Sarcasm and glitter

[koganbot]

A surfeit of links:

My Bob Dylan piece in Paste (though to get the paragraph breaks, you've got to see the newsstand copy; and I made a typo in one of his lyrics, left out the "well" in the line "Where the executioner's face is always well hidden"). Fans of Mark Sinker should note that--with his permission--I bite a line of his, uncredited.

(You need to scroll down to see the piece.) [UPDATE: Or you can just go here, where I finally posted it myself, with para breaks included and the "well" reinserted into "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."]

An old Corina review that I decided to reprint. I don't really have an aesthetic--I like too many different things--but my Corina piece is as close as I've come to a statement of... not principles, but desires.

My Dixie Chicks piece in the Voice.

And finally, here's the URL for a new Website called Paper Thin Walls; it doesn't yet have any reviews by me, but will soon. August 1's "Answering Service" review is by Chuck. Also, note that Paper Thin Walls both streams and allows downloads for the songs it reviews (the download stays up for about a week).

http://www.paperthinwalls.com.

Comments

paper thin

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

So where did this site even come from? Totally bland non-advertising news aggregator now has an impressive roster of reviewers...any idea of readership size? I emailed the editor about what was goin on(/writer inquiry, OK ya got me) and he says they're currently "stuffed," which is really exciting given the first few contributors.

Re: paper thin

[koganbot]

The site's actually going to be a music store of some sort, so presumably the newslinks and the reviews are going to be ways to entice people to the site, where they can do some buying. The site's also going introduce, you know, articles or something at some point. Christopher says he's been assured that there will be 100% separation between the store and the written content, no attempt to plug product or demand that we write about what the store carries. And the rates are competitive: $50 a track review, which is to be a minimum of 75 words, but we can stretch it longer if we want. Compares favorably to the Voice, which on their short shots is now $75 for 200 words. The main drawback is that if I'm the one who initiates the pitch, then I'm the one who has to convince the label or the publicist/marketer to let us have a track for download, which means that in effect I'm selling the site to the label. It also means that the vast majority will be tracks on indie labels, which are more likely than the majors to go along with downloading as a promo tool. But I was able to get Meg and Dia's "Indiana"!

He has gotten a lot of writers: Eddy, Allred, Seward, Wolk, Dayal, Mikael Wood, Amanda Petrusich (she's the one who stood up for Ashlee fans in Paste), Sterling Clover, Keith Harris, George Smith, and a slew of others. So he's probably right that the thing is stuffed for the time being. But he hopes to review 5 tracks a day, so you shouldn't give up.

Re: paper thin

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Wow that sounds great, I'm sure we'll at least be in touch. Meg and Dia are on an indie, aren't they? I got a promo copy through their major(ish) publicists but I thought the actual label was pretty small (it could be a boutique of a major but it didn't seem like one).

Myspace/CDBaby (potentially) makes approval much easier, provided you can do the searching necessary to uncover something worth writing about. In fact, it could actually be a good thing for a genre like teenpop (if anyone else is writing about it) because it de-emphasizes the corporate monoliths and helps spread the word that not only isn't teenpop dead, but tons of people are doing it independently (not indiely), and often pretty well.

Re: paper thin

[koganbot]

I'd thought Meg & Dia's label (Doghouse) was distributed by a major, but I just looked and their MySpace page says "indie," so I seem to be wrong.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

I don't know who the Paste audience is, but it seems to me anyone reading your comparison of Dylan to Elvis and Simpson is going to assume it's a joke. Obviously, if the reader knows that you think Simpson is the new Dylan, they'll appreciate the reference, but otherwise - I can't imagine what they'll think is going on in that paragraph. (Is he mocking Simpson? In the middle of a reverent Dylan article? Why?)

[koganbot]

It hadn't crossed my mind that someone reading the Dylan piece would consider the Ashlee reference a joke. Nothing in the way it's written suggests it's one. My guess is that the Paste readership is a bunch of old stodges (or young stodges); few of whom will have much actual familiarity with Ashlee's work, which won't stop 'em from having opinions, and a lot will dismiss her out of hand; but some will see my reference to her as new information, to take into account, maybe even to the point that they'll realize she's a subject for further research. Also, the Ashlee ref. may well help the smart reader to comprehend that not knowing one's place à la Dylan means something other than sitting in a latter-day Dylan place, and will take this back to Dylan 1965, realize that there was no comfortable Dylan place then, either.

I wouldn't say the piece was either reverent or irreverent. It was too deep inside his skin for that. "Full of hate and wanted to feel good about hating" is problematic, actually, as is "you die out on the street."