11/30/2003
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note to self:
Warning: This is gonna be a rant.
Okay, so as many of you know, I work at a Big Corporate Bookstore (the name starts with a "Barnes" and ends with a "Noble"). This rant is not about them, though there have been many and there will be many more.But anyways, I was shelving magazines at said Big Corporate Bookstore and came across the newest issue of "The Wire" (which I had never heard of, I guess it's British) and it had a picture of Aphex Twin on the cover. Impressed, I stopped to read the interview with him, and it's going to take me a while to recover from it.
It should be noted here that I had previously sworn off of music magazines a year or so ago because I think all of them are horrible stupid and pretentious - unless they feel like reviewing MY music, then they're super peachy keen.
Back to the article: Richard D. James ticked me off. Never did I think I'd say that; I've been listening to and loving his music since junior high and I honestly don't really intend to stop. But he really ticked me off. Maybe it's because I haven't been around enough "intellectuals" lately to have had anybody be really pretentious at me and my guard against it is down, or maybe he's just a pompous prick, but boy it got me riled up. I HATE HATE HATE it when people start name dropping. I HATE HATE HATE HATE it. HATE it. He seems to be the king of it. Through the course of the article, of which I read about half, he constantly makes it sound like all music now is terrible, and you should be listening to stuff that was made 60 years ago if you want him to take you seriously. Things like that make me pissy, and it made me think back to every fight I've ever had with some hipster know-it-all or boring old smartypants man about music art or poetry.
Anybody who knows me well knows that I know my shit when it comes to the history of experimental and electronic music; and anybody who knows me well knows that I'm hard-pressed to actually talk too much about it for fear of BORING THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE. But hear it goes, a few points I need to make to these name-droppers:
First, stop calling what you do Futurism, okay? The Futurists wouldn't have liked you. They were a group made up of ten or twelve grumpy Italian men that drank and threw huge parties and thought that women were stupid. I speak only of Italian Futurism because that's the only real Futurist Movement, the core Italian group started the movement and considered it theirs and were very upset by all the other people claiming to be part of it for the following twenty years or so. YES, they brought whole new dimensions and ideas to the world of music (and visual art, poetry, etc) , but you need to understand that they would be SO MAD if they found out you were copying them, and they'd probably smash up your car.
Second: Just because you know who John Cage was does not mean you are as interesting as him.
Third (this one came up a lot in the AFX article): You completely discredit everything you say about experimentalism when you say anything about rave culture. There is nothing more primitive then jumping up and down to a repetitive, tribal beat: cave men did it just as easily as we do it now. To say out of one side of your mouth that music's growth is stunted and whine about how it isn't evolving fast enough for you, and then to turn to the other side and make constant references to "dance music" and "rave culture" just makes you seem foolish.
Lastly, my real point: I know all this shit already, okay? Get off my back about it and stop treating me like I'm fucking stupid. I've known all these names you're throwing at me since I was like 16; I have the fucking background and now I'm able to make the EDUCATED DECISION that I like Madonna. I'm able to - knowing full well the sociological and theoretical ramifications of Erik Satie's works - still think that Britney Spears rocks. So quit acting like I'm brainwashed by my lack of culture. These snobbish attitudes are the real factor in stunting any sort of artistic growth the past few decades. An obsession with the past coupled with a need to appear mentally superior does not a fucking musician make.