Open Letter to "Cage The Elephant"

Well, I've been pretty absent from the blog recently, and for that I'm sorry. RL and the band and novel #2 have been a real time- and inspiration-suck. I took a look at what I've been writing as well, and found that I've been doing positive reviews of really awesome bands. So to break myself back into I'll supply a little slice of my original goal in writing for Crappie: to tell some douchey bands off in a way that makes me look somewhat douchey myself. All the while, we do it Pyrrhus-style. SO, without further ado, here's

AN OPEN LETTER TO 'CAGE THE ELEPHANT'

Dear CTE,

I have no intention of starting any sort of flame war with your fans or yourselves, as I presume that you are all ordinarily intelligent people able to function in society. There is an element of subjectivity in any review, and in recognition of that I'm not going to throw a bunch of stylistic terms and critical references around. Well, not as a main point. Sometimes I can't help myself. What I will provide is a personal plea.

PLEASE CEASE YOUR EXISTENCE AS A BAND.

Sounds, harsh, I understand, but I'm serious. Please listen. I first heard your band on the radio. Now, I'm not normally a radio listener. When I do listen it's either to the classic rock station or the tejano/norteno station. My wife likes the alternative, though, so that station comes on a lot. What's come with that is exposure to the Change The Elephant single "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" which, not to put too fine a point on it, is horrid.

Is the title of the song a biblical reference? An instance of a widespread cliche? Or cribbing from the earliest musical reference I can think of, the excellent Ozzy album? Given what I later discovered, I would guess a craptastic combination of all three. So what is this song that earns such ire?

Now, there is a history of preening self-indulgent bands attempting to be righteous and comment on social issues. Sometimes they pull it off, usually through subtlety and/or sincerity. Mostly it ends up feeling as fake as a Sunday morning megachurch rock hymn. Social Distortion seems to practically live this trope. So, Cage The Elephant, what possessed you to step into this trench already full of failure and skeletons? That it is wildly popular probably only reinforces the feeling that you wrote a really awesome song. "Yes, our shitty ripoff of the equally execrable G-Love and Special Sauce is a hit. We must write more songs like this!" That's probably what you're thinking, and is the biggest reason you must STOP PLAYING MUSIC.

I didn't think that I could diss you like this without at least listening to some of your other songs, and as the wise men saith, It Got Worse. Instead of more soulless faux-funk in the vein of The White Stripes' lesser material, your other tracks are the most shameless copies of Arctic Monkeys. What? How dare you! The song "Lotus" is the worst, being a complete and shoddy redo of "The View From The Afternoon." Look, being derivative is fine. It happens all the time, and everyone is derivative of someone, to some respect. Just... don't suck at it. The common advice is to write what you know. Arctic Monkeys seem to write mostly about English club kids being bored and doing stupid shit. That's vapid material, potentially, but they breathe life into it, and the verisimilitude stomps all over any liabilities the source material may have. It's not just about Alex Turner's vocal style, it's the gestalt of all sorts of elements. You've just thrown a bunch of shit at yourselves, hoping some will stick into a cohesive style. We're not buying it. Well, actually a lot of us are. Your "tenth generation sub-standard Faces" schtick, as phrased by Chuck Ubaghs, is getting a lot of people excited. Well, the fucking Archies did that too. So why not take a page out of their comic book and

DO NOT CONTINUE AS A BAND

The next step in your success, whether you remain one-hit blunders or not, will be to have new bands, who are just fine sitting in their basement doing their Warsaw-esque noodling, jump up and say "THIS IS A HOT SOUND, WE NEED TO BE ALL IRONIC SOUTHERN ROCK AND SHIT." Some critics are sitting back and waiting for you to disappear before your influence spreads, but I don't want that pop culture blood on my hands. Now, Cage The Elephant, I could suggest to you that you might take a reasoned look at your oeuvre and how you got there, then making a sophomore effort that avoids such tripe. It's too late, though. Like a virulent virus 'bricking' before the host dies, your "Wicked" single is going to bring you down eventually. With the aforementioned consequences on impressionable young bands.

Again, this may sound harsh, but I really think your band sucks, and I just have to be honest about it. I don't think you're bad people- just writing bad songs. Take that as what you will, and thanks for reading my little note. Good luck in your future endeavors as record store owners/fry cooks/business executives.

Sincerely,

Jess Gulbranson

Oh, and if anyone needs an antidote, here's a little something.

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Musical Etiquette: Dealing with haters

Hello Musical Etiquette:
I just read a review of our bands last show. The guy who wrote it is obviously some kind of asshole. He just went on and on about how lifeless we were on stage.
What should I do about this guy? He's ruining our reputation!

Help!
XXXXXX


Criticism is one of the most important parts of music. A well thought out critique of your music can be insightful and help to improve your abilities in almost every fashion. Sadly, many critics fail to realize the merits of criticism and instead say the most unspeakably vile and contemptuous things about your work without offering up any advice or real insight. Any publicly performing artist will deal with both of these types of criticism during their careers and it can be challenging to see the difference between them. At times even the most mean spirited critique of your art may be of a deep and abiding value if you can see the meaning underneath the words. Likewise high praise can be trite and meaningless if it does not contain real truth and an honest evaluation of the work. The line between a critic and a hater is very blurry sometimes but with some knowledge and patience, you can learn to tell the difference.

You're The One Who Stepped Out On Stage.
If you make art, you're going to have to deal with criticism. If you don't want to open yourself up to the rest of the world's opinions it's best to never play live, never release a recording and not let anyone hear what you're up to. The only way to stop people from expressing their opinions is to ensure that they never hear you in the first place. Well, that seems like a terrible idea to me. You want to be heard, why else are you making noise? Remember that you take personal responsibility for the act of stepping out on that stage and playing music. No one can force you to play. If you are unable or unwilling to listen to the unending stream of hate that humanity can generate at will, I suggest you find a less public pursuit.

Don't Be A Whiny Little Bitch!
Now that you've come here under the bright lights of the stage, please don't whine about how bright they are. I know how harsh it can be, but making music isn't for wimps. You need to develop a tough skin when you're looking at reviews of your work but remain open to real critique. Please, don't cry and moan about how hateful people can be, we all know. Responding to what you deem a hateful review in an equally juvenile manner can generate some seriously bad press and the fact is, you don't want to stoop to their level. The best thing to do is to give no credence to the babbling inane hatred of an unsophisticated reviewer. Ignore them, it's just noise. And please don't bitch about it. Bitching is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it won't get you anywhere.

There Are Haters Everywhere.
The truth of the matter is, there are a lot of opinionated people out there and some of them are world class assholes. They will pan your work as meaningless drivel, a waste of their time or an insult to the word music. They will hate on you night and day, at parties and at home, on the internet and in print. Haters will invent new words to describe just how awful you are at what you do. Some of these hateful bastards have jobs being Professional Haters with major media corporations and get paid quite well to shit on other people's dreams. Most of these assholes are just as mean spirited and spiteful in the rest of their lives and in all probability are miserable because of it. Take solace in the fact that most haters hate themselves as well and haven't experienced joy in many years.


Sometimes The Haters Are Right, Sometimes They're Just Haters.
The primary difference between a hater an a critic is in intent and delivery. A reviewer may describe a live show as "An utter failure to be alive on stage, it was like watching zombies fuck to the tune of early 90's shoegaze." So is this being a hater or a critic? It's about context. If you and your band mates lack any kind of real stage presence than it may be a valid critique of your performance. True, it's couched in negative language and could be construed as mean spirited but if it's true, it's true. There might be nicer ways of saying it but no one is obligated to be nice. Real hate can do better than that. "A useless waste of my fucking time, I have never seen a band suck that hard on stage." What's really useless is an insult without insight. What can a band gain from this statement? Nothing, this guy is just a Grade A Dickwad.

Be Your Own Best Critic.
The key in many situations is to be able to see the difference between useless hate and honest feedback and attempt a objective view on what you've achieved or failed to achieve. This can be exceedingly difficult given the fundamentally personal and emotional nature of art and requires considerable experience and hard work. If you are truly interested in improving on your music, you must learn to become your own critic. Spend some time each day listening to what you've done as an outsider. Imagine that you've never heard this piece before and listen to it with a fresh mind. I've found that leaving several days between the writing of a new song and listening to it can do wonders for your perspective. Once you've gained some experience in critiquing your own work it becomes easier to separate the haters from the critics.

Pay Attention To Real Critique.

Not everyone is a hater. There are plenty of people that craft meaningful an insightful reviews of music, live and recorded. These are true critics. They might not always like what you're doing musically but they can express the reasons behind their opinion clearly. It is an art form. It is said that critics are all failed musicians. This is simply not true. Haters are failed musicians. A true critic is the most successful kind of artist. One who has a direct line to their feelings and can express them lucidly and with the intention of improving a fellow musicians work. One's success as an artist cannot be measured in dollars or listeners. It is measured in your ability to express emotions directly to your audience and to some extent your technical ability. This holds true for music criticism as well.

Keep those haters where they belong kids. In the trash.
Eriq Nelson.

Drop me a line at musicaletiquette@gmail.com

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What makes it 'indie'? Hell, what makes it 'good'?

Saturday I attended the CD release party for Robert Bassett's "Shades of Love." Now, I must spit out right now that for a first post I feel this may go beyond the pale for douche-y self promotion, as in fact I did play bass on most of this album. Bear with me, though. I had just signed on here at TCIMB, and at the release party, I dismissed the idea of reviewing the event. "It's not indie," I told myself. Then I had to jump back.

Why not?

By most measures, Bob Bassett is indie all the way. Local artist, recording his own original songs on a shoestring budget at a funky cool indie studio with help of friends and family, chasing the dream... sound familiar? Then why my kneejerk reaction? Is it because he's old enough to be my dad, and is in fact my friend's dad? Or is it the style of music, which I have characterized as 'hippie doo-wop,' though an unironic version of same?

I think we've hit the crux of the biscuit here. As much as I'd love to indict the shallow musical tastes of the hipster scene, I think what's up for dissection will be my own irrational prejudice as microcosm, and the unfortunate shortcomings of my own musical eclecticism. If you read yourself into it, well... caveat lector.

The most classical example is the rap/country disclaimer. You know, "I like all kinds of music except for rap and country." I'm pretty sure those exact words came out of my mouth when I was nine years old, but at that point 'all kinds of music' were Weird Al and Metallica. Those genres have come a long way, and luckily the genre lines have even blurred, so that it's easier to like all sorts of different music. Unfortunately, suck is a thread that runs through everything. My country bias remains, towards the new popular variety, which to my ears is indistinguishable from twangy pop or neutered hard rock, the only difference being a regional flavor to the subject matter. Somewhere along the line we realized that the Cash/Jennings/Nelson staying power is due to one thing: good-ass music, and thus alt-country was born. While a number of artists may have made alt-country into a legitimate and fruitful genre, it raises a question. Does an alt-country band hold greater claim to being indie than say, an independent Nashville country band, despite being just as, if not more derivative? And where exactly is the 'alt' divide?

I certainly tend to let qualifiers influence what I think of a band, but often it's a second or even third listen, sometimes years down the road that gives me a truer peek at what's going on. Listening to a world music station on internet radio the other day, I found myself grooving to a song. Once I was able to apply some appropriate mindfulness to it, I realized the song just plain sucked, but because it was under the aegis of being... international, I had given it a higher level of coolness. This is, I suppose, a musical version of the Orientalism of years past, but instead of filling your house with horrid fantods and unsittable lacquered chairs, you find yourself listening uncritically to mediocre afrobeat.

Obviously someone likes it, though, and you can say that about anything. You can say it about Death Cab, bite your tongue. So what makes music good, or appear to be good? Why are some bands good enough, or cool enough to fall into our sphere of indie, yet others that are still technically 'independent music' do not?

To return to my original example, Robert Bassett's stuff is certainly good music, earnest and competent, well-produced. During my stint of recording it was spare and slim, just voices, guitars, bass, some piano and percussion. By the end of it though, enough 'studio artifacts' such as flutes and backup singers had glommed on as to make it... well, not cool. The record was showing its age, and seemed more suited to the coffee shop scene. But why? Why? Is it solely lack of an edge? There are plenty of indie bands that don't go past 'twee' or 'precious' or whatever the trendy adjectives are, so that can't just be it. Is it age? There are plenty of young musicians who evoke ancient soul, and old ones who don't. Is it style? We're in a brave new world of cross-genre experimentation, so that shouldn't matter.

This isn't just shoddy blogging, folks. I had intended to negate all my own points, and dump them in your lap. Comments, please. What makes 'indie'... indie?

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