From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V19 #84 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, October 8 2011 Volume 19 : Number 084 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: How do you work this thing? [Jeremy Osner ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2011 13:13:37 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Re: How do you work this thing? Yeah, I wouldn't be a fan of any musician whose fan club would have me in it. (Present company excepted of course.) 2011/10/8 lep : > Miles Goosens says: >> I get 'not judging a band by its fans,' and I belong to a couple of >> subsets myself (the Cure, the Smiths/Morrissey) where I wouldn't >> identify myself to a new acquaintance as a fan right away lest they >> think they're going to be subjected to my dire death-dirge poetry, >> which I'll be reading to them from my ER bed as I recover from my >> fourth botched suicide attempt. But I have never had a particular >> negative association with the R.E.M. fanbase, at least before the new >> wave of shallow strummy yuppies who came into the fold after OOT and >> Automatic. So this caught me a bit off guard. >> >> On 10/8/11, lep wrote: >>> Hi List, >>> >>> I've been meaning to chime in on R.E.M., basically just to say that, >>> since "Monster" is my favourite R.E.M. album, I've recused myself from >>> the discussion (I had a long-standing problem with R.E.M. fans, as I >>> did with Smiths fans, and kind of stayed away from the band until I >>> saw the wonderful black & white documentary of the "Monster" tour. >>> Just a ten-second clip of Stipe (who I mistakenly called Stripe for >>> years) singing "Wichita Lineman" was enough to swing the mistake I had >>> made of judging a band by its fans. > > The feeling I got from R.E.M. fans was distinct from the feeling I got > from Smiths fans -- with R.E.M., it had to do with a cliquish vibe > that I got from fans, and that you had to enter into to some tacit > agreement that R.E.M. was The Greatest Band That Ever Existed to get > along with them, and then you'd probably have to go into some > mysterious underworld where you transcribed and bickered about the > lyrics of their early albums (the earlier, the more bickering.) I > know they have a fan club, and while I have nothing against fan clubs > (in fact, I respect R.E.M. for giving a lot to their fans), it > wouldn't surprise me if R.E.M. didn't have one of the most active fan > clubs. They were just that kind of band, it seemed, and, I'm just not > very agreeable by nature. > > The Smiths fans were more of the vibe that they loved the The Smiths > SO much that they actually didn't want YOU to listen to them, because > you're certainly not that cool (I didn't find it all that surprising > that once bootleg stuff became fairly easy to get online, Smiths stuff > was among the most rare and difficult to obtain because fans weren't > very share-y.) It took SPIN magazine's voting The Queen is Dead the > best record ever made (or something) (this was probably the early to > mid-'90s?) for me to give the band a chance (it's still my favourite > Smiths album, and probably would be if only for Cemetry Gates...but > there's the other songs on there as well -- not a clunker in the > bunch.) Smith fans seem just not very agreeable by nature, and, hell, > I had enough of that going on already. > > Of course I'm generalizing, but only because generalizing is so fun and useful. > > as ever, > Lauren > > -- > "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V19 #84 *******************************