It was ~60F and misty all day today. Downtown felt deserted – hardly anyone at Old Havana for lunch, and the same at Dos Perros for dinner. People joke about southerners & our inability to drive in ice & snow, but half the problem there is that we’re out driving in ice & snow.
A Seattle/London style dim damp, on the other hand, and we fuggin hibernate, apparently.
Posted the following to Facebook & Twitter: “That thing where dudes who are like barely even 30 want to go ahead & make dad-rock. I mean, way to get it over with, I guess?”
No response on Twitter; 84 comments on Facebook. I guess everyone was hiding out from the damp at home, itching for a discussion.
I didn’t define “dad-rock” (and I probably couldn’t, really, if truly pressed to do so) and the conversation kinda circled around that. johndarnielle engaged fully, as he is wont to do (if he’s gonna engage at all, he’s gonna engage fully), saying “like seriously if that’s your yardstick, who is presently the most dadrock band on the planet? Joy Division. Dads around the world can’t shut up about Joy Division, and dads with access to the press reserve their praise for bands who emulate Joy Division. Or Wire. These are the present-moment cornerstones of dadrock. The other stuff is easing into grandpa rock.”
Can’t dispute any of that. Who’s to say what dads like? Whether there is a separate genre of music that ONLY dads like is perhaps another matter.
I was just using it as lazy shorthand for what my old friend James Adair summarized thusly: “Sensitive/white/paunchy …. above average harmonic sophistication, and exquisitely curated influences = dad rock”
I was also inventing a trend out of two songs by one band who shall remain nameless, because that’s what you do on a cool misty Sunday afternoon in the South when everyone’s afraid to leave the house.
Finished Transparent. In addition to its various other flaws, it sure plays like an HBO/Showtime half-hour dramedy. Like Six Feet Under with more trans people and fewer corpses.
As a corrective, I ordered a DVD of Myra Breckinridge. Will file a full report once it shows up & we watch it. I saw it once before, and I recall it as memorable, although I don’t really remember it.