Casiotoned
OK, pet peeve time here.
Thinking about that "bad review". I mean, it's just plainly badly written, in the sort of college-age "I am going to be snotty and rude as a substitute for having an actual journalistic voice" so I'm not that bothered about it.
But I think what has thoughtwormed most about it is the description of us as being "warbling over two notes played repeatedly on a Casio keyboard" jibe. It's just factually incorrect. The thing is, if he had described us as "warbling over two notes played repeatedly on a guitar" I would have gone "Yeah! Dronerock! Best review ever!" Two notes were good enough for Neu! and Spacemen 3, so it's good enough for me!
I mean, it's more than just factually wrong. (There is not, and never has been a Casio involved. The instruments are a guitar, and a laptop - usually playing orchestral samples, or analogue synth emulators. Analogue synth emulators are about as "Casio" as Kraftwerk.)
For those of you who can't tell the difference, this is a Casio:
This is what we use, i.e. a Guitar and a Laptop:
Do they look anything alike to you?
See, "Casio" has a very specific denotation. And there's nothing specifically wrong with it - people like Tim Ten Yen and Fonda 500 rock actual Casio keyboards to great effect. But it's a very specific aesthetic, and not one that I think has anything in particular to do with our music.
However, where I get irritated, is the *connotation* of calling something "casio" in a perjorative sense, meaning cheap, tinny-sounding, badly programmed or using badly sampled default settings. It's a bit insulting, when you've spend hours sequencing a full string quartet, and programming specific waaaaaoooooowwwaaah Maelstrom squelches, to have this dismissed as "casio".
Not to mention the sense of "twee" attached, and invoked in said review. (And you know how I feel about the Tw**-word.) This might be splitting hairs, but although there is a pronounced C-86 element to our music, I would never call us... *twee*. We're too drunk, too lairy, too world-weary, too saucy, too ladies-about-town to really be twee. And kittens and fairies... fuck off! The Animal Collective write songs invoking "Meow... KITTIES!" but does anyone call them twee? No, coz they have beards.
Which just makes me think it's that cooler-than-thou boy "any kind of emotional depth and/or vulnerability and especially *girliness* in music must be twee" attitude. Which I really have no time for. (Especially as AMP has written the Best Riposte Ever to it.)
Thinking about that "bad review". I mean, it's just plainly badly written, in the sort of college-age "I am going to be snotty and rude as a substitute for having an actual journalistic voice" so I'm not that bothered about it.
But I think what has thoughtwormed most about it is the description of us as being "warbling over two notes played repeatedly on a Casio keyboard" jibe. It's just factually incorrect. The thing is, if he had described us as "warbling over two notes played repeatedly on a guitar" I would have gone "Yeah! Dronerock! Best review ever!" Two notes were good enough for Neu! and Spacemen 3, so it's good enough for me!
I mean, it's more than just factually wrong. (There is not, and never has been a Casio involved. The instruments are a guitar, and a laptop - usually playing orchestral samples, or analogue synth emulators. Analogue synth emulators are about as "Casio" as Kraftwerk.)
For those of you who can't tell the difference, this is a Casio:
This is what we use, i.e. a Guitar and a Laptop:
Do they look anything alike to you?
See, "Casio" has a very specific denotation. And there's nothing specifically wrong with it - people like Tim Ten Yen and Fonda 500 rock actual Casio keyboards to great effect. But it's a very specific aesthetic, and not one that I think has anything in particular to do with our music.
However, where I get irritated, is the *connotation* of calling something "casio" in a perjorative sense, meaning cheap, tinny-sounding, badly programmed or using badly sampled default settings. It's a bit insulting, when you've spend hours sequencing a full string quartet, and programming specific waaaaaoooooowwwaaah Maelstrom squelches, to have this dismissed as "casio".
Not to mention the sense of "twee" attached, and invoked in said review. (And you know how I feel about the Tw**-word.) This might be splitting hairs, but although there is a pronounced C-86 element to our music, I would never call us... *twee*. We're too drunk, too lairy, too world-weary, too saucy, too ladies-about-town to really be twee. And kittens and fairies... fuck off! The Animal Collective write songs invoking "Meow... KITTIES!" but does anyone call them twee? No, coz they have beards.
Which just makes me think it's that cooler-than-thou boy "any kind of emotional depth and/or vulnerability and especially *girliness* in music must be twee" attitude. Which I really have no time for. (Especially as AMP has written the Best Riposte Ever to it.)
posted by Masonic Boom | 1:37 pm
12 Comments:
actually, it wasn't a riposte to that particular review - it was a riposte to some loser with a blog reviewing truck, who said pretty much everything i made the guy say in the story, word-for-word. wanker. but it can serve as a general-purpose rebuttal.x
Oh... share with the class?
If it 'tis a blog, we can go and shout at him ourselves.
i can't find it now - i didn't save the url because i don't like to focus on negativity (man). but might be able to find it later.
I found a bunch of nice(ish) stuff that I posted to the other blog. That was a pleasant surprise!
(But grrr, enough with the "casio" already, people!)
also i thought animal collective going 'meow - kittens!!!!' was EXTREMELY twee, and by the final listen, my teeth felt like they had grown a layer of fur and the only way to get them clean was to scrape them down a blackboard. gneeeeeeeeee!
(btw, i quite like some music that's frequently described as 'twee', as well, so i don't see it as quite as much of an insult as i think you do. for me it can encompass a kind of pretty, breezy naiveity which i rather enjoy.)
"Ooh, folk you, yo mamma too, and your daddy!"
It's like the reverse of The Lex Syndrone (where everything one likes becomes pop and/or spacerock and/or "not indie") - where shite becomes described as what it is they think you like.
Animal Collective are not twee. They have beards. Beards are not twee.
Also... pretty, breezy naiveity are three words that could never, ever, immer weider, be applied to me.
but i think they could apply to some of our songs.... 'castle', for example.
i think the problem with 'twee' is that some people use it perjoratively, while for others, it's a genre definition, and sometimes it's hard to tell which way it's being used.
i reckon if a boy had a beard, but also a record-bag with badges on the strap, and his converse-clad toes turned in, biting his lip, looking up at you with big brown jesus eyes - he could be called twee. especially if he was saying 'meeeow! kittens'!!!
Granted, Castle might be a bit twee (in terms of genre) but the band, on a whole, are not.
Animal Collective take too many drugs to be twee.
Twee kids NEVER take drugs, drugs are not twee.
Maybe I should start taking drugs again, then no one could accuse me of being twee.
That said, I prefer the term "C-86" to describe that particular sound, and use "twee" only as an insult.
Perhaps this is less factually correct, as C86 applies only to one particular compilation tape with a load of Sarah Records and Postcard and early Creation bands, but still.
I guess there's a lot of overlap.
I am not twee. I am hardcore.
[[Minor_Threat.jpg]]
I have known boys with beards who were twee.
I also think that most people who get accused of being twee aren't actually twee at all. It's the ones who deliberately try to be twee that get my goat.
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