Still on that Microcastle tish

It isn't often in conversation that I mention the fact that I'm one of the co-owners of the music blog Resonator Magazine (or, if you're one of the cool kids, which I most certainly am not, it's "Res Mag", because abbreviations are so hip for 2009, particularly if they're three letters long and, um, if there are two of them). This is for a few reasons. One is the fact that my writing there is done under the pseudonym of Shaun Bateman-an homage to a recurrent character in the fiction writing of Bret Easton Ellis, who, yes, I am always talking about.

The other is that, um...it's RESONATOR. It's not exactly like we're talking Superfamous IndieRock Review of Ye Musicks That Is For The Listenings, or anything like that. I mean, Resonator has had some mentions here or there...mentions which, if given the proper opportunity, or a few vodka tonics (which basically ends up equaling "the proper opportunity" when all's said and done), we will trot out and trump up again. And again. And again.

Ask me about the time NY Magazine mentioned us. Do it. And then ask me again, because I'll repeat it.

So that's why, when last night at Bookhouse, which has become my new favorite little Atlanta spot to nurse something which, when imbibed, will cause me to lose all fear of the police, I distinctly heard, in a booth across from my friends and I, discussion involving Res Mag. So distinctly, in fact, that my friends all perked up to listen.

I mean, one would assume that, were one to operate a music blog, that there's like one billionth of a hundredth of a chance that one person might read it, and that an operator of said blog could, potentially, be in the exact same room as said blog's one reader at some point. However, chances are exponentially better that you'd die in a fiery plane crash, and as a result I'm now I'm never, ever, flying again.

I use all of this as an overly-wordy intro to the fact that, though I feel that my writing on Res has gotten away from waxing intellisophical on whatever I'm currently listening to and moved more towards a "this is new. here you go. form an opinion" mindset, which I fault squarely on the fact that most blog-based music writing is awful, artless and has absolutely no grounds to call itself "criticism". This isn't to say that my music writing is, or has ever been, artful or well-done, but hell, at least I try. Tried. Try. Still try, honestly, just not as often as I should.

And that's why I wanted to point a little link to some musings I did over on Res recently regarding the album that was, and still is, tops of the year for me: Deerhunter's Microcastle.



I began thinking both of how totally Proustian (read as: bedroom-ridden and bedroom-written) most of the album's lyrics are, and how my favorite song on the album (and my favorite song of al of last year), "Nothing Ever Happened", is totally the first forward-motion on the album, conjuring, for me, thoughts of my childhood hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and my need/desire to escape it.

In fact, I actually wrote, over on Res, something akin to:

The lyrics, like “focus on the depths that were never there/eliminate what you can’t repair”, take the rest of Microcastle’s Proustian qualities of bedroom stasis and actually force it into a sort of hesitant motion, in which you get the feeling that the song is pulling Bradford, rather than operating under his direction.

Pretentious? Oh god yes I am. And I don't deny it. But, to me, that's a better analysis of a piece of music than 'HEY D00DZ CHECK DIS", which is what I'm seeing so much of in terms of blog music writing these days. I don't know, maybe that doesn't bother you. But also, maybe, you're really a damn LOLcat...in which case, AWWWWWWWW!

You can read the rest of it, if you so desire, and also hear "Nothing Ever Happened" and a few more Deerhunter songs, at Resonator. Res Mag. Res.

We really need to figure out what abbreviation we're going to use and stick with it.