AM Taxi, The Gaslight Anthem, And You
Late last night, I posted an article called “AM Taxi = Bullshit.” In this article, I alleged that AM Taxi, a group that has recently become inescapable in Chicago, essentially jacked all of their swagger from the Gaslight Anthem. I still think that the evidence is pretty convincing, although our friend @Sam_Ash has informed me that my facts are wrong and it’s all a coincidence. (Sam is a really cool person and a great concert photographer; please check out her Flickr.) It might very well be; AM Taxi are definitely not as bad as I accused them of being. I’d say they’re mediocre, and that’s just one man’s opinion.
So the obvious question is this: What’s my problem? I have many problems: I’m stuck in a dead end job, I never have enough money, I dropped out of college, I’m a little overweight, etc. None of that contributed to my decision to post what I did. What did play a part was this: when I first found out about the internet, when I was thirteen, I thought it was probably the greatest thing that had ever happened; I’ve been a shameless addict ever since, trolling blogs for music recommendations, putting way more thought than is reasonable into my MySpace profile, my Facebook, and the nonsense I blurt out on Twitter approximately seventy-five times a day. The internet, in a way, is my life.
Feel free to judge me. I judge myself all the time; in my own opinion, I’m a pretty big loser. And there’s plenty of folks who would agree with that assessment. But the one aspect of my life that I feel is successful is this blog here. Not in a way that involves money or accolades, but on a much more basic (and, I feel, more important) level: Tim and I, since we started posting music articles here last October, have assembled a pretty good team of guys that are great writers and take music seriously. I feel we’ve always been thoughtful in our criticism, and the only guideline I give our writers is to err on the artist’s side – I’ve always hated the presumptuous tone in so much online criticism, especially when writers feel they have enough information at their disposal to question a band’s motives. (Aversion is the absolute worst in this regard; click on the link at your own peril.)
So what I did last night runs contrary to everything that I believe is great and pure in music writing. But I did it for three reasons: 1) I had a really boring, frustrating, idiotic day, and I needed to blow off some steam. (This is probably the worst reason you can have to do anything, but keep reading.) . 2) It is my actual opinion that AM Taxi have appropriated the Gaslight Anthem’s specific sound and, in a more general sense, latched on to the lazy Springsteen-worship that has permeated music since, I’d argue, 2005, when the Hold Steady released Separation Sunday and suddenly it was cool to actually like boozy, bare-knuckle rock ‘n’ roll again. 3) I simply wanted to see what the reaction would be.
Well, the reaction was about what I expected. A few people expressed disgust, but mostly we got a lot of traffic. Fast. And this essentially proved something to me that I’ve felt for a long time: the internet is one of the worst things to ever happen. Not in theory, but in actual practice. The writers who contribute to Assault (myself included) bust their asses to write about music thoughtfully. (I know I’ve already used the t-word, and I normally try to refrain from unnecessary linguistic redundancies, but thoughtfulness is a buzz word for me; I I feel thoughtfulness is what separates humans from animals.) But people don’t respond to thoughtful, well-reasoned writing; they react to crap like what I posted last night, attacking every element of a band I’ve never listened to in a meaningful way. If I sat down and listened to AM Taxi’s album, front to back, ten times, doing nothing but listening (which is the procedure I use for most everything I review), I’d probably find a lot to like. Like I said, they’re not awful.
But if I did that, you wouldn’t read it. My hope is that maybe enough people have looked at that other, inflammatory, immature, and despicable post (which I’d still argue is kind of entertaining, in an immature and despicable way) that they’ll be interested enough to read this one. And since I have your attention, I’d like to ask you to take a look around the site, read a few articles, and see if there’s anything here you find worthwhile or rewarding. There might not be; Assault.it, proud of it as I may be, is still a long way off from what Tim and I originally envisioned. But why don’t you give us a chance? We care. We’re serious. And you’ll find info about some really cool local bands (such as Welcome To Ashley, Geronimo, Kid, You’ll Move Mountains, the Maybenauts, Jonny Rumble, I Lost Control, Direct Hit!, and others equally deserving of your attention) that may become some of your personal favorites.
Having a blog means people send you a lot of music. And it means that we get to share the best of that music with you. Let us. For the record, I’d like to apologize to anybody who was offended by last night’s post about AM Taxi. Especially the band themselves, although I doubt they’re sweating it – they’ve got major label dollar$.
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About the Author
I am the Beast, and the Beastmaster. Send me a letter
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I hate to say I told you so, but Perez Hilton & the boys over at Aint It Cool News didn’t get famous from their crushing insight like Bob Lefsetz, they got it from hilarious trolling.
Troll posts are good fun, it’s just hard to find people who get them, but I thought it was funny nonetheless.
Party.
In fact, I propose we do this at least once per week from here on out–in the format of The Load.
Think of a catchy, immature name and let’s blow our load all over something at least bi-weekly. I propose Treaty of Paris next week.
Followed up by the fold?