Dear Mr. Butler,

I am writing concerning your management’s commentary on my review of the Psychedelic Furs’ show at Avalon Ballroom in Boston on July 10, 2007. Let me first state that I am a huge fan of your work. I love the way in which the Furs combined post-punk and pop, and I’d been looking forward to your show for weeks.

I’ve said this before on the site, but as you may not have read back that far in our archives (nor may you wish to at this point), I’ll say it again: “We at Superstarcastic believe that the musical is personal.” If you read, for example, DJ’s review of The Wrens’ The Meadowlands, or anything Amber writes about shoegaze, you’ll find that, though our writers make every effort to explain how and why an artist, album, song, or musical genre has an effect on them, they make no pretense that such effects are objective. Rather, our reviews tend to be littered with narratives about personal experience: what someone went through personally that his/her favorite artist mirrored for them musically, what someone was doing when s/he first fell in love with a certain song (I’m reminded of the time that my then-boyfriend cut work so we could drive down the California coast on a warmer-than-average San Francisco summer day; he made me listen to “Heaven”), and so on.

Because to simply be earnest would make us look, well, emo, many of us compensate by being a little tongue-in-cheek. The resultant reviews contain a bit of empathy here and a lot of sarcasm there, but they lay no claims to fair and balanced coverage. Though our website contains some strict reporting (i.e., tour date announcements and the like–it would be pretty dumb of us to embellish those) the bulk of our articles are devoted to our personal opinions about music. Music reviewing is, in short, a subjective business–one to which we bring our critical faculties (such as they are) but also our own experience.

As for my experience: like you (thank you, by the way, for allowing us to set the record straight) I do not snort coke. I have, however, done the following: Known someone who went through treatment at Betty Ford. Tried to calm down a drunken fifteen-year-old at a family wedding. Been cussed out in public by another acquaintance who’d had too much to drink. Walked into the restroom of my weekly nightclub hangout and almost tripped over a girl who was on the floor, unconscious. Glimpsed people snorting coke in the bathroom of the other dance hall up the street. Had a friend of a friend overdose. Played designated driver for people twice my age. Oh, and let’s not forget the time I made an offering (liquid, not burnt) of Miller High Life to a statue of the Blessed Virgin (hail Mary, full of grace, the beer is with thee…).

So, um, yeah–even though I’ve had numerous encounters with alcoholics, addicts and users to have become adept, if not outstanding, at recognizing their behavior, I’m not scarred to the extent that I don’t enjoy being a cheap drunk from time to time. But I do carry my personal history with me, and I’m certainly not the only one who bases her views of how things work on her life experience.

When I was in high school, a woman I knew came in to speak to my youth group about her time as a user and addict. We started chatting after her presentation, and she asked me if I was “on something,” citing that my conversation style was a bit too bubbly and my eyes (which are pretty photosensitive) were dilated. Since I had no manager (nor do I now, sadly… there’s a pile of clothes in my closet that’s in need of dry cleaning, and damned if it wouldn’t be nice to have some sort of assistant around to drop it off for me), I had to politely tell her myself, in front of my circle of friends (which at the time, I believe, included my straight-edged, duck-hunting, son-of-a-pastor crush) that, no, I was in fact stone cold sober. Even though I’d done nothing, I was completely embarrassed by her public speculation about my sobriety, and like you, I believed that the fault for the speculation lay in her opinions rather than my actions. But you know what? I set her straight and I blew it off.

In my review of your show, I made it clear that my opinions were based on speculation. I am sorry that they seemed to your management like allegations or statements of fact. They were neither, nor were they presented as such. But I do deeply apologize to you, as well as to your daughter, for any emotional distress and/or embarrassment that my review may have caused you. My best wishes to both of you.

Regards,
Christine
Content Editor
Superstarcastic.com

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