Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

who cares

In the context of typical music interviews, yes, they're quite original. Show me a non-PRR interview in 2010 in which the interviewee gets to ponder and talk about how the world will end?

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 12:01 PM (5 minutes ago)

I think there was something similar in a recent issue of XLR8R actually

ichlugebullets

1. Does this "explain" Pitchfork Reviews Reviews? Does guy secretly want AnCo bro to grind a stiletto into his nutsack? 2 minutes ago via web

2. From what little I know of the world of BDSM, the "submissive" or "sub" has to never use the capital "I" when writing about themselves. 3 minutes ago via web

if only PRR dude had walked up to AC dude and they just shot each other to death right then and there amirite

he looks like he is trying to formulate a more direct response but i stop him

This is the best way to conduct interviews.

just finished reading the piece -- pretty good, tbh

again, that's pretty damn great. maybe the best PRR piece i've yet read. and, yeah, the mini avey tare interview-within-the-interview is pathetic and awkward, but that seems to be the point. not, "oh i got this cool moment with avey!" but, "geez, i guess i was sort of a dork..." or more accurately, it's simply an accounting of the incident without summary comment, allowing the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. i like that approach. basically the whole of the awl piece works that way: it's a series of camera flashes without explanatory notes. the analogy brings to mind the kid outside taking his own exhausted picture at the end of that piece/show, if that kid had taken a self-portrait every couple minutes for a whole evening, his impassive face centered in the middle of the events that swirled around him, a hundred oddly disconnected snapshots leading us through the night.

here, in the das racist piece, he switches back and forth between camera-like observation and more thoughtful analysis, listening to himanshu's words, but also thinking about what they mean, both in a general sense and in relation to PRR dude's own life and family history. and for a piece of music writing about race, identity and exclusion in america, it's pretty damn good. not terribly deep, perhaps, but nor is it wholly insubstantial, and it's hardly an easy subject to write well about.

i liked this one

i feel like people really react badly to people putting themselves in their writing about music. is that part of it? or is it the livejournal-y affectations (which i dont mind)? just wondering why people seem so pissed off by this guy

but that seems to be the point.

in a nutshell, this is all any of you crazy prr stans are saying

it's shit but that seems to be the point.

He doesn't piss me off but he can't write. At best his semantic constructions -- paragraph placements, points of emphasis -- are so weird that I wonder if he's deliberately writing Cocteau Twins lyrics as prose.

no one who couldn't write could sustain a tone as consistent as this dude can.

in a nutshell, this is all any of you crazy prr stans are saying

it's shit but that seems to be the point.

― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 2:07 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

disagree. writing about a moment in which you behaved awkwardly is not the same thing as writing badly. i'd say that dude's description of his "interview" of avey tare is well-written, but reveals that the interview itself was something of a disaster. enjoyed that. it's reflective of the dude's little-boy-lost stance, which seems to be a dealbreaker for a lot of folks, fine, but when it's handled with a measure of self-awareness, it can be quite funny. i lolled at the faux stupid "i wonder if Das Racist's frequent lyrics about the internet are rooted in not having computers." an easy laugh, maybe, but good enough for me.

I don't like him because it's a slog to get to the end of everything he writes and when you do you realize you didn't actually get any insights about what he was writing about

its like listening to pavements discography over and over again

write it on a tumblr
dad they broke me, dad they broke me

^^^^maybe the best post on this thread i've yet read

it's depressing that there's like 20 legitimately great music writers who post on this very board and you guys don't deconstruct any of their work with a fraction of the attention and scrutiny you pay to this weirdo. like so the new "model" is to be the fucking lil b of music writing?

and you can save the "HAHA SAYS THE HIPSTER TWITTER PUPPIES 1000 REVIEWS DROWN SANDWICH LOLMJIUG@IYV@"

nah, that's cool. but the 20 legit greats should really spend more time posting the legit great work of their peers, so we can all talk about it. i only go on abt PRR dude cuz people keep posting the shit and seem open to discussion about it.

also my peeve w/ the 'quirky interview' is that any time you come up with 'weird' and 'out there' questions like that it's almost always designed to throw the spotlight back onto you, the interviewer, it's like "look how against the grain and weird I'm being, please acknowledge this cool guy whose music I listen to"

feels like PRR dude secretly wishes that in 3 months he'll run into avey tare at some bar and be like "hey I was the guy who asked you those weird questions" and avey tare will be like "oh yeah those were interesting you wanna be featured on my next album" and PRR dude will be like "nah I got tumblrs to post on" but secretly he'll be pleased

i still think he writes tooooo much of the filler stuff. i like that piece although alright though, it makes some good points, but it takes sooo long to get to them & then when it does it feels like there was too much build up, his timing isnt really there yet. sooo much "and then i did this and then i did this" etc. basically just needs some editing

basically just needs some editing

OTM x 100.

I quite like this guy but there are so many bloggers over the last ten years who more thoroughly deserve the weirdly intense praise he's getting.

― Tim F, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:38 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

he figured out the #1 way to get peoples' attention on the internet: being meta. this is why that site called kickpork or whatever the fuck it was got all the attention it did when it launched a few weeks ago

and this from sarahel:

Maybe I'm supposed to already have bought into these details or these types being significant, but all i'm seeing/reading is a bunch of empty signifiers that don't communicate much.

is otm. it's playing to the base.

it's depressing that there's like 20 legitimately great music writers who post on this very board and you guys don't deconstruct any of their work with a fraction of the attention and scrutiny you pay to this weirdo. like so the new "model" is to be the fucking lil b of music writing?

― fuck noOoOO (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 8:17 PM

PRR isn't a rock critic.

Generally, his posts fall into two categories: the morning roundup and the longer pieces about his life, indie rock culture, and music. But nowhere in here is he really, strictly speaking, reviewing music. The morning roundup is metacriticism; the other stuff, eh, is a little more complicated.

Somewhere on this thread, someone mentioned LiveJournal; I think it's helpful if we look at his longer posts as online journal entries, written from the perspective of an indie kid, about what it's like to be an indie kid and have indie kid thoughts about indie rock and other music indie kids tend to like in 2010. And I think that a lot of the people who enjoy his stuff are enjoying it because, for them, he's writing in a really fun, easy-to-read style, from the perspective of someone who's just like them, except he's out there doing more exciting things they wish they could do, like hanging out with musicians and interviewing people high up on the indie culture food chain.

I haven't fully thought this through and there's probably a lot more I could say, but I've gotta go do other stuff now.

uh he's a rock critic, sorry

which isn't a bad thing of course

I haven't fully thought this through and there's probably a lot more I could say, but I've gotta go do other stuff now.

http://lateshowwritersonstrike.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/webassets/mallomars.gif

And I think that a lot of the people who enjoy his stuff are enjoying it because, for them, he's writing in a really fun, easy-to-read style, from the perspective of someone who's just like them, except he's out there doing more exciting things they wish they could do, like hanging out with musicians and interviewing people high up on the indie culture food chain.

so it boils down to that PRR is writing slash fiction for other indie fans? which tbh is probably a long-running undercurrent in rock reportage anyway.

that's the best explanation i've heard for him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZmhuQ8WWZU

and also a good explanation for why i can't stand him

And I think that a lot of the people who enjoy his stuff are enjoying it because, for them, he's writing in a really fun, easy-to-read style, from the perspective of someone who's just like them, except he's out there doing more exciting things they wish they could do, like hanging out with musicians and interviewing people high up on the indie culture food chain.

honestly, this is kind of pathetic

yeah if you respond to this you probably have to remove yourself from your interests a bit

i liked (and still do) reading his stuff about pitchfork cuz shit i'm a pitchfork stan at heart but i find his other stuff to be long-winded & uninteresting

the idea that what you want/respond to from a rock critic is long livejournal esque narratives & whimsical two question "interviews" with bands that the writer gets to "hang out with" is really backwards to me

fanfic is otm

what i could get through of the das racist piece i guess could have been interesting if you cared about das racist but it was like a million pages long for no reason

fanfic! yes! or, like the bushwick equivalent of la dolce musto

only without any limit on inches

i don't think musto has a limit on inches either

heyoooo

BAM

http://obit-mag.com/media/image/Bowing-Man.jpg

i think PRR would prob be more interesting if he was gay tho

Joshua Heller [#4549]

das racist is my favorite band. this kid is an excellent writer. he wrote this whole thing on a cellphone? baller.
Posted on 09/28/10 at 6:18 pm

he does have a fuckton of patience for typing on a blackberry, i'll give him that. i hate that shit.

he should move to japan and start writing novels

guys I write on a blackberry too

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

i knock on the door of the apartment building whose address he gave me because there are no buzzers even though there are multiple apartments in the building, and nothing happens so i text him "yo i'm here" and then i try to open the front door to the building and it is unlocked and i walk in and stand in the lobby area waiting for him, i am nervous and i am wishing i had taken an anti-anxiety pill and i wonder if i have one in my pocket so i check my pocket but i don't and i think about running outside to buy a 40 but then Himanshu comes down the stairs. he is barefoot and he gets halfway down the stairs and crouches and looks at me for a second and smiles and gives me the finger guns and goes, "yo" and he smiles and i say "hey how's it going?"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH STFU

yeah the idea of that being "easy to read" is not something i really comprehend

I kinda agree w/markers that the diaristic style of his writing is part of the appeal. Which is why it's slightly disorienting and maybe a little unsatisfying to read somewhere other than his own blog. Because if you want something tight and punchy and journalistic, this kid's doing it all wrong. But I do think there's something interesting and attractive about that voice on its own. For me, at least.