that spin shit was a joke. how people like that can actually have a job
writing for a supposed music magazine is beyond me. now, don't get me wrong,
i'm not lambasting the guy for not liking the band. that would be the sort
of childish post you see on a 311 fan page or somethin. but this guy needs
to be told that his irrelevant pseudo-hip name dropping was ill-advised. the
gang of four comparison i can kind of see; they definitely have a pre-Pixies
late 70's post-punk thing goin on like on "COnvenient Parking" in my
opinion. however, the Replacements are totally different; the only link here
is punk rock. true, their lyrics were homorous and self-deprecating, but it
was more straight ahead teen angsty stuff, while their music often bordered
on classic/rootsy rock. i'm not knocking the Mats at all, Let it Be is right
up there with Lonesome as one of my faves, but to compare them to Modest
Mouse would be somewhat of an injustice to both bands. Same thing with
Husker Du. What this guy was trying to do was to establish cred by
mentioning old bands that he claims no one knows about. first of all, bands
like these have been mentioned, lauded, praised, and imitated for years now,
and it's really not all that "cool" to drop their names in 2000. i guess i
sound hypocritical in denouncing what this critic thinks is cool, because
many many people would knock what i think is cool just the same. anyway, im
just saying that the way he goes about criticizing Modest Mouse is very
questionable. Modest Mouse probably aren't the greatest band or the most
innovative. where that guy chose the Replacements and Husker Du as
comparsion/reference points, i see some Pixies and Pavement and Built to
Spill influence, as well as Gang of Four, The Fall, Sonic Youth, the Flaming
Lips, Unwound, Talking Heads, even Nirvana, not to mention all the Northwest
bands like Lync or the Treepeople, as reference points, or maybe they just
remind me a little of them sometimes. because i'm not doing this to say they
stole from them or they owe them debt or they aren't as good, it's just
something i always do with every band and every song, even my own band --
"oh hey, listen to those 3 notes or that fill or that feedback right there,
sounds a little like that Built to Spill/Pavement/Flaming Lips/Sonic Youth
song" has been said hundreds of times in our basement. but this is kinda
getting off the point....so, to summarize, the moral of the story is "don't
think someone knows music just because they name-drop" or "don't read spin
ever again".
sorry for the moralizing. just thought it would be fitting to end my
soapboxing rant with a moral.
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