Thursday August 26, 2010 at 12:17

Kanye West in Slate accidentally makes an interesting proposal:

There are only a small handful of print interviews West has given since her passing.* His silence was presumably—at least in part—a function of grief, but West has also communicated his general ambivalence about journalists. “This is my problem with interviews, you know? What if you did music, and someone else could come in and change your words around and then release it to the radio? And you ain’t even get a chance to listen to it before they dropped it to radio? That’s how interviews are! You say what you say and then you get paraphrased,” he’s said. “I wanna get approval over the shit.”

Idea: Give Kanye all the raw notes on the interview, let him construct his own article. Compare it with the journalist’s.

Kanye West in Slate accidentally makes an interesting proposal:

There are only a small handful of print interviews West has given since her passing.* His silence was presumably—at least in part—a function of grief, but West has also communicated his general ambivalence about journalists. “This is my problem with interviews, you know? What if you did music, and someone else could come in and change your words around and then release it to the radio? And you ain’t even get a chance to listen to it before they dropped it to radio? That’s how interviews are! You say what you say and then you get paraphrased,” he’s said. “I wanna get approval over the shit.”

Idea: Give Kanye all the raw notes on the interview, let him construct his own article. Compare it with the journalist’s.

Thursday August 26, 2010 at 9:45

synecdoche:

hey guys who wants to buy an *AUTHENTIC* angsty 14-year-old’s guitar? no really, my parents are finally serious about moving (to panama! what the what!!) after my dad retires so i have to start slowly selling all of my stuff since my bedroom is essentially just storage for all of my life’s embarrassing phases. so yeah, i’m selling this guitar that i’ve only used like, two times (and i GUESS you can take the stickers off, but c’mon! taking back sunday!) along with the amp and all of the shame that comes along with having once listened to senses fail. i’m also selling my acoustic guitar i’ve never used and my drum set (TEARS).

Whenever people I follow post sentimental stuff they’re selling on Tumblr, I want to buy it more than anything I’ve ever wanted to buy before. But then I’m reminded of how terrifically broke I am and my dreams for a Tumblr Treasure Trove are dashed.

synecdoche:

hey guys who wants to buy an *AUTHENTIC* angsty 14-year-old’s guitar? no really, my parents are finally serious about moving (to panama! what the what!!) after my dad retires so i have to start slowly selling all of my stuff since my bedroom is essentially just storage for all of my life’s embarrassing phases. so yeah, i’m selling this guitar that i’ve only used like, two times (and i GUESS you can take the stickers off, but c’mon! taking back sunday!) along with the amp and all of the shame that comes along with having once listened to senses fail. i’m also selling my acoustic guitar i’ve never used and my drum set (TEARS).

Whenever people I follow post sentimental stuff they’re selling on Tumblr, I want to buy it more than anything I’ve ever wanted to buy before. But then I’m reminded of how terrifically broke I am and my dreams for a Tumblr Treasure Trove are dashed.

This post was reblogged from my gournal.

Wednesday August 25, 2010 at 19:45

Weezer’s new album not actually named after the LOST character. Brian Bell explains:

The inspiration came from a surf company called Hurley, that was funding the record at the beginning of the recording process. And we actually did some sort of advertisement … I don’t even know how they’re tied in so much, although, we got some clothes and we did a photo shoot where we’re wearing these clothes, and I think we’re selling these clothes in malls. So how that’s tied in, I don’t know. I think it’s this whole like … tying in different medias,and then using Hurley, the character from Lost, which I’ve never seen in my life, as our mascot almost, for this record, is somewhat postmodernistic maybe. I hope people don’t look at it as too jokey. Cause it certainly comes across that way, without reading into it a little more deeply. That’s it as far as the name and the album cover goes.

A witness of the interview reports after the mics turned off, he went on to say “Fuck, man, shit, I don’t know. I’m just glad I have a job. I don’t want to piss off Rivers in case he imprisons me In The Garage.”

Weezer’s new album not actually named after the LOST character. Brian Bell explains:

The inspiration came from a surf company called Hurley, that was funding the record at the beginning of the recording process. And we actually did some sort of advertisement … I don’t even know how they’re tied in so much, although, we got some clothes and we did a photo shoot where we’re wearing these clothes, and I think we’re selling these clothes in malls. So how that’s tied in, I don’t know. I think it’s this whole like … tying in different medias,and then using Hurley, the character from Lost, which I’ve never seen in my life, as our mascot almost, for this record, is somewhat postmodernistic maybe. I hope people don’t look at it as too jokey. Cause it certainly comes across that way, without reading into it a little more deeply. That’s it as far as the name and the album cover goes.

A witness of the interview reports after the mics turned off, he went on to say “Fuck, man, shit, I don’t know. I’m just glad I have a job. I don’t want to piss off Rivers in case he imprisons me In The Garage.”

Wednesday August 25, 2010 at 18:36

Laughing At Myself So You Don’t Have To Blog 2k10

Laughing At Myself So You Don’t Have To Blog 2k10

Tuesday August 24, 2010 at 20:38

Gabe has been seriously on-point about nerds lately:

Sometimes, things that are made expressly to appeal to nerds should make nerds feel ashamed of themselves. (As if there’s another way that nerds ever feel? DING DONG!) Like, “check out this Pulp Fiction/Star Wars mash-up where John Travolta is Darth Vader.” No. You deserve better, nerds, and you should expect better. The fact that nerds will always eat that junk up is the reason that junk keeps getting made.

The root of this observation came from Comic-Con:

Step-by-step, not only at the convention center itself, but for two square miles around the convention center, nerds are being aggressively marketed to in the most lazy and manipulative and disheartening ways, and step-by-step, the nerds seem to be loving it. Come on, nerds! You have finally gained a quasi-social acceptance, and you’re complacently letting that acceptance be used against you in the crassest attempts to make you buy garbage. I thought nerds were supposed to be the smart ones!

The whole thrilling indictment of contemporary nerd culture is worth a read, and it revealed to me something I think I’ve always known but have previously just accepted: Nerds are the happiest demographic to be advertised to. Part of this has to do with the especially insidious nature of advertising cultivated for - but not necessarily aimed that, though sometimes it is - nerds. “Nerds” are notorious for having fierce brand loyalty, which you only need to look at the perennial Console Wars to find evidence of. They contextualize themselves via consumerism. Whether you believe this is any different than the way music fans form an identity around which bands they listen to, and film buffs form an identity around which directors they like, is a matter of deciding whether video games, songs, and films are art or products. A lot of the discussion surrounding the paradigm shift in the concept of “nerd” lately has been really fascinating, and also illuminating on the ultimate futility of such broad demographic labels.

Gabe has been seriously on-point about nerds lately:

Sometimes, things that are made expressly to appeal to nerds should make nerds feel ashamed of themselves. (As if there’s another way that nerds ever feel? DING DONG!) Like, “check out this Pulp Fiction/Star Wars mash-up where John Travolta is Darth Vader.” No. You deserve better, nerds, and you should expect better. The fact that nerds will always eat that junk up is the reason that junk keeps getting made.

The root of this observation came from Comic-Con:

Step-by-step, not only at the convention center itself, but for two square miles around the convention center, nerds are being aggressively marketed to in the most lazy and manipulative and disheartening ways, and step-by-step, the nerds seem to be loving it. Come on, nerds! You have finally gained a quasi-social acceptance, and you’re complacently letting that acceptance be used against you in the crassest attempts to make you buy garbage. I thought nerds were supposed to be the smart ones!

The whole thrilling indictment of contemporary nerd culture is worth a read, and it revealed to me something I think I’ve always known but have previously just accepted: Nerds are the happiest demographic to be advertised to. Part of this has to do with the especially insidious nature of advertising cultivated for - but not necessarily aimed that, though sometimes it is - nerds. “Nerds” are notorious for having fierce brand loyalty, which you only need to look at the perennial Console Wars to find evidence of. They contextualize themselves via consumerism. Whether you believe this is any different than the way music fans form an identity around which bands they listen to, and film buffs form an identity around which directors they like, is a matter of deciding whether video games, songs, and films are art or products. 

A lot of the discussion surrounding the paradigm shift in the concept of “nerd” lately has been really fascinating, and also illuminating on the ultimate futility of such broad demographic labels.

Tuesday August 24, 2010 at 15:29

Riot !n Paris - Attack of the 5ft Hipster

I haven’t seen this on Tumblr yet, so I don’t know if you guys have seen this, but it’s really cool. Watch the video, and at the end you get three choices of where the story goes next. It brings the novelty of Choose Your Own Adventure to music videos! 

Tuesday August 24, 2010 at 3:58

If you could interview one person, who would it be?



Between episodes of Spartacus: Blood & Sand and during cups of green tea, I spent the latter half of yesterday focused on the concept of musician interviews. I’ve never given an interview to a professional musician before, and I have no idea if an interview I gave would be any good. However, I’ve developed a fairly good idea of what makes a good interview. I think a lot of the interviews I watch are bad, and this is for a number of reasons. Most predominantly, bad interviews involve some degree of uncomfortability. In a Pitchfork Reviews Reviews post from a few weeks ago, the author observes the practice of taking the artist (in this case Nathan Williams) out of an interview space to a more informal setting (in this case it was a green room so they could smoke) which makes them more comfortable, and therefore more genuine with their answers. Often in music reviews I see the author noting that when the mics are switched off, the subject is a completely different person. This is infuriating for the reader, of course, because the conclusion is that the person off the record is more desirable (due to his inaccessibility), and that the reader only gets to see the persona gives the sense of being ripped off. Whether the inclusion of that observation by whoever’s writing the article is detrimental to music journalism isn’t relevant to my point so I’ll leave it up to you to decide (or maybe I’ll say something about it later). 



Chuck Klosterman is a great resource for novice interviewers. Klosterman, whose music journalism, which included some brilliant interviews, was prominent in his rise to recognition, has experienced both sides of celebrity and the interview process, first as author and then as subject. His writing on either side is incredibly illuminating and while Lester Bangs comparisons seem inevitable but essentially meaningless, I regard him as one of the best interviewers I’ve read (I’m open to suggestions on others, though). His most practical advice comes from the second episode in PopMatters’ What’s The Write Word series, where he advises “If an interview subject isn’t responding to your questions, ask them specific queries about their craft (i.e., “How did you tune your guitar to get that specific sound?,” “What is the initial step when writing a pop song?,” etc.)”. 



What makes a good interview though? Some decent fucking questions, to begin with. Making an artist comfortable is a good start, but you have to capitalize on the candor it’s supposed to produce. While I imagine some interviewers feel an obligation to ask “informative” questions, this is a fundamentally useless practice. All that information is already on Wikipedia, the band’s website, and a hundred thousand fan websites. The best interviews I’ve seen/read occur when the interviewer engages the subject as an artist rather than a spokesperson. This reflects on what Chuck Klosterman was saying. Basically, I think any interview where the interviewer avoids asking “What was it like working with so and so?” or “What was it like going back into the studio after nine months of touring?”, because “What was it like…?” is not a question worth hearing the answer to. It’s a question dripping in apathy and disinterest, and inevitably you’ll receive an answer in kind, yet I hear it asked so often. 



There are a lot of celebrities I’d like to know, but not many I’d like to interview. I’d really like to know Charlie Brooker, because he’s an acerbic, witty gentleman with a colossal, self-aggravating appetite for pop culture, but I think his motives and ambitions are fairly plain, so I have no interest in interviewing him.

Who I’d like to interview given the chance and why:

Russell Brand

I’d like to find out how self-aware he is, especially at this stage in his career where I don’t think he can achieve much more success than he already has. I’d like to know whether he’s oblivious to this or not.

Kanye West

Mostly for a discussion about racism and misogyny with regards to the contemporary rap scene, and pop culture in general, and how it’s changed in the past decade.

Kid Cudi

Probably to discuss the emergence of the “blipster” and how indie music is influencing rap.

Wyatt Roy

While politicians are notoriously tight-lipped, and I imagine as a 20-year-old he’s probably quite susceptible to party indoctrination, I’d still like to find out whether he’s a mouthpiece or reflective of new ideas entering a stringently conservative party. 

Christopher Price

Expose on the man behind the googly eyes.

Tuesday August 24, 2010 at 1:12

Isn’t it interesting when you’re having a conversation with someone and you agree with a point they’ve made, but that moment sticks in your head for the next week and you realise it’s not sitting well with you, because in fact you don’t agree, and probably just muttered “Yeah, totally” to appease the other person?

Maybe more on this later.

Monday August 23, 2010 at 19:24

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Katy Perry - Not Like The Movies

This song makes it so much harder for me to dismiss Katy Perry. While the rest of Teenage Dream is fairly boring pop music, this track is outstanding. The emotional impact felt from the combination of her vocals with the piano, and the way it’s so stripped-down, lends it power and elegance. It also has a really good beat that I can imagine Kid Cudi twisting into something brilliant. This is one track for the skeptics.

Monday August 23, 2010 at 0:53

I’m Always Lazy When I Miss You



I had a dream last night that I asked this girl to be my girlfriend and she said yes, high school style. None of this courting bullshit, none of the uncertainty, just blissful sincerity. I think that might’ve been my favourite part of my formative years. You like her, she likes you, perfect. You sneak glances at each other through the chain link fence from across the playground while playing four square with your boys, and then after school you walk each other home. You make out down by the creek behind her house. You get The Scorpion King on DVD but don’t actually watch it while it’s on. Then you’d break up because you’d throw too many balls at her in dodgeball.  True story.

There’s this one line on Best Coast’s “Crazy For You” that goes “I’m always lazy when I miss you” which resonated with me. When you break up with someone, people will always tell you to move on by fucking a bunch of women. And that works! But why it works is because it’s supposed to distract you from the person you’re obsessing over. One of the truest things I’ve found in my search for a formula for getting over people is that you have to distract yourself. The sooner you realise this, the sooner you’ll learn to adjust to life without them. And the happier you’ll be! 

Until you’re listening to Katy Perry’s “E.T.” and realise it sounds similar to t.A.T.u.’s 2000 hit “All The Things She Said” so you watch the video clip and think “Wow, Lena is kinda hot” and then realise she has exactly the same hair as the girl you’re trying to get over. And then you watch the music video like six more times. Thank God It’s Monday.

Sunday August 22, 2010 at 19:55

I’m disappointed in the way Spencer Pratt’s been acting lately. I used to find his puerile behaviour kind of entertaining. It seemed like he was the only member of The Hills that was really self-aware. But now I feel like he’s souring all my fond memories of the show by being so bitter. That said, I would totally watch this sex tape. And you know what that means: another sex tape review! 

I’m disappointed in the way Spencer Pratt’s been acting lately. I used to find his puerile behaviour kind of entertaining. It seemed like he was the only member of The Hills that was really self-aware. But now I feel like he’s souring all my fond memories of the show by being so bitter. 

That said, I would totally watch this sex tape. And you know what that means: another sex tape review

Sunday August 22, 2010 at 2:27

Teenangst Dreams.



Man, it’s fucking useless asking your friends for an opinion on something that isn’t distanced from you. The people I know just have no standards for what I’m doing, so there’s this really pernicious cult of affirmation that just makes me fucking hate everyone for being liars. And it’s motivated by selfishness. Consciously they might find it altruistic, forgoing their principles in an attempt to make someone they like happy, but subconsciously, they’re just doing it because if you react poorly to criticism, you won’t like them anymore. These fucking Yes People and their fiction. You guys!

 


And this is what the New Niceness has done, eviscerated any inclination someone might have towards critical thinking lest it piss someone off. So you can immediately disqualify all the people that like you if you’re trying to find real talk. This leaves all the people who fucking hate you, and they’re not going to talk to you for long enough for you to get across the fact that you’re just looking for an opinion. All of this leaves me in the position of just throwing shit out there and hoping it’ll pull them out of the woodwork, but invariably any potential critics are so sick of me they can’t be bothered stringing together sentences about how I’m the bane of their existence when they could just be making a sandwich or cruising Facebook or any of the many more productive things you could be doing than talking about me on the Internet.



I’ve always held the belief that a good friend will tell you what you want to hear, but a real friend will tell you what you need to hear. Just once (twice, three times max) I’d like to hear where I’m fucking up.

Saturday August 21, 2010 at 21:08

“Despite all your dealbreakers, they were somewhat ruled out by you being tall.”

Just ‘cause I’m shallow doesn’t mean that I’m heartless.

Saturday August 21, 2010 at 14:17

Last week on the show we had this band, 8 Bit Love, come into the studio for an interview. Their frontman, Vito, works on Wednesdays with my girl Flavia, so I figured it was simply a cross-promotional thing. What I didn’t realise is that they’re actually getting a bunch of press and really starting to take off in Melbourne. I actually met Vito at Soda Rock a few days earlier, and I was really wary of him because I’d heard him talked about with such reverence and I’m always really skeptical of people like that, so hopefully 8 Bit Love becomes huge so I can tell that story to Letterman one day.They’re not bad. They kinda remind me of one of my favourite failed bands, The Pistolas, but with the aggressiveness of Les Savy Fav. 

Last week on the show we had this band, 8 Bit Love, come into the studio for an interview. Their frontman, Vito, works on Wednesdays with my girl Flavia, so I figured it was simply a cross-promotional thing. What I didn’t realise is that they’re actually getting a bunch of press and really starting to take off in Melbourne. I actually met Vito at Soda Rock a few days earlier, and I was really wary of him because I’d heard him talked about with such reverence and I’m always really skeptical of people like that, so hopefully 8 Bit Love becomes huge so I can tell that story to Letterman one day.

They’re not bad. They kinda remind me of one of my favourite failed bands, The Pistolas, but with the aggressiveness of Les Savy Fav. 

Saturday August 21, 2010 at 13:50

JAKETRIVIA: ‘Twere in these very halls they filmed my first bit of paid acting. Payment for my art has eluded me ever since.

JAKETRIVIA: ‘Twere in these very halls they filmed my first bit of paid acting. Payment for my art has eluded me ever since.

Page 2 of 329