go ahead make fun of the new believer magazine music issue cd comp you know you want to

come on don't be shy

nabisco will beat you down though

just so you know

so make it good!

why would someone make fun of this - because it's all indie rock or because of the particular choices or...?

yearly tradition!

because the first track is cryptically labelled with only a "." it is too indie for the number "1".

we all gripe about white people for 650 posts, enjoy some cocktails on the porch, and then kill ourselves.

OK. Let me think... Ah, there you go:
Wot no One Ring Zero?

i mean LOL @ aesop rock being the only rap choice!

i miss having mod deletion powers u_u

hey -- that tracklisting is basically what I imagine everyone else on ILM is listening to all the time. this is why I talk to you all as if I think you're idiots.

i'm sure it's no worse than any twenty track indie compilation some magazine would have put out ten years ago or twenty years ago. surely better in fact!

x-post BTW I'm not saying that's right of me!! So put yr flames away dudes.

'where is teh hyphy'

Sufjan, credibility.

if only this could be more like the hot chip dj kicks

4 out of the 20 artists have cities in their names.

'lol believer' etc now my impeccable taste is reinforced

2 out of the twenty have animals.

this comp is more yoga fire than yoga flame

Wow, a band name that has something to do with Iceland AND has an exclamation point.

haha I didn't even notice that, Tim, considering I started a whole thread about that shit last week. (xpost)

you take what you get, hurting! x-post

yoga sulphur for all time

I will totally hand out sonnings if people aren't actively PROUD of the Believer for this one. Everyone mocked the last collection for being precisely the kind of safe, boring, strummy indie music often listened to by people who are highbrow about books but not so much records. Since then, they have gotten more involvement from people with actual music backgrounds -- last I heard, Brandon Stosuy was working on compiling this, and judging by the tracklisting, that doesn't seem to have changed. I can't see much reaction to this other than congratulating them for a big improvement.

I remain, however, totally available to remind people what a literary magazine is.

2008 will feature tracks from Slothhunt!, Franzjosefland, White Sloth, Greetings from LOLCANADA, and Sage Francis

yeah the believer has gone downhill in terms of interesting articles in the past year or so.

(Haha now that criticism I can kinda sign on with.)

I like the city names more than the animal ones. The rest of the band names are:

2. No Age
6. Aesop Rock
8. YACHT
9. The Twilight Sad
12. Clogs
13. The Blow
16. Magik Markers
17. The Drones
19. Lightning Bolt

sad to hear that - I think the last thing I saw was a really great interview with Bun B but that was awhile ago.

x-post

What are Clogs like?

like shoes, but slip-on, and made out of wood

for the first two years i would pick it up and flip through it and buy it because they were always talking about interesting books but now it's all like weird articles about shit i don't really care about, hardly no book stuff at all besides the tiny reviews. and then if they do have a book article it's like Rick Moody writing about Sebald. it's totally off my radar now, though i usually pick it up and read at least one interview, but i love reading interviews.

like shoes, but slip-on, and made out of wood [ / Leslie Nielsen ]

(jesus, i sound like some old indie rocker bitching about a band's first E.P. "OMG PERFECT SOUND FOREVER IS SO PERFECT.)

I couldn't begin to make fun of it, the only band/artist on their I've actually heard is Aesop Rock.

Yeah the interviews are usually pretty good.

I hope someday soon the upshot of music blogs and all these different ways for people to endorse/distribute music they like will be that non-music magazines (and music magazines, too, for that matter) stop bothering with fucking compilation CDs.

Leagues ahead of the last few comps. Go Believer!

I wouldn't bother making fun of it either, I've only heard 6 of the bands and they're all okay, more or less.

David Byrne interviewing Olivia Judson was the greatest thing in forever: he seemed like he was turning cartwheels trying to impress her with his "deep" questions, and then she'd get all "umm, no," and then he'd back up and try again -- it was like reading a very pretentious 15-year-old with a crush conduct an interview. (NB this made me like Byrne, really)

I would happily read Moody on Sebald! I haven't felt like any recent drop-offs are any result of changing topics or content -- just that after the first couple years of excitement and bringing new writers on board, things tend to simmer down a bit. Your regular writers need to recharge on ideas, you have to start looking farther and wider for okay new contributors, etc.

How long ago was that games issue? My mind is lost, I can't tell if that was last summer or like two years ago.

Alex in Baltimore otm

i guess i have this stupid idealized version of the believer in my head, it's all articles on writers i've never heard of, or haven't thought about in a while. it's probably never been like that, though. i guess i'm thinking of the pessoa article early on way back when. and i have this thing about rick moody. maybe that article is good.

i haven't picked up a copy in a while. i let my subscription lapse about a year or year and a half ago. i always find SOMETHING worth reading when i do buy a copy. this issue looks like it has a few things i would read:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/

and this is kinda neat and you can read the whole thing on-line:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200706/?read=article_collins

only non-music mag comps i end up playing more than once are the ones that come with the oxford american music issue.

Comp looks quite good, better than the last couple on paper at least (not sure I never listened to those). I need to pick up this issue.

i like CD comps w/magazine. even if there's nothing good, who cares?

honestly, i guess i'm lame but i have some Mojo ones that I'm glad I got...like they did this Southern Soul one and it had a bunch of good songs I'd never heard.

they hate snark! here is the whole thing:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=article_julavits

when people call the believer snarky I think they mean "I bet they wouldn't invite me to their parties if I knew them, those fuckers"

"Just the place for a Snark!" the editor cried,
As he landed writers with care;
Supporting each one on the top of the tide
By a keyboard entwined in its hair.

yeah, i sense jealousy or something. the writing in a lot of the pieces is GOOD JOURNALISM. there is more here than meets the eye. if anyone here wrote something really really good and sent it to the believer i'll bet they would print it! i don't get the sense of this closed up club that i think some people get. yeah, they are friends with moody and hornby. nobody is perfect.

fine, fuck it, i'll admit it: i dislike the 'young' literary establishment presented by the Believer, mostly because i AM jealous. is that a crime?

that and to say that they aren't some closed-up club is absurd, scott.

when people call the believer snarky I think they mean "I bet they wouldn't invite me to their parties if I knew them, those fuckers"

You know, this is insulting enough that I could throw something nasty your way, Darnielle, but I won't because "We Shall All Be Healed" pretty much saved my life for a while.

also thx for link to Gass. i am giggling.

yeah, i sense jealousy or something

CLASS(ic)!

Forgive me for tardiness, but TS: reading/writing "watching paint dry" jokes re Believer CD vs. listening to paint dry on Believer CD.

if anyone here wrote something really really good and sent it to the believer i'll bet they would print it!

uhh call me cynical/jaded/whatever, but...

You know, this is insulting enough that I could throw something nasty
your way, Darnielle, but I won't because "We Shall All Be Healed" pretty
much saved my life for a while.

whoever you are, I appreciate that, just so you know, glad to hear I was of some use - still, it really does
seem like your complaints about the magazine are less about the
magazine itself than something else. It's no crime to be jealous, it can be
a great motivator, but it's a lousy aesthetic yardstick!

why did that come out like free verse, wtf

ah there's just something about it that's so precious & self-contained.
"here's my world and welcome to it" that's OK but I prefer writing that pulls you out of yourself and places you in alien/unfamiliar territory. like those old issues of granta we were talking about scot, all that realistic ficition and wild-eyed travel writing and autobiography.

http://www.uniquedesigns-scenes.com/Dioramas%202004%20002.JPG

i'm sure this makes no sense, but i have a feeling that i would like the believer ok if i read it (which i don't, except for occasional things, and that bun b interview really was great) -- i'm sure in any given issue there'd be articles or essays i would enjoy, at least as bathroom or subway reading. but the idea of the believer annoys me, starting with its name. it's how i feel about eggers as a whole, really -- some good work, sure, and well-intentioned pretty much, but all presented with a slightly self-congratulatory air that among other things imagines itself to be more special/interesting/breath-of-fresh-air than it actually is. which is how their music-comp tracklists read to me too.

No love for N+1? Even though they come out with new issues like ... once every 4 years, they're OK, even if they don't practice what they preach.

Anyway, the Believer is just another piece of the turn of the century puzzle ... a lot of really comfortable, aging Gen Xers who push $800 strollers in urban areas (SF, Brooklyn, what have you) who want to be Cool Forever (or the flip side, Finally Cool), publish a lot of this crap.

It's culture for wheatgrass munching, Midwestern accented, "socially progressive" wimps who ride matching Bianchi cruisers with their wife and kid to their $900k condo in Bed Stuy or Harlem, and then go and file formal complaints with the mayor about the black people causin all the noise on the block and disturbing their kids sleep. (yes, this shit really happens).

All they really want to do is go back to upper class Connecticut, or Vermont, Ohio, Nebraska, so they turn the world into those places - bland and shitty.

So, maybe you have to see these people with your own eyes for the bile to really rise about the culture they produce - Believer, McSweeney's, etc.

ha, your name is cute. more like baarrrrrrrrrrrf10, amirite?

Oh man do I hate those "Midwestern accented" fuckers!

gettin' hot in herre

whhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeat grassssssssssssssssssssss

i think i'm good at ignoring the cutesy elements that bug people so much. i've always hated that long list of stuff discussed before every essay too. i just don't read it. and many of the one-page columns/whatevers are really easy to ignore as well. mcsweeneys is alive and well in those one-page book reviews with the descriptions of the kind of paper they used for the book/font/print-run/etc. those reviews themselves are kinda fascinating as they often cover books that i will never ever see by book companies that i never knew existed and they all have very handsome covers/design. it's like another world of fiction that exists on a cloud somewhere. which i think is kinda cool!

"a lot of really comfortable, aging Gen Xers who push $800 strollers in urban areas (SF, Brooklyn, what have you) who want to be Cool Forever (or the flip side, Finally Cool), publish a lot of this crap."

hahahaha, wow, it's like an epidemic! holy toledo...

I kind of want to have a baby just for the $800 stroller.

Damn you and your $800 strollers, Skot! I expect you to have hauled Cyrus around in old wet paper bags only.

I guess my feeling is that there are no print magazines that fulfill my design, literary, political and criticism standards at the same time.

"So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?"

we had a jeep stroller for rufus. maria's mom bought it. except i think we put it together wrong, cuz the wheels never worked right. then we had a double stroller after our second kid. i forget what kind. but it was sufficiently durable enough to withstand a car hitting it once. an old lady didn't see maria and cyrus on the side of the road and she hit maria's hand and the stroller with cyrus in it and it flew through the air, landing on the grass several feet away. cyrus was unharmed. i don't know what it cost.

i'm sure people on this thread, IF THEY HAD TRUST FUNDS LIKE ALL THOSE BELIEVER SCUM, would show us how it was done given the chance.

and that bun b interview really was great

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000AJMBH.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

people with trust funds don't assemble their own strollers, they pay someone to do it

i want that toni schlesinger book! i loved the shelter column:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200608/?read=article_davidson

"midwestern accented" really rockin' my socks right about now

damn those "midwestern accented" people, why don't they talk like REAL PEOPLE

i hate the believer because i'm way cooler than any of them but i dont have my own lit mag.

jesus people (ie "uhhrrrr") find some real criticisms already! they're out there!

for example, talk about the liner notes to this thing.

the line notes too this thing have too much WHEATGRASS

I am starting a band right now called WHEATGRASS

yo, got any room for a slide whistle?

YOU GOT IT

CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER, HERE WE COME

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, people, but the newer Bugaboo costs $900-$1000 (depending on tax). $800 strollers are for the common folk.

And as the proud owner of a Bugaboo Cameleon, I'd like to note that the Believer's music issues really blow.

hahahaha "wheatgrass munching" yes because we all know midwestern-accented motherfuckers are supposed to chew on HAY!

strawman munching

haha

the newer Bugaboo costs $900-$1000 (depending on tax)

those MacLaren's aren't cheap either, and i've already found two perfectly good ones as backups just laying out on trash night.

in Park Slope?

i swear, Park Slope has the best fucking 'trash' i've ever come across.

dear aging hipsters:
please keep throwing away your great books, usable furniture, and AWESOME tape collections.

love
the table

dude j0hn 7ur7urro sold me a $900 aged cherrywood baby crib for $30.
i've found Maximum Joy 12"s and Folkways ayahusaca ceremony records just lying on the street.
it's really random, but when it rains it pours.

btw i thought i might have seen you on the street a month ago.
then remembered you were an oberlin dude and thus not in this state.
your prospect park snap proved me wrong.

i even own the mojo 4 cd psych box. which i was just playing last week

There's a great one-disc comp of UK psych called Acid Daze: 18 Psychedelic Classics from the UK Underground that came with an issue of Uncut in 2003. I happened to see it on a news-stand and picked it up. Turned out to be a lucky whim.

Track listing:

1 Tomorrow - My White Bicycle 3:16
2 Syd Barrett - Octopus 3:45
3 The Move - I Can Hear the Grass Grow 2:59
4 Nirvana - Rainbow Chaser 2:34
5 Tyrannosaurus Rex - Once Upon the Seas of Abyssinia 2:07
6 The Spencer Davies Group - Time Seller 2:52
7 Kevin Ayers - Clarence in Wonderland 2:07
8 The Smoke - My Friend Jack 3:04
9 The Hollies - King Midas in Reverse 3:00
10 The Nice - The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack 2:47
11 The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Spontaneous Apple Creation 2:56
12 The Small Faces - Green Circles 2:47
13 The Purple Gang - Granny Takes a Trip 2:36
14 Dantalian's Chariot - Madman Running Through the Fields 4:10
15 Status Quo - Ice in the Sun 2:09
16 The Pink Fairies - Never Never Land 6:54
17 The Executives - Ginza Strip 3:09
18 Donovan - Atlantis 5:25

On Rateyourmusic.com:

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various_artists___magazines___uncut/acid_daze/