Is Everybody Who Edits the Village Voice Really This Stupid?

Rounder
Deutsche Grammophone
Blue Note

I've found the anti-post-rock and anti-indie backlash so dismaying for the past few years, not because I think anyone has to like the goddamn stuff, but because at the heart of it seem to be certain irritating assumptions about music is supposed to be -- i.e. raucous, fun, danceable, simple, etc. Lots of great music fits those terms, and lots more doesn't. Guitar bands =/= (necessarily) "Rock TRAPPINGS" as Chuck put it. Drag City tends to put out introspective, thoughtful, quiet stuff. I don't find the best of it *boring* in the slightest (Jim O'Rourke's solo work, the better Oldham and Smog stuff). But it's listening music more than "rocking" music. I didn't think guitars came with indication labels about how they are to be used.

I think a lot of the current bands that "rock" are much more worthy of ridicule (the garage revivalists in particular) because their music is such a bland, forced exercise in rocking. And what's worse is that a lot of their fans don't even *rock out* to it, so what's the point of rocking anyway? Not to say that Chuck or any of DC's other detractors necessarily like those bands.

For the record, "Insignificance" ROCKS, IMHO.

Otherwise, um...I think I liked some album on Drag City a lot this year, but I can't think of what it was. (Did this year's Ghost one come out on Drag City? That was nice.) My Rock-Hating Label of the Year Award, though, would possibly go to Temporary Residence, for its sheer consistency in putting on truly beyoooooootiful elevator noise which I could read books and wash the dishes and then fall asleep to.

chuck, do you realize that this reads like self-parody?

Next BOC release: Don't Fear the Tinky-Winky 12"
(someone do better than this, please)

Yowsa!

Also, nothing wrong with falling asleep music; then again I have fallen asleep at some extremely loud shows before.

I also fell asleep during my one and only visit to CBGBs, to see Camper Van Beethoven, of all bands. How not punk is that?

But by all means, proceed.

chuck, do you realize that this reads like self-parody?

-- Amateur(ist) ([email protected]), January 4th, 2005.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(and if it's true it's pathetic.)
-- Amateur(ist) ([email protected]), January 4th, 2005.

now I REALLY think it is!

especially when he follows it by saying what it was (Ghost)!

now chuck that's gonna just get you in bigger trouble, as the guy who runs that label is a close friend of mine.

(yeah, most of what he puts out ain't rock by any stretch, but the dude is majorly into some good rock stuff, I can vouch for it.)

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...) (webmail), January 4th, 2005 8:05 AM. (M Matos) (link)

but he made a point of saying that at first he didn't remember! and it's not clear if the ghost album he mentions is the same one he was struggling to remember. even if it were, he could have simply written, "you know what, i liked the last ghost album on drag city."

obviously this wouldn't be an issue at all--i'm sure i've done the "i can't remember what it was" thing some times--if chuck didn't make such a habit of it (for evidence, see aforementioned pickle bar thread). it's not even a big issue anyway, i was just pointing out what i thought: that it's beginning to resemble self-parody. and (IMO) it's unbecoming a professional critic to repeatedly insist upon not remembering the music he's paid to review.

maybe it really is existential devil's music, after all.

still, that poster who said in 2003 that the royal trux question hadn't been properly addressed was right. besides, i think the howling hex rocks. fortunately, they do more than merely that. 'transmaniacon' rocks but in a shitty way. (shitty rock records tend toward shitty rocking, don't they?) but it's neither here nor there. even so ... it's a bit like complaining in 1971 that harvest records "doesn't rock". drag city somehow reminds me a lot of harvest in its heyday. but who cares? no one reads internet posts on threads no one wants revived.

er, can't remember this thread and can't say much abt rounder and blue note. the latter is very up and down from the handful of releases I've got from it but Deustche grammophone were a great great label. Like I always see some of the old LPs in second hand shops and snap them up and its always wonderful in terms of artwork, notes, and the sounds but I do enjoy much classical music post-50s. There is no doubt they are sitting on some unissued stuff (you can get a cpl of kagel LPs he released on the label as mp3s on UBU web - go check).