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You force the music section to take Michael Mann to the next general meeting of the Broke Vancouver Independent Musicians Association, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two tickets to a Live Nation club show of your choice taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.
Dear Payback Time: Here’s the thing—I actually agree with Michael Mann’s Pop Eye issue about bands asking for money. I do find it tacky and presumptuous, and in my 10 years as a touring and recording artist I’ve never used that tactic.
My bigger issue with Mr. Mann is his crass and uninformed portrait of what constitutes a touring musician. I’ve played everything from shithole bars to massive European festivals, I’ve slept on more floors and couches than I could ever remember. I’ve ruined relationships, lost jobs, made a little bit of money, and worked damn hard to do it. Playing in a touring band is hard work. Anyone who sustains that lifestyle will tell you it is not about cocaine and hookers. It is a gruelling and isolating lifestyle fuelled by an unrelenting passion to do what you love to do. I’m sure Michael has his circle of backslapping hipster cronies congratulating him on stirring the pot. But the bottom line is they are a bunch of armchair pussies. GET IN THE VAN, MICHAEL MANN! I dare you. You wouldn’t last a week.
Mann’s inflammatory article, I believe, casts a pall on the Georgia Straight and any other organizations that choose to print his writing or keep his employ. If his goal is to become the Glenn Beck of music journalism, then I guess he’s on the right track.
> Joseph Blood
Michael Mann responds: Dear Joseph Martin (aka Joseph Blood of Bend Sinister!)—big fan here. Never heard your music—I always skip the opening act—but the way you bussed my table the last time I was at Glowbal really made my evening. That place is so much more rock ’n’ roll than the stupid hipster haunts I frequent, and the Moroccan lamb sirloin with fried eggplant and roasted red pepper saffron coulis is divine.
Thanks for the Payback Time letter! It, along with the thousands of responses my article generated, cements my belief that musicians in this country are a bunch of entitled little twits who can’t read and take themselves far too seriously.
In regards to your challenge that I get out of my comfy Eames armchair and spend 10 years suffering in a tour van, sleeping on floors while not doing drugs or having sex like you have, I think I’ll pass.
You see, for spending a few hours drunkenly wanking out my article—that became the most widely read piece of Canadian music criticism of the year—I got money, a little bit of infamy, numerous free drinks, and laid.
(Thanks for posting my photo online, dummies! Wouldn’t say it was a slut-boning, though. I’m what’s referred to in some circles as a “bossy bottom”.)
What did you get for wasting your time tweeting about me obsessively, commenting on my article, creeping on my Facebook profile, asking your girlfriend about me, then crafting this boring, self-righteous retort? I’ll tell you what you got: a pair of tickets to M83. See you there! I’m getting in for free too.
You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an email to payback@straight.com.
As a little kid, was Michael Mann only given attention when he threw tantrums?
"I MAKE PEOPLE MAD I AM HARDCORE."
No, Michael. No, you are not. You are a terrible writer who does little to no research and produces shoddy material.
If you were teen, you'd be immature.
That you are an adult of some decades is an embarrassment to humanity.
Not a musician myself, but I'm "in the industry" as they say, and your piece, and the above response to Joseph Blood's letter, cements my belief that you are still a very, very poor writer whose strenuous efforts to prove his RAWK bona fides fall neatly into the dust-bin of in-joke adolescent wankery that many of us got out of our systems in the pages of college papers (though at my best I was better than you by a country mile). No, Mr. Mann, you're going to be very embarrassed when and if you ever reach a level of maturity beyond frat-boy bonehead, and when that day comes I hope you have the courage to own up and admit you were a shoddy writer and a failed badass.
Like J. Blood, it's not so much about the points you raised, which may or may not be meritorious but at least ignited some real debate; but about your pathetic, wannabe bad-boy posing. I'm with the hoards of folks who think it's your editor and publisher who really need to answer for the crap that was printed in the Straight this week.
I think I'm mostly disappointed in the Georgia Straight itself for publishing this sort of thing (as well as Mann's piece last week).
"It'll generate controversy! It'll get views of our website! Our advertisers will love us!"
This is a new low for the paper, and this is saying something because it has been getting worse for some time.
I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I?
http://vancouver.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/exclusive/2012/michael-ma...
This quote basically sums him up: " People have gotten angry and have posted my photo online... that’s cool."
It's cool to have people angry at what you said? That just proves you're a troll.
Then get this response folks. "I have friends who are musicians; they say it was pretty spot on what I said."
So, you just call all musicians, oh hold on, and some of your friends... "entitled little twits". What pathetic musician would admit to being your friend?
That's like people who make racist comments and then defend them by saying "But some of my friends are black."
You're just fucking pathetic all round. Your original article and then your lame "nobody understood my humor" retort.
The public have spoken. If you hate musicians then fuck off from the Straight.
And really...you "don't care" that someone posted your picture online and told people to spit on you? That's really fucked up dude. If being publicly despised for what you wrote is how you define success then there's not much more to say.
I often look back on my failed rockstar dreams with regret, mostly because I self-diagnosed my problem as lack of perseverence and being overly accustomed to soft beds, nourishing food, sleep, and other such things that you don't get in the van. The A&R guys liked my tunes but could I back it up with devastating live shows? Answer: nope
I hated the van more than I wanted to entertain people is the bottom line. I will never have anything but admiration for those who stick it out in the touring mode.
But the fact is if you want to improve the quality of the scene, it's great but it's got nthing to do with Kickstarter, it's a different discussion. Kickstarter and its like might just be the best training wheels for you young pups to even get used to the idea of supporting the arts through some selfless gesture of genuine sacrifice ya cheap little pukes. I see you with your cheap beers in the parking lot trying to weasel out of paying bar prices at the gigs, and I know you need to be fucking BEGGED to go out and see stuff and pay covers instead of staying in and playing games in your toques and Converse all-stars while your pot of white kid anemia noodle surprise simmers on the stove.
Far too few of your little parasites has any idea about reaching into your pockets and actually ponying up dough to keep a dance company or a symphony or a museum afloat, so is too much to ask you to get behind some band you might like? If some bunch of wan wimps with nothing much to say asks you for a donation, SAY NO! But if someone or something worthwhile comes along, then PAY UP!!
That's what people been doing for generations and unless the self-absorbed millennials get off their collective skinny asses and participate on some level other than "waht's in it for me?" we're all more doomed than you can even know.
"I realise what a badge of honour it is to get a bit of criticism at all...I did something worth remarking on." - Quote from "Tribes" written by Seth Godin