http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/peanuts/images/e/ed/Charlie-brown-1-sad.jpg
― NotKnowPotato (stevie), Thursday, 16 April 2015 14:52 (nine years ago) link
That Downtown Boys review is hilarious. Adds more fuel to the "Is Pitchfork racist?" fire.
― austinato (Austin), Thursday, 16 April 2015 20:07 (nine years ago) link
Am I the only on who finds it weird - if not shocking - that Pitchfork has thus far ignored the new Built To Spill album, Built To Spill being one of the bands I used to very closely associate with Pitchfork, for better or worse?
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Monday, 20 April 2015 13:26 (nine years ago) link
the album comes out tomorrow. they don't seem to run reviews before the week of release very often (at least that had been the case for a number of years -- i was surprised recently that they ran a review of Mac McCaughan's album 3 weeks before its street date).
― some dude, Monday, 20 April 2015 13:33 (nine years ago) link
I thought this album was released on RSD?
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Monday, 20 April 2015 13:40 (nine years ago) link
maybe on vinyl or something? doesn't go on iTunes and stuff til Tuesday.
― some dude, Monday, 20 April 2015 13:44 (nine years ago) link
maybe Built to Spill are Country now
― Is It Any Wonder I'm Not the (President Keyes), Monday, 20 April 2015 14:14 (nine years ago) link
*Asian
― moans and feedback (Dinsdale), Monday, 20 April 2015 16:06 (nine years ago) link
yeah i think they moved to get the vinyl out for record store day early
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 20 April 2015 16:45 (nine years ago) link
I prefer the Asian Built To Spill to the Country Built To Spill, but I hear they're gonna put out a split 7" on Black Friday, so that'll probably be a 8.2 easy.
― Blood On The Knobs, Monday, 20 April 2015 18:42 (nine years ago) link
"Earlier this month, word arrived of a new album by the musician Jim O’Rourke. To some people this will mean a great deal; to the other 99.99% percent of the population it will mean nothing at all."
"A quick show of hands among Pitchfork contributors showed a low level of Jim O’Rourke recognition[...]"
: (
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/745-jim-orourke-on-drag-city-a-primer/
― flappy bird, Monday, 20 April 2015 22:20 (nine years ago) link
i can see how younger people might not be super familiar -- he's been pretty low profile for about a decade now.
― tylerw, Monday, 20 April 2015 22:27 (nine years ago) link
haha i think of O'Rourke as kind of the first artist that Pitchfork had a really tortured love/hate relationship with
― some dude, Monday, 20 April 2015 22:37 (nine years ago) link
oh right isn't there a review about how o'rourke ignored the writer at a party?
― tylerw, Monday, 20 April 2015 22:42 (nine years ago) link
gastr del sol >>>> o'rourke
― the late great, Monday, 20 April 2015 22:52 (nine years ago) link
I can't wait to measure Mike Powell's career in a show of hands
― got a long list of ilxors (fgti), Monday, 20 April 2015 23:04 (nine years ago) link
lol
jim o'rourke is good, and he should put insignificance on itunes
― markers, Monday, 20 April 2015 23:31 (nine years ago) link
imo mike powell is a great writer, that downtown boys blurb is lazy garbage though
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, 20 April 2015 23:34 (nine years ago) link
"O’Rourke's first Drag City record—four long instrumentals led by fingerpicked acoustic guitar—took up the project of the Beach Boys circa Smile or what the guitarist John Fahey called “American Primitivism”: Acoustic music that put an alien perspective on old forms."
like imo this is a very precise description
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, 20 April 2015 23:39 (nine years ago) link
he kinda gave short shrift to insignificance and halfway to a threeway though. "Not Sport, Marital Art" is the best song ever
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:16 (nine years ago) link
true tho
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:25 (nine years ago) link
which means Pitchfork belongs to the .01 percent.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:26 (nine years ago) link
brad otm, doubt pitchfork has a better writer
def capable of hackwork; but sins, stones
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:34 (nine years ago) link
if there's anybody I'd trust for a retrospective it's Mike Powell.
(I only know O'Rourke as a producer and guy on board for three good to excellent SY albums).
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:40 (nine years ago) link
dissing "All Downhill from Here" and then comparing it to Collective Soul......... .... .... .... .. .... .. .
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 00:48 (nine years ago) link
i'd rather listen to collective soul. they had some decent riffs.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 01:00 (nine years ago) link
I too have been thrilled by a bar band playing December
― Bookmark No Bingus Permalink (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 01:14 (nine years ago) link
Well tbf there are only so many hours in a day in which to pontificate on the minutiae of rap mixtapes
― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 03:10 (nine years ago) link
"I can't wait to measure Mike Powell's career in a show of hands"
are you jk w/ this shit
― soyrev, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 03:44 (nine years ago) link
imo this is an extremely valuable service
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 04:57 (nine years ago) link
FSA's Dave Pearce came to Terrastock for his first U.S. performance, but none of his usual collaborators made the trip. Instead, he was backed by Chicagoan Jim O'Rourke, who overpowered Pearce's gentle picking with his white-noise guitar, and ruined the vibe by telling a dumb and seemingly endless joke midway through the set.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 05:18 (nine years ago) link
I like Powell and I hope that if/when his own writing is compiled the foreward doesn't concern itself so pettily with the visibility of his work
― got a long list of ilxors (fgti), Tuesday, 21 April 2015 06:32 (nine years ago) link
it's such a lukewarm and tossed off 'retrospective'... he doesn't even like Insignificance !
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 07:47 (nine years ago) link
everything is ok now.
pitchfork has reviewed built to spill.
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 14:02 (nine years ago) link
omg, I'm glad the mike powell o'rourke article is mentioned here so I don't have to bring it up myself. on those rare occasions when pitchfork covers artists that I like (this is rare because there isn't any new bands that I really care about), pitchfork mentions the most annoying shit in their reviews regardless of whether they get the score "right" (usually not).
take the o'rourke article for instance: 1) paragraph #1 - let's write about how no one really knows anything about this artist because the way I judge their popularity is important criteria for this review2) paragraph #2 "sprawling, orchestrated suites that sound like progressive rock played by a somewhat irritable marching band". -Admittedly I haven't listened to much of the improv stuff but never once have I heard anything similar to a marching band3) paragraph #2 "He is one of those musicians whose admirers call him a "composer," as though what he does requires a level of thought and expertise that places him above people who just pick up a guitar and start shredding, which O’Rourke often does"-Are you shitting me? It's only the 2nd paragraph and you've already proved that you are annoying as hell 3 times. How does a non-Jim'O admirer know anything about Jim'O admirers at all? Has he actually ever heard anyone call O'Rourke a "composer" or is that just what the voices in his head are telling him when he trys to get in the mind-frame of a Jim O'Rourke admirer by listening to his music.
actually I'm gonna stop here. it never fails. i read one article and I have a renewed hate for pitchfork. the kind of hate that ultimately means jack shit because pitchfork is just gonna keep on being pitchfork and I'm gonna keep on reading their articles whenever they cover a band I care about. god damnit
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:06 (nine years ago) link
its not a review, its a primer, he is mentioning the popularity as a reason for the article. he thought people who were unfamiliar with his work would find it useful
― just sayin, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:16 (nine years ago) link
why do you think he's a non-jim o'rourke admirer?
― just sayin, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:17 (nine years ago) link
maybe he is a jim o' admirer but why would he show it by writing shit/shittily about him
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:23 (nine years ago) link
some more quotes from that article:
"This is the record I like to imagine Sufjan Stevens might’ve made had he not been polluted by wonder."
about my favorite O'Rourke album Insignificance:"I don’t listen to this one much, and have a somewhat active distaste for "All Downhill From Here", which reminds me of Collective Soul and a host of other meaty, neo-buttrock bands that inadvertently got me into indie music to begin with."
Sure it's not Mike's fault that he judges one artist based on similarities to another artist. But the Sufjan comparison is far fetched and the collective soul comparison is an important lesson why you shouldn't let your opinions on band x and genre y influence your album experience of someone, that despite the similarities, is doing something very different. Post-buttrock maybe
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:43 (nine years ago) link
"mildly godlike"
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:46 (nine years ago) link
"subtly defiant"
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:47 (nine years ago) link
For when you want to be subversive and challenging but not to the point of attracting attention.
actually now that I think about it, I don't even know what buttrock is
― The Once-ler, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:49 (nine years ago) link
To me it fails as a primer because it doesn't really make O'Rourke's work seem particularly appealing or worth revisiting. It also doesn't make a good case that the work is worth grappling with despite its flaws, or influential, and it doesn't make a point about, say, why O'Rourke isn't as "famous" as he used to be. The basic format is:
a) Here's this guy who used to be reveredb) No one's heard of him anymore I guess. c) Most people who like him are pretentious assholesd) I like his records fine, here are some lukewarm descriptions
― intheblanks, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 03:29 (nine years ago) link
slow news day?
― scott seward, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 03:51 (nine years ago) link
i mean you gotta write about something.
To some people this will mean a great deal; to the other 99.99% percent of the population it will mean nothing at all.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 22 April 2015 03:53 (nine years ago) link
jim o'rourke should do a Back To The 90's tour with built to spill. get his name out there to the kids.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 04:23 (nine years ago) link
It's abt the writer and what he wants us to think of him, I think
― sonic thedgehod (albvivertine), Wednesday, 22 April 2015 04:50 (nine years ago) link
powell otm re: insignificance afaic, that is a shit record
what triggered me about that release is my own personal baggage re the-way-people-talk-about-jim-o'rourke. dude has been working his whole career on projects of all sorts of scale and levels of visibility, and yet mike powell essentially reduces his output to a ranking of his five DC releases. which is how most people approach him, ignoring his other contributions. i can't imagine any jim o'rourke retrospective not starting with fenn'o'berg. and also how most people deal with him now, like, "oh where's he been all these years?" as if a working musician's existence hinges exclusively on their visibility. maybe it's just my own baggage. i just think the "lol what happened to HER?" kind of US weekly approach is suuuuuper out of place when you're talking about a friggin drone musician / producer-mixer of weirdo records
― got a long list of ilxors (fgti), Wednesday, 22 April 2015 06:12 (nine years ago) link