Comments on: Is Indie Rock Black Enough? Presenting The Sasha Frere-Jones Score

By: roquestrew

roquestrew — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:13:24 +0000

wow I was gonna give Al an 85, but 88 is right, yes

By: Trackback

Trackback — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:19:53 +0000

AHHHHH MAHHHH GAWWWW BOOOOOYS! by Molly Lambert Indie Rock and Comedy go together like Pinkabet and Bagoog Monamon. First Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster teamed up with Monk creator Tom Scharpling to create longform call-in improv brilliance on The Best Show on WFMU (more on them later this week).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:01:56 +0000

As entertaining an examination that article was, I'm totally fucking indifferent about how white indie shit is. I only care about whether it's good or not.

By: musicquizking

musicquizking — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:15:54 +0000

Where the white women at?

By: thearcanemodel

thearcanemodel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:07:08 +0000

funny. but i think the best response i've seen to this is the dialogue on status ain't hood, one of my favorite blogs, but in this case, not because of tom breihan. [www.villagevoice.com] rob harvilla, get out of my head! he does a very good job of respectfully pointing out the many, many flaws/dangerous comparisions in the article, and the many contradictions with sf/j's own previously stated opinions about some of these bands. (i think we can all agree, though, that isaac brock = totes the eddie vedder of now in terms of spawning painfully bad vocal imitators.)

it's a shame, because lord knows there is a lot of milquetoast crap out there right now, and lord knows that 'indie rock,' to the extent there is a consensus definition of that term, still has some problematic tendencies wrt race and gender. and i generally think that sf/j is a thoughtful writer. this is just not the correct argument to be made.

as another blogger once pertinently stated, "NO HAVE TO LOVE COKE-RAP! CAN! NO HAVE TO!" [gerardvsbear.blogspot.com] (for the record, i own/like the clipse record. but i think the point is well taken.)

By: Lucas Jensen

Lucas Jensen — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:21:19 +0000

@Alfred Soto: 88.

By: Lucas Jensen

Lucas Jensen — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:11:38 +0000

@plasticaisle: When he said, during Merrittgate, that he didn't even know the Magnetic Fields music that well, I kinda lost a little respect for him because he sounded like one of those conservatives who derides a "controversial" movie without ever seeing it. Plus, not liking 69 Love Songs? That's just stupid. There are other musical idioms out there. I say let bands make the music they're going to make. I'm sure he can find stuff influenced by more African-American music out there. And, hell, all my indie rock buddies ever talk about is how they want to make their music "blacker" but they don't know how. People learn to make music in different idioms. There's a guy I know here in the ATH who writes pretty much twee-pop only but listens to nothing but raw garage-y rock stuff. He once told me it's the only thing he knows how to do. It doesn't mean he doesn't like that kind of thing.

I love Sly and the Family Stone more than anything but I'll be goddamned if I know how to write a song like them. I wouldn't even know where to start!

By: thearcanemodel

thearcanemodel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:57:42 +0000

@musicquizking: SAY WORD SON. yet another irony/contradiction - aside from the token reference to the fiery furnaces, this whole article is an (uncomfortable) sausage party. not that there aren't way, way more male-dominated bands out there, but it doesn't help sf/j's cause. . .whatever it is. and conveniently ignores some of the artists that i suspect might meet sf/j's critera. . .whatever they are.

By: bg5000

bg5000 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:56:08 +0000

I think SFJ has a good point: Why can't music i don't like sound like music i like? Lord knows i'd be more likely to listen to Grizzly Bear if they sounded more like Curtis Mayfield.

By: King of Pants

King of Pants — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:45:39 +0000

I refuse to believe that someone who licked Spoon's boots could actually criticize anyone for liking "white music."

Echoing everyone who wrote that it reads like a bad blog entry. I suppose part of being in the creative underclass means you don't get a New Yorker salary when you write a terrible entry.

(And I'm still trying to figure out what Wilco has to do with his thesis. If he's trying to say that Wilco is white music, well, sure, but the digression is just bizarrely written.)