Joan of Arc Guitar Duets: I absolutely cannot understand how this gets a 3.5

And the snarky remark about the Cap'n Jazz CD being a guilty pleasure really pissed me off, too, because, hell, that album is absolutely incredible and I will brook no argument on the subject.

Not particularlykeen on defending Kinsella, here, but I agree, that review is malicious for no apparent reason whatsoever.

ABCDEFJHIJK LOST!

I'm not sure why Kinsella offends so many people's precious/pretentious ("art-fag?") sensibilities, either. But I don't think there's anything necessarily missing in this review. It at least touches on the reasons this stuff is being dismissed -- "post-post-rock malaise ... academic John Faheyisms, clipped Michael Hedges and creaking repetitive self-indulgence that can be heard all the way in Currituck County." The "concept" of the review turns around into an actual meaningful criticism of the record -- the album is "exactly this insular, somnolent and unnecessary." Hogan's read on this seems pretty simple: "Ooo ahhh so Kinsella and his rock friends get together and noodle around on guitar, ooo ooo it's Ben Vida, big noodly whoop."

I don't know if that's accurate or not (haven't listened to this), but the "insight" seems reasonably spelled out on Hogan's end. (He's lucky he didn't do his time in Chicago a few years earlier than he did, back when every record was like "ooo ahh Fred Lonberg-Holm did a duet with Chad Taylor, ooo ooo it's Jim O'Rourke improvising with Ken Vandermark's roommate, oooo.")

nabisco: "organically weird" a remarkably poor choice of words. What I meant to say was that I can imagine him actually getting into and appreciating the stuff he writes into his songs (Debord, cummings, brel, walker, uhh... assata shakur, et al.), that his appreciation of various strands of the avant-garde is not some kind of disingenuous image he's created for himself. I could be wrong, of course. It's only my humble opinion.

I would KILL to see tim kinsella doing a scott walker covers set.

And I'm not sure why you're "giving credit" to Pitchfork reviews for not using concepts, since reviews there have been limited to like one half-concept a week for the past couple years. Nevermind that the concept in this one actually turns out to be a workable self-deprecating metaphor about the album: "look, are you any more interested in Pitchfork-buddy insular noodling than Kinsella-buddy insular noodling?" I just like the in-Chicago quality of referring to something as "Brown-line-paced."

"Ooo ahhh so Kinsella and his rock friends get together and noodle around on guitar, ooo ooo it's Ben Vida, big noodly whoop."

Big noodly OTM!

Pretty much everything else you might disagree with was probably a joke, good or bad. Ho hum.

It's not that clever a gag, so I thought it would be obvious.

"in junior high, i saw tim kinsella pee in my friend's sprite can and compare it to The Society of the Spectacle...all 51 kinsella brothers agreed and chuckled with glee...from this day forth we will view their records with the same contempt that tim held for my friend's lunch time libation. good day." - Ryan Schreiber c.199x

and to nabisco:
I don't care about any x-buddy insular noodling...i wanted to hear a record of guitar duets, so i bought one, and then i listened to it, and it was really good...I'm a way bigger fan of Rutili's work (which has seen quite a bit of praise on pfork) than JoA, and the majority of this record seems to fall on the Califone side of Chicago (specifically the aforementioned Perishable records)...i would think that would at least pull up the score a point or two, even with the -5 Kinsella penalty that had already been taken.

it just seems they are having too much trouble separating the music from the musicians...fine.

And I'm not sure why you're looking for some grand historical reason why Pitchfork hasn't liked Joan of Arc output -- I know like hardly anyone who likes Joan of Arc, and I'm not sure why Pitchfork would be different. They had the bad luck of getting two reviews from Brent D, who clearly dislikes them. They had the bad luck of not getting a review for one of their more accessible records (Portable Model), and having Nick Mirov not-really-feeling How Memory Works. (Keep in mind that through this period Pitchfork had, like, what, a dozen non-professional writers at a time; if none of them liked Joan of Arc, well, tough shit for Joan of Arc.) There's obviously no hilarious secret anti-Kinsella rule, what with American Football getting a 7.5 and Owls getting a 7.0. Is it maybe possible that, umm ... wait for it ... amazement ... nobody lately has been digging on TK's shtick? Like especially since 2000 or so, when it got really pretty, you know, bad?

I mean, send me back in time, right, and I'd give those first few records respectable mid-sevens or higher. But, luck of the draw, they pulled reviewers who didn't go for it, and apart from that I think Pfork reaction to Kinsella-related stuff has been pretty much the same as that of the music world at large.

this record is actually okay... but just okay. god, can i please have one MORE FUCKING BULLSHIT FOLKSY NOODLE BOMB? this album needs more weed. i can't help but feel like a high school or college intro teacher writing in the margins in red... "YOU ARE RAMBLING HERE. BE SUCCINT." this record rambles too fuckin much.

just my opinion though. i've felt [insert zine here]'s reviews were unfair before too... TS: fans of vs. critics... what can you do?
m.

This is very OTM, except I do think critics are missing out on something.
It seems like Kinsella's stuff is dismissed in a knee jerk way as "pretentious" simply for having things to say. Which is kind of sad. Haven't "Guitar Duets" but I'm always defending Kinsella's work it seems.

The review that was in Stylus for the last JOA record
gave it a pretty good rating and was very well written. It helps, I guess, if you look at Kinsella and co.'s work from a non-indie centric perspective.

The Xiu Xiu comparison is something I've thought about before actually. Jamie Stewart's music is not obviously better but it's not hard to see why critics are more willing to give him a pass for doing similarly dramatic/dissonant high concept avant-pop whatever you call it. His whole masochistic gay teen melodrama schtick, thrilling and fun at times is far easier for rock critics to embrace than JOA's comparably egg-headed experiments in politics and abstraction/form and content. But then again, yeah, I'm a bit of a fan.