Saturday, February 13, 2010

Can Staten Island win WNYC's Battle of the Boroughs?

The AWE's Ben Johnson has posted a helpful and informative blog about WNYC's upcoming Battle of the Boroughs.
"Whether or not you feel that Staten Island should draw the glance of those who don't live here, it is undeniable that putting yourselves out there results in a higher form of play."
It seems like a great opportunity for a no-name Island group to make some waves beyond the local 'scene.' Sure, maybe a little doucey but, what isn't in the music biz these days?

So what are we gonna do Staten? Let's take a few guesses:
  1. nothing

  2. gripe about williamsburg

  3. book another show at Martini Red

  4. learn how to play a set of Arcade Fire tunes

  5. score some blow

  6. make trivial observations about my grammar
If anyone does actually decided to join the fracas, it would be apropo to stop by his blog and drop a note. After all, he does spend most of his time hyping your mediocre band. Something like "hey man, thanks for the info. this is the greatest idea eva" -- or, "this contest is wack, our band is way above this high school nonsense."

See, you could just copy (ctrl+c) and paste (ctrl + v) -- we made it THAT easy for you.

Now, we know the locals would rather have someone we "know" like all-star blogger Paul Bruno running shit at the Advance. But, how many times can we argue over which Angry Samoans record is their greatest?

5 comments:

  1. "If anyone does actually decided to join the fracas?" good grammar

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  2. "Back From Samoa" is the greatest Angry Samoans record.

    N'duh.

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  3. I'm going to go with option 1.

    Thanks for the love Joe. I'm just catching up on these recent posts, but they're good--even the ones not asking people to read/comment my own blog.

    Also, I always laugh when people tell me what an awesome job I have. In many ways, it's true, but anyone who thinks my gig is all good times might change his tune when he ends up spending most of his time being told to cover the latest and greatest item to step over the doorjam of the Hilton. Trust me, it's not all glory, like penning Paragraph 'takedowns' and failing to describe the jubilation of the crowd at the latest Headlocks show. Sometimes I have to cover music on Staten Island even the local 'scenesters' don't know/care about. And trust, that can get old reeeal fast.

    The other thing that always amuses me is when people say someone doesn't deserve to cover a certain beat because they're not an 'insider.' This is a tricky line to walk. On the one hand, yes; knowing the community is important, but you also have to draw certain lines in the sand, even when you don't want to. I like plenty of the people in the community I cover here, but can I really be friends with them? Not if I want to do my job well--and I already do a lot of cheerleading. I think anyone from Staten Island chosen, in a perfect world, to cover this scene, might find it difficult to do so, because it might require them to immediately be aloof from their social circle. You don't have to look far at all to see evidence at publications where this sort of thing gets pretty messy. The fact is, while I truly do yearn to spend more time hanging out on Staten with music folk, I often stop myself short, because in some cases it's bad business. I think a lot of people don't realize this constant connundrum, and sometimes I wish they understood it better.

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  4. staten island is a strange, strange beast. i think it's hard enough to try and define the culture, 'the scene' or what have you, much less critique it. it's not something i envy and if i had to do it honestly, i wouldn't be very popular, not that i am already.

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