Tuesday, September 14, 2010

HIPSTER RUNOFF

HIPSTER RUNOFF

WAVVES starts selling weed grinders as ‘merch’

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 04:22 PM PDT

Link: http://plixi.com/p/45141086


WAVVES is a popular buzzband who is most famous for being a marijuana addict. Not sure if people like his music, or if they just follow him online cuz he just talks abt getting danked out + watching stuff on TV. Just the standard California style bro [via Best Coast weed volcano].

It seems like WAVVES is going to start selling WEED GRINDERS for his most authentic fans. Fans who buy weed in massive quantities, and want to grind up that shit so it gets them ‘hella high.’ Is this the most innovative indie band merch of all time? Do indie bands need to do more to ‘fire up’ their core audience, offering them unique consumer experiences?

Does ‘grinding’ weed help u 2 get higher?

Are you one of those people who carries around their weed, a lighter, a grinder, some rolling paper, and a pipe around in some sort of mysterious bag / sack / tin container?

Is grinding weed authentic?
Is WAVVES a ‘brilliant’ marketer?
Should WAVVES be thrown in jail for selling ‘paraphernalia’?
Will WAVVES weed products be found in a bong shop near u?

Do u think WAVVES will offer to fly to your house, grind ur weed, and smoke with you for $3000?
Should WAVVES just become a dealer?
R u worried that Best Coast is gonna break up with WAVVES and go straight X edge?
What is the best way 2 grind weed? Should I buy a ‘ninja’ [via high powered blender]?

Do u smoke weed, or is it for poor ppl/rich white ppl?

Pitchfork writes article abt how bands take lofi photographs to brand themselves as ‘vintage’/authentic

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 10:49 AM PDT

Link: http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7833-this-is-not-a-photograph


From what I understand, high resolution digital photography is ‘mad overrated’, and modern humans associate ‘vintage looking photographs’ with authenticity. Many buzzbands choose not to utilize a hi-res photo, and instead choose to go ‘lofi’ because it makes their brand look authentic before u can even stream an MP3.

Do u like bands who have album art/mp3 photos that look ‘vintage’?
Is it more alt to look like ur from the past instead of from the future?
Do buzzbands need to ‘give up’ on trying to inspire listeners to feel like they are entering nostalgic zones?

This is basically the ‘thesis’ of the article. Most other sentences attempt to explain what particular album covers look like + what ‘aesthetic’ they achieve:

A lot of indie artists lately have felt something similar, it seems. Artists who sound about as different from each other as Vampire Weekend and the Dum Dum Girls have embraced the look and feel of old, amateur photography, often featuring images of childhood and family. Stuart McLamb of the Love Language found a great image of his mother– literally beaming in the unintended glare of a too-hot flash at night, and thought it the perfect album cover.

Wonder if I still need to go to design school, or if I can just browse indie blogs to learn abt modern bloggable aesthetics.

Wonder if bands are going to have to stop using vintage photogs in case their ‘go mainstream’ and some old lady from the 1940s decides to sue them for using her polaroid.

Here is some paragraph where the writer talks about ‘getting turned on’ when he first saw the Contra album cover because his peen ‘gets hard’ 2 vintage photographs:

Last September, a photo of a girl with a blank expression and a popped collar appeared online without any context. A few people assumed it was a viral ad, but most were drawn to it for reasons they couldn’t quite place. Some combination of the girl’s wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights stare, the Polo logo on her shirt, her slightly open mouth, the pinkish tone, and muted palette of the photograph suggested it was a “found” picture, or maybe a long-forgotten entry into Andy Warhol’s Polaroid series. As it happened, the photo turned out to be the cover art for Vampire Weekend’s second album. A few months later, an equally evocative, slightly older, and more private seeming snapshot of a woman, caught off guard while getting something from her closet, adorned the cover of the Dum Dum Girls’ first LP I Will Be. As with the Contra photo, the questions arose quickly:Why her? Who is she? Why this photo?

Do u miss the Contra ‘viral marketing’ era?
Sad it turned out this way [via h8ing Kirsten Kennis].
Maybe there is a ‘high legal risk’ associated with stealing photos from the past.

R u ‘bored’ when u see another lofi photograph on an album cover? Does it make u think the album is gonna ‘be awesome’ [via inspiring nostalgic images of youth], or do most albums with lofi art end up ‘blowing’?

Album art has long been a crucial multimedia component of popular music– often the first image we associate with the sounds, its representational role makes it inherently evocative, a symbol

Here is some other ‘deep’ analysis sentence:

…these photographs echo back through the past few decades of indie and DIY culture as it intersects with amateur and art-world photography, changes in technologies, and shifting ideas of public and private. The evocative quality of an image presented without context, it turns out, makes for a interesting dialogue point between indie’s aesthetic past and present.

Sigh…. H8 our evolving society. Wish we could just live in our ideal vision of the future, but never forget the chill vibes of the past…
H8 how technology makes information/mp3s more accessible, but ‘cheapens’ moments that we once thought were meaningful.

Here is some paragraph where they drop the terms ‘chillwave’ and ‘Animal Collective’ just to get u interested.

The music Greene and a handful of others are making has been called “chillwave,” an appropriate coinage for humid, groovy stoner tunes, which surf the tides of lengthy afternoons and evoke the dreamlike feeling of melting into the earth under an unforgiving sun. Greene shaped Washed Out’s vibe after relocating from South Carolina, moving back in with his parents, and getting married. In other words, he’s evoking through his music and album art photography the quiet domestic life of the 2009-2010 indie/DIY creative class– think Animal Collective’s “My Girls”, “Bluish”, and “Brothersport”.


Here’s some other paragraph that says ‘chillwave’ like 100x:

And most of all, we hang. Greene’s good friend, South Carolinian chillwave exemplar Chaz Bundick records as Toro Y Moi. The cover of his EP Leave Everywhere features a photograph of Bundick fueling up at a truckstop, taken with a disposable camera by his friend Christy. A bit later, when Christy discovered her friend was using her snapshot as an album cover, she took to her blog and posted a wonderful little evocation of chillwave, not as a type of music per se, but a specific lifestyle that merges real-life obligations with the desire to stay deliriously young. “Chillwave is when you’re at a South Carolina beach with friends and while wading in the ocean far, far from the shore someone asks ‘we need to head back soon?’ And you have work in the morning, an 8 a.m. meeting maybe, but you emulate the quiet ripple of the tide and you say ‘naw, we’ll make it back,’ and you’re right. You do make it back. And you even have time to wince for a photo your friend takes with a disposable camera at the gas station, and you’re so chill you’ll even put that crappy photo on the cover of your 7″ record people still call ‘chillwave’ the very next summer, and it looks good.”

Is chillwave photography ‘authentic’?
Can u call some1 holding a DSLR at a relevant show a ‘n00b’?


Anyways, they go on to claim that gorilla vs bear invented the lofi aesthetic, both in terms of mp3s AND jpgs. Wonder if bands feel pressured 2 use a vintage photograph to get blggd abt on a visually stunning lofi blog:

The market for, say, out of focus M.I.A. Polaroids might be smaller than that for high-end photo-pit SLR images, and for Gorilla vs. Bear’s Chris Cantalini, that’s sort of the point. He respects professional photogs with nice cameras, but has no desire to compete with them. He lets the camera do a lot of the work for him– he positions his subjects in particular locales and then relies on Polaroid’s notoriously fickle relationship to light and color to do the rest. As a result, the pinkish hues, white borders, and “matte sides” of indie artists revealed by instant photography have come to define his blog’s visual aesthetic. It fits perfectly with the music he most prominently features on his site, as well: a sort of ahistorical lo-fi that purposefully sounds out of time.

Wonder if gorillavsbear-core is not just a ‘lofi’ brand of music, but also a lofi photography aesthetic. When indie music dies, wonder if GVB will be ‘the most important aesthetic designer’ in the entire history of indie. [link]

Might just move to the Suburbs and chill with the Arcade Fire, creating a nostalgic image with the Adobe Creative Suite.

Getting kind of bored posting all of these excerpts. Kinda one of those articles that says a bunch of ‘interesting sounding statements’ and ur waiting for something ‘revolutionary’ 2 be said, but then u realize it is just about chillwave photography, and ur just like ‘oh ya. Don’t rlly even care. Shoulda just read the headline’ and then kept searching p4k 4 new buzzbands:


Should I go to my local thrift store to search for rare vintage cameras, or should I just download the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone? Just want my images to look all lofi.

It also makes sense that tech capitalists would figure out a way to make digital photos look just like the snapshots your mother pulls out when you come to visit. Hipstamatic– based directly off of the legendarily cheap, and long discontinued Instamatic– is one of the most popular apps ever created for the iPhone. For $1.99, every photo you take can look a hell of a lot like it was taken in 1978– the faded colors, the unpredictable light patterns, even the slightly askew border. When fleeting moments of our everyday lives are now more than ever before seen as fodder for extracting, showcasing, and archiving for others– we are all Jandek– it makes so much sense that we’d want these moments to appear as authentic and hip as possible. Amateur photography, meet pre-distressed jeans and iMovie’s grain-and-flicker filter.

S000 crazy how we live in a modern world with hi-resolution cameras, but

Anyways, I guess the theme of the article is basically ‘photographs represent memories. Indie album covers are photographs that represent moments frozen in time, kinda like pictures.’

It seems only natural then, that as technologies have helped render privacy and artistic mystique ever-rarer, and at the same time made it easier than ever to make and release music, that artists would look to the synthetic nostalgia of old photographs. It’s right there in the DNA of so much indie music itself, really: taking the mundane facts of everyday life and reframing them as evocative shared memories.

Do u think bands need to quit with the lofi photograph album art bullshit?
Do u just want to live a life of leisure without any modern technology, just capturing moments with vintage cameras?
Should I ask my parents for a DSLR or for a rare polaroid camera?
Is the layout of the blog ALTERED ZONES the ‘crowning achievement’ of the modern lofi indie design aesthetic?

Should Gorilla Vs Bear ‘sue the fuck’ out of Alt Zones [via Kirsten Kennis]?
Should Pitchfork just make their blog a series of scanned writings + pictures just to look ‘more authentic’?
Has technology ‘ruined’ photography/the internet/the indie buzz scene?
Do u feel like u ‘get’ indie more than ever after reading this article?
Are chillwavers/gorillavsbearcorers the ‘future’ of indie?
Is photography ‘overrated’ as an art?
Should more bands make GIF album covers?
Did Anco ‘transcend’ the album art discussion?
What is ur favourite album cover of all time?
Was it ‘vintage’ or ‘commissioned art’?
Should Mountain Dew make a ‘vintage’ can 2 appeal 2 alts [via the blogosphere]?

Twin Shadow makes new music viddy

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 09:03 AM PDT


Twin Shadow made some music video for the song “Castles In The Snow.” Kinda let down. Have really put all of my 2k11 eggs in the Twin Shadow basket. Probably appeals to a group of ppl who spend their days watching vintage lofi videos, but ‘whatever.’ Would rather watch a snuff film or something. I guess the video achieves some aesthetic which is chill, but really just have unreasonably high expectations for music videos in an indie world where new buzzbands have limited video budgets. Sorta wish MGMT had their music video budgets confiscated and ‘distributed’ amongst indie bzzbands.

Feel sad that I didn’t get to see Twin Shadow in this video. Really wanted to analyze his personal brand again.

Might just re-watch the video for “Slow” over and over again.

Do u still buy into Twin Shadow?
Is Twin Shadow still the ‘only harvestable buzzband of 2k10′?
Will Twin Shadow get above an 8.0 from Pitchfork?
Will Twin Shadow ‘lose’ to BestCoast/Wavves in the album of the year race?
Will it be difficult to ‘top’ the SLOW music video?
Do u have any ideas 4 good music videos?

AUDIO INTERVIEW: Neon Indian calls Carles a ‘ball buster’, debuts new MP3 in live studio session

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 07:50 AM PDT

Link: http://unclefarkus.com/?p=2571
Link: http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2010/09/14/new-neon-indian-i-really-didnt-need-you-anyway/


In an interview with Sirius XMU, Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo is pressured by some ‘shock jock’ to talk more abt chillwave. It seems like every artist who was ‘unfairly bundled’ in2 the chillwave genre has to answer 5-10 questions per day abt their chillwave existence. Even when they go to McDonalds to buy a cheesyburger, the human behind the counter probs asks them ‘what’s the deal with chillwave? U want extra cheese on that burger?’

The interviewer bro goes on to ‘pan’ Carles, calling him a ball buster. He goes on to say that Carles is a ‘shitty journalist’ and should ‘stay the fuck away from scene.’ Should Carles ‘quit’ being a blogjournalist?

STREAM: CHILLWAVE INTERVIEW

R u relieved that Carles is still credited as having invented ‘chillwave’?
Do u h8 the
Do u remember the time he baited Best Coast into ‘talking mad shit’ abt Carles / the HIPSTER RUNOFF brand? [link]
Is ‘radio’ still ‘relevant’ [via satellites]?
Does Neon Indian/Washed Out ‘h8′ Carles 4 ruining their lives’/artistic existence?

Anyways, sometimes u just gotta accept that as a blog, ppl are gonna hate u. Might just tweet at all my h8rs/give out their phone numbers.

Feeling relieved that Neon Indian ‘debuted a new song.’ We really needed this 1 after the great buzz drought of 2k10. Sufjy really let us down. Pandy lets us down every week. Really feel like I might put all of my buzz hopes + expectations behind Neon Indian 2k11.

[MP3]
Neon Indian I Really Didn’t Need You Anyway (Live Sirius XMU Session)

Will this song ‘save’ 2k10/2k11?
Is this ‘the first relevant mp3 of 2k11′?
Is this mp3 ‘breaking away from the chillwave genre’?
Did chillwave ever exist?
Will it take 2.5 albums for chillwave artists to evolve beyond chillwave/for uninspired local journalists 2 stop asking abt ‘chillwave’?
Did Carles invent chillwave?
Does Carles ‘bust balls’ or ‘eat dicks’?
What would Neon Indian/Washed Out/Toro Y Moi’s careers be like without a ‘loaded’ genre term?
Do all indie/chilwave musicians h8 Carles/the HIPSTER RUNOFF brand?
Did I really need yall anyways [via not taking acid with yall]?

Pitchfork ‘pans’ Interpol, gives them a 4.6. Is it time 4 them 2 ‘hang it up’?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 06:02 AM PDT

Link: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14641-interpol/


had one ‘great’ album several blog decades ago, and they have released a string of mediocre albums since that album entitled “Turn on the Bright Lights yall, srsly! Can’t see in here. Kinda dim [via a metaphor]” It seems like the entire indiesphere was waited and waited for them to ‘recapture the magic’ of that first album, but I think this 4.6 represents every1 ‘giving up’, no longer expecting a repeat of the “Turn on the Bright Lights” formula. Seems like they might have set the model that MGMT will follow or something.

I wonder if the Arcade Fire/Sufjan Stevens/any other mid-to-early 2k0s authentic indie artist will get ‘panned’ like this?

Here is the intro of the article that basically says, “remember when used 2 be sweet. Love those guys. It’s really gonna hurt 2 pan this album, but some1′s gotta do it.”

The impressive thing about has always been the refinement of their sound, its remarkable sense of purpose. Sure, when the band debuted, a huge share of conversation revolved around the other acts they sounded like. But no matter how familiar any of the parts were, the band had welded them together into a whole that was instantly recognizable and easy to grasp– they’d carved out the simple, narrow box of how an song worked, and they could put it across clearly, quickly, and thrillingly.

It seems like this album is an in-depth look in2 ’s existential crisis as a dying buzzband. Seems ‘dark’ and ‘reflective’.

That sound is compelling enough to keep someone searching for a secret payoff to this record, some dark heart to sink into. The problems here, though, aren’t in execution– they’re more existential. Cross over into the wrecked second half, and every song makes this sound more like an album that’s not really ready to seethe, not really cathartic, not really full of painful hopeless beauty or any of those other things that make bleak records worthwhile. With every listen it just sounds like more of a fucking drag. For a moment, “All of the Ways” seems like it’s prepared to lean into its own feelings of helplessness, and turn into the kind of desolate, bottomless song that feels good to fall into– but then Banks can’t help trying to sing it into something grand, trudging hopelessly through the same old routine.

Maybe shoulda stopped wearing suits cuz their fan base grew up, and they looked like young professionals in middle mgmt.

R u happy that Pitchfork finally euthanized so that we don’t have to keep reading?
Who is next? Broken Social Scene? Animal Collective?
Is ‘over’?
Does even ‘sell records 2 mainstreamers’?
Is for failed cool dads?
Do yall miss Interpols?
Have things ‘swirled down the shitter’ since Carlos D left?
What other legacy buzzbands need to be ‘euthanized’?

Should I take a ride on the Kevorkian wave?

Jared Leto tries to hit on Lady Gaga, attempts to hand her his buzzband’s demo CD

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 06:11 PM PDT


Jared Leto: Hi. It’s me. Jared.
Lady Gaga: Who r u?
Jared Leto: U don’t know me?
Lady Gaga: You look familiar. Have u been to one of my shows?
Jared Leto: No, not yet. I am actually in a band.
Lady Gaga: That’s nice.
Jared Leto: Have you heard of ’30 seconds on mars?’
Lady Gaga: Is that the movie where a comet/meteor is heading 2 Earth and every1 is afraid of dying?
Jared Leto: No, that is the movie Deep Impact.
Lady Gaga: The one with Bruce Willis?
Jared Leto: No, that is Armageddon.
Lady Gaga: Loved that 1.
Jared Leto: Yes. I am actually a movie star, too.
Lady Gaga: Oh yea. What movies?
Jared Leto: Have u seen Fight Club?
Lady Gaga: Yes, a long time ago. I don’t see very many indie films.
Jared Leto: I was in that.
Lady Gaga: Were u the fat guy with bitch tits? He is in a band.
Jared Leto: No, that was Meatloaf

Lady Gaga: Oh okay. well I g2g
Jared Leto: But my band is awesome. I think u should check us out.
Lady Gaga: brb gotta change costumes
Jared Leto: I wear costumes too.
Lady Gaga: Okay.
Jared Leto: I want to be like u. U inspire me.
Lady Gaga: Every1 is welcome to be a little monster. [via Shannon Gaga]
Jared Leto: but u don’t understand. I am a creative spirit.
Lady Gaga: I encourage all young tweens to be creative, and 2 be themselves [via individuality {viavia Shannon Gaga}]
Jared Leto: Do u want to see my band’s video?
Lady Gaga: I’m super busy.
Jared Leto: But we’re super kewl. We ride bicycles around a post-apocalyptic city. Hold on. I will stream it from my iPhone.

Lady Gaga: That was kinda fruity. Was that 4 real?
Jared Leto: U didn’t think it was beautiful?
Lady Gaga: Was kinda dumb, honestly. Why am I still talking 2 u?
Jared Leto: I’m Jared Leto. I’m an artist
Lady Gaga: Okay.
Jared Leto: I have a beautiful soul. When I look at u, I know that same beauty is inside of u.
Lady Gaga: Plz stop bothering me.
Jared Leto: I want to be with you.
Lady Gaga: Excuse me?
Jared Leto: I want to make love 2 u.
Lady Gaga: I already have a partner.
Jared Leto: I want to be inside of u. I want my peen to ride ur slutwaves.
Lady Gaga: Ur kinda getting creepy on me bro.
Jared Leto: I want to plant my seed in u.
Lady Gaga: I am not fertile :-(
Jared Leto: My cum/semen is rlly strong. Guarantee u will get preggers, even via oral/anal
Lady Gaga: Scared of u.
Jared Leto: I want to grow old with u.
Lady Gaga: I will never grow old. I don’t believe in ‘time’ or ‘age’
Jared Leto: I’m hornie.
Lady Gaga: Plz leave me alone.
Jared Leto: My peen is hard right now.
Lady Gaga: What is a peen?
Jared Leto: It is slang 4 ‘penis.’
Lady Gaga: That’s chill.
Jared Leto: I’m in <3 with u.
Lady Gaga: I'm larry gaga
Jared Leto: I'm Jared mutha fuckin Leto and I can get any fucking pussy in the world. Don't kid urself. I just gave u the opportunity of ur lifetime to make love 4 real 4 the first time, and u turned that shit down. Ur gonna regret this. This won't be the last time u hear from me. I'm Jared Leto. I was in Fight Club. I'm in a buzzband. I'm an artist.

Jared Leto went on to join Coldplay. He was found dead six weeks after they swept the Grammys. Doctors claim he was ‘too alt’ 2 be alive.

Is Jared Leto a chill bro?
Is he the most alternative human on the planet?
Do u think Lady Gaga wants 2 ‘ride’ Jared Leto?
Would Jared Leto + Larry Gaga have the most conceptual sex in the history of the world?
Should they try to have a child?
If Jared Leto came up 2 u, what would u do?