Steve V. wrote:OJ (I will use the abbreviation of my former band's name to hide my shame over choosing it) . . .

Oral Julius?

Origami Jars?

Ocelot Jism?

Optimal Jostling?

Ozymandias Jones?

Burun - yes. And I can understand immediately why someone who thinks the album is self-titled would think the packaging is cryptic and hard-to-read. He's right about the song titles, especially, but that was just a mean joke on our behalf to the CD-buying public. LP buyers are rewarded, even though the packaging is identical.

The two reviews we've gotten from Razorcake are actually what I would've expected from MRR, but MRR has surprised me both times. Tim Yo is spinning in his grave.

i read this review about a 7" we put out and it went something like this:

BLIZZZZZZARD!!!! teh screamy emo kids are back with another jam blah blah blah


but man it was embarrassing. 'screamy emo kids'

i think even worse than bad reviews are kids who really like your band when the band itself sort of thinks that they suck.

once after a show our guitarist came up to me and told me he didn't want to go outside again because there was some girl out there waiting to talk to us because she thought our band had 'integrity'. shit that like just makes you want to jump out a window.

I'll paraphrase what Peter Margasak once wrote in the Reader about my friend's band's last show:

"After a decade of public indifference, (name omitted to protect the innocent) calls it a career this weekend, proving it's never too late to learn."

Peter now covers world music.

Germ War wrote:I think this wins for us, Courtesy of Razorcake:

STNNNG:
Self-titled: CD
As cryptic and as uninformative as this CD is: no clear track listing, hard
to read liner notes, etc, I will spare you these extreme injustices. I will
pull a George Costanza and do the opposite of this CD. I will be absolutely
100% direct. No need to buy this CD, there’s nothing here that would
interest even a deranged monkey. That’s my lesson from the “How To Be Clear”
handbook. Class dismissed. –Sean Koepenick (Modern Radio)

Razorcake hates my band too:

The Purple Cow Story
Self-released?

Sometimes disgruntled bands go, “Do you guys even listen to the records?” (though nobody’s ever done it to me; I saw it on the internet), but a better question right now is, “Do you even listen to Fugazi?” Answer: no, and I don’t need you to remind me why.

What the fuck does this even mean?

Looking back through this excellent thread, it appears that I haven't posted my band's best review. We don't have a lot to pick from and most are somewhere between a pat on the head for the retarded boy and bewildered revulsion. This one falls a little closer to the latter and I'll have to paraphrase the best part because it has apparently fallen off the 'net:

The Bismarck asks the musical question "Who Fucking Wants Some?"* and my only response is "not me".

* This is a song title from the record.

Brilliant! I almost sent this guy another copy of the record as a thank you. Or a fuck you, either way.

As I prepare to send our new record to manufacturing today, I can only wonder what gems such as this await us.

Dan

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:

Steve V. wrote:OJ (I will use the abbreviation of my former band's name to hide my shame over choosing it) . . .

Oral Julius?

Origami Jars?

Ocelot Jism?

Optimal Jostling?

Ozymandias Jones?

*cough Odd-Job *cough.

Oh, and not the fucking band from the Northeast, this band was a shitty piece of shitty shit from NC.

John Simon, a notoriously bitter theater critic for New York magazine, called a play I wrote "a slice of life crying out for butter, cheese, or meat."

Years later Monika Kendrick wrote something nice about my music in the Reader but compared me to plain bread as well.

And, well, hey, I'm the guy with the black-and-white avatar.

Flaneur wrote:John Simon, a notoriously bitter theater critic for New York magazine, called a play I wrote "a slice of life crying out for butter, cheese, or meat."

Years later Monika Kendrick wrote something nice about my music in the Reader but compared me to plain bread as well.

And, well, hey, I'm the guy with the black-and-white avatar.

Those upper-crust critics love trotting out these moldy analogies, no? But we know which side our bread is buttered on! A toast! To those who jam!

in one review my basslines were described as "perky."

not twitchy, spastic, staccato, nervous, paranoid...

perky.


bitch.