Because your average rock critic is nothing more than an entertainment journalist.
The Hold Steady- Great. A generation of horn-rimmed indie kids have their very own John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Yes, Eddie Wilson lives, he’s been reborn as a paunchy, bespectacled, hungover lit professor who “sure did party in college,†even though he sounds like the blowhard from the forgettable, and mostly forgotten, eighties classicist pomp- rockers the Call.
The Decemberists - Featuring the worst, most indulgent tendencies of Supertramp, solo Peter Gabriel, and every other collegiate fuckwit with delusions of grandeur. Not like their gay, early Americana costumes are gonna do much to endear me to them either.I’ve tried to make it through a single song in it’s entirety, I really have, they might not even be that long. But the opening notes, chords and/or strums turn my stomach so violently that I’d have to be sitting down with a pail between my legs to listen any further.
I should probably take this time to mention that Stephen Colbert and his whole shtick is wearing on my fucking nerves too.
TV on the Radio- Like Prince, except not as horny and more prone to shoegazing, navel gazing, some oblique leftist choir preaching and other forms of cerebral masturbation. I saw them open for the Fall a few years ago. They were boring.
Band of Horses- You ever wake up from a nap sometime in the early evening, when it’s started getting dark, knowing you’ll never fully wake up but you’ll also never get back to sleep? And does this feeling of existential dread and nausea ever take over, and you start entertaining notions of suicide because your bio-clock is now so fucked you can’t help but see everything as ugly and pointless? If not, and your curious, just give Band of Horses “Everything all the Time†a whirl. Just remember, your fun is my hell.
Spoon- Having lived in Autism, Texas a good while I can say I’ve seen Spoon go from a boring, mediocre live band with boring, mediocre songs and a pouty assbag frontman to a mediocre, boring live band with mediocre, boring songs and a pouty assbag frontman.Let’s get over it…Britt Daniel is not Ray Davies, nor is he Elvis Costello, nor is he this or any other indie kid generation’s answer to great songcraft. Furthermore, his adenoidal delivery makes Billy Joe sound like Barry White.
Honestly, Between Spoon, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness,…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and Windsor for the Derby*, the Lone Star state’s capitol has one of the most boring, pretentious music scenes to ever call itself one.
I’m actually glad a lot of those bands have found success and that their songs get played on Fox dramas, because it just goes to show that lame minds think alike.
But ahh…Spoon, I raise my Lone Star to Spoon, long may they continue to impress critics and bore me.
*WftD have since relocated, ostensibly to spread the boredom. More power to them, everybody’s gotta have a mission in life.
My Morning Jacket- How, hailing from Louisville, this lumbering grunge throwback ever escaped the shade and shadow of the whole Squirrelbait family tree is beyond me.
I’d once thought that MMJ sounded like a bland hybridization of U2 and Pearl Jam with a wookie, cough syrup addicted Jackson Browne on vocals. Then I realized that was far too much of a compliment. A ‘tussin buzzed Jackson Browne would be far, far cooler. He at least gains a little street cred for banging Nico before banging up that forgettable tow- headed eighties actress (what was her name? Daryll Hall?).
No, know what the singer sounds like? He sounds like he’s as bored as I am, that’s what. He sounds like he’s yawning through his songs and, hey, if my band sounded like the Eagles sperm bouncing off of Sunny Day Real Estate’s uterus I’d probably yawn too.
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i’d be curious to know what oliver actually LIKES to listen to, if anything.
… himself talking? 
Popcorn: seriously, how this complete joke of a “food” ever made it out of central america is beyond me. It tastes like Bea Arthur’s back shavings and smells worse than a bum who just shat his pants in a puddle of cat piss. Plus, those damn husks get stuck in your mouth…
Pizza: do you know what it’s like to run naked, backwards through a cornfield on a moonlit night? It’s exactly like eating a piece of stuffed-crust, pepperoni pizza from the local Pizza Hut, that’s what. The pepperoni looks like it just gave birth to a porcupine named pedro and shat out a cactus named copernicus. I ate a piece of pizza in kalamazoo, michigan once and I shat for days…
Baskin Robbins Ice Cream: fuckin great. Another delicious after-meal treat that thinks it’s going to make your entire fuckin’ day. as frozen yogurt’s older cousin, you’d think ice cream would do a little more than bind up my bowels for weeks at a time…NOPE, I haven’t BM’d since January. 31 flavors? Puh-leez. This ice cream place in my hometown called Pittsnoggle’s totally had like at least 34 flavors - but I didn’t like any of ‘em…
Food…seriously, what a bunch of overrated, over-hyped hipster bullshit. Who wants some communion wafers?
i’ll agree with MMJ. i saw them open for guster (don’t even start with what i was doing at a guster show) and was so blown away by their mediocrity that i wandered away in search of the moon bounce. yes, there was a moon bounce.
… himself talking?
My tinnitus
Food…seriously, what a bunch of overrated, over-hyped hipster bullshit. Who wants some communion wafers?
I agree, but you try telling the kids that. Fuck, they eat anything, when they say it\’s all good they mean its all good.
I would like to take this moment to encourage the kids out there to try the alternatives. Namely, anorexia and bulimia. Your average hipster is just a bit too…um…pnuematic, maybe?
Come on kids, just stop eating.
“Buttermilk biscuits, indeed. The muse of breakfast. The inspiration that causes jellies to drip and margarines to run. To where is anyone’s guess, for the options are limited to the eggs and the gullet, and yet you will not find them running there. The plate is the realm of the egg, who plays host to various sausages and bacons, Canadian or otherwise, and the vast array of potatoes that make their own sordid way to the breakfast table. But it is the egg that stays the course. The potato, in all its informality, can hope only for tangential companionship to the egg, but it is the meat with whom the egg slumbers. Such is the way of our sensual world. But the buttermilk biscuit, in its heady rise, can surpass the egg in stature, its sillouette streamlined against the pallette for inclusion in other meals, such as the venerable dinner. Possibly brunch, although brunch is generally regarded as the rich uncle of breakfast, and thus is primarily good for entertaining guests in the foyer and telling hilarious stories in a voice that is two notches too loud for the room. You will find the buttermilk biscuit there, in the foyer, laughing, but you will also find it, hours later, seated at the right hand of the filet mignon or the king crab. I suppose in the case of the latter, it would be seated at the right claw (and come to think of it, the filet has no hands at all). It is the subverter of breakfast convention, this biscuit. It is the mime at the window. It is the first-class upgrade on the long flight from LAX to Brisbane. It is the kind hand that massages the throat before giving the euphoric squeeze. It is karma baked up in 12 minutes. It is the wheel. And it spins at the speed of delicious.”
i didn’t write that, but i had to share, the whole food tangent and whatnot. anyhoo, MMJ put on one of the best shows i saw last year. it takes a lot to impress me live these days. why pay $10-15 to watch someone look bored while they plow through their own songs?
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Comment by joiezabel — February 21, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
even though i like most of these bands, i must say that i found this article amusing, even if ridiculously full of officious, bag-of-hot-air, over-the-top statements of sheer buffoonery. i’d be curious to know what oliver actually LIKES to listen to, if anything.