Corey On: Vivian Girls Breaking Up, Bands Sucking

Corey C. came to us from the sands of the internet and he is rad. This is his column, "Corey On."

By: Corey C.

Recent Internet news claims that the Vivian Girls are ‘breaking up’ and ‘playing a few bye-bye shows’. 

I approve of the first part. Most bands should break-up. The world would be better with fewer bands. If you’re reading this, and you’re in a band, please break up, then start a new band with cooler people with better taste and cheaper guitars. 

Whenever I am reminded of the Vivian Girls, I think of the two times I saw them perform, two nights that were memorable in spite of their mediocre music. And that’s fine, no great loss to humanity. Just another middling buzz-band created in the 2005-10 Internet Indie Rock Implosion that once upon a time made a couple nights more boring. They played a role in my music-appreciation education: I needed to see boring bands, so then I could properly value good bands.

No, it’s not their overall existence that’s irritating me. It’s the part about them saying bye-bye in a public forum, that’s the part that’s driving me crazy, cuz Vivian Girls aren’t a good live band. Why are they playing these shows? To remind us of how poorly their sound has aged over the past five years? To prove again that they’re not very interesting people or musicians? Shouldn’t they just stop and limp off into the sunset, like most bands that got their fifteen minutes of Internet fame? The best answer to all these questions is that their fame sure is fleeting, and they need to cash in on that shit in a hurry.

Money drives this hilariously-named ‘independent music industry’, no matter how DIY and anti-corporate anyone tells you they are. I learned this unquestionable but now-obvious fact during my senior year in college. I represented my school’s radio station for the College Music Journal (CMJ) Music Marathon, a weeklong convention and concert series, always held in New York City. This was my third time attending this corrupt and tasteless bullshit handjob factory, and I was determined to ignore and chastise as many college radio promoters as possible.  

One night the Vivian Girls were playing at the CMJ Redbull and Paste Magazine Artist Lounge. Looking at the old flyer for it, I’m reminded of double-fisting free Red Bull and Pabst Blue Ribbon and sitting in a window seat and staring out at the New York City streets and thinking about having a helluva time finding the place cuz these were the days before GPS iPhones and I have the worst sense of direction and I’d try to use a map and would always get lost trying to find these damn shows at CMJ that I’d need super-duper VIP status to get into half the time, and was forced to give hand jobs to get into the shows, and half the time the bands fuckin’ sucked anyways, so what was the point trying to run around New York city and get rejected half the time and be disappointed the other half?

And why was I at this show? The Vivian Girls, I suppose, sounded like a cool band to me, at the time, mostly because I was 21 and hadn’t heard a band like that before. Five years later, when I’m bored, I like to lazily make fun of bands that were clearly influenced by the Vivians. (You know Best Coast? More like Worst Coast.)

I’m remembering now how I was sitting there in this window seat and I was pissed cuz my radio station friends had taken the L into Brooklyn to Death by Audio to see Parts and Labor and Double Dagger and I was alone, in lower west-side Manhattan, 40 Thompson St., in this room that wasn’t even a real rock club, sipping on warm Red Bull and warmer Pabst Blue Ribbon and getting the worst vibes from the bouncers who were lining the floor and looking menacing.

I am now shaking my head at myself for missing that show at Death by Audio. No bouncers at that show. But at the time, I was pissed my friends didn’t come with me. They didn’t care about the Vivian Girls, and, upon reflection, I don’t blame them. A couple months later I would become unreasonably obsessed with both Parts and Labor and Double Dagger and I’d see them play before they both broke up, and I tried making up for that original sin of missing them play at a DIY show in 2008, and Lord I prayed for my forgiveness!

Before reminiscing about Vivian Girls sucking, I must recount seeing Cheeseburger at this show. They played directly before Vivian Girls and are best known for writing the theme song to Superjail!, a hilarious, psychedelic animated show found on Adult Swim which, apparently, their guitarist co-created. My friend once reviewed one of their records and described them as a ‘more drunk and sloppy version of The Stooges.’ Of course, their set was awesome, and their belligerent attitudes saved my night from total disappointment, and in-fact educated me to the delights of non-professional performances, or, having fun.

 

Right before their set, someone involved with the band asked me for or offered me cocaine in the bathroom, then the same guy got kicked out of the show by one of the burly, uptight bouncer dudes after he had half-heartedly tried starting a mosh pit with the other 12 people surrounding the stage, and the bouncer-guy over-reacted and was way-over-the-top, and everyone was like, whoa, easy does it. Paste and Red Bull and CMJ do not fuck around. Cheeseburger’s music was ridiculous and stupid and the singer balanced a Red Bull on his head cuz it was funny, but the unnecessary escort out of the show by the over-zealous bouncer certainly took the wind outta Cheeseburger’s sails. 

The awkwardness continued into the Vivian Girls’ set. Apparently, they were playing a cooler, more underground show somewhere in Brooklyn the next day, and nobody came out to see them that night, because they were playing in this stupid corporate-sponsored venue. Turns out, they sucked, and maybe they weren’t trying cuz no one was there? Cheeseburger at least decided to try to have fun, they put their efforts in the right direction, because life is short, and playing a rock show does not need to be taken that seriously, ever. 

Listen, Vivian Girls, they truly sounded awful. There’s no other way to put it. No energy, stage presence, or any relative enjoyable-sounding music emanated from their collection of instruments onstage. It was hard to discern one song from the next. It was like watching boring incarnate. And they were taking it all so very seriously, a bigger offense than anything else that went on that night. 

I left that night pretty pissed off, especially after I heard about the glories of the Death by Audio show, although my friend did get too drunk and made everyone miss the train home and they got back to our hostel in Harlem super late. Glad I missed that part.

OK, if you think that I may have seen the Vivian Girls on an off-night, due to the truly dreadful venue, I have yet another example of their incompetence. This was three years later, at The Met in Pawtucket, RI, on tour with The Black Lips, April 2011.

I remember there was a fresh no-moshing sign hanging up to the left of the stage. I observed a bartender shouting at spliff-smoking riffraff hanging out on the back deck of the place. I sorta got in a confrontation on that deck with John McCauley from Deer Tick. I was talking about how Deer Tick’s new ballad-heavy stuff sounded boring and I wish they had more gone down a drunken Black Lips path and, you know, rocked a little harder, and had more fun, like this band Cheeseburger I had seen last time I saw Vivian Girls… 

And lo and behold, there’s Mr. McCauley himself, directly behind me, as I’m saying this, and he definitely heard me, and I try to play it off like I was joking and he’s kinda getting a little jaunty and in my face, or maybe vice-versa, me in his face, but either way, it was getting somewhat confrontational, a rumble was about to break out and luckily my friend knew Mr. Deer Tick, and he made a joke and defused the situation, and then the three of us talked about how we wish we were seeing Vivian Girls and Black Lips three years ago, and I start telling them how Vivian Girls sucked three years ago. I heard that The Black Lips had played three years ago and allegedly peed all over AS220, the legendary Providence art space, and that I approved of such shenanigans because they make me laugh and there are so many uptight artist-types in there. Unfortunately, I heard there was no crowd for that Black Lips show at AS220, but whatever, peeing your pants is still the coolest.

Soon after this little chat, the Vivian Girls played, and totally sucked again, but hey, one of them did learn how to play a guitar solo! And, you see, I got so bored, and imagine if I hadn’t been so bored I wouldn’t have done this, but I was totally and completely bored, and I decided to text a girl I had awkwardly hooked up with the weekend before, and I told her that she kinda looks like the cute girl from Vivian Girls or something as clumsy and obvious and then she immediately texted me back to tell me that she had met somebody else and that we should stop seeing each other or having any contact at all. I was bummed, but at least we had made out a Parts and Labor show.

Corey C. appears courtesy of the @whatgoesonline Zine

I Also Typed A Bunch Of True Detective References Into Google

By: Ben Johnson

 

Fans of HBO’s mesmerizing True Detective know by now that not everything is as it seems, but did you know that you could type in a bunch of references from the show’s mythology into Google in order to destroy all sense of joy and fun and mystery in the universe? It’s true!

Here are some things from the show I typed into Google in order to tell you about them as if I thought of them while I was watching the show.

1. Detective Novels Set in Louisiana

It turns out the show that we all know and love owes a debt of stylistic gratitude to detective novelist James Lee Burke, whose recurring character Dave Robicheaux is also based out of some of the same Louisiana settings as our True Detective heroes Martin Hart and Rust Cohle. Burke functions in the same milieu as True Detective, among the lowlifes and the very dark recesses of the Louisiana bayou, and also employs heavy doses of surrealism to put a spooky spin on the genre, notably in his “In The Electric Mists With The Confederate Dead.”

Isn’t it great that Google told me that? I’m smart. Now you read this, so you are also smart. I recommend reading some James Lee Burke novels in order to really really be smart while watching a TV show you enjoy. But reading this thing I am writing for you now might be a good substitute. Bottom line: there is such a thing as being good at watching TV, and reading about the things I just now looked for on Google can help you accomplish this.

2. Some of the Music from the Show

One of the things that makes this show great is its use of music. Guess who used Google to find out all about the music from the show? I did. Turns out that such a thing is possible. The show has songs from rock bands I know about already such as The Black Angels and The 13^th Floor Elevators and Melvins and even a weird part where a Louisiana roller rink DJ in the year 1996 is playing The Kinks instead of Mark Morrison.

The point is this: I looked all of this up on Google. You’re just going to have to take my word for it that I’ve heard of the Melvins. But duh. Of course I’ve heard of the Melvins. The Melvins formed in Aberdeen/Montesano, WA in 1983 the founding members were Buzz, Mike Dillard (drums), and ex-Mudhoney bassist Matt Lukin. Duh. Everybody knows that, in that exact wording. Especially me. And now, thanks to this great article you’re reading on the internet, so do you.

3. Articles about enjoying things

According to this Google search I just did, the key to enjoying things is to relax. You just sit there, and you try to be attentive and relaxed and present and available, and you let the thing you enjoy wash over you like a warm bath. You don’t run out to go do battle with it, screaming and brandishing intellectual weapons. You accept it calmly, and you allow it to affect you in whatever natural way it does or does not affect you, and then you go on with your life, enriched by having fully experienced the thing that you enjoy. You do not set up a cottage industry touting its virtues. You do not infuse its essence into your sense of self. You do not conflate your ability to define and understand its merits with a validation of your own existence. You merely breathe it in, hold it, and exhale it.

Aren’t you glad I found that stuff on Google? Man, Google has everything.

4. Articles about the “true meaning” of everything in the show

Okay, but also, if you like that show True Detective and think it’s just a super TV show for watching, there’s no reason you shouldn’t totally ruin that for yourself by reading every article you can about it by other people like me who also typed things into Google and also are proud of themselves. I am proud of myself. Would it interest you to know that the people who created this enjoyable TV show have been drawing on preexisting information for inspiration? That the entire creative process, and hence, sum total of human cultural output consists of reconstituted regurgitations of previously existing thoughts and concepts, that the lives of even the most skilled artists and entertainers is devoid of any real meaning, and therefore your own life, where you are not particularly skilled at any one thing, is even more utterly devoid of meaning? Isn’t it even worse that we have this thing called the internet with a Google on it you can type things into and instantly no longer be impressed by anything any human does? Wouldn’t you like to see everything you or any of the rest of us do or try as a huge neverending trap, a grand inescapable cosmic joke? Wouldn’t you like to read an article on the internet about a TV show you like which also subtly reminds you of that?

I bet you would. You’re reading this one, for example. OMG, it's almost like how Detective Cohle is always talking about how miserable and insignificant human life is! Wowee wow wow WOW.

5. Everything about the internet

Google tells me that the internet is a place for elitist swine to argue into infinity about nothing as the world crumbles around them. Google says that the internet, though not fully monetized and therefore democratic, increasingly is democratizing content only among a detached and privileged internet-literate class. That internet content is fully customizable and causes entrenchments along ideological and socioeconomic lines, that we are all sitting around jamming our collective thumbs up our asses about a fucking television show. Even though it’s really, really good.

So there you have it. Everything I typed into Google about True Detective. I am smart. You are smart. Our lives are already over.

@itisbenjo

7 Even Secreter Secret Tips For Getting Press For Your Shitty Band

By: Ben Johnson 

a band

My co-Bozo Kelly McClure is a music publicist, and not wanting to get her fired constitutes probably 90% of the stuff I might want to post here about the world of music but don’t. This is not actually a problem. Not saying things about the world of music is often what the world of music needs. And what am I gonna say about music? Something? No way. Who cares what I think. I’m just some guy. I listen to music just like everybody. Big deal.

But: Kelly posted this thing on her social media that’s 30 tips for getting press for your band, and I read it, and it’s wrong. So, you know, I have a duty to say something. Because.

Here are some even more secreter secret tips for getting press for your shitty band.

1. Try not to suck.

This is the one everybody messes up the most. At any given time in the history of the earth there has only ever been anywhere from three to eight current bands that don’t suck. Be one of those bands. If you’re not one of those bands, consider not being a band. If you really can’t stop yourself from being a band, try your hardest to not suck. Like practice a lot, or don’t practice and concentrate on being more fun. Maybe you could increase the volume and intensity of the music you are making, or try writing a song about something that doesn’t suck. Hint: all of your feelings about everything suck. By trying not to suck, you distinguish yourself from other bands because most bands don’t even TRY not to suck.

2. Are you sucking?

How do you know if you suck, though? Here’s a good one: if you’re sitting around working on a new song with your band and you’re consciously, even vocally discussing ways you can make the song more appealing to somebody who might want to put that song in a Volvo commercial. That’s just one example of a way to suck a lot. There are others. Talking about them too hard might get Kelly fired though. Think about how actually interested you are in getting more press for you band, though. Think about why you are interested in that. Think about it hard. Maybe you could get a fucking job, and use the money from that job to pay a therapist to help you figure out why you need the approval of strangers so much (it’s because of your dad, not because you’re the next evolution of Iggy Pop and nobody knows it yet).

3. Maybe you are sucking.

If you are currently arguing about what clothes you should or should not all wear. That’s another one. If somebody in your band wants to wear shorts, you don’t have a big fucking discussion about it, you just kick that person out of the band and replace them with somebody who doesn’t suck. No discussion necessary. For example. Or if your lead singer has this concept and somebody’s making uniforms, and you think it sucks too much and is too embarrassing to participate in, quit the band. If you don’t think your lead singer’s uniform idea sucks a quit-the-band amount, wear the uniform thing and shut up about it. You didn’t think of the uniform thing, it wasn’t your idea, so you don’t need to make it your idea by telling everybody your opinion about it before you put the uniform on. You can be a band that dresses up like cave men and dinosaurs if you want. But bands who have conversations longer than one minute about what they should wear or what their “look” should be are bands in mid-suck.

4. There are ways to know if you suck.

Let’s say you play a gig. Do people other than you seem like they are having any fun whatsoever while you are playing? If not, probably you suck. “Fun” can even include graduate students nodding like they agree with your thesis, but if so your band probably sucks at sucking more so than you just don’t suck at all.

5. Maybe, actually, you don’t suck enough.

That thing Kelly posted talks about how unprofessional it is to show up in person to the offices of a publication that you want to get press from. It is a bad idea, says the thing. I agree with this. What makes it a bad idea is the execution, though. It is a very bad idea to show up at the offices of a music publication and politely wait around to meet with somebody who can help your music career. It is a very good idea to show up at the offices of a music publication and make wild nonsensical demands until the police escort you out. Feel free to name drop at an insane volume, act abusively, and engage in the use of illicit substances, and commit several other felonies and misdemeanors. Do not allow your sense of purpose to be deflated by the slumping, dejected body language of whatever poor intern was assigned to watch the front desk. You need to be yelling things like “I WANT YOU TO GO IN THERE AND TELL THAT SLIMESUCKER JANN WENNER THAT GROOVE TUBE [note: your actual band’s name is of course not “Groove Tube”] IS HERE TO DESTROY MUSIC IN THE YEAR 2014. MATTER OF FACT, WE’LL TELL HIM OURSELVES.” Then you go in and play monkey in the middle with some unfortunate geek’s yoga ball while climbing the cubicle walls and screaming “ALRIGHT, LISTEN UP, THIS IS A PARTY, I WANNA SEE DICKS IN THE AIR!!!” Remember: your band probably sucks, but working at some shitty music rag also sucks. Sure, everybody there is under a lot of “pressure” to meet “deadlines,” but not really. It’s not like somebody’s got their parents tied to a bunch of sticks of dynamite in the next room or anything. And sure, you’ll get arrested for this, but you’ll also get press. How serious are you about getting press? Pussy Riot serious? There is no way Pussy Riot isn’t, musically speaking, a shitty band. And now look at them. International celebrities with the ear of the world. That could be you.

6. Or hire a publicist who will do that for you so you don’t have to.

Kelly will probably do that. Kelly, would you do that? You should list “full scale irrational media harassment service” as a premium option. Actually, fuck Kelly. Any band with $10,000 plus bail money, contact me. I will go to the offices of a publication of your choice and holler a bunch of insensible garbage until physically removed from the premises. Then I will tell everybody in a professionally-formatted press release why I did it, either admitting to a classic “put on” by your band, or to a “put on” by another rival band, or else, if the check bounces, I will continue as my own minor internet-level public entity, “Groove Tube’s Number One Fan.”

7. Name your band “Groove Tube.”

There needs to be a band called Groove Tube that is famous. Come on. Groove Tube. Name your band Groove Tube and put out an album as Groove Tube, and I will do all the above for free. I care that much about publicity.

Thanks,

Ben

@itisbenjo

Would You Rather Something Something or Have Vomit in Your Hair?

By: Kelly McClure

There are certain celebrities who I think of fairly regularly, and I usually choose to make these thoughts known via Twitter. It would be an easy enough thing to have a thought like "I wonder what Lily Tomlin is wearing today, probably a denim shirt," and keep that thought inside your head, but since we live in an age where things exist (such as Twitter) that allow us to take these thoughts and throw them like a clump of wet noodles against the walls of the sucking vortex of the cyber world, why not do it? Not doing it is basically no different than doing it, in that neither choice will make any difference in the world, and neither will any other choice. So just do it. Basically what I'm saying, in general, is: who gives a shit, we're all gonna die.

There are two celebrities who I thought of recently. One of the celebrities I think of fairly regularly, and the other one I pretty much never think of ever. Those two celebrities are Sandra Bernhard, and Jay Leno. Spoiler: They fucked. 

When I was in high school I was pretty interested in some pretty weird shit. I didn't know much about anything, but I knew that I for sure wanted to learn as much as possible about pervy naked lady stuff, and I guess vampires and serial killers too. These are two very different, and yet historically intersecting roads of a human brain and luckily for myself, the Chicago, Greater Los Angeles, and now NY prison systems, and the world at large, I stuck pretty close to the guard rails of pervy road and not wet lumpy trashbags of human parts under my floor boards road.

A good thing that can be said about life is that sometimes two different things you enjoy will have something to do with each other. For instance: Sandra Bernhard is funny, and she's also a lesbo, which is another thing I like. If it's two things I like, it's lesbianism, and funny things. That's TWO things, and sometimes they'll be mushed together in one person, such as in the case of Sandra Bernhard. 

I read Sandra Bernhard's autobiography in high school. I think she has two of them, and I can't remember the names of them, but I KNOW that I read them both. Even if it turns out that there's a third one, I read that one too. In this first autobiography of hers she mentions a lot of facts but the one that I randomly thought of the other day, and decided to tweet about was:

And this is true. Sandra Bernhard got naked with a naked Jay Leno and they touched genitals. She also made mention of the fact that his private man areas are huge. She used the word HUGE. He was apparently so huge, that she felt like HER private lady areas may not be able to accommodate his hugeness. This seems like a good problem for a man to have, but then maybe it's not because it creates a problem, and having problems during sex things is usually something you want to avoid. I don't know. What I DO know is that thinking about Sandra Bernhard having genitals sex with Jay Leno makes me want to puke, and apparently, (I learned this on account of Twitter, which you'll see) it makes other people want to puke too. Here's what that tweet about that thing I thought about resulted in:

With the facts laid out in front of us like this it's easy to see that:

1) Most importantly, people like me.
2) Second in importance: hot ladies on the Internet know what Total Bozo is.
3) A diverse sampling of personalities on the Internet agree that the risk of getting puke in their hair is less horrifying than the thought of having genitals sex with Jay Leno.

I was thinking about this in the shower yesterday morning ... if it's one thing about puking, it's that it usually makes you feel better. In almost any situation: anxiety, illness, booze-ery, if I throw up, I will feel better afterwards. I don't think that there's any magic to be found in releasing burny food chunk water out of your mouth, so it's not to say that VOMIT in and of itself is a healing tonic. No. Perhaps it's the act of doing something pro-active at a moment of uncomfortability that does the trick. Try out this new motto: When nothing else works: try puking.

There is nothing pro-active about having genitals sex with Jay Leno. Therefore it's safe to conclude:

Puking > Jay Leno

@wolfievibes