Lucinda Williams vs. Greil Marcus

the thing i remember most from that New Yorker profile was CD Wright questioning LW's right to write so many songs about Frank Stanford's suicide--basically saying "you meant nothing to him, little professor's daughter."

I have no idea who CD Wright is but wiki sez Lucinda Williams only wrote one song about Frank Stanford ("Pineola") which doesn't seem unreasonable to me if they knew each other.

pretty sure "Sweet Old World" is about him too

while we're on the subject, there's a christgau putdown of aimee mann that struck me as really gratuitous and gross, lemme see if i can find it

"Crescent City" from the eponymous album too, no?

idgaf about lucinda wms; marcus seems pretty otm but seeing the repetition of it is a little *steeples fingers* odd

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=aimee+mann

Lost in Space [SuperEgo, 2002]
I've never understood this ice queen thing myself. What's the big thrill--getting to see them bite their lip when they come? All I know is this poster girl for the DIY fallacy is still the ultimate NPR middlebrow, addressing disillusioned love songs to the biz the way Christians address illusioned ones to the Lord Jesus. For her fans, the news is that she's invested her profits in studio musicians. Takes talent to make that more boring than solo acoustic, no? C+

wtf dude

Not a C, a C PLUS.

he is by far the most supportive fan i have in the world so i can't say anything bad about the guy. and one of these days i will read one of his books. i promise. maybe the doors one. or the van morrison one. oh wait chuck. chuck is my number one fan. god bless him. then old man marcus.

but yeah the anita baker quote is dumb.

i've been burned by xgau way more often than marcus over the years. i've always like xgau as a writer but i don't trust his ear at all.

Now that I think about it, I wore out the goddamned grooves on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Scott - the Doors one is surprisingly good. Without the ticks that can affect how he addresses his sacred cows he's a very good writer.

DIY Fallacy vs. NPR Middlebrow

generally when it comes to me and nuevo roots music, the faker the better. i enjoy gillian welch as a goth band. her live show had the exact same look -- i mean, down to the rug on the floor -- as her record cover. i can see how that would make a certain kind of person going all soylent-green-is-people but i was really into it.

What's the big thrill--getting to see them bite their lip when they come?

Jesus, xgau

lol that line is hilarious and terrible.
marcus should excuse himself from any mention of authenticity in music -- the dude has written multiple books about bob freaking dylan.

but didn't Zimmerman eat dirt down on the farm?

also: david rawlings took a turn at the mic, and he was like "i'm gonna do a song [ancient bluegrass guy] taught me the other day, hope i remember the words." it was... big rock candy mountain! so much for everybody studying their harry smith like the talmud and all that

it's funny that he loathes gillian welch so much -- "elvis presley blues" is basically a greil marcus essay in song form.

xp That was my first thought. Any Dylan stan should know to keep "authenticity" at arm's length.

She looked a lot like her, was crying a little and writing a letter that started like "well, here I go - paper to pen..."

this is as perfect as spotting Leonard Cohen in a cafe, wearing a beret and mumbling, "Well, here we are, another glass of absinthe..."

tbf xgau goes (ridiculously) below the belt for both genders

Not a Moment Too Soon [Curb, 1994]
McGraw draws his phony drawl so tight he sounds like a singing penis--one of those guys who can make his prepuce mime the Pledge of Allegiance when his boner is right. He got interested in country when he heard about farmer's daughters, and learned everything he knows about Choctaws and Chippewas from Chief Nokahoma. Still hasn't outearned his daddy, though. C+

lord, what

or this infamous one:

Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone [Startime International, 2002]

Just what we always wanted--Jonathan Fire*Eater grows up. Put some DreamWorks money into a studio, that was mature. Realized Radiohead was the greatest band in the world, brainy. Stopped playing so fast, hoo boy. And most important, switched vocalists from Nick Cave imitator to Rufus Wainwright imitator. Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth, and not only that, Cave has more literary ability. New York scene or (hint hint) no New York scene, DreamWorks isn't buying. C+

I'm a sucker for baseball references in music reviews, though

xpost

That is unbelievably unpleasant

I get what he's doing with the Wainwright line – making fun of homophobia – but eek.

one of those guys who can make his prepuce mime the Pledge of Allegiance when his boner is right
lol, one of those guys

Robert Christgau's Tropic Of C+

yeah, strikes me as a boomer liberal white man problem. "what? i'm down."

one of those guys who can make his prepuce mime the Pledge of Allegiance when his boner is right

I think this was in Robert Altman's original script for Magic Mike

"Some people, well, if they like Anita Baker, well, then, fuck you." He rises from the table. He points an angry finger at the imaginary enemy. "Fuck you." His face reddens. "Period."

"...signaling the return to Del Shannon from whence the Doors' mysterioso-hood was largely derived to begin with"

Always liked the "signaling" aspect of this - like he was always monitoring "moves" and micro-trends. He also beats Lester by quite a few years in noting this one:

"And since heaviness has been kicked in the ass of late all the kickers owe it to themselves to sit down with this one. There isn't one serious cut on the entire album."

that said I borrowed his doors book from the library and enjoyed it more than anything he's written in years. insightful on the 60s/revivalism. made me listen to the doors w/fresh ears. also it's short

― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Tuesday, July 10, 2012 3:21 PM (2 hours ago)

yeah i basically just wanted him to write about ANYTHING other than his pet obsessions -- no more pere ubu, bob dylan, bill clinton, 'lost highway,' philip roth, etc etc. and yes, the chapter on '60s revivalism was one of the best things he's ever done.

I get what he's doing with the Wainwright line – making fun of homophobia – but eek.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 10, 2012 12:17 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

o really

xgau was an early fan of Wainwright.

besides Rufus is a tit man

so was i, but if i made a crack like that i wouldn't expect someone to mount the daniel tosh defense on my behalf

the first two sentences of the Aimee Mann review are pretty inexcusable, but the rest has her absofuckinglootly dead to rights. in the category of "dullest safe artist who your friends who don't care much about music play at parties" she is some kind of all-time winner.....or maybe my sense of her ubiquity comes from living a decade around and in Boston?

xgau never sounds dorkier than when he talks about sex

it's like if buddy love still had the nutty professor's vocabulary

a guy on livejournal did the most amazing aimee mann takedown years ago, man i wish i could remember that

I'm on the list for her show tomorrow. I'll ask her to talk shit about Marcus for a nominal fee.

nom that fee

Enough to pre-game?

Oh, and she had no idea who he is. Your move, Marcus.

i once asked corin tucker if she had ever read marcus. she said she hadn't.

Found a cheap used copy of this yesterday, something I've been looking for for a while:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1348821854m/2166730.jpg

I always remembered the back-of-the-book poll on the best American films between 1968-77 (the book came out in '79, hence the odd time frame). Here's Marcus's list:

1. The Godfather, Part II
2. The Godfather
3. Thieves Like Us
4. The Man Who Would Be King
5. Across 110th Street
6. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
8. Spend It All
9. Mean Streets
10. Chinatown

Mostly standard stuff, but #5, 6, and 8 are offbeat. I had to look up Spend It All--it's a Les Blank documentary on Cajun country.

(One anachronistic note from the poll. Twenty-one people voted--mostly well-known American critics, plus Truffaut--and Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love received four votes. It's almost completely forgotten today.)

did he include any comments on any of them? two altmans is interesting considering how much he hated 'nashville.'

marcus talks about 'across 110th street' in his sly stone chapter in mystery train -- have always meant to track it down.

a while back i checked out a big bound volume of a late '70s magazine called 'politicks' through ILL. it featured a couple of excellent articles by marcus i've never seen anywhere else -- a review of 'the battle of chile,' and a moving piece on the deaths of charlie chaplin and howard hawks that managed to slip in a hilariously OTT attack on 'close encounters.'