Comments on: Welcome to Slate. Here’s your sneer.

By: Brey

Brey — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 00:19:31 +0000

Actually, the problem with Wilco is they peaked two albums ago. But, they’re still good. They’re a bit like Radiohead in that they both play with sound just in different genres. And, just because new music is structurally the same as old dosen’t mean it sucks. It’s the life breathed into it that makes it good or bad.

By: Teaflax

Teaflax — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 02:44:05 +0000

Wilco: yet another rawk band, gussied up to seem interesting, but with nary a new idea to present (see: White Stripes). Rock’s orthodoxy is such a strait jacket that what qualifies as “good music” among critics and “indie” cognoscenti is only really sonically different from what they’ve been touting since the early sixties. It’s still three chords in 4/4 time, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-chorus, blues/rock harmonies and progressions, all clocking in under five minutes. Break any one of those rules, and you’re pretentious, difficult or too cerebral. Sad, really.

By: Ginger Stampley

Ginger Stampley — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 22:03:21 +0000

Ted: I had to look it up, but it was Said the Gramophone.

By: godoggo

godoggo — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 04:48:12 +0000

I’ve never heard’em, ‘cause I’m too old for that sort of thing (and I’ve always despised popular culture until it’s not popular anymore), but I noticed on Nels Cline’s website that he’s touring with them, so I figure they must be all right. Nels played on 2 (both?) of Mike Watt’s albums, incidentally, although I think that’s about the least exciting thing Mr Cline has ever done. You can see him for free with Vinny Golia at LACMA on the 30th, by the way, if you’re in LA. Me I saw the Minutemen 12 times -1st when I was 17 at Godzilla’s right after the Punchline came out and last at Cal State Long Beach, wherein I didn’t have to pay ‘cause I carried their stuff, not long before D. died. I also once peed on a dumpster with D. And I don’t feel cool at all.

By: eirepol

eirepol — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:30:07 +0000

When I saw the words ‘Slate’ and ‘sneer’ in the title of this post I thought Ted was going to take a baseball bat to Christopher Hitchens.

By: ian

ian — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:04:49 +0000

Who are Wilco? Setting that aside, the whole debate seems to be like that in the 50s and early 60’s with the Trad boom and again when Dylan went electric – in other words it is an inevitable consequence of music as lifestyle rather than music as music.

By: mc

mc — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 10:36:03 +0000

I don’t get the point of the article. I don’t get why when something relatively popular also happens to be good it has to be knocked down for not being amazing enough. It’s stupid. And are they that popular in the US anyway? I wasn’t aware they were the new Guns’n’Roses. I must have missed all those Wilco videos they play on MTV every twenty minutes… The cheapest thing has to be the comparisons with Radiohead. Like, why? what’s in common there? what’s all this “deconstructionist” bollocks? Wilco don’t sound like Radiohead and Radiohead don’t sound like Wilco, so what on earth is he on about?

I don’t like Wilco’s music very much. They’re ni carne, ni pesce, as the Italians say.

He could have cut down the article to that sentence, because that’s the only thing that makes sense. (And btw, it’s “né carne né pesce”. “ni” is French, and Spanish, not Italian. Nyah nyah nyah.)

By: Matt McGrattan

Matt McGrattan — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 10:12:29 +0000

Will, yeah, the new new wave of funky guitar-driven pop is most welcome. Franz Ferdinand have recently become huge in the UK making this kind of music. Huge not just in some narrow indie enclave but genuinely massive – huge audiences at rock festivals, songs everywhere on the radio and TV, etc. Their stuff owes a big debt to all the post-punk stuff—all those bands like Gang of Four that were influenced by the Sex Pistols and Chic—and is pretty good too!

By: se

se — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 05:01:14 +0000

the state, the church, the plans, the vote what’s the verb behind it all?

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 04:51:32 +0000

The Minutemen aren’t obscure to me at least. Or is it that they weren’t obscure 20 years ago. Double Nickels on the Dime. Great stuff. And anything having to do with Natalie Merchant makes me reach for a baseball bat. I’ve smashed two stereo systems as a result of her god damn voice. Look at me, I’m channeling Lester Bangs.

By: bza

bza — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:47:49 +0000

Will, you might want to start psychologically preparing yourself for that eventuality, as I’m starting to hear Aphex Twin in the background of commercials and movies. That’s the opening wedge.

By: will

will — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:18:56 +0000

Might I note that as a listener accustomed to the Minutemen, I still rather like Wilco. I run no risk of having my pet genre, IDM, becoming popular.

By: will

will — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:06:09 +0000

Ha! As I own _Double Nickels on the Dime_, I must have some street cred. >The stuff they like is inevitably white, male and uptight too… 3rd rate Gang of Four rip-offs only without the Marxism, or the funk.< The funk-inflected dance-punk/new new wave/whatever is a welcome trend, I think. Check out the single streaming from Radio 4's webpage, or some of the mp3s made available by The Faint. At least it's a welcome relief from that other indie trend, the twee emo group.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:57:04 +0000

In the penis name generator, I put in “Dog Rocket”. It told me my penis’s name should be “Hot Dog, the Red Hot Rocket”. That reminds me way too much of the artificially flavored spiced jerky you can get in truck stops. My penis is almost never wrapped in packaging plastic and humungous truckers don’t eat it.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 23:21:59 +0000

Reminds me of the complaint from a jazz musician whose name I can’t remember: “The problem with Jazz is that if more than nine people like you, you’re mainstream.”