Oh God Just Do Some Research!!!

As part of yesterday's Pitchfork headlines: My Bloody Valentine Reunion!

Hooray and all, but goddamn it can you try not to propagate a popular myth?!?

People, it's on. Dust off your tremolo pedals, don your best pair of kicks, and get ready to gaze like its 1991.

Do you know how many guitar pedals Kevin Shields used, even on Loveless? One, the Yamaha XPS 90. According to old Kev, he used pure volume and the built in tremolo bar in his Fender Jaguar as well.

He does not use a fucking tremolo pedal. A tremolo pedal causes the actual sound to cut in and out. I can't remember A SINGLE MBV song that uses the the tremolo pedal effect.

This is what made MBV technically superior to its shoegaze counterparts. Ride, Slowdive, Lush, they were fucking made of guitar pedals as far as I'm concerned.

MBV did it better and with only two guitars usually. Overdubs were for pussies.

I know you were trying to be clever, but do some research. It's a tremolo BAR, not a pedal. There is a huge difference.



Sigh.

Shes longevity it's icredible she's freshness more

I'm loving this Future Rock Hall page. Today we will have a discussion with fans of the Hall concerning one Ms. Donna Summer.

One good friend we will need is Senor Suspension of Disbelief. He is a nice fellow who helps you enjoy the ridiculous, surreal opinions that any writer or person tosses around. Especially crazy fans who think that Halls of Fame are the be-all-end-all of any persons career. This should drive me crazy.

Let me start by saying this is the ROCK AND ROLL hall of fame. This is the first post after the new nominees were announced.

Posted by Joe on Monday, 03.12.07

Like it or not, nobody defined a type of music singlehandedly any better than Donna Summer defined disco.

WOO HOO HOO!!! NICE!!! Rock and roll is not disco. Disco grew out of the cold, lifeless grooves of Kraftwerk, mixed with the rhythmic vigor of Motown and Stax recordings. Disco's foundation lies in the Rhythm and Blues hall of fame.

Anyways, fuck this shit. She's an R'n'B artist. Rock came out of R'n'B, Doo-wop, Country and Bluegrass music. How did an R'n'B artist deemed the "Queen of Disco" suddenly become a rock and roll artist? Perhaps a brief journey into Donna's past is necessary to fully understand her Rock and Roll roots...

-born in Boston, Massachussetts. Unfortunate home to Aerosmith, Dispatch, and strangely, not Boston the band

-grew up singing gospel. In a church. And then played briefly with a rock group!!! This it is, this must be where the rock and roll snow ball becomes a rock and roll avalanche!!!

-she moved to New York to sing in musical theatre. Nope. No rock, no roll. I'm waiting.

-she moved to Europe and performed in the German cast of "Hair." Ask any novice rock fan this question: What single action would make a person the antithesis of rock and roll? The answer is the first sentence in this bulletpoint.

-She joined the Viennese Folk Opera. Remember the question I posed in the last bullet point? This bulletpoint is that bulletpoint's true answer.

-She works with pioneering Electro-dance-disco producer Giorgio Moroder to create sleek and sexy pop hits full of keyboards and Linn drum machines. Wow. This is going nowhere. With each bulletpoint she floats further and further from the rock hemisphere.

I'm sick of these bulletpoints. Maybe one of these students of Rock will show me the light.

Posted by Luis Enrique on Saturday, 03.17.07

For many ways, Donna (SuperSexySweet) Summer deseve this nomination,

I would like to interrupt this fan's opinion by stating that I have in no way altered the spelling, grammar or punctuation of this passage. Enjoy.

she has a sweetsexystrongtender-rasposaagresiva-super voice, she was ahead at her time, she influeced todays music some many people who use now, the "yesterdays future music" now ! ! ! Like I feel love, I need you, Our love etc...Shes longevity it's icredible she'e freshness more, if you listen I got you love and you don't Know her or dont't recognoise her vioce you may think in a young beatifull girl ! ! ! singin' that song ! ! !

I...um, this is great. I wish everyone talked about music like this. Cut the bullshit right out, and get down to some animal shit. Luis eschews even the most fundamental laws of coherence and is just screaming, teeth gnashing, eyes popping out worshipping the Queen!!!

I have this image of Luis chained up in a basement, listening to the same four Donna Summer LP's over and over and over again. If only every fan was this deranged.

Posted by Joe S on Sunday, 03.18.07

Donna Summer must be voted into the R&R Hall of Fame. Besides her obvious talent, the woman shaped the dance music landscape and defined the disco era.

Read that sentence again. Besides her obvious talent. Wouldn't her shaping the dance music and disco era be a testament to her talent? Now I will use the font size to illustrate how wonderfully perverse this second and ultimate paragraph reads.

If you liked it or not, disco ruled in it's day - heck, even Barbra Streisand understood that.

WHAT!?! Barbara Streisand is the ultimate Rock and Roll Litmus Test? HOLY SHIT! Joe S is the kind of guy who walks out of an Air Supply concert unplugging his ears, saying, "Geez, what a loud, dirty rock band. My ears haven't buzzed like this since I saw Bread play in '72!"

Let's give kudos where kudos are kudos. Does anyone remember Bab's glam period? Or her contribution to the DIY punk movement? Or her shimmering new-wave hits? Or her crusty grunge jams? Could you imagine Barbara backed by Mother Love Bone? "I'm Going Hungry" indeed.

Posted by WinterMelody on Sunday, 03.18.07

Donna Summer has influenced every aspect of R&R as well as every genre of music, for 4 decades.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH AH AHA HA AH AH AH AHA HA AH AH AH AHA HA AH AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH AH AHA HA AH AH AH AH AHA HA HA AH AH AH AHA AH HAH. Ha. Hoooo...

This is by far the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. Ever.

Beyond the initial shock of one single artist influencing every single last genre of music on our planet Earth, the idea that she has influenced EVERY ASPECT of rock and roll for four decades? I mean, do I really have to go into this? No, I won't. Too painful, too repetitive.

Let me now say this: Winning a Grammy does not signify anything. It means you sold a lot of records, and your record company paid off the radio stations just enough to give you clout for a bunch of years.

I can't even count how many DS fans cite her genre-spanning Grammy Awards as a reason why she should be arbitrarily placed in a ridiculous arbitrary Hall of Fame. Now to stem the redundancy with this final and truly epic slice:

Posted by Randy on Saturday, 09.29.07

If there was a "Mount Rushmore" Of musical Giants of the Rock & Roll Era, these faces would be chiseled in the rock!

50's Elvis / Little Richard / Chuck Berry
60's Beatles / Aretha Franklin/ Rolling Stones
70's Elton John / Donna Summer / Led Zeppelin
80's Bruce Springsteen / Madonna/ Billy Joel
90's Nirvana / Aerosmith / Alanis Morrisette

Even if Donna Summer does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I give her props for creating one of the most ridiculous strings I've ever read about music. These people are truly demented. No David Bowie? Alanis Morrisette?

Awesome, plain and simple awesome.

Gotta run, Bread is playing at the Paragon and I have to buy some earplugs.

All Tar, No Key

Deal with it.

Slogged Down By Pesky Talent

Nice, just when I thought Uticas had this area covered, we have a brand new entry into the "difficult music" island of disappointment.

A band named People, who are of course from NYC, have come out with a ridiculously inventive and generally insane album. Unfortunately, Aaron Leitko likes his albums smooth and simple. Let's ponder some of his ridiculous statements.

Dense, informed, and academic, Misbegotten Man, the sophomore record by Brooklyn's People, is sort of the indie-rock equivalent of a senior thesis paper.

Those first three descriptive words should tell you where we're headed: Death From Musical Exhaustion!!! Run for the hills, this music is too ferociously academic for your piddling ear drums!

Also, when summing up a band's sound, using "sort of" does not work. Find another phrase that "is" the sound instead of trying to be clever.

The carefully scripted chaos of guitarist/vocalist Mary Halverson and drummer Kevin Shea might be an excellent representation of accumulated knowledge, originality, and creative thinking, but listening to the album all the way through can be an exercise in patience more arduous than trying to read Jacques Derrida during an earthquake.

HA HA HA! YES! There it is, a blanket statement claiming that music of People is just TOO DARN HARD to listen to. Darn these forward thinking bands and their carefully crafted and challenging music!

As Uticas pointed out, this is just a simple case of a music critic not knowing his ABC's. It's not that the music is too challenging; moreso this review shows the writer's own shortcomings as a student of music. There is nothing wrong with complex music. Granted, not everyone wants to listen to Merzbow, but give the listener some credit. Let's continue.

Each shambling composition squats around the same tempo and follows a similar predictably unpredictable structure.

Translation: Can't they write a song in 3/4 that I can accurately review? Can't the drums sit back on the 2's and 4's?

This is ridiculous. Are you actually complaining about predicting "unpredictability?" So they play to their strength, is that such a bad thing? Sounds like they avoid complacency but stick to what they know. So what's there to complain about?

The lyrics are where People come off at their most textbook-driven and tedious.

Fun. This is the part of the review where one guy contradicts the general consensus. Now to think of all the bands Pitchfork have loved who have questionable lyrics. The Books have terrible preachy eco lyrics, Fiery Furnaces get away with a lot, hell, have you ever tried to decipher Neutral Milk Hotel's words? Sure you have, it's part of the fun! Not according to to this guy, of course.

Based on this review(small sample-size aside), Aaron Leitko believes there are two types of music:

a) simple, easy to consume rock/pop with digestible lyrical sentiments
b) overly complex math-diarrhea with over-the-top-bullshit-crossword-puzzle lyrics

The world is not black and white, Aaron. As crazy as this music is, I'm sure it's not half as fucked up as you have scribed. Oh yeah, and my favorite moment of the review comes up right now!

The critical about-face!!!

The duo's quirks give them a unique and mischievous identity that's more interesting than, say, your average group of eyeliner-sporting three-chord lookers.

Cool. Thanks for your opinion. I mean opinions. I mean, what the fuck are you talking about? You refuse to give props to the band's musicianship, recording technique, sound quality, sequencing, fuck, you reference 3 snippets of lyrics! And then, after bashing the group for their too dense, too complex, too non-sensical sound, you turn around and say, "Well, at least they're not like everyone else?" Follow through with your convictions, don't muddy the waters!

After a few listens you may even find yourself empathizing with People in their plight as intellectual musicians operating in a medium that usually thrives on, well, being kind of dumb.

Here's a thought: Some music critics are like the band People. They show their love of music in their craft.

And some critics are kind of dumb. Like you.

A Touch of Annoyance

Write whatever you want about indie music, just don't make the mistake of writing about the punk ethos. You are wrong. Very wrong. Come back when you read "Please Kill Me" or read a single interview with the Pistols. Tom Ewing made this mistake in his ridiculous column on Pitchfork entitled "Poptimist #9". The column refers to the NME's recent attempt to get "God Save the Queen" to #1 on the charts.

To generalise wildly, for an American audience punk stands for something creative-- an independent ethos and a DIY spirit.

Wrong. Wrong. What's great is that the British punk movement showed the world how to do it. The Buzzcock's "Spiral Scratch EP" set the tone, millions of band followed the example. America did not do it first. Get your shit straight. I don't care if you're wildly generalizing. That doesn't give you the right to fudge facts.

"It does stand for those things in Britain as well but also contains a destructive spirit, a declaration of Year Zero against what had gone before, no matter its quality: "No Elvis, Beatles, and the Rolling Stones in 1977".

Cool, nothing like perpetuating a myth about the base fundamentalism of punk. This fact has been refuted from day one (or Year Zero, whatever the F you want to call it). In fact, the Sex Pistols music reeked of early Beatles and the early 70's Stones. Also, how the fuck does one even try to escape the great ghost of Elvis. You don't, that's how.

He is the godfather. He sat down in Sun studios with some session musicians and while taking a break started playing "Blue Moon of Kentucky." No prompting, they just thought it was fun. Sam Phillips thought it was more than that. And thus, after a bunch of other like-minded back-beat-oriented tracks were cut, Rock and Roll was born for white America.

To escape Elvis, you need to play experimental music, and it maybe needs to be played from the moon with an orchestra comprised of polar bears. Telling the Queen to fuck off does not change the base derivative. The Pistols were a rock band, through and through. The image and fuck 'em attitude pushed the envelope, the music not so much. The Velvet's, Jonathan Richman, Stooges, Ramones, every band on the Nuggets release, the Kinks, the Who, the Small Faces, Chuck Berry, the list goes on and on. The Pistols' music was not revolutionary, it in fact was an amazing time warp. One escaped the overblown grandeur of Prog-rock and Lite Smooth Soundz of FM radio, not Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Also to say that the American punk scene had nothing to do with "a destructive spirit" is bizarre. The violence of the West Coast hardcore and D.C. hardcore scenes even put off the musicians.

Wildly generalizing is for the birds.

Once again, there is going to be a follow-up on this very soon where I will point out how Rock Writing (notice the importance that capital letters bring to The Table!) is in a horrible state of repetition, where seemingly educated writers ignore the fact that they are recycling 20 year old material.

Bring me advancement or bring me death by musical exhaustion!!!

but -- but where are the WORDS!

instrumental music confuses most rock critics. without some dude crooning about this or that, they simply don't know where to start. this reveals a number of important shortcomings, primarily the fact that "music critics" can't really find shit to say about music.

let me be clear. rock critics seldom devote their efforts to analyzing lyrics; they simply take their cues from the most obvious lyrical moments, and they use those cues as the foundation of their evaluations.

for example, look at the way people talked about bob dylan's newest record "modern times". go ahead, search out some reviews. try to find one that doesn't quote the line "some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains." now, this is merely the most obvious line on an album overflowing with ramblings from arguably the best lyricist recorded music has ever seen. but most critics depicted his mood only as "grumpy" or some such adjective. they got away with this because they referred all of their thoughts to a single line in the first song (of course) that stood out to them merely because of the presence of the word "slut".


that lazy slut bob dylan's been on about

returning to my original point, when words aren't present, these critics have no idea what to latch on to. there is nothing present to cue them, nothing obvious to direct their criticism. they must actually listen to the music and then talk about it (mirabile dictu!). this is not their area of expertise.

all of this is brought about by pitchfork's latest review of ahleuchatistas' new record "even in the midst...". for those who don't know, ahleuchatistas is a group that uses a punk aesthetic to express jazz harmonies and other post-serialist dissonance. they are often called "mathy" because a lot of the time they don't write in 4/4. "even in the midst..." is their fourth record, the previous three being superb and urgent efforts to part from rock's overbearingly dull monotony. they seem more interested in composing music than composing their identity, which i find refreshing.

so what does joe tangari have to say? "ummmm..." here's a few samples from this directionless, careless review: the first track "opens with a series of splintered phrases that sound about like a bird's nest looks. then it trips some sort of wire and all three members lock into a breakneck martial/martian rhythm." take a moment to digest that. what does a bird's nest look like, and how would you imagine that sounds? soak in the abysmal metaphor that is "trips some sort of wire". [SOME SORT!] is "martian rhythm" critic-speak for 5/4? what the hell is he talking about?

but that was just praise. there are, of course, some the negatives. "in a couple of places, when the band seems to want a challenge, the music becomes somewhat overcomplicated and it becomes easy to loose the thread." response #1: "easy to loose the thread" for whom? response #2: "somewhat overcomplicated" -- the words of a man just dying to pop his grizzly bear CD in again and just relax. response #3: sometimes a band wants a challenge, but occasionally, a band assumes that it's audience might want one as well.

moving right along, "there's also something of a familiarity factor creeping in, given that their approach has remained fundamentally the same since day one." at last, here it is. carefully composed instrumental music all sounds the same to critics, because they are either too incapable or too impatient to analyze the differences between compositions. these people are bored by complexity, while blues progressions in 4/4 continue to enthrall them.

rock critics are students of convention. they study it carefully, and wonder at the possibilities that convention continues to offer (e.g. spoon, arcade fire). the idea of creating new conventions doesn't excite them; they prefer rotating forms of referential creativity (lcd soundsystem, devendra banhart, black kids).

above all, they prefer words, because words make music easier to understand. words are easier to write about than music. you wouldn't find yourself describing a lyrical phrase as "martial/martian"; you don't need to stretch that far. but bands that don't sing, even a band as aggressively brilliant as ahleuchatistas, will end up saddled with "a familiarity factor". this is because every time you review them, you have to actually DESCRIBE music, analyze it without the overt presence of a human ego to direct you. without familiar emotional signposts, it won't be long before you end up describing sound by connecting it to the look of a bird's nest.

instrumental music has very little commercial appeal. people like to sing along. they like to hear their musicians use the words "baby" and "oh" and "yeah". but critics are billed as experts -- an elite group who can see beyond commercial taste and come face to face with the artistic content within in an album. but feed them music without words, and soon enough, they'll be longing for "baby" and "oh" and "yeah" just like the hoi polloi.

funny things

more pitchfork bashing. here's a song by the rapture remixed by simian mobile disco.

dear pitchfork,



all the best,
uticas