“Recently I’ve been putting on chiptune covers of albums to listen to while I write. This serves the dual purpose of giving me something to listen to and keeping my internet connection live. It also serves the purpose of embarrassing me terribly the time my headphone cable came unplugged and my girlfriend asked what the hell I was listening to, and I had to tell her. Then explain that Yes, there is a whole genre of what sounds like Nintendo music. Then I kept talking about all the different bands and their styles and before I stopped, I’d said too much.
Because I just can’t help myself, I was reading the comments on some of the Nintendo-style versions of popular songs, such as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” There was a lot of back and forth about whether or not “Kurt” played video games and whether he would have liked this 8-bit version of his music. It was pretty heated, and as YouTube comments tend to go, not all that thought out. There was one comment underneath all this battling that just said, “Music fans amuse me.”
Which sounds kind of stupid at first. Isn’t just about everyone a music fan, and how does that say anything about what you find amusing, really, if what you find amusing is ALL people?
But the more I thought about it, the more I found myself coming back to the well on this comment. He’s right. Music fans are amusing. Everyone likes music, but I would argue that not everyone is a fan.
Plenty of people like the Beatles, enjoy the Beatles. Plenty of people recognize a good percentage of their songs, especially the hits. If someone says, “Are you a fan of the Beatles?” there’s a pretty common response that’s either “Not really, and here’s why I’m a contradictory asshole” to “Sure.” Outside of that, there’s a small percentage that says, “Absolutely, fuck yes, and I’d like to talk about this for as long as you’ll let me.”
That, to me, is the difference between a person who enjoys something and a person who is a fan. Perhaps the closest equivalent outside of music would be sports. Many people enjoy different sports, but on very different levels. Some people watch a game, but it’s 50% because that’s what everyone is doing on Sunday, 20% nachos, and basically the rest is made up by the toppings on said nachos. Then there are the fans. Some motherfuckers are in DEEP.
There was a woman at the grocery store the other day, and she was wearing the jersey of the team who would play the Denver Broncos that afternoon (The Chiefs? Let’s say it was a Chiefs jersey). She loudly told the checkout person how she’d been in Colorado for nearly a year, but she HAD to represent her team. She also said a lot of other things about it, and when the checkout person asked jokingly if this lady had been in any fights that day, the woman said, “No, but people were cussing at me from their cars.”
Far be it from me to call this very strange, kinda crazy lady a very strange, kinda crazy lady who I didn’t entirely trust. But come on. Could that really be happening, and if so, is it worth wearing the jersey?
This is where we get to bands.
In this book, Nathan Rabin looks at two subcultures that seem kinda different, but really kinda aren’t.
Let’s start with Phish fans.
I never knew much about Phish other than some vague idea of them being a jam band. Which I had some experience with because I was dragged to the Furthur Festival when I was about 13.
If you want to know what the Furthur Festival is like, ask someone else. I was 13. I remember jammy, terrible music. I was too young to drink. And this very enthusiastic dad in front of me in khaki shorts would stand up, shake his butt WILDLY, and pretty much pull his family members out of their seats to get them dancing. I don’t really remember school dances, but this dad’s jerking butt is seared into my memory.
I went to a few other jammy concerts, enough to know I don’t like it. At all.
And after I read this book, I listened to what is actually a really solid podcast, Analyze Phish. In the show, one host, who loves Phish, tries to convince the other, who hates Phish, that Phish is awesome.
They go through some songs and different styles, and after several episodes the podcast ends with the hateful host conceding that he would go to another Phish show and had a good time. Although it should be noted that he was on lots of drugs.
Rabin, the writer of ‘You Don’t Know Me…” ALSO did a shitload of drugs most of the times he saw Phish. All sorts of drugs.
People who are on drugs really like Phish.
I’m still unconvinced.
Now, if I were friends with funny comedians like the ones from Analyze Phish, and if they invited me to have some weird drugs and go to a Phish show…I probably would. And I might enjoy it. I might end up curled into a ball and peeing continuously. But I think it’s pretty likely I’d have a good time. And I think, in all fairness to the podcast, that it’s a hell of a lot easier to have an enjoyable time when you’ve got the excitement of your good friends and drugs.
Rabin was also a proponent of seeing Phish live, almost dismissing their recordings entirely. In fact, he basically said that in the case of Phish and Insane Clown Posse, the music isn’t really the point. Which I can sort of see, but it’s also a convenient way to explain away the phenomenon of Phish fandom if you get to say, “The only way you’ll understand this is to attend a show.”
I get that Phish might not be about the music. But my question would be, Why wouldn’t I just go see a band I enjoy AND have fun friends there AND do drugs? Would my hater podcast friend have enjoyed a Bruce Springsteen show or a Prince show or, hell, a Michael Jackson tribute band just as much, if not more?
It seems to me that Phish enjoyment and drugs are almost completely intertwined. This is kind of the popular perception, and although I was open to being wrong about it, I have to say that the book and the podcast confirmed this perception as being 100% true, and also confirmed my suspicion that Phish is not the band for me. I’m not good at drugs. I really have nothing against them. Swear. I’m just very bad at doing them and don’t tend to have any fun.
You know how some people you can have fun with anywhere? Rollercoaster, factory tour, it’s all a blast? And then there are some people who you just don’t want to waste on fun times because they can manage to NOT have fun no matter what? That’s me and drugs. Arms crossed, asking when we can go home.
So, without going to a show, I guess I’ll never know for sure. But I feel like I’ve done the legwork and butt(remembering)work to know, as nearly as possible without going, that I would not enjoy a Phish show.
Let’s switch over to Insane Clown Posse
I found the ICP parts of the book a lot more interesting and thoughtful, actually. I hate to keep hammering on it, but I wonder if there was more to say about the shows and the infamous Gathering of the Juggalos because the author wasn’t completely fucked up while he was there. Ruthless speculation on my part, but there you have it.
The most interesting thing about this was it sent me down a little internet rabbit hole when Rabin suggested readers watch a short interview between ICP and Bill O’Reilly.
I don’t know how most people feel about Bill O’Reilly. I think he’s definitely an asshole and a sort of villain. I think he knows what he’s doing and doesn’t actually give a shit about anything. So it’s pretty great to watch ICP take him down a peg, honestly.
O’Reilly questions ICP on things they said to kids during a signing, and ICP has good answers about why they said what they said. At one point, Violent J says something to a kid like, “Do you do drugs yet? No? Then you better go home and smoke something.”
Of course, Bill O’Reilly is incensed. Violent J explains this away by saying that he’s messing with the kid. He’s not actually saying the kid should do drugs. He just knows that when a kid meets an adult, the kid expects the adult to say something adultish. Not “better go smoke something.”
O’Reilly counters with a question along the lines of “What if that kid didn’t know you weren’t being serious?”
Which is what this section of the book and this interview brought up for me, which is what sent me into that rabbit hole where I watched some other ICP interviews (always hilarious when a news anchor has to read the lyrics out loud) and then other entries from O’Reilly’s Children In Danger segment that included folks like Marilyn Manson making reasonable arguments to unreasonable questions.
I thought about it a lot. Are your kids in danger?
It makes me think of this Babes In The Woods idea. That kids or idiots or whoever is stupid, so we have to make sure everything is dumbed down so that we’re safe. We can’t use humor or metaphor because what if so-and-so doesn’t understand it?
It’s a classic argument. The pundit usually doesn’t want to look dumb, so he’ll say he gets it. But what about the children? What about the people who don’t get it or take it literally?
I think that’s kinda bullshit. Seriously.
This is the biggest thing I took away from this book and, god help me, the lesson I learned from Insane Clown Posse.
It’s time to stop with this argument where we censor because we’re afraid that unnamed fools will misunderstand. Where we say I get it, but what about people who aren’t as smart as me.
There are plenty of people who are as smart as me or way smartster. There are a lot of people smarter than Bill O’Reilly. I’d argue that he’s pretty savvy and smart, although completely devoid of a true internal ethics, or at he makes it look despicably easy to ignore those ethics at every turn.
There very well might be people out there so unsophisticated that they will do anything ICP says at face value.
However, does it not bother anyone else that ICP hasn’t ever killed anyone? Does it mean nothing that Marilyn Manson hasn’t killed anyone? We can argue all damn day about whether guns kill people or people kill people, or some combination of both kill people, but it’s a fact that Marilyn Manson does not kill people.
I’m sorry, but I’m just tired of hearing “what about the children?” or “what about the vulnerable populations?” when it comes to whether or not someone will understand art and relate to it in a legal, non-destructive fashion. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. To me, that argument is irrelevant in light of the simple fact that artist have the right to express themselves, and that right is not limited by the public’s ability to understand that message.
If we start limiting media and our messages to the public by what they can fully understand, here’s a short list of shit that’s got to go.
+Political Ads
These are often completely disingenuous and skirt the truth, taking quotes out of context and presenting opinion as information. Sounds an awful lot like the criticisms of popular music, don’t it?
+Advertising, in general
If we feel the general public can’t handle the subtext of ICP, I think it’s safe to assume they don’t actually know what’s going on with the World’s Most Interesting Man ads, for instance. So these have to go.
+All News Programs
Do news programs lay things out from start to finish, thoroughly examining a topic and both sides of a discussion? Come on.
In fact, I would suggest that ICP is more genuine than any of these things. At least ICP isn’t specifically designed with the goal of doing shady shit in the background.
Art is easy to pick on because it’s up for interpretation. It’s the very nature of art. It causes a discussion, and art that everyone can agree on probably isn’t doing its job.
I have an opinion on Phish, and I read the book and listened in on a long discussion about them. I don’t enjoy their music, still, but their art did create this book and a discussion I enjoyed, and it that way it’s successful even for me, the non-fan. And although I don’t like it, although I think people are not well-informed of the longterm damage of hallucinogens, I wouldn’t ever seek to ban Phish.
I have an opinion on ICP too, which is similar from the music side, although added in, I think there’s the idea that they provide a unity for people who don’t usually have that. ICP, perhaps more than any other band, has captured a market that is typically seen as less-than-fertile ground: America’s poor.
They always say millions of Elvis fans can’t be wrong. I’d edit that statement: Millions of Elvis fans can be wrong, but they’re wrong together. They have each other.
Millions of Phish fans and ICP fans are wrong musically, from my personal perspective. But they’re right to seek out something they enjoy, something they love. Whether or not they’re right or wrong is irrelevant because they have their bands, and they have each other.
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