Good reviews suck.

When you’ve finished fellating that band, please mention what they’ve accomplished and how. High school English stuff. A band can get a second chance if you make a case for them. Maybe an insightful description and a couple things I might have missed?

The beef: reviews that you know will be gushing, irrespective of merit. I can’t trust some sites / papers / etc, because I can expect every review to be the same regurgitated press kit fawning about oh my god they’re just so great. Always positive reviews are valueless. Obviously you’ll like most of the records and shows you spend money on, but reflect on your relevance for a sec.

You can be attached to your subject. Lester Bangs’ dissections of Lou Reed are good reads; that’s because and why he was a good writer and critic. You don’t have to be that good to matter, hell, I’d be thrilled if you only heard of music last week, but please say something past it’s intense and this and this happens and it’s really good, this is how good it is.”

Go ahead and plug your favourites, everyone does, but that stops short of journalism and criticism. I’m not going to pay attention.

I’m guilty of it all, so I’m going to self-correct.

No more reviews of B-Lines or Nu Sensae. They all boil down to Ryan was psychotic and Daniel was manic, or they were alright, but the crowd wasn’t feeling it.

I’ll write about something like Good Burger a couple weeks ago, but in general, no more reviews until I can say something relevant.

Defektors (post-punk anthems vs. too blues-rock) and White Lung (the sound was terrible) are on watch.

Thanks.