I would like to respond to the reader’s letter entitled “Grab Your Yerba, Mateys” [Jan. 24], which regarded a (not-so-favorable) review of the local band divineMAGees. And even though I did not read the original piece about the band by the paper’s columnist, Ms. Bianchi, as a local musician myself, I must throw in my pennies’ worth.
People will love you or hate you, book you or flake you. As a performer, or as a human being for that matter, we are not owed anything! If you think that your spouse or mom should like your sound just because you are who you are, then that’s absurd.
If we truly knew the personalities of our favorite performers, artists, bands, what have you—which, for one thing, has no relevance to what the artists convey—we might not admire that sound, band or person as much as we used to. It’s not about social relationships, but performance and sound.
Also, I must agree with the notion that any press is good press (certainly for a band in a saturated/social scene). And that if someone is so, so certain as to how things should be written and what should be written about, [then] they should do like many others out there and start their own fanzine publication.
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