The Living Rockumentary

You pickin' a fight there Ningster? Didn't I already put you in your place on MassLive last week? I've been busy shutting up New Yank Spankees fans on the Sox forum so I'm a little winded but here goes. Yeah, I write cleverly inane ditties like that one there but it's not ALL I write. But in the end, TMBG is just an artist that hasn't clicked with me. Whatever I hear of theirs doesn't do anything for me and their putdown of The Replacements (a genuinely soulful, multi-dimensional band), even if you claim it wasn't meant as a putdown, still comes across as smug, snide and mean-spirited to these ears. I have no problem with artists issuing putdown via music but when you couple it with my non-interest in everything else that band puts out, the effect is galling. However, Humbert was likened to TMBG endlessly in our reviews (in fact, Ari's latest review in "The Big Takeover" mentions that his "Greyhound" must've been directly inspired by "I Palindrome I," which is completely inaccurate, knowing what i know of Ari's influences) and neither Ari nor I ever dug them so there's something to be said for that. Is it smart, college white-boy indie-rocker self-loathing on my part, maybe? Something to do with me and TMBG and the word "loathe" at any rate.