Column: Leaders, 31

DEAD LETTER

Dear Cass McCombs, wanker. Love, The Stool Pigeon

There reaches a point in the male musician’s life — over 40, few albums in, not as rich as they’d like to be, nor as recognised — when suddenly they’re prepared to compromise. And so it was that we received a call asking whether we’d like some face-time with Bill Callahan when he was in London a month or so ago. Not a big deal, you’d think, but here’s a man who despises being interviewed, perhaps because he’s shockingly inarticulate for an obviously intelligent man. As Alex Denney points out in his excellent piece, Bill used to insist upon doing interviews by fax, and the whole idea of that is actually very funny.

Two points here for the younger musician: if you hate the idea of music hack scum like ourselves asking you simple questions, have a sense of humour about it. You won’t seem like a hateful cock if you do. Also, pay attention to the fact that Bill is possibly panicking about not being where he wants to be with his music, and should be. Of course, the more an artist refuses to comply with the machine, the more anxious the machine becomes to know about them — up to a point, anyway. Then the machine gives up, and the artist feels lonely and unappreciated.

We’ve become used to shy, bedroom-bound producers — usually of the dubstep ilk — hiding behind email interviews, which is totally unacceptable. Really taking the biscuit, however, is singer-songwriter Cass McCombs, who apparently only does interviews via letter these days. Journalists are expected to write to him — with a frigging fountain-tip pen, probably. Wanker. I mean, who does he think he is? Horace Walpole?

CRAPPY MEDIUM

Carpal Tunnel — I love you. Internet all day!

I’ve been reading Vanity Fair a lot recently and in among stories on the shitting royal wedding and Kennedy dynasty are the really interesting pieces — on the economic crisis and, in particular, the internet. Vanity Fair must have flipped out a decade ago when it dawned on them that the real icons of the modern day are not swash-buckling politicians or sexpot actors, but coding geniuses. Good on them, though, for taking these people very seriously, especially that holy trinity of über-nerds: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and their bastard cousin, 4Chan creator Christopher Poole. These three dudes must be pissing themselves at the fact that they’ve become heroes within pop culture, and so it is that Cyrus Shahrad reports in his article on Raekwon that the Wu-Tang MC once visited the Facebook HQ, where he signed the guest wall. Insane, really, when you think about it.

Furthermore, new star of hip hop and social networking junky Lil B recently said: “I already conquered MySpace, I conquered Facebook… Shout outs to 4Chan, all the internet hackers, anybody that’s on the internet all day, and you slouch, and your back hurts, carpal tunnel — I love you. Internet all day! We’re hurting. Radiation from the computer is hurting my eyes, I love it.”

That, of course, is the greatest quote of the year, but it’s also worrying. Or rather, if it encourages blind faith in the internet, we’re all going to hell in a shitbasket. People rightly expressed concern that “global aerospace, defence, security, and advanced technology company” Lockheed Martin were commissioned to undertake the UK census and I’ll remind you what (an admittedly paranoid) Marilyn Manson said about them back in 2009:“They invented the LP record, and the colour television. They also invented the satellite, and every bomb ever dropped. They invented the black box. They owned the Twin Towers, and the planes that flew into them.”

A reputable company to entrust with your private information? Fuck that. And now that the EU is at last insisting that sites like Facebook offer us the ‘right to be forgotten’, isn’t it time to consider using new legislation to crawl back into the shadows again?

I don’t mean to sound like a kook, but at least consider what 4Chan’s Christopher Poole told Vanity Fair recently: “Mark [Zuckerberg]’s vision of the world is that you should be comfortable sharing as your real self on the internet. He thinks that anonymity represents a lack of authenticity, almost a cowardice.” Hence Facebook’s new facial-recognition software that’s capable of identifying strangers in photos. Scary shit indeed that throws up massive philosophical questions and — goddamn it! — now I see where Cass McCombs is coming from, and I absolutely sympathise with Taylor Kirk from Timber Timbre when he told us: “It’s amazing to me that we’ve got to this point where we go into a show knowing that it will be on the internet in a few hours in the shittiest medium. And for what? I don’t get the motivation. I just don’t understand it. I think it’s a real shame.”

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