Vikings & Beekeepers

Hello and welcome to my new website! Pretty spiffy, huh? The site is called Vikings & Beekeepers (look at the top) and the address is www.carsonmills.net for those of you who found this website through some form of magic or perhaps voodoo witchcraft.About the site:Vikings & Beekeepers (to be referred to as V&B from here on out) is a site dedicated to my two greatest passions: music and music writing. Unlike most other music blogs out there, it is not my main goal to “hip” you to all the latest annoyingly-named, fashion conscious “Next Big Things.” Nor is it necessarily my goal to review new albums in any traditional sense (my Real Time Record Reviews are the only format I will use for reviewing new material). No, my goal here at V&B is to celebrate music and celebrate music writing. Actually, let me make it entirely official…Mission Statement:Here at V&B I will aspire to (a) discuss music in all its forms, not limited to genre, decade or country of origin; (b) create a forum that, God willing, will inspire others to enter into a dialogue with me and pursue music with the vigor and fervor that one of God’s most ingenious creations deserves; (c) update the site with fresh content on at least a weekly basis; (d) provide a way for others to stream or possibly even download music from the site – it is the 90’s after all (calling all computer nerds, I need a little assistance on this one); and (e) write professionally and passionately (emphasis on the latter). Also, to a much lesser extent, I hope not to discourage anybody by being too obscure, I stand by what I like and I encourage others to discover it for themselves. I do realize that I may not be obscure enough for others, but you can’t please everybody. This is a place where we can obsess about music in all of its many forms, it’s not a pissing contest.Getting Started:As a way of kicking off V&B, I have decided to include five of my favorite previous essays and lists. This “From The Vaults” series includes a Real Time Record Review of Scott Walker’s The Drift, a beginners guide to the Replacements, a critical re-examination of Tooth & Nail Records, my list of the top 25 albums of 2006 and a reassessment of Pavement’s most and least loved albums. I hope you enjoy them. They were all written within the last year, but any new comments would be great. Even when the original writing has long since transpired, the desire for dialogue never stops.Also, I want to privy you to some of my favorite and most beloved resources for discovering music:Pitchfork Media – Frustratingly obvious and inescapable. Pitchfork has become the go to resource for thousands over the last decade (yeah, it’s been around for over a decade now). Most music related message boards will have a few references to the “elitist indie-hipster snobs over at Pitchdork,” and some of that is justified. Pitchfork is notorious for having a “we made you, so we can break you” attitude towards many artists and the site’s general writing style may be grating for some, but the truth is, no other resource has turned me on to as much music as Pitchfork has. The breadth of their music coverage is staggering and admirable, these guys simply don’t leave a genre unchecked. The site has distanced itself from the indiecentric rut that may have hindered it in its early years, and has become the definition of what it means to be a music fan in the 21st century.Spin Alternative Record Guide – I think this book may be a bit tough to hunt down, but if you do, consider yourself truly blessed. Spin Magazine is to the 2000’s what Rolling Stone was to the 1990’s – enjoying it’s second decade of total and complete irrelevancy. But I digress, as late as the mid-90’s, Spin was one of the finest sources for music and music writing. This guide is Spin at the top of it’s game. Released in 1995, the Spin Alternative Record Guide is, essentially, an encyclopedia of Alternative music (from ABBA to Zorn, John) and artists influential to the Alternative music scene (whatever that is/was). For each artist, an entire discography is listed in addition to an entire essay dedicated to dissecting the artist’s work. All albums are ranked on a one to ten scale, and an unnecessary list of the top 100 Alternative albums caps off the festivities. The book is notable to me because it was my Pitchfork before Pitchfork even existed. In fact, this guide has led me to multiple artists and bands that, as far as I know, Pitchfork has yet to cover (Richard Thompson and the Roches come to mind). The book also doesn’t always toe the party line, dissing “classic” albums both rightly (Repeater) and wrongly (London Calling). It’s also interesting to read because everything is written with the context of 1995. That’s both a good and bad thing, but it’s certainly interesting either way. The section on Beck is interesting because the book was written on the heels of the “Loser” phenomenon and before Odelay certified Beck’s artistic credibility. On this one, Spin comes off amazingly prescient. Not so for Hole and Cypress Hill, however. It’s an endlessly fun and informative read and is a necessity for any music geek’s bathroom.The 33 1/3 Series – Probably the peak of music criticism. Pitchfork is the master of defining the music culture in the hear and now in 400-800 word spurts and the Spin Alternative Record Guide is the master of distilling an artist’s entire career in 700 word essays, but the 33 1/3 series narrows the scope even more. This is a series of entire books (pocket books to be precise, roughly 150 pages) dedicated to individual albums. Do you want to read how the Replacements’ Let It Be inspired the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy to start his own band? How about a song by song deconstruction of the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs? Or perhaps the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime? Maybe a historical novella contextualizing the Band’s Music From Big Pink is more your cup of tea? This series has something for everyone and it’s an inspiring concept for those who have a love for music writing.All Music Guide – The ultimate online music database. The writing is marginal, but this is a great site to go to if you’re interested in discovering a band. Typically, this site will point you in all the right directions.The AV Club – This offshoot of The Onion is dedicated to media related obsessions of all kinds. Music is just a fraction of what the site covers, but the comments thread is always lively and their Permanent Records Hall of Fame is an amazing resource for history’s overlooked and underloved albums.Closing Words:Here’s to this site’s success. Comments and feedback are strongly desired. I hope you enjoy what’s in store. Maybe we’ll be able to learn something from each other. And failing that, maybe that it will just give us all a chance to geek out about something we love.Enjoy the site!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 10:33 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.