So, many of you fine (and I mean you, girl, damn!) readers know of a recent shake up at Racket. There has been a great deal of int0rw3bz chatter about it, with lots of name-dropping, name-calling and name…comics. OK, so, here’s my account of this shit and how it went down on this end.
Our boy Aaron got a hold of the Dillinger 4 stream from Fat Wreck Chords and got overzealous with the link and password (which, as a buttload of people now know was Timberwolves!) on the PunkNews boards. He called me to tell me how good it was, and mentioned that he gave it to “two or three” people. I scoped it on PunkNews and saw that it was all over the place, so dropped Fat a line to change the password before it got too far out of control (’59 Sound, anyone?) Well, unbeknownst to me, Ol’ Scott Heisel, music editor of one of the last music mags I regularly read when I was in high school, also dropped Fat a line to do the same.
Well, I had a chat with some of the other Racket peeps, and it was very obvious that this was a giant fuck up on our homeslice’s part. So, here it is: it was my decision to fire Aaron from Racket. It was not an easy choice, as Aaron has rocked Racket for over half of it’s existence, but this was a trespass I couldn’t let slide, and I made the choice. Contrary to popular belief, I have never talked to Ol’ Scott, not about this, not about his grotesquely huge record collection, nor the joys and sorrows of life. How he is getting blamed for Aaron’s being fired is beyond me. It was all me.
Now, I admit that I fired Aaron for that shit, and I don’t agree with his actions nor his reasons for them, but it’s not something that was done out of maliciousness or spite, it was an excitability on his part. You know that scene in Tommy Boy where Chris Farley tells the waitress about his “sale” that was a roll, which was crushed because he got too excited? Same thing. Except Aaron’s 1/2 Mexican. Here’s a snippet of a conversation I had with mi amiga Laura:
Laura: I think this argument boils down to a discussion I had with a guy about all you can eat buffets
The Emperor: which can be amazing…
Laura: He was going on about how it was heart breaking he had to sit and watch his friend go hungry beside him while he ate and it was his duty to share with her and fuck them for not letting him give her a pork dumpling. I contend though: Why should the restaurant have to pay for his grand gesture when he is too cheap to just go buy her her own god-damned plate? You don’t buy rights to the food, you buy a meal for you and only you and that is the deal. This guy thought that by having access to music it was his duty to use it grandly but it wasn’t his right to give it away. And when the place is already comping your meal, bitching about it and pissing on the hand that feeds you is a serious slap in the face. If you really care about the music you don’t sabotage the people who make it to score punk-points. Share the love, not the leak.
I think that is a fairly accurate assessment. Plus, I totally want to go to a Chinese buffet right now. So, there it is, my account of the incident that caused Mitch Clem to pen a new Nothing Nice to Say, the first in months. And do you know the worst part of all of this? I still haven’t heard the damned album. Dammit.
-The Emperor.