Sasha Frere-Jones: Really?????

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49129&sid=bf28f1bde7d7dd2f755bc7bd8623ced0

The quotes that Hurting 2 posted are all great examples of this thing that critics sometimes do that really irritates me. Basically these are attempts to discuss the technical aspects of a recording in layman's terms, but the details are completely fudged and don't make any real sense.

I appreciate it when a critic can engage in technical talk and get it right and add something interesting to the discussion, but it grates on me when they make obvious errors.

sfj is a very skilled writer who does stuff like that that pisses me off pretty frequently. his review of the sade album hit the mark so correctly and then ... he complained about the sax solos on her classic records. its like ... thefuck?? how can you like sade and complain about the sax. thats, like, central to the appeal. its like "im feeling this bob dylan record, but i wish he sang like aretha." not the point bro

in fairness tho deej if anybody ever says anything less than glowing about any aspect of a sade record yr take is gonna be "omg heretic" mais non

Exactly. And I think it's better writing to go slightly over people's heads with accurate technical detail (if he is in fact capable of that, which I'm not sure) then to dumb-down inaccurately.

(xpost)

sfj really seems to be in a rock/hard place sitch trying to describe contemporary music to lame nyer readers but he doesn't do himself any favors either--he's a musician and should know that all that "can tell the type of bass" stuff is complete bullshit

deej is right in this case tho

it's true, i've just been hittin the wine again tbh

was gonna say ... are u hating on smooth operator sax now???

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49129&sid=bf28f1bde7d7dd2f755bc7bd8623ced0

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

I like SFJ a lot but this piece fell flat for me. James Murphy is an odd, interesting character who's not shy about discussing personal stuff in immense detail but most of the psychology was quickly brushed past in favour of talking about microphones, etc. I come to a profile to learn more about how a person thinks, not to have vast swathes of crit which would work equally well, if not better, in a review or essay with no access to Murphy at all. I wonder if that was the New Yorker's brief - explain this guy to people who haven't heard of him - but there comes a point when you just have to accept that anyone reading past the first page or so has enough prior knowledge, or is sufficiently hooked, to want to know more about the man himself.

His new piece is about Noise. Focuses about Sightings, Yellow swans, Wolf Eyes and HEALTH. Seems kind of late to be writing about this. Four years ago might have been more appropriate?

another piece that's like omg they aren't using notes but sounds and then trots out merzbow and your criticism is this-is-so-2006

Donald Fagan:
NOTES ON CRAP By Sascha Frere-Jacque

On a sweltering night last August, the bored, sticky crowd in Webster Hall had started to drift toward the exits when the quartet, CapGras, took the stage. CapGras is named after a delusional syndrome which is, in turn, named after it's discoverer, the French psychiatrist Jean Marie Joseph Capgras. Their debut album on the U.K. label, Q'CAM Music, " You're Not Jack" , has just gone gold and spawned a wickedly addictive hit single, " Concealed Tattoo" .

http://donaldfagen.com/writing_items.php?itemID=96

omg

Of course, no cure is absolute, and there are still hurtles to be overcome out in the big, bad world. The band's latest crisis occurred at the playback party for their sophomore album "Art Is Uncool" at Bar Z Bar, when each band member independently accused producer Billy Dotcom of being " not himself", and the album, which was being played at high volume on Bar Z Bar's powerful speaker system, of being not itself.

Nevertheless, D'Von says that, at this juncture, everything is copacetic. " Let's face it, Sascha - if that's really who you are - the bottom line is, art really is uncool. It's going to be a big relief to put this nightmare behind us and move on".

they should fire Sascha and just hire Don

amazing

any bass could sound a lot different depending on how it was recorded, what amp you were using, if you were using any effects pedals, whether it was DI'd or mic'd or, like a zillion different factors

This cracks me up:
Lead singer Dolorous Von Bronx, (formerly Sue Ratour of the short-lived Sue Ratour and the Eradicons) is drop-dead gorgeous. Whipping across the stage in her vintage 1930s roller skating outfit (silver-buttoned blouse, short pleated skirt) with her long, silky legs askew, she was a truly rapturous vision: sensuous and scary, like Veronica Lake on a methedrine binge.

here's a link to the SFJ noise article: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/05/24/100524crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=all

every time I read one of these awesome Fagen/Becker takedowns, it makes me angry that they aren't putting out albums more often. I'm sure they could shit out a good one every year or two if they wanted, and I'd probably buy it.

holllllllllllllllllllllly fuck

@ fagen

i like the noise piece. it's well written, if redundant and several years late from where i sit. it's not aimed at people like me, though. it's aimed at new yorker readers in general, and if i didn't know anything about noise music, i'm sure i'd find it interesting, curious, even somewhat funny.

This noise music just doesn't have any swing to it.

the whole "this crazy new music is emulating the noisy dischord of our modern technological society" has been floating around since like when the 20s or something?

since at least Ok Computer

i'm glad radiohead invented the future, i plan on living my whole life there

Freed from songs, the sounds draw attention to how odd machines can feel, and how powerful. Abstract noise sends the mind searching for concrete comparisons: clunking hard drives, breaking wires, muffled phones, turnstiles.

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2010/05/24/p233/100524_r19653_p233.jpg

^^^^ illustration of 2 bros making noize

Man, SFJ's reputation has really changed, huh? I feel like six or seven years ago, he (along with K. Sanneh) was routinely held up by ILX as a paragon of smart music criticism.

I was just going to say, flashing back to when he replaced Hornby and how stoked ILM was (granted he was an occasional poster then, if I remember right.)

Rereading this, I don't think it's a particularly mean-spirited parody; we'd like to think so because it's by Donald Fagen.

who's "we"? pretty sure most of "us" were omg-ing at how pitch-perfect and next-level it is

You need to reread what I wrote.

The bassist Richard Hoffman, of the New York trio Sightings, said, “We are too noisy for the rock bills and too rock for the noise bills.”

lol bullfuckingshit richard hoffman

hahah tbf if some dork from the nyer interviewed me i'd be tempted to say shit like that too

Man, SFJ's reputation has really changed, huh? I feel like six or seven years ago, he (along with K. Sanneh) was routinely held up by ILX as a paragon of smart music criticism.

― jaymc, Wednesday, May 19, 2010 9:19 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah...as I said somewhere upthread, there's basically a trifecta of facepalm pieces that really shook my confidence in the guy (the DJ Shadow/minstrelsy thing, the Arcade Fire/miscenegation thing, and the Blueprint 3/omg hip hop is dead thing). plus in addition to all that ridiculous controversy baiting, he hasn't really moved forward much in a lot of ways -- like he might've been one of the only big critics at one point writing well about why Timbaland is important, but he seems to rewrite the same 'why Timbaland is important' article every couple years.

After a piece on reggaeton years back I thought he was going to continue to cover Latin sounds and maybe other international non/Western ones, but other than mentioning a panel on Haitian music he was somehow involved with, he has mostly ignored such sounds.

unless dj rupture played them

"Akita’s tools are usually electronic, sometimes just a laptop, and he has produced some of the harshest and most punishing music around. (His long-standing interest in physically demanding forms of sexuality, like bondage, is probably related.)"

Probably.

Other forms:

Sprinting Reacharound
Tit Wrestling
Steeplechase
The Jerk-and-Lift

Don't really get what's wrong with that bit you quoted

It's dumb. It's drive-by, intended to do nothing more than make the reader cock an eyebrow. "Bondage, you say?" If he thought it was important he'd have mentioned early releases that featured bondage photos in the art, the fact that Merzbow actually put out a CD called Music for Bondage Performance, and then maybe talked about how why and when he moved away from that into his current nature-fixated area.

word

Would sacrifice my NYer subscription for one more Dan album with a song on it called 'concealed tattoo'.

like he might've been one of the only big critics at one point writing well about why Timbaland is important, but he seems to rewrite the same 'why Timbaland is important' article every couple years

agreed

I still like reading him most times though. the noise piece is pretty good except for the goofy lede paragraph about the post-it note

I read that lede as his way of saying 'hi ILX, I know this seems 4 years late to you but this is the NYer'

haha I guess so

seems a little bit beneath a big critic to attempt to play that card