Pretty sure he has a rather complicated set-up built around a midi synth.

it’s not like Win was like “yo, fuck electricity and all instruments that use it”

THIS is why I love you guys Stereogum.

A lot of blogs would overlook Throwing Copper 20 years later, but it meant A LOT to some of us kids in the 90?s. I’m not in any way defending Live any more than I would defend Green Day post Dookie, but it represents an interesting time in the mid 90?s that can’t be completely overlooked. Lightning Crashes was mesmerizing as a child.

While you’re at it, do a 20th anniversary piece on Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Cracked Rear View.”

Whyyyyyy are Arcade Fire turning into dicks?

Arcade Fire should stop mocking other people, it’s unprofessional. They make good music using the medium they chose, why should they try to ridicule others that do differently? I’ve seen Arcade Fire and Daft Punk live and enjoyed both. Stop thinking about the instruments/tools and focus on the experience! Art is not a technique, it is a moment of communion and beauty, if some people feel that with cymbals, computes, guitars, theremins, moogs, etc, does it really matter?

I want everyone to shut up and play, however at the same time I can understand where the backlash toward button-sample triggering and level adjusting “live” playing comes from. Watching a video of a DJ watching a turntable and intermittently looking like he’s curing cancer by twisting a knob is, granted, hilarious. But, it’s putting playlists on a pedestal and I could see how this is inferior to watching someone putting more effort into playing a traditional instrument and not having the obvious comfort/structure of a pre-recorded track.

THAT SAID, none of this is the DJ’s fault. At the risk of sounding old (I’m 40), the celebrity culture/emphasis on the individual has resulted in the camera being pointed on the DJ, rather than the crowd, despite the fact that the DJ isn’t scratching shit. Again, not the DJ’s fault.

In conclusion, Arcade Fire are misguided in their “prank” and come across like a assholes we’ve known them to be for some time. But I get where they’re coming from (empathy).

Fin.

What is going on with Canadian music? Its most popular indie band and DJ are feuding, its teen pop superstar is going through a rough patch to say the least, and its most notable rapper is accusing people of eating fondue and lint rolling his pants at NBA playoff games. Has Rob Ford contaminated Ontario’s water supply with crack? What would the Tragically Hip have to say about all of this? Dark times up north.

So get this. True story.

At weekend 1 of Coachella…after Neutral Milk Hotel ended I had some extra time before Beck started. On stage before Beck…Calvin Harris. Playing to the biggest crowd of the weekend I believe.

Watching in amazement at the crowd, I looked next to me and see a huge guy that looked like Win Butler. He was wearing a mask and a hat trying to conceal his identity (but that dude is fucking tall). It was obviously him. But only my friends and I noticed since we weren’t on molly watching Calvin. We didn’t go up to him because it would’ve been messed up to blow his cover, but he watched all of Calvin Harris’ set, by himself, and throughout it he was just shaking his head with a pissed off glare. Pretty funny he would be on that exact same stage in 2 hours to headline and make the comment about real instruments.

“The 10 Best michael_ Rants, Emotional Breakdowns, Promises to Leave Stereogum, Beefs, Apologies, and Personal Attacks.”

I’d read it.

Oh, to be so naive… Don’t you know that me just being here actually helps Stereogum make money because readers are going to return to this page to see where this conversation went, downvote away, see what their replies garnered in upvotes, see where it landed in the week’s Shut Up, Dude, etc.? I am every bit a part of Stereogum’s ad driving institution as that Foster the People ad to the left and right, and on my own worst behavior, I probably put a solid 100 bucks into every writers here pockets at the end of the year once those conversions are tallied up. That is a nice chunk of change for a night out on the town.

“Don’t worry, it’s on me, guys…”

Literally, right now, the powers that be are saying “I hate that guy, but man, I love the traffic he drives to the comment section and everything it brings with it.”

Oh, cool, another pointless listicle concept with a gallery aimed at driving ad revenue.

What else is on the docket this week?

“The 10 Most Surprising Vocal Annunciations of Win Butler’s Voice Between Songs Arcade Fire Played During Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 of Coachella”

“The 10 Best Musician Tinder Accounts”

“The 10 Best Monogenre Albums of the 2010s”

“The 10 Best Banner Ads Placed on Stereogum From Best to Worst” (where when you click through the gallery, it’s actually the ad itself and therefore counts as double for monetization

“The 10 Best Musicians Knighted by Queen Elizabeth”

“The 10 Best Music-related Things We Saw On Our Way to Work”

“The 10 Best Lists We Put Together Just So We Could Write About HAIM, Perfect Pussy and Other Obligatory Buzz Band Mentions”

“(Genre) Week”… Is this going to be the new traffic-driving scheme music sites pull on us now seeing that over-wrought poptimism think pieces, gallery- listicles and album anniversaries are pretty much the norm everywhere else these days?

I don’t even understand why we have music publications anymore since writing about new music and bands has come second (maybe even third or fourth to that matter) to linkbaing culture and getting you to to hit that Foster the People / Spotify ad on the left, top and right (which turns out to be incredibly difficult to avoid on a mobile device because it hijacks your screen as soon as the page loads.)

Ever since I stopped writing my music blog, I’ve also stopped reading the actual words on every site out there as well because they are empty. Nobody is saying anything different or interesting about music anymore, nor are they focusing on it from the right angle of non-commercialized purity, which I guess we must all accept is a lost art form these days. In this social media-drive culture, everyone thinks that their opinions are important. They are not. The writer at Pitchfork or Stereogum has no more worthy of a value of an opinion than you and I, average readers and in my case, a faux amateur writer, because anybody with access to a computer connection can feasibly write a thousand word soliloquy that looks “important.” The writers who began doing this with purist intentions / passions a decade ago have shifted their priorities from being “the luckiest person in the world to have a job where they get paid to write about something they love” to “the luckiest person in the world they get aid to write about something they love that aligns perfectly with corporate America and advertiser’s exploitation of that exact thing they love and I’ll just turn a blind eye to how they’re using my talents and passion as their vessel to line their pockets with money because I’m well off for it, too, so fuck being punk or metal when you can still wear the clothes that fit the part and fool the world doing so.” Nothing is ever in earnest any more, and we are all their sheeps for the slaughter.

Indie rock is dead.
Indie rock is dead.
Indie rock is dead.
Indie rock is dead.
Indie rock is dead.

I think you are thinking of Everclear.