CIGARS ALL AROUND
This piece on the East Village antifolk scene is fantastic. It is lovely that the Pro-Anti & Olive Juice cliques got a (reasonably) glowing endorsement from the Village Voice, whose entirely requited love for the Moldy Peaches continues apace.

One thing they didn't mention in the article is that all these people getting shout outs (who were part of the newish A/F compilation put out by Olive Juice) are going to piss off a lot of people.

There's a reason I don't play at the Sidewalk anymore, and it has nothing to do with the quality of my stuff or the increasing popularity of the Monday night anthoot and the Sidewalk scene in general. The level of jealousy and playa-hatred is crazy there. I know for a fact that next Monday, the back room will be full of bitter lifers whining loudly about how they didn't get mentioned in the Voice piece, and how the people that did get mentioned suck and should have their instruments taken away from them.

Sure, griping is a natural part of any scene where some people succeed. But I've been in many different scenes all over the world, and it is worse there, and I'm not sure why. I wouldn't dare blame it completely on the fact that there are more junkies and recovering addicts there than anywhere else, and that hustler's attitude of stab-your-friends-before-they-stab-you has been the attitude of more than a few people in that scene. When the sniping and bitching became too much, I left. I'm not enough of a whiner to stand the scene for too long, I guess.

So it's triply nice to see that Kimya and Adam, and Major Matt and Nan and Jeff Lewis and everyone are doing well. They're very good, and a lot of fun. See them when they come to your town, and give them my unconditional love.