For anyone who's big into Matador Records or garage punk, this has been a pretty sad day. I was just informed by a friend that Jay Reatard, an indie-punk singer-songwriter who was also the frontman for punk band The Reatards, died in his sleep last night. While I can't say this is a huge tragedy for me, I do enjoy his music and gave him a pretty good review last year. You can read that here: http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/albums/index.php?album_id=10156

Apparently 2010 was going to be a big year for him. I'm linking a proper obituary at the end of this post. I won't try to wax philosophical or act like I'm much more than a casual fan, but this is truly a sad loss for a musician with massive potential.

http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/01/13/jay-reatard-dies/

Andy

School has been kicking my ass, particularly in terms of my advanced reporting and feature writing class. I've been assigned to do a trend story, so here goes:

With the rise of Katy Perry and Lady GaGa, and before that, Kelly Clarkson (who started out as a corporate creation and then took a deliberate artistic hand in her work) and Lily Allen, pop music has seen a definite shift in popularity from Britneys and Christinas--essentially, unadulterated sugary bullshit--to equally poppy, sugary female singers who at least have some hand in writing their own songs, especially in the case of Katy Perry and Lady GaGa. 

So, first as a critic, and then as a fan, how do you feel about this? Do you feel as if we're finally giving people more credit for legitimate talent, or is it simply a fleeting change of interest? I just need a few quotable lines from people who know what they're talking about. And I mean, of course, you fine gentlemen.

Thanks, and I'll be sure to make you sound dashing in the article!

Andy

 I got an unsolicited email  looking for "writers and photographers" for a "new magazine." I eagerly responded, but things got ugly. Let me know what you think.

Original email:

Hello to all,

S.L.A.M. is a new, online magazine that is actively recruiting new talent.  If you are a photographer or writer (or know someone who is) we would love to hear from you.  Currently we only offer unpaid positions, but there is free access to shows and free cds up for review.  If you are interested, please contact me at michelle@slamscene.com.  Please provide a sample of your work, where you live, and how far you are willing to travel.  Thank you in advance for your interest.

Sincerely,

Michelle

Editor

S.L.A.M.

My initial application:

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Andy Polhamus <andypolhamus@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Michelle:

I received a mass email from your office that you were recruiting talent for S.L.A.M. magazine. I thought I would contact you as professionally as possible to tell you that I would be very interested in working on your publication.

By the time S.L.A.M. launches its first issue, I will be a second-year journalism student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Long Island, New York. Long Island is my residence through the school year, though I travel home to southern New Jersey (just over twenty minutes from Philadelphia) frequently to rehearse and perform with my ska-punk band, The Retrotones. I regularly perform and attend shows in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, and depending upon which of these cities I am near when my assignment comes, I would be willing to travel anywhere in either of those cities, as well as much of New Jersey.

Furthermore, I have a fair amount of experience writing about music, as well as writing for publications in general. Throughout the second half of my high school career, I was a staff writer for the online 'zine Music Emissions, which specializes in up-and-coming indie and alternative acts. I still contribute there occasionally, as well as contributing coverage on the local music scene for the Stony Brook Press, my school's alternative biweekly newspaper.

Samples of my work can be found at http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/albums/index.php?album_id=6770 as well as http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/albums/index.php?album_id=5727 . I am also attaching the reviews found at those links to this email in case you'd prefer not to visit the site.

I hope to contribute to your magazine. I am looking to find a new regular outlet for my writing. And the perks of free CDs and shows don't hurt, either.

Thank you very much for your consideration. I hope I can be a help in launching a new independent voice.

Sincerely,

Andy Polhamus

Her initial acceptance:

From: Michelle Dean <redjimbobdave@gmail.com> Subject: Re: S.L.A.M. seeking photographers and writers To: "Andy Polhamus" <andypolhamus@yahoo.com> Date: Friday, May 1, 2009, 12:53 PM

Thanks Andy,

I thought I’d send out a note to give you the details on what S.L.A.M. is about, how we want the stories to be submit, and open things up for questions.

What does S.L.A.M. stand for?  The answer is Scene, Lifestyle, Attitude and Music.  Each issue will have stories to support each category.  What do we mean by that?  Well, Scene describes the tribe you consider yourself to be a part of, be it punk, rockabilly, Emo, yuppie, pop, metal head. It also means where you are in your scene, the desert, a club, a bar, car show and any reviews/ coverage of these places.  Lifestyle describes the scene you are in and covers the things necessary to maintain your lifestyle.  Fashion coverage, how to tips, beauty, party plans, etc. would kind of fall into this category.

Attitude is more about individuals and their personality.  This is where the blogs, advice, and interviews, the more personal stories fit in.  Music, duh.  This is where we have CD reviews, concert coverage and band interviews.   

How do the stories get assigned?  You are welcome to select your own stories, just run it by me first to make sure I don't end up with two articles on the same event and that the subject meshes with our demographic.  There will also be occasions when I assign stories to you.  Rest assured, I am aware that people have real jobs and won't play demanding editor too often.  

What is the process for submitting a written piece?  First of all, I want everyone to proof read their article and run it through a spell checking program and then read it again before submission.  I know it sounds obvious, but you would be really surprised how many people fail to take the time to run spell check.  You will send the article as an attachment to michelle@slamscene.com.  In the e-mail subject line, please put the type of article it is, the subject of the article and your name.  For example, if I were interviewing Larry Mullen Jr., the subject line would look like this:

Example:

Interview-Larry Mullen Jr.- Michelle Dean

The story format itself is pretty basic.  At the top of the page, in the left hand corner I want the type of article, subject, author’s name and date, single spaced.

Example:

Interview

Larry Mullen Jr.

Michelle Dean

4/28/09

Then drop down a few lines and write the article.  Keep it left justified, and insert a line between paragraphs.  Make sure any article is at least 500 words long.  If the article is too long, the editor may trim it down at their discretion. 

Any questions, comments, concerns?  Let me know.  Thanks for your interest.

I did, in fact, have a few questions, comments, and concerns:

On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Andy Polhamus <andypolhamus@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Michelle: I don't mean to sound suspicious, but may I ask about the conception and history of S.L.A.M.? I'm just wondering about how you got into the hobby/business of publication, when the idea came about, what the magazine is ultimately looking to accomplish, etc. I've had a couple of bad experiences helping out with "new magazines," so I apologize if I seem skeptical. Also, what will the deadlines be for the first issue? How will each issue be presented to the readership? With what frequency will prospective contributors be expected to submit? Thanks a lot for your time. I'm sure you're busy. -Andy

She didn’t like this, apparently, prompting this inexplicable attack:

Dear Andy,

I could be suspicious of why it is important for a writer to know confidential information about the catalyst for the formation of our company, what our mission statement is, and what our 10 year plan is for the company.   I thought the details were pretty straight forward.  I understand being suspicious of a company that promises you the moon, but since we very honestly said we couldn't pay anyone for stories at the present time, and that we were an online magazine hoping for a launch in mid June, I don't understand where the skepticism comes into play.  The deadline for content is the 15th of each month for the next month's issue. 

There is a marketing plan which involves a major, nationwide music tour which is how we expect to make contact with the majority of our potential readers.

Sincerely,

Michelle

I took no prisoners. It is here that I wonder if I went too far:

Dear Michelle, How about the fact that my name and work will be included in something that you're publishing on the fucking internet? Is that enough of an explanation? I didn't ask for your tax records; I was just trying to verify that you weren't another stupid kid trying to half-ass a fanzine that will ultimately prove too broad in subject matter to effectively cover anything at all (hint: it will). There was quite literally nothing pompous, presumptuous, or even vaguely questionable about me asking about the specifics of what essentially amounts to resume-building volunteer work. Your adolescent, snarky, hostile, and preposterously defensive response answers any and all questions I might have had about your fledgling newsletter. The fact that I was very deliberate in my wording (quick reminder, Michelle-- I worked very hard to say that I was not, in fact, questioning your motives) whatsoever makes your response even more laughable. In short, fuck you. As a writer who won't get paid, I may not have a right to your credit score (a ridiculous accusation to make, by the way-- really? Confidential information?), but I sure as hell do have a right to know what your mission statement as a company is. And as for your utter lack of explanation about the "catalyst" for your "company," the fact that your answer was not immediately "passion for the music and lifestyle" lets me know that there is nothing I could gain by sending my work to you. I am left with three possible conclusions: either you are a corporate tool, which would also explain how you received my email address in the first place, or you are a borderline competent venture capitalist hoping to cash in on the high school crowd, or, most likely, you are an easily offended idiot with something to hide. And most importantly, as a writer who won't get paid, I have nothing to lose. So it is with a light heart that I can say: Bye! Andy P.S. It was obvious from your last email that even if you were to begin accepting submissions from me, the "professional" relationship would be strained and awkward. If the bridge was in such disrepair, I might as well burn it.

My dad, who had ostensibly no knowledge whatsoever of the turn my life had taken, came up to me one night and handed me a paperback. “Here,” he said. “This guy was one of the first people to write a novel about World War II, besides Joseph Heller. Me and mom were just talking about him so I picked this up on my way home from work.” The cover was a pale green with a giant blue letter V set behind the text of the author and title. A line of print across the top exclaimed “From the best selling author of Timequake.” The name of the book, of course, was Welcome to the Monkey House.

Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Vonnegut’s better known short stories. It’s a great book, but nobody would argue that it even approaches being his most important work. I didn’t know that then, nor did I care (and I still don’t today). I read every story in the book over and over again before moving on to Cat’s Cradle, which Vonnegut submitted as his thesis for a master’s degree in anthropology. I quickly moved forward through his career, reading Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, The Sirens of Titan, Breakfast of Champions, Bagombo Snuffbox (another collection of more obscure, earlier short stories), Bluebeard, and his last published work, A Man Without a Country. Let it never be said that Kurt Vonnegut was not an extremely accomplished writer. And as big a fan as I am, I’m still missing one of his most important novels, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, as well as Jailbird, Timequake, Hocus Pocus, and his works of collected essays, which include Fates Worse Than Death, God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian, and Palm Sunday.

I dealt with not knowing what to do with myself by becoming lazy, selfish, and incredibly irresponsible. Fuck what everybody else thought, it was all bullshit anyway. Me, I was going to ruin things as much as possible until such time as I was fit to move away. The fact that I would have indeed ruined everything would probably come into play about the time I reached adulthood, but hey. I was fourteen. And so it was that on the first day of my summer vacation after freshman year, I got arrested in a park for being drunk off my ass with some other kids who were smoking pot. You know how your parents never grounded you like on TV? Mine did. I spent those three months sitting around, reading and thinking.

The night I read Breakfast of Champions in one sitting is something I will never forget. The emotion I experienced when I looked at the final page, a magic marker sketch of a crying face, has still not come out of my memory, and probably never will. Sitting there at five in the morning three days before my fifteenth birthday, I had an epiphany, or rather, as Paul Slazinger from Bluebeard would say, an “opposite epiphany,” because I had become pleasantly lost in the space of the universe. The conclusion I came to is that when push comes to shove, we’re always doing our best to work towards what we think is right, or what we think will make us happy, and we’re always failing miserably. But eventually, it’ll be alright, because even if things are exactly as they seem, they have always been that way and will always be that way. Or as the Tralfamadorians say in Slaughterhouse-Five when they describe the way the world’s end will be brought about when an engineer pushes the wrong button, “He has always pushed it. We have always let him push it. We will always let him push it.” Vonnegut himself once said that everything in his novels, and I suppose all of the things I felt as a result of his novels, could be summed up in a fan letter he got from a fourteen year old boy sometime in the late seventies: “Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail.” Nobody knew more than he did that as long as we’re all just trying to figure this out, we might just as well be good to each other.

With this new vision of clarity from Mr. Vonnegut, nothing improved. Well, not on the surface. Life, of course, still sucked. But suddenly it was a little easier to relate to myself. Slowly but surely, I gained the impression that things were going to be pretty much okay, because things already were pretty much okay. The country might be down the tubes, corporate America could be stealing more than ever, and my personal life might occasionally be a complete wreck, but as long as we had that crazy old man with the uncombed hair and Pall Malls to tell us we were completely wrong, we’d be fine. This was a man who had seen all of Dresden burn to the ground, whose mother had committed suicide before he participated in the D-Day invasion, who had adopted his sister’s children after she died years before her time, who had spent a decade at a time wanting to die, and who had made it through to the other side. Someday, I resolved, I would meet this man, and explain to him all he had done.

Which will never happen now. You are reading this because Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died yesterday, April 11th, at age eighty four. He didn’t kill himself or O.D. or anything else your favorite rock star would do, and that’s because he wasn’t a rock star. He was much too strong for that. He died after suffering irreversible brain damage from a fall at his home in New York City, and went peacefully like the accomplished, pragmatic old man he had become.

Living in a world without Kurt will be a little like going on without the reassurance of my best friend. Sure, I’ll know how he would have felt about various atrocities and injustices man has yet to commit, but without the voice of the prophet himself, the comic edge everything seemed to have will no doubt be a little more dull. Still, it’s not so bad. After all, everything is as it has always seemed. Now get back in your car and help kill a baby dolphin. Fight an unjust war, and maybe fall in love. But for everybody’s sake, be nice. With any luck, we’ll all get the same epitaph as one of my favorite Vonnegut characters, Billy Pilgrim:

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.