Rock and Roll is a Pyramid Scheme

I've been mentally adjusting my personal "best records of 2011" list in anticipation of writing it out for both this blog and for my acquaintance Matt's annual Top 10 Party and Blog, and it's led me to think a whole lot about something that's been brought up among a couple of us in the Latest Flame camp: the shifting role of money and social class in popular music. I mean, let's not play naive or stupid or anything; obviously, money's had a lot more to do with who becomes popular than music itself does for as long as we've had a record "industry." That's not news. But with the advent of the internet, MySpace, filesharing, Bandcamp, etc., a lot of writers all but declared a new era of independent freedom and visibility for even the most basement-ridden of obscure basement bands. Now artists can charge what they want to for recordings without need of a Big Record Label, and anyone can be discovered on their MySpace page, conveniently ignoring that the only artists who can make money off pay-what-you-want downloads are those who previously built an audience thanks to major-label ad dollars, and not realizing that thanks to the now deafening din of billions of media players on millions of Bandcamp pages, those dollars still have to get spent on PR and advertising in order to get them heard by the folks peddling the most influence.

It's not necessarily as nefarious as all that, of course--i'm sure the fine folks at Pitchfork and Spin and what have you are genuine music lovers. But when you have hundreds of PR firms flooding your desk with thousands of promo CDs that you'll never get through, how much time do you have to actively search for new music on your own? I'm asking--i don't really know. I'd assume some effort has to be put in; i know for me the temptation to get lazy and just focus on what's on my desk would be overwhelming, and thus, i'd likely miss out on a lot of the records that i'll be listing in my year-end selection.

I don't do this for a living, so when i rank my favorite albums of the year every December, it's just that--my favorites among what i've heard that particular year. This year, i probably managed to hear somewhere around 30 new releases, which is really good for me. But it also means i definitely missed some records that i'm sure i'd have loved. So it goes--there's only so much time in the day, even when you've been unemployed since May (actually, that could account for why my number is so high this year). I find new music from friend recommendations, a few places i trust online (which aren't many), and most of all, from going to and playing as many shows as i can. I'm in the shit, y'all.

On the flip side, i'm bracing myself for a bunch of "best of the year" lists at the usual Big Music Mags that will look awfully similar to each other. Paste already crowned Bon Iver by Bon Iver their #1 of the year, because of course they did. (Spoiler alert: that record will not be on my list.) Absolutely put out a record this year easily as good as anything on Paste's list, but they're a local Milwaukee band with no one championing them but themselves, Steven Hyden (who mentioned them in an AV Club piece earlier this year only to be met with snide "i've never heard of them, so Hyden must be trying to earn hipster points" comments) and me, i guess, so what are the odds that someone from, say, Pitchfork or Spin saw Hyden's post, saw a name they were unfamiliar with, and gave it a shot? Is that their fault? Not necessarily, because "Absolutely," while being sort of a ridiculous name for a band in the first place, is just one in a wild blur of band names they see every single day. Law of averages. That's just the way of the music world.

So when i run my list, i will be sure to list it as my "favorite" records of the year, not the "best of" the year, because that's a silly thing to say when i haven't heard every note that was recorded in 2011. And when the Big Boys run their "best of" lists, we should probably remember that it's just their favorites as well, because while they listened to a lot of stuff, they missed a lot as well, and for the opposite reason.

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Speaking of the authors of the song from which the title of this post came from, Radio K in Minneapolis had our boys Police Teeth and Waxeater on to perform live last June when the bands toured (and came through Milwaukee, which many of you missed. Shame upon your families). Three songs from each performance are now up on their site (and may have been for a while, i dunno--i just found them today thanks to Rob from Waxeater), and you can hear them for yourself by clicking here for Police Teeth, and here for Waxeater. Bands we like.

Full Disclosure: Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards are friends of mine

Those Poor Bastards at Turner Hall (photo by Angela Morgan for the Pabst Theater Group)

One of the necessary "evils" of being a musician who also likes to write is inevitably writing about your friends. Internet commenters pounce on any opportunity to discredit music journalists (because, you know, internet one-upmanship is second only to "urine hoarder" on the list of Noble Life Pursuits), and perceived "favoritism" is right up at the top of their arsenal--at least, it is in small cities like Milwaukee where the music scene is so closely-knit that it's nearly impossible to not know at least two-thirds of the musicians, promoters, writers, sound techs, and music store owners by name. (Another classic hurled at the musician/writer is "you're criticizing this because you're jealous that your band will never be this popular." Yes, that's why Bon Iver's falsetto gives me worse shrinkage than the Polar Bear Plunge--i secretly wish my dad had a cabin in the North Woods where i could retreat, order pizza subsist off the land, and whimper into Garageband for a few weeks.)

The plain truth about being a musician who writes (both of which i'll continue to do, sorry) is that musicians meet other musicians on a different level than regular journalists do. We meet by playing shows together, not by hiring PR agencies we can't afford to send each other CDs. We form bonds from being In The Shit together and swapping war stories. And yes, when we happen to like each other's bands, we LOVE each other's bands, because we have had to deal with seeing so many god-awful (or even worse, kinda ok) bands (many of which contain other friends of ours, which is just frustrating) that finding a killer group of musicians that also happen to be rad dudes or ladies is like walking into a club and finding a $10,000 guarantee...er, so i'd imagine. Pile on the fact that in a town like Milwaukee, the musical infrastructure is so thin that if some of us didn't refuse to recuse ourselves from bands we know personally while multi-tasking as musicians and writers, many deserving folks simply wouldn't get covered (or are Matt Wild and Evan Rytlewski expected to attend every show in town while somehow avoiding becoming acquainted with everyone?), and what it all boils down to is: yes, sometimes i like my friends' bands, and thus i will write about them. Deal with it, and be glad i'm not writing about all my friends' bands that i dislike.

Anyone who has friends gets understandably excited when those pals' creative endeavors don't suck; if they're actually amazing, one can get positively orgasmic about it. On the flip, anyone who falls in love with a band would be tickled to discover that the band members are rad folks and instantly friendable. As a dude in a band, it happens to me quite a bit, and it's always a thrill.

I met Beckah and Tweed, collectively known as the Columbus, OH RV-dwelling indie-prog duo Lollipop Factory, while they were in the midst of a week-long stay at the HiFi practice house, the Church of Murray, waiting to get their RV repaired. They were charming, nondescript kids, which hardly prepared me for their colorful, unrestrained showmanship and hilariously over-the-top glam-prog shredding. Two Thursdays ago they made their most recent stop in Milwaukee at the Cactus Club, and those who stuck around after Everybody at Midnight's set and didn't just bail after their friends played were subjected to Lollipop Factory's most uninhibited Brewtown blast yet. Wearing matching black ensembles (she in black leather pants w/matching top, he with black top hat, high-heeled boots, and sleeveless collared shirt with ascot-length tie), Tweed's wall of four full stacks blasted both guitar and bass frequencies while he busted out Queen/Bowie/Hoople-soaked riffage over Beckah's stand-up drumming, both operatically crooning their best Ian Hunter vocals.

Tweed recently rebounded from some serious health problems that left the Factory stranded at home in Columbus longer than they'd like (they literally live out of that RV), and it was apparent that he was thrilled to be back on stage, working his wah pedal while bracing his other foot atop Beckah's kick drum, and occasionally leaping onto one of his speaker cabinets and shredding from five feet above the stage. That wall of amps produces more sound than a duo would be normally expected to generate; hell, Tweed and Beckah produce more on-stage energy than normally expected. It's a show that's loud, over-the-top, theatrical, damn sexy, and punk fucking rock. If seeing a Lollipop Factory show doesn't make you want to instantly be pals with these two crazy-ass weirdos, i hope your anti-anxiety meds start to kick in soon.

A week later i found myself at Turner hall to see my bandmates in Zebras, Vincent and Lacey, back their pal Wyatt as Madison, WI Gothic country trio Those Poor Bastards. I initially became friends with Vince and Lacey out of mutual musical admiration--i was a Zebras fan as soon as i saw them in the Corral Room in Madison three years ago (before my joining the band, obviously). After a couple years of hearing hilarious road stories about Vince's other band touring with Hank Williams III, it was finally time to check them out as they opened the .357 String Band's last-ever Milwaukee show.

I think that even if i were well-versed in Gothic country, i would still rate the Those Poor Bastards live show as "something i've never seen before." Lonesome Wyatt glares out at the crowd from beneath his long black hair and top hat, alternating between spooooky Goth crooning and eeeevil demonic growling, hurling hilariously bleak lyrics about death, God, Satan, and death. Take this darkly comic stanza from "The Bright Side":

You gotta look on the bright side
Take a walk in the sunshine
The lord is on your side
And people are good

Bullshit! Fuckin' bullshit!
Nothin' aint never gonna get no better, no how

Meanwhile, Vince pounds out basic but perfectly musical drum beats while using one hand to add a little moog bass, while recent addition Lacey adds brooding keyboard flourishes of her own. It's a rockabilly Peter Steele backed by analog synths, and it's quite simply one of the best things i saw all year. TPB's recordings are a little more fleshed out, with Wyatt's songs backed by banjo, piano, and other traditional country elements, but for my money, the combination of dark Southern balladeering with fuzzed-up moog is where it's at.

Both Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards have that unspoken "this is how it's done" bravado that declares to the audience, "sure, there's a lot of different music out there, but THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE." One of the most impressive things a band with both talent and charisma can do is convince other musicians in the audience that they want to start a band just like the one on stage. Lollipop Factory makes me want to dress better and turn clubs into arenas with ridiculous taco riffs and fiery licks. Those Poor Bastards make me want to write lyrics as brilliantly populist and singalong as Wyatt's. That these inspiring, bar-raising bands happen to include friends of mine, well, it boggles my head and reminds me that i'm one of the luckiest dudes around, to know people this phenomenally talented and to not have them laugh my pedestrian ass out of the room.

So yeah, i'll write about my friends' bands when they're amazing (they're not always), and i'll present them to you for review, because they deserve the attention (especially since, in the case of TPB, they are largely ignored in their hometown, as so many great bands are). If you like them even half as much as i, i'll consider my job done.

Listen to Lollipop Factory: http://www.myspace.com/lollipopfactory
Listen to Those Poor Bastards: http://www.myspace.com/thosepoorbastards
And then yell at them to get Bandcamp accounts so i can embed their shit

In Which I Pose More Questions About Music Criticism

Latest Flame Dan clued me in to this LA Weekly article about the resurgent Buddyhead.com (which i totally wouldn't mind writing for and for whom this mention totally isn't an ass-kiss--Hi Travis!), in which head Buddy Travis Keller included some choice quotes about one of my favorite websites (to bitch about, lambaste, and otherwise gnash my teeth regarding), Pitchfork:

“I’ve met all those dudes [at Pitchfork]. Fuck them,” Keller says. “They’re doing well, or at least Ryan. He doesn’t write anything; he just grades all the records. When you review records for Pitchfork, you don’t get to grade them. I was talking to Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, who got a good review but only a 3.0 rating. He called the reviewer and said, ‘Hey, thanks for giving my record a good review,’ and the kid said, ‘I got fired for it.’ ”

A cursory search of the Pitchfork site found two Bad Religion reviews that were given an 8.2 and a 5.1, but that remark about reviewers not assigning the scores to albums was an eyebrow-raiser, considering it echoed something written by Everett True at Collapse Board, my new favorite website to avoid reading, as its music writing is so fucking excellent that it makes me want to quit (note: bold emphasis is mine, italics are his):

Pitchfork’s failings in managing to make any worthwhile contribution to the discourse around music is not their main fault. Not at all. It’s not even in the way they deny women a voice even though women make up a very sizeable proportion of both their audience and the artists they write about. (Women just aren’t interested, don’t you get it Everett?) It’s not even the lack of individuality among their writers, the fact they’ve coagulated them all into one bigger, all-encompassing brand. Though that’s crap, obviously. It’s not even the way that Pitchfork have turned the alternative into the mainstream (that doesn’t matter: there’s always another alternative, another underground, to be found). Those are not their biggest betrayals. This is.

THE MUSIC.

They have no fucking idea whatsoever about music. To paraphrase David Lee Roth, Pitchfork writers all like Bon Iver because Pitchfork writers all look like Bon Iver.


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Another note states that I should cite Scott’s email about how Pitchfork editors hold long editorial meetings to determine the precise grade of each review … something which apparently started off as a joke … but we’ve wasted enough time discussing that band of second class citizens here.

I find these accusations of editorial homogenizing interesting in light of a recent review my band garnered at a website called Subba-Cultcha. I really don't care that the reviewer gave us a 5 out of 10, although the review is abysmally written and sounds like something i wrote for my high school paper in 1991 (and not only says absolutely nothing about how we sound, but also compares us to the Ting Tings, which makes about as much sense as comparing Six Finger Satellite to that episode of Teletubbies where Laa-Laa plays guitar [everyone knows she's more informed by Deerhoof]). What intrigued me about the review, and about Subba-Cultcha in general, is that this reviewer was obviously listening to us for the first time and had never heard of us previously, despite the fact that Subba-Cultcha reviewed our 2008 CD, Fame By Proxy, and gave it an enthusiastic 7/10 that was in no way referenced in the Nada Surf review.

The writing in the Fame review is pretty dire as well (maybe don't get all your band history off our Wikipedia page, especially when it had just been pranked by some friends of ours?), but the two reviews together represented to me the direct opposite of Pitchfork's stifling hegemony: individual voices so far removed from each other as to be completely unaware.

Two review sites--one with a seemingly dictatorial editorial cohesion, one with more disparate voices than Prof. X's son Legion. Obviously the ideal, as with so many things, lies somewhere in the middle. I personally abhor overly cohesive editorial voices, and am a huge fan of sites that allow individual writers' personalities to shine. On the other hand, a good editor should probably make damn sure that his or her writers are keeping up with everything on the site, lest the staff come off as a right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Thoughts, y'all? I never went to journalism school, so i'm not privy to the discussions of editorial policy that i'm sure spring forth in the walls of UW-Milwaukee.

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On a personal note, i turned 37 (gyah) on Monday after a tremendous birthday weekend. Saturday saw IfIHadAHiFi play a benefit show for our friend Elliott, who is recovering/has recovered from the severe electric shock i discussed a couple weeks ago. We were told we played a killer set; it was hard for me to tell as all i could hear was bass and i was already annoyed with having to play on a backline that wasn't ours. I hate to be that asshole who has to have "our sound, man," but goddamn, shared gear shows are a pain in the ass (except for the much-easier load-in). But we do 'em, because PRF events are generally worth it and why rock the boat when it's manned by a group of amazingly talented and kind-hearted friends? Anyway, Elliott gave us all reason to cheer when he took the stage to play guitar with Trophy Wives, who absolutely fucking DESTROYED on the same backline, so i should probably shut the fuck up about shared gear.

I have no idea how much we raised for Elliott's medical bills, as the organizer, Mat isn't talking, but based on the silent auction alone it had to be pretty formidable. I hope the $40 Liz and i jointly spent on a copy of the Dope, Guns & Fucking in the Streets Vol. 10 purple seven-inch (har har) with Brainiac's "Cookie Doesn't Sing" on it comes in handy. I know i'm pretty psyched that Police Teeth's own Richy Boyer donated that record to the pile. Birthday!

Sunday and Monday were all about wrestling as WWE delivered its best pay-per-view wrestling card in perhaps 10 years, as CM Punk defeated John Cena to win the WWE Championship on what was (storyline-wise) his last night in the company. A completely nuclear hometown Chicago crowd was hot, hot, hot for their hometown hero Punk as he took the title belt and ran into the crowd to escape the wrath of Vince McMahon. I can't really do the match justice here, but if you at all give a shit about wrestling (and if you've been coming here for music nonsense, you probably don't, i dunno), you can read a summary of the match at Pro Wrestling Torch.

On Monday RAW was in Green Bay so Liz and i got a wild hair up our asses and spontaneously bought tickets and drove north for the show. We got there early enough for me to give Liz a tour of 1996 Green Bay: a stop at Exclusive Company to record shop and say hi to Timebomb Tom, dinner at Jake's Pizza, and a drive past the old Concert Cafe site before heading to the Resch Center across from Lambeau Field itself. There we watched some fun live TV wrestling and laughed our butts off as Triple H relieved Vince McMahon of his duties as WWE chairman. Classic soap opera drama and a perfect capper to a killer birthica weekend.