RIFF MARKET

I Was Meant For The Stage

Apropos nada (oh who am I kidding), I'm bummed a) how squeamish people get when a brother draws some blood writing-wise, b) how unwilling people are to think hey maybe there's a reason this brother's drawing more than the fair liter, c) how wtf that we're totally fine with one dude masquerading as a dead baby (cf. "Leslie Anne Levine") but lolocaust livid with another masquerading as Indie Rock Naysayer (cf. "Taynted Love").

Part of the outrage has to do with context--indie rock and dead babies pretty much go hand in hand so whatevs, whereas the only quote acceptable quote printable forms of alt weekly music writing are straightlaced buy-it-or-not consumer guide semi-crit and just-buy-this-already music puff pieces, with pretty much nothing in between--which means part of the outrage has do with expectations, i.e. stick to the facts, make no mistakes, never think too hard. I wonder if the Voice music section was still called RIFFS whether people would take this piece a little more face-value, i.e. an overreaching, dangerously veeringly ad hominem and totally cough visceral rant and the best written piece the section's run since the last Blogwash, and whether said people would take a sec to think about why they like/love the Decemberists, to participate in a dialogue that rarely happens anymore in this Everything Is Everything, Everything Is Good blackhole that music quote criticism's become.

Definition and exclusion are legit mechanisms of articulating one's tastes, so at the end of the day, the piece and the comments that follow it exist to say that no artist can put himself out there for praise without being subject to indifference and disdain too. Plus, no performance is ever not manufactured--and fuck, no person is ever not performing, be it playing nice on the phone with the T-Mobile rep to get the rebate you forgot to send in or not taking the extra five seconds in front of a stall to shake off a pee droplet because the guy next to you might think that's weird. And so a writer performs, sometimes with a certain goal in mind, sometimes not, hate it or love it or who gives a fuck it. And just like I'm glad we have songs about black guys selling drugs, I'm happy somebody jumped on this grenade of sorts and played the unabashed Decemberist basher. Too much artificial "getting it" these days, too much figuring thing X out and moving on to thing Y, not enough dialogue about whether we actually like the stuff to begin with.

22 RIFFS

Crazy Carl
November 10
New York City

This past weekend the comedian Crazy Carl came to NYC and you better believe we hung out until he had somewhere else to go. Here were all the awesome things we did:



This is Crazy Carl buying some underground house and tribal CDs from a guy on the street.



Then we took a stroll onto a subway car and then another stroll on Bedford Avenue. Awesome so far!!



Crazy Carl was looking for some sweet New York threads--so you better believe we went to the Diesel store in SoHo!! Go get em, Crazy!



Then for a surprise we decided to swing by the DFA offices. Let's ring the buzzer and see if anybody's up in punkfunk headquarters!



Nobody's inside (boo), but whatever, we're still having a good time.

85 RIFFS