I'm on the board of the local NCTE chapter and we hosted Orange for a talk the other day. I was his handler/gofer so I got to spend a literal personal time with him in addition to participating in the discussion.
Super friendly guy, but very much not prepared for his sudden celebrity status. You could see he was absolutely drained after an afternoon of people asking him questions. Very generous with his time and attention, though.
It's a reference to the famous Stein quote about Oakland. When Orange decided to title the book "There There," he googled it to see if anybody else had thought of it first and was surprised to find that it was one of his favorite Radiohead songs. He only owned a pirated copy of the album so he knew it as "Track09".
Also highly recommended: THERE THERE by Tommy Orange.
Initially rec'd to me by our very own Padfoot, I had the opportunity to read it last week and spend some time with the author yesterday. It's about indigenous kids growing up in Oakland. Yes, the title is (in part) a Radiohead reference.
You might say it's a "privilege" in the sense that it's a special honor to be a parent or whatever, but good lord, no, merely being fertile is not "privilege" in the socioeconomic sense that we use when we refer to "male privilege" or "white privilege". We know that the word carries a certain intersectional context, and you've got a long row to hoe if you're going to claim that the infertile need to be protected from jokes about pregnancy.
Nah, the commentariat on this indie rock blog is a veritable United Colors of Benneton.
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Exactly! If you're stoked to hear the band incorporate a more overt Rusted Root influence, I can only imagine that you are stoked as hell for FOTB.
I am decidedly NOT stoked. And I'm not saying it's Ezra's job to make me stoked.
We're all friends here, is what I'm saying
The way I see it, Rostam was either:
...the secret major creative force in the band, OR
...a check on Ezra's worst instincts, OR
...a guy with good taste who saw the writing on the wall, OR
...this is all a huge coincidence and Ezra would be writing Phish b-sides with a Haim sister no matter who else was in the band
lol my favorite Stereogum one-two punch is PROVIDE US WITH SPECIFIC REASONS WHY YOU DON'T LIKE THIS! followed immediately by WE WILL NOW DOWNVOTE YOUR FOUR THOUGHTFUL PARAGRAPHS WHICH HAVE HURT OUR FEELINGS
I didn't use the word "self-destruct".
I think all four songs are pretty awful. "Harmony Hall" isn't egregious (it sounds like VW with all the edges sanded down), but the other three are all half-assed ideas pretending to be songs. No arguing taste, obviously. If you like em, you like em.
As for the rest: it just seems to me that the tongue has completely exploded out the other side of the cheek. The clipart aesthetic is dumb, the "I Love the 90s" video aesthetic is dumber, and the lyricism (which always threatened to teeter over into self-parody) is cringe inducing.
But ultimately I gotta go back to the songs. It's nothing music. Once again, VW always threatened to let their puka bead influences shine through a little too much, and they've finally made good on that threat. Also, the rhythm section which was previously VW's secret weapon seems to have been neutered in service of Ezra's post-mimosa collabs with the beautiful people.
In sum: obviously some people like it and that's cool. But it would be impossible to overstate what an enormous bummer this entire roll-out has been for me as a fan. A lot of folks seem to feel the same way. At the very least we can probably agree this will be the band's most divisive work.
I know some will see my POV as a hater take, but honestly three killer records in a row is more than anyone has a right to expect out of anyone. Only very recently did it somehow become too negative to acknowledge that most great bands lose the plot at some point.
This is one of those areas where we music geeks don't really get what the boomer industrial complex considers "iconic". I would be shocked if even 20% of the HOF voters knew who McKaye is.
I think Rollins/Black Flag has the most realistic shot of any hardcore artists, but even that's a long shot. More likely, Hole and/or Bikini Kill will get inducted and the ceremony will tie riot grrrl to hardcore and tick the box that way.
Two-part spicy take:
Dude seems smart, humble, and self-aware. Glad things are working out for him.
His music is very distinctly not for me. Like, one of the most not-for-me things I've heard ever in my life.
Honestly. Ezra has entered his oops-I-got-too-famous, huffing-my-own-farts, married-into-showbiz-royalty, name-dropping, nobody's-around-to-tell-me-some-of-my-ideas-are-bad phase. It's happened to thousands of other cool successful artists, but it's interesting to see how it's playing out in the age of poptimism and meta-irony, when it's gauche to point it out.
He looks and sounds ridiculous. The songs are dumb. The aesthetic is awful. And it's okay! We will all make it through together. With any luck, there'll be an elder statesman third-act redemption in 15 years.
Look, I'm just not sure if a guy who was proud to come up with the phrase "Mitsubishi Macchiato" and built his career on juxtapositions like "what if I played African guitar... IN BOAT SHOES???" should really be the arbiter of what is and isn't interesting about whiteness.
Hm. Really? I don't really follow this stuff but the idea that Fugazi would get in before Siouxsie – on the grounds that they're English, no less – seems kinda out there to me.
Fugazi's chance of nomination hovers somewhere *below* zero imo
It genuinely warms my heart to see fans of dated German industrial music being more joyless and self-unaware than any Sprockets sketch could ever make you out to be
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