Cult Like A Local-Trying to take a class on the Internet. I’m in Baton Rouge, but there are some things that might be worth doing at Cedar. But I found out about all these classes that are happening via email, and I don’t have an email address so I just can’t register. Also, if it doesn’t work out, what am I going to do with the money that I put in? But I think I’m too scared to go alone! Aren’t you supposed to be able to “find your tribe” or whatever, and meet them at a concert? -Sally A) Find a tribe in the personals section of Craigslist. B) Do what most of us have been doing for years, which is getting a new email address so that we can do the same thing. Get your ass to the computer and sign up for the classes, Sally! That’s what the whole thing is for. C) If you have to re-register, you’re in better shape than 90 percent of the people on their lunch breaks. D) If it doesn’t work out, just make a phone call, and ask your friends to go with you. C) Can I get a list of all the names of people who bought tickets to last night’s show? -Dan A) Dan, no. B) No, Dan. C) We will make a deal with you if you will allow us to have sex with your wife/girlfriend. Why is the best show of the year in Birmingham, and why is it on the first Friday of the month, when I work at the mall and am not home? Because it’s the only place that has live music during the summer when I’m bored out of my skull. But when I go there, my ears start to bleed. C) You’re lucky that you get to watch a show while you work. Because of that, you can come out of the experience with a smile on your face, instead of a frown on your face. Is there a better reason for going to a show than doing something you would otherwise be doing? I don’t think so. If you’re a part-time music fan, this is a perfect opportunity to go see the people you love most play to a big crowd. When/where do you read reviews of shows in the paper? I live in Austin, and go to several shows on a fairly regular basis. I usually buy the paper as soon as I wake up and go to a show with it in my hand, reading the music reviews before I go to the show, at which point I use it as my program. I then go back and forth between the two. -Adam A) Go for it. Your head will be filled with so much garbage before you go to the show that you’ll have no time to see any of the good stuff. -Mike B) A good music critic is someone who’s passionate about writing and can convey that passion. So it’s better for them to put it in a print form and let it do the writing for them. Which leads us to … C) Yes. Your ears will be bleeding. -Dan It’s the most honest, original review of any sort, because when it’s in print you don’t care what someone else thinks, you only want to know what the person actually said. Onstage, there are a million things that go through your head during a show. You might be trying to look nice, trying to get laid, trying to keep from pissing on anyone’s shoes, etc. The only thing we know for sure is that you did everything possible not to see this show. If we gave you the ability to do one thing, we’d give it to you because you’re a journalist and people are reading your reviews anyway. I’ve always wanted to write about the subject of the arts and culture, but it’s difficult to find a niche that nobody has already written about. I’m from the Pacific Northwest, so most of the music I like is local or comes from the Northwest, or both. I think there are a lot of people in America who really don’t care about music, they’re just going with the flow, but they should care about it, and reading about it is a great way to gain respect for its worth. What should I write about? –Chad, Portland It’s pretty easy to be the first person in the country to do a little job like this. So while I will share my personal opinion about what I think, please don’t call it a review. Call it an editorial. Call it a critique. Call it a rant. Just call it a column about how much you love, or hate, something in the same way the Austin City Limits music show has done for us, like, since forever. Also call it an essay, because it’s more of a narrative than a review. Let’s try and be smart about this. It’s important that people not forget about music. I know I feel that way about good shows when I’m not actually seeing them. My job in this life is to write about music, so if you see one of these as soon as you can, that’s great. It’s been more than three years since I’ve done one of these, which is really too long. And even if it was done really quickly and then put on the Internet, that wouldn’t be true because it would be false. Look at any great thing and you’ll see all these mistakes and inconsistencies and everything. What’s the best venue in town for live music? I have a friend named Chris Auer who used to run Fake Four, the all-indie music venue in Little Rock. He now lives in Austin and is at Lamberts, the all-indie music venue in Austin. -Josh I don’t think you have to be an indie or a rock n’ roll kind of a kid to go to Little Rock. You just have to be a teenager who doesn’t like rock n’ roll. No matter what you like, you’ll find something that gets your heart racing. But that would be true no matter where you are. I thought this interview had disappeared, so I re-read it and was happy to see it. But the guy who put it on Sound on Sound, the magazine I used to work at, has a weird sense of humor. I worked with some great people there, and even though some of them are still my friends, I felt like this one guy was very much like a bad boyfriend. Everything he did was a joke, and in the context of a magazine, the jokes were usually pretty funny. But as an adult, it’s hard to laugh that hard for the rest of your life. I never know what to say back when he makes some kind of strange remark about how his life’s story is more interesting than my life’s story, because it is. And he’s just kind of crazy. But I’ve given up on trying to tell him he’s crazy. –Mike I think in every place I go I’ll find people I know, and they’ll have bands or shows they can introduce me to. It’s the beauty of where I live. We have a great record store, a wonderful art house movie theater and an amazing museum. I go there as much as possible. There’s a lot of live music, too, but there’s something about the smaller venues that makes me feel like a kid again. I’m sure that’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s not an exaggeration. Every show that happens is very special. Every once in a while, somebody finds the article I wrote, and wants me to send them to it for some reason. Which is great. They can’t be too upset, because it was really about trying to figure out what I thought was weird or sad about music, when what I really wanted was for people to think what I thought was weird or sad about music. But all I can say is that if you’re one of the people that asked me to forward the article to you, thanks. I got your message and I will share it with whoever you want, so long as you make sure they have some kind of sense of humor and don’t have anyone they have to answer to. It’s not like I do this for free. Thanks for reading. Hey Mike. Is this article available online somewhere? I read this in Sound on Sound, the zine I used to edit back in 2000. The article you wrote was really interesting, and really well written! I don’t remember what it was about, but I could read it again. Thanks! -Adam It’s on one of those sites that takes the magazine’s articles, and makes them available for free. Sometimes I can dig up the articles online on my laptop, so check it out if you can. Don’t forget to check your spam folder. I did and found it. It’s called In The Mood and I’m glad you asked. Have a great day. All three of those articles are linked in the next paragraph. -Mike It’s not a great or funny story.