Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

I wish I’d had more time to blog about going to parties and interviewing celebrities.

sick epitaph bro

Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions.

http://flavorwire.com/223216/one-night-in-central-florida-with-off-and-cerebral-ballzy

When you name your publication "the world's most perfect" anything, you're setting the bar pretty high. But given this new magazine edited by Pitchfork Reviews Reviews creator David Shapiro, it kind of makes sense.

For the zine's debut issue (out today) the NYC writer enlisted everyone from Swedish music duo jj to filmmaker Lena Dunham to novelist Tao Lin to contribute articles, images, and anecdotes to the collection.

Given its Thought Catalog-meets-Tumblr aesthetic, it might seem unusual that this group of artists (many of whom have made names for themselves online) are trying their hands at a print publication. But if you ask us, the 70-page zine proves that the two can-and should- coexist.

Consider this paper mate a necessary addition to your daily dose of screen time and buy The World's First Perfect Zine here.

Yesterday a friend and I agreed that at a place like 285 Kent or Glasslands, and even Webster Hall on some nights, more people will have consciously read your music writing than that of, say, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, and Chuck Eddy combined. How does this success affect your voice as a writer?

I don't know those places are representative (and therefore broadly meaningful) sample pools, and I don't know if that's true, but I'll suspend disbelief for a moment and say that thinking about anything like that is not helpful for me. Secretly, but perhaps you've noticed if you follow my writing, I can't really write anymore. Have you seen any of my new writing lately? If you happen to have seen it, it sucks. Places I used to write for, who I would never expect to turn down pieces of writing, turn me down consistently now, and it's not because they've realized they don't like what I was doing. It's because I don't know how to write in a way that captures people anymore. Trust me, I read all of my writing and it's not what it used to be, whatever that was. Those dudes are classic bands, I'm a one-hit-wonder.

Every time I start something I write like 200 words and then delete the memo because it's bad. Even this interview is not revelatory or funny or engaging like one I could have written a year ago. I'm not joking, and I don't want you to edit this part out. The amount of words I used to write in two days I can barely eek out in a month, and I don't really like the stuff I do write when I put it out.

An older and established professional writer told me, at a party, that it's natural to feel fallow as a writer sometimes, which seems true, but I've been waiting to feel fruitful again for longer than I spent writing in the first place.

the sufjan stevens of music blogs

nabisco weighs in http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/12927986166/prrr

I laughed

surprisingly ineffective imitation! but i like the "class" reading.

"When I heard about Occupy Wall Street, the thing I first thought of when trying to process it was specifically your post on chill wave"

^^ otm

http://guestofaguest.com/nyc-interviews/interview-our-own-blackberry-blogger-david-shapiro-launches-the-worlds-perfect-zine/

http://www.papermag.com/2011/11/tao_lin_david_shapiro_worlds_first_perfect_zine.php

i recognize some ppl in that papermag gallery

buzza, did you go?

surprisingly ineffective imitation! but i like the "class" reading.

Because you can't imitate Shapiro's style and be insightful. Despite Nabisco's occasional praise.

http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/djing-a-new-years-party-for-one-of-the-richest-men-in-america

get the kind of "i'm angry that i even know who this person is" feelings about this guy that most people get about the kardashians or whatever

An hour and a half later it's about 11:45 and the party is in full swing. I've had some cups of wine, one of the richest men in America dances with his girlfriend and greets his guests in the middle of the room, some Gawker writers hang out and drink cups of wine, a kid keeps coming up to me and telling me to play "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" by Busta Rhymes ("It will work! I promise! It'll work. I'm a DJ too!"), a venture capitalist who doesn't not look like Raj Rajaratnam dances with some girls, a bottle of champagne in one hand.

kid is the best damn music writer i have read in ages and i am crazy crazy jealous, like knowing what truman capote was up to his teens & 20s level jealous. just for the record.

― a dystopian society awaits if we continue on this path. (contenderizer)

actually kind of liked his recent thing on meeting lil wayne b/c he seemed genuinely enthusiastic in a realistic way

Heard he was starting a new blog, @SPINReviews reviews

get the kind of "i'm angry that i even know who this person is" feelings about this guy that most people get about the kardashians or whatever

yeah this kid honestly its just...

like the exact opposite of what you were pining for when you talked about wanting more 'long-form' reviews in the SPIN thread?

it's sort of like a seven-style "you get what you wish for" ironic death.

well, yeah, although his writing is just mostly blank and unremarkable its more that he seems like an idea of a possible self i had or s.thing which is v existentially irritating

its esp bad if he starts djing fashion parties and putting out a zine i guess

agreed

https://twitter.com/#!/fusedavid

i hope he's the new co-host of the guy from blink 182's show

fusedavid David Shapiro
Hi @LilTunechi! It's David. We met two weeks ago and you wanted to hang out. I'm free Sunday, text me if you wanna get together (brunch?)
7 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

i hope he's the new co-host of the guy from blink 182's show

― some dude

omg

I don't think this guy's tone is an affectation. it really does seem like he's just hurriedly typing all of this out on his blackberry somewhere

― markers

\(^o^)/

Hi! I'm David Shapiro, a 23-year-old pseudonymous blogger and the author of Pitchfork Reviews Reviews. I'm into live music DVDs and concert recordings, borrowing my mom's car and taking day trips on the weekends, nature documentaries, BlackBerry devices, and, probably most of all, long-form music journalism and criticism. I live in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn and if you live around there, you can catch me after work at the Met Foods on Fulton and St. James where The Notorious B.I.G. used to be a bag boy. Sardines for dinner!

it's amazing how quickly that area's gentrifying. Don't remember too many 23-year-old bloggers hanging out at Met Foods when I lived there. But I did see MIA at a coffee shop. The writing was on the wall.

was she eating truffle fries?

all i remember is her wrap-around reflective shades and shiny track suit.

Maya has in fact had her eye sockets sealed with vision-enhancing mirrored lenses that were surgically attached to her face by the skilled black-market surgeons of Chiba City.

So it turns out there are a heck of a lot of one-hit wonders!

According to an analysis of every artist that's appeared on Billboard's Hot 100/Top 100 chart between 1955 and today, about half of the artists that appeared on the chart never reappeared. That means that almost half of pop successes are one-hit wonders! This is pretty sad for a huge group of people. But maybe when they die, they go to a heaven where it's always the week their song was on the chart and they feel awesome.

DAVID SHAPIRO: What's your middle name?

WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Why?

SHAPIRO: I looked at your Wikipedia page and it says your name is "Juaquin Bertholimule Malphurs," and Bertholimule sounds like a middle name so unconventional that it, you know, didn't sound real.

FLAME: (laughs) What's it say? Bertholimule? My middle name is James.

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/waka-flocka-flame-is-a-product#_

i thought his middle name was Flocka

I guess Waka James Flame doesn't have the same magic

i'm not super familiar w/ david shapiro on gawker

http://gawker.com/5912835/riff-raffs-got-a-record-deal-making-sense-of-the-most-viral-human-being-in-music

http://www.austinthirdgen.org/upload/yawn.jpg

― Mr. Que, Friday, July 23, 2010 4:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://gawker.com/markers/

not sure to do w/ this news in my inbox:

David Shapiro @fusedavid is now following you

http://www.shaydeelane.50megs.com/images/stalking.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A4cHzvi9hbA/TnwdrNGVJGI/AAAAAAAAADc/RxykQMtZAYs/s1600/following21.jpg

maybe i should send him webarchive links to all my reviews from 12 years ago that PF deleted from the site to kickstart Pitchfork Reviews Reviews Classics

He is pleasant to talk to and has the attentive eyes of a good listener--however, his attention this evening is divided among a tremendous group of people he has to greet, thank, and shop-talk. His elusiveness only works to preserve an aura of mystery cultivated over nearly the past two years, starting with the fact that his name is not David Shapiro.

Having a pseudonym (“I just picked a name that gets lost in Google”) serves as a buffer between David’s music and culture writing online, and his other career at “a very conservative institution in downtown Manhattan.” In addition to his third career as a neophyte screenwriter, David is also responsible for The World’s First Perfect Zine, a one-time publication he created with an impressive roster of collaborators from the worlds of music, film, literature, and both print and digital media. He is 23 years old.

http://zachsokol.tumblr.com/post/27082616545/a-conversation-with-the-quasi-elusive-david-shapiro-of