Who's The Foxiest Rock Critic?

"Anyone who can swallow two Sno-Balls and a Ding-Dong shouldn't have any problem with pride!"

Unless you're FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT, OK???

http://themusicissue.blogspot.com/

no, that was my board.

This thread was started as a sarcastic response about Sarah "Ultragrrrl" Lewittn's (sp?) alleged "fatness" and "hotness," and I basically was saying, "Uh hello, look at some of the male rock critics?" And then, like everything else that I write, it went from sarcastic to emo in about three posts. More importantly, I feel to some degree, especially in New York, who you hang with and where you drink/dance determine where you will work, that male rock critics are judged for their writing alone and the women get judges on their looks AND their writing. I've had lots of NY female writers tell me this is the case. Yes, there are exceptions, I've met a few of 'em (hello Chuck!), but I also know that my spirit would be crushed (further) if I made the move to Phila to NYC or even attempted to query NYC pubs in earnest. So here I am.

Scott's right: I run a Philly-centric mailing list called Dummytown on yahoogroups, and if anyone cares, I have a blog over here: http://www.herjazz.org/sara. Maria ran a short-lived message board for our booking thing, Plain Parade, and in its short lifespan (through no fault of Maria's), managed to beat ILM for the sheer number of douchebags and asshattery. But that's Philadelphia-style asshattery, for you, instead of NYC.

For the record, I like Don Allred's posts and writing and rock critic comparisons. I still like people who take liberties with punctuation.

Someone posted a link to Daphne Carr's blog, the music issue. She's a freakin genius and cute too. She runs an awesome list for female writers called Girlgroup, which never seems to have many messages, so I find myself coming back to ILM when I'm passing time. Or banging my fucking head against a wall.

I am woman, hear me roar! (In fact, *Entertainment Weekly* gave my new Girl Called Eddy album an "A", I believe!) Hello Sara!!

-- jess (wt...), August 22nd, 2004.

I almost pissed my pants at that one.

super masonic black hole who posts here sounds pretty hot too. ive never read her work though, only her posts.

VH1 told me, I'd be a quote dude, if I'd exercise and eat less food. Tired of being compared to damn Rob Sheffield and Joe Levy, that just ain't me.

Also, I have my first (and, most likely, last) piece in the Voice tomorrow, so I guess I am now a fully accredited rock critic. And I am fucking H-O-T:

However, I am no Robert Christgau, who has a cock the size of your arm. I'm serious; he won it from Jon Langford in a poker game, and keeps it in his Voice cubicle, right next to the gold record he received for his work with Bad Religion.

http://www.numbertwopencil.net/graphics/4am.jpg

Ah, there we go. Just as well -- I forget the second T in H-O-T-T anyways.

Ant-ney,

Most of the men on VH-1 are really gross (except for Mo Rocca, Michael Ian Black, and Hal Sparks). Just watch Best Week Ever or any of those C-list comics that appear on the I Love the... shows.

Joe Levy is conventionally attractive, the kind of guy that one would describe as handsome, but he gives me the creeps. His sound bytes are oily. I have to wipe off my TV screen after he's finished. (Especially when he used to drool about Britney. Ew!)I don't believe a word of anything he says or writes. He's the classic New York media "means to an end" type. I guess I'm never writing for Rolling Stone now!

The whole appeal of Rob Sheffield (the John Cusack to Levy's Tom Cruise) is not his looks (not going there!), really (though he's got the tall thing in his favor, for people who care about that kind of stuff). It's the voice. When he talks or writes (when not saying things like "fuck puppy" and gabbing on about teenage actresses with fake boobs), it makes you go, "aaaaw."

But you know, the whole VH-1/Rolling Stone thing, or anyone's writing persona, even on a blog, is a construct, like Lloyd Dobler (which Chuck Klosterman wrote about in his latest book, our ideas of "love" from the the non-sucky John Cusack movies and sad pop songs and such. It doesn't really exist but because our own lives are fucking boring, we attach all this sentimental crap to our records, our writers, whatever. As Kathleen Hanna once sang on the much cooler "Demirep," the you I show to YOU is just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!!!

In general, I've found that men can work this shit and women cannot. Guys talk about their feelings and it becomes an entire musical genre. Women do it and it's chick lit. Sometimes I wonder if Liz Armstrong did not look like a younger hotter Liz Phair, if she could pull of Misty Martinez. (Well yeah, it's called Peaches, right?)

Mostly, I'd love to see what would happen if the SPIN column was called Making Out with Misty Martinez. Now THAT would be good reading.

Before you tell me to take it over to ILE, I say this has everything to do with music, because writers are absorbing what's going on in our culture, and it's all related. Social boundaries are the things that were explored, along with the music in the late great zine, Frank Kogan's "Why Music Sucks." I miss reading all the great stuff in there from Liz/Misty, Don, Rob, Chuck, Jane Dark. That's what rock mags should be.

Don Allred, thanks for the kind words. I don't want to be Jessica Simpson (though I'd settle for Ashlee), it's just that my failure to connect with my male peers on a very basic level makes me sadder than it should, even if I do know better.

Have I killed this thread yet?

I once e-mailed Frank Kogan asking if he had any old issues of Why Music Sucks laying around. He doesn't, which SUCKS. I've been dying to get to read that stuff.

This thread will not die, btw. There's a reason I revived it (aside from having to announce my fascination with Ultragrrrl - I'm just crazy about the inexplicable).