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Wednesday, March 8, 2006

The Loneliness of an NPR Interviewee

Posted by on March 8 at 11:21 AM

If you’re a big fan of Belle & Sebastian (I am), you might be interested in this long interview with Stuart Murdoch on NPR on Monday. Make no mistake, Terry Gross is a douchetard—she asks the guy about 25 different times about chronic fatigue syndrome and almost no good questions about his music—but it’s worth listening to simply for the fact that it’s unusual. Murdoch famously doesn’t do interviews. He turned down The Stranger.

The band is touring America right now with The Life Pursuit, and the Seattle show—March 25 at the Paramount—is sold out, but NPR (I love you, NPR!) has a concert they just did in Washington, DC here. Here’s the set list:

Expectations
Another Sunny Day
Women’s Realm
Sukie in the Graveyard
Electric Renaissance
The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner
To Be Myself Completely
The Blues Are Still Blue
Piazza, New York Catcher
Belle and Sebastian
Funny Little Frog
She’s Losing It
Your Cover’s Blown
Dog On Wheels
I’m A Cuckoo
The Wrong Girl
If You Find Yourself Caught in Love
Judy and the Dream of Horses
White Collar Boy
Me and the Major

Plus, at one point, Murdoch sings a couple bars of the Pet Shop Boys’s “It’s a Sin,” a capella.

[I should mention that “douchetard” is not my word; it’s Sean Nelson’s. You are brilliant, Sean Nelson.]


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That's incredible, that NPR has a recording of a concert that hasn't taken place yet.

Terry Gross has a disturbing fascination with any kind of dysfunction. Lewis Black was on to promote his new book and the aired interview focused almost exclusively on a time in college when he prayed compulsively. It's a shame, because she asks some pretty insightful questions at times, but there's always some painful interlude about dyslexia, parental relationships, bad backs...

FNARF, it was the concert in DC. I changed the sentence.

By the way, you're alias is douchetarded.

Is it okay to love Belle and Sebastian and also think Terry Gross is one of the most amazing interviewers ever to grace our airwaves?

If so, that's my position.

I can only assume that you mean "your alias is douchetarded". I'm sorry you don't like it. I didn't pick it.

And I've been diggin' Belle and Sebastian longer than you have, namecaller. I was a fan back when liking that pussy music put you at some risk of physical attack in this pretend-macho grunge city.

Terry Gross gives me hives. She's so sycophantic, so unctuous, so glottal, the way she purrs over her subjects as if they were her own special little furballs.

there was a great article in harper's a while back that dissected precisely why Terry Gross is such an awful interviewer. Can't find the link, but the guy also wrote a book about the same phenomenon, called The Middle Mind:

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0060524367

FNARF--yeah, I meant "your"... I'm douchetarded.

I didn't really mean the insult. I'm just trying to get "douchetard" into general use. And as I was responding I was trying to say "Fnarf" aloud, and it sounded pretty douchetarded.

this is a sort of hubristically douchetarded pair of sentences: "Murdoch famously doesn’t do interviews. He turned down The Stranger."

Maybe he really admired Terry Gross for her crazy interview with douchetard Bill O'Reilly? I admire her for the ability of her show to keep me from becoming dependent on pharmaceutical sleeping remedies. A few minutes of Fresh Air and I'm typically unconscious. Which is why I've been holding out on listening to the Murdoch interview until there's plenty of daylight outside my window.

Maybe I can get it onto my iPod. 25 minutes sounds about perfect for the morning subway ride to work.

Josh--I've been reading your blog lately and have been wishing I were you... in Amsterdam, seeing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, eating stroopwaffles (which you can get at the Rainbow Market on 15th!) and fries...

I guess that does sound hubristic. Originally I put the sentence about him turning down The Stranger in parentheses... That probably would have been better. And I think we're going to do an interview with another member of the band. But it's true: for years and years the band didn't do interviews, which I salute.

But — in addition to the Gross one — all of them (except the drummer) talked to the author of a book that came out in August, Belle and Sebastian: Just A Modern Rock Story. A review of it for the paper is in the works...

If you think my alias is douchetarded, you should meet me in person. You'll want to wash your eyes out with soap.

You know, I'm not sure I can get behind the adjectival -ed form of douchtard, fine word though it is.

Speaking of B&S, I notice that a mere two inches from the box in which I am typing this a notice for Isobel Campbell's appearance tomorrow night at the Triple Door. She used to be in B&S back in the "Sinister" days.

Now worries -- I was mostly just looking for excuses to use various forms of douchetarded. Unfortunately, I won't be getting back from Amsterdam in time for the Belle & Sebastian / New Pornographers show in Seattle. Guess I'll need to settle for the NPR recording.

Also good news about the stroopwafels at Rainbow. If only they carried hagelslag.

No worries -- I was mostly just looking for excuses to use various forms of douchetarded. Unfortunately, I won't be getting back from Amsterdam in time for the Belle & Sebastian / New Pornographers show in Seattle. Guess I'll need to settle for the NPR recording.

Also good news about the stroopwafels at Rainbow. If only they carried hagelslag.

This from the moron who enjoyed watching Lydia Davis pestered about punctuation.

Hey, why you gotta be a douchetard, Sam? That Lydia Davis interview was awesome.

Granted, it wasn't all about her childhood, or how she feels when she has a cold, or whatever -- it wasn't a Terry Gross interview.

Frizzelle, do you realize what a colossal tool you are? What are you, 15 years old? All your moves are right out of the alternative weekly hipster playbook. You're so orthodox it makes me cringe. You're like a young Knute Berger. Why don't you just quit now and move to the Weekly now instead of waiting to get fired?

I [heart] Sam Chanderson.

Cristopher isn't a colossal tool. He's a colossal dork. Exhibit A: his poster of Eustace Tilley, which he tells me he painted himself. Exhibit B: Music Man Fandom. Exhibit C: getting up at 5 am to hear the oscar nominations.

This Sam is short for Chosan.

Seriously, can the hating schtick. Grow up.

If "music man fandom" means being a fan of The Music Man with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, then dork me in!

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