I don't understand why it is that week after week I go see talented, innovative bands in this town and no one is there. Yet at this show, where the music was clichéd at best (and rarely was the music at its best), I couldn't even see the bands for all the bouncing, screaming fans. But I am obviously way off base, since Pretty Girls Make Graves just signed to Matador and the New Mexicans have been judged to be one of Seattle's most deserving acts to receive an all-expense-paid trip to SXSW. Even as I write this, I am reading in the new issue of The Stranger that Kathleen Wilson, while watching this banal rehashing of all the same goddamned sounds the popular bands have been making in this town since I moved here, "Realized that [she] was in utter and complete love with Seattle and its bands, and so proud of everyone who has turned 2003 into the great year it will no doubt continue to be."

What really gets me down is that it's not Kathleen's fault. I want to point fingers at her for only covering bands with members that were either in or at some point slept with the Murder City Devils. I want to point to all of the deserving acts that give up long before their prime because ten years of empty rooms keeps them from even being able to book shows any more. I want to deride the press and the Indie Elite for this travesty, but really it's just me. Because the hundreds of people at this sold out show seemed to think it was fantastic. They loved PGMG's noisy masturbation. They loved it when there were two guitars that did the work of one. They loved it when one song was interchangeable with the next. They loved that the music was secondary to the Punk Rock Picture Show unfolding before them. They have always loved it, and they will continue to love it. It's my fault for wanting more.

Rock & Roll is two chords and the truth. Anyone who says different is a failed jazz musician.

{editor's note: um, I was one of those hundreds of people who thought it was fantastic. -igDana}