Posted 2:08 AM by sport

A difference between Art and Science is that in Art, theory must always follow practice/proof. Music based on theory is usually only accidentally good (and has proven to be the downfall of more than one artist), but after we've discovered something we like, we can (merrily or gravely) attach all sorts of bullshit to it. It's lotsa fun. The stuff I write here is exhibit A; if I really understood what made me love Ives or some Alan Price record, I'd make things that satisfied me as fully. Instead, I write this crap, and sometimes construct music with all the earnestness of some bright kid in ceramics class. The folks will display the tree-stump pencil holder proudly, but all my appreciation of Rodin won't make it sculpture.

But this is not yet another outburst of self-flagellation.
Sheesh, whaddya take me for?
It is yet another snipe against a critic. While searching online (for unrelated reasons) I wound up on some pages collecting the writings of Robert Christgau. Now, after Slonimsky's great "Lexicon of Musical Invective," there's no reason to piss on short-sighted critics (and Mr. Slonimsky will explain why, if you're wise enough to read this hilarious little dandy of a book), and as I always say, they have their uses. Good critics are damn necessary, even. But Christgau… wow. Could he possibly be anywhere's near the egregious scumbag I've always made him out to be? No, few people could be. But even he calls himself the "Dean" of rock critics, which is horrifying in about 6 ways already. My music, I'm confident, falls way below the base level of "legitimacy" required to even rate a pan, but "Dean of rock critics" is like "der Fuhrer of supermarket circular proofreaders," so my near-loathing has less to do with any personalized resentment than with his status as the fabled One-eyed King.

(Incidentally, if you apply the "hundredth monkey" theory to the cliché about "a million monkeys at typewriters," then, eventually, all monkeys will be able to write Shakespeare. By now, through the internet and especially this blogsplosion, we see it is not so.)

Christgau writes well and always has, and his egotism is not something I oughtta be hurling stones at. He's often insightful (damn well better be) and even when he's wrong it's usually not for really, really stupid reasons. But look at this here: two old reviews for Jefferson Airplane records. A chance discovery.

Here's the first one I read…

PAUL KANTNER: Blows Against the Empire (RCA Victor) Two warnings. First, the only Airplane records I didn't underrate when I first wrote about them were Volunteers (which I loved) and the live album (which I never play). Second, Marty Balin is not present--the only reason I can discern for not calling this an Airplane record--and that makes me think that this time I could be right. I've played this a lot and feel no desire to play it any more.
B

Bland enough review. But reading it, I mistrusted the bit about "…Volunteers (which I loved)…" …just out of curiosity, I looked up his review of "Volunteers:"

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Volunteers [RCA Victor, 1969] A puzzler: I've listened many times and cannot make contact. Every time Grace lilts out "Up against the wall, motherfuckers" ( a phrase which has long since lost its currency and dubious usefulness) I want to laugh, and I don't find the instrumental cuts very inspired. Everybody else seems to dig it a lot and of course it's far from bad, but everybody may be wrong.
B

So what the fuck is this? I'm not interested enough to comb through his online archive for further evidence of such prevarication, but dagnabit!
Lyin' sack-o-shit!
And he even gives both albums a "B" rating, which means, according to his stated ratings guidelines:
"A means I like it a lot, B means I like it some or admire it a lot"

…so, not only were his responses to these records identical, but they were - or should have been, according to that guideline - rather positive. Is that what you get from the text, though?
Who has the right to pass judgment on the creative work of others? Brainy, well-paid a-holes who can't even organize their own casual dismissals coherently or honestly?
What a jerkoff.
F