having interviewed avey tare, his seems to be a natural befuddlement.
― strongohulkingtonsghost, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 18:59 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think you understand how the process of interviewing an indie rock musician works
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 28 September 2010 18:59 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't mean that in a mean way, either.
you're also acting like these questions were original or interesting
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 18:59 (thirteen years ago) link
In the context of typical music interviews, yes, they're quite original. Show me a non-PRR interview in 2010 in which the interviewee gets to ponder and talk about how the world will end?
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:01 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean I bet Avey's thinking, "fuck, not another standard PR fluff piece, I hate interviews, how many times do I have to talk about Merriweather Post Pavvy changing the world...," and then PRR dude busts out his shit and Avey is all, oh... well then.
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 1:58 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark
like, if PRR had gone thru AC's/or avey's press contact & that press contact had set up a time w/ PRR where avey had to push something back so he could talk to some random dude about his music, then maybe yes, he might be 'refreshed' by the interview being only three questions long, thus allowing him to go on with his day
but i doubt that he found some random dude walking up to him in a record store and asking him three questions like "do you believe in god?" to be 'refreshing'
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:01 (thirteen years ago) link
who cares, tbh
― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:02 (thirteen years ago) link
apparently you
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:04 (thirteen years ago) link
why is the sky blue
― ('_') (omar little), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:04 (thirteen years ago) link
who cares
― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:07 (thirteen years ago) link
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 12:01 PM (5 minutes ago)
I think there was something similar in a recent issue of XLR8R actually
― sarahel, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:08 (thirteen years ago) link
ichlugebullets
1. Does this "explain" Pitchfork Reviews Reviews? Does guy secretly want AnCo bro to grind a stiletto into his nutsack? 2 minutes ago via web
2. From what little I know of the world of BDSM, the "submissive" or "sub" has to never use the capital "I" when writing about themselves. 3 minutes ago via web
― who's got the (platform) 9 3/4ths? (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:12 (thirteen years ago) link
if only PRR dude had walked up to AC dude and they just shot each other to death right then and there amirite
― goole, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:13 (thirteen years ago) link
he looks like he is trying to formulate a more direct response but i stop him
This is the best way to conduct interviews.
― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:44 (thirteen years ago) link
just finished reading the piece -- pretty good, tbh
― markers, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 19:47 (thirteen years ago) link
again, that's pretty damn great. maybe the best PRR piece i've yet read. and, yeah, the mini avey tare interview-within-the-interview is pathetic and awkward, but that seems to be the point. not, "oh i got this cool moment with avey!" but, "geez, i guess i was sort of a dork..." or more accurately, it's simply an accounting of the incident without summary comment, allowing the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. i like that approach. basically the whole of the awl piece works that way: it's a series of camera flashes without explanatory notes. the analogy brings to mind the kid outside taking his own exhausted picture at the end of that piece/show, if that kid had taken a self-portrait every couple minutes for a whole evening, his impassive face centered in the middle of the events that swirled around him, a hundred oddly disconnected snapshots leading us through the night.
here, in the das racist piece, he switches back and forth between camera-like observation and more thoughtful analysis, listening to himanshu's words, but also thinking about what they mean, both in a general sense and in relation to PRR dude's own life and family history. and for a piece of music writing about race, identity and exclusion in america, it's pretty damn good. not terribly deep, perhaps, but nor is it wholly insubstantial, and it's hardly an easy subject to write well about.
― having taken an actual journalism class (contenderizer), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:05 (thirteen years ago) link
i liked this one
i feel like people really react badly to people putting themselves in their writing about music. is that part of it? or is it the livejournal-y affectations (which i dont mind)? just wondering why people seem so pissed off by this guy
― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:06 (thirteen years ago) link
but that seems to be the point.
in a nutshell, this is all any of you crazy prr stans are saying
it's shit but that seems to be the point.
― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:07 (thirteen years ago) link
He doesn't piss me off but he can't write. At best his semantic constructions -- paragraph placements, points of emphasis -- are so weird that I wonder if he's deliberately writing Cocteau Twins lyrics as prose.
― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
no one who couldn't write could sustain a tone as consistent as this dude can.
― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:23 (thirteen years ago) link
― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 2:07 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark
disagree. writing about a moment in which you behaved awkwardly is not the same thing as writing badly. i'd say that dude's description of his "interview" of avey tare is well-written, but reveals that the interview itself was something of a disaster. enjoyed that. it's reflective of the dude's little-boy-lost stance, which seems to be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks, fine, but when it's handled with a measure of self-awareness, it can be quite funny. i lolled at the faux stupid "i wonder if Das Racist's frequent lyrics about the internet are rooted in not having computers." an easy laugh, maybe, but good enough for me.
― having taken an actual journalism class (contenderizer), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 21:24 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't like him because it's a slog to get to the end of everything he writes and when you do you realize you didn't actually get any insights about what he was writing about
its like listening to pavements discography over and over again
― tumlbrah (dayo), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:04 (thirteen years ago) link
write it on a tumblrdad they broke me, dad they broke me
― markers, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:07 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^^maybe the best post on this thread i've yet read
― buzza, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:10 (thirteen years ago) link
it's depressing that there's like 20 legitimately great music writers who post on this very board and you guys don't deconstruct any of their work with a fraction of the attention and scrutiny you pay to this weirdo. like so the new "model" is to be the fucking lil b of music writing?
― fuck noOoOO (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:17 (thirteen years ago) link
and you can save the "HAHA SAYS THE HIPSTER TWITTER PUPPIES 1000 REVIEWS DROWN SANDWICH LOLMJIUG@IYV@"
― fuck noOoOO (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:18 (thirteen years ago) link
nah, that's cool. but the 20 legit greats should really spend more time posting the legit great work of their peers, so we can all talk about it. i only go on abt PRR dude cuz people keep posting the shit and seem open to discussion about it.
― having taken an actual journalism class (contenderizer), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:25 (thirteen years ago) link
also my peeve w/ the 'quirky interview' is that any time you come up with 'weird' and 'out there' questions like that it's almost always designed to throw the spotlight back onto you, the interviewer, it's like "look how against the grain and weird I'm being, please acknowledge this cool guy whose music I listen to"
― tumlbrah (dayo), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
feels like PRR dude secretly wishes that in 3 months he'll run into avey tare at some bar and be like "hey I was the guy who asked you those weird questions" and avey tare will be like "oh yeah those were interesting you wanna be featured on my next album" and PRR dude will be like "nah I got tumblrs to post on" but secretly he'll be pleased
― tumlbrah (dayo), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i still think he writes tooooo much of the filler stuff. i like that piece although alright though, it makes some good points, but it takes sooo long to get to them & then when it does it feels like there was too much build up, his timing isnt really there yet. sooo much "and then i did this and then i did this" etc. basically just needs some editing
― HOW I FOLD MY BANDANA (deej), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:49 (thirteen years ago) link
basically just needs some editing
OTM x 100.
― Veðrafjǫrðr heimamaður (ecuador_with_a_c), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I quite like this guy but there are so many bloggers over the last ten years who more thoroughly deserve the weirdly intense praise he's getting.
― Tim F, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:38 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark
he figured out the #1 way to get peoples' attention on the internet: being meta. this is why that site called kickpork or whatever the fuck it was got all the attention it did when it launched a few weeks ago
and this from sarahel:
Maybe I'm supposed to already have bought into these details or these types being significant, but all i'm seeing/reading is a bunch of empty signifiers that don't communicate much.
is otm. it's playing to the base.
― maura, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 01:44 (thirteen years ago) link
it's depressing that there's like 20 legitimately great music writers who post on this very board and you guys don't deconstruct any of their work with a fraction of the attention and scrutiny you pay to this weirdo. like so the new "model" is to be the fucking lil b of music writing?― fuck noOoOO (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 8:17 PM
― fuck noOoOO (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 8:17 PM
PRR isn't a rock critic.
Generally, his posts fall into two categories: the morning roundup and the longer pieces about his life, indie rock culture, and music. But nowhere in here is he really, strictly speaking, reviewing music. The morning roundup is metacriticism; the other stuff, eh, is a little more complicated.
Somewhere on this thread, someone mentioned LiveJournal; I think it's helpful if we look at his longer posts as online journal entries, written from the perspective of an indie kid, about what it's like to be an indie kid and have indie kid thoughts about indie rock and other music indie kids tend to like in 2010. And I think that a lot of the people who enjoy his stuff are enjoying it because, for them, he's writing in a really fun, easy-to-read style, from the perspective of someone who's just like them, except he's out there doing more exciting things they wish they could do, like hanging out with musicians and interviewing people high up on the indie culture food chain.
I haven't fully thought this through and there's probably a lot more I could say, but I've gotta go do other stuff now.
― markers, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:23 (thirteen years ago) link
uh he's a rock critic, sorry
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:24 (thirteen years ago) link
which isn't a bad thing of course
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:25 (thirteen years ago) link
http://lateshowwritersonstrike.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/webassets/mallomars.gif
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:26 (thirteen years ago) link
And I think that a lot of the people who enjoy his stuff are enjoying it because, for them, he's writing in a really fun, easy-to-read style, from the perspective of someone who's just like them, except he's out there doing more exciting things they wish they could do, like hanging out with musicians and interviewing people high up on the indie culture food chain.
so it boils down to that PRR is writing slash fiction for other indie fans? which tbh is probably a long-running undercurrent in rock reportage anyway.
― tumlbrah (dayo), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:26 (thirteen years ago) link
that's the best explanation i've heard for him
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:27 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZmhuQ8WWZU
― ('_') (omar little), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:27 (thirteen years ago) link
and also a good explanation for why i can't stand him
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:29 (thirteen years ago) link
honestly, this is kind of pathetic
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:29 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah if you respond to this you probably have to remove yourself from your interests a bit
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:31 (thirteen years ago) link
i liked (and still do) reading his stuff about pitchfork cuz shit i'm a pitchfork stan at heart but i find his other stuff to be long-winded & uninteresting
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:32 (thirteen years ago) link
the idea that what you want/respond to from a rock critic is long livejournal esque narratives & whimsical two question "interviews" with bands that the writer gets to "hang out with" is really backwards to me
fanfic is otm
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:35 (thirteen years ago) link
what i could get through of the das racist piece i guess could have been interesting if you cared about das racist but it was like a million pages long for no reason
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:35 (thirteen years ago) link
fanfic! yes! or, like the bushwick equivalent of la dolce musto
― maura, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:49 (thirteen years ago) link
only without any limit on inches
― maura, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:50 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think musto has a limit on inches either
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:50 (thirteen years ago) link
heyoooo
― kellspolaris (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:51 (thirteen years ago) link
BAM
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 29 September 2010 02:51 (thirteen years ago) link