Jim DeRogatis - C/D

mark prindle likes him.

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

But I'm indifferent to DeRogatis, I guess.

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

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

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

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

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

And this is why coffee is better than beer.

all the fat jokes however are bullshit

Seconded.

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

oops challenge

i ended up sitting next to wyman at a dylan concert several years ago. when he told me his name i went "oh, i know who you are!" and he groaned like he'd heard this a million times and i went "no, really, i've read stuff you've written for salon" and he seemed relieved.

Yeah, I mean, if my name was Pete Townshend, i'd strongly consider writing my music criticism under an alias

haha not sure why he'd bristle: the Stones' Bill Wyman is at least 250 years old

amateurist i'm gonna try to explain what i mean but i worry this will go badly. you seem earnest in yr question though, so..

Obviously by "moment" he means, initially like "short element of a recorded track" which you pick up on by the first element in the list, which is when reed speaks a few words in coney island baby. Then you have "Satisfaction", but now its not the "whole" of satisfaction, but "satisfaction" itself as the moment in _history_, like not an element of the song but the song as an element of rock history and how it functions as an utterance in this larger whole just as lou's few words function as an utterance only relevant in the larger whole of just that track. Then you have "the lack of inflection" as a moment, which is really funny, because he's pointing out an absence as a presence, and arguing that this lack of inflection in a country song suddenly makes it a rock song, in some sense, and in some sense parallel in what it "does" to satisfaction. And then you look back at the lou thing and the words aren't sung but spoken, and its hardly a rock track, and man is it weird, so you begin to put together this sense of maybe what he means by "rock" is that it is a series of weird things that confound you in a special way, or each in their own special way, and about breaking expectations by being lustful or subdued or not there at all, whatever you didn't see coming.

And then you get the drums and guitar in "Summer Babe" which is of an entirely different era, and not a moment in any sense, but certainly an "utterance" in terms of how it structures the song, and you think though maybe the moment is that _sort_ of sound at that place in time is a great moment to have, and also you have this sense in which maybe a moment is just a "thing about a song that you don't think of as the point of the song, but secretly, perhaps, it is." and soforth.

to me, at the time, this list really meant a different way of listening to and thinking about music than i was used to, and an "alternate history" of what was important in music and how it evolved over time, and also a very broad, catholic notion of what "rock" could mean.

While in a "rock" tradition, the list really feels like it prefigures lots of what early FT was about, and also maybe carmody's particular interpretation of "punctum." Its a very deliberate kind of fucking around with rules and expectations.

I didn't mean to pick on Bill Wyman, despite picking on Bill Wyman. But he was a pretty poor free weekly music guy. This was a famous exchange:

http://www1.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/pander.html

You know what free jazz is? Shit that sends me screaming from the room

Is 'free jazz' a euphemism for bukkake

hey, sterling that's a great explanation of how the list sort of defamiliarizes the idea of "moments" and to some extension the idea of "rock" (though i'd argue that instead, he's just using "rock" in a familiar imperialistic sense, i.e. "all of popular music" and that makes it more obvious what he leaves _out_). still not sure how this challenges the notion of "history" itself rather than just presenting, as all critics with a mind of their own do, something that decenters the most familiar "canon" a little bit. but maybe i'm underestimating the scarcity of such gestures at the time he wrote that. anyway, thank you for explaining in full, that was interesting and useful. i didn't want to seem hectoring, i just genuinely wanted to know what it was you were insinuating. or insinuatin', as the case may be.

btw in that wyman v. albini fight i can't really takes sides, i guess the best outcome would be them clawing and then eating each other until nothing remained, like in that svankmajer movie.

also lol urge overkill

You know what free jazz is? Shit that sends me screaming from the room

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 21, 2014 8:26 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

//makes mental note//

Robert Palmer the writer was also a pretty cool musician

Stull & Saturation own the zone, UO 4 lyfe

Robert Palmer the writer was also a pretty cool musician

― Little Nicky Pizza loved that rascal Rust (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, March 22, 2014 9:40 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, although I recently bought an insect trust album and it's much too self-consciously eclectic and not very good

Vaguely reminiscent of Stockhausen's "Moment form", maybe? Distinct figures, things that are out of place yet fit into the tapestry.

You know what free jazz is? Shit that sends me screaming from the room

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, March 21, 2014 8:26 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Screaming @ you, Morbs

Clover unpacking Wyman reads a bit like K0gan unpacking Diaco Tex

*Disco

You're my hero, xyzzz___.

xp

has any rock critic ever formed a good band after becoming well-known as a critic?

neil tennant

Ira Kaplan

Chrissie Hynde

trick question, there are no well-known rock critics

Brian Warner, tho I don't suppose he achieved Ira Kaplan levels of success as a journalist

paul morley

probably more examples of journalists who wrote about pop making good records (tennant, pete wiggs and bob stanley from saint etienne) than 'rock critics'? I guess it's all subjective though.

not those three are the only two examples, just the first that came to mind

neil tennant

― socki (s1ocki), Monday, March 24, 2014 1:06 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really? I thought he was a comic-books editor.

Mike Saunders formed a great band, the Angry Samoans, although I don't know that he was all that well known as a critic (even though he was published in Rolling Stone and other publications of the day--Bomp or Fusion, maybe?).

neil tennant

― socki (s1ocki), Monday, March 24, 2014 1:06 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really? I thought he was a comic-books editor.

― espring (amateurist), Monday, March 24, 2014

He met Bobby O in '83 on a trip to interview the Police.

Without opening up the whole thread, I assume this was sparked by talk of bands with DeRogatis in them (if there's more than one). I have him with the Love Pushers on a mid-'80s compilation called Hanging Out at Midnight. Their one song, "Radio Girl," is pretty good, probably one of the better songs on there. (Just took it out.) It's not one of the two I'd call great, though, "Labor Day" by the Cavmen and (especially) "Girl Next Door" by the Woofing Cookies.

Cavemen...

Don't forget the singer from Gay Dad!

Chris Dean of The http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG

AAAAAAA

Jim DeRogatis
5 mins ·
The first great album of 2015: the Decemberists’ ‘Terrible, Beautiful World.’

https://columbiachronicle.com/campus/breaking-jim-derogatis-leaves-columbia-for-northwestern/

Jim DeRogatis, a groundbreaking music critic known for his reporting and investigation into allegations against singer R. Kelly, is leaving Columbia College to teach at Northwestern University.

DeRogatis [...] will be a professor of practice in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University.

He will take Sound Opinions, a music talk show he co-hosts, to Northwestern. Sound Opinions airs weekly across 100 radio stations and in the past has offered internship opportunities to Columbia students.

...the college’s decision to eliminate the Department of English and Creative Writing, which was merged into a new school as part of a historic restructuring last fall, prompted him to leave...Columbia’s radio major was also eliminated in the restructuring

Wow. I don't blame him for leaving, though the Medill School of Journalism had its own share of turmoil in terms of which direction to go a decade ago (which hopefully is a thing of the past). IIRC one of his colleagues at the Sun-Times was recently a professor there and may still be there. I guess Sound Opinions will broadcast out of WNUR now?

I'm not a fan of his criticism...but I thought he was a terrific reporter. The R. Kelly reporting everyone knows, but he was great at reporting on the music business in general and everything that was going wrong with it (particularly corporate consolidation). I'm sure he'll be invaluable teaching that.

Can't imagine anyone paying for J-school these days, but I've heard a lot of people flip that degree into marketing/advertising/publicity work.

I have close friends who went there. The school actually has quite a few scholarships and at one point, some kind of a full scholarship related to a media production background to anyone who wanted to enroll in the MSJ program. I don't remember the details but a friend of mine who worked as a computer graphic designer seriously considered applying just to have a "free Master's." But yeah, the school tells everyone that journalism has a very high turnover rate, and within five years, most people leave and do something else like marketing, etc. That was over a decade ago and it wouldn't surprise me if it's gotten worse, which could very well reflect the hellish mass ignorance now blighting the country.

More here: https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/news/2025/sound-opinions-co-host-to-join-medill-faculty-1.html

> I guess Sound Opinions will broadcast out of WNUR now?

I've spent a lot of time in that studio and can say with certainty, no. That studio is such a mess. The equipment is constantly broken and the students just take the whole set up for granted. Been a while since I've been involved but seemed like at least half the schedule is on automation. I guess the sports journalism program is legit b/c I can't see much other reason to keep the license.

Anyway, suffice to say Sound Opinions will probably be recorded in a swanky podcast studio at Medill.

Also, guess I'm surprised that it's only on 100 stations? Or is that a lot? Seems like it used to be more.

I know nothing about the technical aspects of terrestrial radio broadcast, but if you wanted to reach anyone within reasonable distance of a city (somewhere you'd go to see someone touring), how many stations would you need to be on?

Yeah, good point. The FCC lists 416 'economic areas' but it's not like Sound Opinions is going to be broadcast in Altoona (#121, bigger than Madison) or Dothan, Alabama (#170, bigger than Duluth).

at the end of their time with WBEZ five years ago, they were on "nearly 150 stations": https://current.org/2020/06/chicago-public-media-lays-off-12-employees-ends-production-of-sound-opinions/

not sure whether "more than 100" represents a decrease or just another way of saying the same thing.

maybe the latter; it was also "more than 100" in 2015: https://consequence.net/2015/06/rock-talk-greg-kot-and-jim-derogatis-reflect-on-500-episodes-of-sound-opinions/

Regardless, 100+ is a huge jump over just the one Chicago station that would carry them in the '90s. Also, it's possible their audience is shifting towards the downloadable podcast instead of the live broadcast, which kind of diminishes the importance of being on more stations, especially if they're for much smaller areas.

I've spent a lot of time in that studio and can say with certainty, no. That studio is such a mess.

What a bummer, John — I always wanted to imagine that moving it from Annie May Swift to over by Norris would be, if not an upgrade, at least a good moment to reorganize things. Was that basically just the station getting kicked out of more central real estate and shunted over into the margins?

No, the move was definitely an upgrade. The studio space itself is nice and much bigger from what I remember at Swift (was only in there once). It's more that the no one respects the equipment and there is little/no consequence for doing so.

I bet any major journalism school now has a high-quality podcast studio, so maybe there's a different room than the main station where they'll record it.