RTP-area local music and culture

[Nathaniel Florin <npflorin AT yahoo.com>]

--- bendy <bendy AT duke.edu> wrote:
> I suppose this is the giveaway line:
> 
> * Wolf Eyes signed a major label deal with Sub-pop
> Records (which poses 
> as an independent label) in 2004 *

Even before that. The intro has a slight
anti-capitalist bit and talks about "alternatives to
the system" and "outside the system", which sounds
like a 25-year-old male. And it seems to say that good
music ended with Glenn Miller before "the bomb called
Elvis was dropped." That's the line taken by my
grandparents, not a suburban mother born in 1960 and
raised on the Beatles. Hell, my even grandfather loved
Elvis. 

Then they launch in on Wolf Eyes: "With their alcohol
fueled beevis and butthead antics,[...]". You'll note
that suddenly capital letters fall away (later "I" in
the intro becomes "i"), a fanzine or internet-era tic.
That sort of clause ("With their [extended adjective]
[noun],...") is classic post-Lester Bangs fanboy, only
shorn of the more obscure references that normally
grace the genre. Having been guilty of it myself I can
spot its traces with no difficulty.

I was really thinking back to the PMRC hearings and
the incredible level of cluelessness that the Tipper
Gore side demonstrated, going after cartoon bands like
Twisted Sister and giving straight recitations of the
lyrics to "Darling Nikki" and so forth. Making an
arch-enemy out of John Denver (who was a true
champion) and so forth. Just having no idea of what
was what. M.A.N. shows way too much knowledge of the
subtleties of noise music (ones that are sometimes
lost on me) to be a modern Tipper. its pretty clear he
-- and it's a he -- is someone working really hard to
sound clueless.

Nate