pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i think Pitchfork's key demo of "twentysomethings who won't laugh out loud at the idea that Perfect Pussy is an intriguing and interesting band" could stand to learn a little something about John Fahey, yes.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you're underestimating Pitchfork a bit here. A daily (or close enough) reader of Pitchfork is likely aware of the Tompkins Square label, recent Basho reissues, Glenn Jones, etc; the idea that such a person would be ignorant of Fahey - arguably the architect of this entire scene - seems unlikely, no?

I think you're overestimating a daily (or close enough) reader of Pitchfork, there.

Which is not to slag a daily (or close enough) reader of Pitchfork, I just think the world of Fahey and his descendants is not one most Pitchfork readers have already explored on their own. Obviously, some have.

Yeah, gonna go down to the FOXYGEN show and ask some kids about Leo Kottke right now, brb

leo kottke was a household name for growing up (my mom called him leo cupcake, good joke mom!) but neither of my parents had heard of john fahey when i asked about him a few years ago

thanksgiving is a dour affair at the gbx household

xp Well, by that logic, how many of those kids are gonna click on the link anyway?

"on their own", JD

That article could be the push they need.

can't believe pitchfork is running articles that might have a limited audience now. might have to cancel my Vanity Fair feature on L.I.E.S.

o shut up

xp Like, the imaginary Foxygen fan you reference here isn't likely to open Pitchfork today and go "ooh, look, a balding fat guy I've never heard of, let's see what that's all about."

is there a pixies feature today?

Jimmy, I'm just saying P4k isn't making millions of dollars by catering exclusively to know-it-alls.

Fair enough. But I maintain that this piece is particularly both gatecrash-y and unnecessary, where other recent primers (like Powell's) are not.

xp yea, but conversely: everyone knows straw men hate nerd shit

do nerd men hate straw shit?

shit men hate nerd straw

Jimmywine, how do you think people who love music learn about more music? My whole life has essentially been "oh look, here's something that looks intriguing (whether I've heard *of* it or not) presented to me in a place (record store, zine, website, whatever) that already interests me, let's see what it's all about" and then following that as far as I can or until I lose interest or whatever.

uhh, alpine, some of us learn about music in more efficient ways

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia/artificialhumans26_01.jpg

I mean, the Foxygen fan may not click (though that's not exactly a great example), but there seems to me to be an increasing interest in acoustic music thanks to folks like William Tyler, MC Taylor, Dan Bachman, etc., and I'm guessing some of those folks showing increasing interest are young-ish indie-ish ppl who are growing up and checking out new stuff and they see John Fahey on p4k and think "Hmm, yeah, time to dig deeper."

Now, the quality of the piece is a separate discussion. I haven't read it (or the other one you mention).

xpost just yesterday i was wishing i could get my phone and music implanted into my body, like, yesterday.

yesterday yesterday yesterday

Alpine--my point is just that I would assume (maybe incorrectly?) people like yourself would have already heard about Fahey by now. I guess I'm just saying that if today was a person's first exposure to the name "John Fahey," that person is maybe not the eternally curious musical omnivore you describe. I mean - there have been two tribute albums, a documentary, compulsory references in almost every single review of any instrumental guitar of the past ten years, etc.

yeah but dude how many ppl are into instrumental guitar

Jimmy, idk if you are trolling or what but there's a huge, huge, huge, huge gap between "being exposed to John Fahey's name at least once in a record review" and "knowing enough about John Fahey's life and discography to fill a primer"

And I'm guessing most indie music fans — and most of ILX — falls in there.

Fahey seems like a perfect example of the sort of musical name you can see bandied about all the time, and quite possibly hear many descendants of, without actually being familiar with his releases

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HBECisSkAu4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHBECisSkAu4

xp Revolt of the ILX Brigade: New Post-Fahey Folk For PPL that post in the Takoma & Tompkin's Square Threads

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1918 of them)

I think a lot of people have heard of John Fahey

And have also heard him

no idea who or what that stat is sposed to be refuting but with the best will in the world that thread is (iirc) a small number of unusually clued-in ppl posting dozens of times each

yeah that thread has (as I've mentioned over there) given me a skewed idea of the size/appeal of this kind of music -- the actual "american primitive" style shows i've been to in the past year have been woefully under-attended. even william tyler, who has one of the top 3 indie labels backing him, drew about a dozen people! and four or five of them were his close family.

Is not Pitchfork, like ILX, something of a microcosm of the world's "unusually clued in people," though? I mean, relatively speaking? And if so, don't you agree a primer on Fahey is not really useful to those people? On both ILX and Pitchfork, you can read about Bill Orcutt and you can read about Taylor Swift, is what I mean.

Also, I apologize, did not mean for my ultimately trivial complaint to occupy the better part of anyone's afternoon. I just thought this terrible piece, appearing just as "guitar soli" trending is reaching a sort of tipping point, was lol. Appreciate the food for thought from everyone though, and sorry if any of this came off snarky or 'trolling' etc - was not my intention.

xp ha yeah I saw WT play last year (in the UK) to about that many ppl. it was quite poorly promoted but I doubt giant billboards around town would have made much difference

Is not Pitchfork, like ILX, something of a microcosm of the world's "unusually clued in people," though?

the average Pitchfork reader is clued in enough to discover a website called Pitchfork

When I saw William Tyler here in Chicago a few months ago, there were at least a 100 people there, so that's good.

I think a huge percentage of people, even Pitchfork-reading people, don't know shit about John Fahey.

i think Pitchfork's key demo of "twentysomethings who won't laugh out loud at the idea that Perfect Pussy is an intriguing and interesting band" could stand to learn a little something about John Fahey, yes.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you're underestimating Pitchfork a bit here. A daily (or close enough) reader of Pitchfork is likely aware of the Tompkins Square label, recent Basho reissues, Glenn Jones, etc; the idea that such a person would be ignorant of Fahey - arguably the architect of this entire scene - seems unlikely, no?

look i listen to this shit and any one of these things would have, given the right choice of time in my life, been completely nothing to me

fahey primers are perennially useful, just like coltrane primers and early-postpunk primers, because there are always new people for the old things

is there any conversation more tedious than arguing over exactly who constitutes the readership of pitchfork???

Who are the "hipsters" anyway?

I heard the average Pitchfork reader can't read!

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/d0/d064a11cb6ba53bf23783c69d06d5012f97ba15c15a8f5df2a73f120136006a2.jpg

that's what the numbers are for

who hips the hipsters (to john fahey)

who hips the hipsters

just gonna post this everywhere cuz it's hilarious and awesome

http://skotrok.blogspot.com/2014/01/i-listened-to-all-of-pitchforks-top-100.html

i made that joke upthread xp

ah fuck

xpost Loved that guy's (s)troll through Fork's 2013. Pretty funny.

"Did I learn anything after listening to all these songs? Well, I learned that rap music is awesome and that college kids listen to a lot of music that nobody is going to remember a year from now. Haha, just kidding. I didn't learn that. I already KNEW that.

so that's what he's been doing!

love JD for refusing to give the term american primitive any endorsement. i guess the only problem w/ the JF primer is that pf didn't know to ask me to write it. i think that wld be v stressful tho... the only other JF primer i recall was the one on the wire, which was by david keenan but all i really recall was the neat artwork they'd commissioned.

i think in general 'primers' are bad ways of introducing ppl to things, it's always awkward to squish in the details, it ends up being a massive stream of meaningless titles and descriptions that immediately blur into one. i'm pretty sure i found about JF through pf reviews of the likes of cul de sac, gastr del sol &c. the first thing i can i remember reading properly on JF was the byron coley interview (which i read on perfect sound forever which was a bit of a treasure trove), which opens w/ a discussion of pauline theology & all sorts of shit which was infinitely more intoxicating & illustrative to my young self than the strained tone of an overview. otoh i also remember a pf review that i think opened with the line "John Fahey was a lover." which made me feel v bad inside