Hey, guys. Can I talk to you about something?
Every year when this time rolls around we try to send you into your fall festing season with some proper tips. Usually, this is our not-so-subtle way to share with you the ways to make new friends or sneak, um, stuff (alcohol) (contraband) in. The answer is: backpacks. But today I'd like to make another request in line with our own Gavin Cleaver's continuous attempt to improve civility and manners among the show-going public.
Can we avoid the tired ol' "I KNOW ALL THE BANDS" cliché? Look, we are all here together on the DC9 at Night blog, the Dallas Observer's established music outpost, so I get it. We like music! Likely more than the average bear. We have opinions, and we read obscure blogs or something, and somehow before everyone else EVER on planet Earth we got that one EP/MIXTAPE/MP3/BRAIN CHIP of that one artist playing something NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD.
And I too am thrilled when I am the only human on Earth to be lucky enough to hear a song and then share it with friends, but sometimes I am on the other side. Sometimes I haven't heard it. Because as much as I love the recommendations of that obscure blog and as much as I like to dig around in all of your weird Spotify playlists (and I do), most of the time I'm just listening to The Score by The Fugees. And it doesn't matter who has already written about it, or where. Don't assume I read it. It can be really hard to pull me away from "How Many Mics." So, I still need some occasional help.
See Also: We Can't All Get Into Every Show. Sometimes, That's For The Best
Plus, we have some festivals coming up. I don't want Jimmy Kimmel to send his crew of cameramen to Dallas to reveal how we can't just admit it when we don't know what you are talking about. I promise, right now, if Kimmel ever asks me my thoughts on "The Channel Surfers," I will say, "I have never heard them, I mostly come for headliners." Hey-o. Just kidding. I don't even know who they are sometimes.
Don't get me wrong. I love the music. I love its ability to create time travel and incite memory and completely enhance or alter my mood. Or the mood of others. Both.
But sometimes the thing I love about the music is talking about the music. And this attitude is turning what could be interesting dialogues about emerging artists into monologues about how you found it first, in this zine and from this person and it stops the sharing because, well, my God -- are you not even already operating an obscure music blog? Pshhh.
So, this weekend, starting at Spune's Untapped Festival, I pledge to not do that thing where you fake lip sync to the buzz band whose EP you never downloaded. I pledge not to interrupt with all the places I read about the band you are innocently and enthusiastically talking up when I haven't actually listened to the music, because ugh. I pledge not to compete about who heard what first, especially when it's good, and we could just be discussing how it's good. I pledge to say, "No, I haven't heard it. Tell me about it."
And that's it.
