Splicetoday

Music
Jul 21, 2008, 10:04AM

Beware The Mainstreamers

When MTV does a 10 minute piece on a scene, does that scene cease to be underground? Hipster Runoff ponders this philosophical question as it applies to Portland, keeping second tier cities down in their place like a good New Yorker. Helpful hint: having a lot of resident musicians doesn't automatically mean the music they make is any good.

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Photo by Squish_E

I rlllly hate Portland and any other 'second tier' cities that claim to be culturally relevant by playing up the whole 'alternative gimmick.' There is an excess of shitty musicians who are Starbucks/Chili's employees in every city, so I hate when a city's personal brand revolves around 'sounding like they really mean it when they make their shitty music/attend their shitty, awkward concerts.'

Common traits of overhyped 2nd rate alternative cities:

  • Perception of being 'green'
  • Perception of a bustling 'local economy'
  • A high 'basically unemployment' rate (this figure represents people who are over 30, but still have the jobs a 16 year old would have)
  • An excess of corporate and independent coffee shops
  • An excess of people with too many tattoos working in independent coffee shops
  • An excess of coffee shop employees playing RLLY gimmicky 'interesting' music in coffee shops during their shifts/playing the albums of their friend's band who sound exactly like _______
  • Overhearing the 'future plans' of people who work in these coffee shops to start their own business in design/food/recordstore/boutique/other alternative biz idea.
  • An excess of people in bands that have shows in an excess of venues
  • An otherwise stable maintream economy which allows the alternative population to work in the service industry. While this usually happens in all cities, the minorities in the service industry are replaced by these aging alts.
  • A handful of decent bands, a few imitators, and a bunch of krappie bands that have tied their identity to their home city and guilt their friends into attending their show/post a lot of myspace bulletins to impressionable local-17-year olds.
  • A lot of these cities have a major university or a well-branded liberal arts school with a progressive identity which the 'hip side of town' feels like they need to cater to in order to keep up sales of vegan wraps, pizza-made-from-only-organic-ingredients, and interesting t-shirts.
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    Discussion
    • this is so funny. i've never been to portland, so i dunno. but out here in williamsburg...it can be a little much... hipster dudes are hot though...

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