the fine, fine, fine series
hi all,
back in your inbox with a regularly scheduled email of updates, and then, musings. so, first and most importantly:
have you pre-saved fine, fine, fine yet???
well now is the time to do so!! click that little link and then click the little box with the check mark and that’s it!! and it really really helps us with the big, scary, success-driving, life defining, algorithm.
next… we’ve officially announced our next series of shows to celebrate the release of ‘fine, fine, fine’!!!
you know you want to hear it live. you know you want to party with us. come out! we will be not just in brooklyn, at baby’s all right, on tuesday february 11, BUT ALSO new brunswick, new jersey at the room on friday, january 31 (DM for addres), and swarthmore, pennsylvania at olde club on friday, february 7. can’t wait to play some new places in the northeast and return to baby’s of course…
now for the musings…
I’ve been drafting and thinking so much about the paste magazine article on brooklyn rock music and diy, and wanted to have something nuanced and beautiful and poignant but instead i’ve only had the time to draft a passionate few paragraphs of idea vomit, that half attempt to be in conversation with this article, which raises great points, but I also think does not really get at the spiritual rot of the problems of music today.
The article summarizes the real effects of finance capital on the DIY scene and uses the early 2000s NYC rock scene as the point of comparison. And she does discuss how capital has reduced scenes and movements to a commodities - either literal items you can buy - or images and videos you can post, without any real heart, spirit, or politics to the counterculture that young people are referencing. the author does admonish the wave of nostalgia that has created a source of revenue for finance capital, but fails to criticize how that creates a cultural and political pit, one that is an endless fall into the vapid appeal of simulacra. not to mention that artistically: it’s lazy, it’s pathetic, it’s boring. there are no stakes, and the powers that be take nothing (new, unconnected) seriously. there’s no way to create new art in this place because we’re constantly reliving through images of the present, trying best to get it Right, stuck inside a mirror and unable to come our through the looking glass on the other side.
the cultural obsession with nostalgia is not so much a culture wanting to escape the present “indie malaise” but a structural issue of finance capital (and politics) refusing to invest - or even create space for, new ideas, new creativity, new art, new politics. And yes of course we shouldn’t count on capital to save us - artistically or otherwise - in fact, it won’t, but anyone who has tried to start something new knows that you need some degree of funding- somewhere to play (i could do my venue payout financial breakdown, but basically if you sell out a typical rock venue, a single band on a three-band bill will take home around 15 cents of every dollar you paid for a $15 plus fees, so $20, ticket lol) - somewhere to exist - and in late stage capitalism in new york city that requires money. it’s not just a distraction - it’s that there’s no room to breathe. it is like “eating because you’re bored” in the sense that you don’t need to try something new, you can be content with what you know you already like. It’s an addition like the addiction to scrolling: mundane, and boring, a guaranteed dopamine hit that won’t inspire you or won’t make you feel better, a wish for security and safety that gen z so secretly craves, especially as politics gets more vile, cynical, fascist, and feels impossible to penetrate. a turn to nostalgia, or post-irony, in art and politics leaves something so wanting and a bridge so impossible to cross.
there is something about the fear of anything new, the images reverberating, the commodified nostalgia, the search for truth, the fear of earnestness, the uselessness of earnestness, here. all these things eat at our soul, our culture and our politics. i too, have been transformed by this unrelenting hegemonic force, by a fear of being corny artistically. and then the other morning, sam sat on my couch and played a riff similar to pink floyd’s wish you were here and then i made him play the actual song and while we laughed at the corniness and earnestness of the lyrics i teared up because fuck is this really where we’re at? no one could really pull off writing a song like that today, for all the reasons outlined here. and maybe that is the problem. we’re all stuck as Narcissus and the river is the simulation and i don’t know how we can jump off the bridge to do anything earnest, artistically and/or politically, or otherwise, but we kind of need to jump.
anyway let me know if i’m way off base or if you got any ideas… again, sorely need them.
much love <3