Going on its tenth official year, Cake has certainly punched the rock clock long enough to warrant a fanbase bonus. But it wasn’t until the Sacramento combo’s appearance at Detroit’s TasteFest that I saw firsthand their motorcade of anonymity. Sprinkled through a societal cross-section typical of any free fest were little fiefs of geekdom, splinter cells of awkward whitebreads waiting to witness the sardonic gospel of John McCRea. It was summer in the city, and the Cake fan archetype was on the prowl.
We have become the society of the spectacle. The car wreck. The plane crash. People who aren’t sated unless we see another less fortunate. We watch Cops not merely to chuckle at what we deem as being low lifes (although one could make the argument that we are no higher—socioeconomic status notwithstanding—than they, and perhaps even lower on the scale: we’re watching; they’re doing) but because we want to see them get slammed around. Wrestling with authenticity and a badge. We want to see when animals attack because they are ripping something to shreds. Feel the viscera. We watch the makeover programs not because we’re interested in the ostensible attractive individual that appears at the end, but because of the unattractive person at the start who must undergo what are evidently painful procedures. We don’t want to know these people. We simply want to watch. Heretofore the master at doing this sort of thing on television was Chuck Barris, not only permitting us to see the object of derision in the form of the “contestants” on The Gong Show—what would you win beyond heightened humiliation?—but also the painful agony of those who appeared on The Newlywed Game when seemingly obvious answers weren’t proffered: It became clear that those who made the mistakes would have either a truncated marriage or a lifetime of underlying misery. Watch the Wheel of Fortune spin for the shitheels. Watch them slip and end up with a foot in their mouth. We’re protected.
The Letters of Gary Benchley, Rock Star: Getting the Band Together, Part I. “The gap between buying a guitar and playing one proves wider than expected, and it may only be Depeche Mode who can save the day.”
Just who does Donavon Frankenreiter think he is? His handle has crowded the aisle of my brain that shelves the name of Flat Duo Jet Dexter Romweber. Suddenly, somewhere in my cerebrum, Romweber’s sickly rockabluesy squawk is sharing Clamato and coconut meat with Frankenreiter and a bunch of vibrant free love types who’ll never experience the ill light and Pabst vomit of a properly soulless rock club. Like sunlight and bare indie skin, Romweber’s pointy lapels were never meant to meet Frankenreiter’s Polynesian shells. Their cross-pollination is confusing and sick; it’s killing my brain like a poisonous mushroom. Can anyone save the indie hard liners from these mellow golden soldiers?
If you’re a diehard Wilco fanatic, you already know about this book. You probably scored an advance copy and have already read it. Twice. If you’re not a maniac, let me tell you a bit about it. Wilco: Learning How to Die is Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot’s biography of Jeff Tweedy and his two bands, Uncle Tupelo and Wilco. It’s also the story of a very strange time in American cultural history when the corporations completely took control of the music industry. Now before you get all cynical and scoff that the record business has always been about money, of course it was. But there used to be some equity between the real music lovers at the labels and the corporate guys. The music guys could convince a label to hold on to its “heritage” artists even if their short-term sales weren’t looking so hot. This balance of power shifted by 2001, and major labels will probably never recover any semblance of integrity. Unless they get tricked into it. This book also tells that story.
Cake at TasteFest
