Most tedious thing said by worthless VHS idiot JOHN MAUS in p4k interview

hi i'm john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify

i literally know of him from constantly interrupting my trying to listen to creed

I can't believe pitchfork called him and pitched him the softball equivalent of "whats your favorite color" and he managed to fuck up the answers this bad.

I'll never be able to listen to his terrible music the same way again. http://i.imgur.com/OEwRG.png

i liked jean-luc nancy's book about community

"the inoperative community"

if i had my druthers it would be ilx assigned reading and then wed all have to write essays about it w/r/t the suggest ban system

http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/john-maus-wants-record-stores-to-all-close

lol

Sweet... Can't wait to sell my vinyl copy for $150 on eBay in six months

lol @ p4k readers getting trolled by JOHN MAUS

^ xp I was just posting the same thing.

That is: he is successfully trolling you

lmfao @ the subhead "Academy Records taking his off the shelf in response to a shitty P4K interview."

This is pretty clearly a giant pisstake, though, right? I mean: "We're talking about ringtones while the armed forces that we pay for with our tax dollars are making naked human pyramids we're talking on ringtones." Either that or the guy just has NO filter. Which makes for kind of an interesting interview in its own right, right? I mean, am I alone in finding this one of the more interesting interviews I've read in a long time? The record store comments were unfortunate, yes, but were they serious?! This was a meta-interview IMHO, and I'm glad it's riling people up.

Alternately, I predict this thread and all ensuing post-interview talk to basically run like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZEdDMQZaCU&feature=related

if this was one of the more interesting interviews you've read in a long time, you should probably be more selective in your reading. The guy is clearly a self-hating clown with no concept of the world in which he's trying to function.

Reach his press contact here: christ✧✧✧@motormouthme✧✧✧.c✧✧

oh, i meant christine @ motormouthmedia.com

and to be honest, if a guy is telling me he wants me to lose my job and he wants my employer to go out of business, i'm not going to sell his product & make any money for him, or for those who release it.

Hey man, that's fair and I'm sure I'd feel the same way if I were in your position. I mean, I'm not saying I don't want to punch him, but his answers weren't exactly predictable. I liked the way the interview felt a little like he was fucking with us the whole time and a little like he had no idea what a doucheface he was coming across as.

'we must become the pitiless censors of our opinions about record stores'

all this stuff only forfeits its right to exist when it mimics history's verdicts and finds itself forbidden to reverse

Can any mods make this the description tag for ILM? Or any IL at all? I wanna see that on a regular basis.

'we must become the pitiless censors of our opinions about record stores'

HAHAHAHA

Crucial sentences about "Yakety Sax" sadly not included in poll

cuz yakety sax stuff was otm

that maus is pretty adorable

tbh john maus should join the military and perhaps have some sense bullied into him.

then he can feel good about what he's doing and not have to talk about books.

did ppl see the video on p4k that's like his live show with clips of him talking mixed in?

i'm not going to speculate on if he's joking/if he's clueless/etc. but whatever the case he doesn't really seem like a cool dude imo.

ffs the fact that he's a philosophy professor kind of makes sense--you'd have to have a special sort of disconnection from the everyday world to spout the kind of nonsense he's keen on.

This was a meta-interview IMHO, and I'm glad it's riling people up.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, August 3, 2011 7:27 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I have def said things like this in the past about people. But there's no way some trend-hopping dipshit who made his name ripping off ARIEL FUCKING PINK is smart enough to pull media shenanigans like that. More like "I've never done an interview in my life so I have no idea that i sound like a pompous windbag."

Traditionally before we made our artists heroes they have a few years to do zine interviews and local things and fuck up and learn what not to say and how not to say it. But THIS is what happens when the accelerated blog culture forces us to play firsties firsties firsties all the time, and thus pull some dysfunctional social retard from obscurity and shove a microphone in his face and tweetblast his moron dribblings to 1,000,000 twitter followers. It's not cute or funny, but sad.

honestly i wish i could ever clown you as hard as you clown yourself, day after day

and ilx's lone Altered Zones stan peeps up

Yeah, I feel like I personally really can't tell if it was super-calculated or super-naive, but still... It's nice to see something that doesn't just flow along like you expect it to.

Traditionally before we made our artists heroes they have a few years to do zine interviews and local things and fuck up and learn what not to say and how not to say it.

And I'd wager that that's one reason why people got excited about zines and smaller media back in the day--because people were allowed to fuck up, allowed not to be pros, allowed to say "the wrong thing" and "expose" themselves. It's not as if I don't understand where the hostility toward Maus is coming from, but I can't exactly say it makes me comfortable.

altered zones.... damn... hits p hard...

whiney cmon i dont get how this shit turns you into some like 'communist president' blog commentating tea party retard where you seem incapable of understanding basic facts or the pov of anyone who isnt you but its just kinda... nagl? i mean a) who cares and b) srsly who cares. hes obv trolling & if hes not than... its still p lol tbh.

He's just a dumbass is all

public apology via twitter full of double-talk and naivete re: the response to the interview. last sentence revels in self-loathing.

wait, what's wrong with Altered Zones and ARIEL FUCKING PINK?

alterzoned zones: lol chillwave. ariel fucking pink: rancid foie gras

I thought whiney was the dude who is super into chillwave!?

oh wait, nm he's the guy with the trucker hat huh? my bad

Traditionally before we made our artists heroes they have a few years to do zine interviews and local things and fuck up and learn what not to say and how not to say it. But THIS is what happens when the accelerated blog culture forces us to play firsties firsties firsties all the time, and thus pull some dysfunctional social retard from obscurity and shove a microphone in his face and tweetblast his moron dribblings to 1,000,000 twitter followers. It's not cute or funny, but sad.

i prefer this john maus ridiculousness a thousand times over manicured, professional, acc-to-script interviews. i already have baseball interviews for that. rather read something that actually reflects the artist's personality than some boring shit that conceals it.

I wish everyone who is (rightfully) upset about my Pitchfork �guest list� would grant me the benefit of the doubt, but I suppose that is too much to ask seeing as how I did come off so incredibly mean. I can�t understand why anyone would think I was referring to the small DIY record shops of the world (the only type that would carry my records in the first place, and many of which I have played in) and not the Megastores of the world, but I guess I didn�t make that clear enough. For whatever it is worth now, the only reason I didn�t make that clear enough was because I foolishly supposed anyone reading the �guest list� would grant that I was referring to the latter and not the former. I mean, what could anyone possibly have against the small DIY record stores of the world (unless they worked for one of the big ones)? If anything, by saying �I�m glad to see [big] record stores closing down� I imagined I was speaking on behalf of small DIY record stores everywhere! What I�d ask anyone who is (rightfully) upset to remember is that the �guest list� was torn unrecognizably from its context as a telephone call. The interviewer asked me what my favorite record store was, and I jokingly responded �torrents.com� or something like that, laughing about how wonderful it is that music and movies are becoming easier and easier to get for free. I then explained to him that where I grew up we had none of these little DIY type stores but only the big chains, and that I once worked in a Megastore and it was very unpleasant. Finally, I began to go on about the experience, which I cannot imagine I am alone in having, of being looked up-and-down by a snobby clerk when purchasing a record, or of not having enough money to get all the records one wants. I thought all of this would get laughs of identification, not accusations of my wanting small record store owners to die penniless! (Why would anyone, especially a musician, want this?) I hope those little store owners would grant me that I wasn�t talking about them. But perhaps the damage is done. Finally, I just want anyone who is (rightfully) upset to know, that whenever I get up on the �platforms� offered in interviews and so on, I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus. Even if it is a little too naive or too utopian of me, I don�t see what is wrong with trying imagine a world where we share everything with each other for free. I always joke with the promoters and the labels about the contradictions involved in doing this from our standpoint, and I guess I just thought I could do it with the record stores as well. If what I said came across as anything other than this desire then I can only assure you that that was not my intent. The fact that anyone would react to anything I say is still a novelty to me, and I�m afraid I�ve made a terrible use of that novelty.

aw

this is disingenuous bullshit unless you have frequently been "looked up and down" by the "snobby clerk" at uh, best buy or fye.

xpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGR65RWwzg8

♪♫ i don't know who u r, but i, i'm w/ u ♪♫

CAD: they are two different sentences. i think you are being a bit disingenuous.

i prefer this john maus ridiculousness a thousand times over manicured, professional, acc-to-script interviews. i already have baseball interviews for that. rather read something that actually reflects the artist's personality than some boring shit that conceals it.

There are plenty of compelling interview to read, most of them just aren't given by indie rock musicians.

xp i'm not sure what you mean? i'm comparing what he was actually saying in the orig. interview with his assertion that he was actually talking about megastores (which uh are also not noted as great places to buy $20 lps, another thing he says in the interview).

i thought you were referring to the clarification he posted.

er, you posted it.

oh ok i get it.

I wish everyone who is (rightfully) upset about my Pitchfork �guest list�

2011.

guys it's all cool now, if you just imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus.

I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus
I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus
I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus
I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus
I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus
I always try to imagine a world emancipated from interested exchange and the extortion of surplus

lol xpost

His legs must ache from all of the backpedaling.

is it the hamstrings that it's supposedly good for?

Is that the most longwinded and convoluted "sorry that you were offended" ever, or what?

i like what he said about south parc

"I did not intend that to be a factual statement"

hope john maus is taking this lesson in saying ridiculous things to a huge audience to heart.

maybe he will post here.

he did for a while, as 'dave cool'

I don't know who this artist is (but I couldn't resist the thread title so) but this guy is not a philosophy professor; at best he's a philosophy grad student, at least that's what his academia.edu page says.

gotta defend the honor of the profession

^snob

help me here, is he saying that he was getting 'tude from the clerks at megastores and not independent record stores (i.e. Kim's, etc)

http://mechanisticmoth.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/maus-art-spiegelma-el-lazo-se-estrecha.gif

that is now what he is claiming yes. tbh if i were a clerk at a record store (which i am) i would probably give tude to this douchetard as well.xp

John Maus: not even cool enough to hang with the dudes at Sam Goody

this guy behaved foolishly.

oh my god, so sad--someone get "sandman" to usher this clown offstage

Hahaha

at least I recognize I have no thought of my own, and at least the thoughts of my own that I have at my disposal offer up radical critiques of the un-thought that is constantly going on in the rock journalism conversation about subjective responses to music and this ridiculous word-painting poetry of music, and this "it sounds like this or it sounds like that." The thoughts that are not my own that I have at my disposal would completely reject that, and could completely and clearly demonstrate how that's a violence that completely stomps out anything that's interesting about the work. If there is anything worthwhile about the work, it's precisely what isn't reducible to any of these particulars or generalities... It's only something if it sounds like nothing we've ever heard before. So I've never had a thought of my own, but at least I'm not one of these clowns that talk about nothing.

- John Maus

dollars 2 donuts this guy has never held down a job in his life, having gone straight from mommy & daddy to college to grad school to being a TA to w/e.

you guys are still getting trolled ..

i wldnt be so sure.

Z: Do you have any advice for artists or producers these days?
JM: No, I have no advice at all. I don’t know a fucking thing at all. I’m an absolute imbecile in every way shape and form. I guess the only advice is to keep going, to keep trying to bring forth more than what there is.

(crickets)

JM: I suppose the earliest album that influenced me, being from the generation that I’m a part of, was of course [Nirvana's 1991 album] Nevermind which really changed everything for me and the musical landscape at large. But, in terms of significant influences there's not really a particular band that comes to mind--just this kind of singular truth that all bands circumscribe together. If you look at the Billboard in the last decade the only number-one hit that hasn’t been hip hop was Nickleback--

the unspoken thought of course being that hip hop is negligible, and not 'serious music.'

pomplamoose vs. john maus: discuss

they should collab

what is all bands circumscribe together, sounds vaguely dirty

rmde @ this thread

If you look at the Billboard in the last decade the only number-one hit that hasn’t been hip hop was Nickleback--

. . .

ffs the fact that he's a philosophy professor kind of makes sense--you'd have to have a special sort of disconnection from the everyday world to spout the kind of nonsense he's keen on.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Thursday, August 4, 2011 1:03 AM (1 hour ago)

I don't think any of the clueless/tedious shit that JM is supposed to have said is as clueless and tedious as this piece of cliched shit about philosophy professors.

okay fine, that was a rude thing to say. my experiences with academia were not good.

other unspoken thought is that everything that isn't rock must be hip hop

Trailer for this thread is like: "Two trolls enter..."

well tbf, it sounds like he's talking about "bands" there

who is this guy?

indie rock

JM: I suppose the earliest album that influenced me, being from the generation that I’m a part of, was of course [Nirvana's 1991 album] Nevermind which really changed everything for me and the musical landscape at large. But, in terms of significant influences there's not really a particular band that comes to mind--just this kind of singular truth that all bands circumscribe together. If you look at the Billboard in the last decade the only number-one hit that hasn’t been hip hop was Nickleback--

<3 <3 <3

I would totally hang out with this guy. As long as he didn't try to make me listen to his music. Shit, "Yakety Sax" was my ringtone up until like June.

By the way, the funniest thing about this thread? That the poll results won't be in for a month, when nobody's gonna be talking about this dude 18 hours from now.

lol

I'm pretty sure at this point that all the reaction is much more nauseating than the original interview was.

so either this guy is setting up an elaborate troll facade or he's an aspie who's in too deep... in either case i don't understand why people are having such a visceral reaction to him... many of the comments here are straight up bashing and don't lend any perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emGri7i8Y2Y

i love when you say "aspie"

http://twitter.com/#!/pitchforkmedia/status/98914891456458752

I'm pretty sure at this point that all the reaction is much more nauseating than the original interview was.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, August 3, 2011 10:27 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pls point me to this "nauseating" reaction!

No specific reaction, just all the attention! Its nauseating to think of much energy and effort people are putting into stupid things he said for a pretty fluffy interview.

"think of how much"

tbh, the funniest part is how it's basically a fluffy Sufjan Beat softball interview and dude just goes ham for no reason

and you don't appreciate it, at least in a game-recognize-game type of way?

damn miss u sufjan beat, free catbird imo

good point, sarahel! tbh. i think i would probably be down with a maus-goin-ham interview if his music wasn't total schlock. double standard, i guess \o_O/

WE GOT CHEESE FLYIN OUT

I don't rate his music but give everything I've read (interviews) and seen (live performance) he is fucking hilarious, and I'm pretty sure it's intentional (to a degree).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/WikipediaCounterVandalism20060611.png

is carrot top a lecturer or a student?

thought that was dj mom jeans

So, I called him an asshole on Twitter (though not directly) and he read it and struck up a surprisingly gentlemanly exchange where he apologised for coming across as a dick and I apologised for badmouthing someone I've never met off the back of a Q&A. (I don't like slagging people off on Twitter but it's easy to do it in a flash of irritation.) He seems genuinely depressed and regretful about the whole thing. He's since deleted our conversation so that the only thing on his Twitter feed is his apology.

Made me realise that I normally applaud provocative, pretentious interviewees but when one of them says something I violently disagree with (ie the record shops line) I can be as quick to shoot down their whole personality as anybody. Anyway, he seems like a decent enough guy who wanted to have some fun with a meat-and-potatoes Q&A and was naive enough not to anticipate a backlash. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for anyone who responds to criticism with "my bad" rather than "fuck you".

THIS is what happens when the accelerated blog culture forces us to play firsties firsties firsties all the time, and thus pull some dysfunctional social retard from obscurity and shove a microphone in his face and tweetblast his moron dribblings to 1,000,000 twitter followers.

This is bullshit. The music press has always run short, early interviews with acclaimed but cult-level new artists. You seem to forget that music journalism existed before the internet. And whatever else Maus may be he's clearly not a moron.

I am still waiting for this ridiculous man to endear himself to me and he's not doing a very good job of it.

but having read DL's post just there, I guess some people just aren't supposed to be interviewed.

I thought whiney was the dude who is super into chillwave!?

― lizard tails, a self-regenerating food source for survival (wk), Wednesday, August 3, 2011 8:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

If you look at the Billboard in the last decade the only number-one hit that hasn’t been hip hop was Nickleback--

Kind of lol to think of James Blunt, Carrie Underwood, Daniel Powter, Plain White Ts, Coldplay, etc., as rappers.

can we talk about jean-luc nancy in this thread too? I am reading his book the deconstruction of christianity right now and enjoying it; I read some of corpus before and dug that too

also I guess I'm late to this clusterfuck but how hilarious is it that the artist/audience/retailer/media relationship in the indie blogosphere has become so poisonous that everyone would assume [random indie flavor-of-the-month X] is looking to take some totally unprovoked shots at their barely-solvent mom&pop operations, when he is p.clearly taking part in the time-honored indie tradition of anti-corporate rhetoric

(answer: less hilarious than it is sad)

It's interesting that Whiney's perspective is so warped by the internet's hall of mirrors that Maus's comments can only be read as "trolling" (just as a certain kind of reader assumes that every contentious opinion piece is just a SEO ploy) rather than part of a decades-old tradition of smart musicians mouthing off in interviews. It's a faulty assumption to think that every single musician working today is as interested in the mechanics of online discourse as most ILXors are. In the 80s people used to say all kinds of interesting, sometimes asshole-ish, inflammatory shit - it's not some new development.

I wasn't the one who said he was trolling, I said he was a dumbass

'trolling' not really exclusively used to talk abt online interaction either at this point

It's interesting that Whiney's perspective is so warped by the internet's hall of mirrors that Maus's comments can only be read as "trolling" (just as a certain kind of reader assumes that every contentious opinion piece is just a SEO ploy) rather than part of a decades-old tradition of smart musicians mouthing off in interviews. It's a faulty assumption to think that every single musician working today is as interested in the mechanics of online discourse as most ILXors are. In the 80s people used to say all kinds of interesting, sometimes asshole-ish, inflammatory shit - it's not some new development.

r u trolling now?

Um, no.

Sorry if I misassigned "trolling" to you in this case Whiney. I just feel like your analysis is generally so inside-baseball that it ignores all the other reasons musicians do and say certain things.

Nope, this is just dumbass opens mouth, is dumbass.

when he is p.clearly taking part in the time-honored indie tradition of anti-corporate rhetoric

nonsense. his comments make it pretty clear he's talking about a stereotype of the 'hip' independent record store.

not wishing to go too far down this road of argument but the 80s version of this would've presumably been someone advocating taping all your LPs and never buying anything, or even *dumdumdum* STEALING them from the store in the name of 'anti-corporate rhetoric'... which I don't think would get blithe acceptance from any corner of rock fandom at any time

xpost did you ever buy a punk CD at a sam goody's

did you ever worry that the slightly-older teenage girls working at coconut's would tell all their friends you were a total fuckin weirdo

The only thing that really upset me was his Beethoven-with-an-iPod bit because everyone knows Beethoven went deaf and Mr. Maus obviously knows this. So in the midst of so much Classical Music namedropping it kind of comes across as kind of pandering, like he was aware he was sounding a bit pompous and decided to play dumb for a minute.

did you ever buy rap CDs at wherehouse from a dude who had never heard of public enemy

did you hear the one about the guy who went out of his way to be offended by something somebody said about 'hipsters' on the internet

Traditionally before we made our artists heroes they have a few years to do zine interviews and local things and fuck up and learn what not to say and how not to say it. But THIS is what happens when the accelerated blog culture forces us to play firsties firsties firsties all the time, and thus pull some dysfunctional social retard from obscurity and shove a microphone in his face and tweetblast his moron dribblings to 1,000,000 twitter followers. It's not cute or funny, but sad.

People who were being dumbasses in zine interviews in pre-Internet days usually just kept on acting like dumbasses when they got music press attention. If anything they realized that acting like a dumbass got them huge attention and they amplified that even more when a bigger audience was reading. Not that Maus is a dumbass. On the contrary, his interviews (including this P4K one) are hugely entertaining. And besides, he's in his 30s and has been doing this for years. How does "firsties" apply in this case? His career seems to have grown pretty slowly/naturally compared to a lot of his contemporaries.

"hey, he's clearly talking about me — even though I am, of course, not a hipster — and he's getting me all wrong!"

(it was me. I am the guy who got offended. I am doing it right now.)

xp You're confusing "dumbass" with "clever but has different opinions to me".

what was clever or intelligent about anything he said?

- My round John, what are you drinking?
"Well that would all depend on the deeper contextuality of the question. What am I drinking? This is a mysterious quandary... In fact I dislike such questions because they imply a situation in which I would have a preferred beverage by which I align my tastes and affiliations. I do hate the pub."

- I'm gonna put a couple of quid in the jukebox, John. Any requests?
"Do they have Yakety Sax?"

I just feel like your analysis is generally so inside-baseball that it ignores all the other reasons musicians do and say certain things.

― Now he's doing horse (DL), Thursday, August 4, 2011 2:30 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

i do feel like this is a good broader point to make about online discourse, whether or not it's relevant to whiney in this instance.

xpost "whatever will make u like me"

I feel like every artist/musician/etc should be allowed to use that answer once per interview (but only once, so choose wisely!)

You're confusing "dumbass" with "clever but has different opinions to me".

lol

neither side in this debate coming off particularly well

Why aren't we hearing from owners of "the concert hall" and how they will refuse to book him?

they couldn't hear him over the sound of some dude's oxygen tank

i had no idea some dude was having lung issues

These questions are difficult because they're part and parcel with a situation that would define us as a list of cultural commodities we've consumed. This is a very banal idea. Facebook doesn't seem to have our genetic code on it-- it has the list of books we "like." That's how we define ourselves today. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a douchebag making an obvious point. One can't help but sound like a douchebag when talking about the books you like.

You could certainly argue that's a precious, pretentious, obnoxious point about the Guest List format and Facebook "like"s but I don't think it's dumb. (xp to call all destroyer)

xp BTW, Beethoven wasn't totally deaf till his late period so I doubt the iPod time-machine scenario was meant to be some clever meta joke.

i just don't get his argument. FFS, how hard is it to answer the question "What are your favourite books?". It's a very simple question.

If they were trying to find out more about his "genetic code" they'd have got him to send in a piss sample.

I take his point to be that the Guest List format is reductive and artifical so he's going to question it and sometimes take the piss out of it. But he comes across so badly in doing so that he would have been better off saying no to the Q&A in the first place. Because it's a Q&A with no comment from the interviewer it's hard to tell if he was being a passive-aggressive asshole in the interview (in which case fuck him) or just having fun with it. I interviewed Jack from These New Puritans and he said loads of things that, if you weren't aware of the humour with which he said them, would have come across just as badly.

Shouldn't it be the interviewer's duty to provide context in this case then? Although I get that Guest List is a Q&A and there's not so much room for background comments. Whatever the case, JM's done a very good job of coming off as indie music's http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/2266518.jpg

I take his point to be that the Guest List format is reductive and artifical so he's going to question it and sometimes take the piss out of it. But he comes across so badly in doing so that he would have been better off saying no to the Q&A in the first place. Because it's a Q&A with no comment from the interviewer it's hard to tell if he was being a passive-aggressive asshole in the interview (in which case fuck him) or just having fun with it. I interviewed Jack from These New Puritans and he said loads of things that, if you weren't aware of the humour with which he said them, would have come across just as badly.

That's exactly how I feel. I know musicians who went the semiotics/MFA/philosophy degree route, and they all talk like this. The academic loopholes, the roundabout, unnecessary caveats thrown in to prove a point. It's jarring, sure, but it's entertaining and interesting to see somebody with such a focused and specific language to grapple with something as unexpressive as a Proust Questionnaire or a Guest List.

To simply say "he's a dumbass" reeks of anti-intellectualism. I'd say he's self-obsessed, he's pretentious in that he assumes that his anti-capitalist attitudes are acceptable to reference in passing with no context. But to raise arms against him I wish you'd form a more coherent argument than posting his publicist's e-mail, slagging off his contributions to other people's music, calling him a 'douchenozzle', etc.

I do agree with Whiney's 'acceleration' statement, but I feel more sympathetic. I used to love doing a band's first interview, trying to suss out even a tiny bit coherence from their green faces.

"you" = the haters on this thread, not you, DL.

Should have known Maus was taking the mickey.

seconds ago: hello, this is john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify *sounds*

Good thing he threw in the "don't want to sound obvious" caveat, because i was going to call him on it before i even finished that sentence.

To simply say "he's a dumbass" reeks of anti-intellectualism.

if his pompous, self-absorbed gibberish is "intellectualism," then count me in on the anti- side. i'm not against grad school, i'm against people whose every word sounds like they're secretly saying "I WENT TO GRAD SCHOOL"

language is a virus

now you've got it too whiney

... the only cure is to post this to ten of your facebook friends before sundown tonight!

then u will get a surprise kiss from john maus

@ Whiney, I just don't see any immediate difference between his self-absorbed gibberish and anybody else's except that John Maus makes records that you can't stand.

don't think there's anything wrong with 'attacking' this fellow since he made such provocative comments in a public space.

it is also possible to think self-absorbed gibberish is across-the-board annoying, wherever the interviewee's tongue is in relation to his cheek.

^^^ this also.

xp That's an important factor. Personally I give far more leeway to artists whose music I like, as do most people - hence the general collapse in tolerance for MIA's no-dafter-than-usual rhetoric once it became apparent that MAYA was a dud.

It's a shame that, by his own admission, Maus botched it. If you look at an early Manic Street Preachers interview, they'd thought about what they wanted to say, put it brilliantly and lapped up the outrage. Maus's painful self-awareness and attempts to interrogate the format are far too convoluted and sincere to be trolling, hence the subsequent remorse. Even the jokes feel sincere if you know what I mean. I know the meaning of trolling has become diffuse but I always think of it as essentially motivated by a nihilistic "ha ha, fuck you if you're offended" attitude (hence Tyler qualifies) and that's not what's going on here.

Maus's painful self-awareness

don't think this guy is self-aware at all.

Self-aware about his role as an interviewee, not self-aware about his capacity to sound like a douche.

interview was a great read. i always appreciated maus's ability to come off as simultaneously smart/dumb, irreverent/serious, provocative/harmless in his lyrics, and this seems to have carried over into the shitstorm of actual internet discourse and that is awesome.

the semi-annual ilm tradition of getting pissed off by a new p4k-darling is embarrassing enough as is, but things get several degrees more embarrassing when record store employees are moved to action because of comments made one of ariel pink's proteges in a friggin guest list feature on pitchfork

yes, we should continue to support someone who wants us out of our jobs. makes sense to me! (p.s. never heaed this guy's music, not a pitchfork reader.)

xpost,

indie is a small universe, yo

Q: Are there any other records Academy refuses 2 carry?

my point is that this whole thing is so stupid and harmless! and pulling his records seems silly and reactionary, regardless of whether or not he actually meant what he said

I don't disagree with any of his obvious and portentously made points, he just clearly had no idea that he was in completely the wrong forum to make those points without coming off like a solipsistic fool. Given the tone of his apologies I have the sense he had no idea how obnoxious he would come off.

xp If you're a record-store employee I think you have every right to be pissed off. That was the only bit that made me angry because it was so ignorant - the rest varied from interesting to comically pretentious.

if this guy is doing a bad parody of tortured philosophy grad student speak applied to an innocuous form questionnaire in order to get a brief rise out of people, it's annoying

if he's expressing actual deeply held feelings, in this sort of language, on the subject of the pervasiveness of ringtone discussion vs. the paucity of war atrocity discussion in popular online war atrocity discussion outlet pitchfork, it's annoying.

p.s. never heard this guy's music, suspect i'd want to claw my eyes out if i even bothered.

p.p.s. given the vagaries of xposts, basically what hoos said.

my point is that this whole thing is so stupid and harmless! and pulling his records seems silly and reactionary, regardless of whether or not he actually meant what he said

― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Thursday, August 4, 2011 4:19 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

as a small business specializing in used records and reissues of old, rare LPs rather than new records, we have the choice to stock what we want--and in this case, the choice has been made so much easier. this also sort of answers whiney's question--there is nothing i have been outright like "i will not order this record for the store" aside from skrewdriver bootlegs & john maus. there are, however, plenty of things we don't stock because we don't have the room and our staff doesn't have enthusiasm for them.

don't forget that the guy has lyrics where he asks us to kill every cop in sight, maybe we should get the police department in on this too

how can i forget something i never knew? there's also a big difference between his lyrics (exposure to which is limited to his fans or those that purchase or hear his music) vs. saying dumb bullshit in a public forum. otoh, i'm fine with anti-cop sentiment.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_u6klgYL8n0g/THEXyuyFmiI/AAAAAAAAAq8/M2Px3HPitNY/s1600/MDC1.jpg

It seems weird to me that this guy, who mere months back was just a minor oddity I liked with a pretty cool synth sound and some minor songs, is now making so many people so butthurt

maybe we can get Charleton Heston to picket Upset The Rhythm

there is no way this maus character is as good as mdc

i dont want to shut down record stores and i like the ones i go to obviously, but the difference between now when the internet means i have access to music compared when I was growing up andthe shitty safe selections made by the crappy record shops in my hometown stymied my fandom so much. like it generally felt like record shops were barriers to the music i wanted to hear as opposed to gateways. its a point that resonates with me in the context of the presumed cosmopolitanism of pitchfork etc.

by taking his dumm anti-record store comment seriously you end up kinda legitimizing it

i don't get you folks--are you so wrapped up in a world of irony and lols that you don't take things people say at face value?

i feel like i'm the only one that actually *gets* this

well even if you take it at face value not one person reading p4k's 'guest list interview' with JOHN MAUS is going to stop buying used blues records at your store because he said he h8s record shop clerks so

no of course not, but i still don't want to support someone who thinks record stores are a toxic environment.

i honestly just can't fathom anyone making an honest or well reasoned argument for getting rid of record stores. maybe it's cause of the type of people i surround myself with or the fact i am a frequent supporter of those stores, but i automatically dismiss the 'physical music is irrelevant' type arguments, and in this case i do believe he was quoted out of context (i could be wrong but kinda don't care either way)

These questions are difficult because they're part and parcel with a situation that would define us as a list of cultural commodities we've consumed. This is a very banal idea. Facebook doesn't seem to have our genetic code on it-- it has the list of books we "like." That's how we define ourselves today. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a douchebag making an obvious point. One can't help but sound like a douchebag when talking about the books you like.

tell, don't show

lovin ian itt

it's rare that i get passionate about posting on ILM, but for some reason this whole thing has gotten me kinda pissed off.

I doubt this guy could find a $20 vinyl record for free on the internet, come on. There would at least be shipping and handling!

TS john maus vs. ian

(I gotta go with maus, only cuz I've always wanted to firebomb something, and it might as well be an independent record store)

i am always so charmed by apologies.

i have purchased a john maus record at a real record store in the past fwiw

don't know if jokes on you or the record store.

(I gotta go with maus, only cuz I've always wanted to firebomb something, and it might as well be an independent record store)

― swaguirre, the wrath of basedgod (bernard snowy), Thursday, August 4, 2011 4:42 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

thanx bud, just give me a heads up so i can get into my bomb shelter in the basement.

i have purchased a john maus record at a real record store in the past fwiw

haha yeah i bought his newest at a record store, for about $20, like a month or so ago

its a point that resonates with me in the context of the presumed cosmopolitanism of pitchfork etc.

― ℗⎣▲✘ (ico), Thursday, August 4, 2011 4:27 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

the filter bubble

hadn't thought of that

interesting point

A response via Marathonpacks:

http://marathonpacks.tumblr.com/post/8475820060/a-defense-of-john-maus-and-bratty-artists

Great response imo

can't believe one of the dudes from spoon is on tumblr

Man, the shout-outs to classical music and Jean Luc-Nancy are kind of hilarious! It reads like the perfect satire of overly educated unemployable grad students.

With the record store thing though, saying you're happy there's little closed signs on their doors might be harsh, but I'm with ico. Most record stores in my city growing up DID feel more like barriers to music. I'd have bad experiences dealing with staff all the time, and it was crazy how expensive records were. I wouldn't say that I'm glad people are out of job, but to be honest, that kind of exclusive access to music was terrible.

Is dealing with "snotty" (minimum wage) record store clerks really that shattering an experience? Man, some people are so fragile.

most of the clerks around here rule so fuck that

Xpost This is a problem with people and prices, not record stores as a collective. I'm still not convinced by his back pedalling saying he only meant big chain stores. Big chain stores don't carry little signs that say 'closed' on them.

some of the most genuinely nice clerks anywhere over the years

On the Marathonpacks response: glad someone pointed out the disparity between the megastores and snotty record store clerks. Don't wanna put words in his mouth (he has enough there already) but aren't "snotty record store clerks" synonymous with indie stores? If megastores deliberately hire people who don't know anything about music, what are they being snotty about? His attempt to backpedal on his original statement only confuses things further.

i mean guys its pretty transparent to me here that he WAS talking about indie shop snobbery and is backpedaling by bringing in big box stores to defend himself, are we really talking about this like there's something else going on?

i hate when xps make my post irrelevant lol

i don't think ppl are complaining about snottiness so much as limited access? which, though i do sooorta *get* it, is ultimately an argument i don't care to engage much with. any independent record store is worth preserving these days (even the ones selling 'dare' for $30 or w/e) and nobody suffers from that lack of access anymore

xp yes this is why his "apology" is completely disingenuous; either that or he is actually a dumbass.

well we shouldn't confuse two things--i think he had no idea that 1) his aesthete routine would come off so obnoxious thx to a lack of self-awareness 2) that there would be such a backlash about his poorly phrased but not illegitimate bit on indie record store elitism

he made an honest mistake and is also totally tone-deaf

Really the part I agreed with him on is that all new vinyl shouldn't be 20 bucks or more.

I wish he hadn't back-pedaled on the record store thing tbh. I mean he sort of "had to" (via the internet) but I think what he said was provocative if poorly worded. I really enjoyed reading the Numero Group guy's "Record Store Day is bullshit" thing earlier this year. The romantic kneejerk defending of all record stores will die sooner or later, especially with the next generation of music consumers reaching maturity and not simply "not caring" about buying music in a store, but never having that experience at all. That shift will have profound consequences but the "OMG we have to save record stores or culture will die" reactionary bit hear from some corners is a really naive way to look at things.

Record stores are never going to completely die. They're going to dwindle in number and become very specialist, but I don't see them ever completely disapearing.

we're a hair's breadth away from the death of CDs (once best buy takes 'em out it'll be game over) but it's naive to think record stores are going away anytime soon, in my area there are several and a new one just opened up

xp what jon said

like used bookstores xp

there's no question in my mind that his whole rant was about independent stores. it's interesting that he goes right from that straight to talking about how awesome "free" music is. no mention of itunes or buying direct from labels online. definitely an ill thought rant and he deserves any blow-back he gets.

that said, i voted for the ringtone rant as his most tedious.

I didn't read this thread but I will

maus has been giving interviews like this for years btw

he's a philosophy adjunct professor at some university iirc

kind of wish maus was british so we could get some better whiney posts in here

ok I read a couple posts in this thread now

he's a philosophy adjunct professor at some university iirc

I believe he's actually a TA or tutor, rather than a professor. I'm pretty sure that he hasn't got his PhD, he's still a graduate student. For instance, I don't think he's published or anything. I only bring this up since it's something that gets continually mentioned in his bio or on blogs, but there seems to be some confusion.

he is a professor in my heart then

A response via Marathonpacks:

http://marathonpacks.tumblr.com/post/8475820060/a-defense-of-john-maus-and-bratty-artists

This is superb.

the most offensive thing about this whole interview is that i just listened to some of his music and it is awful

no, it's the misremembered nostalgia of childhood past, a memory fog of our shared times of wonder and innocence... IDIOT

bmichael liked this
perpetua liked this

his music reminds me of Andrew Eldritch singing lullabies

you heard of Andrew W K?
well, this is Andrew single-U K.

more like buffalo bill freestyling over cut rate tangerine dream maybe. xpost

buffalo bill freestyling over cut rate tangerine dream

Accurate and complimentary.

you heard of Andrew W K?
well, this is Andrew single-U K.

― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Thursday, August 4, 2011 10:10 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

<3333333

^

hello this is john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify

those are some weird ass descriptions for what just sounds like some fairly decent synthpop

That rat's cute.

yeah, what a cute rat!

he's a mouse!

John Mouse
http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_570xN.128560368.jpg

Mouse John:
http://www.4tnz.com/files/mouse_toilet.jpg

http://www.hotncurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/john_malkovich.jpg

Pomplamaus

Maus Rat

the real issue everyone is dancing around here is that John Maus makes better music than Odd Future

^^
I'll withhold judgement until I've heard more of Maus' music (oddly, this whole discussion has not put me in the mood to sample it), but his appraisal of Odd Future, of all things, probably says more about what a phony he is than all of his Marxist jibber jabber.

I haven't called anyone a phony in 15 years and this dude is a great reason to pull that one out, hahaha

jer.fairall otm

I don't understand all this lynching. I'm poor and as a kid I used to spend 90% of my money as a kid on overpriced CDs until the Internet came along. Fuck record stores. Have to admit that I'm not really that much into his music but I have read a couple of interviews and he seems earnest a bit manic (?) confused but passionate all of which I find interesting and can totally relate to unless this is another elaborate joke, in which case well I don't know what to say other than he's very good at it. The guest list was fun to read, too bad he had to back off because of this ridiculous hysteria. Hated the Odd Future comment.

yeah the odd future comment is the worst thing about this

Odd Future comment redeemed by the Brotha Lynch Hung ref.

I haven't read the interview btw

...So I don't exactly know what the Brotha Lynch Hung of video games actually is

farmville

hello this is john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify

Xp ha! That IS stupid!

Despite this, you’d be hard pressed to find another pop musician as socially awkward as Maus. I ask if he’s autistic.

http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/john-maus-interview.html

the most offensive thing about this whole interview is that i just listened to some of his music and it is awful

^^^

hell no dogg this is totally my shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B22EVG7wsMQ

but then, of course it would be

“The main reason why I’m here is for a good kick in the ass to go and finish the next album. I went back to Minnesota last October [from Hawaii] and got this little house in the country. The plan was to work on the next album but the months rolled by and it kind of seemed impossible to do.”

man first owl city now this

the song crut just posted is alright

ok i am willing to be open let me listen to that then

where are my fellow fans of ariel pink and third-rate clan of xymox shit to back me up on this

ok

i actually like that song.

Imo getting mad at this dude is like when ppl get mad at some artist for being rockist, it's like, "man, imagine if he was an ilx poster!!" And he does seem like an overly academic cornball. But everyone here listens to artists who espouse considerably worse worldviews on a regular basis. This guy is just an "lol first world problems" type easy target

john maus makes ok music. there are a couple of ariel pink albums i have yet to fully absorb so i am kind of shocked that people have already moved on to this leach

Imo getting mad at this dude is like when ppl get mad at some artist for being rockist, it's like, "man, imagine if he was an ilx poster!!" And he does seem like an overly academic cornball. But everyone here listens to artists who espouse considerably worse worldviews on a regular basis. This guy is just an "lol first world problems" type easy target

― Gatsby was a success, in the end, wasn't he? (D-40), Friday, August 5, 2011 12:48 AM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i wonder if he would do a mountain dew ad

ok before my "this song is ok" vibe gets used against me its kinda obv that this dude is a cunt and every other song i have heard is fucking terrible

important I make that clear

lol, every other song basically sounds just like that one

also for the original poll question purpose if there is anything more tedious than a dude in the right now talking about how the imaginary record clerks gave him the once over and were too cool for school and mean i dont even know

xpost nah i listened to a bunch of stuff where he was way more "steven merchant got super drunk and recorded the worst demo ever" level terrible

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DAYTTNNQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

his music is not really that bad maybe you just dont like indie music

i know i dont

thank you captain obvious

ok so in the service of defending my "most of this is terrible"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLVpZme0kRQ&feature=related

which kinda ties up the terrible music you cant sing and the pomo smug shut the fuck up tribes in my head pretty well i guess

like no matter how you try to parse that it is pretty much the worst thing ever as far as i can tell

amazing

oh yeah!

holy shit

you dudes shoulda read his myspace page, dunno if its still up

he just made it horrible review after horrible review of his shit

yah its still up

REVIEWS OF 'SONGS' (2006)
It took this Ariel Pink cohort five years to write and record his debut album, and only five minutes to become more annoying than Ariel Pink. - CMJ
For me, this is just too weird. The first couple of tracks make this the most skip-able album of 2006. -Subba Cultcha
Apparently, Maus spent five years working on this album, which is a shame because, frankly, its awful. -Vice
There isn't one song you could call 'good' on the whole album. -Music Zine
Overall, I can't recommend this album even as a novelty listen. Maybe I just don't get it. It seems as if Maus sabotages practically any hint of an interesting melody, lyric, or instrumental part with a blatantly grating one at almost every turn. -Indie Workshp
Maus's baroquely deadpan voice - and thats being polite - effectively spoils many a song. Some will hear a little Nick Cave in it; others will hear a man crapping out of his mouth. -Drowned in Sound
If it is supposed to be funny, it is not. If it is meant seriousy, then Maus needs some SERIOUS help. -Another Zine

REVIEWS OF 'LOVE IS REAL' (2007)
His music now lacks the surreal, jarring juxtapositions that made his earlier work such a rewardingly confounding experience. Maus seems content to sing his heart out instead of rattling cages, which is rather a shame. -The Wire

I'm a big fan of his, don't really listen to his recorded stuff that much but enjoy it when I do, his live show is really great

man he is so lucky to have so many horrible reviews of his music to post

what are the odds

i mean, i really do love this turn of Ariel Pink/John Maus being derided for years and then being regarded as heroes when the narrative changes. It took disco like 15 years to make that happen, kudos

when did the narrative change

when we fell in love with the sounds of misremembered memories, hoos, teen daze and campfires, beach haze and waterlogged VHS tapes, cassette hiss and long beach trips looking out of the back of the station wagon while soft rock plays, hoos. the intangible memories of innocence lost.

i mean, i really do love this turn of Ariel Pink/John Maus being derided for years and then being regarded as heroes when the narrative changes.

I've always liked Ariel Pink! and I certainly don't think he's a "hero"

because the narrative is based on what crut thinks

well who exactly are you saying is touting him as a hero all of a sudden

i thought the narrative changed for ariel pink when he released a record that wasn't half bad, can't speak for maus

man everyone is writing it gets better songs these days

crut, sorry if im wrong (note: i'm not wrong, that's sarcasm) but isn't ariel pink regarded as the father of a genre that has its own iTunes features and countless alt-weekly articles and simon reynolds defense pieces and constant best new music traction

and thusly he gets to play festivals like coachella and jimmy fallon even though like two years ago he couldn't even fill the knitting factory

if ilx crashes can we agree to all go here:

http://www.mausspace.com/phpBB3/index.php

http://www.mausspace.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7

you have to be fucking kidding me

I don't know; I don't pay attention to that noise. I just don't think people are doing a weird 180 on Ariel Pink like you're implying?

i dunno look at the pitchfork scores and get back to me

I GUESS IT COULD BE A COINCIDENCE

http://www.mausspace.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1249

ok I didn't realize u were talking about p4k specifially. but, yeah, we're all well aware that pitchfork rides trends and is not necessarily fair or consistent.

do i have to provide more examples or can i go to sleep

Pink has been a hero of mine and any right thinking person with functioning ears since 2004 when Doldrums came out

P!nk has been a hero of mine and any right thinking person with functioning ears since 2003 when "Trouble" came out

I like rights for gays. It's funny and camp and macabre.

Whiney, why didn't you start this thread and just split? You're in "most tedious thing said by cranky ilx harpy whiney weingarten in recent john maus thread" territory.

talkin smart to a pimp you done broke the first rule

I'm worried about "rights for gays oh yeah" getting stuck in my head.

P!nk has been a hero of mine and any right thinking person with functioning ears since 2003 when "Trouble" came out

really? you don't rate Get the Party Started?

I stopped caring about Pink after "Most Girls" tbh

I'm super jealous of anyone who has honestly never heard anything worse than "rights for gays"

rights for gays is really, really bad.

I'm worried about "rights for gays oh yeah" getting stuck in my head.

― Zachary Taylor, Friday, August 5, 2011 2:31 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

looooool no joke i was having trouble sleeping so now i'm listening to no diggity on repeat

i like the way you work that RIGHTS FOR GAYS

I'm sorry you guys don't believe in rights for gays

"Tie 'em to a fence post / POW POW POW POW"
Oh yeah

John Maus was a Nazi
He liked to play SS
Kept a picture of Adolph
Tucked in his cowboy vest

amazed that this 'story' 'blew up'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt6PVVr4B04

I listened to the album, like, three times in a row last night while reading this thread AT THE GYM. I kind of hate it for sounding like Ariel Pink with all the power pop sucked out of it, but I guess I kind of like it for the same reason. It definitely warms up after a couple of listens.
*leaves. Drives van around the M25 twenty-five times*

i mean i posted something on (sigh) tumblr about this two days ago, & yesterday i was moving house so had no internet access. and it's just that weird feeling that you get, the surprise that pointless arguments about non-issues on the internet are continuing to happen when you have more pressing things to do

i mean, i think he comes off a little bit of a tool, in that he's being very half-arsed about his unwillingness to er 'play the game'. but i feel like the more histrionic responses sort of fold the half-arsedness and pedanticism he's displaying into the basic point - like, rather than 'look at that john maus being kind of silly in that pointless p4k guest list feature' it becomes 'how dare that john maus question the ontological primacy of pointless p4k features'

also if someone had said to me 'this guy is like ariel pink except he's a grad student' that would not really have been a must-to-hear for me, but the butthurt reaction to this stuff made me listen to the record, so if it's trolling it worked pretty well --

It's not as if features exactly like the Guestlist haven't been a regular music press fixture since Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer. No one's being Cap'n defend-a-fork about this. For me it's just mind boggling that someone would have an ethical problem with a question like "What are your favourite books?". Maybe he's embarrassed by his choices and was trying to avoid the question? His music choices alone were pseudy enough...

It's not as if features exactly like the Guestlist haven't been a regular music press fixture since Portrait Of The Artist As A Consumer

well, yes. that's ... what his problem is.

also it's interesting that 80s nme thought that this kind of thing required a snarky maintaining-distance title for this sort of feature. well, okay, it's interesting to the subset of people who care about the journalistic practices of the nme in the 80s.

The other thing I don't get is that most articles I've read about this guy / this album focus on his background in critical thinking and very little on his music. For someone who can rant for pages about stuff that I personally find indecipherable, his lyrics are really really vague and repetitive. I was expecting verbose songwriting containing deep analytical content, but no it's "Rights for gays, yeah" and "Copkiller/Let's kill some cops tonight", which I guess are provocative in their own ways, but are also obscured by production so that any further message is lost. Am I missing something here?

this whole thing has already got me to the point of googling "john maus rapidshare", don't make me take it to the level of "john maus lyrics"

listen to his album on spotify

John Mausoleum n. An artist's tomb built solely out of Pitchfork quotations

Didn't people get kind of pissed off about Ariel Pink for almost exactly the same kinds of "Wow what a weirdo, why is he saying/doing these things and at the same time making shit music?" reasons back in 2005?

sorry if im wrong (note: i'm not wrong, that's sarcasm)

NBD pls

this whole thing has already got me to the point of googling "john maus rapidshare", don't make me take it to the level of "john maus lyrics"

― thomp, Friday, August 5, 2011 8:59 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Many xps but whiney, I didn't start a thread about jay electronica creating a mystique-destroying mountain dew ad. And in this case the interview probably enhances rather than undermines his persona but feel free to keep justifying your awesome thread with oblique zings understood only by yourself, the target and j0rdan sargent

I spend quite a bit of money at Academy Records, and I have to admit that it disheartens me to think they'd stop carrying something or refuse to carry something because of the political beliefs of the artist. I mean, with John Maus I suppose I get it, and what he said was blatantly offensive to record store employees... But so what? Making a public statement about proudly taking his albums off their shelves gives him more power and his flippant remarks more gravitas than they actually have, it would seem. Of course it's their decision and their call, and yes shelf space is limited and curation must be severe, but I hate to think that my shopping experiences at probably my favorite record store in New York may be pre-emptively screened along these sorts of lines.

seems to me this guy would be a lot happier if his music was never released commercially!

hi i'm john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify

Clarke, we've never stocked John Maus in the first place. And it's not our fault someone took a snarky facebook post and re-posted it elsewhere on the internets. Also you can read upthread where I say that the only other items I have no interest in stocking are Skrewdriver LPs, because, you know, racist skins. Don't worry that anything else is being withheld from your ears.

also pls don't legitimize maus's ridiculous "record stores should all close and it makes me happy" statement as 'political.'

what is the meaning of the 'pls listen to my album on spotify' thing?

If you use the free, ad-ridden version of Spotify, one of the most frequent ones to pop up is John Maus asking listeners to please listen to his album on Spotify. It's annoying and repetitive, just like its appearance in this thread.

I understand, Ian, but my larger point is more, like, where do you draw the line? So you won't stock Skrewdriver because of racist/skinhead stuff, but what about church-burners? Murderers? I'm not trying to start a spat, it's just an interesting topic. I work in the wine business, and I remember post 9/11 when a certain famous Burgundy grower's (singular and amazing) wines were ceremoniously yanked from many shelves because of some unsavory anti-American comments he made. (And some stores went even further and gutted their stores of French wines altogether--not just because of this guy, though...) That left a really bad taste in my mouth, because I saw and continue to see wine as primarily a purely aesthetic realm where I don't have to worry about the beliefs or prejudices of the folks who produce them--and it's the same with music.

Freedom Wine!

i think if the wine dude was like "i hate all wine stores, they're full of snobs, i'll be glad when you can just buy wine online" the stores would be within their rights to pull his products! no one said he had to distribute his wine via stores in the first place!

There really isn't a 'line' to draw imo--these are more like two isolated cases, not a trend towards limiting anyone's shopping experience.

To be totally truthful, I don't like stocking Burzum records either, but I got outvoted by my co-workers on that one.

and I think, to me, the difference between say burzum and skrewdriver, is that burzum's songs are about the lord of the rings and shit, while skrewdivers are about white pride etc. So there's something offensive in the actual content of the latter, and it's not a decision based solely on the politics of the creator.

in this way it's sort of different from wine, because when you open a bottle of wine, hate speech doesn't come pouring out. ever.

fyi when you carry burzum records, you're giving money to an unrepentant and vocal white supremicist and thusly making his life as an unrepentant and vocal white supremicist easier

i am aware of this. like i said, i was outvoted on that one. shrug. feel like maybe i'm getting trolled at this point, and i'm too hungover to continue with this silliness. xoxo

I'm with you 100% on not stocking john maus btw. "My store, my rules" is as good a defense as any when it comes to record store stock

i think sommeliers should get into those kind of metaphors. "redolent of dried cherry, cut grass, shop closures, instability, and hate speech."

though the burzum thing in brooklyn is like super weird to me. like i remember in the 90s when record stores had a VERY STRICT "no racists" policy because they didnt want to suppoort them financially. But in 2011 it's totally Ok as long as cool people like them. I'm sure if Bjork wore a Skrewdriver shirt to a shoot, stores would be diving over each other to carry their records

I get you Whiney, but as ian said above I think a lot of it does come down to content. The content of Burzum's records is not hateful or racist, but Skrewdriver's is.

Honestly if John Maus has a problem with paying for his music then he should just give it away for free. The fact that he isn't kind of underlying the BS-ness of his BS.

like i remember in the 90s when record stores had a VERY STRICT "no racists" policy because they didnt want to suppoort them financially. But in 2011 it's totally Ok as long as cool people like them.

maybe you and I have p differing experiences here but it seems to me that in the 90s, as now, Burzum was more or less the singular exception to this because of various justifying getout clauses (and possibly the unspoken one, that people actually want to buy his records)

I mean ftr I have noticed a kind of fetishism of the 'taboo' re: Skrewdriver and one or two other bands among like Termbo type people and other scenes made up of guys who call each other faggot but I don't think that's specifically new or what we're talking about really

in this way it's sort of different from wine, because when you open a bottle of wine, hate speech doesn't come pouring out. ever.

True enough, and I do understand and appreciate the distinction between actual lyrical content versus egregious beliefs and behaviors of artists, but there are a lot of ugly things said on that Tyler record, for instance, as well as probably hundreds of albums on the shelves. I'm equally as uncomfortable thinking that stuff is being filtered out because of unsavory lyrical content, to be honest.

(Also, Ian, sorry you're feeling like you're being trolled; I hope I'm not contributing to that, I'm just enjoying this discussion a lot. I work closely with wine shops and so the fact that an independent store is not just "a place to buy stuff" and is the sum/result of a lot of choices (ethical, aesthetic, commercial, etc, etc), debates, and concessions is always at the front of my mind, and it's cool to think and discuss that stuff in the context of record stores. I'm also hung over!)

I ended up voting for "I've never been able to wrap my head around selling merch." because dude is participating in a pitchfork article so clearly self-promotion and market share aren't exactly foreign concepts to this guy.

John Maus is basically a Washington Outsider.

Dude clearly has issues

Nah, he's just real good at playing the indie rock attention game.

Fun interview! Dude talks mile a minute but I like it!

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, June 28, 2011 8:49 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

maybe you and I have p differing experiences here but it seems to me that in the 90s, as now, Burzum was more or less the singular exception to this because of various justifying getout clauses (and possibly the unspoken one, that people actually want to buy his records)

― 'what's puzzling you' is the name of my dog (DJ Mencap), Friday, August 5, 2011 11:37 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i grew up in the suburbs in the 90s where no one was cool enough to listen to burzum yet, so idk.

xpost -- And I stand by that!

RITES 4 GAYZ O YEH

I mean, I can't believe this guy is singing such blatant cop-hate.

pow pow pow pow pow

hey i found the world's biggest John Maus stan

https://twitter.com/#!/KeepYourReceipt

i have the suspicion that person is from minnesota

she has tweeted the mountain goats, the fleet foxes, uh, aziz ansari and... martin zellar

srsly is this a joke?

KeepYourReceipt Keep Your Receipt
@MrHoratioSanz Not that he's playing Chicago, but have you listened to John Maus yet? Shit is hot!!
30 Jul

KeepYourReceipt Keep Your Receipt
@marcellocarlin Fuck off, John Maus is great.
26 Jul

woah harsh vibes directed toward ilxors

Horatio sanz is an ilxor??

IN DEFENCE OF JOHN MAUS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v19a5cqNxkM

Because his new album still unfuckwithably rules, regardless of all this shit.

Because his new album still unfuckwithably rules, regardless of all this shit.

the world's first Mad Magazine fold-in post

lol at ^^^

also lol at this somehow becoming another burzum thread

burzum is the godwins law for music geeks arguing on the internet

is now my goal to get varg to do a pfork guest list

"my ringtone is a norwegian prison guard telling me my mom's on the phone"

i made some kind of comment a few months ago about how burzum exists solely to be referenced on a thousand ILM threads about musicians with offensive views, and kinda got shouted down with a bunch of "well he IS a unique case because blah blah blah"

maybe maus will start burning down record stores

I would like it if someone took a picture of a Maus holding a cat and photoshopped it so he was holding some sort of spiked LRPG cudgel.

is now my goal to get varg to do a pfork guest list

A++ would read

not hearing the john maus ad :(

lol martin zellar and john maus should do a chilly new wave version of "i wanna drive the zamboni"

New album is so good. Rights for Gays is a totally fun jam. Much better songs than Ariel Pink. Great show too.

Who cares about stupid interviews.

i sang rights for gays so much at work that everybody was singing it on friday.

rights for gays.

oh yeah.

:)

plax otm

getting fucking pissed i'm not hearing his ad when i use spotify anymore

One thing's for sure - this guy's next album is going to be Animal Collective HUGE thanks to all this. So you all have that to look forward to.

yeah that's not gonna happen

markers otm

FTR the album's grown on me. Hey Moon especially.

^yeah I've been listening to Hey Moon on repeat on Spotify for the last half-hour. LBI otm.

<3

Hey Moon is so, so great.

i don't like any of this guy's stuff except from rights for gays. i sing it in the shower.

^^ posts very much in character

am i always posting about singing in the shower or about not liking things?

right now

ritez 4 gayz o yeh

so i was thinking about this earlier and i realized that academy probably stocks tons of anarchist punk. maybe if those guys did pitchfork guest lists they'd have a similar quandary?

and yes i realize that anarchism is a nobler cause than hating on record store employees but that doesn't make it a moot point imo

Much better songs than Ariel Pink.

lol, low standard of the century

and what would you consider a high standard?

not answering to "sarahel" sorry

anyway, i actually do like 2 or 3 ariel songs ive heard. off of 3 albums or so. which is 2 or 3 more songs than i like of john maus, so.

was that supposed to be a zing?

not at all

Ariel Pink was surprisingly good and tight at Field Day. Although I did LOL a bit when he had a little intra-song gripe about hiphop coming from the opposite tent (we couldn't hear it).

oh god, really? ew

he just said "there is hip hop coming from over there" during one of the breakdowns. it didn't sound too much of a whinge.

he probably good hear it because he was on stage.

*could

that was mean of you to tease ILM with the hint of a racist indie musician, dog latin

let's start a thread about it anyway.

the sound was universally pretty terrible at field day, actually. a few of the people i saw would probably have had a fair complaint about noise spillage

what annoyed me was the inter-band DJs on the Main Stage were noticeably louder than the bands themselves. Plus Michael Mayer's set was so wishy washy, no one was paying attention at all. Other than that I just blamed poor sound quality on an abundance of chillwaveness.

ha were there CHILLWAVE bands? i didn't even know! i could have encountered chillwave in the wild!

i went to this and the sound was super terrible in the tents. fell asleep in the front row of oneohtrix point never, slumped over the barrier. really starting to suspect narcolepsy.

Noise restrictions in Victoria Park.

it wasn't that it was too quiet it was just muddy and shit sounding for a lot of stuff. matthew dear i arrived for tide and could just about make out what he was singing.

Decibal limits don't just mean a show will be 'too quiet', they mean that the promoter will appropriately hire a sound rig appropriate to the limitations. It's hard enough to make an outdoor gig sound good, with an underpowered system it's near impossible.

Anyway, gear gear gear, blah blah blah, there was dancing to "Rights For Gays" at a Hollywood gay bar last night.

oh yeah?

lol

re: chillwave - my definition is very broad and loose and includes any current act that goes out of its way to make their sound indecipherable and muddy.

Owen P makes a good point about sound systems here. Hence why everything ended up sounding like chillwave.

things tend to just sound rubbish in tents idk? i'm kindof over festivals maybe.

also a one day festival with eight stages x twelve acts (or whatever) is not going to have the most engaged people doing sound - particularly if they either have to i. deal with another one-day festival with same the next day or ii. bugger off and get out of the way for whoever is

i wonder if there's any attempt made to maintain continuity in re: what kind of music tent x is, between underage and field day and the apple cart. (the latter has spoken-word and comedy and possibly cooking tents so is possibly an outlier)

field day made me feel bored with the idea of festivals, except when i ate things. though, to be honest, i could have just gone to venn st. market.

also one friend turned up with a girl not his girlfriend and another friend's girlfriend left with another guy, so all told it was an interesting day

@ Plaxico festivals can have great sound, just not in Victoria Park.

i got super bored about ten minutes into omar souleyman and left to go to a party instead.

fuck tents imo. worst way to enjoy live music. i find them unbearable - especially dance tents. what's the point if you're so squashed you can't dance?

(or Hyde Park, or whatever park it is they have Pitchfork).

after konono no 1 started empty and ended with a packed tent i made a bet that the opposite would happen with souleyman, and only hardened pseuds would remain. i lost

xposts

unrelatedly, i listened to john maus again today. i enjoy the first album a great deal, and would like to thank whiney g weingarten for bringing it to my attention

anyway like i said this was probably in part due to me being mid mood crash and chronically falling asleep at spontaneous moments but yeah i've generally found that at festivals the sound in open air stages is considerably better than in tents. tents tend to be super echoey.

this baths album is pretty good too

THEY CALL ME THE BELIEVEEEEEERRRRR

remember this guy?

John Maus Reading List:

http://www.thefader.com/2011/08/29/phds-and-dropouts-killer-mike-kreayshawn-and-john-maus-talk-school/5/

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

The interview is better than most people's interviews.

he's pretty cute imo; wkiw and talk about Adorno w/this guy

i have the phrase "worthless VHS idiot" permanently in head now

yeah the thread was awesome. Sorry cute nervous Maus guy we all love you!

Reach his press contact here: christ✧✧✧@motormouthme✧✧✧.c✧✧

That contact is for John Witchmaus

lol

I CARE

The record is still really amazing...

THEY CALL ME THE BELIIIIIEEEEEVER

:-D

Can anyone enlighten me on some of his lyrics? I mean the man talks in rambling curlicues during interviews and then his songs tend to have just a couple of lines about Jackie Chan flashing across the world. I know very little about critical theory...

I mean the man talks in rambling curlicues during interviews and then his songs tend to have just a couple of lines about Jackie Chan flashing across the world.

lol

xp neither does Maus

BOOM!

Still haven't entirely unravelled my initial misconception that this fellow was the long-lost third (and now decidely late) walker brother, returned to critical attention :(

When I meet other Ariel Pink fans, I feel like we understand each other, until I discover they also like John Maus, and then I wonder what it is they like about Ariel Pink, because the two are not even in the same ballpark.

Has anyone seen Exit Through the Gift Shop? I think of Ariel Pink as Banksy, and John Maus as Mr. Brainwash.

Now, if John Maus turns out to be an elaborate hoax, a Kaufmann-esque artistic statement created by Ariel Pink himself, then I would be the first to applaud both of them. I still wouldn't listen to John Maus' music, though...

Oh, okay.

Was it okay to like Maus when he was playing keyboards for Ariel?

Whatever scam they are running, it's getting both of them lots of alt pussy.

aka fleshlights

pretty much agree w/ public radio's post

valuable new posters

note: it is possible to like things that "are not even in the same ballpark." some people manage to like a great many different things. god knows why, but they do.

also: my whole world's coming apart is a good song. not too concerned abt whether banksy or mr brainwash gets to claim credit.

i think the poster is referring to "the ballpark of quality"

no such thing

which one is the cool one? that is the one i like

Yeah this is excellent. If he keeps this balance of clear but lo-fi his fingerprint will stay on the material. It's like a more sophisticated weathered sound. Well done.

The keyboardist and the drummer from Lilys are in the Haunted Grafitti now? Wow.

By the way I've been trying to get into John Maus for the last two days. Talk about a poor man's Ariel Pink. It's like he's trying to copy every aspect of Ariel Pink and just blowing it. That's got to be a bummer to shoot for crappy and fail.

― PublicRadio, Sunday, 21 December 2008 09:34 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's so much bad music being made right now, who has time to hate on any one particular artist?

http://guerrillagraphix.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/9090371.jpg

imagine the inner life of an ilx troll in 2012

I agree with contenderizer, though, that "My Whole World's Coming Apart" is a good song. I like "Navy Seals", too.

If you split the difference between Ariel Pink and John Maus, you get Part Time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhia_RlurkI

hi i'm john maus, please listen to my new album on spotify

― markers, Wednesday, August 3, 2011 6:52 PM

he has a new album?

I still listen to We Must Become on a fairly regular basis.

i sang rights for gays so much at work that everybody was singing it on friday.

― ℗⎣▲✘ (ico), Sunday, 7 August 2011 20:40 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rights for gays.

― ℗⎣▲✘ (ico), Sunday, 7 August 2011 20:40 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah.

― ℗⎣▲✘ (ico), Sunday, 7 August 2011 20:40 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:)

― lacanthrope (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 7 August 2011 20:49 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plax otm

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 7 August 2011 21:05 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

read the whole thread and this is the only place it got good

'It Takes Time' is kind of the perfect pop song

i need to track down everything about it (and have not been following ilx threads yesterday) but i'm seeing reports that this guy was involved at the capitol insurrection yesterday

worthless vhs idiot lmao

ariel pink was also there apparently. same ballpark lol

When I meet other Ariel Pink fans, I feel like we understand each other, until I discover they also like John Maus, and then I wonder what it is they like about Ariel Pink, because the two are not even in the same ballpark.

Has anyone seen Exit Through the Gift Shop? I think of Ariel Pink as Banksy, and John Maus as Mr. Brainwash.

Now, if John Maus turns out to be an elaborate hoax, a Kaufmann-esque artistic statement created by Ariel Pink himself, then I would be the first to applaud both of them. I still wouldn't listen to John Maus' music, though...

― PublicRadio, Thursday, April 12, 2012 4:14 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

fyi there's talk on the AP thread

ok thx!