Much bad craziness, aka A Small Circle Turns On
Itself...
==
From Off the Record, New
York Observer 3/22/99
A few weeks ago, several rock critics, music journalists and a publicist got
an 11-page photocopied manifesto in the mail. Called The Rock Critical
List, the homemade screed had one point, which it hammered for about 3,000
or so words. To wit: Music scribbling out of New York-based national
publications at this exact moment is unnecessarily lifeless, artless and
idiotically panglossed, useless even as a consumer guide.
Signed by one Jo Jo Dancer, a.k.a. The Gay Rapper (a requisitely hip
reference to a forgettable 1986 Richard Pryor film, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life
Is Calling), the self-hating analyst takes apart a bevy of pop music
critics, backing the invective up with such pointed inside information, and in
some cases, potshots at their personal lives, that those assaulted are wondering
which one of their friends wrote it.
The manifesto first appeared on the desks of a chosen few: Vibe music
editor Sacha Jenkins, Spin senior editor Will Hermes, Spin senior
contributing writer Mike Rubin and Girlie Action publicist Felice Ecker. Most
got it the last week of February, when The Village Voices annual
Pazz Jop pollor, as Jo Jo so assiduously puts it,
self-serving year-end wankoramacame out. The
hand-scrawled nature of [the envelope] kind of freaked me out, said one
recipient, who said he thought about dumping it in the sink. As it turned out,
it was fairly explosive, albeit only in the tight little world of people who
write about Blur, Britney Spears and Biz Markie for a living.
The bile comes pouring out in a top 10 list of rock criticisms worst
offenders. Leading the pack is The New York Times Neil Strauss, a
balding, dickless imp, writes Jo Jo, who has become the most
craven, punch-drunk phony in the business. (Reached by Off the Record, Mr.
Strauss had no comment.) The apparently once virtuous Rolling Stone music
editor Joe Levy has morphed into an unabashed, self-righteous propagandist
for pop musics ephemeral pleasures. In other words, indie-rock was over,
he had a reservation at Union Square Cafe with Elastica, and hey, were a
winner, baby! Venerable Village Voice critic Robert Christgau is
taken to task for his sadly clotted prose, populist
autism and total lack of feeling for todays most important
youth musicship-hop and electronic dance. And New
Yorks Ethan Smith has the profitable ability to prattle on like
a mid-40s patrician (therefore pleasing his mid-40s patrician
editors), yet still front like he relates to the wounded, channel-surfing
troubadours of his generation.
Understandably, reviews from the critics mentioned were mixed. I
thought it was moderately witty, said Mr. Christgau. He slammed
people who were asking for it, people I dont like either. Mr.
Christgau thought he came out all right, though.
Its extraordinarily rare that you see something that
demonstrates this much intelligence and this much poor reasoning, sniffed
Mr. Levy.
Matt Diehl, who freelances for Rolling Stone, was summed up by Jo Jo,
along with the writer Tour, thusly: No matter how you dress
em up, a bitch iz a bitch iz a bitch. Mr. Diehl called it
more of a drive-by than a critique and added that he was more
concerned that this person went out of his way to humiliate me and then
mail it to the people who I make my livelihood writing for.
In the small, tightly wound subculture of pop music critics and the
publicists who feed them, the list has caused a lot of internecine
finger-pointing about who the real Jo Jo is. (Copies of The Rock Critical
List are going for $1 at See Hear on East Seventh Street in the East
Village.) Its obviously a white person obsessed with hip-hop who at
the same time doesnt read any African-American writersor very
few, said Mr. Diehl. Another editor noted, its such a small
pool of people who could have written it. Not that many people know the
detailslike that Boz Scaggs son fetches coffee for Mr. Levy
at Rolling Stoneor care, and are as barbed, as
funny.
It seems like most people are obsessed by who it is, said
Spin senior editor Charles Aaron, who received the Average White
Man Award in the list for his cultural studies blood-letting
in a recent Spin article defending white rappers. Despite his being
slagged, Mr. Aaron has become the prime culprit in many of his fellow
critics minds. One writer pointed to the apparently Aaron-ish phrases
tiny lives and satori as textual proof.
Mr. Aaron said he is not the real Jo Jo. In my circumstance, it would
be really insane for me to do things like that because it would hurt people who
are my friends, he said. I dont know who did it, and
its not me. Besides, he added, the information thats
in there was not privileged, its basically stuff that writers talk
about. On top of that, he said, the list was apparently postmarked
from California.
