the safety of being a bozo
plus new tracks from docents, water from your eyes, and el michels affair
Hellooooo friends and pals and casual hate-readers, I hope you’re having a good a day as future NYC mayor Zohran Mamdami.
Why is it suddenly okay to be a dork when you dine out?
Obviously as an elder Millennial, a piece on the scourge of Gen Z-ers not knowing how to handle opening a bar tab was aimed directly at me, but I still found the answers from the folks who cash out with every drink especially cringey. In each instance, the quoted consumer insisted that their comfort came ahead of any sort of shared agreement with their server/bartender. Social anxiety?? Concerns about their budget??? That’s what the alcohol is for.
The article landed at the same time as the smarmy, classist take from the Free Press’ Suzy Weiss, who lazily took shots at Anthony Bourdain while praising Stanley Tucci’s new series about Italy. She, too, seemed to say that just being a normal customer, a casual diner, was better than whatever strawman she invented about Bourdain’s bro legacy:
we have a chef culture wherein tatted up, foul-mouthed cooks—that is, the people who heat up entrées—think they’re rock stars. Why? Because they cooked a broccoli in a wood-fired oven? They cured an egg yolk? Or because of Bourdain, who turned eating a prawn into an Allen Ginsberg poem?
I’d normally not share ragebait fuckery like this from The Free Press, a site that dares to ask “What if Andy Rooney was your worst college classmate?”, but the loser instinct was unmistakably the same: I should be able to participate as little as I want, fuck you if you say otherwise.
Both pieces deny what was coded in my bones as a Millennial, possibly because all of my fellow college grads had to take service jobs as the recession crushed our careers of choice: it’s important to be a good guest. It’s still important to participate in a way that blurs distinction between the server and the served, between the diner and the chef, between the artist and the listener, the server and the served.
Why care about if it’s annoying for a bartender to keep closing out your idiot tab for espresso martinis? Why honor the skills of someone who’s preparing your meal? To quote the kicker of the NYT piece, “Someone has to bully these people. Respectfully.”
Anyways, here are some good links:
I loved making this EP with NYC singer Vampireluvr, which dropped in full on Friday
Thom Yorke’s statement on Gaza/Israel did little to quell any critics of the Radiohead singer, mostly thanks to his tone police finger-wagging/both sides-ing in the back half of his statement, but it’s an interesting reason to re-read this 2017 piece on Radiohead’s relationship to Israel, the first country where “Creep” went to #1
Now that it’s 80 out in NYC – Matthew Perpetua put together playlists of the songs of the summers from 1994, 1999, 1988, 1979, 1984, 2013 and 1969!
Anyways, here’s the best of the week. As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update (usually) every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
El Michels Affair ft. Clairo – Anticipate
Leon Michels’ production work on Clairo’s Charm was sublime and funky – who knew Clairo could sound so good in maroon corduroy? “Anticipate,” like all sequels, has its shine dimmed slightly by the lack of novelty, but it’s a gift hearing these two make music again.
Docents – Garden
Ripping NYC post-punk that I’m a few weeks late to – high-key no-wave thrashing meets deadpan talked vocals that has me dying to see the band live before they explode like current peak NYC noise revivalists Voyeur.
Water From Your Eyes – Life Signs
If I told you this track found a middle ground between fractured art-pop, palm-muted heavy metal riffage, and smooth Stereolab motorik, would you believe me?
throwback
Sleater-Kinney – Jumpers (live on Letterman)
The Woods turned 20 last week, inspiring Stuart Berman to pull out this interview with Carrie Brownstein from the album’s release in 2005, and thus inspired Nick Sylvester to write about the legacy and sound of digital clipping a la Dave Fridmann, who produced the record and blasted it all the way into the red. I remember this clip making the rounds pre-YouTube, showcasing just how special this band was as a live unit during what was their then-swan song.