Strange Interlude: DISPLEASING THE GODS; CRITICS, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? Have I Violated the Sacred Covenant?

So….I had a personal epiphany last night. Let me explain:

I have caught a significant amount of flak here – and elsewhere – for criticizing “the critics” – a somewhat nebulous term that encompasses a large universe of media people, bloggers, Substackers, people who roam around various bulletin boards, Facebook posters – some of which, but not all, describes me, but all of which is inclusive of a broad universe of people with personal opinions about what goes on in Music of every kind. This might include performances, albums, awards, concerts, anything that is a fair representation of the music of specific musicians.

Yes, I was called a mf’er and told to “fuck off” in the most recent response to my work. And in the past I have been accused of being a bully; another time I was attacked for “slagging” a musician whose work I criticized. While I received private messages frequently (on Facebook) praising me for attempting to defy critical consensus, others went after me in public (including, more than once, people who had a financial interest in the person or the people I was criticizing). I was accused of hating women (though my opinions were never weighted toward people of one sex or another), of being my own worst enemy for daring to say in public what many other people were saying in private.

That’s just the way it is, and I accept the give-and-take of social media and other formats. But there is something else, in this picture, which is far more troubing.

Critics are critics, and do what they do for various reasons. I think many are barely, if at all, qualified, but that is the cost of freedom of expression. We take the good with the bad, the fair with the unfair. AND THAT’S THE POINT! Those of us on the performance/artistic side of the fence (and I am on both) have had, for years, to sit as silent witness to all kinds of varied rhetoric, much of it misinformed and unfair. But, once again, that is the cost of public exposure of our inner beliefs and inner selves, the cost of what we open ourselves up to when we choose to go public in a creative sense.

Now, musicians complain all the time about critics misunderstanding their work, and I have frequently come to the defense of those who write about music. I once pointed out that I have learned as much from smart critical writing on jazz and other kinds of music as I have from other musicians. I was thinking of people like Max Harrison, Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Grella, Francis Davis, Milo Miles, Tony Russell, Dick Spottswood, Ellen Willis, and others, whose work is aesthetically aware, technically smart, and intellectually rigorous. I have not always agreed with them, but who cares? It is all part of the exchange.

So why, when I reverse the process, are so many of these critics so hypersensitive to being challenged? In my early days on Substack I saw how sticky these situations can become. A New York Times guy got pissed off at me on my second day here; a publicist suggested I be cancelled on about my fifth day here; and, as we all know, Phil Freeman of Burning Ambulance just recently cursed me out for, as far as I can tell, challenging his own sense of importance. Which I understand. It is not easy nor is it pleasant to be the target of critical displeasure, and here, in this moment on Substack (and at most but not all other moments here) I have been working in my role as critic.

But I do have this ethical and moral sense that it is wrong to sit back and watch things being said (or presented) that are intellectually questionable, without comment or resistance. We do this in politics all the time; why is cultural discourse any exception? There is a whole and very lively history of what we refer to in the culture biz as letters, the intellectual process of writing critically and historically about those things which we encounter in literature, dance, painting, music, theater, et al. And, if we go back a bit (to the 1950s at least) we see that this whole movement could get a bit nasty and personal without really being nasty and personal. Challenge people’s very sacred personal beliefs and you will likely be attacked yourself, no matter how rigorously or politely you present your opinion, because they feel like you have attacked them first.

But these critics don’t live on some sacredly protected mount of The Gods. They live amongst us; see that guy buying eggs over there in the supermarket? He might be a critic; and that woman tailgating you at 80 miles per hour on the expressway? She may also be a critic. And that weird guy in his bare feet in the subway screaming about the death of civilization (definitely a critic)?

So why shouldn’t I present my own perspective on the virtues and foibles of music criticism? Those I disagree with are free to respond. I never curse at them nor would I ever suggest that they be cancelled. And I would even open up this personal space to allow them to respond (though first I will need their credit card number).

Thank you and good night.