For music dorks only

Today I sat down and actually read a review at pitchforkmedia.com. I usually eschew the reviews (unless they really rip something to shreds) and go to the news and interviews and whatnot, but today they reviewed a box set of Tortoise songs that I haven't heard yet. And since Tortoise is one of my favorite bands, and they gave it a 9.2 out of 10 (although I'm still not sure how they decide that it's a 9.2 and not, say, a 9.3), I sat down and read it.

And what do you know? I actually enjoyed it. It's the kind of review written by and for dorks like me. Which means that it's probably utterly useless to people who won't get references to Miles Davis' On the Corner (which this blog is actually named after!) and Can as "dance music you can't dance to." Another dorky music nerd reference: "Casey Rice's 'Cobwebbed' sounds a bit like an Aphex circa Selected Ambient Works II DAT discovered a few decades later in a storage unit out by the highway." If you actually know what a DAT is, you're probably a step ahead of most people. If you have Selected Ambient Works II, you're golden.

My personal favorite, though: "And though bookish indie heartthrobs can now make a mint singing about the Cook County chamber of commerce over Steve Reich pastiches, Tortoise offered no such easy ins."

Ouch! Take that, Sufjan! I love Sufjan Stevens as much as the next person, but the writer's got a point there, I guess... listen to your copy of Enjoy Your Rabbit and go out and buy yourself a copy of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and see if Reich shouldn't be suing Sufjan right now.

So what's my point here? I have no idea. I do know that there are probably few things more infuriatingly stupid than writing about writing about music (Would Frank Zappa say that's like dancing about dancing about architecture? Another nerdy reference for you.), so some people are probably reading this and rolling their eyes so far back into their heads that they can see their own brains. But I'm bored and killing a half hour, so indulge me today and I swear I'll write about Snakes on a Plane tomorrow.