The Mountain Goats

i buy that a lot of internet music (and other) writing tends to come across as... show-offy, in some way. and maybe even a fair amount of music writing in print.

but surm it baffles me that you could think of the new yorker as show-offy in that same way! the magazines tone is so, um, even, or level--i dont understand how you could read it and think that its writers come off as trying to show off how smart they are!

It wouldn't be as annoying if the people doing it were all amazing writers, but since they aren't (and particularly since the nu-media revolution heavily promotes quantity of pieces over quality of pieces), well... you basically have The Legacy Of Pitchfork laid out for you, where people think it's valid to criticize a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans with biographical information about both that shows pretty clearly why the fan latched onto the artist because the author didn't spend enough time deconstructing the entirety of the artist's fanbase.

although that isn't even fair, this has been going on way longer than Pitchfork has been around (see: Simon Reynolds)

j0hn needs to hook up with winona and be like IN YOUR FACE GAWKER LOSER

otm

max i think i need to delve into it again now that ryan got us a subscription. haven't read it in a while, so i'm probably way off.

you might be thinking of people who read the new yorker and feel the need to show off how smart they are? see also: the economist.

If you keep a New Yorker on your coffee table, Surm, visitors to your home will assume you're Cultured.

I keep mine there because it saves money on coasters.

i generally don't have a huge problem with the new yorker (though i think the cartooning sucks, have virtually no use for the event listings etc, i can still usually find one or two things to read & enjoy per issue) i DO have a problem with people who read/carry/use the new yorker as a way of showing off how smart they are. xpxpxpxp otm

HI DERE: I think you would have a good point except that it's not really "a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans"; or rather, it is, but it dresses itself up as some kind of broader 'hey check out this crazy youth cultural phenomenon!' thing, and kind of rings hollow in that sense.

or in other words: given the choice between a good piece that would only be interesting to people who had heard of/cared about/were fans of the Mountain Goats, or a kinda-crappy piece that would have (slightly) broader appeal, this leans towards the second.

btw while i DO think there are probably a lot of people who read the new yorker in a large part because it is a STATUS SYMBOL of some kind i think the number of people for whom that is the ONLY reason they read the magazine is VASTLY OVERESTIMATED--maybe this is because i am something of a nyer stan, but it is, for real, a REALLY GOOD MAGAZINE, and id like to believe that people read it because of its quality more than any other consideration

i DO have a problem with people who read/carry/use the new yorker as a way of showing off how smart they are

how can you tell these people apart from those that "actually" like reading/carrying/using it

yea, point taken re: the new yorkers' audience base (and the economist). ryan was reading it on the subway yesterday and i was afraid people would get the wrong idea! ;)

in fact it strikes me that oftentimes people read the new yorker both because it is a really good mag and also because it confers a certain kind of status on them--that maybe in fact these reasons are not as separate as we might like to think

i smell a junior lit paper

I think you would have a good point except that it's not really "a piece that is intentionally written as a moment-of-time meeting between an artist and one of his fans"; or rather, it is, but it dresses itself up as some kind of broader 'hey check out this crazy youth cultural phenomenon!' thing, and kind of rings hollow in that sense.

I don't think it does that at all. I think, if it has a broader point, it is saying, "fandom still exists and it hasn't changed".

I think it is a well-written, banal piece. I enjoyed reading it because I like the way the author wrote it but it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about J0hn, the way some of his fans act, or the way fandom in general works. More to the point, I don't think it was trying to say anything new; it was trying to pull a human center out of a story that is simultaneously unremarkable and touching.

this is my favorite part of the article... hey indie musician who built your fanbase through years of gigging and releasing albums, your persona is not appealing! plz leave this stuff to the pros who know how to blow it up, like katy perry.

John Darnielle is a wonderful songwriter and deserves many happy turns, but the cruel fact remains: On the scale at which New York usually operates, he is a commercially marginal musician. He is not about to blow up, nor will he soon appear in the pages of Us Weekly on the arm of Winona Ryder. He makes very, very good records that not very many people, relatively speaking, will ever hear. The same is true of Case, Oldham, and Bird. None of them feel compelled to do the things that actually famous musicians did in order to get famous, like create an appealing persona and deliver it to a fascinated reporter.

i know, weird right?

so, indie musicians don't care about their persona, or their cultural relevance.

He is not about to blow up, nor will he soon appear in the pages of Us Weekly on the arm of Winona Ryder.

we all know how this worked out for dave pirner. wtf john?

i was gonna say "he'd have a point if he replaced 'create an appealing persona' with 'take your shirt off' and 'fascinated reporter' with 'lad mag'" but neko case has done that.

xp yeah but wasn't it presented as "The complex bond between the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle and his sensitive fans," and didn't it make plenty of generalizations about people who listen to him? i have no huge problem with sociological inferences or broad statements (if it seems like the writer was thinkin'), but i wasn't sure if i was supposed to be reading about all MG fans, this one MG fan, or this one MG fan as a representation of all MG fans.

what should musicians do in order to get famous?

a) create an appealing persona and deliver it to a fascinated reporter
b) make good music

sigh... I expected so much more from a site named gawker

i can't bring myself to read gawker, in general.

i like gawker for the most part

gawker has become a whole hell of a lot less fun since new york media started getting bulldozed.

look max, you're not gonna turn me into a new yorker readin, gawking 25yr old OK?

:P

last time I saw Neko was at this tiny sold out club called Irving Plaza.

look, if she gets famous it's because she finally figured out how to make her persona more appealing to fascinated reporters, while oldham, bird, and darnielle remain sitting in their tearstained undies puzzling over the rubik's cube that is worldwide renown in the 2009.

i actually really liked the oldham article.

i mean i get what the gawker thing was saying about the sort of cliched "oh we hung out thing" but oldham has been so evasive for so long it WAS actually kind of a big deal for his long time fans....plus, the whole thing with the weird concert down by the lake was super rad i thought....him havign a "work house" and a "sleep house", stuff like that was fascinating...his mom seemed cool.

and just to one-up y'all in the "writing about neko case apparently makes writers turn retarded"...here is one from the new newsweek....manages to one up that racial miscengeny one with the weirdo claim that in 2009 Neko Case has returned melody in "alternative rock"...wresting it from the hands of noiseniks like....nirvana....and...green day? hed asspllode

http://www.newsweek.com/id/187782

Acts such as Bon Iver, Iron & Wine and Antony and the Johnsons have been bringing pretty back, to paraphrase Justin Timberlake.

i hate this so much.

...right now.

But whereas Kurt Cobain once felt the need to hide affection for R.E.M. from his underground peers lest he be booted from their secret society, today's alternative acts no longer look at melody as the love that dare not speak its name.

Cobain was so terrified of this secret society that he confessed this affection in the noted indie zine Rolling Stone.

I'm trying to figure out whether j0hn will be mortified or honored that we are using this thread to mock a) mainstream coverage of corny indie fuxx0rs and b) those who mock mainstream coverage of corny indie fuxx0rs

I enjoyed the attention of the New York piece, but really, I demand my Newsweek piece immediately, and it has to be super-long with sidebars and plenty of pictures

and the cover, I want the cover

http://www2.warnerbros.com/willywonka/img/gallery/wonkpic8.jpg

i want a party with roomfuls of laughter
ten thousand tons of ice creaaaaam

this makes me so happy today

J0hn, trust me. You REALLY don't want to be drawing attention to Veruca Salt here.

ok how about freddie then

disappointed that "He looks more or less like the rest of the assembled Mountain Goats faithful, a cross section of earnest young poet boys, geeky music-philes, and self-styled off-the-grid types carrying messenger bags—nearly a thousand of whom have gathered here tonight to bathe in Darnielle’s light" wasn't followed with a "if I can't piss on my fans, I don't want to be famous" quote.

we need to create an uber-ma+m0s fan as article bait

i saw a fan go up to oldham with the "you're such a genius" shtick, it was really awkward until the guy asked if he knew where the bathroom was and oldham said "so you really like my music and you gotta take a piss?"

I'm trying to think of any examples of music profiles, other than Bill Buford's dirty-fighting takedown of Lucinda Williams, that don't just perpetuate the image the musician has already created a la written equivalent of an Annie Liebovitz photo.

That's why they're called "profiles" and not "exposes".

point taken

i remember some rolling stone article in the 90s where they sort of went into detail abt what a fraud they thought eddie vedder was

fuckin guy doesn't even WEAR flannel.