Posted 10/24/2006 - 09:47:30 AM by raskolnikov: | |
Mr. Soto--did you actually listen to this release by the Boredoms, or did you talk incessantly to yourself while it was playing over your speakers? You ostensibly were supposed to review this release rather than reviewing Arto Lindsay, Sonic Youth, or Tom Ze. In your non-stop namedropping in this article you manage to ignore this record in favor of windy contempt for what the Boredoms do. Not only do you need to adhere to a central thesis of some sort in your writing, but your smarmy self-referenced bullshit ignores a vital band's music in favor of silly and inappropriate references that are somehow supposed to validate your erudition. Nice work. Really nice. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 10:21:59 AM by : | |
Right. Because we all listen to everything in a sonic vacuum. How dare he admit that he listened to the Boredoms after DNA and Sonic Youth, and thus that he had no choice but to contextualize them within a more nebulous and interesting (if preference-inflected) notion of what "noise"-rock is that paints the non-genre with broader strokes than your garden variety music review might!? | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 11:05:30 AM by meatbreak: | |
I think the point is the he should have been concentrating on listening to the album, not thinking up his list of references - the two can and should be seperated you know. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 12:15:13 PM by Zarklephaser: | |
raskolnikov is on the mark. This is a pretty bad "on first listen" column. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 01:00:28 PM by : | |
Because HAD he concentrated on the purely abstract sonic qualities of the music, he'd have no choice but to declare its genius from the rooftops, and become as avid a fan of the Boredoms as all of you. Yeah, that's it. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 02:06:21 PM by cwperry: | |
Your opening idea--is there something interesting lurking beneath the surface when an artist accommodates something outside him/herself--is a good one, and your comment about Dylan's Empire Burlesque is hilarious to anyone who knows that album. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 02:06:40 PM by meatbreak: | |
No, it's not saying that Soto has to like this album, but instrumentation to piss off your paprents and neighbours is kind of half the point of all rock music etc... It's a certifiable fact, that is music's going to piss off the parents and neighbourhood watch then the band behind it are on to something. Soto just doesn't talk about the music enough to justify the throwaway ignomy with which he treats this album. Of course, he can write what he wants, but if he wants to write half a page about albums he likes and mention the album he's listening to at the present moment a couple of loosely referenced times, then stick the tiotle Soul Discharge '99 above it he's going to get some flak. I know the point of the feature is not this, but Soto - have you heard any other Boredoms albums? Just out of interest - I'd like to know what you think of the later stuff, which is far more sophisticated than this. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 02:37:48 PM by : | |
That would be so boring. Mindless effusiveness is boring. Kind of like column category police are boring. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 03:26:17 PM by grandbanks: | |
Kind of like you are boring, JessGraves. Each comment you make here resorts to ridiculous assumptions and pisstakes and screams of personal issues surfacing at an inappropriate and unfortunate time in this here column space comments section. I have some numbers of people that are willing to help. I don't think a request for decent journalism is too tall an order, but shit, I guess I am an idealist on some levels. You just missed the mark, JessGraves, as this little column screams garden-variety and narrow-minded journalism pretty well. It is an opinion piece, however, so perhaps we are being a bit harsh. I don't think anyone is really begrudging Soto his personal tastes, just that he did a really poor job of stating them. If you're gonna try to get in the ring, so to speak, then you gotta be ready to take a punch. The writers on this site have a pretty steady track-record of this kind of shit, and what makes this site interesting is that we can cry foul. Then people like you stink up the works with reactionary bullshit, to which we again are able to cry foul on. Do you wish to continue your tantrum, or can we assume that a time-out is unnecessary? | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 04:57:55 PM by : | |
there's lot of shitty stuff on here. this is the least offensive article i can find today. taking punches? i'm just disagreeing in a comments box. chill. nothing of my personhood is at stake here. i hope none of yours is. | |
Posted 10/24/2006 - 05:16:58 PM by grandbanks: | |
Nah, just hoping for a more elevated argument. "Chilling" is not a problem, just calling bullshit when I see it. Taking punches wasn't a reference to you, but the author of the article, which is what we are talking about, essentially. All of the categorizing and policing seemed to be perpetrated by yourself and the author, if you look at the comments, and that was all I was getting at. Pot kettle black yawn. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 10:14:18 AM by : | |
JessGraves might belay his biggest travesty to a punter several rungs above his bash-rhetoric and end up writing flatulently about plank-walking over a silly little irony like noise rock in a sonic vacuum, BUT he does it in disaccordance with what must be termed meatbanks redundantism; the fickle moral order staved off and rekindled as blasphemy or bewitchery, whichever gets your Boredom records more molten. Raskolnikove seems to write his comment in reverse, as though it were the last one here, despite it being the first. That's weird; ignored. Dostoevsk y rots upon his medieval stools. Pah. Give JessGraves a sitcom spanking and then watch him blaspheme Soto back to his upstairs grave. The coffin-porters all of you. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 10:44:25 AM by : | |
she | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 10:54:56 AM by meatbreak: | |
You're still going on about appreciation of this kind of music as being redundant. I assume you are referring to its drum-centricity, and that your musical taste and reasoning is so far advanced that it no longer relies on the peurile rhythms the rest of us have to get our groove on to. Please do enlighten us as to what the future has in store for us musical meeklings. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 11:58:54 AM by meatbreak: | |
P.S. I think BreakBanks would be better, but I'll go with MeatBanks, if Grand is happy with it. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 01:54:40 PM by : | |
eeehh? The only thing anyone was "reacting" to up there was that it's always the same five people making the same "you didn't talk enough about the music" argument against any writer whose tastes run counter to theirs. It's mildly amusing to watch, and sometimes I've agreed to an extent, but Raskolnikov and that pabanks guy are the cacophony that is a symphony of broken records at this point. If the Boredoms are so great, and Alfred ignores what's great about them, why not just post something with positive content that explains the greatness he overlooked. It's like shit-slinging at the fucking shadows in the Cave. It blindly ignores the college freshman's favorite trusim: aesthetic valuation varies according subjectively. Have a rhetorically heated discussion, by all means--just throw some of your undoubtedly brilliant expositions on the aesthetic superiority of X Artist into the mix. You really think your comments were heightening the caliber of discourse here? Really? Do you? P.S. I' have what Disexist is having. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 02:39:21 PM by raskolnikov: | |
My taste in bands has little to do with my complaint against Soto. The writers of Stylus attempt to write articles that are ostensibly critical analyses but they always turn into these annoying hipster rants that focus more attention on the writer than the music in question. This technique is not clever, it's a dumb conceit that comes straight out of crap like Nick Hornby novels. In a four paragraph review Soto gives more detail about the music of Arto Lindsay and DNA than he does the Boredoms. To compound this offense, he then HAS to drop Sonic Youth's name (of course) as if their imprimatur is enough to make the Boredoms' music interesting, rather than allowing their music to stand on its own merit. This article is insulting to the Boredoms and all too typical of the crap that regularly graces this webzine. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 03:53:47 PM by grandbanks: | |
Wow, every addition seems only likely too deepen the divide, but I have already apologized to myself enough, so here goes. I prefer grandmeat, but an opinion is just an opinion. Look, I still don't think Disexists addressed the most interesting parts of any of these threads, but I appreciate his obvious knowledge and efforts here. Entertaining and all, but repeatedly making assumptions not relevant to what those of us seem to be arguing for, though on various fronts. Raskolnikov cleared it up a little, and if it sounds redundant at this point it is because we have been forced down that road. Neither you nor JessGraves have really changed anything about your posts at all, and like I said, have ignored what we have tried to re-word, re-emphasize, and re-post. I never claimed that The Boredoms were full-on improvising, I don't even love the Boredoms, I don't care if anyone doesn't include them in their favorite artists category. I don't care to convince anyone that they should really even listen to the Boredoms, and I stated this earlier: tastes differ and so fucking listen to what you want to. The issue is that Soto launched into a comparison-type piece that was lazy and did a disservice to the band and the site. Jessgraves and now Disexist seem to feel like we are defending some agenda, that some people's tastes are more relevant than others. My comments earlier merely claimed that JG was reading into these things what she wanted to, not what we were arguing for, and she is still incredibly defensive and stubborn about it. Now Disexist has taken up the very same claim, which is a little disappointing, but whatever, friends are nice. Why would we engage in the x-band is better than y-band argument? The shit slinging has not been coming from these parts, which is the whole problem. I DO think we have attempted to raise the level of discourse, and have been met with a huge stone wall. REALLY. Again, the arguments we are making seem to support the very things you guys are accusing us of, not vice-versa. Quality is of course subjective in every way, so if you liked Soto's piece, great. I like Arto, I like Sonic Youth, who cares? Are there more original or powerful takes on any band's general sound? Probably. So, who needs to justify themselves here? My molten record collection meets complete disinterst all of the time, I am quite comfortable with it, believe me. | |
Posted 10/25/2006 - 07:30:43 PM by grandbanks: | |
This sentence didn't work: "Again, the arguments we are making seem to support the very things you guys are accusing us of, not vice-versa." Meant to say: Again, the arguments we are making seem to REFUTE the very things you guys are accusing us of, not vice-versa. As in, we (or certainly I) ain't pushing an agenda, just critiquing the one in the article. | |
Posted 10/27/2006 - 03:49:24 PM by : | |
and I thought I was bored at work | |