The difference between rock nyc and say Consequence Of Sound is that rock nyc has zero financing. We haven’t made a penny in six years plus of kicking in the door. The result is, without money or contacts, we basically do whatever we are doing, and while sometimes we resort to cut and paste, even when we do we are opinion based, we will write what happened and we will tell you why we care that it happened.
A couple of days ago Pitchfork reported a story about how the Replacements would not be playing together. The piece didn’t even bother contact the band or their management, it was just a coupla out of context social media comments and a neglectful article, noting that there were no more concerts, mostly because the tour was ended.
OK, it was Pitchfork, everybody knows they fucking suck so whatever, ignore it and it will go away. Except then every single music website cut and pasted it as news. Nobody searched it out any more, nobody tried to get a comment, Brooklynvegan, all these guys do is news stories (and reprint stories from the Guardian and the usual suspects, I will write something more thorough about these indolent know nothings some other day) and they couldn’t be bothered to research it. CoS, Stereogum, Rolling Stone: nobody followed it up, they just reprinted it.
There is herd mentality and then there is grazing like cows. Stone goes the big time interviews, Brooklynvegan will tell you who is playing where, CoS have a nasty disposition, but really, it is all the same shit. There is no decent writing, no smart reporting, no differences of opinion. Everybody in lockstep, it is so bad it could constitute consumer fraud. Price fixing. can nobody disagree about anything? You wanna good review in Pitchfork? Play their festival? Rolling Stone? Go fishing with Wenner.
You wanna get reviewed? Sign to Merge, you if you are a real indie, a Bridgetown Records, forget it. They don’t give a damn, they are too busy fellating Drake to care.
And you wanna drop a story?
Now I get press releases have no doubt that Brooklynvegan’s main job is to mix and match press releases and get scoops like, I dunno, the latest video release.
The Replacements story is the latest in a long least of bad journalism by know nothings, a goodbye at their final show, an opinion that the Replacements won’t record some songs they’ve recorded and not a quote in the world. I guess they don’t know Paul, do they?