the low stakes of indie journalism.
my dad has a quote he's fond of repeating incessantly - "why are university politics so bitter and divisive? because the stakes are just so low."
it's the truth, though. if there's one thing that my little concert-review experience last week has shown me, it's that if there's a peril to alternative indie journalistic writing on a small scale, it's definitely in terms of the insignificant issues. the band that i saw, to put it gently, sucked the big one. and my instinctive reaction would be to rip them to pieces. if i had been reviewing them for my blog, that's what i would have done. this is for a couple reasons: i wouldn't have had to check with anyone, because my blog is mine alone (well, this one is anyway), free from editorial control. perhaps more importantly, i also wouldn't have any reasonable expectation that the band members would be reading my blog.
but, even though my roommate and i gleefully pointed out how hilariously lame this band was, i wasn't entirely prepared to put my actual vitriolic thoughts out there for a mass audience, particularly not with my byline, and particularly not when a bunch of people involved with this band were in my year of MIT, and thus i'd have class with them for the next two years. self-censorship hath reared its ugly head!
eugene, our illustrious zine editor and the person who asked me to cover this band's show, was quite supportive of the fact that the band in question blew ass. and although he beseeched me to try and be constructive in my criticism, he by no means told me to avoid criticizing the band. my first instinct would have been to savagely tear into the band for being a bunch of slack-jawed hacks devoid of any artistic vision, but to be honest, eugene was probably right to ask me to be constructive. i mean, apart from the visceral thrill of criticizing a group really harshly, there's not a lot to be gained for the reader by suffering through 800 words of me being a pretentious dick to some poor fratboys with a penchant for instrumental jams. but my unwillingness to give my 100% sincere opinion on the group was less because of a fear of editorial control, but merely because of concern over the smallness of scale involved. i didn't really want to raise the ire of a bunch of neanderthal-type frat boys because their homeboys' bands got dissed. nor did i want to seem like too much of a snob to the microcosmic world of our faculty in general. i mean, i am, of course, but one must be diplomatic about such things.
(in the interest of divulging any prejudices which i might have, let me say that the band's "manager," who i talked into letting me in for free by saying i'd give his band a good review, is probably the most annoying person in my MIT required courses. so it didn't give me a particularly good first impression when he was the one taking money at the door. plus, why the fuck does a crappy university-student band with no prospects need a manager? i think my roommate said it best when he commented that "having a manager is something you should be forced into," by the fact that you've got a dozen record labels clamoring to sign you and you need to pick out what's best. otherwise, you're just a bunch of douchebags who aspire to be corporate, conglomerated, mainstream drivel before you're even talented enough to be.)
in any case, i took the middle ground in my article. or rather, made an ironic attempt to seem like i was taking the middle ground. i gave a variety of things that i liked about the show. mainly: cheap beers, i didn't have to play cover, they were almost good musicians. i also gave a variety of things that i didn't like. such as, no inspiration, no taste, nothing likeable about the music they played, terrible choices of covers, terrible vocals, and just plain incorrect lyrics on some of the songs. plus i gave some constructive comments like "Practice this song more." really, i guess, if i could give this crap band one piece of advice it would be this: find a decent singer/songwriter, and play exactly what he or she tells you. so, journalistic integrity won out, in a manner of speaking, and stupid MUZO got told how much they stank.
but there you have it. my thoughts on music journalism. also, i wrote up a brief journal entry at work the other night, but blogger was down so i couldn't post it. i'll put that up another time.
it's the truth, though. if there's one thing that my little concert-review experience last week has shown me, it's that if there's a peril to alternative indie journalistic writing on a small scale, it's definitely in terms of the insignificant issues. the band that i saw, to put it gently, sucked the big one. and my instinctive reaction would be to rip them to pieces. if i had been reviewing them for my blog, that's what i would have done. this is for a couple reasons: i wouldn't have had to check with anyone, because my blog is mine alone (well, this one is anyway), free from editorial control. perhaps more importantly, i also wouldn't have any reasonable expectation that the band members would be reading my blog.
but, even though my roommate and i gleefully pointed out how hilariously lame this band was, i wasn't entirely prepared to put my actual vitriolic thoughts out there for a mass audience, particularly not with my byline, and particularly not when a bunch of people involved with this band were in my year of MIT, and thus i'd have class with them for the next two years. self-censorship hath reared its ugly head!
eugene, our illustrious zine editor and the person who asked me to cover this band's show, was quite supportive of the fact that the band in question blew ass. and although he beseeched me to try and be constructive in my criticism, he by no means told me to avoid criticizing the band. my first instinct would have been to savagely tear into the band for being a bunch of slack-jawed hacks devoid of any artistic vision, but to be honest, eugene was probably right to ask me to be constructive. i mean, apart from the visceral thrill of criticizing a group really harshly, there's not a lot to be gained for the reader by suffering through 800 words of me being a pretentious dick to some poor fratboys with a penchant for instrumental jams. but my unwillingness to give my 100% sincere opinion on the group was less because of a fear of editorial control, but merely because of concern over the smallness of scale involved. i didn't really want to raise the ire of a bunch of neanderthal-type frat boys because their homeboys' bands got dissed. nor did i want to seem like too much of a snob to the microcosmic world of our faculty in general. i mean, i am, of course, but one must be diplomatic about such things.
(in the interest of divulging any prejudices which i might have, let me say that the band's "manager," who i talked into letting me in for free by saying i'd give his band a good review, is probably the most annoying person in my MIT required courses. so it didn't give me a particularly good first impression when he was the one taking money at the door. plus, why the fuck does a crappy university-student band with no prospects need a manager? i think my roommate said it best when he commented that "having a manager is something you should be forced into," by the fact that you've got a dozen record labels clamoring to sign you and you need to pick out what's best. otherwise, you're just a bunch of douchebags who aspire to be corporate, conglomerated, mainstream drivel before you're even talented enough to be.)
in any case, i took the middle ground in my article. or rather, made an ironic attempt to seem like i was taking the middle ground. i gave a variety of things that i liked about the show. mainly: cheap beers, i didn't have to play cover, they were almost good musicians. i also gave a variety of things that i didn't like. such as, no inspiration, no taste, nothing likeable about the music they played, terrible choices of covers, terrible vocals, and just plain incorrect lyrics on some of the songs. plus i gave some constructive comments like "Practice this song more." really, i guess, if i could give this crap band one piece of advice it would be this: find a decent singer/songwriter, and play exactly what he or she tells you. so, journalistic integrity won out, in a manner of speaking, and stupid MUZO got told how much they stank.
but there you have it. my thoughts on music journalism. also, i wrote up a brief journal entry at work the other night, but blogger was down so i couldn't post it. i'll put that up another time.
posted by ali at 8:44 PM
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