The Decemberists: huh? WTF, as they say

This week's New Yorker, what with its gut-busting laugh-out-loud cartoons, has a barfoliciously fawning profile of the Decemberists, in which the precious, angel-faced, hardly-ever-flatuent indie band, which should remind us all of a precocious teenager, displays as much ambivalence about mainstream sucess as they do enthusiasm for eating meat at gastropubs in New York, a city in which they find themself charmingly, naively out of place.  I wonder: Whom does this "Talk of the Town" piece congratulate with more gusto, the Decembrists or us New Yorker readers?  It starts:

"Colin Meloy, the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland-based band the Decemberists, is a wry, witty, well-read, and self-possessed fellow who is rarely at a loss for words."  Readers, if you didn't know who the Decemberists were, I'll tell you in the first sentence in a way that doesn't make you feel dumb or out of the loop while simultaneously cueing you into the fact that because these hipsters are literate, you ought to know who they are.  The rest of the paragraph shows the Decemberists standing around their hotel "genuinely shaken" to learn that their new album will debut at number one, perhaps even announced by Kasey Kasum--quelle horror.  Yet their reaction is charmingly understated, even fey: "Wow. Weird," they say.  It goes on: "Jenny Conlee, who plays accordian and sings harmony, was standing nearby and hadn't woken up properly yet."  Congratulations: you have an accordian player!  How interesting!  Even if you don't have a real ear for music, at least you can impress your friends by anatomizing to death each of their songs.  Is that an accordian?  Wow, it really is!




Jenny Conlee perfected her accordian chops playing American showtunes in the cultural capitals of Europe

 

The article soldiers on:  "Out on the sidewalk before the show were people who had hardly heard of the Decemberists--until now [thanks to you, intrepid New Yorker writer!!!] a willfully obscure art-rock band whose elaborate story songs and quirky arrangements seemed designed to conceal a potentially popular sound underneath--but somehow they knew this was a show not to be missed."  It describes a meal with the band: "Their No. 1 status seemed to hover over the meat-laden table like eagles over Prometheus' liver."  The New Yorker's all-time best--Angell, Updike, A.J. Liebling--had nothing on this guy's infinite capacity for simile.

I don't at all understand the Decemberists.  They have no groove, no grit.  I get that they have a "storytelling" and "cinematic" aesthetic, but a mere aesthetic has never been enough for me to appreciate a band, even if it's enough to make the listener feel smart.  Music does so much more than that and I've always thought feeling smart about music was merely and literally an afterthought of a much fuller experience, which the Decemberists, accordian playing background vocalist notwithstanding, have never furnished.

Into Venice for the day.  There's an exhibit at the Guggenheim on the Vorticists that we may try to catch.  Or else we may just fart around.  I ordered some new shoes which came via UPS from Amazon--even with shipping costs, it's still cheaper to get shoes from the US than from stores here.  With new shoes, ran 15 near the canal.  It was first thing in the morning and I was stiff but it was still a good run.  I was loose about 45 minutes into it. 

And now, just to spite the Decemberists, Led Zeppelin: