Owlspotting

Let me return to my comments about musical condescension and musicitas. A friend who read my post directed me to Pitchfork’s official review of Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. It was a predictable read that says less about the music than about the indie-rock climate the record is being reviewed in.

“There’s something really refreshing about stumbling across a great band that’s trembling on the cusp without any sort of press campaign or other built-in mythology– you actually get to hear the music with your own ears,” the review says.

So it’s not about the band’s music as much as it is about the band’s status. They are still relatively new, they are not that easy to come by and they haven’t signed with Sub Pop Records (The Shins, Postal Service and now Sleater-Kinney) yet. Yes, Clap Your Hands might make good music, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The review goes on:

“While a lot of bands view the promotional apparatus as a necessary evil, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah prove that it’s still possible for a band to get heard, given enough talent and perseverance, without a PR agency or a label. Indie rock has received a much-needed kick in the pants, and we have the rare chance to decide what a band sounds like of our own accord before any agency cooks up and disseminates an opinion for us. Damn, maybe this is how it’s supposed to work!”

That being said, Pitchfork takes it upon themselves to slap a 9.0/10 on the record and automatically become the PR agency that validates the band. But they won’t assume responsibility for pushing the band, because that would also imply assuming responsibility for reviewing the band’s second record (which will most likely see a larger release) by listening to the music first.

I’m not saying Pitchfork is the hypocritical deux-machina of the indie-rock game, but it’s another blade of grass in a field populated with music snobs, who would take status over music any time.

I just read an article I’ve seen mentioned in a few blogs recently quoting a record executive from Vice who says Deathcab for Cutie, The Arcade Fire and the likes are responsible for creative a generation of “indie-yuppies” (BrooklyVegan chronicles the debate here). Their music, the Vice executive says, is “like fancy-coffee-drinking, Volvo-riding music for kids.” Ironically, Vice manages the account of Bloc Party, one of the Arcade Fires of today if you’re talking hype.

When did indie-rock become such an exclusive and patronizing genre?

These yuppies, their critics blurt are corporate spies in the land of organic, preservative-free music. They dare playing the above mentioned bands on iPods strapped to jeans that made the Style section of the Times. For them regular coffee pales in comparison to any mixed java and they pick up their music speculatively from the “visionaries” (my choice of quote marks) who despise them.

Wow, the hierarchy of indie-rock. This is fascinating.

Say my brother starts a band — an indie-rock one because he heard that wave is good for surfing. Their element of new is provided by band members slapping each other across the face to produce sound effects comparable to a tambourine. They also employ two talkative parrots in their live shows. I am a fan of my brother’s band (your blood is your blood is your blood) and I blog about it until the people who read me are entirely convinced Jesus v. 2005 has descended upon indie-rock. This first tier of people I’ll call indinives (indie-naives). They actually think my brother’s band is the shit!

Ten people pack the band’s first show and six of them post pictures on their blogs along with some badly recorded concert sound — enough to make out the slaps and the parrots though. The second tier of people gets a hold of this through downloads and coffee-house surfing. They are indie-snobs and they love the idea that they can make or break a band. These indie-snobs are the ones the mainstream public (or media) with no time to query the indinives turn to for advice.

The moment the indie-snobs speak out, the iPod carrying indie-yuppies get a on it. At this stage of the process the indinives have deserted my brother because he dares play larger clubs and not give shout-outs to everyone in the audience. My brother’s band sells out their upcoming show and the audience is split between indie-snobs, still cocky and proud of their role, and the yuppies and the curious public who heard of this new phenomenon.

The next morning the snobs break-up with the band and the New York Times prints an article on my brother’s song-writing abilities. Fast forward a few months and my brother’s band makes the soundtrack of a pathetic TV series of your choice. They still play the same music and slap themselves just as much. But they have changed their fan base at least three times in six months, where they now play for the people who have heard the band on the radio and seen them play a quick set on late night television.

The above is a simplified and speculative image of the indie-rock hierarchy, this world’o’crap where the only thing that matters is the pack you run with. Screw the artist, screw the music — there’s enough out there to keep you moving from product to product wherever you are in the hierarchy.

I’m not surprised people don’t have favorite bands anymore. One of my friends is a loyal Ben Folds fan — I wonder how that would go over. Another friend is a Beatles fan — she might be better off because in this screwed up value system the Beatles are such an uncool choice they might just be underground favorites again. It’s a good thing they don’t play live anymore – having an indie-snob bury them would really piss me off.

Yes, I do like the Arcade Fire and yes, I think the Decemberists are brilliant (view a video of theirs here) and yes, I would pay to see System of a Down play the Continental Arena. Why? Is it so wrong to just enjoy the music?

I read “Prague,” Arthur Phillips’ debut novel, with rare pleasure (thanks Elle).

In the year before reading “Prague,” pressured by graduate school work, I had drifted into non-fiction. Phillips’ book reminded me of the pleasure of reading stories where the mind can create as many scenarios as it wishes. Plus, the book had a post-communism Eastern Europea sensibility that spoke to me on a personal level.

“The Egyptologist,” now out in paperback, is supposedly a different book (I am once again behind on my reading of fiction). To catch up, I went to hear Phillips read from the book and answer question at a Barnes and Noble store on the Upper East Side.

As I listened to Phillips read his own work (employing an Aussie accent at one point) and crack self-deprecating jokes, I wondered how one can write such different books — an ideas-driven coming of age tale of a city and its different cultures (“Prague”) and a “how dunn it?” mystery set in 1920s Egypt (“The Egyptologist”). Phillips says his different books are the products of fear, laziness and a short attention span. I also think this guy is having fun writing — he said his next book will be a dark Victorian ghost story. Expats, egyptologists and ghosts — that is one hell of a messy resume.

Phillips is much skinnier in person than I would have imagined — a stick figure with a charming smile, his body further elongated by the white stripes on his pants and his fitted black shirt. And as it turns out, he knows the Romanian word for “longing” and can also spell it.

The car’s door bounced in and out on the woman’s thin right arm a few times before she was able to push herself on the crowded train. I was being squeezed from both sides and caged in from above by some broken down old people, a punk rock Indian girl and a college-aged couple locked in embrace.

The old woman pushed her way through the crowd and, as she stumbled over some luggage, paused to cough from so deep inside my skin prickled a little. It was the kind of cough that only comes from those diseases that don’t just infect, they consume.

I wondered if she felt watched, even as I was unable to keep myself from staring at her weathered brown skin exposed by a baggy and stained men’s undershirt. Still hacking, she passed out of sight behind the college couple, and my eyes drifted upward to watch them. I followed his hand as it moved down her back and began caressing her ass.

She was wearing Citizens of Humanity brand jeans.

The recent band endorsement war between the Village Voice (The Hold Steady) and NY Press (The Fame) convinced me to go see The Fame at the Knitting Factory. It was my first New York City show and it seemed appropriate to check out such a hyped local band.

The Fame does play catchy classic rock, but only after the show ended did I realize the band that drew the biggest crowd was Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, who played the second of four sets. I have witnessed this phenomenon often — the crowd (or consumers in general) are so terrified by being labeled “mainstream,” (think “witch” during the Inquisition) that they resort to endorsing any artist (or product) who still plays (or is being sold in) small venues (stores). The Fame plays good rock’n’roll, but too many people know about them now, so we’ll just turn our attention to other upcoming bands, the self-conscious musicistas says.

The cultural validity of a rock band, a book, a Web site, a trend is the breaking point between “mainstream consumers” and “hip connoisseurs.” Let’s stay with the music analogy for a while. The Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” was a marvelous record. I saw them in November 2004, when they were in the limbo between indie cult status and heavy radio rotation. Back then they played for a crowd of a little more than 100 people at Mojo’s in Columbia, Mo. Most of us in attendance realized this band will not be ours to keep — we might even have to share it with those who buy music at Starbucks.

Eight months later, The Arcade Fire has been featured in all mainstream media, played their first stadium gig at Coachella and made it onto the soundtrack to HBO’s Six Feet Under. The band sounds as good as they did on their first record, about to be re-released. But is it cool (hip, trendy, special) to discover them now? Probably not if you’re an urban music snob. If you’re not, then try bringing up The Arcade Fire with people who moved on to other Canadian imports and they will tell you the band is so 2004.

So who is, like, so now? Almost everybody that hasn’t signed a distribution deal with a major record label and has a few songs available for download is a safe bet. This is not to say I’m waiting for MTV or late-night talk shows to endorse a band before I get into it. I also enjoy discovering and sharing music with a small crowd. The first time I saw Straylight Run in July 2004, very few people in the audience gave a damn — they were there for Rooney. Seven months later, although still the opening band, they had more than half the audience singing along. Now they are opening for bands that have long lost their underground buzz status.

It’s cool to be a music snob — just ask the people at Pitchfork — but there is nothing wrong with sticking with a band after it becomes popular — yes, as long as they don’t start writing songs for Britney’s post-baby record.

Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah was a great discovery even if, once again, I came across them right before they’ll make headlines (bigger ones). Last night, David Bowie was reportedly watching from the balcony. That endorsement will be enough to send some looking for a less popular band. Not me, I enjoy sharing and sticking around. Hell, I went to see Marilyn Manson tour behind his greatest hits record. It doesn’t get more uncool than that.

* The other two bands who played the Knitting Factory last night were the “gay vague” (a trend about to die now that it made the NY Times Sunday Style section) Ghostland Observatory from Austin and Man in Gray.