local scenes suck shit

only four?

if it's any consolation, big-town scenes are even worse

anthony is the nicest person in the world, and even if he would've been the only person to show up tonight, I would've had fun.

btw anthony bill feels bad about asking about your voice, he didn't mean to offend.

i felt bad cause i thot i offended bill or bothered bill or i was a massive social fuck up, and i am at an internet cafe instead of ashleys cause i am a paranoid fuck.

i wasnt offended at all (btw, the dude who does the bass-rich, he is awesome cool and i love him)

don't worry, you didn't offend or bother anybody! I'll give a call tomorrow if I get the chance.

i will be at home.

I know hwat you mean. I have always thought it would be depressing to be part or ANY city's "local scene". I would much rather be part of the "German scene" or "japanese scene", or the international scene. I mean, rarely does it seem like an amazingly talened bunch of creative people happen to all live in , say San Diego or something. The local scene often features guys like " John Forgerp" who write "Thoughtful songs about love, life and growing older."

Is there such a thing as "the international scene"? I don't see how you can be in a scene with someone if you don't go out for tacos together regularly.

On one hand, I know what you mean -- I've written about shows I really cared about, and then showed up and been one of 10 people in the audience. I always feel partly responsible, like if only I had been better able to explain to people why this guy or this band is great, more people would be there. And then I start resenting all the idiots who don't understand what they're missing.

But then, doesn't everyone start in a local scene of some sort? (I mean, the ones who don't start in Fox TV shows.) It's always kind of bothered me how negative people tend to be about "the local scene," wherever or whenever the scene happens to be. I've interviewed lots of local musicians in different places over the years, and there's this continual thread of bitching and whining: the clubs don't pay, the sound systems suck, nobody in this town supports "good" music, the other bands are assholes, the local press doesn't given enough coverage (or gives too much coverage to the wrong people), blah blah blah. There's obviously truth in all of those complaints, but it's not like any other avocation is all wine and roses. I mean, jeez, you're getting to get up and play music for people -- sometimes for people who really like you. You know how many people go through life without ever getting to get up on a stage and yell "1-2-3-4"? And yeah, I know you work hard for it, and that's good, but lots of people work hard at their jobs. I don't know, I always feel a mixture of sympathy and annoyance. Local scenes might "suck" as a rule, but cumulatively they somehow produce a lot of great stuff. I'm always impressed and inspired when I meet people who are actually enthusiastic about a local scene, whether they're musicians, promoters, writers or fans.

Search: musicians who do something (promoting, flyering, etc) instead of bitching about the downfalls of the "scene".

Destroy: all the fuckers who say they love your band (and sometimes actually do) but don't come to see you play out because the club you're playing at isn't "hip".

Classic: catching a surprise amazing-as-fuck band as one of ten people in the audience.

Dud: catching a highly-hyped band play to a very large crowd even when they suck fucking shit.

I actually avoided the Smog show here because of my local scene. New Pornographers were on the bill, and being something of a local celebrity (not tooting my horn here, it's a small place), I'm finding it harder and harder to simply enjoy shows.
I really did want to see Smog (and come face-to-face with hstencil), but I was really dreading all of the terrible interaction with the locals.
The thing is, it's not the people who I don't know who are the worst. I mean, I write for the local daily, but I don't do a col, so my picture's not in there, and I'm otherwise known for my radio show, so it's not like strangers always come up to me. It's people who I sort of know. People who never had the time for me before. People who now consider me to part of the social elite or something (tho, as evidenced, I'm a very anti-social creature). Now they want to stand with me, talk to me about this band and that band and whatever, and, like, I'm there to see the band. Or maybe I'm even there to review the band, and so I'm, y'know, WORKING. Usually, I just sort of nod and jut my head over at the stage, y'know, there's a show going on, and it ain't you.
I've had performers actually stop and tell the people talking to me to please be quiet. And of course, as far as they (and everyone else) might be able to see, I'm one of the talkers, one of the disrespecters.
Whatever. I know that this would probably be no different in a bigger place, but thought I would add my grievances anyway.

Horace, do you get groupies?

Actually, yes.

Do you get gropies?

I'm such a whiner. I know.

You are avoiding the question.

I get groupies, gropies, and occasionally guppies. Happy?

Ecstatic. Will you sign my breasts?

I got a sharpie right here in my pants.

Writer/DJ groupies, the latter of which are called jockey sluts, are HAWWWIBLE. Trust me on this one!

Minneapolis in the '80s was probably one of the most incestuous, drug-fucked, volatile yet pure fucking brilliant scenes to witness. EVER. I was in there, but didn't drink or smoke or go to very many of the shows, just because of the pure embarrassment factor of your acquaintance who is essentially nice being sucky on stage. Also, I saved my pennies for imports and style mags, aided by record store people who gave me massive discounts and comped me to any show I wanted (Matos will vouch for the excellence and good-naturedness of Mpls. scenesters to curious teens, and many of these people were much older by the time they got to him). It gave me no end of confidence-boosting to be treated like an intelligent, interesting person by all these twentysomething scenesters when I was 16; some of them remain friends today.

My attitude towards scenes (which is: fully in favour) developed the way it did as a consequence of being around a small enough scene where faces didn't become Faces, so in order to participate you just had to be around, into music and INTERESTED. It also taught me about zones of acceptance - somewhere, people will give you a chance to be yourself and it'll be okay. I really was too busy to wonder who was getting what because they knew who, and I honestly didn't care as long as I had a show or party to go to, or friends to sit for hours with in front of Taco Hell or in musty South Minneapolis houses watching Japan videos. I met people who were, or would one day be, going places, who read Lautreamont because they were 16-year-old goths, who wanted to go to art school or already were. People were also getting famous without becoming assholes in the process and coming back with exciting stories, and if they could do it...

Honestly, back in my drinking days (I mean, I still drink, but not, uh, as frequently nor to the levels of excess as I did 3/4 yrs ago), I charmed the pants off many a J'lism/English student with my literary roguishness and my 2 foot wang.

And what did you do once you had collected all of those pants?

I opened up a thrift store on Regina's trendiest street (which would be the #1 Highway headed to Calgary).

Did you get the journo students to buy their own pants back, only to charm them again? Because that would be a sweet system.

That's quite a lot of charm there.

Well, remember, he's in Regina.

Our provincial Chamber of Commerce has a plan to double Saskatchewan's population by the year 2030, and it largely revolves around my 2 foot wang.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is a photo of my two foot Wang:
http://www.grandparentsonline.net/graphics/soundprints/little_panda.jpg

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

You know, I went through something kind of similar in a small city (except without the 2-foot-wang and the depantsed journalism students -- I was in the midst of a divorce and life reassessment and completely lacked the will or self-confidence for student depantsing). But I mean, that weird thing of suddenly being self-conscious when you're out, people approaching you with a zillion different agendas, and you wonder a.) who they are b.) why you're supposed to know who they are and c.) what they want. I dealt with it by just continuing to hang out with the same people I'd hung out with before; I had good friends and didn't feel like I needed more. (And I don't mean to exaggerate the extent of this, it was just an insular place, and once one person knew who you were, so did 30 more.)

Intoxicants helped. But don't they always? (Yes, I know the answer to that question is "No.")

Well, there you go, my friends are all assholes.

That was my best birthday party ever.

I saw Smog once. 'They' were abysmal.

Well I saw Smog, like, 7 or so times. "They" were great. And since I have more data points than you, neener neener neener.

Dada, do you realize you are making ILX unreadable for several people?

The people who don't know how to turn off the automatic loading of images on their browsers?

i can't really say that i love or hate the local scene here. theres bands i like and bands i don't. i've always been of the opinion that music scenes are what you make them, but i would say that, i'm from dunedin. smog rules.

there's about a dozen different 'scenes' in melbourne and i hate all bar the one i'm a part of, which is really just made up of all the bands i like and isn't a scene at all

I'm so disappointed you didn't come to the show, Horace.

he's disappointed, too.

well, there's also the factor that I have to be up at 6:30 to be at work for 7:30, so (and I speak from experience) I would've either spent most of the night checking my watch and feeling nervous and then forcing myself out the door at like midnight or gotten shitfaced and made an ass of myself. Either way I woulda felt like crap the next day. Dammit.

anthony, this town is getting perverse. remind me to discuss this more the next time i see you.

...

dude Horace you could've done like us and left two songs into New Pornographers set. Not like you'd have missed anything, they might as well have been lip-synching to their record.