oopsie dasies

My apologies to those waiting for super awesome content. I got hit by an SUV while riding my bike and it knocked out my teefs and busted up my face. When I’m better, I’ll finish up.

GZA, the hard-hitting interview

The crowd gathered for Gza. “Really? with old ladies in it?” you ask. Yes. Really.

I’m basically the Jane Pauley of our generation folks, and you can tell from the hard-hitting questions I asked the Gza. I’m basically laying the foundation of a budding, genius lifetime of journalistic integrity – a NEW kind of journalism – a journalism that shines, a journalism, friends, that sternly looks the interviewee in the eye and lets that interviewee know that said interviewee will be receiving some tough love, and an interview that will not only teach America something about that interviewee, but an interview that will teach the interviewee something about THEMSELVES, thus bringing the country together. I’m a true patriot.

When we found Gza in the glamorous press tent, he was talking to someone about how if you don’t drink 8 glasses of water a day – say, if you drink 5, you’re basically losing three glasses of water. There’s a reason we’re recommended 8 glasses of water. And there’s a reason we’re always replacing it and isn’t it weird that the world is mostly water and so is our bodies, etc.

But I didn’t hear Gza’s entire water-conspiracy theory, because I was too busy throwing up in my mouth a little bit, hitting my husband in the face with the microphone for insisting that I interview Gza.

Gza brought us back to his trailer where there was a bunch of people sitting around on folding chairs and some stringy white kid was smoking a joint. Gza, who had seemed really positive and kind outside the trailer suddenly turned into a celebrity in that trailer, where he turned from a super-positive ball of sunshine into a man who had been awake for 28 hours and hadn’t eaten all day, a man who needed more chairs in his trailer, a man who was upset with the quality of his tour shirts (Raekwon got better quality for cheaper prices), a man who’s tofu and broccoli was not hot enough, a man who left his pals at the hotel on accident, and who was now taking shit for it.

This made for a weird interview, because outside in the sunny day, there weren’t a thousand distractions, but in his trailer, there were a gazillion. He texted some pals, took a cryptic phone call, and opened his thai food and got to business.

me: What do you think it means that you’re in a trailer next to sonic youth’s trailer?

gza: I think it’s a great thing. We were once label mates on Geffen Records back when I dropped the Liquid Swords album. Many years later, to do a venue together? I think it’s cool.

me: Have you worked with them, or been around them before, or no?

gza: No. Never.

me: What do you think it means for the album, Liquid Swords, and for you, that in 2007, that album is still relevant and you’re playing it again in front of a bunch of indie rock kids?

gza: I think it’s great. It just lets me know that the album must be very important to a lot of people. To be able to perform it and do it in it’s entirety, right now. I never did a show where I did the whole Liquid Swords album. So it’s like redoing the album or remaking it all over again.

me: What do you think about the album specifically is relevant right now?

gza: Everything. I mean, if you want to compare it to hip-hop right now, this album is like 15 years in advance compared to – I mean, what we know as hip hop, what we hear on the radio every day – is way behind. I mean I still have people that come up to me that just heard about the album, that just got on to it maybe 4 years ago. So I think it’s still very relevant to this day.

me: Ok. I went to a presbyterian high school in Tampa Florida, and even there we were listening to you in 1995. What about liquid swords can reach kids in Tampa Florida in a Presbyterian high school?

gza: I think its good. It just shows you the power of the word. The strength of music. I mean, even with Wu-tang – by the way – I’m missing a Wu-Tang show right now in Amsterdam to be here – that’s how much this means to me. But it’s like with Wu-Tang and even with certain members from the group, such as myself, it’s like, we have a strong power where we tap into other generations, which is very rare for hip-hop. I mean, we’re overseas doing shows, and every night thousands of people and the fans and the crowd is like 15 to 23 years old. So that answers your questions in itself. We don’t have only those that grew up with us, or with us off these albums that we put out over a decade ago, but we now have their children.

me: Who do you think today is being neglected by indie-rock or the indie hip-hop community?

gza: I can’t really say, cause I’ve been out of the loop with underground and the indie thing.

me: but you’ve had such a big influence on it.

gza: Because at one point I just shut myself away from it. I mean if it’s not in your face you really don’t hear it. And what’s in your face I don’t want to hear. That’s why I don’t really turn my TV on. That’s why I’m in my car in silence all the time. I don’t turn the radio on, because I’m not going to like what I’m going to hear. Sometimes I feel like my boy Dreddy, he’s more in tune, he’ll be all, “Oh, you’ve never heard of such and such? listen to this,” and then I may check it out, so. I need to get more in the loop about what’s going on in the indie thing. I mean there has to be some sort of album, because if it’s not directly in my face I won’t know about it. So I can’t really point out any particular artist.

me: so you’re here in Chicago, and you’re eating Thai food, when we’re known for our hot dogs.

gza: I don’t eat meat. No flesh.

me: How long have you been a vegetarian?

gza: 96.

me: What moved you to be a vegetarian?

gza: I stopped eating pork in 77. I stopped eating beef in 89. I stopped eating chicken and fish and turkey in 96 because I figured I don’t want to eat anything that’s dead. Meat is so contaminated. It’s so full of drugs and toxins and poisons – I’d rather not eat it. I think it was a piece of chicken that turned me off. It must have been really nasty looking.

Stay Tuned for

Interview with GZA

Interview with Archer Prewitt

Reviews of music

and helpful links

Pitchfork Approved: in conversation with this guy I know

Me: Hey Isaac. I can’t believe you’re standing in this line.

Isaac: Yeah. This line is really long.

Me: You should check out the VIP area. The lines are way shorter there, unless you’re standing in line for a burrito.

Isaac: You guys have Burritos back there?

Me: Yeah. They all taste like lemons though. They’re from Chipotle.

Isaac: This is my bestest friend ever, by the way (points to his best friend).

Me: Oh hey. Nice to meet you. Let me go get you guys some free beers from the VIP tent. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.

(ten minutes later)

Isaac and BFF: Thanks.

Isaac: People from the Art Institute are going to read this, and say “Old people go to our school. That guy’s balding.”

Me: I’m old too. There’s lots of old people that go to out school.

Isaac: We take our time.

Me: I think that’s fine.

Isaac: You should do an issue of FNews in the Fall that is all about nontraditional students like us.

Me: Man, pitchfork is going to make my blog really boring. They sure do have a lot of rules. Good thing I met that creepy bootlegger over there.

Isaac: Who?

Me: That guy over there with his belly spilling out of the bottom of his shirt.

Isaac: That guy that looks like Meatloaf?

Me: Yeah. He gave me his number. I’m going to call him on Monday and get the address to his server so I can post some sound and not get in trouble.

Isaac: That’s a good idea.

Pitchfork Approved: an interview with THIS GUY’s bag

Me: What’s your name?

Bag: My name’s matt.

Me: Matt, tell me about this backpack here. Did you make that?

Matt: I didn’t. My girlfriend commissioned it from this artist Suzie Giarmani, who I think lives in San Diego maybe? And yeah, she painted it for me.

Me: What’s the significance of the sea creature on your back?

Matt: There’s no significance. It just looks cute!

Me: Ok, Matt, now I have to ask you: Are sea creatures IN and owls are OUT?

Matt: Oh, I don’t know those kinds of questions.

Me: Are you sure? because I’ve seen many people wearing sea creature accessories here at pitchfork.

Matt: Maybe I’m hipper than I know.

Me: How long have you had that backpack?

Matt: 3 months?

Me: You must just be really cutting-edge.

Matt: I must be.

Anders: the smack down

I’d like to thank my readers for making Blogfork the 96th fastest growing blog on the internet, right after Adam blog, which is, apparently, a blog all about dog porn (I didn’t check). Luckily, though, I’m more popular than Cute Proxy’s Anime Rants, which I imagine is exactly what it sounds like.

And now, an interview with this guy:

Isn’t THIS what America wants?

Me: What’s your name and where you from?

That guy: Ian Abrams. Iowa City, Iowa.

Me: Why do you have the word Sea written across your belly?

Ian: My other friend has “cake” on his chest. I can’t find him right now.

Me: Sure he does. I notice that you’re shopping here at one of the T-shirt vendors. Are you in the market for a shirt?

Ian: No. I’m going shirtless.

Me: Is this how you all do over there in Iowa City?

Ian: Everybody in Iowa City does not own shirts.

Me: That’s what I thought.

When Douchebags ATTACK

Pitchfork day 2 was something to savor. These two hippie-like douchebags hit me in the face with their fucking frisbee, which they insisted on playing with in a crowded area during GirlTalk’s set. I took a picture of them, because after they hit me in the face with their frisbee, they told me to “smile” and “perk up,” but luckily I am the press, and if both their names weren’t Chad, then maybe they could search for this post on the web. I reminded them that it’s 2007, and maybe they should find a less retarded toy to play with, unless they have a golden retriever to entertain.

You can look forward to some great shit on monday, when I finally figure out how to put audio on the web. We’ve got about 20 minutes of Yoko Ono’s amazing set to upload, including an awesome performance of “don’t worry,” which she wrote for her daughter after she had been kidnapped by her exhusband. Her performance seemed particularly timely to me, as Yoko was a put under surveillance during the last wave of extreme “patriot act”-esque radicalism. I overheard some kids say “this is as close as I’ll ever get to a Beatle, since she broke them up.” It was disappointing to find that so few people have, not only a lack of political context to view her performance with, but also a lack of art-historical perspective. It’s like saying “I hate Jackson Pollock,” after seeing one splatter painting.

The kids hated Yoko. Didn’t get her. It seems there was a great divide, which I discovered in conversation at the free beer tent. The bartender seemed to imply that if you like the Rolling Stones, you like Yoko. If you like the Beatles, you mimic your parents’ assumption that Yoko broke them up and therefore Yoko sucks. I think the Beatles suck. So I guess I’m allowed my Yoko love.

Yoko was supposed to have a press moment in the Fuze-PottedMeats-Readymade tent, but changed her mind early in the day and decided to have her minions hand out those tiny flashlights your dad used to check your tonsils when you were a kid instead. I was disappointed.

Cat Power performed and managed to not have a breakdown. I only stuck around for a minute, and when I realized how wonderfully healthy and amazing she sounded, moved on for more disastrous territory. This is when I got hit in the face by the frisbee.

Stay tuned for Monday’s torrential down-pour of hits. I aspire to get some New Pornographers down on the DAT, also we should have some Jicks to look forward to.

That’s Ryan Schrieber in the middle there, sitting next to the organizer of All Tomorrow’s Parties (on the right). Ryan founded pitchfork in his parents’ basement in Minneapolis a whole bunch of years ago, and then lived in chicago for 8 years and just moved to Brooklyn three months ago. His move was so important that it made it on Gawker.com.

Apparently, as I learned during the shortest press conference of all time (maybe four minutes long?), the ATP guy and Ryan are BFF now (just like me and GZA), and they collaborated on last night’s line-up (I’ll put up the audio on Monday, when I have the opportunity), and they’ll be doing a festival in Europe somewhere too next year.

the reality of pitchfork

(that’s me and the GZA from Wu-Tang) Well, we tried. The internet was down at the P-FORK, so we didn’t get to live blog. But we’re sort of live blogging-ish: we met the sassy ice cream man that gives free ice cream to VIPs, we drank lots of free goose island, met exboyfriends’ new girlfriends, we looked at Sam Prekop a lot but didn’t interview him, we talked to Ryan Schrieber who has changed his look since moving to Brooklyn, we secretly recorded Sonic Youth’s super mega set, and most importantly, we interviewed the GZA about eating and indie rock, which should be up around 3 on saturday. I’m way too tired to try to figure out mp3s, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.

Stay Tuned on the Fork…

Soon on Blogfork I’ll be putting up an interview with the Gza at Pitchfork, so stay tuned!

Also: photos, and thoughts from the first day of action.