21 Sleater-Kinney

Huh???????????????????????????????????????????????

An Email received in June...

Subject: The Woods... Great Destroyer...

Hey Mister Fridmann,

What's wrong with you? Honestly those albums sound like crap. Is it some kind of a joke of yours: "Hahaha, they're so used to over-limited and distorted music, they surely won't notice when I set these knobs to 11... and get away with it." ???
Actually you did get away with it very well, which is a sad thing. Too few SK-fans noticed it, for example.Good for me that I had the chance to listen to those albums before doing a mailorder, or else I would have done a mistake and now own two new but pretty redundant coffee coasters.Don't tell me SK and Low wanted it that way, two albums with loud sound limited into a unlistenable mess cannot be a coincide. Except the coincide is known by either SubPop or Dave Fridmann.

Still kind regards (you weren't always like that soundwise... ;),

F.....

Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In an article in Pop Culture Press, Low says this:

“Well, I don't know, I think Dave's his own thing, he's carved out something unique,” Alan implores. “I don't think there's one single person you could say he's the second generation of; obviously the records that have been made for the last thirty or forty years pointed to the way people are making records now. He's definitely found his own thing. He's not taking some old tricks and bringing them into the now. I never got any sense that he's being reverential to anything.”

Furthermore, Zak adds, “I never got the sense that he was steering us into anything, like he had a preconceived notion, like he even said 'look, this is your record! I'm not doing anything on this record that you guys are not into.' He's got the aesthetic and the skills, but he had no interest in rolling over us.”

“Yeah, he's like 'what kind of record do you wanna' make? What can I do to help you make the kind of record you want to make?' Alan adds.

“More than that, he listened to the tracks we brought and said “I understand the kind of record you're trying to make and I'm really into that!” Zak adds.
http://www.popculturepress.com/low.html

Hee........................................................................................

A June review quotes Sleater-Kinney:

"It's just combative," explains drummer Janet Weiss. "It's got a bone to pick. It's fight music. We're not lying down quietly and writing pretty songs. I feel like it's not the time to be doing that, you know. It's not the time for lullabies. It's really a pretty disturbing time in history, and to be passive and quiet is not where we're at."

"We had like this crazy, queer, freaky fan base that were like, 'Oh, they totally sold out,'" Tucker says. "Kill Rock Stars? Come on! You know, there's just no interest for us in being totally helpless, starving artists that don't have any kind of business sense whatever."

"We knew they were very interested in challenging themselves and getting out of their comfort zone," says Tony Kiewel, the Sub Pop A&R guy who inked the Sleater-Kinney deal. "And I guess that should have implied a more aggressive-sounding record, but I certainly didn't think that. When I got the album, I wasn't necessarily pleasantly surprised but surprised, like it took a minute for the pleasantness to settle in. Like 'What the hell is this?'"

"It's frustrating that people can't have a more multidimensional look at who we are as people," Tucker says. "It often comes down to, like, 'You're three women onstage.' Well, actually we're three well-accomplished musicians. We're artists. We're opinionated. We're all these different things, ya know. And we are women."

"It sounded really different in these huge arenas," Tucker says, "just to have this kinda crazy sonic psychedelic reverberation happening. I think that's a part of where this record came from.... But that's also a lot of what Dave Fridmann does to records."

"He wasn't that big of a fan of our music when we first approached him," Tucker says. "In some ways, we needed some sort of outside opinion in order to push us and challenge us and critique us a bit. I think we sorta knew that would be a good thing for us. But it was hard."
http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=6363

Ah what a year in music it has been. I have been wanting to write something called Sleater-Kinney since June. This was also supposed to be about Low and all the other sad victims of Dave's evil plots. I kind of really don't care all too much right now but ideas ought to be carried out.

First of all, I am just down-right insulted for my friends, yes these people who work here become my friends. And I know them as humans with worries and guts and they are my friends, you ass...

Ok allright we all have our own music tastes, I am sitting here listening to one of this year's top albums by The Killers and it is making me want to kill myself. The music, the words, the sounds....ow ow. But I guess I won't write to them about it. They are killing me...Ah maybe that is their plot....????!!!!! That's kind of cool.?

Secondly, Dave is really a serious Buffalo guy. He likes beer. He likes to watch tv. He mows the lawn. He really doesn't have any powers.

Thirdly, The people in Low are wise and write great songs. And the people in Sleater-Kinney are smart and brave. I love them all for all of it. I admire them. I would go to BJs with them. I did.

A couple months ago, I was in BJs with several new friends who are also in a band. As with any band, some people like them and some people don't. (Really just don't buy the record if you don't like it). I was having a great conversation with the singer of this band and a guy came up with his hand held out. Now I really hate being so rudely interrupted. Something about chatting with people who are in celebrity land, people think they can just say anything they feel to them whenever they feel like it. Is this how people act around their local baker or garbage man? Anyways, without an ounce of politeness on interrrupting, hand held out to shake, the guy lays an insult of how he hates this band's music. Well, get it people, my conversation is shot! You are insulting my friends and you have ruined my one precious commodity which is connecting with anyone at all in this world where there seems to be very little I connect with at all...

The Killers are killing me...Maybe they have powers just like Dave!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

-December 29, 2005