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Thread started 08/09/11 1:56pm

Cerebus

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Steve Albini 'Wanted to Strangle' Odd Future on Shuttle Ride

Steve Albini can be a bit of curmudgeonly old prick himself, but even when I disagree with his opinion I can't deny that he writes openly, honestly and intelligently about his own truths. There are some things that I really hate about Odd Future and unfortunately the list is getting bigger. I'm pretty sure the hype machine is going to eat most of them up and spit them out on the side of the road before they even realize what's going on. But for now, whether we like it or not, they're here and people are listening. KIDS! are listening. So in that regard I found Steve's opinion interesting and maybe even important, so I'm passing it along, right here....

http://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53523&p=1374892#p1374892

Re: Collective: Odd Future

Postby steve on Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:02 pm

MrMattDiehl wrote:
steve wrote:I spent about 40 minutes with these little pricks at the end of May and I haven't wanted to strangle anybody that much in a real long time.


I am totally curious how you ended up spending even five seconds with any member of Odd Future, let alone forty minutes... Do tell.

My band shared an airport shuttle with them in Barcelona. They piled onto the shuttle late, after finally getting corralled by their minder, who was nursing a head wound with an ice bag wrapped in a towel. They piled in, niggering everything in sight, motherfucking the driver, boasting into the air unbidden about getting their dicks sucked and calling everyone in the area a faggot. Then one of them lit a joint (or a pipe, I didn't look) and told the driver to shut the fuck up nigger and smoked it anyway. A female passenger tried to engage one of them in conversation, but he just stared at her with a dead-to-me stare while his seatmate flipped double birds in her face.

The whole trip they complained about not being at a McDonalds and repeatedly shouted for the motherfucker to pull over so they could get some fucking McDonalds nigger. Interspersed with the McDonalds requests were shouted boasts about how often they masturbated and fucked bitches nigger and got paid like a motherfucker fifty grand like a motherfucker. They continued complaining that the trip was taking too long and insisted they be fed immediately all the way to the airport, where their minder presumably fed them.

I am quite happy none of them engaged me directly, because at least one of us would have regretted it.

I am well aware, thanks, that good people can make ugly art and that ugly people can make good art. Ultimately the function of art is to express something and move an idea from one person to another, and the tools of that can include revulsion and discomfort. Having been in a few bands myself, thanks, I know that the uninitiated can mistake these devices as windows into the soul of the creator. Ultimately they are, of course, but not necessarily in the crude autobiographical way they are often interpreted.

I know all that, so I am never quick to judge a person based on a superficial reading of creative output. Peter Sotos is a lovely fellow whom I trust implicitly, despite his writing evoking a truly primal disgust in me, to use another rapey example. Michael Gerald from Killdozer said it best in an interview, when the journalist remarked that he seemed like a nice fellow, which was unexpected given that the characters in his songs are often repellent. "Oh, that's not us," he said, "that's the crazy people we sing about." In that light, I am one hundred percent behind Odd Future's right to rap about what they wanna rap about, and if she don't like it fuck her.

And also fuck me. It's none of my business what they wanna. I'm not part of the audience for hip hop, and as a non-dilettante I don't generally respond to it when I hear it, so I can't make any critical assessment of Odd Future's music on its own terms, but they go out of their way to make it clear that this is not a case of regular people making music about assholes, but assholes making music about being assholes. I have no time for that. I don't respond kindly to it when Ted Nugent does it either.

If the whole thing is a put-on, a bit of Vincent Gallo life-as-theater for the benefit of whoever happens to be sitting next to them, that's no excuse. It's being an asshole about being an asshole.
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Reply #1 posted 08/09/11 7:55pm

Militant

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I read this on Antiquiet and commented there. So I'm going to copy and paste what I wrote over there.

---------------

Well, this is pretty funny. First of all, I’ve met Albini. He yelled at my band that we were playing too loud… IN OUR BOOKED REHEARSAL SPACE in Old St, London. If you’re familiar with his music you’ll see the irony there. I know a few other people that have not only met him but worked with him, and every last one calls him an asshole.

Secondly, guess who else I’ve met? Odd Future. I spent an hour with them over the course of two different days, one in London and one in Birmingham. In London, I spoke to Tyler and Syd The Kyd. In Birmingham, after their show, I hung out with Tyler, Left Brain, Hodgy Beats, Mike G and Domo Genesis. They are the most chill group of people I’ve met. Having fun, cracking jokes, talking to all the fans, posing for photos. Just normal, fun-loving kids who happen to also make great music.

Albini is known as a cranky, grumpy old man. Even his own fans will tell you that. I’m a fan of some of his work myself, but I related my experience meeting him and, well he was an asshole. And my experiences with OFWGKTA were the complete opposite.

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Reply #2 posted 08/09/11 8:04pm

Cerebus

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I completely agree with your assessment of Albini, but being an asshole doesn't make him a liar. Everything I've heard about Odd Future, which is really quite a lot, is exactly as he describes it (save your post). Its been their MO since day one.

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Reply #3 posted 08/09/11 8:56pm

RKJCNE

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Odd Future...

rolleyes

2012: The Queen Returns
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Reply #4 posted 08/09/11 9:07pm

Timmy84

I find one of those Odd guys, Tyler, to be absolutely annoying and a real dick.

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Reply #5 posted 08/10/11 9:45am

Militant

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Cerebus said:

I completely agree with your assessment of Albini, but being an asshole doesn't make him a liar. Everything I've heard about Odd Future, which is really quite a lot, is exactly as he describes it (save your post). Its been their MO since day one.

Again.... met them twice and they were not anything like what Albini said. Not calling him a liar but without a doubt he is exaggerating a lot.

Also Timmy, you've got the wrong impression of Tyler. He is a super chill guy and real down to earth. They are just young kids having fun, people need to stop tripping on them so hard.

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Reply #6 posted 08/10/11 9:57am

Spinlight

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Militant said:

Cerebus said:

I completely agree with your assessment of Albini, but being an asshole doesn't make him a liar. Everything I've heard about Odd Future, which is really quite a lot, is exactly as he describes it (save your post). Its been their MO since day one.

Again.... met them twice and they were not anything like what Albini said. Not calling him a liar but without a doubt he is exaggerating a lot.

Also Timmy, you've got the wrong impression of Tyler. He is a super chill guy and real down to earth. They are just young kids having fun, people need to stop tripping on them so hard.

I'm curious as to why you think it's beyond a shadow of a doubt that people are obnoxious at times? Regardless of the fact he may be a nice guy here and there, its obvious Albini's experience was less than stellar. Frankly, none of it seems terribly surprising given the age of this Odd Future group (whom I have never even heard of, so there's that).

I'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. I would not dismiss Albini's comments as he is a respected figure no matter how curmudgeonly he is.

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Reply #7 posted 08/10/11 10:09am

RKJCNE

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Militant said:

Cerebus said:

I completely agree with your assessment of Albini, but being an asshole doesn't make him a liar. Everything I've heard about Odd Future, which is really quite a lot, is exactly as he describes it (save your post). Its been their MO since day one.

Again.... met them twice and they were not anything like what Albini said. Not calling him a liar but without a doubt he is exaggerating a lot.

Also Timmy, you've got the wrong impression of Tyler. He is a super chill guy and real down to earth. They are just young kids having fun, people need to stop tripping on them so hard.

Are you serious? Read Tyler's twitter for one minute or watch any video of his. Timmy has the exact impression of Tyler that Tyler is presenting. Anybody who is gonna throw around words like 'faggot' without any idea of the evil they hold doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

2012: The Queen Returns
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Reply #8 posted 08/10/11 11:25am

Timmy84

RKJCNE said:

Militant said:

Again.... met them twice and they were not anything like what Albini said. Not calling him a liar but without a doubt he is exaggerating a lot.

Also Timmy, you've got the wrong impression of Tyler. He is a super chill guy and real down to earth. They are just young kids having fun, people need to stop tripping on them so hard.

Are you serious? Read Tyler's twitter for one minute or watch any video of his. Timmy has the exact impression of Tyler that Tyler is presenting. Anybody who is gonna throw around words like 'faggot' without any idea of the evil they hold doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

He's just not my cup of tea. lol I'm thinking this is his way of "shock rap" or whatever but it don't work out that way. lol He just seems REAL annoying though.

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Reply #9 posted 08/10/11 12:58pm

Militant

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Spinlight said:

Militant said:

Again.... met them twice and they were not anything like what Albini said. Not calling him a liar but without a doubt he is exaggerating a lot.

Also Timmy, you've got the wrong impression of Tyler. He is a super chill guy and real down to earth. They are just young kids having fun, people need to stop tripping on them so hard.

I'm curious as to why you think it's beyond a shadow of a doubt that people are obnoxious at times? Regardless of the fact he may be a nice guy here and there, its obvious Albini's experience was less than stellar. Frankly, none of it seems terribly surprising given the age of this Odd Future group (whom I have never even heard of, so there's that).

I'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. I would not dismiss Albini's comments as he is a respected figure no matter how curmudgeonly he is.

Because it sounds exaggerated to all hell. Yes, perhaps they were slightly obnoxious, but I seriously doubt it was as much as what Albini is saying.

Also he's being completely hypocritical, because when I met him, HE was obnoxious as hell.

I mean it's easy for people to sit here and make judgments, the people who already dislike Odd Future will just co-sign it and spread it. But I've met Albini, and I've met Odd Future, and I'm simply offering my personal perspective on both.

And I'm a fan of both, I own several records produced by Albini and I have both of the two major Odd Future albums released so far (Tyler The Creator's "Goblin" on XL, and Mellowhype's "BlackenedWhite" on Fat Possum). So it's not like I have a bias one way or the other.

I never said it was beyond a shadow of a doubt, I just think he's exaggerating a lot. Like you said, most likely somewhere in the middle... or maybe Steve was just in a bad mood that day?

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Reply #10 posted 08/10/11 1:09pm

babybugz

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Timmy84 said:

I find one of those Odd guys, Tyler, to be absolutely annoying and a real dick.

Has a whole they are very obnoxious I think it’s really no different from a lot of boys around their age lmao. But I think at this point out of all them I’m rooting for Frank Ocean to have a steady career.

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Reply #11 posted 08/10/11 1:11pm

Timmy84

babybugz said:

Timmy84 said:

I find one of those Odd guys, Tyler, to be absolutely annoying and a real dick.

Has a whole they are very obnoxious I think it’s really no different from a lot of boys around their age lmao. But I think at this point out of all them I’m rooting for Frank Ocean to have a steady career.

That's the only one I can see having a steady career too.

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Reply #12 posted 08/10/11 3:49pm

Militant

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Frank Ocean is the future of R&B.

But many of the members are incredibly talented. Tyler doesn't just rap, he produces all his own stuff as well and a lot of for other members, and he does graphic design. And he directs videos. He directed his own video for "Yonkers" and he's got an MTV VMA nomination for "Video Of The Year" for it. Think about the other people up for that category, like Katy Perry, who didn't produce her song, co-wrote it with loads of other people, didn't direct her own video, and has a major label throwing an unlimited budget at her. I like her, but what Tyler has done is IMPRESSIVE. I don't see how anyone can say otherwise.

Left Brain produces and raps. So does Hodgy Beats. Syd The Kyd is only 19 years old and she both DJs and engineers all the OF material at a professional standard, which is very impressive, and she also produces occasionally (mostly for Mike G, another member).

I mean, I get that they aren't everyone's cup of tea. But there's a good reason why they are the most talked about hip-hop group in the world right now. They deserve all the buzz they have and more.

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Reply #13 posted 08/10/11 3:58pm

ABeautifulOne

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I don't see the hype about Odd Future in the first place.

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Reply #14 posted 08/11/11 4:37pm

Militant

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GO TYLER!!! LOL

Also, Odd Future's PR guy and tour manage Heathcliff Berru (the 'minder' Albini referred to in the original post) made some comments:

"Albini is exaggerating a bit. The kids were just messing around," "They were joking the entire time and Albini never picked up on it!

.. Tyler never harassed the driver ... i was sitting up there in the passenger seat next to him. they may have asked for Mcdonalds once but i told them we were late and we kept it moving. i also never heard anyone drop racial slurs in that manner. it was 5 or 6am. we were all tired and grumpy and i think Albini was also salty that they had to wait on us to get into the ride. ... flipping birds to a female passenger doesn't make any sense either! it's a cool story though bro!"

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