![Dear media professionals,
Thank you for clogging my Twitter feed with breathless dispatches from Pitchfork Festival all weekend. I know its very important for you to weigh in on how awesome Zola Jesus or Yuck were in a sun-beaten, 90 degree field when these bands play nice, air-conditioned clubs all the time in New York and Chicago to absolutely no fanfare.
Honestly, I love Pitchfork Fest. I went in 2008 and had an amazing time. The record fair, poster exhibitions and local food really give it a sense of community. It’s a great thing. But, man, I wish media outlets would maybe take their microscopic eye off P4k’s inner workings and provide me with an actual narrative beyond “[Band] killed it! On to see [other band]!”
Probably because there is no narrative beyond “music critics wanted a weekend in Chicago and now have to justify the write-off.” I mean, hey, I like Shabazz Palaces as much as the next guy, but be a fucking grown-up and enjoy the show. I don’t need to see a 200-post photo gallery just because you wanted to share a Hot Doug with EMA and expense it to the company.
Actually, maybe the Odd Future thing would be interesting to hear about. So far the only coverage of it with any depth or insight has been from Jim DeRogatis, and you’d be hard-pressed to call his “satanic panic” schtick fair or balanced. I thought this DeRo line was particularly great: “This blog has contacted about half of the main-stage acts at the festival for comment about sharing a stage with Odd Future, but none have responded.” I can’t figure out if that means the bands don’t think his argument is worth their time; or that contemporary indie rockers are so chickenshit that they won’t make a completely valid point about sexism if it means risking burning a bridge with XL/Windish/Pfork/etc….
My favorite part of the year I went to Pitchfork Festival was watching the critics, publicists and musician-hangers-on in the “VIP” section. Everyone in “VIP” was handed a playing card which entitled you to a free Chipotle burrito. Local businesses from one of the best food cities in America had set up a cheap food court that had no shortage of good things. But snaking down the grass, there was a half-hour line of “very important people” waiting to get a free, terrible handout.
There’s a weird anxiety about “being in the right place” that most critics and editors share. And Pitchfork Festival is definitely the right place. But just because you’re in the right place, doesn’t mean I need to hear about the dimensions of the room, how it’s lit and who covered a Fugazi song as if it was Neil Armstrong landing on the fucking moon.
“Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I can use.” —Chicago’s own Ministry
[photos via Fourthisto]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lojdcjAKyJ1qblfdpo1_500.jpg)
Dear media professionals,
Thank you for clogging my Twitter feed with breathless dispatches from Pitchfork Festival all weekend. I know its very important for you to weigh in on how awesome Zola Jesus or Yuck were in a sun-beaten, 90 degree field when these bands play nice, air-conditioned clubs all the time in New York and Chicago to absolutely no fanfare.
Honestly, I love Pitchfork Fest. I went in 2008 and had an amazing time. The record fair, poster exhibitions and local food really give it a sense of community. It’s a great thing. But, man, I wish media outlets would maybe take their microscopic eye off P4k’s inner workings and provide me with an actual narrative beyond “[Band] killed it! On to see [other band]!”
Probably because there is no narrative beyond “music critics wanted a weekend in Chicago and now have to justify the write-off.” I mean, hey, I like Shabazz Palaces as much as the next guy, but be a fucking grown-up and enjoy the show. I don’t need to see a 200-post photo gallery just because you wanted to share a Hot Doug with EMA and expense it to the company.
Actually, maybe the Odd Future thing would be interesting to hear about. So far the only coverage of it with any depth or insight has been from Jim DeRogatis, and you’d be hard-pressed to call his “satanic panic” schtick fair or balanced. I thought this DeRo line was particularly great: “This blog has contacted about half of the main-stage acts at the festival for comment about sharing a stage with Odd Future, but none have responded.” I can’t figure out if that means the bands don’t think his argument is worth their time; or that contemporary indie rockers are so chickenshit that they won’t make a completely valid point about sexism if it means risking burning a bridge with XL/Windish/Pfork/etc….
My favorite part of the year I went to Pitchfork Festival was watching the critics, publicists and musician-hangers-on in the “VIP” section. Everyone in “VIP” was handed a playing card which entitled you to a free Chipotle burrito. Local businesses from one of the best food cities in America had set up a cheap food court that had no shortage of good things. But snaking down the grass, there was a half-hour line of “very important people” waiting to get a free, terrible handout.
There’s a weird anxiety about “being in the right place” that most critics and editors share. And Pitchfork Festival is definitely the right place. But just because you’re in the right place, doesn’t mean I need to hear about the dimensions of the room, how it’s lit and who covered a Fugazi song as if it was Neil Armstrong landing on the fucking moon.
“Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I can use.” —Chicago’s own Ministry
[photos via Fourthisto]
just wanted to call firsties on this
my notes from the odd future sxsw show
An informative video that this event needs…
ISSUE PROJECT ROOM / NYC
THU 4.21 @ 8:00PM –Jana Winderen’s Scuttling around in the shallows ($12/$10 Members) In Scuttling around in the shallows, Jane Winderen continues her investigation into the sound of shrimp, exploring how the smallest creatures of the ocean use sound for communication, orientation, and feeding. Hydrophones—originally a military development—are repurposed, inadvertently producing unexpected qualities not informed by their original design. Winderen uses these hydrophones to create immersive sonic environments, something far from the original intention of these surveillance devices.
honestly, this is as useful as whatever coverage you did.
1. Letlive.
2. Yelawolf
3. Altaar
4. Bruce Lamont
5. Low
6. Batillus
7. Big KRIT
8. Liturgy
9. Yob
10. Ken Mode
11. Mistah FAB
12. Shabazz Palaces
13. Magrudergrind
14. Errors
15. Buck 65
16. Grayceon
17. Quintron & Miss Pussycat
18. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (Billboard debacle)
19. Cough
20. Curren$y
21. Moe Green
22. Trae The Truth
23. Wormrot
24. Fishbone
25. Cheap Time
26. Shit & Shine
27. Pop. 1280
28. Kylesa
29. Umberto
30. Droop-E
31. Deaf Center
32. Ultrageist
33. Herman Dune
| — | E-40 on releasing four albums with the span of 13 months. Rappers take note. [via hiphopdx] |
i don’t have anything against it, myself. but the poignant beauty of ordinary humanity - the bathetic infatuation with clumsy frailty and endearing failure, as communicated by amateurish blankness and infantile affectation - has been exploited to death for decades by indie and post-indie and would-be-indie everything. in movies like juno and thumbsucker, on indie prints and greeting cards featuring awkward line drawings of birds (currently on sale in a bunch tiny shops on 5h in park slope), in back issues of mcsweeney’s, in album after pitchfork-approved album of wounded & comforting soft sweater teatime glockenspiel music listened to, most likely, by someone you know and love. it’s by no means an ineffective artistic stance: it works, communicates, gets a feeling across. but it’s also so far beyond played that it’s become a sickening zombie sham, a horrible cloud of kitsch that sucks the life out of everything it touches.
this hyundai ad is just the they live moment - the point at which the whole world gets to try on the glasses and see what’s really been going down.
”| — | ilx poster contenderizer on pomplamoose |
via Don DeLillo:
Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides — pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
“No one sees the barn,” he said finally.
A long silence followed.
“Once you’ve seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.”
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.
We’re not here to capture an image, we’re here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies.”
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
“Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We’ve agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism.”
Another silence ensued.
“They are taking pictures of taking pictures,” he said.
It’s out! Click here for tracklisting, liner notes and free download!
