Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

an Ott or a True or a Wells

barf that you'd compare this guy to those guys

2nded

haha was just going to post the same thing

Michael ‏@RcmndedListen 2h
@shallowrewards From the way you talk, it sounds like you're a well-off mid-30s-something unaffected by the last five years of the economy.

丂んﾑﾚﾚӨω ЯΣЩΛг๔ร ‏@shallowrewards 2h
@RcmndedListen maybe that's because I spent the prior 15 years working a trade and doing this in my spare time.

a socially-valuable trade

modifier: a trade that didn't exploit boston basement culture!

working a relatively recession-resistant trade

"start a white collar career sometime in the 90s" is great advice, everybody should be able to do that

artisanal IT

Now I have Michael Jackson's "Heal The World (Modifier: OK, Just Don't Be A Professional Music Writer)" stuck in my head

I was saying to someone the other day that many of the best people I've ever met are music critics and a handful of the worst. I've never met Ott but damn if he doesn't epitomise the most pompous, vindictive, toxic qualities.

tbf, he's really making the "be pure! never try to do it for a living, that's so impure!" argument to other music writers that indie musicians frequently make to ::shudder:: "career" musicians.

musician purity test, what did you score

xpost with the added hilarity of having to backpedal from a genuinely altruistic sentiment

of all the angles of his multivalent arrogance and naievete, the one that really gets me is the sense that he's the only person to have ever seen through a sponsorship message. the same young people who are chronically underemployed, indebted and broke are very unlikely to be wowed by some logos showing up in their scene somewhere.

what we know about the current young is that they are very brand disloyal and the most hostile to capital generally.

i guess i'm trying to understand how he feels like music publications in the print age weren't in the business of delivering youth demographics to advertisers and large corporations?

I'm trying to understand why people are spending time trying to understand him, tbh

I Cram 2 Understand U (Ott)

telling other people "doing something for profit inevitably leads to moral compromises" says more about your moral compass than theirs in the same way as with religious people who think that not having religion leads to horrible immoral lifestyles

indie musicians frequently make to ::shudder:: "career" musicians.

which ones and where? afaik it's fans that toe the hard line on this, most musicians know you gotta pay for gas

xp Because we must work out exactly what this mediocre writer and aggressive asshole is trying to say.

what's the alternative in this scenario? ok, so I'll stop writing about music for money. ok, going to tell my landlord proudly that I have done the right thing. ok, landlord didn't give a shit. (sure wish I had 94K and bennies right now!) ok, going to apply for jobs and hear back from none because all I have done my entire life is write about music and I am unqualified for anything else, and in a job market where master's educated people can't even get jobs as clerks I am worthless. but hey, I am doing the right thing!

and, before it is mentioned, if I hadn't gone into music writing and stayed at my other job, I know for a fact I would have been laid off in about four months, because they laid everyone off.

musicians relying on fossil fuels, disgusting

I'm trying to understand why people are spending time trying to understand him, tbh
prospecting for clues to 94k-bennied sanctuary

What you're supposed to do is to work directly for InBev and write about music on the side on your own time and for free

That's the responsible thing to do

what does Ott think about countries where arts grants still exist?

indie musicians frequently make to ::shudder:: "career" musicians.

which ones and where? afaik it's fans that toe the hard line on this, most musicians know you gotta pay for gas

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 1:26 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know plenty of musicians who are disdainful of making $$$ off music, but maybe it's more of a /punk/ thing. there was a thread earlier this year or maybe last year about a nabisco article about grizzly bear i think, and a discussion/debate between dude from indie band vs dude from another where one guy was defending music being a part-time job, used pig destroyer as an example. that attitude really pisses me off. i'll try and find the thread

Grizzly Bear - Shields

indie has a history of waltzing w/purity ideas no doubt but I think most indie dudes are pretty practical about it. in punk no doubt, there's still a whole "I have to talk to your booking agent to get a show? fuck that rock star shit" mentality subset that's really kinda mystifying (and dishonest & not true to its own values imo)

grizzly bear thread "we have sufficient private income not to worry about full-time work"
this thread "creeping on six figures bitches"

http://h30631.www3.hp.com/search/technical-writer/ASCategory/-1/ASPostedDate/-1/ASCountry/USA/ASState/-1/ASCity/-1/ASLocation/-1/ASCompanyName/-1/ASCustom1/-1/ASCustom2/-1/ASCustom3/-1/ASCustom4/-1/ASCustom5/-1/ASIsRadius/false/ASCityStateZipcode/-1/ASDistance/-1/ASLatitude/-1/ASLongitude/-1/ASDistanceType/-1

FYI HP has a couple of tech writer jobs available if anyone's interested

this was the other piece http://stereogum.com/1166392/debating-the-grizzly-bear-ny-mag-story-and-making-a-living-making-music/top-stories/lead-story

Doug is the frontman of Brooklyn-based experimental metal band Pyrrhon, about whom Decibel Magazine said, “Outré as they get, everything Pyrrhon do emanates from an obsidian death metal core — just that this music is that much more expressive, its impact that much more disquieting than almost anything else in the genre.”

Doug Moore: The New York Mag piece on Grizzly Bear makes me feel lucky to be a member of a generation of musicians who never expected to be able to quit their day jobs.

"What you're supposed to do is to work directly for InBev and write about music on the side on your own time and for free"

and even that might be a remotely fair argument (how much more than remotely is up to you) if InBev were routinely hiring. (the argument seems to be directed to people in their twenties, but if anything it's even more applicable to people who are older.)

indie has a history of waltzing w/purity ideas no doubt but I think most indie dudes are pretty practical about it. in punk no doubt, there's still a whole "I have to talk to your booking agent to get a show? fuck that rock star shit" mentality subset that's really kinda mystifying (and dishonest & not true to its own values imo)

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 1:41 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's super hypocritical. there was a minor controversy here because some friends of mine wrote "8$ don't be a cheap" on a show poster for a show with 3 touring bands, problem wasnt so much that it was 8$ (although ppl are still reluctant to pay more than 5$ fuck u fugazi) but that it didn't say PWYC. because of course musicians should live off of other people's generosity and their labour has no value! drives me crazy

丂んﾑﾚﾚӨω ЯΣЩΛг๔ร ‏@shallowrewards 2h
@RcmndedListen maybe that's because I spent the prior 15 years working a trade and doing this in my spare time.

"working a trade" ok big guy.

one of the most non-unionized, outsourced trades that's benefited from a high demand/supply ratio when it comes to workers so shmucks can still get jobs

he makes it sound like he's a longshoreman or something

yeah I get pretty emotional about it tbh because I have some punk values and "pay people for their work" is one of them but you can get vilified for saying "look this is what my work is legitimately worth, you are asking me to short-change my family in order to get punk points from you"

but I do think that the indie music dude who looks down his nose at musicians with careers is a straw man, is my point. careerism is a different question but most people I know (nb "most people I know" equals "olds who have been in the game 20 years") have made their peace with and/or are plenty stoked about music as both realm of creativity & business space that, at least, has a better day-to-day vibe than the office

xp

an Ott or a True or a Wells

barf that you'd compare this guy to those guys

https://twitter.com/everetttrue/status/407630150746923008

*arched eyebrow*

can you start a new column with this guy, it could be the RaggOtt report

Never ever even SLIGHTLY joke about the possibility of us collaborating on anything.

writing that down as a "maybe"

I get pretty emotional about these things because I have literally no idea what anyone wants from me (where "me" can be substituted with "writers in general"), and because the only guesses I have as to what people want are ones that are incompatible with actually living and eating and having a roof over one's head

if you could actually make money selling out, then it might be worthwhile to aspire to a career as a music writer. as it stands, there are lots of legit reasons to warn people away from a really rough career choice without having to make them up.

i have mad respect for those that keep their heads above water doing it (xposts) but seriously.

The idea that people’s futures might be economically determined deeply offends U.S. sensibilities. We want to believe that individual moxie matters, that a person’s creativity, effort, and intelligence will lead to economic success. Stories of exceptional strivers, heroically overcoming a stacked deck of obstacles, divert our attention from the data. But the large mega-trends are now indisputable. If you fail to pick wealthy parents and want to experience the American dream today, move to Canada.

on a journey thru the past

worked for win butler