1.
“We start with a Bandcamp. No music, at first: I’m thinking just a name, just a simple, ordinary—and this point is crucial—unGoogleable name. Maybe a picture of a lake, or a forest; nature seems to be in. As we sit here two of our finest young executives are scouring Brooklyn’s bars for the most attractive, desperate twentysomethings they can find. And I’m talking desperate—we have enough money to quell any and all moral reservations, but hopefully we won’t have to spend a dime of it. According to market research, the desire for a blurb in Nylon far outstrips desire for even the most basic of necessities. Musical ability is, of course, a non-issue: As long as our kids can press ‘Play’ on a laptop—and look fuckable doing it—we should be golden. Our music guy went to Wesleyan, and knows a thing or two about what ‘the kids’ want to hear. Toro y Moi has promised us a remix, but he’s asking fifty grand. (After what we’ve done for him, I know.) What I’m thinking is we just switch up the name—Moi y Toro—and just see if anybody notices a difference. If you’re doubting me, keep in mind that I sold a song to Twilight on the strength of this pitch alone. Eight months from now some kid’s tight jeans will rub up against your slacks on the subway, and you can smile to yourself, knowing that their decision to purchase them was influenced by their hearing our band’s song in a Levi’s commercial. Foster can take his people; I’ve bought off every blogger in our target demo, and it cost me close to nothing—these people are, as you can (maybe, but probably not) imagine, desperate for money. Nobody’s going to be making snide remarks about ‘CD Single’”
“‘CD Single,’ sir?”
2.
“No, it’s not ironic. I actually think it’s hyper-sincere. Or maybe it’s so ironic that it transcends irony and becomes hyper-sincere. Ever thought of that?”
“No, not really.”
“Whatever. Stop, like, over-intellectualizing it. That’s the problem with…everyone, I guess. Can’t I just enjoy something without worrying about why I like it? Or if I’m even allowed to like it?”
“Three minutes of moaning over what I’m pretty sure is a reverbed GarageBand sample. This is supposed to be…music?”
“Best New Music, yes, I believe it is. Plus I don’t even like them that much, anyway.”
“You’re wearing their t-shirt. They have one song, and you’re wearing their t-shirt.”
“It was free! What am I, a millionaire? I’m gonna say no to a free T-shirt?”
“Do they even have the rights to Hey Arnold? Does anyone have the right to put neon Wayfarers on Arnold?”
3.
Interview: Pencil
Last summer, a Brooklyn band calling itself Pencil managed to inject some much-needed mystique—and energy—into a blogosphere intent on eating its own tail. Their shows are already legendary, “I was there” events: Concerts conducted entirely in the dark, oftentimes with old Hey Arnold episodes looping in the background; people getting ‘slimed’ like it was Nick in ‘96. And then there was “CD Single,” the song that launched a thousand think-pieces in publications as exalted as the New York Times. Was its mumbled message—“Buy our CD”—a comment on music and commercialism’s eternally entwined relationsip? A pointed diss at a generation of kids none too used to dropping cash on albums? A guileless plea?
It doesn’t much matter, at this point: Their single—along with its accompanying, limited-edition Walkman—has breathed new life into an industry that long ago gave up on the physical album as a viable revenue stream. After the jump, we talk to the band about…well, you’ll see.
First off, congratulations.
For what.
The Times article. The platinum single. Not bad for a band that was unknown six months ago.
I guess. We could be unknown in another six, easy.
That actually ties into my first question: You guys have managed to make a pretty serious—and (relatively) long-lasting—impression on a notoriously fickle hype machine. Do you ever fear that you could be dropped as easily as you were picked up, a la, say, Black Kids?
Alright, listen, don’t fuckin’ talk to me about Black Kids, okay? I met the dude from Black Kids, when we toured Florida, and trust me when I say that he doesn’t stay up at night wondering what people like you think of him. He’s perfectly happy. Fuck, he’s made people happy! What have you done? Gotten a firm backslap for an infinitely retweeted post about Tha Carter X’s tentative tracklist? Wizard of Ahhhs, that’s a great EP, man!
…
So to answer your question: No, that is not some shit I worry about.
Alright. Well. Any word on when we might see a full-length?
I see. Yeah, sure man, here’s your lede, here’s your fucking SEO-optimized answer: Pencil breaks up. Pencil is breaking up. There is no more Pencil. Enjoy your pageview bonus, huh? Buy a heart with it.
Why? Why now? [Pause] Hello? Hello?
4.
from: pchambers@fader.com
to: craig@fader.com
date: Wed, January 29, 2012 at 6:32 PM
subject: Pencil Interview
3,000,003 page views and counting—one goddamned delectable palindrome. Keep up the good work!
P.S. Check for January might be a little late—tough times, in this web economy.
—Paul
5.
Hello Again!
First off: Apologies for not posting here in some time—as I’m sure the dozen of you who follow this blog have been hunched over your computers, desperately awaiting my latest angry epistle re: our dearly fucked country, circa ‘20. (Then again, seems half of you have deactivated since last I checked in; does anyone still use this silly little platform?)
I’ve reared my head to come out in defense of a band (natch) that, I think, could really use some defending. Like a lot of you, probably, I’ve recently spent a good deal of my ever-dwindling time on this earth reading the ’10s retrospectives: They may be arbitrary and ephemeral, but a rundown of the music I’ve spent my time fucking and crying and trying to make rent to this last decade pleasantly kills the time while waiting for a colonoscopy. (Another thing: I have health insurance now!) And what I’ve been noticing, in list after list, is the absence of a song I know at least a few of you spent an unrequited-crush-type-summer streaming endlessly.
Or maybe that was just me.
Sam, much to her credit, never really “got” Pencil. “Moans over a reverbed GarageBand loop,” I believe is what she called “CD Single.” A (typically) prescient opinion on her part (and look at me, continuing to romanticize someone who, Facebook tells me, is now the mother of two wonderful reheaded twins). Once the truth came out—that Pencil were nothing more than the Monkees of blissed-out, sun-dappled synth-pop—Pencil were pretty much wiped from our collective memory, struggling as it has been for some time now with amnesia and a tendency to rewrite the past in more flattering colors.
And yet, I remember. How could I not? I was ‘slimed’ with relish at those early shows, and the thought of Sam, covered in calculatedly nostalgic goo, still stings. She didn’t get them, but I sort of did—got, maybe, on some idiotic, unconscious level, that there was nothing to get. I was an internet kid, through and through; I’d read stories about “scenes,” but mostly it sounded scary to me; I had headphones. And then here was this band: All it took was a T-shirt and the proper stance on “CD Single” (something like “irony transcending irony to become some new brand of hyper-sincerity” sounds like what I might have said to Sam, trying to make her understand that while, no, I was not a comparative literature major at a college probably stuffed to bursting with kids who saw right through Pencil, I did have a) earnest, unbridled passion and b) the ability to have, you know, opinions and stuff, I thought, maybe)…anyway it didn’t take a lot to feel a part of something. The music didn’t even really matter, you know?
6.
BREAKING: Former Pencil Frontman Working at Applebee’s
6/15/23 1:48pm
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Let’s try and see James Russo, former Pencil frontman, fake a hamburger! [If you’d like to recommend this sentence, click here!] Ten years after you lost your virginity to “CD Single” the man who served as the public face of what turned out to be a joke that nobody remembers is flipping hamburgers just two blocks away from the Ohioan home he grew up in! [To buy and frame the preceding sentence, click here!] An unidentified source tells us: “Yeah, it’s pathetic. I hear his mom—well, she’s been sick a while. He sponges her down, shit like that. You want pics? I could probably get pics.”
Keep in mind, our “unidentified source” (RAYMOND MITCHELL, 45 RUSKIN STREET ANNA, OH 45302 HAHAHAHA WHAT A DUMB HICK WE ARE SMART AND HE IS DUMB) had like three teeth—and was wearing a Nickelback Reunion Tour shirt! Pathetic! Not like us, right? Me and you, we’re hip we’re cool we you like tweet us and are better than everything.
