Old Cousin Fud

That title refers to an email exchange between me and my cousin, who we'll call Cliff (I'm unsure if Cliff actually cares about remaining anonymous, but better polite than sorry). Cliff is indeed older than I am and sometimes makes light of that fact; in this particular correspondence, he addressed it "Dear Hipster" and signed it "Old Cousin Fud." In other words, I'm the cool young trendsetter who's in on the latest everything and stays up all night (while the first assertion is less than accurate, that second part's actually pretty true more often than I'd like it to be... try combining them hours with a rigorous 9-5....) and he's the old fogy who enjoys music that was popular a decade before I was born.

So hm. The fact is, being at SXSW made me feel a little like an Old Cousin Fud myself.

Let me elaborate. Out of 1,000+ bands, I'd heard of, oh, 20. And I'm a professional music journalist. I get *paid* to know about this stuff. That, and a lot of music teenagers are listening to these days just doesn't make sense to me. I loathe Vampire Weekend. I think most Indie rock has the soul of a moldy shoe - it's so detached, aloof, dumb yet cerebreal, pointless yet insistent, completely and utterly devoid of honesty and rawness and purity, and really damn annoying too. I do like the Bravery, though. But are they even Indie? Dunno.

I'm 27, which is young, unless you're trying to be an Olympic gymnast. And I am in touch about more relevant music than your average monkey. Perhaps there are gems in there that I haven't discovered. Or perhaps I'm growing up and becoming an Old Cousin Fud myself, someone who thinks that rock reached its pinnacle with Pearl Jam's second album.

After writing all that, I feel that I can confidently go with the former. My editorial scope - aka the music I'm paid to learn and write about - leads me to perform more surgical strikes than carpet bombs. I learn about the important players on the scene and tell their stories, and if the band and style of music is important, I learn about that too. But it's not the focus. I have in fact heard some damn good new music. I also pride myself on breaking the now skyrocketing Sara Bareilles - if I remember right, the 1-page artist feature I wrote on her before she signed her major label deal was the first international press she received. So I'm proud.

I want to keep up with the newest developments. I want to see the gems and be able to reject the poo because I've really checked it out and can say for sure that yes, that is indeed poo, so stay away. After spending 8 hours a day doing surgical musical journalist strikes, though, my appetite to seek out the Hot New Thing is suppressed to the point of nonexistence.

I think I need to stop here, since continuing to write on this topic will take me into territory that is currently dangerous. But regardless of whether today has me feeling more like Hipster or Old Cousin Fud, I love music, and I love good music, whatever form it comes in. And I'll always be hungry to seek that out.