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E-mail: dalatudalatu@gmail.com

Peer Across The State

Earlier this week, Ian Cohen interviewed the young musician Jackson Scott for Pitchfork. Reading the interview I could not get out of my mind that we were a stone’s throw away. Well a really long stone’s throw, considering I am a few hours from Asheville, North Carolina on the other side of the state. But no matter the actual distance between us, I wanted to reach out to this somehow younger than me kid who was interviewed. 

The school that Scott calls home, UNC Asheville, was a college that I visited a few years ago when looking for a small liberal arts schools in North Carolina. The school was fine but I would say my lack of enthusiasm had more to do with the cloudy fall day I visited, than the school itself.

Once I started reading Scott’s interview a thought immediately jumped into my mind: “We could have gone to the same school”. Would we have had any classes together? Would I have known about the music he was making? Or would I have woken up one day to find out that a guy I had first year English with was being interviewed by Pitchfork. Who knows, but I’d like to envision a stilted conversation where I say “I saw your feature on Pitchfork”. Then awkwardly mention that I had written for the same site, grasping, despite our geographical closeness, for a point that connected us. 

katherinestasaph:

jamiesoncox:

A Shot of Jamieson, Episode 2.5 - David Turner & Brandon Soderberg (dalatu, no-trivia)

The newest episode of A Shot of Jamieson features birthday boy David Turner, who has contributed to Pitchfork, Complex, and Noisey among others, and SPIN rap blogger Brandon Soderberg. The theme of this episode was “young writer problems,” and we discussed editing, “trust,” Twitter/Tumblr cliques, and the music we’re enjoying right now. 

As always, thanks for your support. I welcome your questions and comments via askbox, tweet, email, or whatever else you can imagine. Happy listening!

This is good; I wish it had more advice for writers/aspiring writers who don’t consider themselves part of any cliques. (I don’t.)

(Also, since music writing is a male-dominated field, the more so the higher up and closer to the pursestrings you get, networking is a lot different for women, in ways both subtle and not. But most things are.)

Kind of agree. More advice would be good, and from a non-dude perspective is always good. And, I guess here are a few small advice things.

1. Don’t stop writing! 

2. Ask other people to read your reading, so you aren’t writing for an audience of one.

3. Reach out to other writers. At worst someone doesn’t answer your email, but even writers for major outlets are wiling to offer advice/just talk to younger writers. 

4. Have a reason behind what you are writing. Adjective pilling seems to be a default for some music writers.Others can disagree, but personal I don’t enjoy writing, if I cannot least some sort of thought behind the words and instead get a paragraph describing a singer’s voice. ~ Shrugs shoulders~ 

5. Last one, Brandon and I talked a bit after the recording, but do not let the name of an outlet cloud your mind. Aim for quality writing no matter where it is your published. Whether it is the New York Times or your own personal blog, make sure you feel comfortable standing by whatever you write.

Anyway, this show was fun to do and many thanks to Jamieson and Brandon. 

21

I was originally going to post some dumb personal essay, but I wasn’t able to finish it. Instead here are some facts about today: I am on Spring Break; I ‘m supposed to conduct my first interview today as a music writer dude; I am recording a podcast with some great people tonight; and hopefully my day ends with a phone call to my girlfriend. What more can I say. I might even try to fit in some homework. 

Happy 21st to me. 

And, I watched “Rushmore” this morning. I liked it. 

All Camo Everything

The last few years there has been a fixation in men’s fashion around the camo print. This has manifested itself in: shorts, pants, snapbacks, canvas shoes, sneakers and even for the bold, full camo suits. On the last look of my closet I have not found anything of this particular print, but maybe it was too well hidden. The trend, while a bit ridiculous in certain examples, seemed overall fine to me. Maybe through a bit of internet myopia, I’ve associated the style with being hip/cool/cutting edge, until my eyes picked up on a different kind of camo style.

Instead of vintage camo patterns being worn by 20 and 30 somethings in nicely fitted clothes with expensive shoe taste; this camo appeared as very baggy and loosely fitted outerwear and pants. This look seemed to have more to do with the actual sport of hunting or at least trying to say you’re the type of person, who might care about the sport of hunting.

Over the last few months when shopping, I’ve kept seeing the two styles collide. It would be easy to say the hunting camo looks weaker against its more stylish sibling, but to me that isn’t true. The hunting camo feels better situated in these suburban spaces, unlike its more “stylish” sibling. Maybe it’s the more natural patterns, lots of grass and branches, which might aesthetically be more pleasing than the more “stylish” camo’s more abstract forms. Or it could be that, whatever little clothes ask as a tell sign for people, I feel—maybe incorrectly—I can gleam something from a person looking ready for hunting instead of a person that thought military camo skinny chinos were hot for 2013.

Noisey: The Spring Breakers Soundtrack is the Best Trap Album

The comments here are kind of cool to me. The piece is about how the Spring Breakers OST kind of perfectly contextualizes Trap music.  I might have made a too big of a jump equating Skrillex with “Trap”. Even, though structurally they share the same DNA and the move from Dubstep to Trap is really not that hard to hear to me…I think Meaghan Garvey said this (or maybe Brandon Soderberg via Garvey), but we are kind of in a “Post-Drop” musical world, which is kind what all of this music sounds like Post-I.E. Dubstep commercials and the Harlem Shake Meme (still no. 1 this week). 

I’m New in the City

I have no qualms with white males writing about rap— or any black/non-white music— but here’s something they should keep in mind. Critics are typically assumed to be white males, meaning anyone writing about music who isn’t a white male is automatically challenging this basic assumption. At the very least, white male critics focusing on rap should consider that whites have been dominating the stories of non-whites for centuries. A black critic engaging in poor criticism of a black rapper isn’t automatically more valuable, but it does contribute to an internal community which has been historically underrepresented. When I read lazy criticism from a white critic who has failed to engage with a person of color’s work in a responsible and respectful manner, I think, “Well, I guess some things never change.”

d’Eon - Music For Keyboards Vol. III

After couple listens of this forty minute long composition, the only thing that came to mind were old episodes of a podcast called Retronauts*. The show was devoted to old video games, and would occasionally have music from the old games as buffer music—usually corresponding to the games being discussed. I’d even admit that is odd to reference pieces of music that were only used to transition between segments on a podcast. And to be even more specific it was the music that was used from older PC games that seemed to be called by back from this D’eon piece.

This felt like a weird rabbit hole to fall down, to describe this composition. But, with there being sometime of an over reliance on the idea that nostalgia being the trigger point for artistic inspiration or appreciation. Maybe I’m just justifying my own nostalgia for an old podcast series—which in itself was self-admittingly nostalgic about old videos games—that explains why I like this particular work. But I also don’t think that appreciation of the arts works in such a circularly nostalgic way. Or maybe it does, I don’t really care, really like this tracks and that it reminds me of playing boring Japanese role-playing games in 9th grade when I didn’t have any friends, then I don’t care.

*Sadly, between when I originally drafted than and posted, the show has finally come to an end along with its parent website 1up.com. 

(Source: soundcloud.com)

You always hear stories about the early hardcore days, when bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat had to figure out touring channels by themselves because nobody was doing it for them. D.I.Y. shows still happen, but they mostly happen through choice, not necessity. Now, there’s an indie rock infrastructure that pays a whole lot of people’s bills, including mine. But that whole era, where people were making shit up as they went along, was still going strong in the mid-to-late 90s. Teenage kids were convincing their parents to help them sweep up the North Baltimore storefront D.I.Y. spaces that they rented with their own money. They were selling Now & Laters at a concession stand and asking everyone to please be cool and not drink because they didn’t want the place to be busted. And the energy that these kids put in was enough to nurture and sustain bands like the Dismemberment Plan, bands that would help shape the indie universe for years to come. Maybe that’s still happening somewhere. I’d like to think so.

—

Tom Breihan, from Pitchfork’s 15 Writer/15 Songs anniversary feature talking about The Dismemberment Plan’s “Ellen and Ben”.

I don’t even think I’ve heard this song. Yet this piece comes up in my mind far too often for me not to have put this on my blog. I am not sure if it is aspiration, inspiration or just a nice little story. But it is something that I just love reading.