Are you guys at Seattle Weekly really that bad?

Oh, and a caveat: The Stranger sucks major ass, and I'll still take Matos' section over that piece of shit any day.

Meltzer's column was boring lazy name-dropping crud that should've been ditched long ago; a guy coasting on the anti-charisma he already burned through several times over.

Also, the "Matos edited out personal anecdotes about a gay relationship" ---> "Matos must be a homophobe" bit at the end is a joke. Your arms' too short to make that kind of reach, Ms. Writer Person.

The Stranger, it seems to me, has always made a point of picking on the Weekly. And no wonder, because they've done some damage to that operation in terms of competition.

It's a fucking miracle, actually, that both alt-weeklies can survive in a city that small. One of them will be gone in the next five years unless SubPop blows up again.

Considering Meltzer's rep for the nasty (mailing people kitten fetuses or whatever), I don't know.

if i answered the phone brusquely with just my last name, people would just think they reached a surly ice cream store.

also i find this thread really inappropriate for reasons i can't put my finger on.

It holds with my belief that he's the gruffest friendly man ever. :-)

I'm glad you're here, Jess. I need you to prevent me from turning into trife on this thread.

haha mike, why? so I can turn into trife instead?

And no more inappropriate than the constant Lester Bangs ass-kissing or these new personal attacks on Chuck Klosterman (who's a pretty cool guy, actually).

Chicagoans who read our dominant alt-weekly The Reader may remember an article in their hot type section (which serves no other purpose than to cover and critique the 2 major dailies) about a month ago about the in-fighting at the Sun-Times between Jay Mariotti (The more DeRogatis of the two) and Rick Telander (The Greg Kot, if you will) and how they nearly got in a fist fight at a sporting event once. Apparently, the resentment between them is extremely personal.

Actually, Michael, the Hilton Kramer hiring makes perfect sense, given that the NY Post is now the newspaper of choice for the "Ann Coulter pinups on my wall" set.

But Jess, there’s loads more journalistic integrity in palling around with bands so they’ll play your sponsored events and give you quotes than in approaching them with any sort of critical ear. (And you guys are lucky out there in King – in Cook Country just using a stringer carries a minimum of two years!)

That said, yeah, I also adhere to the "consider the source" line. Her attempts at identifying the Stranger with the hip music is pretty damn laughable. No winners in this whole thing; the discussion it all inspires is what prompted the thread.

first of all, metlzer hasn't been either good OR "edgy" in decades. which seems to warrant him being shit canned pretty well to me. i don't see anyone tossing xgau or marcus, mostly because they haven't been churning out repetitive, self-parodic drivel (okay that's up for debate, even though i don't personally think so) for the miserly $$ of the free weeklies of the world for the last two decades while still claiming to hate all music.

secondly, as i remember, reighley wasn't "run off" at all. he was told "no more columns about your boyfriend or dog" (and unless he's fucking his [male] dog, i don't see how that could be homophobic) because frankly no one I know wants to hear about his boyfriend and/or dog in the context of whatever crap he was peddling that week. he balked at this and walked.

thirdly, people don't normally fire the editorial staff of a music section and bring in someone with a completely different agenda if they're happy with the way the music section is being run. INCLUDING the writers published.

fourth, like you said, consider the source. the stranger is hardly going to be giving a fair and biased account. i mean, how exactly did they track down that email to meltzer in the first place?

the basic lesson is, indulge people for too long and they'll get all sorts of inflated ideas about what the public actually gives a shit about. if you REALLY want to write about your dog (or be meltzer) then save it for the chapbooks.

Then again, I didn't read all of Meltzer's most recent stuff, so maybe it does get depressing when taken as a whole.

:( When I read this I thought 'WHAT?!' then realised I don't look hard enough. I only wish I could afford to find lots of music to write about. I've not written in a whole month and it's not because I don't want to or am unable to (ho ho take yr potshots elsewhere) but because I haven't any new music (ie I don't know of any) to write about. I sometimes wish I was Chuck Eddy's mailbox.

Hey! ;-) But I tease.

But Stence, when Meltzer says in the interview quoted above that even if something *did* happen in the '80's or '90's, it wouldn't matter, because "there was enough otherwise" and the idea "that there'd be new rock records" excites him as much as the idea "that there'd be new brands of meatless lasagna"...well, that's something quite beyond skepticism. When you've wiped the battlefield clean, war ends; when you completely discount the possibility of excitement, criticism becomes impossible. (OK, terrible metaphor, I know.)

Also, I think I'd be the first to admit that my own curmudgeonly tendencies color a lot of this bias, too.

I'm definitely more likely to read a Meltzer review (unless it's one of those Dada bullshits) than a CMJ review because cynicism leads to better jokes. But a CMJ review never makes me assume talent is being wasted, becuz there's no implication of talent in the first place.