Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

"Q: What else are you supposed to do? Especially for young people right now. I know tons of writers who are freelancers making so little money, or they're just flat-out unemployed.

A: Get a job. That’s what I did. I got a job.

Q: What about the people who believed they’d some day end up as a full-time writer, then a big shot editor, and they’d fulfill everything they’d ever dreamed of?

A: They’re fucking deluded. I didn’t think that when I was 22, so that’s why I didn’t try to do it. I got a job as an administrative assistant at a book publisher, making twenty-two grand. Everything else has been the sweat of my labor in my career."

We all better rally the wagons and write Tumblr posts and agonize over Twitter and get Impose to do an interview because some guy who hasn't logged a legitimate clip since 2006 made a video with 3,547 views.

That video only got 3,457 views but every one of those viewers would later compromise their purity by writing a blurb promoting Deafheaven for InBev ad bucks funneled through a venture capitalist firm

Katherine, I guess I interpreted it as they're deluded if they don't want to compromise their writing for the sake of ad revenue and demographic targeting and whatever else would manipulate your ability to write freely and get paid that kind of money.

did he say "You're morally scum unless you get another job" or "don't delude yourself into thinking you're DIY or punk if you have this fabricated corporate force using you"?

4:25 of the vid, re: people writing for these companies, "I completely hold you in contempt"

someday all this tribal warfare may cease

http://m.apnews.com/ap/pm_5067/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=1Gk7456P

Took a while to get to the point where people are posting about this guy to ask why people are posting about him.

I interpreted it as "you're deluded if you had dreams of having a successful career and wanted to achieve your dreams. I certainly didn't when I was 22. Instead I got a assistant job at a publishing house [ed. note. lol] and pulled myself up by my bootstraps."

I know he wouldn't put it this nicely but I still think the core point was: You're going to have to play that game or you're going to have a really hard time being successful as a pro writer.

da croupier- Ah yes, thanks. I don't know. Feel like the interview is a slight back pedaling after being challenged for the shit in the video. Only slight.

I just don't see that as his core point, or maybe that'd be his core point minus the moralizing.

I blame Bill Hicks for all of this

To clarify: obviously there are people who are successful full time writers, he wouldn't deny that. So I think the context he's driving at is that if your dreams involve not having your opinions edited to cater to your sponsors that dream is really tough to achieve in this day and age.

xp Hicks is at least partially responsible for the still ongoing appeal of the angry white dude.

...and be a successful full time writer of course.

xp

oddly enough, bill hicks specifically dismissed young actors trying to make a buck (and irs victims like willie nelson) from his "fuck you for doing advertising" bit, saving his contempt for folks like jay leno who didn't need the money. though i'm sure he'd also be grumpy about folks eager to shill.

he'd be way more likely to call out "hey can we get a photo of you guys holding our beer" social media vultures (probably from a "fuck off and let me drink in peace" perspective) more than journalists who talk about cool shit in major pubs

I'm just thinking of that general idea that you can make a really facile, naive critique of advertising, deliver it as a macho angry rant, and people will look at you as some kind of countercultural rebel bravely speaking truth to power and sticking it to the man.

oh i get it, just noting that ott's stance is even less practical and sympathetic than hicks

plus, season to taste with a dash or two of misogyny and homophobia

xp to myself, forgot important part of the recipe

I suck at baking- all my pompadours come out flat and crusty and bitter.

oddly enough, bill hicks specifically dismissed young actors trying to make a buck (and irs victims like willie nelson) from his "fuck you for doing advertising" bit, saving his contempt for folks like jay leno who didn't need the money. though i'm sure he'd also be grumpy about folks eager to shill.

― da croupier, Thursday, December 5, 2013 2:54 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was just thinking of this, trying to extrapolate the ott critique, such as it is, to other artforms.

should the jobbing actor or writer not take the sitcom gig? that's about as direct and ad-funded and pr-besotted medium there is. are movies better? those are funded by the previous season's receipts at least, right.

maybe stick to classical, an even more sharply draining pool, funded (as far as i can tell) by the state and the remaining few rich people who give a shit about it. perfect!

Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.

Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.the icon that he has.Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.Despite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspiDespite certain parts of his philosophy that have some vague appeal, I don't see Bill Hicks as a person anyone should aspire to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.re to be like. Honestly, it's perplexing that he's become the icon that he has.

should the jobbing actor or writer not take the sitcom gig? that's about as direct and ad-funded and pr-besotted medium there is. are movies better? those are funded by the previous season's receipts at least, right.

maybe stick to classical, an even more sharply draining pool, funded (as far as i can tell) by the state and the remaining few rich people who give a shit about it. perfect!

― napgenius (goole), Thursday, December 5, 2013 4:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

That's not quite the analogy though - he would be critiquing Peter Travers while championing, idk, Slant magazine (although I don't know how Slant is funded)

That's sort of what I was getting at upthread w/ the Kevin Shields reference - why not turn your BLINDING SPOTLIGHT of EXPOSING CORPORATE INFLUENCE on the bands themselves if you really want to make this a platform

Like he doesn't even care that any band he's currently into that has enough funds to actually put out a record is probably funded indirectly by the same corporate overlords that bought SPIN

Or maybe he only listens to music nowadays that is burned onto CD-Rs and the bands break up before they get too big

But he still makes plenty of time to listen to Curve

On the last point he's not wrong.

I heard "Horror Head" the other day and thought, "Hm, I need to make time to listen to Curve."

I learned from his vimeo actually that curve was pretty forthright in their commercial aspirations

Like it's probably much more appropriate to accuse curve of selling out than it is to point a finger at a freelancer who sold a blog post for $50 to THEFADER to pay rent

has he ever mentioned spc eco or chatelaine or rose berlin, if he's that concerned about highlighting currently working acts

Speedy Ortiz
we've added an NME Awards Show on february 18th, so those of you who missed tickets for the ATP london show can still come hang out

buy the$e ticket$ becau$e capitali$m and corporate $pon$or$hip top$hop

getting paid to write about music is pennies from heaven imo. if music writing is the least profitable arm of many large corporations, who don't really care who does the job or how well they do it, i don't really see the issue with putting that money in my pocket, where it makes a difference for me, and doing the job better than the next guy might or covering stuff the next guy might not. i mean, in my day job, i work very a very lefty small independent business and we very frequently have to work with/for prominent republicans and all other kinds of corporate scum, so as moral compromises go this is weak sauce to me.

oh but the purity of diy

I gotta back it up and say that this thing katherine linked to

http://lindsayzoladz.tumblr.com/post/29966963774/dont-blame-us-four-women-talk-about-why-they-didnt

Was really great

def

it really is good, in the sense that it is disturbing. if people wonder why I take stuff like this so seriously things like what gets described in that post are why

am i being a contrarian if i think it's not interesting really? or extremely non-revelatory. and some of the answers are shortsighted & it's, like, here's an anecdotal response to a statistical thing. [lindsay wrote a great piece recently tho about tuning out twitter which i enjoyed]

Well I think it lays clear its 'methodology' in the opening so if 'anecdotal response to a statistical thing' is a criticism, it's very self-aware of that

xp Yeah 'really great' is the wrong choice of phrase but I just found it really interesting

it's sad. i get turned off by music talk with men for similar reasons, then when i do it i find myself complicit in it which is worse. that habitual internalized greek chorus of objective measurement of bands, albums. is it because music is basically queer that it has to be so patriarched all the goddamn time.

yes, that's exactly it.

Results 1 - 10 of about 256 for gaydiohead. (0.28 seconds)

xp Hicks is at least partially responsible for the still ongoing appeal of the angry white dude.

― Murgatroid, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:53 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so fucking glad I haven't participated in this thread. as are the rest of you, probably

the idea of ott big-upping curve was funnier when i was misreading it as "cursive"

<3 goole itt

yeah, it's a monastic/aristocratic argument. do it as a hobby. i do it as a hobby, i'm in the upper middle class. do what i did, start your straight career during the clinton era. or i'll call you a cunt on twitter.

I heard "Horror Head" the other day and thought, "Hm, I need to make time to listen to Curve."

Rightly so.

this was all fun and games for Ned until shoegaze bands starting becoming guilty by association

Things took an ugly turn then.

i just watched one half of two of this guy's videos and i can't believe a person like this exists and that people expend keystrokes over him

he pretty plainly has nothing to offer as a critic except a lot of hyperbolic impressionistic hooey

above all it seems like he just fell down some indie rabbit hole years ago and has yet to emerge

some people take themselves too seriously

just catching up lol

"Fucking idiot sheeple writers just feeding the capitalist beast"

vs

"Fucking idiot sheeple writers think they should get paid for their work... that's not what the capitalist beast wants! How dare you disobey the desires of the capitalist beast"

vs

"I am the example. I vlog the fuck out of music all darn day and I don't get paid a cent. I am not obeying the capitalist beast. I am actively disobeying the capitalist beast by refusing to let it pay me all the money it wants to pay me. That really gets its goat."

vs

"I think I'm in love with the capitalist beast but it feeds me these impure thoughts and my priest is on vacation and"

vs

"People really listen to me (when I'm saying the names of non-famous people and then talking shit about those names) and no one makes a cent (except Youtube) off of it (except Youtube)."

vs

"Also, DIY scenes suck and the music is the worst and no one should give a shit about them and we should protect them with all our purity."

vs

"Y'know, they called someone else a troll, too. Maybe you've heard of him... his name was... Jesus Christ."

also

"I literally have no fucking idea how to respond to the accusations of sexism so I am literally going to make up some stuff about women writers getting worshiped as goddesses from shiftless, masturbating men. I'm not vain, I'm just saying, if my projections aren't trustworthy than what is?"