Pretentious Record Store Blog

If youre like me then youre 510, rail thin, ridiculously good looking and your hair is the elixir from which dreams are made. Youre also a pretentious music fan, an aficionado of the underground, the litmus test by which any band who is anyone will be judged and blogged by before their fist single even makes it to a mall to be sold at Sam Goody and purchased by know-nothings who will only buy whatever Rolling Stone, Spin or A.P. advertisers steer them towards. We are the taste makers that serve up our sacrificial lambs to the mainstream so that they can die and be be resurrected in the temple of rock.

You might even watch The O.C., which brings me to my point or rather to the question which I pose herein:

If an Indie band sold out on The O.C. would there be any hipsters left to watch?

More and more every concert I go to is being populated by a litany of teens and preteens. I now find myself having to navigate the narrows of the pit with sinewy, gawky, thirteen year olds who are all elbows, while their parents stand three feet behind me staring at me, silently judging me, while I drink my intoxicants and smoke my Camel lights. This has seriously begun to dampen my joy for the live show, a staple of my pretentious existence.

While I cannot hold this against the young, for we were all once preteen unpretentious music lovers at one time or another before we became schooled in rock, I do hold one man personally responsible. That man is Seth Cohen.

Fuck Seth Cohen!

Seth Cohen has ruined my life! He has taken the one thing in the world that I hold dear and prostituted it for the world to take turns with and discard after their momentary desire is satisfied. He has taken a great many of my favorite Indie bands and served them up for the mainstream masses to suckle upon their teat. And, oh how every band is lining up for their turn to bare their breasts!

Now I am all for spreading the word and getting great music heard, but at the same time music is the one thing, the only thing that I care about. Discovering a band is a very special thing. Getting in on the ground floor, being one of the first people at the concert who knows all the songs, meeting the band after the show and helping spread the word through the underground is an unequaled experience. When a band finally breaks the mainstream you feel some sort of satisfaction in knowing that you did your part to help them along the way; they will always be your own little special band.

Not anymore. Every Thursday Seth Cohen and The O.C. would break my heart each week while serving up another one of my favorite bands to be gorged and devoured by mainstream America, a trend that has been taken up by Grey’s Anatomy, Gossip Girl and a plethora of other shows. I for one am glad that The O.C. was canceled because it serves as proof that there is a higher intelligence out there in the universe.

And each passing week I feel a little bit sadder and a little bit older and a little bit more meaningless.

Thanks, Seth Cohen.

If I could ever meet Seth Cohen this is what I would say, “Go fuck yourself very much. Douche.”

So the other day I finally got a chance to see one of my all time favorite bands, Radiohead, live and in concert. I was a little hesitant because they were playing at the crappy Verizon Amphitheater which has the lovely benefit of making all bands sound like crap, and as a bonus you get stuck in a two hour traffic jam on your way out. Thank you Maryland Heights for thinking things out in advance. Jerks.

After raining for three straight days and most of the morning, the skies parted and a cool summer breeze blew off the banks of the mighty Missouri as the sun began to set and Thom Yorke and company took the stage. It was a beautiful night indeed. Radiohead sounded pitch perfect, defying the Verizon Amphitheater’s gods of bad acoustics, and put on a stellar performance.

Sticking mainly to the newer material, Radiohead put on an interactive performance that fits in nicely with their recent aesthetics. The five cameras focused on each band member and projected onto the screen a quasi multi-paneled presentation that would have been quite a trip under certain substances but was nonetheless impressive on a fairly clear head. Playing two encores, Radiohead closed with some classic materials and left all those in attendance absolutely mesmerized.

I can’t wait until my hookup gets me the soundboard recording of the show. That’s how Pretentious Record Store Guy rolls, fool!

Rhino just keeps doing it. A few weeks ago they re-released all The Replacements Twin Tone albums as remastered editions with b-sides, outtakes, and in depth liner notes. What else could any hipster alt rock fan dream of?

So, on order of release there was Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, Stink, Hootenanny and then their Twin Tone apex of Let It Be. Who else would dare to blatantly ape The Beatles title but Paul Westerberg and company? Those Minnesota boys have some bravado, and with due reason: Youth never sounded more beautiful as when captured by Paul Westerberg, Chris Mars, Bob Stinson, and Tommy Stinson.

Do you doubt the wisdom of Pretentious Record Store Guy? Then pop in Let It Be and be instantaneously mesmerized by “I Will Dare” and continues all the way through to “Answering Machine”. In between are gems of “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out”, “Androgynous”, and “Unsatisfied” maybe the best answer to Mick and Kieth’s opus to Satisfaction.

How do you say I love you to an answering machine?
How do you say I need you to an answering maching?

Often considered either the best band or worst band ever based solely on their live shows, The Mats live were either an exercise in organized chaos coming together in unified excellence or simply mass chaos. Unfortunately, Pretentious Record Store Guy was too young to ever see the The Mats live and in person, but he has caught Westerberg on tour with Grandpaboy and it was amazing.

Now if they’d only get to the Warner Bros. records and get Pleased to Meet Me and Don’t Tell A Soul…

Trent Reznor is a really nice guy.  He just made a new Nine Inch Nails album called The Slip and he likes his fans so much that he decided to give it to them for free!  That’s right, Trent Reznor is giving away the new album digitally, 100% free, with physical copies coming out in July. Unlike the free Radiohead, which was encoded in a low quality bitrate which kind of made you have to buy the actual CD on top of any donations you might have given for the free one, it’s actually excellent quality in multiple formats, with no option for spending money on it.  Plus there is a downloadable PDF that contains all the artwork so you can print off a cover for your CD.

Here is what he says on his site: “Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me.”

How nice it that?  So what are you waiting for?  Go download it now:

http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

Enjoy.