The Other Paper music section 1/18

I would like to begin this post with somewhat of a disclaimer. I am aware of the winds I'm subject to as a young quasi-journalist in a relatively insular area. I would assume that the reason any journalist decides to do anything is to create discussion and in the unlikely event that I ever find myself applying for a job at SNP or The Other Paper I would assume they would also understand this.

I was reading through TOP today (part of my weekly ritual... I am kind of a news junkie) and I was surprised that when I got to the music section, there were THREE local music reviews. TOP I think does a good job of not being afraid to criticize local bands (ie: their Comfest rundowns) and it's important to their credibility that they are not afraid to be honest when it comes to local music, but...

They absolutely RIP into three local releases by The Bottoms, Rayburn and Spank Bank. I've only ever seen or heard Rayburn and it's not really my thing and thus... I haven't reviewed them. It's not my thing and they are a struggling young band and I respect that.

Chaid Painter, Karen Graves and Rick Allen didn't like the records and they chose to publish their reviews. Not just one bad review, but three. For all I know the records really do suck and they did so in the spirit of honesty and neutrality. The way I see it, though, is that the criticism could either be more constructive, or, if they really hated these records (Graves' comments are a little more tempered) they could just run nothing.

Just my thoughts.

Blake Miller in Pitchfork

Heyhello.

If anyone noticed, Columbus's Blake Miller put out a mighty fine record via Exit Stencil at some point over the last few months. I have no idea when it was released, I know nothing about the guy himself (this may or may not be intentional). All I know is a friend passed me a copy of his CD and I was really, really impressed by it.

Well, Pitchfork done agrees and gave it a 7.4, which is outstanding for an indie debut.

Just a moment of commentary, if you will, though. The writer opens with these remarks:

In my search for unique, exceptional music, I'm not sure why I even bothered to check out this album-- nothing about its façade indicates that Blake Miller is anything but an average, coffeehouse-circuit singer/songwriter.

I found myself wondering, why does a singer/songwriter need to have more than just a name? How many artists totally get written off just because they don't have a freaky name? Hopefully this will help peel off some of the long-present grime & cynisism on at least one pretensious PFork scribe.