(((shadowplay)))

I am surrounded by tapioca.

It occurred to me that there's something remarkably stupid about what I'm about to do. "What is that?", you may ask. And so I'll tell you. Despite the fact that the only known readers of this weblog are in Chicago, St. Louis, some unknown location that I'm guessing may be in Illinois somewhere, and a deer that got waylaid in Delray Beach, Florida, I'm going to talk about a Dayton zine. Not just about a Dayton zine, per se, but about the (mostly Daytonian, I'm assuming) readers of a Dayton zine, and how they feel about Dayton bands. Quixotic? I don't know. But I like the word quixotic.

The zine in question is Pool Party Magazine, published by a friend of a friend, and put together mostly by people that I have seen at parties. The zine itself is pretty good--I have issues with the online version being in PDF format, but it's a small quibble.

I should hurry this parade along. The eleventh issue of this zine came out a little while ago, and contained a feature on the twenty-five best bands in Dayton. Here's the kicker--the representation was selected by readers of the zine. And it's pretty obvious that the vast majority of the readers were born in the mid-1980s, or possibly even later. If you're not in the mood to look at the zine (which, I should say again, you should steal a glance, because it looks pretty and the writing is awfully good for a zine--but the article in question is on page six), here's the rundown of the top 25 bands from Dayton, as selected by the readers:

25. Sputnik Halo
24. Fourty Four
23. Defend Means Attack
22. Give Ups
21. Mondolux
20. Swearing at Motorists
18t. Flyaway Minion
18t. the Bang Tale
17. 8 Bit Revival
16. My Latex Brain
15. Simply Waiting
14. the Scene
13. When Sparks Fly
12. the Adversaries
11. Shrug
10. Joe Anderl
9. the Breeders
8. Captain of Industry
7. Oxymoronatron
6. The Story Changes
5. Guided by Voices
4. the Jackalopes
3. the Professors
2. Brainiac
1. Legbone

Now, I have heard the vast majority of these bands (many are available to listen to on myspace or perhaps something a little less News Corp-y), and a goodly amount of them belong up here. A different, smaller goodly amount just plain don't, and there are plenty (plenty) that belong on there that just plain aren't.

Why aren't these bands (bands like Pig Eye Jackson, Cage, Real Lulu, the Motel Beds, Sleepybird, etc., etc.) on this list? In some cases, we're talking about what I mentioned earlier--that many of the readers of Pool Party appear to be teenagers, or not a whole lot older. That's not bad--I'm not insinuating that you can't be young and know a carpload (I meant to put crapload, but carpload is funnier) about music, especially local music--but knowing amazing bands from the past is a little more difficult, especially when that past local band that never went further than Troy broke up when you were ten.

As to the passing over of other bands, bands that are still current? I dunno...matter of taste, perhaps. I hope that it's not my other, darker thought--that Dayton really is a bunch of scenester indier-than-thou's. I try hard to think that that's not really the case, but you never know. I'll leave it at that.

I know that since I didn't actually vote in this (mostly because I had no idea what Jono was talking about when he said "pool party" until he put up a freakin' link), that I'm supposed to shut up. But my quibbles are not along the lines of "You mean Captain of Industry is only number eight? What the hell is wrong with these people?!?" (and whether I agree with that statement or not is not truly relevant--I'm using it to make a point, asshat). Instead, it made me sad when I saw the list and realized that some truly great bands from the past are not represented on the list. Yes, some (in my mind) great bands from today are not represented, but that's, as I said, hopefully just a matter of taste.

There is another positive to come of this little exercise. It actually makes me awfully happy to realize that one could probably come up with a second list of 25 truly great bands in Dayton. Younger people who live in Dayton (and, not to bring up the new home of Rupert Murdoch again, but you can definitely see it looking at profiles of people under the age of 30 who live in Dayton) tend to talk about how it's a dead town. That everyone who lives here is just waiting for their chance to leave. I don't know if it's because of this perception or despite it, but the fact that there are so many good bands in this town brings a hypothetical tear to my eye.

Those of you who read the old weblogs of mine might remember the time I got in a small e-fight with some schmo in St. Louis who said I didn't "support the scene" because I said the Five Deadly Venoms were another band who didn't realize that they didn't live in DC. I'm afraid that may happen again here. And again, no disrespect to Parker and the Pool Party crew, or to the majority of the bands that made the list...I think I'm just showing my age. G'night.

posted by Bill @ 5:56 PM