg

awesome, we got a cover for the zine now

that you, dr. phil

so what have we learned?

some chick moved to vancouver and she's doing alright now

also Lungfish rule and Butter08 were real

lj in a dress

http://www.kindbook.com/books_edu/dobrie_skazki_2.jpg

http://www.wondercliparts.com/hugs/hugs_graphics_02.gif

http://www.michigandaily.com/files/leg/3bzxx61c.jpg

real indie died the day Turtle Church broke up : (

i'll never forget the time i saw them open for Rare Breed at Jabberjaw in 92.

oh shit there are real bands called Rare Breed.

i think you mean Rare Breed, Jr. who formed out of the ashes of Ox Scapula

fuck there's a real band called Ox Scapula isn't there

pwned by indie

Can I just say that possibly all mentions of Wavves are justified if it gets people to listen to Lungfish. All hail the Brown Santa!

Also, Juicy Juicy Juice forever ....

xpost Ox Scapula weren't really indie because they were signed to Warner Bros. subsidiary Giant Records.

hahahaha Giant Records! home of Babe The Blue Ox, Pathetic Fallacy, and Monkeydump

ok, now you're just making up band names.

am i tylerw? am i?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_the_Blue_Ox_%28band%29

kidding you, of course I remember Monkeydump. WHO COULD EVER FORGET

Ana Voog, who invented the Internet, used to be in Babe the Blue Ox! Or was it the Blue Up???

I'LL NE-VER TE-ELL!

</dontsayaword>

man just DL'd this Iowa Beef Experience, hadn't heard this album in years

I don't remember a forty-plus year old in The Blue Up?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

why are people using bullshit words like "overhyped" in 2009...seriously get a brain

wait what? for some reason that post doesn't make any sense to me, lg.

also, i find his music terrible, but like j0rdan s, i very much would like to touch him.

i just don't know what "overhyped" could actually mean in a world where every person reads a billion different opinions a day, on a billion diff profiles/websites/messageboards/tweets.....like everything is hyped by someone...but yeah pet peeve

isn't that be your own pet? Get Awkward is like the second best album of the 00's imo, well maybe not lol but it's pretty fuckin great anyway

oh oh i understand now.

this thread makes me realise i haven't been really paying attention to american indie much these last years. i like interpol and be your own pet, have i missed much else?
serious question there.

I've never heard of this Wavves band. Are they any good?

basically the shins turned everyone into big pussies, that's how it all happened. i actually like them okay but it's the truth.

― psychedelia smith (M@tt He1ges0n), Thursday, 6 August 2009 20:29 (2 days ago)

This is funny because I do think indie gossip was way more exciting back in the late 1980s to mid '90s. I mean, pouring beer on your bandmate and having a bum show? Woah, dude. Stop the press! Where's Jim Shepard blowing his advance on a Jaguar and hookers when you need him??? Hell, the Cows' Shannon Selberg at age 95, in an old folks home, in a coma, would supply still be able to supply more juicy gossip than 99% of these new indie brats.

On some level I guess you can blame indie rock turning into a bigger business and thus weeding out the more fractured, anti-social geniuses who provided such good copy. Then again, there's got to be something else at play. SST bands, early Sub Pop groups and even many AmRep bands all had racked up some pretty impressive sales, and their ranks were filled with gossip-producing maniacs. Maybe I'm just talking out my ass. It just seems like the underground/alternative/indie world of today (or whatever you want to call it) isn't nearly as volatile. Thus, you get folks reporting a tossed beer as something newsworthy. I don't know, though.

Of course, my previous post implies that I dig the trainwreck. So yeah, I guess I'm guilty, but I also have to dig the music. For example, I never found the going-to-see-Cat-Power-drunk phenomena at all compelling.

I liked this band for about a week. True story.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://rnash.com/article/the-end-of-indie/

no age dislocates shoulder: recount

From the piece Mr. Que linked to:

Aesthetics can be imitated, ethics faked, attitudes mimicked, but large bureaucracies could not possibly replicate the indie production process—how could they seize the means of production?

That piece also links to this book (http://www.powells.com/biblio/0805088520?&PID=33241), and the ever-so-reliable "Publisher Comments," in part, read:

You know the look: skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors, perfectly mussed bed-head hair; You know the music: Modest Mouse, the Shins, Pavement. You know the ethos: DIY with a big helping of irony. But what does it really mean to be "indie"?

The book is also titled "Slanted and Enchanted," btw.

Irony: what is it?

Went here to maybe post the newest news but ended up reading and laughing instead. This thread is far more interesting and fun.

Monkeydump??? Bunnygrunt??? LOL

BTW 'Dance to WaVVes' girl >>>>>>>>> Wavves or any related news stories

Wow, Daddy's has that new Indiana Jones pinball game!

also--bands fighting with each other is "news" now, FYI

WTF--unacceptable

that Indiana Jones pinball machine is always broken

Posted by Anonymous | September 26, 2009 10:45 PM

http://sufjanbeat.com

Yesterday, Williams issued a statement, posted by Brooklyn Vegan and confirmed by his publicist, explaining his side of the story:

"Talking shit about me on the Internet is one thing, I can handle that all day but when some dude is just looking for a fight at 4 in the morning talking shit to my face and his girlfriend is spitting in the face of all my friends it's a whole different story. I have no problem wih [sic] black lips or anybody else that i havent met but jared has been at me every chance he had. I just want to play music and have fun. It was unfortunate that it escalated to that point but he got what was coming to him."

But then today Buddyhead spoke to Swilley, and he had a very different version of events:

"First of all, I just wanna say that Wavves was NOT involved in that fight. That faggot didn't even touch me.

I've never 'come after' that kid, it wasn't four a.m., that wasn't my girlfriend, no one was spitting, and I didn't attack him. I don't give a shit about that kid and his music.

What happened was, after we finished our set I went to Daddy's with some friends and saw that faggot from Wavves talking to a photographer friend of mine. The only thing I did was walk up to him and say 'You're that faggot from Wavves and I don't like you'. He smiled a bit but didn't say anything.

After that, I went outside and saw their tour manager hanging around with some guys. They started getting all chuckles with me and so I told them I wasn't gonna have it. After that, Wavves tour manager hit me square in the face with a bottle. Blood started pouring out and six dudes fucking started kicking me until I blacked out.

All I remember is getting hit with the bottle and my friends dragging me to another bar. They wrapped my head up until I looked like a Confederate soldier.

So yeah, I lost the fight.

I also missed three flights. I've been in the airport all day having stewardesses cleaning my head because it kept cracking open. You can't go on board if you're bleeding.

Bottom line is that faggot from Wavves didn't even hit me. Never touched me. And he should've, cuz he had a free shot.

He's coming to Atlanta October 3rd and we're gonna get ugly on him. We're gonna destroy their van, we're gonna destroy their faces, we're gonna get crazy on em'. Nasty style."

Hey is it true Jared from Black Lips got sonned by WAVVES manager after etc etc.?

I would like to formally retract what I said about wanting to hear something by Black Lips upthread

Yeah, dude's comments make me want to burn all my Black Lips records.

They started getting all chuckles with me

http://www.geocities.com/rraattbbooyy/images/chuckles.jpg

FWIW, I'm no fan of Wavves at all, but his insistent "faggot" comments are disgusting and I wish someone would call him on it.

ok listen

yep, this totally confirms why I have never listened to nor ever been interested in listening to any Black Lips

they're on vice records, you just gotta ignore it imo

the only real response if you end up in a beef with some vice kinda dude is to smile broadly and say, "are ya gonna call me a FAGGOT there, fella?" and just have a good time with it, or as good as time as you can have.

they're on vice records, you just gotta ignore it imo

Ugh, so sick of the Vice is "ironic" racism/homophobia/whatever bullshit excuse.

refusing to feed the troll of life is not the same as excusing them as being ironic

"Ignoring it" isn't the same as "refusing to feed" it either.

C'mon, everybody loves a cocksucker!

they're on vice records

I really don't see what this has to do with anything

Regardless of if Wavves gets the stuffing knocked out of him here on Sunday, Jared has inadvertently picked a battle with the internet PC police.

http://www.blenderindia.com/siteimage/scale/800/600/54214.png

Okay come on, calling out an asshole for throwing around a word like "faggot" is not at all the same as being "internet PC police".

yep, this totally confirms why I have never listened to nor ever been interested in listening to any Black Lips

― nabisco, Monday, September 28, 2009 1:25 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

xxxp "inadvertently"? fuckin' really dude??

haha for me there's something about the tone in general that's almost more disagreeable than the pointed "faggot"ing, culminating in this vague "oh yeah I have stewardesses wiping blood from my head cuz I'm so awesome" vibe

when dudes say shit like that, it's best to either clown them in a manner that makes them look like children or totally ignore it.

imo

the stewardesses is a great band name

daddy's is lame again now that the free street fighter machine is gone.

it's a crime when a pinball machine stays broken--they should shut the place down

NB when I say "this confirms why I haven't been interested" I don't even mean I'm writing them off on moral objections to sexual-orientation slurs or anything, I mean the whole vibe / self-presentation / schtick that's captured by that statement is just a massive turn-off to me

(and I feel like there are plenty of bands you can go to for boozy sleazy stuff that don't seem like they're actually idiots or run-of-the-mill assholes)

kinda hope both guys kill each other in a knife fight, tbph

yup nabisco that is how i feel. they front in a harder and more retarded fashion than basically anyone i can think of.

you all seem to be forgetting someone: jay reatard.

is he an asshole? i don't really like his music but he never seemed like an asshole.

Okay, never officially met the dude, but he's come off as an asshole in a lot of interviews I've read. I mean his whole weird obsession with the Wavves kid seemed pretty unprovoked (up til now anyway) and more than a bit assholish.

yeah, calling someone a faggot in an interview like that is pretty dumb. on the other hand, i don't expect people in bands to be models of civility.

he did kick that dude in the face that one time iirc. xxp

i mean i expect people in bands to be like people not in bands i.e. not running around calling dudes faggots.

people in bands should be like people not in bands, except with more instruments

something about Reatard always strikes me like he's code-switching -- a billion instances of him doing wild/ridiculous/disgusting things out and about, but then he knows when to stop and be cool and pleasant? I dunno. there were some mitigating circumstances with the face-kicking, if I remember right -- like the guy was hopping up and pouring beer all over his pedals, or something.

i mean i expect people in bands to be like people not in bands i.e. not running around calling dudes faggots.

― yellow card for favre (call all destroyer), Monday, September 28, 2009 1:55 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

So, if you're in an intense rock 'n' roll bar fight at 4am you expect no-one to be dropping any slurs?

I expect that, when releasing an official statement about it afterwards, no one is dropping any slurs!

I mean come the fuck on

So, if you're in an intense rock 'n' roll bar fight at 4am you expect no-one to be dropping any slurs?

― Adam Bruneau, Monday, September 28, 2009 2:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

what the fuck kind of indie rock fanfic are you reading dude

intense rock n roll statement issued to brooklyn vegan, confirmed by his publicist

"intense rock 'n' roll bar fight"

xpost

i expect asshole jock-types to stick to the investment banking jobs where they belong

i mean the fact that we even have beefs for shitty bands like this is sad enough

I keep forgetting to describe the things my friends and I do as "rock 'n' roll"

I had such an intense rock n roll burrito the other day

whats more rock-n-roll, calling a dude a faggot, or having you head patched up by stewardesses <GUITAR SOLO>

it depends on how hot the stewardesses are

you guys are forgetting the '' around the n

(slang for "and")

nothings more rock n roll than forgetting the n

i mean forgetting the apostrophes

somebody should remake the warriors, but with indie bands instead of street gangs

they did, its called the brooklyn vegan comments section

status: intense, rock 'n' roll

it's better with the apostrophes

fuck u man

u trying to start a beef with me internet user max?

cuz I think it's already established how intense and rock 'n' roll I am

I'm like the love child of gg allin and vas djifrens

I start bar fights and then when lovely stewardesses offer their medical attentions, I start bar fights with them too

no homo RIP

*sigh*

huh.

apparently a charity boxing match is being negotiated; that'll be ugly

hahah fights i would not pay to see

according to IMDB:

in the upcoming Wavves biopic, to be directed by Sophia Coppola, the roll of the Black Lips will be played by Butterbean

apparently a charity boxing match is being negotiated; that'll be ugly

what no charity gaybashing event

M@tt, you are like my favorite person on Earth

I think this whole thing is hilarious. Indie kids are so sexually repressed, the slightest whiff of a 'feud' resulting in fisticuffs is somehow worthy of multiple news items on all the leading blogs. I've heard more about this 'feud' in the past few days than I have about the Girls album.

And thats a bad thing? I'd rather listen to both these dudes whine than read another line of hype on that fucking Girls dude.

jay reatard seems to be a bit moody and the headkick thing was pretty ott but he seemed a nice enough guy when i met him and i've not heard many bad reports... wavves guy acts like an immature spoilt dick, but some have said it's down to him being young and inexperienced so perhaps he'll grow up. whereas words can't describe how scummy black lips are.

wavves guy seems like he needs a chaperone or parent on his tours

Sounds like he can't handle his liquor.

Indie kids are so sexually repressed, the slightest whiff of a 'feud' resulting in fisticuffs is somehow worthy of multiple news items on all the leading blogs.

dude, if this is your idea of "sexual" I hope whoever dates you has really good health insurance

lol

why are people even complaining about this? what bores the shit out of me is like, that wayne coyne arcade fire thing from a couple months ago where it's all just bitchy sarcastic grumbling. this is awesome! rock musicians should beat the shit out of each other and publically announcing death theats at each other more often.

*announce death threats aimed at each other

People are complaining because fuck Wavves and fuck Black Lips

also fuck aggro jock homophobia

yeah it would probably be a lot less blogggggged about if the dumbass hadn't said the word fag 8 million times

also fuck aggro jock homophobia

I kind of feel this is a given but it is worth repeating.

aggro jock homophobia is *maybe* less odious than the dork lo-fi vice mag homophobia of dudes like this because it's more honest with itself.

i was going to "step to" wavves at some point, but now, i don't know about that

yeah the black lips guy's response was ugly, that's true. but anyways now that he's the villainous homophobe we can all be glad that he got his head split open right on some future bad karma shit.

i look forward to wavves cover of "step to me" by tim dog!

love the black lips records but have heard so many stories of them being dicks

http://pitchfork.com/news/38682-wavves-nathan-williams-talks-new-album-iking-of-the-beachi/

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/3370556728_9802ea3bc5_o.jpg

i saw hot barff open once for butterglory

― Mr. Que, Friday, August 7, 2009 11:39 AM

Ha! I'd already completely forgotten about this dude.

lots of lols in this thread

Can't wait til all indie that's beach/summertime/surf related rock with tons of reverb fucks off forever.

I reject the premise of this thread for 2 reasons. First, I like Wavves quite a bit. Secondly, regardless of what Pitchfork prints nobody is obligated to read it.

:: dj JULIANNA BARWICK --- first dj set ever!
:: dj Ravves ------------- Ryan Schreiber from Pitchfork
:: dj McG ----------------- Chocolate Bobka
:: dj Magician ------------- Erez Avissar
:: dj Todd P

lol

new song is awesome, really happy he cleaned up his sound -- always liked his old songs when i saw live videos but thought the recorded versions were pretty much unbearable

i pretty much really dislike this new song. i guess my pop punk days are long gone tho, but he is still not the type of person i want to hear sing that way. blegh

king of the beach = new song? or post acid? though i prefer the former, they're both awesome. kinda liked the old wavves, kinda didn't, and the one time i saw them live they were miserable, completely unable to put the material across. anyway, i'm very excited by the new stuff i've heard, including cool jumper, which i think was with zach hill? no age fingerprints all over this stuff - good direction to take the sunshine pop thing, imo.

I don't like when singers have that kind of surfer accent. Sounds forced. Like when screamo/current pop-punk bands whine. Both sound like they're clinging to youth and that makes the music sound shallow.

Funny you said No Age because their vocals get to me sometimes for the same exact reason. Though I like No Age.

weird, cuz i've never heard it as a specific surfer accent thing. i mean, maybe it is, but i'm from the northwest so what do i know? it's not like spicoli's singing these tunes.

first time I've bothered listening to Wavves. This song is pretty good!

"king of the beach" is great too!

i prefer the cleaned up sound aesthetically but i also like that it allows him to play up his brattiness -- he wears that affected whine well

"Oberst Writes Letter to AZ Boycott Opponents"

WHEN ARIZONA TALKS TO GOD DOES IT SAY THANK YOU FOR PHOENIX

man I'm so glad we have Conor Oberst out there looking out for us, I sleep so much fucking better at night, and my parents would've never had to install and alarm system in our house when I was like fucking five because I thought ppl were going to break in -- I would've felt SAFE if he hadn't been like fucking ten back in 1992

"Bassist from Tame Impala Sends Letter to Senator, Noting His Concern about Congress' Lack of Progress Made Towards Combating Childhood Obesity"

"Matt Berninger Campaigns for Prozac, Remarking, 'I Don't Want Our Fans to End Up Like Me'"

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/13/14474197_2f3cd27514.jpg

"In An Apologetic and Tearful YouTube Video, Neon Indian Guy Apologies to Tame Impala Guy for His Complicity In Increasing Childhood Obesity By Signing With Mountain Dew"

"Kevin Drew, Who Had No Place In This Story Before Ten Minutes Ago, Forgives Neon Indian Guy for Tame Impala Guy, Tweeting, '@NeonIndian It's Alright, Bro. Yr Music's Rad. #forgivenessrocktweet'"

stop

"Nathan Williams Hurls Chair at Fan's Head, Screaming, 'Motherfucker, YOU DESERVE THIS!' In Tweet, Fan Notes, 'I Was Just Nodding and Smiling in The Front Row! #lammes"

ksh is a powerful ilx posting talent but needs an editor

if it bums you dudes out so much you can always stop visiting these websites maybe? start your own?

This lot sound no better or worse than most bands of their ilk to me. US lo-fi indie ain't my thing at all though.

could a pitchfork-hyped indie band post a tweet so newsworthy that even pitchfork couldn't write about it

could wavves write a song so bad that even he couldn't listen to it

if an iphone tweets in the middle of a forest, it's probably in the pacific northwest somewhere (better forest 3g coverage to meet needs of the growing woodsblogger market)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2009/12/gallery-steeleinterns1-cropped-proto-custom_8.jpg

oops wrong thread

man, hadrian & whiney, hating on/razzing Conor for participating in a just boycott & speaking openly about it seems unsporting to me, I gotta say - I don't know hadrian but whiney you're above that imo

look, I even fucking like I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, and some of the other stuff Oberst has done -- I even went to see the horribly overhyped crapfest known as Monsters of Folk last fall -- but as far as I'm concerned Oberst does enough look-at-how-political-I-am!!! posturing that I have no patience for anything vaguely political he does, even when it has merits

that being said, I don't know what he's up to here -- I haven't been following the issue or his reaction to it

TS: Self-hating Gays VS Self-Hating Hipsters. Seriously though, this album has brought out the worst in people who normally like music and fun.

man, hadrian & whiney, hating on/razzing Conor for participating in a just boycott & speaking openly about it seems unsporting to me, I gotta say - I don't know hadrian but whiney you're above that imo

― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, July 5, 2010 11:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i honestly don't have an actual opinion or stance on it. hope i wasn't implying one. i just like making fun of conor oberst because he sucks.

but as far as I'm concerned Oberst does enough look-at-how-political-I-am!!! posturing that I have no patience for anything vaguely political he does, even when it has merits

wow, what a bullshit stance

hope scoring ilx points is worth copping such horseshit publicly - on what grounds do you call dude's positions "posturing"? our paths haven't crossed since he was a teenager but I'd be very surprised if the politically engaged teenager were now subscribing to the same positions cynically instead of just being the pretty stand-up dude he is

I don't think I agree with him but his response was totally cogent

it is a pretty smart (if a bit over the top) letter.

http://www.billboard.com/news/conor-oberst-pens-open-letter-to-arizona-1004102084.story#/news/conor-oberst-pens-open-letter-to-arizona-1004102084.story

hopefully it won't clutter up the hardcore news you were expecting when looking at pitchfork.

xpost

Smithy, calm the fuck down. I didn't mean to imply that his political statements themselves are posturing; the dude obviously believes in what he's saying. But at the same time, he's done a lot of stuff -- like released super lame "political" songs like "When The President Talks To God -- that does much more to call attention to himself as someone who's politically minded than actually change anyone's mind about anything. Now step away from the computer for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember you're getting way too fucking riled up about a discussion about Conor Oberst on an ILX thread titled Most ridiculous "news" item on Pitchfork regarding the horribly overhyped crapfest known as Wavves.

* like released super lame "political" songs like "When The President Talks To God

Should read "a super lame 'political' song titled "When The President Talks To God," as I can't think of another overtly political song of his atm at all, really, although I'm sure there are more. None of them stand out as being as egregiously lame as that one, though.

oh damn

you posted 6 times in a row on this thread, and you're calling somebody else "riled up" for calling you out on your bullshit

it takes balls, I'll give you that

Ksmh

ksthu

First of all, I was posting dumb made up Pitchfork headlines to kill a little time, not getting all worked up about something completely insignificant. Secondly, I clarified my earlier statement to make it pretty clear that I think he's sincere in his views. I just find the way he delivers them to be super grating and self-congratulatory. I'm not sorry that I find shit like the intro here to be super fucking lame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFXs_vn7tjk

yeah between somewhat strident political posturing that's otm and people making fun of a dude using his platform to speak his mind whether super-coherently or no, I know where I cast my lot - I think one of us is for sure "worked up" about this, but I'm pretty sure it ain't me

"posturing" was a bad word choice on my part, but I stand by my posts. not interested in continuing this discussion though

Ha, I didn't even read the item. Just the headline, which, c'mon, is pretty fucking funny.

I'm def. not feeling any "hate"

Also wrt to whole "stop reading/watching if it's so terrible then" thing, no can do, this would eliminate 50-75% of my entertainment material.

When did ksh get so angry? Mrroww.

idk i have no beef w/ oberst's political songs. For one thing he's got a pretty good track record of actually caring and engaging and the amt. of stick he gets for it is enough that for him to be doing it for cred. or whatev would make him a total dumbass seeing as how the opposite is what happens.

And i get that something like when the president talks to god isn't exactly a nuanced political statement, but i mean, that isn't really what pop music does. The way in which pop music can be subtle is in the angles between broad strokes. Also, i mean, think of the Obama HOPE campaign, i think politics are always digested as a play of symbols, very few ppl w/ "strong political beliefs" are really clued in to the specific policies etc. that that implies. The lyrics to that song are pretty specific abt framing partic issues that a lot of ppl had w/ the bush admin, ie, the hypocracy and moral evasiveness of "religious values" in a political system. I think there is definitely room in pop music for ppl to get called out by their real names when shit gets heated.

It always makes me wonder tho abt how easy it is to make any sort of moral or political stance seem lame. It kinda makes me wonder abt whose agenda is being served in making the decisions, policies that actually affect us beyond the grasp of pop's language. Something that can't be thought about or brought up bc its like a major faux pas. Dont want to get all adbusters on yer asses but i mean its pretty obvious who benefits most from an idea of cool that involves keeping ur mouth shut abt what the government does. I just think it should give ppl a reason to check themselves b4 they jump down the throats of anyone who even presumes to have an opinion in public.

Hopefully he'll be dead within a year

plax OTM. the death of political pop is really fucking sad. i pin most of the blame on a fearful and conservative vision of coolness that basically depends on bottling down anyone who risks that kind of sincerity.

Dont want to get all adbusters on yer asses but i mean its pretty obvious who benefits most from an idea of cool that involves keeping ur mouth shut abt what the government does. I just think it should give ppl a reason to check themselves b4 they jump down the throats of anyone who even presumes to have an opinion in public.

this is really well-put

holy shit @ tiarnan

y'all realise he's p much the irish nabisco by this point, esp on social/political issues

Plax, I'd have to think about your post more before I'd feel confident saying where I agree/disagree with it, but either way what you wrote there is genuinely interesting.

it's just true, ksh. only part i might quibble with is the framing of this nasty, uptight version of coolness solely in terms of its effect on political commentary. cheap ridicule = a lot of people's default reaction to almost everything, and it's toxic in lots of ways.

i don't think anyone should feel ashamed for wanting more than a song whose punchline is basically, "Bush says he talks to God to help him figure his policy, isn't it lol to imagine him as a schizophrenic who literally believes he's hearing God's voice." I mean, I understand why Oberst wrote the song, he was really frustrated at the time (as was I, and I kinda dug it to some extent because of that), but it's not just a broad brush. it's a really poor song too. now it sounds dated, poorly thought thru, etc. all kinds of music deal with politics (tho mostly not national level politics, but almost EVERYTHING is political), and I think it's reasonable to say that Oberst hasn't shown himself particularly adroit at writing this particular kind of song. I certainly don't think that critique should be cowed by someone saying, "who benefits from you critiquing oberst?" like, what is even the answer to that question? the illuminati? the secret Democrat cabal? really, who benefits?

eh, but when you open that out to ridiculing the dude for writing a good and coherent letter about why he is involved in this boycott your making a broader judgement about what and what is not a legit thing for a pop singer to do. Also, about the president talks to god. I think yeah, its pretty okay to say the song sucks for whatever reason, but I do think that its much easier to shrug off and take the piss out of anyone who is too obvious about anything political in their lyrics.

i'm just wary about equating calling out oberst with calling out everyone. presumably people find certain pop artist moves corny for good reasons (even if they can't express them). it's not like ksh is on some tirade against any artist who dares involve themselves personally. but there's a reason it feels authentic coming from some people and bullshit coming from others (even if oberst is totally sincere, i'm not really interested in what he signs or does since what i like about his music has nothing to do with his political engagement, but contrast there are people who i would care about -- it's not a pop singer issue, it's an oberst issue)

what u r saying makes no sense to me

i am not interested in oberst's politics, and i found his attempt at writing a nationally relevant political song lame. i don't think all political songs are lame, i think his was lame. i didn't post about the p4k link here, but when i saw it, i rolled my eyes cause i really don't care about what oberst thinks. if i had posted about the link tho and wrote about how lame it was, i wouldn't be benefiting some massive illuminati conspiracy.

pretty straight-forward imo

i'm just wary about equating calling out oberst with calling out everyone. presumably people find certain pop artist moves corny for good reasons (even if they can't express them). it's not like ksh is on some tirade against any artist who dares involve themselves personally. but there's a reason it feels authentic coming from some people and bullshit coming from others...

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:05 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

idk. i still hear a lot of political music even today. what you're saying sounds truthy, but i'm not actually sure it's true.

like was that Vampire Weekend album not political? or MIA? or the new Gaslight Anthem? or Lady Gaga?

i didn't post about the p4k link here, but when i saw it, i rolled my eyes cause i really don't care about what oberst thinks. if i had posted about the link tho and wrote about how lame it was, i wouldn't be benefiting some massive illuminati conspiracy.

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:12 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, that's legit i guess to the extent that his speaking out could have an impact on his fans. i don't find it anymore interesting that he signed it tho than any of the other signers.

idk. i still hear a lot of political music even today. what you're saying sounds truthy, but i'm not actually sure it's true.

[...] like was that Vampire Weekend album not political? or MIA? or the new Gaslight Anthem? or Lady Gaga?

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:22 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

haven't heard the new gaslight, but 57 sound seemed entirely apolitical. has there been a big shift in their subject matter?

I do think tho, that pop music is product and component of a larger social structure and is therefore complicit in producing and perpetuating what we think of as normal. I don't think this is a massive claim to make, its like how ppl learn to kiss from movies. I mean i prolly have bigger bones to pick with the version of society that it perpetuates but i am bothered about how saying that pop stars have to earn some right to be outspoken about the political, to be nuanced and knowledgable in a way that isnt really demanded from other topics or themes. It kindof makes politics seem like something that is rarified, something that is beyond those who aren't "informed." I think pop music helps invent the language of the everyday, but yeah EVERYTHING is political, and in most pop music that seems hidden. I guess comedians get a free pass because they say what nobody is allowed to say, and that's part of my point.

i think that if a pop musician talks about politics in an interesting, compelling way, listeners will be compelled.

I do think tho, that pop music is product and component of a larger social structure and is therefore complicit in producing and perpetuating what we think of as normal.

the real problem with this critique (which is basically adorno+horkheimer, essentially) is that Oberst doesn't fall outside it. in some ways his political engagement is even worse than artists that don't engage at all (since he creates a catharsis for political action without actually pushing forward the sea change).

but why then don't we hold pop to high standards when it talks about love, or partying, or whatever else?

i don't know about you, but i decide to listen to music depending on whether it sounds good to me, interesting to my brain, fun to listen to, etc. i apply the same criteria across the board. if it compels me, i listen. if i don't, i don't. it's the same criteria for political songs and partying songs.

that last to yr x

n some ways his political engagement is even worse than artists that don't engage at all (since he creates a catharsis for political action without actually pushing forward the sea change).

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:47 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

don't get me wrong -- it's not my critique. but to the extent that you believe that art just reifies the system that produces it, what makes conor oberst special? he sells records, he exists within the capitalist structure, etc. (as do your opinions, etc. if you believe you learn to kiss from television, certainly you learn to think about politics from television too -- or is that somehow special? and why would a self-perpetuating system perpetuate something comparatively insignificant like kissing, but not something very significant like ways of thinking politically?)

i decide to listen to music depending on whether it sounds good to me, interesting to my brain, fun to listen to, etc. i apply the same criteria across the board. if it compels me, i listen. if i don't, i don't. it's the same criteria for political songs and partying songs.

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i just disagree that is the case. i think it's more that there's politics (however you define it, but generally the systems through which humans interact + form institutions) and then "politics," parties/political issues/candidates/etc. A lot of artists write really well about the first thing, just like they write really well about other affects (like love, hope, etc). But they write really poorly about the latter because those aren't things that music is good at doing -- it's incredible at transmitting affect. it sucks at making intellectual arguments.

like if someone wrote a song about the chemical reactions that spark love, i'd probably be more skeptical too.

it's a little late to say this, but is there maybe some misunderstanding of the story here? oberst's letter isn't just independently offering a political opinion. it's explaining to arizonans who already agree with his position why he's taking part in a boycott (along with other artists). obviously the main reason this is newsworthy for a music site is that it involves where people will and will not be playing shows. he's not offering a political opinion so much as he is defending a moral/political decision he's made in terms of how to go about his profession as a musician.

xpost suggestion -- this is not always a fair way of thinking or a broad view of "politics," but one reason people are stringent about judging them (in a way they're not with other things) is the sense that "politics" is more of a zero-sum issue of What Is to Be Done -- these are the times we identify music as really "political," when it touches directly on those types of questions -- whereas equally important topics like love, etc. can be looked at as various and personal. (there is much to politics that can be seen as various and personal, but when those things crop up in songs I think we're a touch slower to identify them as super "political!")

I think that's fair. So let's discuss his actual comment:

"I fear that if we return to business as usual (under the guise of some civic movement) that this will all devolve into the typical grandstanding that is political activism in music. It might make us feel better but won't do a damn thing to change the minds of the radical, racist minority that seem to have controlled Arizona politics for decades. In short, it will lose its teeth."

Do you guys agree with this? He's basically saying that if he plays shows in Arizona and just vocalizes resistance to the law, he'll just be grandstanding, but if he refuses to play in Arizona, he'll actually be doing something. It seems to me that both things would be the same exact thing, and I'm not sure how one makes a bigger difference than the other, but as we've discussed on other threads, clearly I don't have the ILX opinion about the value of musicians boycotting (I also don't think it's super useful to anything when a musician boycotts Israel, for ex).

it's a little late to say this, but is there maybe some misunderstanding of the story here? oberst's letter isn't just independently offering a political opinion.

well, that's the thing exactly - "when the president talks to god" seemed posted as a "here's another example of this guy and his lameness" & the old "it's not going to change anything" chestnut was hauled out for another airing, which I think is a total nonstarter as far as this stuff goes. (congressmen aren't going to change anything either; we vote for them anyway.) one can argue at any rate in good faith about the song - it's not exactly the subtlest call-out, and it's a preaching-to-the-converted moment for sure, which is I think the 2nd most damning thing you can say about it. (the first would be, if it's your opinion, that it's not a good song.)

but his letter is a horse of a different color; it's well-reasoned, heartfelt, and decent, in my opinion. he's writing to an audience, and to a promoter; business relationships between performers & promoters are real business relationships, like in any other business: one can conduct one's business in any number of ways, but to be above-board & principled about it is pretty rare, and commendable. ditto in respect to his audience; instead of being strident, he explains his position. whatever one thinks of his music, I think getting all pointy-fingered at oberst in this situation is shortsighted & really petty. dude is attempting to conduct his business in a principled and open manner. that's good. if he doesn't look cool in doing so, well, what grown person really gives a shit?

Do you guys agree with this? He's basically saying that if he plays shows in Arizona and just vocalizes resistance to the law, he'll just be grandstanding, but if he refuses to play in Arizona, he'll actually be doing something. It seems to me that both things would be the same exact thing, and I'm not sure how one makes a bigger difference than the other, but as we've discussed on other threads, clearly I don't have the ILX opinion about the value of musicians boycotting (I also don't think it's super useful to anything when a musician boycotts Israel, for ex).

by not playing Arizona, he does not contribute to the income of Arizona. a boycott is about affecting an industry's or region's pocketbook.

xpost - mordy, the rest of the letter is basically addressing the question you're asking, isn't it? in the end, though, I'm not sure it really matters what we think is maximally effective -- it's the guy's own decision, morally and politically and professionally, and he appears to be making it in good faith and putting some thought and transparency into it, so unless I were insanely certain that another method would be more effective, how would I get on his case about this?

smithy, he's kinda hedging on that: "Much of the Artist end of the boycott is symbolic, I acknowledge, and no real threat to the economics of the State. But it is an important part none-the-less for awareness and messaging."

but to the extent that you believe that art just reifies the system that produces it, what makes conor oberst special? he sells records, he exists within the capitalist structure, etc. (as do your opinions, etc. if you believe you learn to kiss from television, certainly you learn to think about politics from television too -- or is that somehow special? and why would a self-perpetuating system perpetuate something comparatively insignificant like kissing, but not something very significant like ways of thinking politically?)

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 3:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

can't address your question about the self-perpetuating system. i'm not trying to make the argument that our reticence to produce politically aggressive pop has its origins in the protection of a status quo. that was plax's angle.

Whatever, I mean, I don't care whether Oberst plays Arizona or not. I only got involved in this conversation when people were saying it's somehow illegitimate to find Oberst's overt engagement with politics corny. And that didn't seem right. Also -- this thread isn't about whether Oberst is corny so much as whether p4k is corny, and whether p4k is corny for spotlighting this story. obv the answer to that is: p4k features whatever story they think their readers will like, but that's also the answer to the plethora of Wavves stories too.

p4k also features stories that directly impact on the professional practice of the musicians the site covers, including things like whether they've decided not to play shows in a state I'm guessing many readers/fans live in

as for that "hedging," well, surely this is like voting -- your voting alone does not have any significant impact on anything, but you do it anyway, and you certainly don't wait for confirmation from everyone who agrees with you that you're all gonna go vote, therefore it's worth your time now

xpost to Mords - sure, but that, I think, is only there to say, "look, I know that one Bright Eyes show isn't going to bankrupt the state. nor will it really bankrupt the state if Bright Eyes, Rage Against the Machine, Chris Rock, Pitbull, or any other number of other entertainers join -- there's more to state commerce than entertainment." But traveling businesspeople go to shows, and new businesses take account of how the nightlife is in a region, and besides, there's the sort of assent that comes with playing in a place. There used to be an AZ boycott over its refusal to ratify the ERA - Harlan Ellison wouldn't read there or attend conventions there. Something to be said for principle, and for the (unmeasurable, I think, but present, I'd argue) longer-reaching effects of a person occasionally standing on it. I think, too, given his audience, that standing on principle sets a pretty awesome example. Loads of kids look up to Conor. I think in the past couple years he's done a pretty swell job of rising to that responsibility.

he's kinda hedging on that: "Much of the Artist end of the boycott is symbolic, I acknowledge, and no real threat to the economics of the State. But it is an important part none-the-less for awareness and messaging."

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 3:17 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol, voting is such a huge issue tho. i don't remember if we have a thread for it, but there's plenty of books + articles trying to explain why people vote considering it's irrational (since your vote doesn't matter). it's only a good analogy in that the reasons for one might apply for the other -- but those reasons might be poor in both cases. (like if voting is just signaling.) xp to nabisco

I dunno, this kind of thinking is depressing to me -- it makes me imagine someone calling off the Montgomery bus boycott because, well, those people over there might not join in, and if they don't join in, then what's the point, it might not make any difference...

The difference there was that the boycott made a huge economic difference tho, it wasn't purely symbolic.

not sure what you mean by "since your vote doesn't matter." what, due to the numbers involved? electoral colleges?

- that to mordy a while back

and nabisco massively otm. every voice/action is just another irrelevant drop in the bucket until there are enough of them to matter. this doesn't devalue the individual voice/action though. thing to remember about "huge economic differences" is that they are made out of lots of small ones.

Also, and I'm sure this puts me at odds with a bunch of you, I think the particular Arizona law is wrongheaded and has negative consequences, but I don't agree with what Conor said that:

The only thing, clearly, that these people care about is Money and Power, that and the creation and preservation of an Anglo-Centric Police State where every Immigrant and Non-White citizen is considered subhuman. They want them stripped of their basic human rights and reduced to slaves for Corporate America and the White Race. They are engaged in blatant class warfare. It is evil, pure and simple.

xpost in re: Montgomery - it didn't right at the beginning - it started with small things, which were easily mocked. I think mocking people for acting on principle is some ripe bullshit, which is what I started in on here. "it's not going to make a difference" is in my opinion a much more pathetic stance than "this may not make any difference, but I have to do something."

(I agree than "evil, pure and simple" is maybe not the best-chosen phrase here)

"it's not going to make a difference" is in my opinion a much more pathetic stance than "this may not make any difference, but I have to do something."

― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, July 5, 2010 3:37 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark

not sure how i feel about "evil pure & simple." it's reductive and divisive, but i'm so sick of conservatives talking in those terms that i'm kinda glad to see the tables turned. suppose that just perpetuates partisan warfare.

It always makes me wonder tho abt how easy it is to make any sort of moral or political stance seem lame. It kinda makes me wonder abt whose agenda is being served in making the decisions, policies that actually affect us beyond the grasp of pop's language. Something that can't be thought about or brought up bc its like a major faux pas. Dont want to get all adbusters on yer asses but i mean its pretty obvious who benefits most from an idea of cool that involves keeping ur mouth shut abt what the government does. I just think it should give ppl a reason to check themselves b4 they jump down the throats of anyone who even presumes to have an opinion in public.

― plax (ico), Monday, 5 July 2010 20:10 (Yesterday)

I'm not really sure what the answer is, but hopefully it doesn't involve a moratorium on internet snark, because snarking is pretty much all that keeps me going at this point

i like that

mocking people for acting on principle is some ripe bullshit

this bears repeating, I wish ksh and Mordy would stop justifying their twenty-something apathy by using philosophical window dressing and/or internet snark.

"it won't change anything" is, like, the lamest argument ever, and it is impossible to prove to any degree of certainty. little things can make big differences years down the road.

also, re: voting, that argument has no weight when you consider ballot measures and how close they sometimes are (and I speak here as an anarchist who has very little faith in any federal-level elections - ballot measures are a whole different thing).

it should be pointed out that there are varying levels of "it won't change anything" at work in life and that for some issues (like, say, keeping the campus kitchen open until 3 AM) protesting is useless overkill, whereas with others (civil rights movement) it isn't

sleeve, if I can interrupt your being holier-than-thou for a second, I didn't mock Conor Oberst, I was just defending ksh's right to find someone's political posturing corny, inauthentic or bullshit. mocking people for acting on principle isn't inherently good or bad. it depends on the principle, unless you believe everyone you philosophically disagree with is full of shit.

I was just defending ksh's right to find someone's political posturing corny, inauthentic or bullshit. mocking people for acting on principle isn't inherently good or bad. it depends on the principle

Mordy, do you see the problematic slippage in these sentences? At the end you say "acting on principle" and "it depends on the principle." But at the beginning you say "posturing" and "inauthentic" and "bullshit," all of which suggest something besides "acting on principle." The whole thrust of "inauthentic bullshit posturing" is that it's not exactly principled.

And in my opinion it's exactly that slip that people are talking about here, you know? I'm pretty sure the problem people are having on this thread is that it sometimes seems to be fashionable and clever to skip the part where we ask "what is the principle and is it worth acting on" and go straight to "there is no principle involved; this is just posturing; it's being done to look cool or manipulate me and I am hip and clever enough to see through that."

So it's weird that your post there actually slips between those two things. The two things at opposite ends of that quote are completely different. They should not be slipped between without thinking.

anybody tries to shut down the campus kitchen before three will have their office overrun by me and my stoned homies just fyi

wtf is this campus kitchen bs

i wanna know

I meant it as two different things. One is that people have a right to find a particular political position inauthentic. We have bullshit meters for good reason -- lots of people are full of shit. (Tho this isn't simple, and often we're not just being authentic or inauthentic but straddling some line, or feeling both simultaneously, or worrying, etc, like maybe even Oberst is worried he'll come off as a dick and is bravely going forward anyway, but anyway...) The second thing, tho, is that there's this positioning like: "Well, he means what he says so you're a dick for mocking him," but that only arises because people actually agree with what he says (or think they do, people started distancing themselves when the actual language was broached). If you didn't actually agree with his principle, you wouldn't say that you need to respect it. Ie: Assuming someone like Jonah Goldberg is authentic, you don't feel any compunction about mocking him just because he's acting according to his principles. So the issue at hand isn't: "Should you mock someone for following their principles," which is this nice, happy thing to write but is actually total bullshit because the actual issue at hand is, "Should you mock someone for following a principle you otherwise agree with," and clarifies what's actually at stake here.

I liked this thread better when it was fake Pfork headlines by ksh.

those snarky headlines were undermining the movement, comrade

(ok, i didn't really mean that -- but ideological conformity rubs me the wrong way, sb'ing myself)

assuming someone like Jonah Goldberg is authentic, you don't feel any compunction about mocking him just because he's acting according to his principles.

this is false - I mock his principles, the stances themselves are ridiculous

That's my point. You're not bugged because ksh was teasing a dude who was acting according to his principles, you're bugged because ksh was teasing a dude who was acting according to your principles.

most wtf aspect of all this is ppl being surprised that pitchfork would report a news item about an artist it covers as if that is "lol"

what ksh was/is doing was mocking a person for acting on principle. I don't guess I'd mock Jonah Goldberg for refusing to speak in a place where he thought the laws were unjust. maybe I'm wrong though and ksh's stance is "SB 1070 rules, what's wrong with this guy"

"what ksh was doing", as far as I can tell, is mocking conor oberst for being conor oberst, and news outlets for giving him a venue in which to be conor oberst. I don't really think there's anything more to it than that.

like what you're trying to conflate is a person's politics with their principles. declining to support unjust laws isn't a right/left issue; it's ethics. different sphere, largely. when a person acts according to his ethics, it's commendable, generally speaking. you will be able to note plenty of exceptions to this rule, I'm sure, but it's a generally good rule.

well, what he said was this:

but as far as I'm concerned Oberst does enough look-at-how-political-I-am!!! posturing that I have no patience for anything vaguely political he does, even when it has merits

which is bullshit, which is where the larger discussion began.

iirc

You're not bugged because ksh was teasing a dude who was acting according to his principles, you're bugged because ksh was teasing a dude who was acting according to your principles.

I'll give this one last shot: I think what people are bothered by is that instead of talking about the principles themselves, and whether they're good ones or not, there's this tendency to mock the action as "posturing" or "look-how-political-I-am!!" -- these are ksh's own descriptions -- almost as if it's lame and unseemly to try anything in the first place.

If ksh thinks the stance is wrong, or that the action is just self-aggrandizing, well, those are his opinions to hold and defend! But in this instance I think he's wrong on both counts, and I think his opinion on the latter is based on reacting to the idea of Conor Oberst and not even paying careful attention to what the guy is doing in this instance. (I.e., the "open letter" here being an attempt to explain his position to an ally it affects, which I think is a pretty decent thing to do and not at all self-aggrandizing. Sort of the opposite.)

like what you're trying to conflate is a person's politics with their principles. declining to support unjust laws isn't a right/left issue; it's ethics. different sphere, largely. when a person acts according to his ethics, it's commendable, generally speaking. you will be able to note plenty of exceptions to this rule, I'm sure, but it's a generally good rule.

― les yeux sans aerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 11:33 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

(basically what I'm saying is that "principles" in the abstract don't really make sense to me)

i wonder if the reaction wld be any different if it was, like, springsteen and rolling stone instead.

xpost to snowy I can dig that & recognize that for me personally appreciation of/respect for principles in the abstract may be lingering Catholic damage

but so oberst's principles are resulting in him boycotting arizona, not sure what is "abstract"

what's abstract is my claim that he is acting in good faith on principle by boycotting the state, and that a person so doing - following the dictates of his principles as he understands them - ought not be held up to mockery for so doing. Mordy's contention is that if the principle in question were -- to take a principle I cherish as an example; Mordy didn't cite this one, but I'll haul it in just to get more concrete: the right of a woman to safe & legal abortion, and a performer were writing a letter to a promoter to say "I refuse to play in your state, because your state refuses to restrict abortion access," then I & others would not say to a person "foul ball" for mocking that performer's action. I am saying I would mock that performer's principles, but would, honestly, find the principle "I cannot contribute to the economy of a place whose laws I consider unjust" a sound & principled stance.

you have to be fairly round the bend to think the boycott of arizona is not in good faith, but hey what the fuck do i know

Mordy is right however to say that a person's politics is a much hotter button than the principles that dictate how that person ought to act given his/her convictions - and that consequently people only defend principle when politics and principle are nicely lined up. A really good counterexample to this claim is the ACLU, which defends a principle ("free speech") at all costs, even though many of the ACLU's beneficiaries are people whose politics would be anathema to much of the organization's membership.

nah, that's going to be a matter of degree, always. unless bright eyes is ok with all the laws of everywhere he plays.

xpost

well, I think the undertone of some posts here was that it was not in good faith because its secret aim was just for Conor Oberst to demonstrate to the world that he is "political" and therefore cool, which various internet users are just plain too smart to fall for

^^ obviously I disagree with this assessment, though now I am confused as to whether I disagree on principle or not

nabisco let me remind you of the principle which you hold most dearly, since you seem in recent months to have forgotten it: that principle is "regularly send money to les yeux sans aerosmith"

nabisco and john otm - i'm not sure mordy and ksh's (whoever the fuck these ppl are) stance are apathetic as much as reactionary. and i'm pretty far from an oberst defender - didn't care for him when he came to town stalking jeff mangum 12 years ago, have gladly let him slip off my radar since, but the guy does seem to be pretty genuine about his political activism, and even if he wasn't - so? i'd like to hear the argument behind 'if an individual benefits in any way from an honorable act the act becomes dishonorable'. my disgust with certain artists - charlie daniels, m.i.a., tony larussa - politics isn't due to their having a stance at all but to their stance being horridly wrong.

Now that we know what Conor Oberst thinks about Arizona, I wonder what Antony thinks about this flotilla business.

i'd like to hear the argument behind 'if an individual benefits in any way from an honorable act the act becomes dishonorable'

a good reminder why i should stop discussing politics on ilx

noted artist tony larussa

"who benefits from you critiquing oberst?" like, what is even the answer to that question? the illuminati? the secret Democrat cabal? really, who benefits?

i kinda wanna go back to this bc it is some grade A strawmanning and well done. The main point that I was trying to make was that instead of having a kneejerk reaction against "wtf is this bright eyes dude doing having political opinions" its worth bearing in mind that those kinds of reactions seem to highlight a pretty pervasive attitude we have about when and how we allow overt political rhetoric to be used. Because that's what I think is really what's happening here, not that people are responding to the specific position that the guy is taking, or the credibility of his engagement/investment, I think its more about a line in the sand that makes it difficult and problematic for pop to OVERTLY interface with politics. I mean, even writing that I cringe a little, so I think its pretty pervasive.

4 me its important to bear in mind that somebody IS always benefitting from lines we draw around different cultural spheres. I mean, that's not to say there's some puppetmaster dude orchestrating some elaborate mind control plan over people. That doesn't mean that its not worth questioning what we are gaining and losing by helping to maintain these boundaries. I mean, for me its seems that the immediate response is over Bright Eyes being political in the first place and its interesting how easy it is to be so dismissive, and I don't think that this expurgation of the overtly political from the realm of pop is a good thing, especially in the context of how depoliticised we are as a generation both of which are inevitably interdependent.

Which is to say that arguing over what kinds of positions are valid for a pop star to take or express are beside the point for me, because i feel like the thing that is at stake is the right to be political at all (Its interesting that the only artist around atm whose image is really bound up w/ their politics is MIA, and its obvious that her backstory is constantly used to lend that legitimacy) And I feel like its worthwhile defending egs. of artists at least trying to engage w/ politics at least as a counter to the easy dismissal that such attempts are usually faced w/.

I have a much larger thing to say (mostly about how boycotting inherently presumes a withdrawing figure - and how some of the discussion here is disavowing Oberst's presence in his boycott such as "he doesn't matter, the action matters") but I'm on Zing so I Judy wanted to point out that it's interesting that you keep defending this pop political expression, but it is entirely paratextual. Pop music, the realm I want to believe can contain subversive politics, is not the forum for this statement. What does it say that we are defending the artists right to boycott and write letters, but seem to have no expectation that he should us his chosen medium to make a statement? In one sense his letter is doing what you're accusing me of doing - circumscribing a location where politics is appropriate (letters, economics) and where it isn't (pop music).

so because he's a pop musician he can only express his political views via a song and not through actions/letters? bullshit.

Yes, exactly what I said. Thanks for clarifying my position for me.

could you parse it for me then please? i really don't see how his letter/his boycott is circumscribing a location where politics is appropriate (letters, economics) and where it isn't (pop music).?

I'll parse it when I get to a computer if someone doesn't do it for me first.

"What does it say that we are defending the artists right to boycott and write letters, but seem to have no expectation that he should us his chosen medium to make a statement?"

You misunderstand me, that is exactly the point i am trying to make.

holy shit @ what this thread became

...I was thinking the same thing.

hey guys I found a hole in the ground with some dirt in it, how many days do you think you could keep that at the top of new answers?

new wavve slut took her dance youtubes down :.(
RIP

finally ready to parse, tho wondering if anyone really cares. basically just noticing that plax is setting this up like critics are saying, "pop music is no place for politics," but even if that's true it's certainly not relevant here. it happens that Oberst is a pop music artist, but that's only what makes his letter relevant paratextually (in so far as he's discussing the economic decisions behind where he decides to tour). if i condemn his letter, i'm certainly not saying that pop music is no place for politics, since there are no politics happening in pop music here (YMMV, one man's paratext is another man's text, etc). i don't want to commit to this stance, bc tbh i don't really care and also am shvitzing from heat and exhausted, but i think it's a fair position to take that Oberst may have really interesting things to say politically in his music, but i'm not that interested in news stories about his political engagement that happens outside music. if i took that position i wouldn't be cutting politics out of music, i'd simply be saying that what interests me about this act is one particular medium and not another.

i'm actually really interested in continuing a discussion about pop music + politics, tho i think maybe this isn't the right thread, so (as i imagine is to the relief of eye-rolling peeps) I'm gonna drop whatever it was we were discussing. i'd love to explain why i think lady gaga or gaslight anthem or vampire weekend is political tho, and i'd like to continue the discussion about boycotts and pop artists, tho elsewhere preferably.

(upon rereading I see that I didn't totally disentangle what I was trying to say there, which also had a bit of: why is oberst making his political engagement here through a boycott and a letter, but i'm not hearing him engage with it through the medium he's staked out culturally -- but kinda don't care. so whatevs.)

Wavves is totally the new tiresome indie act that Bright Eyes once was, so this seems like a logical place to talk about this.

Wait wait: Mordy, you don't think PERFORMING POP MUSIC is part of pop music?

I mean, once again, the issue he's addressing here is not just abstract politics, it's his own professional practice as an entertainer who books (or doesn't book) shows at which he plays pop music. He made a decision about his professional practice, and when a political ally questioned that decision, he wrote an open letter explaining how and why he came to it. (To me that is not even primarily a political statement, it's a professional one that just happens to have political grounds.)

I don't think that his letter explaining why he is boycotting Arizona is performing pop music, no.

idk its got a good beat

Okay. So you would prefer if he just boycotted, and when political allies questioned that decision, he just declined to engaged in any dialogue about it?

idk how fair ur being, that's not really the argument mordy was responding to i think. this thread is too messy.

Nabisco, I understand your position, but can you really not see how if someone made a political decision (like who to vote for, who to boycott, etc) and wrote a letter about it and then published it on the internet (let alone Billboard's website), you might think they were being kinda posturing? So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy, so these websites are willing to link to and publish his letter. But it's not like he couldn't have boycotted the State, maybe called his friend to talk about it, or written an email, etc. Not write an (ego-serving?) letter about how courageous his political positions are?

Like, yes, maybe it's even a good thing to write a letter in addition to boycotting etc, but I can totally see ksh's POV.

ne way mordy plax said "different cultural spheres" & "the realm of pop" & "what kinds of positions are valid for a pop star to take or express" so yr talking all abt the music, maaaan right after plax is just more strawmanning, even without the point above that this is actually abt oberst's doing shows. paratextualol

uh u realize we're talking about a letter, right?

Again, the letter is a response to a political ally questioning the decision to boycott, not an announcement of the boycott itself. It's essentially answering an outside question/criticism from someone who'll be affected by the decision.

(I would also suggest that a boycott is not exactly like a vote; the concept involves letting people know it's happening and possibly encouraging others to participate. And if you happen to have allies in the place you're boycotting, it strikes me as sort of the opposite of egotistical to try and respond to their concerns or explain your decision to them.)

But I dunno, maybe I am misunderstanding where this argument has ended up.

Whatever.

I would also suggest that a boycott is not exactly like a vote; the concept involves letting people know it's happening and possibly encouraging others to participate.

Also more likley to be the motivation for the letter itself then ego-stroking.

So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,
So the difference with Oberst is that he's newsworthy,

Uh, yeah, obv. I never claimed otherwise?

But it's not like he couldn't have boycotted the State, maybe called his friend to talk about it, or written an email, etc. Not write an (ego-serving?) letter about how courageous his political positions are?

He did not "write a letter about how courageous his political positions are" and to say so is to discredit any argument you might be making past any point of salvage; you are smarter & better than such total bullshit, Mordy.

i just think ppl are failing to recognize that oberst has "a public" to which he can speak if he so chooses; i guess we can call out every public figure for potentially "posturing" but that's pretty weird/nonconstructive.

I mean how can you not see that your position seems to be "people should not state their political opinions, because the risk of being seen as self-righteous is a greater concern than anything else that might be in play"? and how can you not see how frankly reprehensible a position that is?

Okay, I'm not saying that is what he did. I'm just saying that I can understand a perspective that says, "Someone writing a large open letter to a magazine his friend about why he's boycotting Arizona sounds corny and ridiculous to me." Here's a guy who became successful in the music industry, who has a number of fans, etc. He then decided, professionally, to boycott Arizona. He then decided that this would be of interest to his fans and the general public (maybe for the altruistic purposes of encouraging others to join him to make a difference -- I'm not making this judgement). Again, I'm not arguing here that this is my belief! I'm just saying that I understand the position. It makes sense that someone might be turned off by that kind of political display! It is a little tacky whenever anyone decides they're famous enough that what they do/say is noteworthy. When I think something I only imagine the people I know personally would care, and probably not even then. Oberst believes the world cares. Maybe that's great! But it's still fair to feel it's weird.

that is ridic

I submit to you that when you are in a position where people you don't know start fan clubs about you, it is not beyond the pale to assume that those people would be interested in your political statements, and the mindset that says otherwise is best described by the following picture:

http://kontraband.se/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/haters.gif

i don't see why. if pitchfork reported that Oberst pitched a softball game i really wouldn't care and would think Oberst is weird for trying to make this a part of his public identity. the letter has a new wrinkle, since maybe there's an element of moral rightness to his decision, but it's the same functional phenomenon. xp

deciding what they do is noteworthy = discussing a music-industry wide boycott effort, responding to a local music promoter, doing so in the house publication of the music industry

HI DERE, I totally agree with that! But wasn't the whole discussion about Wavves that the lol was really that P4k's audience cared about this shit? Like, lol @ obsessive fandom categorically. it just happens that in this case we make another argument for why it's a good thing that Oberst made this public and it got reported.

It is a little tacky whenever anyone decides they're famous enough that what they do/say is noteworthy.

Why is this "a little tacky"? Such people are in a position to actually change a few minds. I don't think it's "unfair" (nb those scarequotes are my attempt to parse how it's tacky for a person in a position of influence to use that influence) for a person who knows others care about his opinions to voice those opinions in such a way that those who might hear them, and whose agreement might make a difference, will hear.

obsessive fandom = a music website reporting news about musicians

if pitchfork reported that Oberst pitched a softball game

it would 100% deserve a round clowning on this thread

clowning a guy for trying to make a difference on behalf of people he sees as getting the short end of the stick from the ruling class OTOH is kinda bullshit imo

Why might someone think that? Because I guess as human beings we recognize that other human beings can feel like what they do/feel/think is really important, or be humble about those things, so when someone calls a lot of attention to their opinions, it's a pretty human reaction to feel like that person isn't being humble. i'm not making a moral decision about whether this is a good/bad thing, i'm just saying it's an understandable thing.

But wasn't the whole discussion about Wavves that the lol was really that P4k's audience cared about this shit?

That wasn't the whole discussion; in fact, most of the discussion was arguing about the definition of "indie" and whether it was mutable or not.

Arizona promoter and activist Charlie Levy wrote an open letter to artists asking them not to boycott the state

Now, Billboard has posted an open letter from Oberst to Levy, explaining why he supports the boycott.

you really have a strange idea of "calling a lot of attention"

yeah but again that goes back to what i'm tryna say: yes its understandable, but is it really a good thing that things are such that it is.
xxp

also most of the lol from my end was not about the Pitchfork audience caring about Wavves as much as it was schadenfreude about a band whose music I disliked getting too much exposure too quickly and imploding so fast that the publication that foisted them on everyone turned around and started savaging them

then that other dude started slinging around homophobic slur and everything just became kind of sad and ugly

Mordy, you did not say "someone might think" - you said "it's a little tacky." You are, in fact, making a moral decision about it; it's right there on the screen; your position seems to be that if people might be seen as grandstanding, it's more important that they be humble than that they express their convictions. Even if the expression they might give could make some difference, it's more important that they be aware that they might look silly to others. I can't see how that isn't a fair description of your position, which strikes me as reactionary.

i appreciate the photo in the op

plaxico otm

Oy. I really don't have anything to add to what I said. I feel like I'm arguing some minor point about what a normal human reaction is, and since I haven't even stated my opinion on whether writing the letter was good (presumably if it got more people to be aware of and involved in the boycott), or even if boycotting the state was good (presumably if it makes a difference in changing the law in Arizona, or in other moral shifts later on), I'm really not sure what we're discussing.

xp to J0hn, it is in the sense that it evokes that reaction in human beings. I think the question is whether it's worth calling attention to yourself publicly like that for the sake of a greater good. And imo, if it is indeed for a greater good, then yes, it's worth it.

Someone writing a large open letter to a magazine his friend about why he's boycotting Arizona sounds corny and ridiculous to me

yeah, I guess this is the point where I just don't get it: he's boycotting an entire freaking state! tossing out a few paragraphs explaining why to people who care strikes me as ... just basically polite, I guess? I dunno. I guess he could have let de la Rocha write a letter and signed on to that, then nobody would be much surprised by anything.

what I'm getting is that you're talking more about an economy of attention and who gets paid attention to, and on that level I do understand people rolling their eyes about who is and is not in a position to be heard out about their opinions and decisions, who they're sick of hearing about, etc. but I don't think that really relates all that much to anything Oberst is doing, or the quality of his decisions. it's more of an eye-roll at the universe, maybe. or just a natural human reaction to the fact that we live in such an "economy of attention" in the first place.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, nabisco.

(Like really really. Not being sarcastic. I'm just saying I understand ksh's eye-rolling.)

yes. but that's an eye-roll we should probably be REALLY clear is about us and "natural human reactions" and the modern world, and not really at all about the person we're discussing or what normal, defensible thing they just chose to do.

and what people have been saying for two days on this thread is that it's sorta dangerous and shitty when we start applying that economy-of-attention eye-roll to things like political action and moral/ethical decisions, as opposed to just "oh, so-and-so has a new record out, BARF."

because it's probably more important for moral/political/ethical stuff to be right and effective than that they're "cool" or "interesting" or above eye-rolling.

btw what happened to ksh in all of this

had to go out--missed the big launch of pitchfork's altered zones

I agree with that nabisco, I'd just add the caveat that it seems unfair to jump down someone's throat for finding that "economy-of-attention" eye-rolly, when that economy-of-attention is itself politically mediated and there are good reasons generally to feel like the ways that people give attention, and the reasons why people attain that attention are themselves situated in all sorts of problematic politics themselves.

like people roll their eyes at Bono all the time when he's doing good things in the world. presumably you feel the same way there, but maybe you'd be less quick to yell at them for it for whatever reason?

I agree with that nabisco, I'd just add the caveat that it seems unfair to jump down someone's throat for finding that "economy-of-attention" eye-rolly, when that economy-of-attention is itself politically mediated and there are good reasons generally to feel like the ways that people give attention, and the reasons why people attain that attention are themselves situated in all sorts of problematic politics themselves.

yes but that isn't what ksh was doing. this is what he wrote.

man I'm so glad we have Conor Oberst out there looking out for us, I sleep so much fucking better at night, and my parents would've never had to install and alarm system in our house when I was like fucking five because I thought ppl were going to break in -- I would've felt SAFE if he hadn't been like fucking ten back in 1992

― ksh, Monday, July 5, 2010 2:12 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

which is clearly "what a fucking idiot this asshole Oberst is for imagining that his infantile positions might make any kind of difference in the world," which, again, is a horseshit stance

imo

I think the subtext of that comment was obviously, "Oberst is a celebrity, lol that I'd care about his attempts to do good in the world."

well - that way lies a nihilism so total that it seems worth interrogating, to my mind

okay I know pomo and being DEEP is a thing with pretty much all of us, myself included, but sometimes we should stop digging so deeply for subtext that we stop paying attention to text

lol i had to read that four times before i realized you weren't saying 'porno'.

tomayto tomahto

"porno and being DEEP" are incredibly important to me

whoa didn't see this thread, i'm sure nabisco or someone has pointed this out already but certain ppl upthread having a realllly difficult time segregating art & content - like when mordy was saying he agreed with the message of that lame oberst song but thought the art itself was hacky, that should have nothing to do with whether he has the capacity to speak about politics - it's not like the letter he wrote was in rhyming couplets! again sorry this is old news now likely

xp that dan perry post (w/out me knowing context) seems pretty otm

also apparently if you get ksh worked up enough he starts posting in capital letters again! (<3 u ksh)

hey k3v, welcome to thread. i wasn't saying that I agreed with the message of his song, just that i empathized with his frustration with the Bush administration. don't know what the song has to do with whatever i said in this thread tho about his letter, but whatevs.

well mordy, at the risk of turning this into another "mordy and kevin disagree about politics" thread and in the interest of avoiding semantic games (well i meant this! no i was really saying this!) i'll go back to what i said to you a couple weeks ago about our mans gg and say, in general, political expression is not indie rock, indie rock criticism, or art - even when political views are contained in an indie rock song! i haven't read the whole thread so i'm not talking about you in particular i guess, but when talking about the political views of an artist, one has to divorce the views themselves from the person expressing them. and faulty is the logic saying "this person has said *this* in the past, or has associated with *these* people, or believes *this*, so therefore anything s/he says is not worth considering on its own merits"

i'm not making a moral decision about whether this is a good/bad thing, i'm just saying it's an understandable thing.

again gonna try to avoid bringing up old beefs but you've used this rhetoric before (the "i'm not SAYING, i'm just sayin' it's sorta understandable y'know?" thing where you cleverly avoid taking a stance on the actual issue), and i'd suggest that you engage with the content itself rather than try to legitimize reactions which, as you say, may be natural but aren't morally grounded, as aerosmith has said.

and furthermore such reactions are only "natural" or understandable insofar as they betray a certain thoughtlessness, or lack of consideration or perspective; the nature of someone's reaction to something like this is hardly sacrosanct - maybe this is where we disagree

He then decided, professionally, to boycott Arizona. He then decided that this would be of interest to his fans and the general public (maybe for the altruistic purposes of encouraging others to join him to make a difference -- I'm not making this judgement). Again, I'm not arguing here that this is my belief! I'm just saying that I understand the position. It makes sense that someone might be turned off by that kind of political display! It is a little tacky whenever anyone decides they're famous enough that what they do/say is noteworthy. When I think something I only imagine the people I know personally would care, and probably not even then. Oberst believes the world cares. Maybe that's great! But it's still fair to feel it's weird.

― Mordy, Wednesday, July 7, 2010 4:34 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

in this sense, celebrity is a blessing, as it empowers us in those moments when we are morally obligated to act on our beliefs. oberst is (not uniquely, but uncommonly) empowered in this regard. his voice carries more weight than yours or mine. i'd argue that this makes him not less but more obligated to speak his mind when his principles seem to demand it. as far as i'm concerned, anyone who fails to speak as loudly and clearly as they can under such circumstances is nothing but a coward, a passive enabler of the wrongdoing they wish they had the guts to oppose.

there is nothing "corny" about raising a moral objection. there is nothing corny about using all the power at your disposal to put your moral objection across to others. it is quite simply your moral duty as a human being. just as it's your moral duty to respond when those in danger call for help.