Mike Conklin, agony

I was getting all geared up to put my salty, I-Hate-My-Job anger into bitching about L Magazine music editor Mike Conklin, but doing some preliminary internet research, I came across his Myspace page and found pictures of him drinking beer, enjoying the presence of cats, and eating a late night beef patty, all of which could be considered my own personal weekly must-haves. Mike Conklin is a human being, who, much to my dismay, is actually a lot like me.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the L Magazine. For the most part I feel like the snarky culturati approach they take to their reviews and articles is abrasive and unfounded. But when I came face to face with an article written by the already questionable Conklin about the new uberband Vampire Weekend, I was pushed over the edge. In a piece entitled “Year of the Vampire: The Best Album of 2007 is Finally Out,” Conklin seeks to justify his almost desperate love for the preppy Brooklyn quartet by calling them, of all things, revloutionary.

Granted, Conklin was already pretty much on my hate list ever since his picks for Best NYC Bands 2007 came out this summer and featured, count it 3 women and 1 person of color. And really, how hard is it to figure out that people are really into the Muggabears, My Teenage Stride, and yes, he called it, Vampire Weekend? Not to mention the fact that in an article of his holiday gift choices, while simultaneously accusing Sasha Frere-Jones of being racist, he picked the De Capo series’ Best Music Writing 2007, and basically said that it was only a good gift for guys, because there aren’t music nerds who are women. As a music nerd (who happens to be a woman), I’ve noticed this trend in Conklin’s writing, not so different from the writing in Frere-Jones’ stupid, but also overblown article “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” of being incredibly myopic in order to prove a vague, self-serving and ill-defined point.

Bitch holds a grudge.

The essence of Conklin’s Vampire Weekend article is that the group proves to be so successful as a band for a narrowly defined set of reasons. One, they exist outside the influence of the music (and according to Conklin the painfully traditional rock music) around them. Two, they are doing something new in that they are a four piece band with a preppy look who have a live show in which they keep the audience in their place.

Well, okay, how exactly does Vampire Weekend exist so exclusively outside the music around them when Conklin mentions their appropriation of Afrobeat explicitly? Could this not be described as a larger trend in indie rock, specifically NYC-based indie rock, to explore a variety of influences, like TV on the Radio and Yeasayer do? Vampire Weekend, critical darling of everyone, is being, in my opinion unjustly, isolated in this amazing music environment that is NYC 2008. And if anyone should know that, it’s Conklin. Besides their actual music, their meticulous Cape Cod aesthetic has been touted by various critics, but I fail to see what exactly Conklin finds so revolutionary about it. They are 4 white dudes who dress like everyone else I see on Bedford Avenue. Comparing Vampire Weekend to Arcade Fire, Conklin argues that there is a trend in indie music to have large bands with interactive performances, thus making Vampire Weekend’s straightforward line-up and live show audience/performer dichotomy somehow revolutionary. But how can anyone argue that this format ever changed? Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, like Arcade Fire, and maybe even Brooklyn’s own LCD Soundsystem and O’Death, but for the most part, Vampire Weekend is part of the dominant majority of the NYC music scene.

It’s no big deal. Vampire Weekend is really good, but for different reasons. Their music is fairly simple and amazingly poppy, but pretty interesting despite that. And their lyrics… What’s great about their lyrics is that it’s like being set down in the middle of a Wilt Stillman film, with the tenderness for characters and the sense of humor and absurdity that Conklin seems to be missing in his review.

But I forgive you, Mike Conklin. Let’s get drunk and wake up with beff patty stuck in our teeth.