Boards
'How to respond to a bad review' by me
"IT was not a happy Monday."
What a fucking dire pun, how unimaginitive.
"Outside the weather was lousy, inside the singing was lousy too."
Ah that's what they call dramatic tension. The elements mirroring the inner turmoil. I think they teach that on day one of 'How to write a hack novel' courses.
"Daniel Johnston has achieved something of a legendary status but, for me, his first ever gig in Wales was a huge disappointment.
"Apparently what he does is “pathos”, but his simplification of emotions seems pathetic to an extreme degree."
'Disappointment'/'apparently' - the use of 'apparently' implies you have no prior experience of Daniel Johnston and so how could you have been disappointed? surely you came to the gig with no preconceptions?
Oh and well done on the 'pathos'/pathetic pun. You have succesfully composed a play on words using two words which have the same linguistic root and mean the same thing. Ace!
"Even if you’re deliberately pathetic, there surely should be some style to it."
You'd know all about 'style' wouldn't you? That was day two of 'Become a writer in a week'. That's why you write for the fucking Echo.
"Ian Brown was always a bad singer, but you forgave him for the quality of the songwriting."
Ian Brown isn't so much a singer as someone who grunts in rhythm over wanky guitar parts. Daniel writes beautiful melodies he can't quite sing. But at least he doesn't just give up and mumble like your grandad losing at dominos.
"Johnston’s songwriting is so childlike and unimaginative, it’s unforgivable."
I wasn't aware people needed forgiveness from third rate journalists for their creative ideas. It was Kurt Vonnegut who said that literary critics who wrote viciously negative reviews of novels were like knights donning a suit of armour to attack an ice cream sunday. There's a subtext of bitterness in reviews like this. From whence comes your authority to judge a man's entire life's work on the basis of a half-watched gig by someone you obviously haven't made any attempt to understand? Who are you to decide if the lifetime of emotional trauma and unrequited love so beautifully expressed in literally hundreds of songs merits your 'forgiveness'? You condescending prick.
Srsly, you're right though, children are renowned for their lack of imaginations. As are local newspaper journalists who've been taught that there's a 'correct' way to write. See above^ re: 'happy mondays' pun.
"Just one example of Johnston’s lyrics “someone once said life was like a cow/but I don’t know how” is typical, with its absurdly clunky rhyme, its lack of poetry, or philosophy, or anything it seems people have been led to believe may be associated with Johnston’s work."
What was that? That strange whooping noise coming from people's throats? Are they having some kind of seizure? It's what...? 'Laughter'? What's that? You mean sometimes people can use self-awareness and absurdist humour within a sad song to add, that's right, 'Pathos' to their work? People don't have to whinge about the black pit of their soul and use clumsy metaphors about rain to illustrate their emotional state? What day of 'You suck at everything else so why not try writing' was that covered on?
Also, your sentence doesn't make grammatical sense. How's that for 'clunky'? you illiterate fuck.
"The night was given some interest with local musicians invited to play alongside Johnston, and it worked in as much as the guys could actually play so that Johnston was no longer so glaring."
well I'm not going to argue with you here. the band were ace. But bear in mind they were playing Daniel's own music, which he wrote!
"I will also grant that for the odd flickering moment Johnston’s brutal honesty almost enabled me to melt into the eccentric crowd of adoring fans, but those times were rare."
Woah, hang on! What was that? A glimmer of comprehension. 'Brutal honesty' - that almost sounds like an acknowledgement that emotional complexity doesn't have to be dolled up in fancy language or obscure musical forms. But you can't have meant that can you? Otherwise that'd render everything you previously said totally invalid. It would illustrate that you're actually just some misanthropic cunt labouring under the misapprehension that a 'music review' is much more than one person's self-important opinion. That sometimes music which by any objective criteria should be filed under 'awful' can actually be loved by thousands of people because it has a resonance beyond 'by numbers' notions of proper music. That some notion of personality should enter music? Hell I'd be scared if I were you because if music needs to be infused with personality then who knows, journalism could be next?
"For the rest of the time, I wanted to shake each member of the audience and tell them to grow up."
I wonder how you'd have managed that from up there in the press balcony? Still it must be nice not to have to rub shoulders with the real fans, eccentric as we are - actually I am pretty eccentric, I went to the gig wearing a suit jacket AND jeans and trainers, I know! I know! I'm a maniac!
Luckily for you, you can have a nice chat with your mates during the songs. Sup a beer or two - 'can I get a receipt for it? This one's on the Echo'. Perhaps pause to scribble down the odd lyric you can quote out of context later to reinforce your half arsed writeup?
[name removed]
In conclusion: Why don't you go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut? Why don't you go take a flying fuck at the mooooooooon!