C/D: The Rock Snob's Dictionary

oh man, NPR did a little call-in show w/ them ... you should have heard the callers.

yeah, i was flipping through it at a bookstore and put it back after reading only 2 or 3 entries.

DUD.

they keep playing this on my campus/community station and it's really fucking annoying.

Seminal. Catchall adjective employed by rock writers to describe any group or artist in on a trend too early to sell any records. The Germs were a seminal L.A. punk band, but guitarist Pat Smear didn't realize any riches until he joined Nirvana.

some of it is, well, yeah, so what?

Neo-. Generous rock-critic term for "refried," usually used to elevate knowing hommagistes above the station of mere tribute bands. The Strokes' Room on Fire is a delightful platter of neo-New York Punk.

but most of it is just trying to hard and failing miserably. I mean, what's the point of giving one of the sections the promisingly funny title "The snob cheat sheet for confusing similarities" and then filling it with true but unfunny stuff like:

Bill Frisell is the guitar virtuoso who first made his name in the early eighties as part of New York's avant-jazz scene. Bill Laswell is the bass virtuoso whose early-eighties collaborations with Herbie Hancock (on "Rockit"), David Byrne, and Brian Eno cemented his status as the elder statesman of avant-dance.

?

Get it at your library, read once, return. (there's a couple of things you're going to learn (I didn't know what a Leslie was, and now I do, but it didn't make me a happier person), but that's about it)

It's alright, but nothing will ever supersede 'Great Pop Things', the antidote to all rock's rich tapestry twattery.

(hands up!)

That's a good call actually. A friend works in a bookshop and picked up an GPT anthology that was going to get sent back to the publishers. It's sublime stuff. The Bongo from U2 strips are priceless.

under Rock Snob Hall of Fame (The Unimpeachable Torchbearers of True Rock Snobbery):

Nick Hornby, novelist. For compiling the first comprehensive anthropological study of the Rock Snob (in the form of his novel High Fidelity), for transmuting High Fidelity's success into a second career as genial Snob essayist, for reclassifying mix tapes and "best-of" lists from time-wasting wankery into trenchant forms of self-expression.

Courntey Love, singer-actress-tragedy. For being an indie-rock know-it-all; for fulfilling the fantasy of every torn-stocking goth fat-girl who hung out at the British-import record shop in 1983; for presciently embracing Laurel Canyonism and Fleetwood Mac revivalism on her attempted sellout album, Celebrity Skin; for keeping the flame alive with drug allegations, street hassles, and interviews that namecheck Jim Steinman AND Gang of Four.

Beastie Boys, ageless hip-hop collective. For their impeccable curation of the seventies funk revival, for their diligent exhumation of obscure soul and dub sides, for their namchecks of Lee Dorsey and Lee "Scratch" Perry, for releasing Sean Lennon's solo LP on thier Grand Royal label, for unleashing the "mullet" phenomenon.

And then there's shit I just don't want to parse.

-- Suzy Creemcheese

Which black metal artist was this? Put a name on the names, for if there is an unacceptable error of course we can create some revenge in their ass.

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), June 24th, 2005.

OTM!