I read with interest Helen Bach's post yesterday on Michael Azerrad discussing rock music and criticism, and I have been checking out his new music website "The Talkhouse" intermittently. Azerrad wrote a brilliant book called "Our Band Could Be Your Life" which I can't recommend highly enough.
But I have problems with his new website wherein musicians write about bands they like.
For one thing, apparently the designer took Steve Jobs too seriously and mistake an awful blandness for simplicity. It is like staring at a white wall, it looks like the most boring stuff on earth and it reads pretty terribly as well.
"The Talkhouse" gives it away on its front cover "Artists May Log In Here" it states obnoxiously. What the fuck? A website with a VIP list?The only website with a private room for the muckety mucks and a velvet rope to keep the commoner out How arrogant and kiss ass. Any way I read around and what should be real thrillers, Amy Klein on the "Springbreakers", Melissa Auf Der Maur on Buke And Gase (their latest is People Get Ready's fave), don't ignite. They are too polite. Every thing is in such good taste. Arone Dyer's comment was so mindlowingly pathetic.. it is like, why do you just become Facebook friends? " No one really asks those kinds of questions… the what-kind-of-person-are-you-that-you-make-these-sounds-and-write-these-words questions. Too tough, or maybe they’re afraid of what kind of answer they’ll get." Are you joking me"? On what planet? if anything, the opposite is true, rock critics get in trouble for worrying too much about the musicians characters.
Plus, songwriters wring about songwriters is a study in redundancy. The music is the music criticism, the chouces, the building blocks, tell you about the musicians tastes. remember in "Let It Blurt" when Bangs was shocked that musicians just stole parts of other songs for their own? Well, no one is shocked any more.
It is a little too early to go to town on "The Talkhouse" too nastily, but I better hurry up because you can bet a paywall is in the works. The websiteit just stinks of obsequious star fucking, it is too "Artists May Log In Here". It has been only been up a couple of weeks, so I bet they will get the design fixed and I bet they will get some good stories. Meanwhile, struggling rock critics can't buy a thrill.