Idolator
Ah, Philadelphia. It's only been two months since I left your slacker ass for New York City, but I'm glad to see that the Philadelphia Weekly is still full of self-righteous rock lunacy. Throughout an irreverent anti-memorial for Harp, former Harp contributor and "punk poet" Steven Wells offers us the transgressive, energetic writing he feels has been sorely lacking in indie music magazines. None of the bodily humors are left behind as he recalls a time when angry lesbain punks were angry lesbian punks and Lester Bangs danced the Charleston on top of the Sears Tower or something. And yes, he is British.
You hear that vile bubbling? That's the sound of America's indie rock press violently shitting its beige corduroy colostomy bag as it gasps its last....Full disclosure: I worked for Harp for a while. Publisher Glenn Sabin recently described the magazine as "irreverent." It wasn't. It licked musician ass until its tongue bled.
...In the early '70s the likes of Creem and Rolling Stone and NME were staffed by bedraggled refugees from the revolutionanddrugsandfucking-crazed underground press of the late '60s. Jewfro-ed honkies engaged in fistfights, drug orgies and bondage sex (literally—this is not a metaphor).
...I saw one angry punk lesbian writer—notorious for having fucked a female colleague and then having left her bound and gagged in a cupboard to starve to death—attempt to smash a pint glass in the face of another female writer for being "too girly." Honor was defended with fists and boots as much as it ever was in print. Bands that spoke homophobic, racist or sexist shit were slaughtered mercilessly. And the prose flowed like blood from a gaping head wound.
...Music journalism—seething with the reckless, showy, young-dumb-and-full-of-cum, anything-is-possibilism of rock 'n' roll itself—was drowned in a dull gray sea of mediocre fan jism. Bottom line: If you actually genuinely like Ryan Adams, Wilco, Bright Eyes and My Morning Jacket, you shouldn't be allowed to write. Period.
Dull writers write about dull bands for dull fans who form dull bands and become dull writers. It's like punk in reverse. The perfect shit storm. But now the sun is peaking through the clouds.
Crack open the champagne. Let's go piss on some graves.
Yeah, let's go poop and pee and wipe our noses on the wimps until they get all bloody and there's cum and stuff.
Harp On It [Philadelphia Weekly]
Comments
I too long for the days when viciously assaulting music writers was acceptable. Consider yourself safe for now, Steven Wells...
This guy might be missing some screws (and probably his septum and large swaths of his cerebral cortex), but isn't he missing the very obvious point that his beloved punk is no less dull and homogeneous than the indie world, except of course it is dull at a much higher volume and with considerably less pedal steel guitar.
Stay classy, Steven.
Honestly... I know that the four color work was probably cost-prohibitive, but every week I shake my head that this guy is in the paper while Hoagie Dip is online only.
Oh, Swells. Such a charmingly archaic man. I bet the dry-cleaning bills for his doublets and jerkins must get real expensive.
See, the thing about Philadelphia is more people in the city than any other I've been to still haven't figured out that "anarchy" is stupid and yearn for an era of punk they were too young to do anything more than read about.
The notable thing that he's missing is that none of the writers now are not very good period. What was the last truly vivid piece of language you saw in a pitchfork review? What was the last mp3 blog that wasn't just rewriting the band's press release? I mean, I definiteley like piss and blood, but I feel like things are much more fundamentally brain dead right now than anything else.
@RaptorAvatar: Double negative. I'm not very good either, apparently...
Also: calling Einstuerzende Neubauten "Einstin Nuebarten" = POSEUR. He should've had the name tattooed on his nippular region by now.
Fuck yes! Philadelphia Weekly saved me from so many boring library hours in high school. It's good to see the ridic hasn't been bled out of the thing.
@brandonsoderberg: That, and their city smells like cat pee.
I'm also sick of mediocre fan jism. Only the top-shelf fan jism for me from now on.
I was hoping this would be a posting about Biohazard. Aah well.
Oh man... I hate Wells but his "observations" are one of the reasons I still pick up the PW. Ridiculous. Also, his "wacky Brit" persona seems to be more central to his music writing than any actual talent for writing.
"angry lesbain punks"
Is that anything like angry lesbian punks who emulate Cobain, perhaps?
And rock critics give academics grief for incoherency! Jesus H. Christ, WHAT THE SHIT is going on in this article? You know, if alt-weeklies (esp. in Philadelphia) want to save themselves from Printocalypse, they could start by publishing things that make the paper worth picking up -- and neither term can be used to describe Wells' piece.
I guess this means I can keep using PW to pack up my belongings.
@chattycathy7575: Didn't Everett True perfect the mad, ranting, gonzo Brit rock crit in America shtick at the Stranger in Seattle like a decade ago? That's the problem with Philly... all their shit seems secondhand...
Rapped in the style of the man who put the "ill" in "Philly," Schoolly D:
<< I jizz on the page
Don't give a fuck
And if you don't like my writing
It's your hard luck
My name's Steven Wells
And I'm running amuck
I'll tell you where to go
And what to suck >>
Seriously, never heard of the guy, but why'd he move to Philly? Our superior national health scheme?
is that s wells from nme 90s???
@the earl grey
Yes.
One cranky Brit writer at one struggling alt-weekly does not represent Philadelphia. The bigger problem I have with this (not the post itself, hi old roomie) but NYC people sniffing down their noses at Philly at every opportunity when they came from even shittier places than here.
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