Solid State

Every week — it may even be a couple of times per week, actually — the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) sends out an e-mail containing small blurbs of note about other papers around the country. Typically, the posts concern the comings and goings of various editors and writers or perhaps the merging or demise of less fortunate papers than Seven Days — say what you will about VT, but the insular nature of our state tends to protect us, to a degree, from many of the misfortunes of the outside world, including the "death" of print media.

I'll be honest, I generally give these missives little more than a courtesy glance. Rarely do they contain any nuggets of info that directly pertain to me or my job. However, today I saw something that raised my eyebrows and hit very close to home indeed. Here it is:

July 14, 2008
Guest Blogger Quits, Rates Mention in Time Magazine
Source: Time Magazine/The Stranger
The Stranger's first guest blogger, Chelsea Alvarez-Bell, quit last month because of the "vicious bullies" who tormented her in the Slog's comments section. This week Lev Grossman ledes with the incident in his column in Time Magazine decrying "the horribleness of commenters."

(Yes, the blurb actually contained the misspelling "ledes." I just read 'em, folks.)

Grossman's Time column is a good rede, er, read, especially for anyone who has been on the business end of the unsettling phenomenon known as the "Internet Tough Guy." I'll not waste your time or mine describing these people. If you read Solid State with any regularity — or, sadly, most blogs and message boards — you know exactly who I'm talking about. Remember the Daryl Rabidoux ugliness? There you go.

What is disheartening is not necessarily that these people exist — assholes have flourished long before the advent of the Interwebs. The disturbing thing is that these ass clowns were able to spew their vitriolic bile to the point that they badgered Alvarez-Bell out of a job. And she was The Stranger's first guest blogger. So she's been around for a long time — the Seattle alt-weekly is something of a gold-standard in the industry, particularly in terms of Web-based content.

I've never read Alvarez-Bell's work or the offending comments. I can only imagine how bad it must have gotten based on my relatively brief experience in cyberspace. As such, I can sympathize with her decision — although I've never entertained thoughts of leaving based on the ramblings of anonymous half-wits.

Here's a clip from Grossman's piece:

The horribleness of commenters isn't really a mystery: Internetanonymity is disinhibiting, and people are basically mean anyway. Noris it a mystery why the people who run websites put up with commenters:the economic model for Internet content is based on advertising, whichmeans it's based on traffic volume, and comments mean traffic. They'repart of the things that make online publishing work. TIME.com  enables comments on its blogs, including mine.) It's just hard to tellwhether they're ruining the Web faster than they can save it.

Commenterstend to respond with surprise--they're shocked, shocked!--when peoplecall them on being not nice. In their social universe, this kind ofrhetorical slap-fighting is just how you do business, and anybody whofeels otherwise is thin-skinned and humorless. As lame and self-servingas this excuse is, we can learn something from taking it at face value.Maybe commenters are just on one side of a cultural disconnect betweentwo incompatible ideas of what the social conventions of the Internetshould be. One is based on the standards of real-world, off-linepoliteness. The other is a kind of communal game in which whoever iscleverest and pushes the most buttons wins.

That pretty much sums it up. Us versus Them. At stake: the future of online journalism.

OK, it's not that dramatic or black and white. However, Alvarez-Bell is certainly not the first online writer to walk away as a result of anonymous bullying. And, sadly, I doubt she'll be be the last.

Can't we all just get along?

Happy Monday!

All last week I kept coming up with one line blog posts, but then getting distracted by free burritos and babysitting jobs. Now that I have a moment, here they all are.

First off, The Smittens had a hell of a CD release party last night. This is something I definitely should have posted about earlier, but in any case, it was a lot of fun. I arrived in time to catch the end of Missy Bly's set in Parima's Acoustic Lounge, which I was grateful for, since I had never seen her live. From there, we moved into the main room for performances by both Brooklyn's The Specific Heats (um, Wow! Definitely going to look for more of them!), and Portland, Maine's The 500s (also known as my awesome friends!).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Pop shows are great.

And you know what other shows are great? L.A. punk shows!

This Tuesday (that would be... TOMORROW), Tick Tick is bringing The Mae Shi to Metronome. Every time Eric Carlson (Pretty & Nice) comes to the office to pick me up for lunch, I find out him outside drumming his steering wheel to The Mae Shi. And every time I say, Who is this? I really like this! And every time he tells me, It's The Mae Shi! Until that one time where he finally made me program it into my cell phone and shut up about it.

Needless to say, I'm excited to finally catch them live!

They will be joined by Totally Michael, Hearttrobz, and Vanderpolls. That's the Jazz Guys, by the way.

Speaking of Metronome, Brad of Bradley's Almanac, sent me a link last week to a post recalling an epic Metronome weekend! Back in 1992, Sub Pop (who just celebrated their 20th Anniversary) hosted a two day festival at our downtown club, called Vermonstress. I missed it, as I was busy being a third grader in West Hartford, Connecticut, but Brad attended. You can take a trip down memory lane with him, here.

I did some experimenting with my own memory lane after an interesting discovery last weekend. Driving in the car with my ipod on random, Modest Mouse's "Sleepwalking" came on, the first Modest Mouse song I ever heard. When it did, my face suddenly relaxed completely, and I was met with the startling realization that my brow had been furrowed in the first place!

I'm not exactly sure what had my thoughts troubled, but I was more curious about that particular song and why it completely relaxed me. From there I started wondering what other songs have a similar effect. A little random, but interesting to explore. This experiment will continue I'm sure.

And now to bring this full circle, back to The Smittens! Their music video for "Gumdrops" is now available. I just checked it out on YouTube and have to say, wow. As if The Smittens weren't adorable enough on their own, they've now added dancing children, and a feisty cat. The cute overload might not be everyone's cup of tea, but babysitter me loved it. Especially the part where Colin is dancing with one of the kids and they are sporting matching striped sweaters.

That's all for now! See you all at Metronome tomorrow night?

Howdy, Solid State.

I wish I was writing under better circumstances, but I thought I should inform everyone about the rather tragic misfortune which has befallen my little black (Mac)book.Yesterday my hard drive completely shit the bed. It has since been replaced and I am again up and running (sort of). However, my computer is now essentially an empty shell. In short, I lost everything.

The list includes, but is certainly not limited to:
- All files not backed up on the 7D server (this is mostly published work).
- Most e-mail contact info.
- All digital pics (band photos, CD covers, shots of my crazy half-pit bull Buckley, etc.).
- My ridiculous iTunes library (dating back to Ethan Covey's tenure: 60+ GB, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 songs).
- My porn . . . totally kidding (I always back up my porn!).
- My coverage schedule (lineup for Soundbites, CD reviews, spotlights, etc.).
- My cool Fenway Park Desktop(s).
- A whole bunch of other stuff I probably won't miss until I really need it.

The point of sharing this with you is that I need your help rebuilding. Many Solid State denizens are also musicians, booking folks, promoters and others with whom I work in a professional capacity. If you've contacted me recently about coverage, please do so again because I no longer have the info. And if you haven't contacted me about your band before, now is the perfect time! In fact, you could even pretend that I promised you a cover story next week and I'd have no real way of denying it — please don't do that.

Anyway, I'm pretty much starting from scratch, trying to rebuild six years or so of resources. If you have high resolution pics, digital versions of albums you've submitted, pictures of my dog or anything else you think might be helpful, please send 'em my way. And feel free to spread the word to anyone you think might want/need to know. I mean, I know everyone reads Solid State, so the chances of folks missing this are pretty slim. But just in case . . .

I'm a Music Editor with no music. How sad is that?

They're baaaack . . . maybe.

Click the link and discuss.

A few days ago, web lady extraordinaire Cathy Resmer sent me a link to a feature by the Boston Phoenix in which they weighed in on the best musical acts in each of the fifty states.

Here is me weighing in on the feature: It blows.

I didn't read each state's wins. But I did read those of the four states I have lived in. And of course, I paid particular attention to the choices from our great state of Vermont.

And so without further ado, here they are:

All-Time Best Band: Phish
All-Time Best Solo Artist: Rudy Vallee
Best New Act: Yvel

Let's break this down one category at a time, shall we?

Ok. Phish. We've discussed this before. And while I'm not a Phish fan myself, I get it. They were huge, and they came out of Vermont. If notoriety is what makes them best, then yes, they are the best. Job well done, Phoenix.

Rudy Vallee, on the other hand . . . are you freaking kidding me? I have nothing against Rudy Vallee as an artist. I would even go as far as to say that I admire his work, and have an appreciation for his influence in early to mid century music.

All that said, dude's not a Vermonter.

Ok, yes, he was born in Island Pond. But he spent all of his formative years in Westbrook, Maine. And his music career? That took place in New York. I mean, I guess if he was schooled in Vermont and then moved to New York I would kind of get it, but the guy's birth is literally the only thing connecting him to our state. He's even buried in Westbrook, proving that "home" to him was always Maine.

Phoenix, are you suggesting we've had no notable solo artists in residence?

Best New Act: Yvel. See above? I get that some people move away to make it big. And I get that this guy is good and hey, he came out of Vermont! But, Phoenix, COME ON. You are within four hours of Burlington, and two of the Vermont border. You seriously couldn't find someone who lives IN STATE and is talented? It's insulting.

You know that part in "Wedding Crashers" when the dick-head fiance yells, "CRABCAKES AND FOOTBALL! THAT'S WHAT MARYLAND DOES!"

Well . . . isn't art (i.e. music) what Vermont does? Or at least what Burlington does?

I went to Maine over the weekend and ran into Chris Gray who writes a column for the Portland Phoenix. I immediately asked him what was up with this feature. And also what motivated a Boston paper to assume responsibility for naming the best music acts in 49 states in which the paper is not distributed.

"Bridget, do you have any idea how much web traffic that feature drives to the site?"

Ooooooh. You mean like the additional traffic I just sent them by linking to it in my blog? Got it. Chris went on.

"Have you seen the thing they do where they name the 100 Unsexiest Men? The content is nauseating. But everyone reads it."

Yeah. I have seen that thing. Because blogs as big as VH1's Best Week Ever link to it. I was just too naive to realize that the main point was to drive people to their site.

I guess I shouldn't waste any more time being put off by the poor choices assigned by the Phoenix, all in the name of web traffic... but I still am.

After all, MAPLE SYRUP AND ART! THAT'S WHAT VERMONT DOES!

Friday night at the Monkey, I visited with the boys of Husbands AKA. They mentioned that they were playing a show at 242 Main on Sunday, and seeing as it was their first show back since Dylan's accident (or at least the first I heard of), I promised to attend.

I was still a hardcore girl when I moved to Vermont. Ha! I know, I can barely say that with a straight face myself. I guess, I was still a hardcore girl wannabe? I used to work for an online music magazine and I specialized in interviewing hardcore and metal bands. But I was known to do so while sporting the uniform of Kennebunkport; linen pants and flip flops.

Anyway, the magazine eventually went defunct, I fell out of the scene, and the next thing I knew, it had been almost three years since I attended a show at Burlington's youth-oriented and substance-free venue.

The first time I attended a show at 242, I had driven from Maine to interview Todd from With Honor. Of course by the time I arrived, the show had sold out, and I hadn't bothered to contact the band ahead of time to guarantee entry. Luckily Aaron from BANE recognized both me and my distraught look of "I was supposed to buy a presale ticket for a hardcore show?" and let me help load in.

The last time I attended a show at 242, it was the end of 2005 and I had decided to try and meet some of Burlington's musicians by throwing together a compilation CD to fight AIDS. I distinctly remember my roommate Erin giving me a little shove towards Alex Pond, saying, "That's Alex from From the Ground Up! Go ask them to be on the CD!"

Which I did.

Well, now Alex is in Husbands AKA, along with Tyson Valyou, Chris Valyou, Sean Fitzpatrick, and the ever badass Dylan Burns. And their show at 242 caused me to have a bit of a revelation.

We're all growns up.

The average age of the attendees on Sunday was sixteen. And there were a few kids there that I'm pretty sure I am old enough to have mothered. But "ohmygod ska fans are young" sentiment aside, the show made me realize that the "scene", hardcore, punk, ska or otherwise, is all about the cycle of audience-turned-entertainers.

There comes a point when, should you choose to remain in the same music scene as your youth, your role switches. That doesn't mean that those who leave lose all touch with the music. But your priorities change. And unless you're in a band, or working for a band, or even reviewing a band, you realize that the world won't end if you miss a show.

You might even stop considering it badass to get pushed around with the boys, and instead, grab that fifteen year old punk by the arm and warn him that he better watch it around the ladies as that's no way to impress a girl.

[You MIGHT even turn to your roommate during an episode of A&E's "Intervention" and say, "She would be so much prettier without that thing in her lip!" and then promptly die of mortification when you realize the full weight of what you just said, and how dismissing a piercing in such a manner pretty much merges you directly into your mother.]

I remember interviewing Stretch Arm Strong and asking them about the fact that several members of the band were married. Married! It seemed like such a grown up concept. So unlike anything we kids in the audience had going on in our lives.

Fast forward to this past Sunday and I had to leave the show at 242 early to go get drinks with my friend the bride, and all of my fellow bridesmaids. Because I'm a bridesmaid now. Because that's what you do when you're 25.

I'm having a hard time reaching my point... but I think what I'm trying to say is that seeing the audience at 242, seeing how pumped they were to rock out to the night's bands, and simultaneously remembering how psyched I used to get for a night out with my friends and our band of the moment, gave me a really warm fuzzy feeling inside. Not just that someone else out there is continuing to provide that release that I used to crave so much, but that the people providing it are friends of mine.

Husbands is a really fun band to watch. And they've been known to rock 21+ shows at the Monkey just as hard as they rocked 242. But it makes me really happy that they recognize the importance of the kids at 242, and happily book those shows along with the ones catered to an older crowd. After all, they used to be those kids.

And what better way to say thanks to the bands that helped shape your teenage years than to turn around and provide that same service to the next group of teenagers?