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Column: Open Mic
And So This Is Christmas
Hanging on the wall just above my writing table is a framed copy of the Edward Hopper painting Gas. I’ve always dug Hopper because he was a Realist. He kept it Real. I’ve always dug Gas because it’s a reminder of the fact that everyone has something in their lives they’re consistently striving to perfect—whether it’s a family or a career or a two-pump gas station along the side of the road… everyone needs to have something.
I spent most of 2009 trying to figure out exactly what my something was. And at some point along the line, I came to the realization that life shouldn’t be what happens while you’re busy making other plans, that no one should have to spend the bulk of their best years jumping from one dress code to the next, completely losing track of the fact that it’s the distraction, not the dream, they’ve been chasing all along.
I spent the first six months of 2009 getting very drunk, then I spent the next six staying very sober. I met some new people, experienced new things. I gave my time to charitable causes. I committed to a long-term writing project. I found my way into relationships. Then I found my way out. I took long runs at sunrise and wrote straight through the night. I felt sharp and steady and sure.
Talkin’ Townes-from-Texas Blues
Well, at the memorial service for old Mr. Van,
The vagrants, they sat, and the gods made to stand.
And the preacher did whisper in the lone usher’s ear,
“Gypsies up front, please. All press in the rear.”
And his mother, the mountain, she knelt down in prayer.
While his father, the sky, he cursed at the air.
And the preacher asked mercy for all Van had done wrong,
Sayin’, “He done it, my friends, for the sake of the song.”
Well, the press sought out quotes from all the right people,
And the church bells, they sang like birds from the steeple.
As Van’s best friend stood with his face all aglow,
Sayin’, “We should-a booked this gig more than 30 years ago.”
And the wind came a-howlin’ off that lone river line,
As the preacher took a belt of his sacrificial wine.
And he told all the mourners, “Take heed now. Be strong.
For here lies a man who would die for his song.”
Band of Horses: For Taller People?
The lights went out and I turned from a stupid conversation about the “street value” of a Band of Horses ticket—“Could you get a blow job in downtown Oakland for one?”—toward the stage. But I couldn’t see anything. I stared at pant legs and sweaty backs, at the shadowy figures of cretins blocking the stage lights.
This might be a common complaint amongst shorter concert-goers, and it would make for a funny piece to give a deadpan review of a show that you couldn’t see. But I’m not short. I’m a slightly-above-average-height six-foot male. I’m the one that girls behind me at concerts complain about after I shift my weight to the other foot, which shifts my head a fraction of an inch to the right and ruins their geometrically calculated viewpoint. So this wasn’t just funny. It was very real. Maybe this show was my reckoning day, my repayment for all the frustration I’ve caused and music I’ve ruined over the years.
But I wasn’t alone. One of my friends, who is four inches taller than me, stood on his tip-toes, craning his neck above the silhouettes like a kid trying to peek over his backyard fence at a neighbor tanning by the pool. We looked at each other in astonishment. Even the women were gargantuan, blonde amazons with legs like light poles.
Magpie to the Morning
It’s 6:42 in the morning and the sun is coming up over the East River.
It’s only the first week of September and already that old familiar chill of autumn is in the air. The breezes are shifting and so are the storefronts. All the neighborhood bars are taking their business indoors.
The summer’s gone now, and all along the East River Esplanade, so are the people.
Still, I enjoy the esplanade on mornings like this. I enjoy watching the barges as they roll their way upstream. I enjoy watching the planes as they descend into LaGuardia. I enjoy the fact that it’s work—and not alcohol—that’s kept me going through the night.
I enjoy a lot of things these days.
But Labor Day… Labor Day always makes me sad.
Letter to a Young Music Journalist
So, there I was, reading a piece of rock writing—a fresh slice of 2009 work, in a reputable publication, concerning an established artist of some renown—when within the first couple of paragraphs I encountered the word seminal. I’m not a fan of the word, and I believe it is ripe for retirement from the music trade. And just as I was recovering from the sighting of it, a paragraph later saw me confronted by another offender: Penchant (English or French pronunciation, as you prefer, though I’ll take neither). As it happens, I find both seminal and penchant to be among the two most misused and overused in all of rock criticism. I guess I should’ve just been grateful that the established artist wasn’t referred to as a stalwart, and gotten on with my day. But instead, I got to thinking: How did these words—rarely, if ever, used in conversation—come to live large in the jargon of rock writing? I can’t claim to know the answer, but I can certainly offer a few opinions, a whole lot of conjecture, and my suspicions, as I have a penchant for criticism. Perhaps the time has finally come for me to pass on to my colleagues, past, present, and future, my thoughts on our profession and how we, as well as the rock critic laity, can do better.
For as long as I can remember, seminal has infected our waters, polluting the stream of good, clean music journalism (I know, I’m no master of the metaphor, but you get the idea). Used properly, seminal describes an influential artist, usually the originator or heaviest hitter in a genre who provides the basis for all future creation in that style. More often, though, the word is used to describe a band or artist that’s just plain… old. Other times, it’s used as a prefix, as if it’s a style of music or an obligatory cliché, much like auspicious debut and sophomore slump. Seminal band, indeed. Seminal is so epidemic in music writing that, like a bad virus, it needs to be eradicated. Try Googling “seminal band” and you’ll see what I mean. I haven’t heard of half the bands said to have launched a thousand bands, so why must we insist on using seminal at all? I beg of you, brothers and sisters in my profession, as well you customer reviewers out there: For the love of Lester Bangs, please observe the boycott on seminal.
Unknown Legend
**Open Mic is a new column were Crawdaddy! writers can stretch out into music-related fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc. Enjoy.**
It was just past midnight on Saturday when I decided to call it quits. There was no point in going on, really. The words had stopped coming hours (or perhaps even months) ago. My senses had gone numb; my eyes bloodshot and bleary, blindly scanning the page for inspiration.
But inspiration never came.
So I’d guess… and then I’d second-guess… and then I’d delete entire blocks of text out of pure frustration. And in my weakest moments, I’d wonder whether it might be time to pack it all in—move to the suburbs, raise 2.5 kids, join the PTA.
But it’s late now and it’s summer and I have no time for thinking such thoughts.
Outside, the block’s alive with winers and diners and dealers down from Harlem. On every corner, local boys are forming into tightly-woven packs. They’re loud and they’re crass and they wander the streets like rabid jackals, loose and on the prowl. Tonight, I watch from my fourth-floor window as they move in on their prey—a scrawny Asian kid, with droopy eyes and matted hair.
You’re Only King Once
by: Jessica Gentile
As I stumbled across the quad, he took swigs of vodka from a Listerine bottle. Having just left some lame house party, we idly chatted amongst the field of revelers, never having spoken before that night. We were united in a common loathing of our Fundamentals of Music professor, and this was an impetus to drunkenly engage in fervent conversation about how he inanely made us utter Gregorian chants. We cursed “Kyrie Eleisons” in slurred, disdainful tones. But when the subject turned to “real music”—our music—the kind reserved for collegian elitists, there was really only one relatively obscure band that mattered: Beulah.
Fast-forward two years to the fall of 2007: I attended a panel during CMJ in which the matter of “iconic songs” was discussed. Mele Mel spoke about the socio-cultural significance of hip-hop classic “The Message” and his role in performing it as an integral member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. He talked at length about how it memorably presented gritty urban realities, especially the crack epidemic of the ’80s, to a mainstream audience. Then Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, talked about the historic importance of “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”, again a song/commentary on harsh economic conditions during the Great Depression. Pretty heavy stuff. These were songs that were symbolic of cultural moments bigger then the songs themselves.
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by: Jessica Gentile
published: January 19, 2010
in column: Open Mic
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