NPR: The Band That Dare Not Speak Its Name

The Band That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Filed under: Media

It's always entertaining when a mainstream media company (like NPR) comes face to face with people who just don't care about FCC-style standards of decency.

Yesterday, the New York Times featured a review of the Toronto punk band F***** Up at the very tiptop of the Arts section. Of course, the Times' Kelefa Sanneh, who saw the band play at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, couldn't say the name of the band in the piece, so he just linked to the their website.

The band didn't exactly thank the Times for the shout-out. That wouldn't have been punk enough.

After noting the increase in Web traffic the band members, tongues planted firmly in cheeks, got down to the business of welcoming the "millions of new devotees." In addition to a very nice joke (they leave a blank space in place of their band name and then link it back to the Times article) the band gets in a bunch of shots at its new mainstream readers. Like:

"The band has a swear word as their name, but for you it will sort of be a minor liberation to tell it to your friends."

and

"If you are at a dinner party and bring the band up and your friends ask you what they sound like, it would be advisable to say 'everyone say's they sound like Poison Idea mixed with Negative Approach, but I find those influences to be too subtle, and liken the band to Khaottik Diisorder, but with a more Neu! approach to spacing.' "

Usually I'd put the "M" word up there in quotes, to suggest that the people defining themselves against it were not so out there, but these guys. Their newest release is a masterpiece of the slow build that -- in its 18 minutes -- moves between a genuinely beautiful, mostly conventional piano/vocal melody and a crushing finale that sounds kind of like a monstrous toad vomiting a storm of banshees. Oh, and it's about a Canadian man who killed 26 prostitutes.

So yeah, very punk. Nice work, guys.

Jacob Ganz

12:07 PM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink

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