And I don’t just mean your mental state (although that certainly gets its knocks)! The Guardian today looks at the long, glorious history of musicians and fans giving back to those people who dare criticize the music they love. And by “giving back,” I mean “physically attacking, sometimes with knives.” I can’t tell if these stories are making me feel better because the only retributions I’ve received are mean e-mails or if they make me feel worse for not saying things that get people really riled. But my colleague has apparently not had the same problem as me! After the jump, I talk to Idolator’s own Jess Harvell about his top three biggest threatdowns.
mauraatidolator: so tell me: what have been your top three threats as a rock critic? Here are the details I want:
mauraatidolator: a. nature of the threat!
mauraatidolator: b. what inspired said threat!
mauraatidolator: c. did you call the police?
mauraatidolator: and … go!
jessdolator: ok
jessdolator: 1. A.) I was spit on at a show in Baltimore by some random lady after someone who knew who I was, i.e. music editor for the local paper, pointed me out to her. B.) From what I could discern through her drunkeness/rambling, I probably gave a friend’s band a mediocre review. C.) I did not call the police, because I didn’t perceive a 108 lb woman with a lot of saliva and good aim as a danger to my person. Though I did need to wash the jacket.
jessdolator: 2. A.) I came into work one morning to find a threatening message in my voicemail, where the caller seemed to be saying they were coming looking for me to do me some non-specific harm. B.) Honestly, I have no idea. It could have been writing-related or it could have been some guy who dialed the wrong extension when he wanted to threaten the classified department. C.) I did not call the police, but I referred said message to my higher-ups. I dunno what, if any, action was taken. But I’m still here.
jessdolator: 3.) At a bar one night, after learning what I did for a living, a gentlemen proceeded to shower me with epithets, climaxing with him hoping that I got “cancer of the ears.” (Admittedly I was drunk by that point, so he might have been saying “cancer of the anus.” But I assumed ears, what with the whole rock critic thing.) B.) Because rock critics still get hated on in small cities. C.) I did not call the police. But the bartender told dude to chill. And he did.
mauraatidolator: Which was the scariest?
jessdolator: Well, I dunno about “scariest,” or even “most violent,” since none of them actually got to the hitting stage. But I have to admit the phone call was pretty unnerving, mostly because it’s always a little weird to wake up to someone saying they’re out to get you. But again, it might not have even been directed at me.
jessdolator: Which doesn’t make it any less unnerving!
mauraatidolator: Vaguely threatening phone messages are really scary!!
mauraatidolator: I mean, have you seen the ads for One Missed Call?
jessdolator: The technological terrors of our time.
mauraatidolator: Any final thoughts on the “people vs. rock critics” phenomenon? Also: Should I start going out of my way to bait people?
jessdolator: I do not miss getting spit on while trying to enjoy my night out, so thank you, Internet, for providing me a with forum that people don’t read next to me while I’m sitting at the bar. Also, yes, but if you’re really lucky, you’ll piss off a musician and get a song written about you, joining the ranks of greats like John Leland and, uh, Guccione, I guess.
mauraatidolator: Well, as long as nobody takes me to task for my dad getting more pussy than I do, I guess I can live with that.
jessdolator: I don’t think anyone’s questioning how much pussy you get.
mauraatidolator: Holla!
jessdolator: Girl, please.
Musical hack attacks [Guardian]
I’m impressed that you got through that list without bringing up the deluge of Tool-related e-mails or being berated by a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah fan.
I’m still waiting for R. Kelly to get at me for this.
[forcesofgood.blogspot.com]
But then I realizes two things. One, it’s quite possible he doesn’t/can’t read. Two, he’s got other things to worry about.
This has happened to me exactly once. The guitarist for a local NJ hardcore band once threatened to “rip my lungs out and nail them to the floor” for an essentially positive review I wrote of his band. (I did call his guitar solos “annoying.”) I spent the whole summer of 1986 trying to avoid this guy. He never did get around to beating me up, not even the one time I ran into him in person…although he was a violent dude and I wouldn’t have put it past him.
@GovernmentNames: i actually forgot about the clap your hands say yeah lady! (especially since one of my closest friends is a fan and i’ve been steadily getting shit for hating on them for two years now.)
Other than the above, the worst that ever happened to me was Allison Wolfe from Bratmobile sarcastically reading a review (which I didn’t write) of her band from my old zine. It was kind of like Bratmobile’s customized cover of “Thurston Hearts The Who.” I guess I could have gotten off worse; didn’t they once torch a magazine onstage, or was that Bikini Kill?
(whoops, “reading…from my old zine onstage at a show, where I was in front.”)
I note with no small amount of professional pride that a local band prominently displays the words “fuck Al Shipley” on their MySpace page.
I spent 20 or so words dismissing a local live hip hop/jazz (I know) group, who responded by writing & releasing a song called ‘the critic’, in which they threatened to beat me up, and hassled me about my day job, and so on. Became their biggest hit. As a 22-year-old with no profile it was about the best thing that could happen to me. Also heard that a West Auckland sports metal band wanted to smash me, but that never came to anything, unfortunately.
Also, yes, but if you’re really lucky, you’ll piss off a musician and get a song written about you, joining the ranks of greats like John Leland and, uh, Guccione, I guess.
Or Neil Young!
I once got called out in the CMJ letters page for dissing a Pearl Jam album — in a generally positive review of a different Pearl Jam album. Let’s just say it didn’t keep me up at night.
Oh you poor, poor music writers.
Try writing about politics. I’ve had to call security more than once.
when i was 17, i wrote a really scathing review of that first Used cd, and because of Utah’s close proximity to my home state of nevada, i guess the review somehow got back to the dudes in the used. supposedly they were pissed and trying to get some people to beat me up, but all that amounted to “faggot” being yelled at me at an in and out burger.
really strange.
this was for a high school paper, by the way.
My aunt who drinks and watches Access Hollywood once called me on a weeknight and tore into me for like 20 minutes on the topic of: “All you know-it-all critics who are so mean to Clay Aiken and who don’t know anything about him.”
I have never written about Clay Aiken.
@GovernmentNames: I’m kind of dying to know what band that is.
I heard that Mike watt had threatened to kick my ass if he ever was in the same room as him, after I wrote a bad review of his show at ATP for the NME. Still stand by how dire it was & it deserved a bad review. And i think Mike Watt is a champion in terms of the overall pantheon of rock history. But he is a pretty scary guy, when you think about it, to have gunning for you.
let’s see, i’ve had a local hip-hop group tear up my writing on stage. gene simmons threatened to come to my home and beat me up if i said “dude” one more time during a phoner. an unstable caller said he wanted to kill me after i wrote that janes addiction was a “fashion band.” and, unrelated to music journalism, a police officer had to be restrained by his peer after i asked him why he thought there were gang wars in a local high school. yes, these are the delights of small town journalism.
@Weezy F Baby: That was bound to happen. The odds of getting called a “faggot” at any fast food restaurant while in your teens, I believe, are 1 to 1. It happened to me after I made the mistake of calling the Grateful Dead lame at McDonald’s. The name-caller missed the irony of the situation.
No physical threats, although we’ve received numerous letters demanding that I be fired. Since I also edit the letters page, this is not a problem.
I’ve never had any physical threats against me but one gentleman and scholar wrote me a nasty e-mail for dissing his abuse of gabber techno. And then there are the blokes to complain to me about their appearances in the week’s police logs saying zingers like “I didn’t use a hammer to hit that guy, I used a crowbar!”
When I was doing college radio at 19, the local paper did a story about the “wild success” of an online show where me and a co-host attracted 30 listeners an episode (eh, it’s Wisconsin). During it, I made a comment about Clear Channel DJ’s, waving foam fingers, playing pre-recorded sound effects, and watering down already tame Jay Leno jokes. Three days later, at the station’s CD sale fund-raiser, two balding goons in shirts advertising a local affiliate tried to strong arm my address out of the wheelchair-bound blues DJ that was manning the booth.
Nate Patrin has a great Ryan Adams story for this (but who doesn’t?)
we ran a review of the last kid rock album @ my college paper and predictably gave it an awful rating, and somehow it got back to his ppl and his publicist sent the writer a scathing, illegible and error-ridden email w/ your typical “kid is more successful than you”, “kid gets more girls than you”, “kid has sold 6 million albums” etc. it was great. if i could find the email i would post it here.
@Matos: Well, I don’t know the specifics of what he said, but apparently during a notorious First Ave show circa 2003 Adams paused from his non-stop rambling about the vagaries of Paul Westerberg to gripe about the fact that I gave opening band The Stills a pan in the local alt-weekly for sounding like generic Interpol knockoffs. I just wish he would’ve followed it up with a tirade on my answering machine.
@beta.rogan: If you really must know:
[weblogs.baltimoresun.com]
The best part is that to be exact it says “Check us out on iTunes! and fuck Al Shipley,” which makes the latter part sound like a command.
I have a colleague who was actually assaulted in the toilets of a local venue after he gave a band a bad review. They bashed his head against a urinal and then kicked him on the floor a few times. He didn’t tell the police, but venues are refusing to give the band gigs now, and we certainly won’t cover any.
[www.absolutepunk.net]
I didn’t mind Deryick (deryck? derick? whatever) bitching so much as the Sum 41 fans on his blog who threatened to hurt me, made anti-Semitic remarks, and were otherwise foaming at the mouth.
Actually, I didn’t really mind that either. I kinda liked the brief pop-punk infamy.
I got an angry email, including threats of physical violence, from Dimitri Coates of Burning Brides after I called him a douche in Alternative Press. Admittedly, the CD review in question was 50 percent favorable, and 50 percent asinine “we are the future of rock/we are the saviors of rock” type quotes from him, straight from the band’s then-latest press release. I was kinda curious how he got my email address, though.
@GovernmentNames: Nice. I wanted to make sure I didn’t know anyone in said band.
After reading all of these comments, it makes writing about cars seem like the safest job in the world…
Took a gob of spit in the face from a homeless man at my old day job (doorman), but as a critic I think the worst was getting called a “fucktard” or something similar by a Blitzen Trapper fan. But I could be repressing something.