Decemberists
I caught the Decemberists on Letterman earlier in the week
CBS | Late Show with David Letterman : Show Info. I believe they were doing a song off the new Crane Wife lp. This is the project where Colin Meloy writes an extended song cycle about a Japanese folktale where a mistrustful man marries a women who is secretly really a bird, but can spin beautiful cloth. This comes on the wake of a MetaFilter post chewing over a Village Voice review where some idiot
village voice > music > by Chris Ott unloads on Meloy for not having the right shade of hipness
Stand by your Man | MetaFilter. If you're trying to insult someone - I don't see how comparing them to XTC is going to really help with that. I accept the argument the band X made with the song the Unheard Music. The most interesting music will never be made chasing a mass audience. But I wouldn't align music taste with heightened vain obscurity either. Most of the terms I'm familiar with describing rock are poles of false dichotomies: originality, competence, obscurity, heart. A large part of the game is the narrative. Having an awareness of what you're doing, what you're communicating with a particular song, with a way of making songs. This is against a certain insensate imitation, which does not make connections. Where I get confused is in believing this is an art life crime only. That these narratives only exist in the stories of development we tell about literature, music, and art. Yet none of these are unrelated to who we are. Cultures exist as resistance to problems, they are defined by their solutions. The nature of the solutions, or the lack of them. It is not the most original culture I desire, or safe and comfortable, nor the loudest and fastest. Not the one drunk off its ass, but partying with a big heart. Neither the ones anthemic and crowd stirring, or influenced by eric satie only. But rather the one in touch with the unheard musics, and willing to be an opening act.
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