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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Eh, Whatever
  • Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:25:12 -0400

The question that any good weekly-paper music writer should be asking, more or less constantly, is "who is my audience?"

You're writing fairly quickly, filling up X inches of space, and you're deluged by crappy CDs and press-packs from every two-bit out-of-town band that's passing through The Cave a week from next Tuesday. You're also, in nearly all cases, trying to nurture a burgeoning freelance career that's going to eventually (you hope) transform you into that guy who hangs around the Chateau Marmont with Courtney Love for three days & writes all about the experience in Rolling Stone for a cool $8k.

So you're annoyed, horribly jaded, and some part of your mind is always [subconsciously?] trying to impress the editors of Pitchfork with your non-provincialness.

Plus, shit, it's always a little easier to skewer, amusingly, than it is to speak sincerely about how much you like a band. Nobody wants to come off like a gushing fanboy.

Which is why you gotta always be asking "who is my audience?" This is a game that we, the readers, can ask as well.

Who is the audience for a paragraph skewering the Ladybug Transistor? That's actually easy: it's 35-year-old working stiffs who stopped buying CDs sometime in the mid-late 90s, around the time they got married/real jobs/houses/kids/whatever. They're flipping through the Indy and they see "Ladybug Transistor" and they think "hey, I used to like that band, maybe I should go out & relive my carefree 20s!"

In that case, one could argue that perhaps the Indy is doing those folks a service, assuming the LT are as blah as they claim. On the other hand, one could also argue that the only people who're going to go to that show are those selfsame 30-somethings, and they're probably so starved for a good time that doesn't involve Baby Einstein or reruns of "The Office" that they're going to have a great time regardless, so why piss on their night out, especially if you're going to do so in a context where it's unclear what *other* show you'd nominate as a more life-changing/worthwhile alternative?

The Nightlight thing is more of a mystery to me. A four-band bill, featuring two of the best virtually unknown postpunk/whatever bands in the Triangle, and instead of spotlighting it as a Best Bet, you instead spend yr time snarking on some comparatively obscure Vancouver band who're going to be going onstage at like 1:30 a.m. anyway? Why not just say "show up early enough to catch the Maple Stave & CGJ, and then if the headliners aren't doing it for you after a song or two, you can go the fuck home"?

Sounds to me like "who is my audience?" was answered by "my fellow Pitchfork freelancers," and/or "I'm so fucking sick of having to listen to all these CDs by eclectic/pomo touring bands that I gotta just vent for a second."

Which is, honestly, what happens when nobody's editing the music editor.

That last thing, about 80s Jamz at Walnut Creek, is just a total space-filler/free-snark-zone. Would've been marginally more amusing if they'd gone the "it's time for a radical re-evaluation of Foreigner" route, but it still would've been an overplayed hand. I was stuck in a packed Chevy Suburban for two hours last week, trying to get to LaGuardia on the morning of the big storm/flood, and the only time the garrulous West Indian driver stopped talking (either to us, or to his wife and/or girlfriend on the phone) was when "I Want to Know What Love Is" came on the radio and he fucking cranked it up. I was struck by how pedestrian (plodding, even) the arrangement of the pre-massive-gospel-choir portion of it is. Maybe the first part has to suck extra-hard in order to make the payoff seem bigger, I dunno.

But so anyway. Is the section a bad idea? Sure, as it's currently conceived. The one argument in its favor, or in favor of something like it, is that it's necessary for any critic to occasionally somehow set out his/her standards and criteria. If you're unfailingly positive all the time, then you run the risk that your audience writes you off as entirely uncritical and thus unreliable.

But this is hardly the best way to do that. Far better, I'd argue, to devote the barest minimum to the kiss-off part (and direct it entirely at higher profile outta-town shows where the hype could legitimately be said to far outweigh the substance), and save the bulk of the space for the provision of a superior (and preferably local) alternative.

For the minimal-yet-amusing kiss-off, one could do worse than to study the Canon of Christgau, and particularly his "Distinctions Not Cost-Effective" (of the 80s output of The Four Tops: "I'll grant them this much--the same old song would have been even worse.").

But then maybe the problem is that they *have* been studying it, but just haven't gotten it down yet.

xo

Ross

Evan Rowe wrote:
Yes.

As a member of a band that played an officially-designated "Eh, Whatever" show last night, I can happily report they were wrong about They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Their crazy Dixieland/twitchy Canadian nervousness/lots of hollering ended a fine evening on a high note.

Spending column inches telling people not to go to a show, especially as you express admiration for one of the local bands playing, just comes off as kind of mean-spirited and weird. And I don't think it put CGJ in a very comfortable position...

I'm all for calling them as you see them, but this negativity seems unmotivated and unnecessary.

=Evan





local506 AT gmail.com wrote:
Does anyone else feel that is kinda strange that the Indy now has a
dedicated section to rag on bands? Sure, I guess it's better than
dissing them in a section call 'Get Out - Music Worth Leaving the
House For", but this section will need to be filled each week - so
some writers are going to have to seek out bands they do NOT like,
instead of utilizing that time to promote things people should see.

I know I might have a bias, but seeing how many clubs have closed in
this area in the past few years, I don't need think the so-called
scene needs any help losing patrons.

glenn




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