Isn’t it ironic how I long to remain distant from the constraints of the music coverage displayed by most indie music blogs and magazines (i.e. typical hipster rock, fashion core and noise bands who think they’re so “different” until they figure out how to write a melody), yet when I help supply Brooklyn with one of the best days of music that doesn’t fall under the category of “indie rock” it goes predominantly unnoticed by the IMPOSE staff? I mean, why would they notice when they can go to the 75th installment of a Death Set, Ninjasonik basement show?
In case you haven’t figured it out, the show I’m talking about is the day of soul and sun last Sunday at the JellyNYC Pool Parties at McCarren Park. With a line-up that included Wiley and the Checkmates, Hermon Hitson, Ralph ‘Soul’ Jackson and the Legendary Roscoe Robinson (of the platinum selling single “That’s Enough” – look it up ye of self proclaimed music knowledge) – performing as the Rabbit Factory Soul Revue opening for the incredible Ronnie Spector — you wouldn’t think I would have to sit here and write my own show review. In fact, I rarely do much music writing these days due to the constraints of the hustle, but never before have I had to write about a show or record I have personally been associated with.
So you can imagine my surprise when the writer who asked to be our Pool correspondent (and to make sure he could get into the “backstage area with the free liquor”) failed to show for the one concert he should’ve made a priority. Oh, I’m sure he’ll be at the pool this week, I mean — it’s back to the whitest show on earth. And yeah, I’m sure he’ll make a post about how awesome the Black Lips, Deer Hunter and King Khan show is, because at the end of the day, it’s just one big fashion show, right VICE? Ask all the IMPOSE people who will be out for our hipster-fest tomorrow at the Yard, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of photographs of hot people in neon to show you.
In my very first editor’s note I asked the question “Why another music magazine?” At the time, my answer was because all anyone could focus on was everything BUT the music. It was a dark time: nu-metal and corporate hip-hop and pop-punk reigned supreme while “indie” was a term saved for subsidiaries of major labels or some rich Stroke pretending he was a garage rock hero. The frustration of real music fans needed to be heard, and for the last five years or so, it has been. You could almost say it’s been a golden age. I will be the first to admit how great (and accessible) independent music has become again. We are all lucky to be a part of an era when someone like Dan Deacon can become our working class hero. Hell, even our wealthy music makers aren’t trying to be something they’re not (what exactly is an Oxford Comma anyway?).
But like all good things, it’s slowly creeping to an end. The industry is starting to take its cyclical ill-fated turn toward the shit heap. Music is getting more predictable while the “experts” are getting more enamored with everything wrong in music. I mean, Nike is putting out music despite the fact it’s not made by children in third world countries — and Pitchfork will review it! If that isn’t a sign of the decline, well then, like in that first editor’s note — This is where I would like to IMPOSE.
Consider this your warning.
P.S. I know this wasn’t a show review.
