Vanity Fair a big corporate magazine Stop Smiling #9 For further info, e-mail info@insomniapays.com"

I recently made a pilgrimage to Germany to visit all the schools attended by the members of Can. It was fun, and I had a good time with a few teachers; still, I did not learn too much about Can, their music, or music in general. All of this was my fault, I guess, because I don't speak German. Nor have I ever really known (outside of online zines and newspapers) where to go for my music news. Thus, in the spare time my pilgrimage afforded me, I hunted for music knowledge without a hint of intelligent movement. I wandered around cluelessly, following the songs of birds as much as the sound of bass. I went inside record stores, the Red District, dance clubs, the Red District, and at no time did I ever get a woman to lay her breasts on me and say, "This is what I heard about Pete Best."

Since returningto America, the question of where to go for printed music news continued to plague me. Having received a zine, Stop Smiling, in my latest package from Splendid, I thought it might be a source of the music news I was craving. Was it as likely a place to find good music news as Rolling Stone, a magazine I was devoted to as a kid? Admittedly, I did not think so, and I first went out to buy a copy of Mr. Wenner's "Hot Issue" before digging down into Stop Smiling. While purchasing the Rolling Stone, I also noticed a fashion magazine, Nylon, that was running an interview on Justine Frischmann. Additionally, fashion magazines like W and Vanity Fair (November 2000 issue) also seemed music-heavy this month. Thus, I left the drug store with Rolling Stone, a bunch of fashion magazines and a few demeaning looks.

Well, if you haven't had a chance to read Rolling Stone lately, don't. Their interview questions amount to begging the interviewee to find them hip or funny. You'll hear an actress being asked whether it was hard to find Jerry Seinfeld sexy, and that amiable MTV guy being asked about his girlfriend, and whether her breasts are as big as Jennifer Love Hewitt's. I never thought the intended audience for Rolling Stone was 12, and I can't believe their reviewers get paid for their schlock. When it comes to describing a piece of music, I consider myself among the weaker writers at Splendid; still, I do it better than these Rolling Stone hacks, who fill their reviews with lyrics where the lyrics aren't even noteworthy.

As for the fashion magazines, here's what you need to know: their writers are good. W provides a good piece on Stephin Merritt, while Nylon's interview with Justine was great. It was very honest, never about her hair (which, to be fair, is newsworthy; she has a great haircut), and conveyed a message from Justine to her fans -- who, in an Internet chat, kept wondering why it took Elastica so long to put out something so similar to their last CD. "They can all fuck themselves," she said. Let me add that I've given this magazine to a friend, so my apologies if I've partially misquoted Justine.. .Oh, lest I forget about Vanity Fair, their piece on the Rolling Stones burns with cool, and will get you fixated on their music again. In the article, you'll get Keith complaining about jokes placed on his memos; he requests that they be taken off because they're too esoteric. Also, there's some guy in it whose joints are monogrammed (the ultimate dream!), plus the article shows just how good and funny and together Mick Jagger really is. If not for him, the band would have gone broke by the mid-seventies, and Keith Richards probably would have died (Didn't he? -- Ed.). Beyond that, there's a great article on MTV (I didn't know they refused to air "Billie Jean", and had long ago forgotten they were once devoted to nothing but rock), an enjoyable one about Bobby Darin and an honest appraisal of Madonna's career. Her songs are a scattering of junk and gems; hhe's like jewelry, I guess. There's also a wonderful dictionary on mostly overrated "hip" groups, as well as a list of Elvis Costello's 500 favorite records. The new Eminem record is the most recent thing on the list, and I was disappointed to see that he included only one Kinks record (a "greatest hits" package, at that).

And now, on to Stop Smiling. These are writers who might not be able to make an income from their writing -- perhaps I'm wrong here, and perhaps this is all they do -- but editor-in-cheif J.C. Gabel has done a fine job with his staff in presenting something that lingers, on at least two occasions, long after the publication has been read and discarded.

First, Stop Smiling: the Milennium Edition offers an extremely provocative conversation/interview between Brian Wilson and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne. I don't know if I like it, but it's one that will get you talking. The initial section is conversation between Wayne and Brian Wilson. It was conducted after a Brian Wilson concert for a VH1 special, and shows the ever-rising legend to have a quivering honesty about him. Asked if he thinks he can still sing pretty well (this after a concert, remind you), he says, "I guess so. Not like I used to." Then, when asked if he's considered a crafty songwriter, he says "No, I'm not there yet. I haven't achieved that level." He later goes on, during an aside about "genius", to say that he considers Barry White to be a genius. I'd be fascinated to know why Brian Wilson believes this, but Coyne seemed eager to move on to the Beatles. He considers them geniuses too. The answers are not altogether fascinating, which is perhaps what Wayne expected, but they have a naked, fragile quality. Besides, the former Beach Boy's explanation of hard rock ("makes you feel like swimming, exercising, breaking a sweat") is flat-out wonderful, I think.

After this interview, there's a dialogue between Wayne Coyne and J.C. Gobel, which I will commend simply for its existence. If I was an editor, I would have been uncomfortable running it, as it is downright mean to Brian Wilson. While Wayne may be correct in denouncing fans who love the crazy just for being crazy (Syd Barrett's "Did I wink" ditty just sucks), he's dumb to call Wilson "a fool, because he needs people to pay attention to him". Wilson wasn't begging Coyne to ask him about "genius", and whether he was one; it's Coyne who brought up the damn questions. And it's Coyne who has the beef, for some reason, that not all artists are going to be as articulate and wordy as he. Coyne asks, "If Brian's such a genius, why can't he just talk?"

Hopefully, if Brian read the article, he read it in the best possible light: Wayne does not want Wilson's failures (excessive use of LSD) to be lauded by fans. Rather, he wants the music to speak for itself. If you're like me and purchased many of the Beach Boys reissues, you'll probably agree that albums like I Love You are getting overhyped because people are reading Brian's madness into the work. In fact, stranger records are being made every day by indie artists like Jetenderpaul, but who's anxious to buy them? Here, I hope you see why I like this Stop Smiling interview: it's one you actually want to talk about. As for Wayne Coyne, his problem is that he can't step out of his shoes and see that his position -- beloved by a large cult audience that would even buy four CDs of essentially the same songs (Zaireeka) -- allows him the luxury of his stance. He does not care about the money, because the money will always be there. And the audience, more or less, will always stay the same size. Things are not the same for the Beach Boys or Paul McCartney. Said Beatle's last album, Run Devil Run, is as enjoyable as The Soft Bulletin, yet it sold poorly. What does it feel like to have a huge audience one day, then nothing the next? Cult acts like the Flaming Lips may never know.

I haven't given away the whole interview, so check the magazine out if it seems intriguing. Besides that, I'm recommending Stop Smiling for occasionally inspired music reviews. In this edition, the great one happens to be a review I disagree with: the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. Here, Gene Black Booth makes the very interesting comparison between Stephin Merritt's epic and those of Thomas Pynchon, and of Grateful Dead shows. He suggests that each work has a weird effect of "forcing the listener to re-experience it at a new, less 'critical' level." Hence, you start forgetting the work needed to get through Merritt's filler, or Pynchon's dry, humorless patches, or all the little increments in a Grateful Dead concert, and you just remember that the end has you feeling like you enjoyed it all.

While I think his critique is overly harsh -- I consider Stephin Merritt to be as good as Cole Porter, and this epic, containing 44 songs I tape for friends, is the main reason why -- I really like his theory. It definitely could apply to many postmodern works I've read; neither would I be surprised if the sheer breadth of this Magnetic Fields project has helped make some of Merritt's "exercises" seem more significant than his songs on, say, The Charm of the Highway Strip.

There are over a hundred additional reviews here. Some are very critical, some may not be critical enough (such as an over-the-top Dismemberment Plan review), and some come to the same conclusions as reviews I wrote for Splendid. I'm happy that Lisa LeeKing gave the Rye Coalition the praise they deserve, for their songs are indeed "fueled by an Elvis pelvic thrust".

Beyond these reviews, there's a nice but slight article about the Beta Band; aside from that, there's mostly crap, and that's why I ultimately would hesitate before subscribing to Stop Smiling. The flaws, when shown, are irritating. Why present us with a Top Ten List of Hoaxes in the 20th Century? That's the dumbest list I've ever read (do you really care where "War of the Worlds" placed?), and it takes too much space. There's also an article about bad ads (so they don't find Patti Labelle attractive -- does anyone care?) and one that asks the question, "Who will be protrayed as the biggest media slut: Britney Spears or Jennifer Love Hewitt?" The statements therein seem to ignore the question that was posed, and what you wind up with is a cheap, unfunny shot at two girls who know (particularly Jennifer) that it's their looks and their charm that make them special. Though her breakup with that amiable MTV guy (what's his name) makes her sound like a bit of a bitch, she's great at those Neutrogena ads. It's not pathetic that her personality and looks are her greatest gifts; and when she smiles, heck, I smile too.

Overall, you're going to need to gloss over some criticisms of easy targets, like those gals and the singer Sting, but you'll mostly be rewarded by Stop Smiling. It's a reading experience that made me wish I did more than write about music for an online magazine. It made me wish I actually hung out with friends and chatted up and down about pop, like some idiotic kid who knows, deep down, that some idiotic girl might swoon upon hearing the name "Alex Chilton".

But, lest you forget the beginning portion of this article, rush out and get yourself the new Vanity Fair first. And never be embarrassed if some of the best pop articles appear between 50 photos of beautiful women pouting for cash in their Prada clothes. -- Theodore Defosse