Sasha Frere-Jones: Really?????

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

Are post-it notes really still sticky after four years? If so that's kind of incredible stickiness technology at work.

I kind of wish Malcolm Gladwell would do a connect-the-dots piece on Merzbow rather than SFJ. I think he did one on people who make chart-topping hits according to some dubious mathematics that was pretty interesting.

Gladwell would have taken the article more in the sticky-note direction.

whenever i see sasha's name i start singing "sasha frere jones! sasha frere jones!" to the tune of basketball jones. every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIbp5C-5WXM

in my head though. not out loud.

lol

unless dj rupture played them

do you actually dislike dj rupture's mixes or just the people who rep for them because if the latter then wtf, dude is solid

I believe there was a positive reaction to his arrival at the New Yorker because, um, he was replacing Nick Hornby. As for K., he's at the New Yorker, too, right? But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

Anyway, that LCD piece read like it was written several months months ago.

somewhat off/on-topic, Alec Wilkinson's the Los Tigres article this week is really good.

Los Tigres Del Norte?!?

abstract: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/24/100524fa_fact_wilkinson

that's kinda cool. I can't think of a music that is more widely reviled/ignored/dismissed by white music fans. which is weird considering that its musical roots (polka) is like the whitest shit in the world. but polkas aren't cool anymore, much less polkas sung in a language that they don't understand, and blasted at top volume out of Mexicans' cars. I find it kinda fascinating, if impenetrable (since I don't speak spanish)

But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

Also profiled Jeremiah Wright, reviewed a slate of books about the history of whiteness in America, probably a couple other things I don't recall.

do you actually dislike dj rupture's mixes or just the people who rep for them because if the latter then wtf, dude is solid

― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Thursday, May 20, 2010 5:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i disliked his set when i saw him live. so did the grrls i was with -- i was kind of embarrassed to have recommended it tbh

peaking the set w/ dubstep U_U

shakey, wish the whole thing was online. check the story out at border's or something. he briefly describes the roots (which i'd always wondered about) and some of the...i dunno, reasoning behind the song structures. the descriptions of concert attendees dramatically acting out and singing each line is really wild. What band could play in front of 67,000 people at the Astrodome that I'd never heard before? Wild.

As for K., he's at the New Yorker, too, right? But all I can remember reading is his gay gospel piece and the (toothlessly fair) profile of ... Savage, right?

his first one for the NYer was a profile of the preacher Creflo Dollar I think

x-post

Based On SFJ's Arcade Fire/miscenegation thing, and the hip hop is dead thing, I though SFJ was gonna be highlighting all kinds of interesting worldwide beat-based sounds, but yeah, all he does in this vein is pick up on a few things (mainly UK-based) pushed by DJ Rupture

ha deej ok but his mixes are great

unclear as to why US dudes are so weird & dismissive about dubstep, which is interesting & fun music, but I also understand that the trenches have already been dug on that q & it's too late to say "listen with an open mind maybe?"

most us dudes have been obsessed w/ dubstep -- its totally replaced idm as the thinking man's dance music