You all have blood on your hands.

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Songs are spiderwebs and paragraphs are leafblowers.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Writing about music kills music. It's Tony Perkins' taxidermy at best.

yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mahler liked to write about music. I guess he wouldn't know what's what though, eh?

John Darnielle, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Songs are spiderwebs and paragraphs are leafblowers

A line of silent text set against some loud song I hate would appear to render this particular assessment invalid.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gustav Mahler? Norman Mailer. Mea culpa, Pia Zadora.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

making your argument twee as fuck does it a real disservice.

jess, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jess you are my hero

John Darnielle, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have NEVER encountered a single work of music -- no matter how quiet it was, how off-handedly presented, or how badly it sucked -- that was in any way changed by the fact that it was written about. Music is one thing in this world that is NOT fragile.

Don't confuse your imagined relationship with a song for the song itself, Yves.

Colin Meeder, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ha-HA! "twee" & the like is exactly the house of cards that music- writing can't help but topple.

yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nothing is important except the relationship between the song and the listener

yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This is another asinine DP thread, right?

Michael Daddino, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it died = it deserved to die

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it died = it deserved to die
ok, Friedrich Nietzsche. I prefer your brother Jack anyway.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nothing is important except the relationship between the song and the listener

Is it OK to write about this relationship? (You just wrote about it, btw).

Mark, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is it OK to write about this relationship?
No.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank you, Yves. *stares quietly off into the distance, wondering why "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep-Cheep" never calls anymore*

Colin Meeder, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No one in the world has ever been as bored as I am at this very moment. Think I'll go analyze some music just to get my hands bloody

John Darnielle, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"chirpy chirpy cheep cheep" was assassinated by simon reynolds & she will never call again.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

chirpy chirpy cheep cheep sleeps with the fishes

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dimly I recall reading somewhere that Jack Nitzsche served time for raping a minor with the barrel of a handgun... Or did I dream this, oh ILM massive?

Also this = name of character Nicholson (over)plays in One Flew Ovah the Cuckoo's Nest? Kesey was referencing the orchestration on Phil Spector records? As the existentially pure anti-hero that the machine-system must destroy? This is superdeep!!

(What is it wiv pop producers and pistols?)

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This has all been done before. "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" -> clever, yet wrong. Writing about music is as valid as writing about some kid painting a fence, or politics, or art. If writing about music is wrong, then writing music about literature, philosophy or visual art is also wrong.

Dave225, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Also this = name of character Nicholson (over)plays in One Flew Ovah the Cuckoo's Nest?

Wrong. It's Randall McMurphy.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

More Songs About Buildings and Food => we're in the clear thanks to DAVID BYRNE (as long as just ONE person here admits they danced to it)

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

boo, i thought kesey was saying something clevah for once

jack nitzsche = good name for a character in a todd haynes movie

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is "Gimme Da Weed" a spiderweb?

Sterling Clover, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This is another asinine DP thread, right?

Anything to distract him from getting any work done. Like the rest of us.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes it is a spiderweb. Write nothing more about "Gimme Da Weed" or you will crush it neath yr jackboot, you thuggish deputy to Le Pen.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You're Saul Williams, right?

Brian MacDonald, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't go chasing waterfalls, stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Acrostic Spider Poem by Hannah aged 6

Sticky spider webs catching fly.
Poisonous spider creepy.
Insects fly in the shining webs.
Delicious spider have spotty.
Every spider make big webs.
Running around the country.
spider! spider! spider!

I was looking for a picture of ma$e but this is bettah.

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Damn right, Andrew W.K. had it coming.

Dare, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

writing about music is like masturbating into a black hole

I killed christgau with my big fuckin' dick, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

writing about music is like masturbating into a black hole

IDEAL!

Brian MacDonald, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

xo maura ox: is this ethan?
Dubplatestyle: i never thought about it, but it has to be.

jess, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you know, brian, the black hole wouldnt turn white

Chupa-Cabras, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would like someone to name any piece of music criticism that is equal to or better than any piece of music and not a steamroller flowercrusher.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

xo maura ox: is this ethan? Dubplatestyle: i never thought about it, but it has to be.

The "Waterfalls" comment gave him away.

Mark, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

xo maura ox: is this ethan?
Dubplatestyle: i never thought about it, but it has to be.

The "Waterfalls" comment gave him away.


Wrong. It's Randall McMurphy.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Randall Patrick Murphy, most people called him "R.P."

Mark, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Randall Padgett McMurphy?

fritz, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would like someone to name a piece of music criticism that is equal to or better than any piece of music.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Shit Sandwich.

Dave225, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

lester bangs on "astral weeks"
ian penman on tim buckley
last plane to jakarta on "amnesiac"

jess, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the phrase "steamroller flowercrusher" is better than all music ever

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks. The letter "s" is curvier than all the other letters.

Yves, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yves speaks the truth i'm afraid. but talking about music is even worse. why can't people keep their damned opinions to themselves? (except for you yves. and me)

gareth, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what about "o"?

mark s, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

mark s. talking about the o destroys its spherical qualities. why oh why can't you just leave the hell alone? you are ruining the o.

gareth, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oh mark, you so crazy.

jess, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

although, wierdly, someone was talking about the curkydegeorgo (ha self googler, google that) in the pub the other day. with a bit of a luck, that might leafblow kirkys muzak!

gareth, Monday, 6 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll tell you what is a lot worse that writing about music:

Writing about writing about music.

Shut the fuck up!

Andrew, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so, let me get this straight, oscar wilde is better than the bellrays? yeah, oh, i think i can agree with that

i still think yves is right though. words do kill music (i read the sound offs on the poptones page, man do they kill the magic!!!! - c'mon doomie, it is you isn't it?? i think you are fucking brilliant man!)

gareth, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Criticism isn't necessarily the art of making understood, though, sometimes it's art on its own terms. Derrida was more about opening up referential networks within texts in general, and he went about it really playfully. Derrida's fly, yo.

Dare, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oscar totally owns and rules this thread (w.hannah obv)

mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oscar Wilde is the FIRST ROCK CRITIC (I said this somewhere else I think).

Alex in SF, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you did!! But I say: JOHN RUSKIN! (cuz he actually wrote about ROCKS) (well ok, mountains) (he is made an honorary member of the alpine but denounces whymper for actually climbing in the alps eg spoiling the matterhorn by standing on its peak = HE IS PUNK ROCK!!)

mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My new theory (made possible by recent exposure to these psychos) is that mountain climbers (in the US anyway) are ALL complete fucking FREAKS!!!

Alex in SF, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"first of all who's your A&R/a mountain climber who plays electric guitar?"

fritz, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A. Crowley was a mountain climber, a bisexual heroin addict, and a big influence on J. Page, R. Stones and every other 'satanic' half- wit = more influential (because he cld CONTROL ppl w/ his mad magickal skillz) than Wilde or Ruskin!

Andrew L, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

also in my spring clean i found a v. old copy of sounds (xmas 1977) which has in it a pic of the sleeve of EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS "Do Anything You Wanna Do", and this has Crowley on it, in mickeymouse ears! i recall the pic of course but i did not then know it was crowley!! (in an early long version of CONCRETE SO AS TO SELF-DESTRUCT i cut straight from the hot rods to arthur machen commenting on how obsessively rule-bound the crowley mob were! so yay me!! and yay the rods after all!! but i still hate em!!)

mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hullo clouds hullo sky i arive belatedly to offer this:
http://www.simonbarne.com/oddsandends/assets/fotheringtonthomas.gif

I similarly belatedly note that the word "caliginous" is better than the nasty midi cymbal sound on the otherwise gorgeous The Light 3000. Oh, you know I'm right, no matter how meaningless the assertion may seem...

R, picking at long-dried red fingerprints on someone else's furniture, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hahaha. Mark S cannot AVOID Crowley's INFLUENCE!!! Influence will haunt you all yr days Mark (like Hunta-D haunts Jess and appreciation and progress haunt my SOUL!)

Alex in SF, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alex, you jerk. I wanted to start a discussion on what they mean and instead you accuse me of getting all diadactic.

Was "Weekend" criticism? Of what?

What about "Two or three things..."? Was it about film as a medium? Nomoreso than Brecht was about theatre as a medium. Did that make him a critic? Do you come away from "Peirot la fou" understanding more or simply feeling more?

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

epic throwdown: aleister crowley vs fotherington tomas!!

thank you ms spacecadet, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well I didn't realize that is what you were trying to do Sterling (I just thought you were being DIDACTIC). Anyway, all art is criticism and all criticism is art. I just re-started yr argument to compensate for my insensitivity.

Jerk in SF, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am going to write an experimental horse song about the curvature of the spindly "s" just so that I can hoist it aloft as superior to the collective musings of the bloodied ILM contingent.

Then Yves and I are going to retire quietly to the living room where we will listen to my song on our headphones and exchange knowing glances BUT CERTAINLY NEVER WORDS about my 808-aided paean to the curviest character.

Mark, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

" writing about music is like masturbating into a black hole "

can i use this as the title for a blog? :P

naz, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

b-but looks can kill too!!

mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alex: that's the fucking opposite of my argument, f'cryin'outloud.

Again: art makes people bothered, and criticism makes people act, and sometimes somethings do both, but rilly they can only do one or the other well. Thus "Two Or Three Things" is good art from Godard and "Lear" is half-assed criticism.

Brecht was never a good critic, though he was a good theoretician of art.

Benjamin was nothing but a critic and couldn't inspire an original emotion for the life of him but could translate the affect of others work into new social meaning (cf. his citation of Klee in "Theses on History").

Clear, or do I have to fly over and kick your ass?

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(sterling, alex said "restarted" not "restated" = he gently lobs the ball to you by presenting you with NOT what you meant, so you can smash it back in satisfying fashion = you win the point but he wins the hearts of the crowd)

mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How weak would music have to be to be damaged by us talking about it? For me, I've very rarely found any piece diminished by anything said, but I've found plenty of things to be enriched by external words.

Martin Skidmore, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Music journalism isn't a bad thing in itself, but a decent music journalist is a rare find. I like reading vivid, emotional accounts of a piece of music ... however, the general standard these days seems to be for vast tracts of academic wank on the postmodernity of the Britney or some such.

naz, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Shortly here the original poser/poseur of the question is going to flit back in and claim that no matter what anybody's said we have somehow proven his point. His doing so will not only bore me, but will bore the very pavement, the mute stones to either side of it, and the hills off in the distance. It will bore the dead in their graves. Just you watch.

John Darnielle, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ah, my apologies Alex. What a difference one "r" makes, eh?

I feel sorta like groucho in duck soup now.

Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

O O O my pain is everywhere O O O

Owl Man, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"art makes people bothered, and criticism makes people act"

Bothered to do what? Act in what way? What are you on about? This is one of those arguments where definitions mean everything and your definitions are just impossibly vague. Why is the first Goddard movie good art and why is the second not art at all, but just bad criticism? What the hell is a theoretician of art? I am so impossibly lost.

I accept your apology though.

Alex in SF, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

bothered to do nothing, just bothered. like it haunts you and shit.

Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The light growes dimmer. I have askt Mother to move the lapptop to the kountermain of my syckbed so that I might sing in harmony with you all once more before I say my final adieu adieu ADIEU! to this redhott and glouriouse world.

Yves, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Most unexpecktedly I was Poppt in the head with a Kroquet Mallett last night. The intsrument was weilted by my young sister but please bear her no ill will, she was most unaware that I was kroucht in the nether bush transcribing the sparrow's song to sheet musick. I might have been able to move more quickly to avoid the wooden hammer toward my tender noggin through the underbrush But I had tiredt myself out reading Kruel Wyrds of the Musick-Vivisectionistes and my Quick- jumping and leaping abilitys were so greatly reduced as to be pracktikally of little use.

Yves, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I forgive you every one. Do not weep, deerhearts, for now is a tyme to celebrate and sing. Don't cry for me, Ike an Tina.

hullo clowdes, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Heh heh, heh... You said "nether bush." Heh heh, heh, heh heh...

Prude, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nevermind music criticism, surely music theory is a much greater threat to those pristine and delicate spiderwebs Yves mentions.

I'd also recommend that Yves stay well clear of any working musicians or placing where they ply their craft (e.g., rehearsal spaces or recording studios), for they are apt to engage in verbalization about what they're doing with alarming frequency.

o. nate, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i saw pink on tv last night explaining why britney was crap: as she spoke a million tiny kittens, trapped in microwaves all over this dark half of the world, blintzed sharply into shreds off flesh across the wipeable walls...

mark s, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

off = of, sod it

mark s, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nazty naz--yea, verily you may use the 'writing about...black hole' quote for a blog (if you tweren't joking). criticism doesn't change the music, it changes us. a song is a mountain. the music is alive and yves is dead. farewell sweet sparrow of the nether bushes.

gilgamesh, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...
Gene Simmons: If you think about it, critics are an unnecessary life-form on the planet Earth, and here's why: because it's a job without credentials. You don't have to go to school. To be a journalist, of course, you need to get a journalism degree, and there's such a thing as journalistic ethics. You know, if you print news, your opinion is not important. A critic has no credibility whatsoever. He doesn't even need a license to be a critic. He just sort of says, "I'm a critic." And then you are.

The Onion: Couldn't the same be said of rock stars?

GS: That's right. Except we're more famous and everybody likes us.

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 29 August 2003 19:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Strange use of the royal 'we' there.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 29 August 2003 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

"I kill everything I fuck" - GG Allin

dave q, Friday, 29 August 2003 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing is important except the relationship between the song and the listener

nothing is important except the relationship between the lie and its believer

gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 August 2003 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...
You know, by Gene's view of things, being a mother is often (usually?) a job without credentials, too.

Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 24 April 2005 10:49 (twenty years ago)

Yeah and everyone loves them too

A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 24 April 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

Messageboard l'esprit d'escalier?

MV, Sunday, 24 April 2005 12:26 (twenty years ago)

It would be if I saw Tracer's post when it was first birthed into this world, naked and squirming.

Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 24 April 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

MV, Sunday, 24 April 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

That's right. Except we're more famous and everybody likes us.

Ok can I just say that Gene's comments are totally fucking awesome?

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 24 April 2005 21:46 (twenty years ago)

I mean this blows "dancing about architecture" right out of the water.

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 24 April 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

and Michael, you can't just say "I'm a mother."

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 24 April 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

though it could be argued that, like mothers, you're not a professional critic until you've been fucked and given a payload.

(wah wah)

miccio (miccio), Sunday, 24 April 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

I was listening to some music, and grooving, really into it, and then suddenly nothing......
Then I realized. Some bastard somewhere must have started analyzing it and just killed it dead.
But..... this doesn't really happen. If I'm digging some music that's been heavily critiqued, but I'm unaware of all the critique is that music simultaneously alive and dead???
IS MUSIC SOME SORT OF ZOMBIE? No, this theory is flawed.

rage against the leafblower (m0stly clean), Monday, 25 April 2005 03:45 (twenty years ago)

but i threw away the knife.

cryptic child, Monday, 25 April 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)


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