OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Argh, nu-ilx has shrunk it slightly past readable; here's a direct link - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/Screengrabs/onsellingoutexepose.jpg

I just boggled at this over my lunch.

"Jonny" is a name for gaywads

This only proves again that editors and writers are two different professions. Hence the two names.

You are actually posting a scan of an article from a student newspaper as the basis for a thread, aren't you? Good lord.

It's a screengrab from the pdf off the website! They didn't have a normal text version...

can you link to the website? photobucket seems to be banned here.

http://www.exepose.ex.ac.uk

goes from strength to strength -- feeder mention is possibly the high point.

System of a Down's top 20 single was six and a half years ago, fact fans.

"Recent developments in music have given Architechs a top 5 single"

surely this can't be THE jonny garrett?

http://www.myspace.com/chasingfaces

(yeah, they have a myspace already, the sellouts)

I suspect it must be, StanM.

I assume, from their name that they like Snow Patrol and The Small Faces.

um, holding up articles by students as examples of 'bad music writing'? talk about shooting fish in a barrel. Matt DC OTM.

Following in the footsteps of West Country acts like Muse and Thirteen Senses by already winning over interest from various major and independent record labels, things are definitely looking good for the boys. Having recently been asked to support New Zealand favourites The Checks who have just finished touring with the likes of JET and Oasis.

"I know someone who knows someone who knows the guy from Young Heart Attack quite well"

blueski and Matt DC offtm, this is the new web2.0 media era, we're all critics now, user provided content is the new professionally written content.

Even in the realm of student media this is BAAAAAAAAD though, Steve - I flick through Exepose every week and this is BY FAR the worst thing I've ever seen in it; hence not starting a thread every week.

Haha I used to write for that paper. I wonder how long before he Googles his own name and finds it.

It would be so wonderful if he googled this thread and responded. What an utterly thrilling discussion and exchange of views that could lead to.

Hey, with any luck he might hop over to ILE and start posting about his sex life or something.

(my question: is the article motivated by his own band possibly signing to a major soon?)

Maybe I should unleash the views of Chris Erasmus at you all?

Haha, yeah, I'd imagine so, StanM.

Hello Jonny's mom! No, he hasn't posted about his sex life yet. Try again later. Bye, ILX.

blueski and Matt DC offtm, this is the new web2.0 media era, we're all critics now, user provided content is the new professionally written content.

-- Dom Passantino, Monday, 18 June 2007 12:36 (11 minutes ago) Link

Dom is entirely correct here. I mean, the chuckle factor is diminished by him being a student, but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

also why do nearly all student newspaper writers write in what feels like the same voice? there's certain syntax and word choices that only student newspapers ever seem to have.

Nobody knows how to sub-edit when they're 21, that's why.

^^not unrelated to why writers in the say, New York Times tend to sound the same. for that matter, ever read Blender? Despite the bylines it seems to be written by one many-armed poprockbot.

that really is quite incredible.

New York Times doesn't have sub-editors? That's crazy!

Hey Jonny, your band fucking suck.

Jonny Garrett of Exeter University, that is.

I think you mean <a href="OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?;>Jonny Garrett</a> of Exeter University.

BOO HTML

Kudos on sticking it to Westlife, tho, Jonny Garrett of Exeter University. Those bastards have had it their own way for too long.

Does Westlife even exist anymore?

highlights:

"...bands like westlife who can, quite frankly, go screw themselves with a rusty spoon and get tetanus"

"had nirvana not signed to sub pop... we would probably never have heard one of the most influential artists of our time and dave grohl may have never founded the foo fighters."

the pathos!

but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

democratization of criticism = people slagging this shit off just because they can rather than for any constructive cause. it's just easy target practice, who gives a shit? no-one/nothing is ever going to stop under-grads inheriting these absurd ideas about 'how things should be' in the music industry. surely we've all read this same article many times in the past.

i'm just more relieved than ever my music writing from college days was too soon for blog-era internet heh.

"had nirvana not signed to sub pop... we would probably never have heard of..." Sub Pop.

Was there ever a thread for people to post their own abysmal juvenile music writings from uni days?

Not that I'd post on it, my capsule reviews of Kinesis singles were all fuckin bang-on.

perhaps one day i will post my 8/10 track by track review of 'Be Here Now' from the time.

Yeah, you real writers are all jealous that you've lost the ability to write like that, aren't you?

I wrote a two-part article in my uni paper called "Rhythm & Sound", which basically stated that all rock music that's based on melody or lyrics is boring crap, and that beats and sound are the essential components of good music - hence electronic dance music (and fusion jazz) is the best music there is. I got some angry comments from the indie kids.

Kudos on sticking it to Westlife, tho, Jonny Garrett of Exeter University.

and kudos to you lot for bravely and relentlessly going after such a signifivcant target as jonny garrett. sure showed him!

ts being one of many thick students w/ bad music taste who can't write, vs being someone who actually gives a shit about what said student writes in some minor student rag

or, matt'n'steve otm, u r all losers

but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

student newspapers have nothing to do with the "democratization of criticism"

I can't copy and paste from the Exeter Expose, but if you Google you can find a review where our Jonny talks about "Indy music".

also why do nearly all student newspaper writers write in what feels like the same voice? there's certain syntax and word choices that only student newspapers ever seem to have.

paul please, please tell me you don't actually care about the answer to this

paul please, please tell me you don't actually care about the answer to this

-- lex pretend, Monday, 18 June 2007 13:29 (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

http://downloadsimpsons.com/files/malibu_stacy.jpg

"Thinking too much gives you wrinkles"

haaaaaa

come on everyone, geir gives himself away in the final parentheses.

ha. not sure i care as such! a while back i had a job gathering information on universities, i found it kind of funny that you can go anywhere in the country and every student newspapers seems to be written by the same person. it sort of interests me to know who, if anyone, they are imitating. if my current job was more interesting this issue would, i think, seem rather less pressing.

xp

i love the line about nirvana: nirvana's main block to future gold albums was kurt cobain's inability to accept the "popular culture lifestyle he was made to live", nothing about JUNKIE SUICIDE.

I think it's a lot more interesting to analyse and discuss the views of someone like Jonny Garrett than it is, I dunno, Petridish or Reynolds or Chuck Eddy or whoever. ILX falls into a trap of ivory towering itself, qf whoever it was on the purchase of music thread who was all "two and a half CDs a year? Everyone I know buys much more than that!". We gotta embrace the layman here guys.

keep in mind this kid was like 8 when Kurdt committed suicide and has probably been bombarded by Nirvana mythologies since he started showing an interest in altrock

Was there ever a thread for people to post their own abysmal juvenile music writings from uni days?

Heh, this is a great idea. Yeah gotta say though, opinion pieces like this are ten a penny in this strange little further education world

there is thou a difference between "analyse and discuss" and "attack and dismiss"

Maybe in the real world, but on ILM?

I'm still not sure when Cobain was adopted as an indie icon, tbh. When I was a teen, Melody Maker was still all "lol miserable junkie loved by them Kerrang oafs" about him.

I disagree that student writing is exempt from criticism. One's worldview may not be fully formed by the age of 20, but a journalistic voice should be.

Plus, this is just too awful to leave it alone. A phrase like "There has been a movement against corporate music, labels and magazines, which is thankfully disappearing, probably ever since Bob Dylan's move from acoustic to electric" is a jaw-dropper in any context.

I think it's a lot more interesting to analyse and discuss the views of someone like Jonny Garrett than it is, I dunno, Petridish or Reynolds or Chuck Eddy or whoever. ILX falls into a trap of ivory towering itself, qf whoever it was on the purchase of music thread who was all "two and a half CDs a year? Everyone I know buys much more than that!". We gotta embrace the layman here guys.

This, totally; what kind of culture are we propagating where these attitudes develop? Why does this guy think this? He's in a band, he's at university, he'd self-identify as 'loving music', he obviously has journalistic ambitions at the same time, and he writes this? Yes, he's young, but not all young people are writing stuff like this, are they?

young aspiring music journalists should go to ILM training camp

http://duckdown.downloadcentric.com/content/Duck%20Down%20Records/Products/Audio%20Downloads/Boot%20Camp%20Clik/The%20Last%20Stand/DDM%20CD%202035%7B0%7D_large.jpg

more liek:

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0001Y9YAW.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Yes, he's young, but not all young people are writing stuff like this, are they?

most of them are, most of them always have, some of them get better as they, you know, grow up - i'm not denying that it's awful writing but i guess the question for me is, do you not feel your life ebbing away from you with every second you spend contemplating this rote and in no way unusual piece of student hackery? do you have this much spare time?? at this point i'mma take my own advice and exit thread stage left.

Our dominant myths about Art are still Romantic ones: the Artwork is a self-sufficient object, expressing universal truths and the personality of the artist, and has to be grounded in sincere, authentic feelings. Those ideas are still so fundamental (amongst people who think about aesthetics) that most critics have to unlearn them or react against them before they can think about other ways of apprehending music/literature/TV comedy. This isn't exactly a mystery, it's been going on for 200 years.

(b/c you know, if dude ever actually finds this thread, he's just gonna go HURRAH 100-POST THREAD TALKING ABOUT MEEEEE, I HAVE SUCCEEDED)

(ok that's it)

This, totally; what kind of culture are we propagating where these attitudes develop? Why does this guy think this? He's in a band, he's at university, he'd self-identify as 'loving music', he obviously has journalistic ambitions at the same time, and he writes this? Yes, he's young, but not all young people are writing stuff like this, are they?

I don't know if the age of the writer is that important. There are plenty of people twice his age out there who would write/argue the same things so you might as well be arguing with them on the same basis. Expecting all young writers to reject rockism is too (p)optimistic.

<i>I'm still not sure when Cobain was adopted as an indie icon, tbh. When I was a teen, Melody Maker was still all "lol miserable junkie loved by them Kerrang oafs" about him.</i>

Dom, MM *was* pretty much behind early Sub Pop what with all Everett True's coverage and whatnot. I reckon Nirvana were an initially an indie kid thing here before the whole grunge pandemic hit (but I guess you're talking about the period after that).

Oh fuck<i>ng tags.

some of that piece is kind of chuck eddy like

Garrett doesn't call Westlife a bhangra act though, so there are differences.

I'm talking about bands like Feeder, Coldplay and the Stereophonics who have (over time) offered more to music than many of the bands that the NME claim will change your life.

didn't the NME claim that Feeder/Coldplay/Stereophonics will change your life?

i'm drunk, but this guy should be sacked.

That's the kind of management technique that'll see you running in JP Morgan by the time your 31.

Feeder/Coldplay/Stereophonics

I MEAN SRSLY THIS IS LIKE TEH AXIS OF EVIL

he's just gonna go HURRAH 100-POST THREAD TALKING ABOUT MEEEEE, I HAVE SUCCEEDED

I didn't know you went to Exeter.

(xpost oh J4gger's here ding ding ding)

RULE FOUR NOW APPLIES TO ALL BETS IN THREAD

(exp)

Drunk at 3pm = living the dream

Drinking cider from eleven?

Not only do I have plenty of articles google'able online that are humiliating - I still write articles on occasion that are poorly written. So, I sympathize for college-music-writer. Can't we at least go after people who get paid to write poorly?

So we should be gentle because of:
- age? ("but the Arctic Monkeys were only 19 when they..." "Oh, OK then, 10/10")
- experience? ("but it's only their first album ever!" "Oh, OK then, 10/10")

?

There are dedicated threads for them (xpost).

Mordechai OTM

I disagree that student writing is exempt from criticism. One's worldview may not be fully formed by the age of 20, but a journalistic voice should be.

No writing is exempt from criticism, but a college kid getting his footing should be exempt from a 100-post sonning by a bunch of adults.

"adults"

If I was the writer in question I'd be more offended by the insinuation that I wasn't an adult myself.

Burchill started on the NME when she was 17.

Doogie Howser was performing surgery at 18, does this mean I should start a thread about how some high school kid dissected his worm wrong?

Please accept my use fictional character as an appropriate metaphor for real life situations. Haha.

Hang on a tick. This guy is the fucking Music Editor at his university. Not every student is this bloody clueless and illiterate and I'm sure there are gobloads of kids just wishing they could have a go at it (because they wanna write for the NME when they grow up).

There used to be an indie night at the uni I attended where each week they'd play no less than eight Limp Bizkit songs in an evening, and these guys ran the uni radio station. When I asked if I could play one night I got told my style wasn't right. Oh well.

^^^ poor grammar and typos admittedly non-deliberate.

He's not even a real music editor, he's not on the team!

http://www.exepose.ex.ac.uk/team.php

That's last year's team; they've obviously not changed that page yet.

Ah, ok - sorry.

lol u r all intrenet crepes for talkin bout the guy. how long til Dom finds his facebook?

In the next issue: "Pol Pot - His Amazing Journey From Brutal Cambodian Tyrant To Winner Of Britain's Got Talent."

1 person calls us crepes and that's the end of the thread?

This is exactly how nazi Germa... ok maybe it isn't.

that article reads like a GCSE project graded f with only q magazine used for research.

This current teenager yoof bebo generation is even more moronic than 1990s Shed 7 / OCS generation, that dizzy [probably NME reading] blonde on big brother from Bristol, that Exeter Uni Q reading chump, that yesterday's OMM teen issue, NME brit-indie-guitar-rubbish bands everyweek and teenager emo mall kids with fall out boy t-shirts etc etc. Is this the worst generation of kids ever?

Yours in despair, Viktor Martian

I wrote a two-part article in my uni paper called "Rhythm & Sound", which basically stated that all rock music that's based on melody or lyrics is boring crap, and that beats and sound are the essential components of good music - hence electronic dance music (and fusion jazz) is the best music there is.

Tuomas, I'd like to think that, on the other side of Scandanavia, Gier Hongro was simultaneously writing exactly the opposite article.

It's always the worst generation of kids ever when you're not part of it.

Ah yes, the OMM TEEN ISSUE...

There's a picture of a new rave kid in that issue, and he is the twattiest person I have ever seen.

I probably wrote something worse than this when I was in college.

So we should be gentle because of:
- age? ("but the Arctic Monkeys were only 19 when they..." "Oh, OK then, 10/10")
- experience? ("but it's only their first album ever!" "Oh, OK then, 10/10")

?

-- StanM, Monday, June 18, 2007 9:43 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

wow

Nothing wrong with a little constructive criticism obv. but this kid isn't the Arctic Fucking Monkeys. He's writing something for a university paper and he probably only expected it to be read by his fellow students anyway. It's like you guys are tearing apart some local kids' punk band for playing sub-"Greenday" music at their friends' party or something.

Martian you've been warned before about exaggerating the shitness of Shed Seven (at least 3 good songs!).

Just a bit of fun, it's not like we're seriously trying to get this guy to kill himself, you know. (I'm not, at least) (xpost)

i'm hoping to see this sort of thread on ILE

is this the worst fucking picture of a donkey or what? it's by my 5yr old nephew LOL
look at the rubbish typography on this PIZZA FLYER!!!!!!11 rofllz
babies - fucking idiots or what? they can hardly walk, look at their stupid faces!!!!!

plz

never mind the typography there is no excuse for the mind-boggling typos you get on pizza flyers where they have spelled the word correctly in the first two instances but then failed to do so the third time.

esp. when that word is CHEESE

The single most awesome post I ever came acorss on any internet board went like this: "Cows are such WANKERS they don't even RUN if you THROW STICKS at them."

xxxxpost please!! please!!!

maybve one too many x's. that was a reply to alan, not stanm

OWLS ARE ASSHOLES

WITH THEIR BIG FUCKING EYES, WHY NOT HAVE SMALLER EYES? WANKERS.

condemned to repeat myself

things you notice about owls

nick are you joining in the mockery of your own thread?

But anyway, this guy isn't some kind of remedial five-year-old; this isn't a GCSE-essay; he doesn't need enormous slack-cutting here. He is music editor at a student paper for one of the country's top 30 (possibly) universities, and as as such probably has three A Levels at grades AAB or very close to. He is a smart, educated, priviliged music fan who will possibly one day be a captain of industry, or Chris Martin, or something. He's not a cow or an owl.

x-post - Lex I am merely mocking owls and cows.

FUCK BEES

Simon CowOwl more like

Why are you even reading a college paper in the hopes of finding good music writing?

surely a lot of good writers come up thru student press

I'm not reading it in the hope of finding good music writing! I read it while I eat my sandwich, to see what's going on amongst the literate student body, and stumble upon the music pages by accident.

x-post - Hmmm. Well.

Was it a good sandwich at least?

OK, is this the worst piece of wafer thin ham ever?

Granted it came from one of the top 30 supermarkets in the country but it said 'quality' on the label.

You can use that rather reductive approach to stop anyone criticising anythign ever, SteveM.

surely a lot of good writers come up thru student press

This might be more of a 'despite' than 'because of' situation in a lot of cases

(I speak as someone who put, really, a stupid amount of time into the student paper while I was there, and mainly enjoyed it and learned stuff, but I'd question how much it made me a better writer)

babies - fucking idiots or what? they can hardly walk, look at their stupid faces!!!!!

ha.

this guy, though - as nick said, he's 20-21, he's obviously got some semblance of a brain in his head if he's a. at exeter uni and b. music ed of the college paper (obvious snarks aside). more important, i suspect, is *why he thinks like this* not "why is his writing style a bit naff?", surely?

xpost i spent years at my college paper (inc a year as music editor) but i doubt it made me a better writer. a better editor, yes, and (in the long run) a better sub, but a better writer? doubtful.

Anyone want to make fun of bad high school writing?!?!?!? I have a number of shitty articles sitting in my car!

"H1nder lead vocalist Austin Winker's unique v0ice makes 'Lips of an Angel' completely captivating. The d3pth and emotion of the vocals dr4w you into the lyr1cs of the song. The lyrics and 1nstrumentation make this s0ng a great standout track."

HAHAHAHAAHA SHE CAN'T WRITE AND SHE HAS A BAD OPINION HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA AND SHE'S 17, FER CHRISTSAKES HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHOULDN'T SHE BE VERSED IN KRAUTROCK AND SHIT? HAHAHAHAHAA

i once made the mistake of reading my own (v poor) college dissertation. SO AWFUL. i wanted to punch the author so hard. i'm pretty sure there are no copies remaining outside of the one copy left with the faculty, who SHOULD have burned it just out of courtesy.

But anyway, this guy isn't some kind of remedial five-year-old; this isn't a GCSE-essay; he doesn't need enormous slack-cutting here. He is music editor at a student paper for one of the country's top 30 (possibly) universities, and as as such probably has three A Levels at grades AAB or very close to. He is a smart, educated, priviliged music fan who will possibly one day be a captain of industry, or Chris Martin, or something. He's not a cow or an owl.

He's a decently smart kid with a passing interest in music who likes to write music articles for the school paper; it's not his career, it's not his thesis, it's just Something He Wrote.

like I said he's not looking to win awards with his writings, student music reviews are generally just sort of rambles anyway, even ones by Exeter students, as much as we at ILM want our Smart Kids to write Smart Music Reviews.

and you know, what the guy is saying is not all that objectionable. there's stuff in there if you pick it out of the noise. "the hardest music to write is commercial music".

is age really an excuse here? Have we all forgotten that university age isn't really especially young? I'm sure that most people here weren't a lot different then from how they are now, no? Is being just some random student really an excuse? Surely being music editor at a 15,000 student university should mean something more than being able to express opinions that the average 15-year-old who has MTV2 would be able to express. Although my wild optimism with regards to student publications is notorious. Poor Louis is presumably around the same age as this guy, yet he gets consistently lambasted for having much more sophisticated (if more uniquely nuts) opinions.

Kinda off-topic question, because I don't want to start picking at every questionable comment in the article: is Domino entirely independent?

the 'excuse' is that everyone here probably wrote stuff as bad as that at his age.

this guy wot wrote this rag rant retty much speaks for at least 2/3 of the record buying public in the UK right now (Rihanna at #1 not withstanding) so you can be aghast all you like but don't be surprised at all. it just seems ridiculous to single one person out in this way - if you are to do this pick a paid pro who has more cause to know better...perhaps in a situation where they can defend their position or learn from what you say (so not on ILM then i guess).

we could make a lot of the same points if the thread wasn't focussed on one person's deluded rant but the nature/future of student press generally and that might be better (but probably useless without actual input from student writers).

Have we all forgotten that university age isn't really especially young?

yes clearly I have forgotten this

but seriously his age isn't the point here.

stevem basically otm

re: Domino indie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_Records

Pretty much, I guess. (Depends on what definition of independent you use. They might still have distribution deals with non-independent labels, for instance.)

Making fun of Westlife is more cliche than "sounds like (insert band name) on acid". If you're going to provide an example, at least have an ounce of originality and pick a band where a comparison to Green Day or Nirvana is in the general vicinity of apt.

why even mention any of those 90S BANDS with so much other stuff going on?

"look at the rubbish typography on this PIZZA FLYER!!!!!!11 rofllz"

http://www.inkycircus.com/jargon/images/lightbulb.jpg

the 'excuse' is that everyone here probably wrote stuff as bad as that at his age

actually as bad? Besides, I'm much more interested in looking at student press in general than pillorying this one poor sap too; I would have no interest in picking apart the blog of a 20-year-old who wrote like a 15-year-old, but I'm just kinda bewildered that this kind of thing could under any circumstance be good enough to be from someone in the role of music editor.

although as PIZZA FLYER has reminded me, I recently saw a poster for a student newspaper which had about ten spelling mistakes on it, so yes, I should stop expecting any kind of standards from them.

Person who has role as student music editor = someone who wanted to write about music, who might not necessarily have tastes outside the mainstream, who might not even be that well-educated about music. Just someone who has a passion for the music they listen to. It would be one thing if music editor were a highly competitive position in the student paper but most likely the kids who are really "into" music are off doing other more specifically music-related things with their spare time.

like joining a radio station and doing actual, meaningful reviews for distribution companies :-D

curtis, stop calling him kid. if he was 8 when cobain offed himself, that means he's older than you.

I know that John, I wasn't calling him "kid" as a term of derision, I call myself "kid" :/

maybe Britishers do things differently

I mean I'm not trying to patronize/insult the guy's intelligence here and say "oh he's just too young!" That's not the point. This thread is set up to pit his article against the broader tradition of "music writing" which I don't think is appropriate for an article someone wrote for a student paper. Though I may be biased in my perceptions because I go to an engineering school where the student paper isn't a reflection of the skills and career goals of the students.

yeah sorry curtis, i'm just seeing the usual uber-geek shit-slinging on display here and getting all defensive. it is an awful fucking article, though.

xpost noodle, aren't you a swans fan?

doing actual, meaningful reviews for distribution companies :-D

Congratulations! (NOW I understand why there's a "sounds like Mansun: 3.5/5" score next to every album)

I'm going to start scanning album spiels at our radio station for Jaggerisms

i don't think the point is how old the dude is - as a student, if i'd read something of that standard/expressing those opinions, i'd have gathered everyone i knew to point and laugh. i like to think i wouldn't have allowed it in the mag when i was editor, but i probably let worse through - so few good writers in uni also willing to hand copy in on time. at his age i was better than this, but not especially good.

the point is that it's really weird and mean-spirited and not a little pathetic for 20-something professionals southall/passantino/scott to spend their days ripping an article in a STUDENT RAG (and a REALLY MINOR ONE at that) to shreds - i mean, what will it be next, a-level essays? i'm especially disappointed in nick, who i'd thought was above this sort of pointlessness.

also, i think writing for the student paper DID actually make me a better writer.

i'm curious how seriously the students themselves take this sort of writing in these papers. surely it can't be seen as that representative, even if they are official papers.

Lex, we must have a good point in ripping the article though, or else you wouldn't have made so many posts to this thread.

about 4? you don't have any point beyond LOL STUDENTZ, though.

Eight.

Wikipedia says...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/OpenDaySpecial.jpg

Another lovely looking campus (an especially nice line in daffodils in the spring), with the occasional dreadful looking building thrown in to stop you getting too cocky - one of them looks like it could be used to breed giraffes in.

In 1997, a new Exeposé logo was designed based on the Carlsberg logo (as shown in the gallery below) and from 1997-2000 the paper proclaimed itself to be 'Probably the Best Student Newspaper in the World'.

Quality of school in not equal to quality of individual shocker!

Most of the best music writers I know went to shitty state schools. Many of them didn't even go to college. When I was in college, I remember reading music articles on UWire that destroyed the community-college-level music writing that I saw coming out of the Ivy Leagues.

lex i have made like 5 posts on this thread and they were on the whole vaguely whimsical points about student papers in general and a couple of crap injokes. i agreed with you that the "attack and dismiss" approach is stupid. i'm not sure why you are attacking me.

This is the BEST piece of music writing ever. Every word is sooooo correct and soooo spot-on.

fake geir

wait never mind I reread the article, possibly not fake geir

its not that his points are necessarily wrong, its just that everything he uses to "prove" his point is stupid

multixpost

Hi John yes I'm a Swans fan, why d'ya ask?

My student newspaper In Utero review and my interview with These Animal Men were way better than this article, oh yes, honest.

Person who has role as student music editor = someone who wanted to write about music, who might not necessarily have tastes outside the mainstream, who might not even be that well-educated about music. Just someone who has a passion for the music they listen to. It would be one thing if music editor were a highly competitive position in the student paper but most likely the kids who are really "into" music are off doing other more specifically music-related things with their spare time.

This is totally OTM. The guy might be putting a load of ideas forward that are completely ass-backwards but he obviously gives a shit about this stuff. I think you do have to sort of be wary of the ILM bubble where the idea of people being really passionate about Feeder or something is the height of absurdity, despite the fact that there are way way more of huge-scare-quotes "them" than of "us".

Another lovely looking campus (an especially nice line in daffodils in the spring), with the occasional dreadful looking building thrown in to stop you getting too cocky - one of them looks like it could be used to breed giraffes in.

Hahaha I had totally forgotten about that! It was k-rub.

I'm pretty sure I read worse music writing by the then Music Editor when I was on Exepose ten years ago. And I'm fairly sure I let worse through when I was editing a different student mag, don't get me started on the Toploader interview I was forced to print.

"So, Toploader, why are you named after an outmoded, inefficient washing machine?"
"We just make music for ourselves, and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus. WESTLIFE SUCK DUDE!"

what is difference between toploader and cornershop

Everything

before i jump in, how is this 175 posts? has the author showed up?

Nah, it just devolved into Sharks vs Jets and some kid got stabbed.

I disagree that student writing is exempt from criticism. One's worldview may not be fully formed by the age of 20, but a journalistic voice should be.

um NO

yeah, some of us would be pretty screwed if that were the case

(zingproofing: YEAH I KNOW i'm screwed anyway)

not just 'some of us' but pretty much all writers one could name. 20 is pretty young! i wrote shitloads when i was a student, some of it was almost as bad as this guy's. it's a shame they have to grow up in public (via the internet) in a way.

Person who has role as student music editor = someone who wanted to write about music, who might not necessarily have tastes outside the mainstream, who might not even be that well-educated about music. Just someone who has a passion for the music they listen to. It would be one thing if music editor were a highly competitive position in the student paper but most likely the kids who are really "into" music are off doing other more specifically music-related things with their spare time.

lol i was that "Person". the mainstream is an illusory category. if your audience is students the mainstream is different than what it is if you're writing for 12-year-olds, or for monied fuck-witted amoral east london twentysomethings.

looking back, ALL positions in the student press were competitive! and the music editor got free cds to hand out, got into gigs for free. i was briefly socially successful at that time. fyi writing about music qualifies as a "specifically music-related thing".

One of the previous music editors at Exepose also worked as a freelance music/gig photographer and promoter in the area; he ran club nights and had exhibitions of his pictures in a local venue, etcetera. My friend Steve (who was doing an MA at the time and writing for the paper - how I got to know the music editor) and I had to convince him that Prince was 'a respectable musician' once, but, you know, he wasn't ignorant, music wasn't a 'passing phase' or something. He was seriously into what he was doing. I'd imagine this guy is too.

Just look at the input on this thread, and ILM / music journalism in general - people who get involved with the music coverage at student papers often end up moving into it as a 'career' (haha @ Alex calling me a 'professional music journalist' - I've earnt a few hundred quid from it at most and never approached a publication with my writing in my life; it's really not my career and I'm not sure how it can be anybody's) in one way or another, whether that's writing or in PR or anything else - for all I know this guy could be doing a business or law degree and end up in the music business that way.

I never got involved in my own student paper music pages because I had an awful first term at university and lost a lot of confidence - I assumed that anybody involved in the paper in any way was going to be a MUCH better writer than I was and that I didn't stand a cat in hell's chance. A few years down the line and yeah, I realise that had I gone for it I'd have been as good as if not better than a lot of othr people, and maybe I'd have been a writer fulltime rather than a library dude with a hobby, but who knows.

I'm not really interested in this guy; I'm certainly not interested in slagging him off (although the idea that he's saying 'major labels are gr8!' and seemingly being courted by them via his band at the same time screams 'conflict of interest'); what I am interested in is the hows and whys of this article; not 'how was it published?' because we've pretty much established that student papers will publish anything (what was the thread a few weeks ago about the NYC student paper and the awful, offensive sexual helath feature), but 'how are these attitudes fostered, why are people thinking this, is this typical, if so, who is it typical of?'

I also think it's quite interesting re; the education system. University's basically a factory that teaches you to absorb and reinterpret data, to analyse and digest and critique and report and synthesise; this guy's a second-going-into-third-year at least, and probably given the average ages of Exeter students and numbers taking years out and so on, 21; why's he not got a more sophisticated approach than 'Westlife bad, Feeder good'? Granted there is an interesting thread in there re; the difficulty of 'writing popular music' and the whole marketing-of-music issue, but if he's doing either arts or business he ought to be more sophisticated in one or both directions.

University's basically a factory that teaches you to absorb and reinterpret data, to analyse and digest and critique and report and synthesise

even if that were true (am unsure), people involved in student journalism are not exactly worker ants! student journalism is what people do instead of going to lectures.

True; given a conversation I had this evening with a mortgage advisor, I think my reasons for going to university were different to most of my contemporaries', and are even more different to people there today.

enrique otm, although sleeping is what we do instead of going to lectures, student journalism happens when we ought to be consolidating our lecture notes later on in the day.

I'm just being idealistic, I guess; I'd like to think that everyone at university is there for the good of their intellect, and everyone writing about music for the student paper is there because they think music is the single most magical and important branch of art we have. Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso being arrested and ending up as (in Gil's case) culture minister thirty years later, rather than Johnny Rotten on Bill Grundy and then on Celebrity Jungle Island Brother Diet Got Talent.

I'd wager they're more interested in getting their own column in The Sun.

Also some might argue that most students these days are trainee thrusting Thatcherkids who don't have time to know about Tropicalia or punk.

You obviously think too highly of our ambitions, Marcello; most students these days are equally divided between getting a good degree and base social networking. There are about 15 Thatcherkids here in total that I've met.

A column in The Sun is definitely sought-after, though, you've nailed that one. Sadly.

Nobody knows how to sub-edit when they're 21, that's why.

a-HEM.

can't see what all the fuss is about here. i mean, yes, it's a shit article. but it's a shit article that matters not one iota of a fuck.

mind, i'm the daft bastard who's revived the thread after two days dormant, so on my head be it ...

The first person I clap eyes on as I bound into The Paradise is the Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox, sporting a natty pair of green leggings and white hi-top trainers. “Ooooh, I'm so glad you're wearing a tracksuit too,” she foghorns at me, as though across a market stall in Bolton, not a fashionable pub/club in trendy west London. “Why are all these people here not wearing tracksuits? Can I dance near you all night?” she asks.

She needn't have worried — just a few minutes later the pub is teeming with party people clad in all manner of nylon and velour leisurewear, not all of them carrying it off quite as well as Cox.

We're here for Tayo's Tracksuit Party, a kitsch celebration of sports casual that has gone down a storm at Snowbombing and the Notting Hill Carnival over the past couple of years. Until now, it's been a very occasional moveable party.

DJ Tayo's idea for the night came out of his own impressive collection of 90 track-suit tops. He now plans to “do it all more properly”, with a party in east London in July, on carnival weekend in August at The Paradise (which will be the party's more regular home) and a further six parties this year.

Tonight's DJs include Felix B from Basement Jaxx and Frank “Dope” Tope, plus Tayo himself, presiding over the night in a dazzling white fleece tracksuit top and white shorts. In truth, I've been a bit anxious about these tracksuit shenanigans. I've heard the parties are brilliant fun but I wake up in a cold sweat having lurid, neon nightmares about my outfit options.

Stretchy sportswear does me no favours at all and I spend the morning trudging around a rainy Brixton, desperately searching for something that doesn't make my backside look the size of Hampshire. It's not to be.

I settle for some new retro adidas trackie bottoms in a forgiving dark colour and team them with my favourite, super-bouncy orange trainers. I dig out a sort of matching adidas zip-up top (bought during a short-lived period of regular gym attendance) and a red-and-white sports visor I found on a beach in Ibiza. I avoid all mirrors as I leave the house. On my Bakerloo line train the other passengers glare at me and check their wallets.

All five rooms of The Paradise are being taken over for tonight's party in polyester (£6 entry) and by 9pm the place is packed. I have a sudden vision of what Lakeside shopping centre must look like on a Saturday afternoon. Although, of course, most of the punters here are professionals in their late twenties and thirties — their trackies usually only get an outing for Pilates or Ashtanga yoga.

In the main room upstairs, the crowd is getting down to old school hip hop and drinking double vodka and tonics (£5.50). It's a sea of sports caps, hotpants, shell suits, fake bling, huge sunglasses and Vanilla Ice dance moves.

At 10.30, Beeny Royston and Jadell (“two blokes with a bit too much time on their hands,” according to Tayo) take to the stage in Hawaiian shirts and Flowerpot Men hats, to do their “Spinal Tap goes hip hop” thing.

The pair, who scored a YouTube hit with their first record, Straight To Video, are ironic rappers, a sort of London-centric Goldie Lookin Chain. They change into towels, shower caps and shaving foam for another song, then into baseball T-shirts and caps. The rest of the crowd and I love them, but my friend John is less than impressed. He loves hip hop and doesn't appreciate it being performed with irony. I, on the other hand, have never understood how it can be performed with a completely straight face.

After more dancing, we head downstairs to what is usually the restaurant, but tonight is the venue for Have A Go Hip Hop Karaoke. The room is heaving and Tayo bravely kicks things off himself, with a valiant performance of Ol' Dirty Bastard's Baby I Got Your Money.

The crowd is whooping, chanting and dancing on tables as the usually sedate restaurant transforms into a scene from Eminem's movie 8 Mile. Tayo introduces the next guy up — Doc Brown, who blows us all away with his Straight Outta Compton. I comment to the girl dancing next to me what a good impression he does of a rapper. It turns out that's because in fact he is a rapper and has been on tour with Mark Ronson recently.

This isn't karaoke. They've all got record deals! I'm a desperate show-off and totally fancy myself as a singer, but I quickly revise my earlier plan to perform Salt-n-Pepa's Push It — no way, José.

We dance on, flitting back and forth between the upstairs and downstairs rooms and bumping into friends as the party gets ever more wild and chaotic. As we slip away sometime around 2am, I realise I never did give my new friend Sara Cox that dance she was after. But last time I caught sight of her, bouncing around to Run DMC, she didn't look like she minded. Next time eh, Coxy?

Who wrote this? Princess Beatrix?

By Jane Mulkerrins, London Lite 30.05.08

She's a Cambridge graduate, which certainly shocked me, because dumb fucking "Hearts of Darkness" pieces about hip-hop clubs by safari-suited white broads are rarely written by Oxbridge types.

oh, rarely?

It's all got a bit Dombot in here.

i like how the first two-thirds of the article is exclusively about wearing tracksuits

What song did you do Dom?

Chorus:
White girls
(Suzie, Janet Karen)
Going through my mind
(Sarah, Jess, and Judy too)
White girls
(Julie, Beth, and Sharon)
Help me unwind
(The more I see, the more I do)
Don't Tell Minister Farrakhan
(That's right)
He don't want to know what's going on
(Okay)
'Cause white girls won't go away

I've had a lot of education
There's one thing I know about, and that's miscegenation

Ticket to ride, white girl highway
Tell all the white girls, they could swing my way
What up, baby girl?, How you doin, is you single?
Have you ever messed, with a light-skinned Mandingo?
And I could give a damn, what all my friends say to me
You and me baby, could start making up for slavery
Girl, I'm just playin', I got a white mom
You got any Black in you?, (No) Would you like some?
Oh word, you like my songs, that be playing on the radio?
Well you know the sincerest, form of flattery's fellatio

I ain't a picky guy, so I really don't care
If you a hippy white chick, who got underarm hair
Or a ghetto white chick, who be trying to act Black
With your name on a chain, and your hair slicked back

You could be from anywhere, Maine down to Malibu
Cross a trailer park, on the way to Park Avenue
See me with a Black girl, you got the wrong man
Or might have just been, a white girl with a tan
And sisters don't get mad, 'cause I'm out banging white chicks
'Cause we all look the same, when you turn off the light switch

See back in the day, I was getting no play
Then I went the white girl way, like O. J.
So you can call on Kato, but I'm sorry O'Shea
'Cause I got my white girl, and everything's okay

(Chorus)

I've, had
Rich ones, poor ones, I even had some famous ones
Like Traci Lords, Houstin, and Jenna Jameson
Right about now, I'm on probation for three years
'Cause I caught a stat case, for having sex with Britney Spears
Getting head in the dressing room, I bust on her chin
Oops (pfff), I did it again

Gweneth Paltrow always said, I be making her laugh
She gave me head 'cause if I hit it, I'd break her in half
She ain't even the only, white actress on my matress
I even had sex with that, fat chick from The Practice
Bang Katie Holmes, who's always trying to take me home
Call me on the phone saying, "Casey make me moan"
Smoking weed in her dressing room, on a higher plane
I hate country music, want to bang Shania Twain

Whether short or tall, whether blonde or brunette
I ain't met a white girl, who I wouldn't do yet
And I got Alyssa Milano, hitting high notes like soprano
When we all up in my bedroom, making some mulattoes
I really don't think, there's a girl that I missed
I used to like Mariah, 'til I learned she was mixed

For those who's getting furious, please don't take me serious
I'm just wil'in out, like Eddie Murphy in "Delirious"
But if you took offense, and you're Black or you're white
I'm glad you did sucker, 'cause you way too uptight

(Chorus)

It's a sea of sports caps, hotpants, shell suits, fake bling, huge sunglasses and Vanilla Ice dance moves.

Sounds great. Fake bling: lol black people!

Jane Mulkerrins was formerly drummer for the rock group Cocorosie

That Nick Sylvester Pitchfork Weezer review/outburst/eruption from a few years ago remains one of the worst pieces of music writing I've ever read.

Coxy? What is this, Tarby's Golfy Diary?

(oho, on the green with Ademy, Drewy, Kieran Hebdeny and Tuungy etc.)

Along with the White Girls vid is another one by 'Black Jesus' called 'What it smell like'.

Seems Tim Burgess of The Charlatans has got a gig as a columnist for the Independent's music section. And fuck me, this is *horrible*:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/music-magazine/music-magazine-features/introducing-tim-burgess-840139.html

Their live set consist of songs containing lyrics such as, 'I can't hear what you're saying.' and I think the line 'I must kill you' sums up a lot, and the enthralling song 'We Don't Need Your Honesty' with the chorus shouting the word repetition over and over, then coupled with television.

They are fast learners, and even better leaders. They get it right. Guess Electricity In Our Homes truly are vintage classic in the finest sense. They are the new Post Punk renaissance

That is puzzling in every way. Has it deliberately not been proofread?

I've never seen a published piece of writing with so many grammatical errors.

Reads like a wind-up, to be honest.

When I first read it I thought it must be some kind of piss-take, given the number of mistakes. I love the way that he drops in that Electricity In Our Homes will be supporting The Charlatans, and that their "Charlie Moderate" is also his "dj partner". No vested interest there, then.

Technically, as in using languages, checking facts etc. it is useless.

The message is correct though. :)

hiring tim burgess is such an independent-y thing to do: a bit like having dom joly as columnist. there can't be many people out there who'll buy a paper because tim burgess has a slot.

Haha OTM.

Tim Burgess writing in the manner of a 16 year old asked to write school report on pop music there.

I'm kind of assuming this is a wind-up, when the papers get David James or Rio Ferdinand to do a column they at least get a journalist in to actually write it. I know the Indy is on a tight budget but that would be ridiculous.

I can't imagine any 45-year-old Indy reader feeling remotely nostalgic, or feeling anything at all, about the Charlatans, Madchester's very own Swinging Blue Jeans, The.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-05-06/music/kill-yourself-if-you-listen-to-classic-rock/

^^^unbelievably terrible. let's challenge received wisdom with... a different kind of received wisdom! urgh fuck you

Surprised you read an article in the Weekly.

I don't have anything to read at the moment (a rarity, but I am poor and haven't been to any bookstores lately)

Libraries are friends to the poor!

You know, the big problem with it is this:

probably every other person sharing your Wi-Fi connection at the coffeeshop right now knows the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long," but how many can sing along with a single song by My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal, or any of the other best rock artists of our era?

This is like being in the 60s and going "Yeah, the Rolling Stones are good, but why arent you listening to the Fugs and the Godz and Terry Riley?

Our shitty generation is doing JUST FINE adding to the shitty classic rock canon thanks to Foo Fighters, Bush, Stone Temple Toilets, Sublime, The Chili Peppers, Incubus and 1,000 other bands that OUR shitty kids are gonna know still all the words to 25 years from now.

Dude is getting his strawmen mixed up. The same people that have

dinner parties where the hosts put Heart on the stereo

Stone Temple Toilets

you did not

i can think of a few ilxors past and present who would agree with the notion of you should kill yourself if you listen to classic rock.

I don't listen to the radio at all (much less classic rock radio) so its not like I took this personally or anything but the piece is just such a mess of unfounded assumptions and misdirected anger the only person it made me want to kill was the writer. Like, does he really have that much of a problem with his parents and their record collections? grow the fuck up

to take one minor example, the central problem with classic rock acts still filling arenas isn't that they're classic rock, its that arena shows BY THEIR VERY NATURE suck shit. Its not like I want to see any of my favorite bands in an arena...

I know this guy has been ref'd on ilx before because I went to his blog and have seen his article on fruitcake before.

article blog post

My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal are all classic rock

You know, the big problem with it is this:

probably every other person sharing your Wi-Fi connection at the coffeeshop right now knows the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long," but how many can sing along with a single song by My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom, Of Montreal, or any of the other best rock artists of our era

Pretty sure there aren't four existing 'rock artists' he could have mentioned instead to prevent his article from being spectacularly retarded

Is the strawman here even prevalent enough to write an article about? The vast majority of people I speak to or hand with or whatever are in their 20s or 30s and I don't think any of them listen to classic rock exclusively

hand = hang

Pretty sure there aren't four existing 'rock artists' he could have mentioned instead to prevent his article from being spectacularly retarded

True enough, especially since he doesn't provide any sort of rationale as to why they are "the best" -- apart from "because I say so." And considering most of the article rests on the argument "because I say so," he comes off sounding like a petulant teenager.

this guy is a teenager, right?

xp Shakey: Thanks for posting this ... I read the article yesterday and immediately felt that it deserved a place on this thread.

http://www.myspace.com/morbidund

right?

Music: White Lion, Elzhi, Black Milk, RA The Rugged Man, White Rabbits, Bill Callahan, El-P, Avril, Replacements, DJ Khaled, MC 401(k), Brother Ali, Kanye West, 50 Cent, John Maxfield, The Long Winters, Band of Horses, The Streets, Ghostface, DJ Crucial, Serengeti, MC Paul Barman, The Frozen Food Section

xp omar: I think you found him. What I want to know, and one of the things that makes me dislike the SF Weekly, is why they are paying a bunch of non-local music writers, when the SF Bay Area has plenty of music writers? Is this a corporate thing? By that I mean, is this New Jersey dude and the other non-local music writers who write for the SF Weekly part of a New Times/Village Voice stable?

Each music editor in the VVM/NT chain is pretty much free to put together his/her own stable of music writers -- at least that was my experience.

"Is this a corporate thing?"

Yes.

I mean in so far as I don't think that VVM/NT has a particularly loyalty to the idea of using local writers for media (or for that mannner anything else.)

And in this case it looks like this dude writes for all the Weeklies. There are links to LA and OC Weekly articles on that Myspace page.

xp Alex: That's what I've noticed ... he's not the only NJ/NY dude that writes for other chain papers that the Weekly has writing for them now.

yeah it's pretty horrific to think that not only have papers like the village voice, la weekly, and others in the vvm stable completely turned to shit, but they all employ the same bullshit writers.

Yeah I'm not saying that they should be loyal to that idea. The problem here isn't that this guy lives in NJ. It's that the article(s) he wrote is crappy. I'm fine with getting the best writer who live wherever to write your music pieces.

xp Alex: but that crappitude is stock in trade for the SF Weekly. A friend of mine used to write for them ... and he said that for articles there was a common format, as he explained it, one either writes about "This thing you thought was good? It's really bad." or "This thing you thought was evil? It actually is good."

Yeah I don't read the Weekly and basically I never have (I used to a little when Phil Sherburne used to write for them). I don't read the music section in the Guardian either though.

they all employ the same bullshit writers

:-/

I give both at least cursory skims. I usually read at least one or two things in the Guardian, Kimberly Chun's column, and there's usually a show preview for someone interesting.

I think the answer to the thread's question is yes, this is the worst piece of music writing ever.

well, there are diamonds in the rough, ned ; D

oh come on now guys, it's bad but not that bad

The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.

We was sittin’ there watchin’ the stage. Waitin’ for the man they called Coltrane to come out and do his thing. It was me and my four droogs. Them bein’ Peter, Georgio and Dim; Dim being really Dim.

‘Round an hour’d passed and the place was packed straight through to the back. I’d just dropped some dollars for ‘Trane’s Giant Steps six months back. Now was the time, this was the place. The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.

I was only there for the first night, see, but them cats at Impulse! just made my life complete. They put out four CDs of all that sound ‘Trane put out those nights. But you know my type, man. Can’t afford to eat, let alone spend some heavy cash on music. So I only got the essential. Live at the Village Vanguard: The Master Takes is one disc, makin’ it one-fourth the cost of the box set. And you only get the best stuff.

Man, the opening beauty of “Spiritual…” It’s like a dream I had: I floated on the River Nile, smokin’ some fresh weed, relaxin’. But I ain’t ever gonna see the Nile anyhow. This track’s as close as I come, and it’s close enough. Best of the best, though, has gotta be “India.” It’s only when you listen to a perfect old jazz tune like this that you realize how much drum-n-bass is derived from this music. ‘Trane takes it to heaven and back with some style, man. Some richness, daddy. It’s a sad thing his life was cut short by them jaws o’ death.

Shit, cat. It don’t make a difference. The man produced enough good music to last me a lifetime. This Village Vanguard thing’s just another example of the genius of Coltrane.

easy target i know

I give both at least cursory skims. I usually read at least one or two things in the Guardian, Kimberly Chun's column, and there's usually a show preview for someone interesting.

Guardian's definitely better, I like Chun a lot. (didn't she just get laid off tho?)

xp Shakey: I saw her a couple nights ago and she was talking about an article she was working on ... but I heard that rumor somewhere, too.

This is actually an excellent article, making some very valuable and very correct points.

but Geir the Beatles are "classic rock"

xp Oops I just accidently Permalinked you Geir. Sorry about that.

LMFAO

The same people that have dinner parties where the hosts put Heart on the stereo have 90 shitty contempory bands they like too. Who do you think is buying all the Coldplay records?

A few points: I assume there are several millions Coldplay fans who have never had any use for Heart at all; I don't know what Coldplay and Heart have in common in the first place (one was a great hard rock band, one wasn't); I've never been to a dinner party where Heart was played in my life; and though I never thought of it before, I think it might be kind of neat if somebody did play Heart at a one (especially if they put on Bebe Le Strange or Jupiters Darling, neither of which get played on classic rock radio much either, I don't think.)

Actually, if the food and company was good, they could even play Coldplay, for all I care. Hell, it's their party. They should play whatever they want.

Now I was speaking of the original article.

Classic rock is the canon is good. Of course.

(But nothing wrong about checking out new stuff - as long as it sounds like the old stuff)

Right, I've killed myself. Now what?

Now you get to listen to My Morning Jacket!

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/images/Parchment%20and%20Pen/Ruth%20Tucker/Hell.gif

Nothing wrong about My Morning Jacket, although Flaming Lips do roughly the same thing better :)

you'll have to pry my jethro tull records from my cold, dead hands

Joanna Newsom is like Jethro Tull only NOW, man.

Jethro Newsom - Aquaharp

i really hope the author can explain how all those bomb throwing radical generation rock terrorists of the 60s spent most of their time obsessing over blues and folk records recorded in the 20s and 30s

^^

See, the problem I have with the original article is that he makes some stupid mistakes in spelling, grammar, and music knowledge.

'...who can quite frankly can screw themselves..." <---- no Editor, even a Uni newpaper twerp, should make such a horrific mistake.

'Greenday' <-----you fucking kidding me?

In terms of music knowledge, the guy who wrote this is obviously retarded.

I really hope the author can make peace with his parents ... he seems to have issues.

^^^for realz. this is the first thing I thought of too. Like, does he not realize that the entire concept of generational-warfare-via-pop-culture was developed by, um, the baby boomers?

I was just envisioning some chick he was interested in flirting with his dad instead.

a new challenger?

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=406425

was unable to read that.

shredded moose morelike

At first, chords were enough: to simply hammer, as John Lennon did, a chord, a root, a seventh, a sixth - anything.

listen to some fucking charlie christian, arsehole.

hendrix as phallic, clapton as anal

It might be noticed that I mention only English guitarists,

Ran. Screaming.

was going to post that hendrix-clapton line but thought it would be unfair to inflict it on anyone who hadn't already read it. An image that will haunt the rest of my days.

"There is hardly one classic electric guitarist to have come from America. Blues, jazz, country, etc, indeed - and they have mastered the art of the Paganinistic solo in grand masters such as Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. But these are not guitarists with the right spirit, able to serve and transcend music at the same time."

No way, you did not just say that.

lol

i like how he claims hendrix as an english guitarist just for the hell of it

surprised to find the guy is only 36, assumed he was some nostalgic baby-boomer.

Why is there so much music writing on the internet that's like 20 paragraph think pieces? Who is reading all of this?

some people think the point of not having an editor is not editing themselves?

this piece was in the tls though rite? which is pretty respectable (or used to be).

was responding to Whiney's question about "writing on the internet," not talking about that piece

Off piste: A fortnightly series in which academics step outside their area of expertise

not the tls, the times higher - used to be part of the same stable but less culture and lit-crit, more news and features about university funding, admin, jobs etc. they run a weekly column where an academic writes about a subject outside his specialty.

xpost

It is in England that an odd mixture of pluck, determination and ignorance came to fruition between 1960 and 1970. There is no guitarist worth listening to who started playing after that time: the inauthenticity is too evident.

James Alexander teaches Hongroic theory at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.

I vaguely recall posting something like this before but is this kind of application of confidence broadly thought of as a positive thing? Like the idea of writing the two sentences I quoted above when I couldn't possibly have the knowledge to back them up just seems, to me, like such a weird and alien thing to do

I vaguely recall posting something like this before but is this kind of application of confidence broadly thought of as a positive thing?

i think it is by editors. as i've gotten older and read more, i find myself reading papers/magazines and just knowing they're fronting half the time. but i think that appeals to editors and maybe readers. same way tanya gold gets published i guess.

This dude and the guy who wrote the anti-classic rock piece should have to live together. It could be one of those abject generational comedies.

But the tutored geniuses of later decades, who imitated these faster models, achieved the ultimate Aufhebung of the electric guitar, a sort of apotheosis by way of auto-da-fe whereby the blistering solo became so effortless that it was turned into a form of mechanical blandness, mere empty virtuosity.

this sentence is where i started to assume the whole thing was a prank.

Because of the turn of phrase? What he's saying is... not something I'd get behind much but not all that insane or challopy either

compared to almost every other paragraph he's written

not the sentiment, just because of "the ultimate Aufhebung of the electric guitar" etc.

"Why is there so much music writing on the internet that's like 20 paragraph think pieces? Who is reading all of this?"

sorry, wait, what, where?

NME capsule review finds new depth to plummet to: http://www.nme.com/reviews/sam-isaac/10733

I thought it was pretty lol

For anyone who is interested, Sam Isaac's album, 'Bears' is a refreshing, honest, album of melodic indie-pop, with songs written with conviction and passion

What a disaster for fans of refreshing, honest, melodic indie-pop, with songs written with conviction and passion

^^^LOL

"I had become Passantino"

that was fantastic.

His line of “what you think I rap for/to push a fuckin’ Rav4” was both hilarious and truthful

lmao

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/111082-jay-z-the-blueprint-3/

wouldn't call this the worst ever but lots of unintentional lols

pedantic maybe, but:

"His debut, Reasonable Doubt, was easily one of the 1990s’ best albums, hip-hop or otherwise, and it featured some of the best producers and rappers of our time."

rappers plural, as in besides Biggie? either dude is being generous to Foxy or we've found the world's only Sauce Money stan.

hahaha

dying

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-08-06/music/lift-every-voice/

http://thedailycrazy.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/orville1.jpg

these people should be quarantined from society

In 1992, Springsteen seemed irrelevant because he was outflanked by both rhythm and noise, by PE on the left and Nirvana on the white.

taken as a whole that Bruce piece is over the top but there are a couple paragraph that on their own are pretty killer.

not Keith's best piece, but also FAR from the worst ever. (whatever happened to Keith anyhow?)

OK, what the hell's wrong with this review? I agree with almost all of it.

bit overcooked i guess, but i like it! the 'every sentence must have some pow pow pow trickery' style of writing has kind of waned hasn't it.

I just thought it was petty and smug. Plus, sprinkling song titles and lyrics into a review is a pet peeve of mine. This review always comes to mind when I think of a particular kind of criticism that leaves me more annoyed than informed. Maybe this is personal and not Harris's fault, but it reminds me of the whole era of sarcasm and naivite that led folks to say that Bush and Gore were the same, and a Simpsons and Seinfeld world where if you're not making a joke you are a joke.

And if gospel music and 9/11 and Springsteen aren't sacred cows, than I assume Keith Harris doesn't see himself as one either. I've liked other reviews of his, as well as his show recommendations in City PAges.

The first graf is right-on and far from smug.

September 11 affected us all in different ways, and the way it affected Bruce Springsteen was this—as the second tower toppled from the sky, he was plunged into a world of eternal vagueness.

That's not smug?

no

No.

it's funny! probably the funniest thing you could say about 9/11 and bruce springsteen

If anything, he implies that Springsteen's the smug one for responding to 9-11 with an album's worth of platitudes.

i don't disagree w/ Eazy's general drift, but there are much much worse examples and practitioners of that style imo

I mean, gospel music is almost always more symbolic and allegorical than concrete and specific. "We Shall Overcome" works on specific occasions, but it doesn't document the surface of those occasions.

Definitely there are worse examples out there. This one pissed me off more than any other, though no more than he seemed to feel about The Rising.

And I'm no big fan of unmelodic Tom Joad and Rising Springsteen songs, though I think "The Rising" itself is about as good a Springsteen song as there is. Telling a song from the point of view from a fireman in the first tower, but telling it in a way that someone could sing it and make it their own, and telling it in a way that doesn't permanently ground it in 2002, is quite a fear.

I'm afraid of it too.

A feat, a feat!

in that review keith seems to just KNOW things that he can't possibly know, i.e. the post-9/11 Springsteen is vague because, like the Democratic party, he doesn't want to alienate anyone. really?

The Rising argues, implicitly but unmistakably, that in a time of crisis we should shrug off our individual concerns in the interest of "healing." Sound familiar?

That's not to equate the heartfelt pieties of one of rock's most decent millionaires with the demands for unanimity launched by those gutting the Fourth Amendment.

except actually it is. cake = had and eaten! and nice job getting the "millionaire" reference in there dude

FEAR THE BOSS! FEAR HIM, I SAY!

xp

also his first instinct that "if 9/11 hadn't existed bruce would have had to invent it" is a snide aphorism was the right one; it's a risible thing to say

it's also funny as hell.

Sometimes critics use albums as an excuse to write zingers – wow!

And sometimes non-critics use critics to encapsulate the shortcoming of a particular era -- no harm done to anyone.

(Not critics in general -- specific reviews.)

suggesting that Bruce Springsteen actually welcomes national tragedy because it will boost his own "relevance" is funny as hell??

http://culturekitchen.com/files/images/web_Lee_Greenwood.jpg

i just deleted like four bruce live albums off my ipod last night, i think i'm getting defensive because of my guilt - sorry bruce

suggesting that Bruce Springsteen actually welcomes national tragedy because it will boost his own "relevance" is funny as hell??

no, it isn't. but suggesting that "If there hadn't been a September 11, Bruce Springsteen would have had to invent one." is, imho.

c'mon RI-I-I-I-I-I-I-SE UP. RI-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-SE UP.

just you wait til i fetch my Cain, you.

what would we do without music critics--how would anyone ever understand music

by abusing copious amounts of illegal substances, natch.

haha @ the rapreviews.com writer eventually outing himself as an animal collective stan and comparing merriweather post pavilion to veckatimest

uhhhh i first read that as "rape reviews" and then as "ra previews" pls let's pretend this says nothing about me except that i'm about four deep.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/newsfocus/article.html?Straight_Edge_is_no_sex,_no_drugs,_just_rock_and_roll&in_article_id=741802&in_page_id=65

This is from today's Metro and actually worse than the URL would lead you to expect

I like that they transcribe the guy's t-shirt as "Party F******g Sober!" and then run a photo of the whole fucking thing right below that.

SleeveNotes: Tim Jonze:

It's not every day you get to compare Sugababes to the band who wrote Nazi Punks Fuck Off. But this week the pop trio followed in the footsteps of extreme metal terrorists Napalm Death by soldiering on, despite the fact that, since Keisha Buchanan's departure on Monday, their lineup now has zero original members.

OK, what's wrong with the above?

Article on Creed in Slate today. Reads utterly incoherent to me and I'm not sure that it's not a joke, but it seems sincere enough I guess.

I'd hardly say its incoherent save for

"Higher" might turn out to be the nu-grunge "Don't Stop Believing": dismissed by cognoscenti on arrival as bludgeoning and gauche but destined for rehabilitation down the road as a triumphant slab of ersatz inspirationalism.

ersatz?

inigo_montoya.jpg

Oh just go for the clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

That article was fine. It was of a piece with Slate's baffling obsession with contrarianism and revisionism. It was a decent read.

It was a great read, except it would have read EXACTLY the same if it was on The Onion.

derivative blowhards with a self-righteous Christian agenda

i like how he describes in 8 words why no one likes creed and then spends 5 paragraphs defending creed.

I'm a sucker for a thoughtfully contrarian essay, so this worked.

Then you remembered the sex tape with Kid Rock and came to your senses.

I can share Brett Michaels' own tape with you.

Why is Creed "good" and "underrated"?

1. They write "first-rate schlock-rock."
2. "In his lyrics, Stapp is a well-meaning, Bible-fluent doofus, easy to chuckle at"
3. Stapp's stage presence is "obnoxiously anachronistic"
4. "Higher" is "a triumphant slab of ersatz inspirationalism"
5. "Tremonti was a brutally effective guitarist"

It's like he couldn't even take his own argument seriously. His defense is pretty backhanded.

the bar is pretty low for good music writing tbh

Why is Creed good? Cuz they write shit songs with bad lyrics and their frontman is irritating. THAT'S WHY!

Wait, it's that they're ersatz good.

the slate thing is just a space-filler, but its hardly terrible. or terribly written anyway. dunno if it was worth the effort...

what IS worth the effort these days? where's the good writing thread? i haven't read anything good in a dog's age. somebody must have written something good this year about music.

you don't need space-filler on the internet. it's not like a newspaper or magazine where you have to fill space; you choose how much of the theoretically infinite space of the internet you want to use.

but even internet newsmags have, um, theoretical space limits and such, no? they have sections. they need to fill a section. they need product, basically. same as a regular magazine.

that's probably because old people run it

it's the internet just throw up whatever

in case anyone was wondering why they ran that article, its because it gets forwarded around the internet and posted on message boards like this, and then people go to the site and some of them click on the ads, and then slate gets money, and pays its writers

Thanks for explaining the internet Max, you are a hero.

it's the internet just throw up, whatever (xxp)

np jon seemed like there was some confusion on this thread vis-a-vis the article, and why slate would publish something that wasnt particularly insightful but was contrarian enough that people seem to want to tell everyone about it

it's about as contrarian as a cannned ham.

cannnnnned ham

"utterly incoherent to me and I'm not sure that it's not a joke, but it seems sincere enough I guess."

Ha! sums up my feelings re: Creed and maybe Rammstein and Rush. Maybe ICP and Burial, too.
What groups are like that for you guys?

To compare Creed and ICP to Rush is sacrilege.

Bill Magill OTM. Faygo & Seminars>>>>>>>>Ayn Rand.

which awful alt-weekly cover story essay on jay-z is worse??

http://www.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=19159
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/old-bull/Content?oid=2473786

jk the stranger one is ugh but the cp one is http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/lvl.gif

He is Gen-Why's Crack Cobain, in their search for a new musical Nirvana.

man i fuckin hate wordplay

it's about as contrarian as a cannned ham.

What about scrapple?

city paper joint is the worst piece of rap writing i've read this year

RIP al shipley circa 2008 getting space to rightfully shit on 'american gangster'

He may be getting old, but this album is a warning flare to the world that he could do this shit forever.

like, i don't even know where to start

haha i still get space i just wouldn't use it to shit on nu-jay more than once

"Jay may be the Magna Carter (though they aren't related, both men share similar surnames) but Weezy smells succession"

similar?

He is "literally" carrying hip hop on his back.

"And we are in the age of Obamica now; if a black man can become president of the United States, then a wicked jump shot or slinging crack rocks—as the greatest rapper of all time, the late Christopher Wallace once suggested—is not the only way out of the hood. The looming shadow of the big baller/shot caller has not disappeared completely, but it's getting smaller."

This paragraph is literally burning my eyeballs. My head is literally going to explode. Figuratively speaking, this is a terribly written piece.

btw that goof jonah weiner who wrote that article on Creed has a 'conceptual' rap group:
http://www.myspace.com/spiderfangz

haha the way nick sylvester constantly posted about 'spiderfang' on his blog i thought it was just some bullshit he made up himself

Ghostface Killer (Tony Starks)

ohhh, he means Tony Starks

honestly the predictable contrarianism of that creed article is so obnoxious to me for some reason ... like yes, we get it, all music isnt that bad when its not on the radio all the time

i just hate the idea that dude was like, "oooh creed catalogue torrent ... maybe ill make a hundred bucks in slate cash off a half assed review of this that SHOCKS MUSIC FAN SENSIBILITIES"

So hold on, is Weiner now Slate's official pop critic?

http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&qp=43219

Jeez, that's f'n depressing...

they were going to hire me and give me free reign to write about Wilco every week, but the deal fell through at the last minute.

they went for second best.

If I ever got a chance to interview Jay, I

so sad that this sentence occurs in a cover story on the guy

isn't a covery story

er cover story

no it's not very cover-y at all

haha xp

ya i assumed it was from deej's "which awful alt-weekly cover story essay on jay-z is worse??" but i guess you'd know better

Is It OK To Like Chris Brown's New Single?
What to do when a bad person makes a good song.

Creed Is Good
Scott Stapp's nu-grunge foursome was seriously underrated.

Can Miley Cyrus Save Health Care Reform?
The pop starlet's new single is great, goofy—and bipartisan!—fun.

The Last Sellouts
Pearl Jam's brilliant new single, brought to you by Target.

Over the Hump
The Black Eyed Peas' inescapable, incoherent, irresistible new song.

Was Limp Bizkit Really That Bad?
Why the most hated band ever deserves another listen.

Ladies! I Can't Hear You! No, Really, I Can't Hear You!
Where did all the female rappers go?

Lil Wayne and the Afronaut Invasion
Why have so many black musicians been obsessed with outer space?

The Cure for the Common Coldplay
The band's surprising new album.

Impressive corpus.

You missed this one:

Unbearable Whiteness
That queasy feeling you get when watching a Wes Anderson movie.

Slate's new challops column.

: /

My new Slate column: "Received Contrarianism"

Is the rest of Slate any good? I rarely read it.

Varies wildly from writer to writer, but I'd say overall it's gotten worse over the years.

holy shit, that city paper story takes the fucking cake - easily the worst thing I've read this year

Craziest thing about the CP story is that it's not by some dumb young kid:

http://www.nathanielturner.com/baltimoreoratorbarrymichaelcooper.htm

:O

Totally thought that was written by a college kid.

Every single one of this guy's article titles outdoes most of the #slatepitches responses.

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23slatepitches

Yeah, you can't out-Slate Slate...

from city pages in mpls, steely dan concert review:

http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2009/11/steely_dan_at_t.php

I imagined myself in a wood-paneled basement rec room party with Chicago and the Pat Metheny Group.
would go to that party.

City Pages, RIP.

I don't think that's a badly written piece at all

lol i thought of a slatepitch this morning... what was it

ugh, that Dan piece. being a middle aged loner with no taste and a clear disdain for people more successful than you is NAGL. it would help if she at least learned to write a serviceable punchline

i just hate that smug failure to try to even engage with something, just recycling lazy "zings" about something you clearly don't even really understand

yup

oh I don't agree with her at all and think her succession of lazy zings are very revealing about her own very funny and fairly arbitrary insecurities but I don't think its badly written per se. its kinda funny.

she would make a perfect subject for a Becker/Fagan song lolz

not really--how fucking old are these jokes at this point? cocaine! wine coolers! parents are old! lol!

there are (perhaps unintentional?) lolz at the fact that she stresses how HER parents wouldn't be here, just YOUR parents. whoah, judgmental much...

also hey who has issues about being 30yo and unmarried and clinging to juvenile aesthetic positions derived from received wisdom

but mostly she just hates nerds!

http://www.city-data.com/forum/members/bs13690-83559-albums-random-pics-pic43266-nerds-ogre.jpg

having a downtown condo and drinking chardonnay sounds tite imo

Starbucks wasn't hiring, huh?

the best thing about the steely dan thing was when i clicked to the second page and there were pictures of john d. and donald fagen both singing with their heads held high. wanna hear that duet!

oh wait its on the first page too.

pwned

matos, come home.

oh I don't agree with her at all and think her succession of lazy zings are very revealing about her own very funny and fairly arbitrary insecurities but I don't think its badly written per se. its kinda funny.

― I forgot my mantra (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, November 9, 2009 4:13 PM (50 minutes ago)

ok but the entire glue of her piece is supposed to be this wit she brings - if we agree she can't write a punchline and goes for only the laziest of zings, what's of value? was there any insight you gained?

so tempted to RAMPAGE THOSE COMMENTS, but, why

City Pages, RIP.

― uninspired girls rejoice!!! (Hoot Smalley), Monday, November 9, 2009 2:35 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

^^ this ain't no shit btw

goole do you even do stuff for them anymore?

the insight i gained is she needs an editor: "I have to say it's a pretty brilliant concept to feature entire album on tour." if you're gonna do a disreview your writing should at least be clean, especially at your zing-a-sentence ending there

Sorry, but my mom tells better jokes and has more insight than this critic.

was there any insight you gained?

main insight is that the writer is neurotic. I def. didn't learn anything about the music haha

What is the ridiculous strawman that Steely Dan fans think that Dan music is somehow the apotheosis of jazz fused with rock?

I will say that while I thought her writing was horrible, the gig she described sounded great!

I see wine coolers at the Publix every visit and always wonder who the hell buys them in 2009.

lol @ shakey's halfhearted backhanded defense of this awful piece

jk i havent even read the piece

oh, right: Becker-Fagen groupies buy wine coolers.

is this piece online only? i know the alt weekly in my city is under huge pressure to just churn out content constantly for the web these days, so "editing" is kinda a thing of the past. Gotta get those click throughs y'all!
also, i don't think I've ever had a wine cooler. are they tasty? are they like the steely dan of beverages?

It's not that the piece is really AWFUL as much as it's just really, really stupid; you get a sense that the author is WAY more of a douchebag poser twit than the people she's criticizing for SHOCK HORROR having fun at a Steely Dan concert

Wine coolers are awesome until you turn 19

Like life.

:'(

goole do you even do stuff for them anymore?

― The looming shadow of the big baller/shot caller (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, November 9, 2009 4:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

naw my relationship was entirely w/ s4r4h 4sk4ri. they canned her for reasons that are probably unrelated to running the kind of shit i wrote, heh. the new crowd there is, from what i know, wholly imported from reveille, but i don't really pay any attention anymore.

y'all are sadly OTM re wine coolers and life

so tempted to drop the "john d. hearts the dan" bomb in comments there...

It's not that the piece is really AWFUL as much as it's just really, really stupid; you get a sense that the author is WAY more of a douchebag poser twit than the people she's criticizing for SHOCK HORROR having fun at a Steely Dan concert

this pretty much says it all. I don't really think its poorly written - not as poorly written as, say, that Nick Sylvester hipster runoff piece . There's stuff published that is borderline incomprehensible AND offensive from start to finish, but this piece is not like that.

other things I learned about the writer from this article - she approves of weed smoking and enjoys it, but feels guilty and self-conscious about it

That's how she feels about her parents.

hey dan i don't think the [ital] tags work the same way over there ;)

oh dammit, this website has ruined me

Are you drinking wine coolers?

Do I look 19?????? (plz say yes)

other things I learned about the writer from this article - she approves of weed smoking and enjoys it, but feels guilty and self-conscious about it

― I forgot my mantra (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, November 9, 2009 5:26 PM (23 seconds ago)

probably because she's seventeen and her mom might be reading

ok fuck it I'm going in

i think i wrote a review or maybe two for that paper once? but i can't remember who asked me to. it wasn't matos.

melissa maerz?

dylan hicks? i think that's who it was.

i wrote something for someone named melissa in seattle once.

lol who is 'tasty lixx'

:D

i think i got the purdie shuffle detail wrong but w/e

dasty hixx

Donald Fagen says:

As a founding member of The Dan, I say though square we may be, squared is what we are. Our brand of jazz-rock-fusion-core is crucial to the 31-59 age demographic. Every year thousands of new danfans give in to the jazzgasms we provide. If you dont like jazzgasms then we dont want you at our squarefair. Simple as that.

!

i'm just now entertaining the possibility that that is the ACTUAL donald fagen

lol

<3

hope so

haha i'm 90 percent sure i know who "donald fagan" is

lololol

Donald Fagen says:

This is the kind of internet posturing that we, Steely Dan, appreciate the most of our fans. This dedicated sense of giving a shit proves that we, Steely Dan, matter in this come and go world we call Earth. In 1972 Walter Becker and I wrote a song called Do It Again and let me tell you Steely Dan is indeed Doing It Again.

Donald Fagen
Steely Dan
Posted On: Monday, Nov. 9 2009 @ 10:59PM

Damn, the comments on that Dan review are merciless and well-deserved.

http://www.chartrigger.blogspot.com/

This whole site.

Was waiting for that to appear.

"Meanwhile, Taylor Swift has set a Billboard Hot 100 record by debuting five songs from her Platinum Edition re-release of Fearless in the Top 30, led by "Jump Then Fall" at #10. Interrupt that, Kanye West."

Wow, Kanye got told.

That reads like copy from "The 10" on E!

http://www.chartrigger.blogspot.com/

This whole site.

that deserves to be called "writing" as much as the words on the back of a packet of toilet cleaner

Little can top Duff McKagan at the Seattle Weekly.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2009/09/real-jim-anchower-to-understand-this.html

Now before one sez consider the source, think about mental gymnastic practiced every week by editors and copy editors allowing him into print. That's actually worse than the finished product.

in the grand scheme of things, this is not the worst article ever. sportswriters writing about music is almost always gold though

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/296438-top-4-thanksgiving-halftime-shows-that-made-the-gravy-go-bad/page/2

paul shirley on espn.com is great for this too

Wow.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-12-03/music/why-do-hot-chicks-always-play-bass-and-why-do-i-love-them-so

Come back, Masonic Boom, all is forgiven

I'm gonna go donate $250 to the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls just for accidentally giving that article traffic.

was hoping the byline on that would be Ted Mosby

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/columnists/2009/12/10/not-frightfully-a-muse-d-after-being-caught-out-by-s-club-7-91466-25358932/

“This is it!” I thought. “Music that roars with ancient beauty in the electricity age!” Was this a new work by a Montreal band with a knack for avant garde orchestral exploration?

http://www.thelefthandpath.com/lefthandpath/index.cfm/event/read/entry/High_on_Fire_Snakes_for_the_Divine

in the grand scheme of things, this is not the worst article ever. sportswriters writing about music is almost always gold though

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/296438-top-4-thanksgiving-halftime-shows-that-made-the-gravy-go-bad/page/2

― we be emi robin' (k3vin k.), Thursday, November 26, 2009 5:24 PM Bookmark