Awkward Conversations About Music
Note: I didn’t take the above picture. It was found on their webpage .
I was at the Metro on Wednesday night to see Robyn Hitchcock (who I promise to blog about next week) and had moved away from Cinchel and Robert to secure a spot I thought would be better for photos. There was a really chatty guy up front who, like many do, wanted to know who I was taking photos for. I told him that I was one of many bloggers for Radio Free Chicago but that I would also have the photos up on flickr. He asked me what the last show I had seen at the Metro was and I told him Airiel and The Office to which he started telling me about a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show he’d been to at the Metro. I don’t have anything against BRMC. It’s just that he was comparing them to all of the great shoegaze bands and I’m not sure I agree they hold up to that.
He also began to list Irish bands he liked, asking me why I didn’t like them when, afterall, I have long red hair. I told him I was more Swedish. He didn’t seem to hear me. He talked about The Pogues and The Tossers for the next ten minutes. I was feeling bad. I don’t have anything against these bands but I don’t really have anything for them, either. They just don’t do much for me is all. Pretty much every band he could think of “Do you like this band!” and I’d say an apathetic, “no.” Our one point of agreement was when I tried to get him talking about Canadian bands like The Heavy Blinkers and The Dears. I finally hit a note when I said, “Or how about Sloan” Immediately, he said, “Oh yeah they had a song…a great song. It was a long time ago “Under….” “Under…..”