Going on Hiatus

Because of some crazy circumstances and big changes in my life (moving, etc.), Local Commotion is going on hiatus until late December '06/early '07. I'll be back soon to continue writing silly, ridiculous crap. Until then, have some wonderful holidays, make sure you get enough sunlight to keep those crappy New England moods at bay (these lightboxes work wonders), and drop me a line if you hear somethin' good.

Until then,
Dan

OMG SRSLY.

Things have been SO busy in my personal life lately. I've been totally neglecting you, and I'm sorry.

If it's any consolation, I have some big things in the works for the blog right now:
*Several nifty exclusive articles
*A regular series of CD reviews
*The return of the "Weekly" Mailbag (which was, ahem, never even CLOSE to weekly)

In the meantime, I've been uploading to Flickr like a madman. Click the link on the right-hand side, and take a look at "My Sets" -- I've got a bazillion concerts, all organized by date and band. Who knows -- maybe your fat ass or ugly mug is accidentally in one of the pictures. OMG you're on the INTERWEB!

And to everyone who's been a part of all the crazy good things happening in my life right now:
Thank You.

What I Wrote/What They Quote

A story:

About a year ago now, I received a review copy of Livintrust's CD "BlindDrive" in the mail. I put it on and gave it a few spins... And I was like, "eesh -- I am *really* not feelin' this." I put it aside, and when I had a chance, I went to see them live. (That's the true test -- after all, look at what happened with Porto. I wasn't very keen on their first LP, Nemesis -- but then I checked them out live, and holy shit! They're awesome!) I saw LivinTrust play at Zen Bar in Farmington, and before their set, their drummer Matt Chirsky sidled up to me, acted chummy, bought me and my girlfriend drinks... Then they went on stage, and they sounded exactly like their album. Which is to say that they came off as talented musicians who crank out cookie-cutter nu-metal songs.

In the following days, the LT boys were politely persistent about asking what I thought. I told them the truth: that I saw a lot of problems with their tunes, that if I wrote a review it would be pretty critical and negative, and that I didn't want to go to press with a review like that when they had been good to me at the show. A while down the road, Chirsky got back to me and said that the band had talked about it, and decided that they wanted me to go ahead and publish the review anyway.

Ok, I thought. If you say so.

---

Fast-forward to today. I just saw this and I thought it was awesome. Guess it just goes to show: your words can be used against you in a court of law, but they can be flipped around sideways and backwards by musicians!

WHAT I WROTE
(from "Kiss It Goodbye," Hartford Advocate, January 5, 2006 - http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/Music/content.html?oid=oid:138763)

Livintrust
Blind Drive
(One Six One)

Considering the massive success that local boys Staind have enjoyed in recent years, it's not surprising that Connecticut musicians are still eager to jump on the "I'm so angry and misunderstood" bandwagon. Problem is, Staind peaked a while ago. Now they, like their nu-metal sires Korn and Limp Bizkit, are cranking out drivel that even the most terminally abused teenagers can see through. While the rise and fall of these bands is enough to make a solid case for the death of nu-metal, the real clincher is the onslaught of pre-fab "heavy alternative" bands on the local level, each trying to get a peck at the corpse. Such is the case with Livintrust. They've modeled their album Blind Drive almost note-for-note on Sevendust's recent material. (Gosh, don't those names sound so similar?) Meanwhile, Livintrust are enjoying all the commercial plaudits you might imagine a flawless rip-off would get: corporate sponsorships, song rotation on WCCC, and a recent opening slot for Audioslave. The real talent in the Livintrust camp is their marketing execs.

WHAT THEY QUOTE

(from the Livintrust MySpace, www.myspace.com/livintrust05)

Hartford Advocate, Dan Barry
"...like Korn and Limp Biskit...Livintrust are enjoying all the commercial plaudits you might imagine... corporate sponsorships, song rotation on WCCC, and a recent opening slot for Audioslave...real talent..."

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This blog post brought to you by the ellipsis (...), Bud Light True Music, and unresolved teenage angst.

De-Mystifying My Job: Or, How To Get A Job Like Mine

This time, I've been silent for a reason! I've been working on this monster -- the first of several Feature articles I hope to post here. I hope you enjoy it.
-db

---

Have you ever seen Kurt Vonnegut give a talk? At this point, he is so old that he is basically a dying lung that just happens to have a body around it. He spends equal time in his speech talking and coughing. So I recommend that if you haven’t seen him yet, you do soon. Every time Vonnegut speaks, he says that the title of his speech is “How To Get A Job Like Mine.” He then proceeds to talk about whatever the fuck he feels like.

I thought that was pretty fucking rad. So I’m going to take that as my starting point from which to talk about exactly what it is that I do as the columnist for Local Motion and as a freelance music writer. Of course, there will be stops along the way ;)

There’s pretty much a constant flood of music-related e-mails in my Gmail account. It’s pretty intimidating. Between show dates, tour announcements, requests for press or reviews, and my conversations with artists, it is easily the biggest, dirtiest, busiest inbox I’ve ever seen. Reader feedback is few and far between—it comes in spades when I don’t like a band, though. Imagine that.

I spend a good chunk of time every week sorting through this cluster fuck trying to pull out good show dates and plug them into my calendar. I use a Palm Pilot, which is severely dorky, but dude—it works. There came a point where I just couldn’t remember the date and location of every show I wanted to go to—and I was slaughtering a small rainforest with all the post-it notes I was using to fail at keeping track. Anyway, I’m good with gizmos, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to get on board this Palm thing.

Meanwhile, I get a package in the mail once or twice a week from local artists and PR people who have CDs they want me to check out. This is one of the best parts of my job. I get free CDs in the mail!

Of course, there’s a disclaimer: a lot of them suck. I don’t say this to be dismissive or rude, nor do I say it because I’m trying to project some image of myself as a morbidly cynical critic. (See Pitchfork.com if you want kids who are brilliant at that—and I mean “brilliant” as the worst possible diss imaginable.) It’s just that a lot of these CDs seriously fucking suck. There’s no apologizing for them. There’s no “maybe I need to give this time to grow on me.” You listen to twenty seconds and you’re like, “yup. Coaster.”

Which reminds me: I love it when people write letters to the editor where they say something like, “I bet you just listen to the first two tracks of a CD and then dismiss it.” Um, yeah, I totally do! And you’re telling me that’s unprofessional? Dude, shut up. If you’ve ever changed the channel on your television set, or told your friend to switch the radio station because you hate a song, or sold a CD that didn’t turn out to be as good as you thought it would when you first bought it, then you’ve done the same thing. Critics and writers aren’t some zen, holistic people who give every single piece of artwork a full, undivided chance just because (gasp) it’s art. We have lives, too. Sitting through an entire CD when you can tell after the first track that it’s crappy or amateur—I don’t call that professional. I call that a waste of time.

It’s funny: when you’re surrounded by tons and tons of art, it kind of becomes more holy and less holy at the same time. I feel less callous than ever dismissing someone’s “masterpiece” if I don’t think it has artistic/aesthetic merit (although, at the end of the day, it’s still just one guy’s opinion); but at the same time, I get more amped then ever when something really wows me. Before, it would just be a quiet little surprise in my personal world—now, it makes me want to tell the world about it. And I do.

So anyway. Sucky CDs. Some I sell online; some I donate to libraries (like the one in Derby Neck) who maintain collections of local music; some I give to friends; some I put in the “free stuff” box at Metropolis Records. I never throw them out. I may not like them, but someone out there will, so I try to get them closer to that someone.

The weekend eventually comes. Sometime around Thursday afternoon/evening I start trying to nail down just which shows I’m going to attend that weekend. Sometimes it’s obvious—like if there’s a big festival, a CD release, a good artist in a genre I don’t review much, or a venue I’ve just discovered that sounds hot. Other times, I use those resources you see over on the right side of the screen, and between them and my inbox, I can usually scrounge up something interesting :)

I hit the road in my trusty bucket, usually listening to downtempo techno, death metal, local CDs I just got in the mail, or MP3 CDs of stuff I’ve recently downloaded. (I download a lot of music. I’ve got about 40 gigs of music that I like, and another 15 gigs of albums I have yet to listen to thoroughly.)

When I get to the show, I play it by ear. If it’s at some big venue, I do the press thing and get in for free (another huge job perk); if it’s a small show being run by scene kids or the bands themselves, I pay the admission like anyone else. (I mean, it goes straight into the gas tanks of the bands, so it would be pretty rude not to.)

If the band sucks, I usually slink away and find another show to write about. In general I prefer to use my handful of words each week to point people in the direction of good stuff, rather than warn them about bad stuff. If the band is good, I snap a few pictures with my little Cannon PowerShot—it doesn’t have a very impressive zoom, but it gets decent resolution, and, most importantly, it’s TINY and INDESTRUCTABLE.

I get back home, sit down at my desk, offload the pictures onto my computer—and usually fall asleep.

Sometime on Sunday I start “sketching” my column. I write out my strongest impressions of the bands and venues and crowds I saw during the weekend. Sometimes it’s a particular musical moment, like an unexpected twist in the song or a crafty technical flourish. Sometimes it’s noticing who the crowd responds to. Sometimes it’s noticing how the band shapes their sound to fit a given venue. I record brief accounts of these moments, and also jot down words that I feel accurately describe the band’s sound.

At this point I let the writing part sit and stew for a little while. It’s amazing what good ideas one can get in the bathroom :) I also pick out the best pictures of the band, throw them into Photoshop real quick, make minor touch-ups and alterations, track down the names of any band members in the photos, and upload the photos to my editor.

Then comes the tough part. I settle down with a couple beers (if it’s Sunday night) or coffee and a muffin (it it’s Monday morning) and crank out the column. Some weeks it pulls itself together right in front of my eyes, and I have a winner in less than two hours. Most weeks, though, it takes between 3 and 4 hours to write. Finally, I title it (SO HARD to do—dude, a good title is so hard to come by), and ship it off to my editor.

And if the writing process has gone anything like it did this morning, I usually stand up from my keyboard and faceplant into my pillow.

My TOTALLY INADEQUATE List of Reasons Why I Haven't Updated My Blog In A While

1. Sikth is finally getting a stateside release with their new album -- and the track they're sneak-previewing from "Death of a Dead Day" is fucking SICK.

2. Anime Insider magazine has been giving me tons of assignments! It's a great little rag -- pick it up next time you're in Blockbuster.

3. I found this video for my favorite song by Animosity, and have been watching it over and over and over... San Francisco + grindcore + house party + gold teeth + sociopolitical commentary = LOVE!

4. I finally watched Lords of Dogtown, and holy shit -- I NEED to practice skating more. It wasn't an amazing movie (between Lords and Thirteen, Catherine Hardwicke is proving to have an annoying penchant for imagining California as an all-permissive Fairy Land which she seems to never have had access to. The geography of Lords in particular has the same quasi-pathetic reek as an adult who becomes a teacher at his former high school so he can finally be the "cool guy" there.), but it was pretty good -- especially in the way it portrays the three main friends fighting and splitting up. MASSIVE tension between them as they choose separate paths in life. Plus, skateboarding. I mean, fucking rad, right?

5. Rent Girl by Michelle Tea makes me want to find her and confess my undying love. The girl writes AMAZING sentences. I want to die.

6. World of Warcraft. Yup! Dorky.

7. I've been homebrewing beer. There are five gallons (!!!) of IPA fermenting in my closet right now. How hot is that?!

8. I've been ebaying shit like mad to pay for my huge tax check and recent car tune-up. Make no mistake: freelancing will pay the bills, but it ain't makin' anybody rich.

And oh, I almost forgot:

9. OkCupid -- because, god DAMN. Who do I have to fuck in order to get laid in this awful state?

More updates coming soon. Promise.

Long, long ago,

...which means before I cleared it with my editor, I started a proto-Local Motion blog. (This was back in 2004, right after I started with the column.)

It is horrendously outdated.

If you're interested, you can view those (very few) old entries at:

http://localmotionct.livejournal.com/

Come one, come all...

Hey! Welcome to Local Commotion, the music blog by Local Motion columnist Dan Barry.

My aim is the elevation, appreciation, and discussion of good music -- and the total fucking destruction of shitty rock.

In this blog I hope to fit news and tidbits related to the Connecticut music scene that can't make it into the column. It's also a chance for me to write about music more informally than in the column. Although there is no formal affiliation between the column (or The Hartford Advocate) and this blog, I hope that readers who enjoy my column will stop by for the scoop on good concerts, releases, and venues.

I've wanted to do this for a long time! There's always more going on in CT than I can fit on one page -- and now there's a place to print the rest.

Now that we've got the fine print out of the way... let's fucking rock.