An Open Letter To The Hipster Community

Dear Hipsters,

I’m too fat to be a hipster. Huge fan of black. Black shirts. Black jeans. Maybe a skinny black tie here and there, you know, if the mood strikes me and I can offset it with the right striped shirt. I can’t fit into American Apparel Clothing. My vintage graphic tees are kitschy instead of edgy. They definitely aren’t one of kind.

Square-framed glasses and a round face just don’t jive. Besides, I have perfect vision and filling frames with clear glass is something Klosterman would do.

Speaking of Chuck, I read his oeuvre cover to cover. When I finished I told anyone in ear shot that I completely disagree with any stance he’s ever taken. Well, except for his essay on Billy Joel – Glass Houses is a fucking masterpiece.

I’m losing a lot of my hair, so I can’t get a unique hair cut to match the undiscovered gems on my iPod that – though you’re all hipsters – even you’ve never heard.

And though my awkward, chubby and Old Navy clad appearance may might not the fit the bill, I’m willing to have a Hipster-off any time you want. I always win because I cheat. You’ve heard of the Republic Tigers? Yeah, I saw them on Conan, too. They did the late night circuit after I bought them all a beer one night. Name your bands. I’ve got more. Ever heard of ‘Internet Browser Tool Bar’ or ‘Orange Water Bottle’ or ‘Black Moth Super Rainbow’? You know why? I just made all of those band names up. Except for Black Moth. I saw them play after the Republic Tigers, natch.

Natch, incidentally, is a phrase I coined a while ago back stage at a rock show. I said it to the lead singer of a band you’ve played for someone to show them how deep you are. He took it as his own and used it on stage that night. It spread. Later, we drank Colt .45s and smoked a pack of American Spirits.

Even though I’m busy hanging out at all the same shows you’re at — and a bunch of shows you’ve never even heard of — I’m always the odd man out. Girl jeans always give me wedgies and skinny ties look ridiculous on a big body.

Have you even seen me in American Apparel? No, obviously you haven’t, because if you did, I’d be sixty pounds skinnier and you’d be propping me up as your totally independent minded, wildly well coiffed and blessed-with-the-ability-to-herd-hipsters-like-retarded-cats leader. But such dreams infrequently come true, and that makes me long for things in life that are far out of my reach. Like red headed Punk Rock Girls.

That longing, paired with my solidly white, middle class upbringing make us a perfect match, even though the jeans will never fit quite right.

But, come on, I’ve got the semi underground Chuck Taylors that you all still wear. They always look good with my Polo shirt.

Ironic, isn’t it?

There’s one other potential problem that I’ve been loath to mention until now, but it’s got to be said: Death Cab For Cutie still sucks.

See you at the next secret underground show. I’ll be the guy with my hands in my pockets who outwardly appears to be even less into the music than you.

Brian

All Points West Update: Full sets from Radiohead, other headliners

I surfed over to the All Points West site this morning to send the link to a friend when I noticed they posted a fresh news announcement yesterday:

“The only metropolitan NY-NJ area appearances for Radiohead and Jack Johnson this year are at All Points West, with each act playing a full 2 hour set!

Radiohead is headlining the festival on both Friday, August 8th & Saturday, August 9th, and will have unique performances each night, much like their past two-night shows over the years in NYC.”

The announcement goes on to note that APW is Underworld’s first announced American performance in the US.

Take the Jack Johnson news however you want. Two hours of Johnson’s brand of surf music is at least one hour, 56 minutes and 30 seconds too long for me.   Four hours of Radiohead over two days is another story altogether. I’ll be bailing early Sunday morning to head back to Boston in order to catch the lads from Oxfordshire again Wednesday the 13th.

Three times in one week

August 8th and 9th. Then again the following Wednesday, the 13th.

Melancholy and the Infinite XM

One of my forward looking friends turned me onto to listening to XM radio. She found a way to stream it through WinAmp for free. AOL XM offers about a dozen different channels for you to pick from. Under each channel there are another half dozen or so for you to pick from and really specify what you want to listen to. It’s a great set up.

Plus, looking at the WinAmp interface immediately takes me back to my senior year of college when I was playing Hail to the Thief, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Give Up non stop – It might be impossible for mere mortals to resist that kind of nostalgia.

My personal favorite is the channel Spinner.com. It offers a pretty good mix of rock and of the glorious sub genres that come along with it – not to mention a few stations devoted entirely to indie rock. There’s even a channel called “Melancholia,” which might be my favorite. I don’t tune into it too often, but can how can you pass on a station that’s description is: “The sounds of indie sadness.”

I can’t help but picture people sitting in front of their computers in office across the country with eyeliner streaming down their face thinking “Morrissey has such amazing insight; the guy really does know what it means to be depressed. God… why is Tom wearing that stupid looking tie again?”

For serious, man.

Spinner.com redeems itself by offering the best of what’s being played on college radio, a straight rock mix channel and a punk channel. There’s even an alt country channel, if that’s your thing.

Apparently, alt country is my thing. I was on my way to the Ween show in Boston last week with my friend Matt and was trying to convince him to make the switch over to XM. We were on 28 heading into the city and I mentioned the alt country channel in front of the Museum of Science.

“There’s an alt country channel?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Actually now that you mention it, I think I’ve been listening to it a little too much.”

He laughed at me for the rest of the night about that. We’ve all got our vices and guilty pleasures. I just never expected one of mine to involve a steel guitar, a twang, a big pair of boots and a hat.

Well, not when it came to music anyway.

Voxtrot is not just for the Birds

I was standing outside just a few minutes ago watching a sparrow fly around the entrance to my office building. It fluttered around a tree before heading straight into the glass windows on the front of the building. It looked dazed for a second then got a look on it’s beak like ‘what the hell is that about?’ It rocketed off to go do something else.

I laughed a little bit then turned to go inside. And walked straight into an open glass door.

It’s the little things sometimes, you know?

In other reasons why I’m cooler than you, I’m going to see my new favorite band tomorrow night at the Middle East: Voxtrot. They’re an Austin, TX-based five piece. I recommend you go check out their page and listen to the song ‘Firecracker’ and ‘Kid Gloves.’ Assuming the show doesn’t suck, I’ll try and get a review written on Friday.

One last thing. I signed up for Last.fm. (Iris welcomed me to the Internet when I told her I signed up.) Last.fm takes Pandora, bends it over a barrel and beats it with a belt like a red-headed step child. It streams music, lets you search for music and offers suggestions. Plus, you can use it to make friends. Or, if you’re like me, you can surf around other people’s musical taste and feel superior to them.

Check it out.