AHH… THERE’S NOTHING LIKE AN ANGRY BROOKLYNITE IN THE MORNING!… EXCEPT FOR A GIRL ON THE RAG.
We think someone should tell this dude that there actually is a shirt we wear that says “Elitist.” It’s funny that Ben Kessler read it as trying to be iconoclast, when we just meant it to be obnoxious. On the “resplendently Caucasian” comment, do you know how many times we’ve asked “Where Are the White Women at?”.
We could probably attack every stereotypical assumption that appears in this article like the idea that people “like us” can be likened to a Hamptons-party-throwing jet-set (try Greenwich, CT, thanks), but what a waste of time. People who think that “fiercely elitist social cliques” are a bad thing probably secretly long to be a part of one.
That’s ok, because we obviously secretly long to be an anti-elitist, highly critical, jaded male who seriously thinks people would want to talk about how they snorted coke with Paul Sevigny (c’mon, that’s so… 2002) and that everyone is white. It’s kinda a dream of ours.
The day we give up trying to be sexy, clever, and better than you is the day we will realize our true destiny of being really normal. We LONNNNG for that day! And we’re sure we’ll see you there Ben, ’cause you seem like a normal, down-to-earth guy that probably reads too much about “hipsters” and then scoffs about how he hates them.
One day we’ll totally get married and we’ll have normal rainbow-colored children who who hug trees while wearing outfits made out of curtains (un-ironically). Together we’ll teach them about the Beatles, and the Stooges, the Duke, and Barry Manilow. We’ll run in fields with our arms above our heads and scream “wooooohhHHH!” in the direction of rolling green hills where white — no! MULTI-COLORED — bunnies hop freely. We’ll tend the cows while you work the fields. Then we’ll go in our little house on the prairie and churn butter (authentically) and carve out the bowls from which we will eat from. It will be a simple life than a man and a woman can be free from all the pretentious bullshit they once surrounded themselves in.
After supper we’ll take you in the backroom, and get down on our knees and… oh wait! Hah. Sorry, that’s part of a different dream. Erm… (Gosh, are we embarrassed or what?!)
But for now we’ll have to live in our world full of empty and meaningless lemmings, where remarkably no one has any ideas or real thoughts in their head. That’s because it’s so nice and… airy. Just like nature intended.
Maybe you’re on to something, Ben. But we’ll gladly be your whipping boy for the time being. After all, we’re the only ones who escaped getting quotes around our names.
Here’s what he wrote. See if you agree. From New York Press mailbag:
Ben’s It Shitlist
Regarding Andy Wang’s article “Blogger Gurls” (“Music,” 8/6): New Rock City darlings The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in all their art-directed splendor, were recently interviewed by NY1 celeb-stalker George Whipple while attending an Entertainment Weekly-sponsored soiree. Inwardly, but palpably, they were squirming; eventually Karen O(ver) managed to eke out some punk-rock bromide like, “Entertainment Weekly can’t change us, we’re gonna change Entertainment Weekly.” Yeah, Karen, you and Christina Aguilera.
The discomfort and incongruousness of the moment were mirth-inducing, yet Whipple, despite his tele-personality unctuousness and those voluminous eyebrows, acquitted himself more or less admirably. The YYYs, on the other hand, were forced to dredge their meager imaginations in vain for some posture, any posture, that would definitively drive a wedge between their shrill form of showbiz hucksterism and Whipple’s. This proved impossible, and not just because Karen O(ld News) and the gang long since upended their shallow bag of tricks. The YYYs, like the NYC rock scene, are a Madison Ave. creation with a St. Mark’s Place esthetic.
When Madison Avenue packs up and moves its three-ring circus downtown, it makes sure to dress its minions appropriately. Enter the blogger gurls and boyz, each one a hype-slinging sheep in lone-wolf’s clothing. (It’s typically Bedford Ave. of Andy Wang to interpret Laura’s comment, “I don’t like people I don’t know” as iconoclastic rather than horribly elitist.) These junior publicists sully the integrity of fandom by parlaying half-assed opinions and social cachet into scenester success. Though their primary allegiance is ostensibly to bands still in the bloom of New Rock City ascendancy, they happily attend Beck and Blur shows, accepting favors from “sources” just like veteran hacks.
And like the New Rock City hypemeisters at the Voice, the Blogger Bunch shows no interest in burgeoning talent. The Vicious organizers’ priority, as they admit, is catching bands “on their way up,” presumably so that ten years down the road, safely ensconced in suburbia, “Jasper” and “Audrey” can run their fingers lovingly over the pages of their rock ‘n’ roll scrapbook and grow misty-eyed at the memory of snorting coke with Chloe Sevigny’s brother.
None of this has anything to do with music. It’s about basking in the promise of future bling-bling, the aura of soon-to-be-Itness. Well, maybe that’s unfair. As “Audrey” claims, Vicious is about creating “a community” conducive to the proper reception of on-the-rise rock ’n’ roll artists. Watch out for that c-word. Having had some experience with Audrey’s indie-rock ilk, I venture to guess that “community” in this context roughly translates to “a loose conglomerate of vaguely arty, resplendently Caucasian, fiercely elitist social cliques.” However, if a night of mediocre music, celeb-spotting and lite fascism is your thing, you probably will enjoy Vicious–or a Saturday evening in the Hamptons. It’s all good.
Bands should be wary of getting mixed up with the Blogger Bunch. Remember the exquisite embarrassment of that Whipple-YYYs encounter. That’s what remains when the hype cycle runs its course. Neither popular enough to command the cover of a mainstream music mag nor declasse enough to entice NYC’s indie-esoterica curators, played-out New Rock City bands are on a collision course with a certain pair of emphatic eyebrows.
Benjamin Kessler, Brooklyn
