There's Nothing Wrong With Coldplay. Haters.

A disclaimer before continuing: Miss Vintage is not a Top 40s band. Let's continue.

The hipster attitude is pretty comical to me.

I went to a liberal arts college. I don't know. Places like that breed hipsters, don't you think? I kinda think so. I appreciate Urban Dictionary's comical definition of the word hipster: "people in thier (Editor's note: I hate typos. Please run a spellcheck, UD.) teens to 20s who generally listen to indie rock, hang out in coffee shops, shop at the thrift store, and talk about things like books, music, films and art." I would probably add "social justice seeker, humanist" to the checklist. Check out the link; there's some even funnier reads listed. They're a fascinating bunch.

Now here's my question: how come hipsters are so violently opposed to mainstream mus- ... well, mainstream ANYTHING? I love dialoguing the legitimacy of a band like Coldplay, and I heart the hipster argument. Roar, I hate Coldplay. Old indie brilliance, ugly corporate sell-outs? Roar. "You are a stupid idiot" is typically my warm and friendly response.

I'm a musician. That probably explains why I'm so emotional and overly irrational. In any case, I get it, I promise that I do. The ideal romance of the starving artist lifestyle is pretty enchanting. But call me crazy: I doubt that you're "selling out" if you're making music you love and actually get paid for it. People gotta make a living somehow. It's for that reason I can both admire and still be concerned with the indie scene and with movies like Rent. Artists are miserable, illogical people and are convinced of otherwise because they're living by their principles.

Bohemia is not dead. But I'm a little stunned that it isn't.

P.S. Nice knowing you, everyone. After publishing this post, I'm pretty sure I'll be crucified for writing it.

-jsc

Jena, O Jena

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/01/1435233

It is a damn shame what is happening in that little corner of the country. Yeah I said it.

-jsc

New Toys

Geek entry alert.

We've been racking up the new gear. I guess to fine tune our tone and to get ready for sophomore album. But gear collecting is such a disease, so maybe it's not for that reason at all. It should start to sound pretty cool live and especially on our next album. We're gonna be rocking some Klon, Fulldrive MOSFET, AYA Drivesta, Diamond stuff, Zvex stuff, and of course some sick delays (notably the T-Rex Replica and the Pigtronix Echolution).

It should be a good year. Oh, and if you're in the market for a new pedalboard, I highly recommend Rave-On Guitar Works. Michael makes some great custom boards with a special material that holds your velcro freakishly well. Check it out.

It is 8:04 am, which means my day job begins now. See you tonight at the North Star Bar, Philly.

-jsc

Give Her A Break, People

Why is everyone making such a big fuss about Britney's VMA performance? Would it make anyone's Top 5 Worst Performances of All Time list? Sure. But she looked pretty damn good for a mother of two that frequents the crazies center. Everyone needs to calm down a little bit.

And on an absolutely related note, I know I speak for everyone in our team when I petition for your warm thoughts and your prayers (if you're the praying kind) on Brian's behalf. If you're not in the know, his shoulder has been giving him a lot of grief and he'll be getting surgery for it on October 4th.

Brian's way more of a public person than I am, so I'll bet he won't mind me throwing his contact info out there: you can find him online on his Myspace. Send kind words his way and take pictures of yourself and add him to your Top 8. Whatever it is you Myspacers do.

-jsc

From Coast to Coast

Everyone needs to watch the movie "Once". Beautiful, beautiful film with a plot that wasn't too elaborate or anything. It kinda felt Lost in Translation-ish to me; it's perfect. And I found out that the two lead characters (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) are actually two musicians in the Irish band The Frames. They've got a great Damien and Lisa vibe to them, but surprise, surprise: they actually sound happy. Check this film out, I highly recommend it.

Here's some sort of video montage I found on YouTube showcasing one of my favorite songs from the film:


In other news, Jase is playing an acoustic show in New York tonight (Myspace for details). I'm out here in Los Angeles playing at a wedding. Hope you can go catch his set; it should prove to be a pleasant change to our louder full-band stuff.

The moral of this post: Thank the Lord for the folk revival in the indie scene. All you haters, stop denying the reality. Get onboard.

-jsc

The Band, Year Two

Looks like we finally started a blog.

My guess is you wouldn't necessarily be here if you didn't have existing reason to be here. If your eyes are the wandering anomaly, welcome to you. Real quickly, Miss Vintage is an alternative band settled here in Philadelphia, PA. We've been playing several shows for the past year around the area, and have been blessed enough to play in different cities like Boston, New York, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, and Berkeley. We also released an 8-song EP several months back called "Runways". My name's Joe, and the partners in crime are Jason, Brian, and Colin.

In any case, all this information can be found in greater depth in the Myspace, Facebook, and Xanga (i.e., we've done you all a favor by logging us into every online social networking device ever made). The reality is that we don't need yet another online presence that essentially says the same things and/or plays the same music that all our other pages do. Our wonderful supporting cast (Eddo, Jonathan, Grace) have been taking care of those mediums very faithfully, and we're very lucky for their tireless devotion and sacrifices to our music.

Still, what was missing was our own voice. You know? It's one thing for our manager to update the Upcoming Show schedule and for Miss Grace to make announcements and put up photographs from different gigs. It's quite another for you, our friends and family and new friends, to hear what's going on in our heads. Related to the band or not. We figured a blog was a nice and trendy way to fill up that void.

Anything is fair game here. I'm sure in time you'll read (hopefully) interesting posts on life, faith, politics, art, priorities, different lovers and amnesias. We'll probably talk about our music, new bands we're excited about, and share new song lyrics, too. Jase and I even have a little budget studio so on a good day you'll probably get to hear some ideas we're throwing around. Thanks for reading -- remember, you're at the wrong site if all you wanted was what day we're playing at Grape Street. Peace.

And thank you so much for your continued support. Here's to an amazing Year 2.

-jsc