20 July 2008 |
So Long, Flyover Country

This will explain in part why I can't wait to get out of Wisconsin. A couple of months after I arrived, I wrote for the local alternative weekly, The Isthmus, a sort of critical survey of local (Madison) music scene. I took care, because I hoped to be liked, to praise more local music than I disparaged, but oh, how I seemed to have displeased the locals! The lead singer of a mediocre, (very) vaguely Pretenders-ish foursome (of which she conveniently neglected to identify herself as a member, presumably in hopes of appearing objective) dashed off this Letter to the Editor:

Dear L.A. reject: Welcome to the farm league. How bad of a writer do you have to be to be sent to "flyover country"? The local nutbars at Isthmus might be impressed by losers from L.A. with "credentials." But I'm not.

Do your homework. Go to some shows. Figure out what you can do to make the scene better. Meet the musicians. Don't use your beloved connections to David Bowie to get a cover article. In short, shut the fuck up!

— Pam Barrett

Sent? By whom could she have imagined I'd been "sent?" And the fact was that I'd done a great, great deal of homework, and made a point of meeting all the local musicians I admired, which didn't include her because she's Ms. Mediocrity. I'd mentioned my brief friendship jokingly, and in passing, at the insistence of my editor, who thought I needed to specify my, uh, credentials. The words Flyover Country had never passed my lips, or my fingertips.

In any event, I then heard from another in Barrett's camp:

To the formerly famous Mr. Mendels(s)ohn (whom I'd formerly never heard of), There's an old saying here in Madison: Those who can, do. Those who can't, write for the Isthmus. What instrument do you play, and when can we hear you play it? Just wondering ... [Name Withheld (by JNM)]

[My response] Hello, Name Withheld. I play keyboards, guitar, and drums, all pretty poorly (and like to imagine that I arrange and compose really well), and if you suggest that my not being a proficient guitarist, for instance, precludes my observing that Madison Jazz Orchestra is a bunch of obnoxious showoffs, I will draw myself up to my full 6-1 and say, "I believe you to be woefully mistaken, madam." Shall we meet for cocktails one evening soon?

[Name Withheld] Hello, back at you. I realize that my letter was a little on the snide side, for which I apologize. I just think you may have sacrificed some substantive review of very hardworking local bands for what sounded snarky. My true confession is that I am married to one of [Barrett’s band], and felt like you dismissed them out of hand as -- what was it, "Contemporary Classics" (or was it classically contemporary, I forget) which is essentially meaningless.

[JNM] Not meaningless at all, missus. I suggested that they sound very familiar and conventional, and they do, nice and safe. And the fact that a band is hardworking doesn't make it notable. The hardest thing in the world is to hear your own music or the music of someone you love with your ears rather than your heart. I heard [Barrett’s band] with my ears, and found them reasonably pleasant and utterly unremarkable. But [Barrett] imagining herself to be within light years of Chrissie Hynde (as the band suggests on its predictably ugly website) is like me imagining myself to be Philip Roth. Wishing will not make it so.

I've been thinking about your original comment, which suggested that if I couldn't play guitar really well, I had no business writing about guitarists. By this logic, we would have been denied the sublime film criticism of Pauline Kael, and goodbye, Greil Marcus, in rock. Is that really what you want? It sure isn't what I want.

[Name Withheld] By your own admission, you've been in Madison only a short time, and it rankles just a little bit to have somebody breezing into town and basically crapping on the local music, well-deserved or not.

[JNM] Extraordinary that you should perceive me as having "crapped" on the local scene. I start the piece by celebrating the fact that there's a wealth of good local music available, and then go on to praise a great many local musicians. And I've "crapped" on the local scene? How? By disliking the Madison Jazz Orchestra? By finding Pale Young Gentlemen precious? How defensive and parochial you are, Name Withheld.

[Name Withheld] Hardworking may not make a band notable, but hardworking is still hardworking. If you want to dump on a band, go after millionaire Michael Hecht with his private jet and his hobby band Primitive Culture.

[JNM] If Primitive Culture, which I haven't heard, made music that, for whatever reason, happened to tickle my own personal musical G-spot, should I condemn them because one of them is rich? Should I, conversely, celebrate the music of anyone really poor? What sort of nonsensical critical criterion is that, exactly? As for it being a hobby band, are only those bands who do it full time worthy of respect? My guess is that might exclude [Barrett’s band].

[Name Withheld] And another thing, I really didn't mean to suggest that if you can't play guitar well you have no business writing about guitarists. I do think your article was ...inclined toward peevishness at nearly everyone and everything. It didn't even strike me as being about criticism. It was just about shitting on as many bands as you possibly could in one place.

Maybe it's me: In my line of work I'm into trying to lift everyone up, not striking them down. Maybe that's why you're a music critic and I'm an elementary school teacher.

[JNM] Well, noble, noble you, Name Withheld, and evil, indefensible me. Let me use the same sort of sentimental bullshit argument on you you're so happy to use on me. If you don't like the Isthmus, and you're so good at discerning focus and its absence, and musical worth and its absence, and you're so wonderfully beneficient (as opposed to me, the wanton crapper on everything and everybody) why don't you, instead of whining, offer them your services, and...uplifit it? And for one who started this exchange with an extraordinarily...snarky letter, isn't it hypocritical for you to find snark so objectionable?

So what did Name Withheld do as the exchange was becoming divertingly heated? Told on me. Contacted the Isthmus and told ‘em I was harassing her.

There isn’t much, beside the missus and my friends Rod and Anna, I like about the UK, but a word its inhabitants use at a time like this just feels so perfect:

Wanker.

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