RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

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