Sufjan Stevens On "Friend Rock"
Our patron saint of chamber pop seems to be getting his Klosterman on in this essay posted at Asthmatic Kitty:
There are a lot more terms flying around today: New Rock, Ironic Rock, Situational Rock, Crotch Rock (don’t ask). But have you heard about Friend Rock? It’s very simple: you are going to a show not so much as a fan of the music, but as a fan of your friend, the musician, on stage. There are various incarnations, of course: you may know the singer, the drummer, or the bass player; you may have dated the keyboardist years ago; you went to high school with the trumpet player; one of them is your housemate, your office mate, your soul mate; or it may be “friendly-professional.” Perhaps you’re booked by the same agent, share the same lawyer, the same label, the same shoe sponsorship; there are various scenarios: your cubicle mate at work starts a band; you want to support her; your dentist is a celebrated tuba player; he gives you free tickets to his show; your brother divorces his wife, leaves the kids, starts a band, is coming through town, playing at Maxwell’s, can you make it to the show?
Friend Rock stirs up all kinds of moral conundrums. Do you go out and show your support or stay home and watch The Simpsons? Even worse is Friend of Friend Rock. A close relative is Colleague Rock. Family Rock is usually the worst (unless you are Danielson). For the sake of argument, I lump them all together...Go here for more of Soof's thesis, and a 14 question "You know you're in the midst of Friend Rock if..." primer. We're guessing every single one of you can relate.
Posted at 4:34 PM
Tags: Sufjan Stevens
god damn family rock,
friend rock hasn't been so bad to me,,
oh, who am I kidding? it sucks!
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I personally enjoyed this essay.
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What point is he trying to make?... you shouldn't go and see your friends play shows?..
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Well, if he was channeling Klosterman then there was no point to the entire essay, which makes it good in my book.
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this is stupid. friend rock can't be a genre or even subgenre. your relationship to someone playing in the band has nothing to do with what kind of music they play.
i thought this guy was supposed to be smart.
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since sufjan is reading a biography on Robert Moses, I guess we can extrapolate that New York will be nex in the 50 states project.
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Whats worse than friend rock or even, family rock?
"the mom club"
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I think his point is that it's better for both sides if friends felt comfortable staying home sometimes, and were honest about it. I definitely agree. A couple things he didn't mention:
1) It's awkward for a musician to run around and say hi to all the friends who came to support. No matter how much time you spend chatting with each friend, it's always sub-quality time.
2) Nobody goes to see even their favorite band more than 5 times. If Thom Yorke was my friend, I would still get bored after the 4th time.
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to help determine pro & con, it would help to say that going to see your friend play music (in addition to the kite-flying mr. stevens recommends) is not a bad thing.
he didn't reference it by term, but the real problem here is the beard&glasses scenester movement. as i overheard at a show recently, these people are 'required' to be at shows if they have any connection to the band at all. they go to shows like i have to sit through god-awful 'webinars' on search engine optimization. you've seen them. the 'urban woodsmen' standing at a safe distance, w/ arms crossed and never for once visually nodding along to any of the music being played. an empty room exudes more personality.
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You are right, who are the urban woodsmen? I even know a few....they ARE their own genre. Do they know it? do they know there are others just like them?
They are like well informed organic type ex-punkrock men. usually pretty friendly enough but cynical like no tomorrow.
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