8 Questions with Casey Jarman

contributor: Hoyt Emerson

Casey Jarman is the music Editor for the Willamette Week news publication here in Portland. Casey gives us some insight into how his job works and how you can get attention from them. He also let’s some tangents go about his feelings on local as well as national music.

1. Let’s quickly get a glimpse into your role at WW. Please explain to us just how hard your job is.

That’s a leading question, Hoyt. I’m well aware of how many people would murder me to get this job (especially right now in this economy), so I’m not going to use this as an excuse to whine. Get a few beers in me and I might do some whining, but that’s just shop talk.

This is the job I’ve wanted to do since I was about 15 years old and writing for the school paper. In fact, I was writing columns that involved music even before that. So it’s hard to complain about landing your dream job in what I think is about the best music city in the U.S., and to be able to do it and still be close to my family and friends is even more amazing. I’m very thankful for the opportunity.

My frustrations with the gig are usually about the amount of time I spend on stuff that doesn’t involve writing or editing (data entry, answering publicists emails when they’re about cookie-cutter major label bands, dealing with budgets and payroll-type stuff), but that kinda comes with the territory and it wouldn’t be a job if it was all fun all the time. The actual writing can be very challenging, and keeping the content fresh is certainly a challenge, but those are challenges I really enjoy. I don’t know what else I could do. I’m trying to draw more cartoons so I have a backup plan when I eventually burn out on music (which I hear happens the second you turn 30, and I just turned 29. Fuck, if this were Logan’s Run my life clock would be flashing red and black).

2. Everyone wants you to talk about them in WW. How do you choose from week to week who to feature?

Okay, I guess that’s a hard part of my job, too. I mean, there are bands that I don’t have much interest in us writing about because I think they’re playing music to make money and not to really do something they believe in, so you maybe eliminate a good 20% of the field by taking those bands out of the equation right away. Granted, that’s my perception, so there’s a bias there as there’s a bias anywhere. And sometimes we DO write about those bands because occasionally we like to take the piss out of them. But in general, there’s a handful of stuff I’ve just got no interest in and my freelancers don’t have interest in. Unfortunately, we’re definitely wrong about some bands. There are certainly bands we should be writing about that we don’t get to, I would never try and say that we know everything or that we’re not full of shit sometimes.

Basically, how this process works, though, is that Michael (Mannheimer, my assistant editor and huge music nerd) and I look at the next few weeks of shows coming to town and we pick out things we’re really excited about or that we think is important, and then we also rely on our stable of freelance writers (of whom there are over a dozen regulars) to pitch us story ideas about artists we haven’t thought to cover or don’t know about. For the past four years, up until a few months ago, there was this really easy device that we followed to help us with deciding on long-form coverage: We only wrote about local music. But there were downsides to that strategy, because defining “local” gets tough when you have so many bands moving here every week, and there was national stuff we felt like wasn’t getting deserved coverage and so we’re not 100% local in our long-form coverage anymore. I think that has made the section a bit more interesting, but it also gives us more shows to choose from and it makes it harder to comprehensively cover the local music scene. So these days I would say we decide who gets covered based on a very non-scientific selection process of what we’re most excited about and what our freelancers are most excited about. The smaller listings are much more democratic, in that we ask all the freelancers to request listings, then we assign them based on how many people requested the various shows and, again, what we feel is the most important/exciting. That doesn’t mean we’re getting to everyone: For example I think we have big holes right now in our jazz and folk coverage, and I need to figure that out. I’ll come back to this idea in a bit because I can see that question 4 ties in. But I want to get to question 3, because it’s flattering.

3. Local Cut is WW’s music blog. It’s much more in depth then the physical publication’s music section. What are the goals for Local Cut’s existence?

Let me begin by saying that LocalCut isn’t as good as I want it to be. When it began there was a specific budget for it, and so (while it had problems then, too, especially because we were all figuring out how to “blog” at the time) it was busier and the Cuts of the Day were really Cuts of the Day and we were a bit more adventurous with the content, which is what I miss most of all.

I think that if it’s deeper right now than the physical paper, it largely comes from this community that has built up around the site. It’s true that we do some of our most interesting writing there, I think, but a lot of times the site sits sorta dormant or it just gets some announcements that are more or less grabbed from press releases or a bit of gossip we’ve heard or whatever. It doesn’t get as much thoughtful criticism on it as I wish it did. But luckily we have some great photographers that do photo reviews, we have some great writers who’ll do a show review now and again and we have these amazing tour diarists in local bands, who, I think have really built the spirit of that site. I think that’s the best idea Mark ever had, and I didn’t see it happening anywhere else really. And it’s people like Danny Seim and Nick Jaina and Mayhaw Hoons and recently the guys from Deelay Ceelay that have really kept the site feeling like a cool place, for me. I’m trying to get inspired by those people to do more adventurous stuff on our end, but the fact of the matter is that as the budgets have shrank and our job descriptions have gotten much bigger, we have had less time to put into the site because the site—unlike the paper—is still going to be there next week if we don’t put anything on it. So it takes a bolt of inspiration or a real kick in the ass sometimes to get Michael and I to post the kind of thoughtful, long-form content that we want up there. But yeah, I think you’ll see LocalCut get better, actually, as we learn how to balance some of these other new responsibilities we’ve picked up for this paper and as we learn to work better as a team.

4. How hard is it to keep objective integrity when promoting aspects of Portland’s music?

It’s tough for a lot of reasons. I just had an interview with Joe Sacco and he talked a bit about “objectivity” the way the U.S. teaches it in journalism school and he said he didn’t think that kind of objectivity really existed. That’s something people say a lot these days, but it’s really true. To be truly objective as a critic would mean that you weren’t making judgements and making judgements is sorta what you’re paid to do. I was certainly influenced by the music I grew up with and what my parents listened to and just my culture in general, right? So you wouldn’t want an entirely objective music writer because it would be boring as hell. But as far as actual conflicts of interest and whatnot, those are everywhere. The problem is bigger for us than in some places because so much of our coverage is local. So yeah, you get to know local people, you get to a point where you consider local musicians friends. After doing this for four years or so I have made a lot of friends who make music, and I often have to extract myself from the coverage of those artists because I don’t feel like I should be writing about people I become real close with. But there are a lot of factors there. I mean, in reality, I’d feel much more comfortable giving a harsh review to someone I feel like I have a relationship than with someone I’ve never met, because at least they have the context of who you are as a person. And if you think someone’s music is genius, you tend to want to talk to them, you tend to want to hang out with them because the thought is that there’s probably a genius person behind that genius music and maybe it’s someone you’d like to know. There’s a ton of gray area there. I have a handful of friends whose bands never get written up in Willamette Week, and in fact being friends with the music editor has probably hurt them because even if I like their bands, I don’t want them to think that because we’re friends they’ll get coverage in WW. Who fucking knows. I try to be really fair about this stuff, and I’m really open-minded as a music fan and curious as a fan, so I’m much more interested in discovering something new than writing about people I’m close to.

The bigger problem is finding freelance writers who aren’t fundamentally involved in the music scenes they cover. That’s the bane of every weekly culture editor. Because the most knowledgable people are usually already involved in the music scene in some fundamental way, and you don’t want people with interests in promoting this band or that band to be writing about a band on the same bill or anything. So it gets really tricky. But if you go the other route and pick someone with no connections to the music scene, they usually make a lot of mistakes for a while. This was certainly true when I started writing about hip-hop. Because when you’re not entirely familiar with something, you latch on to the first artists/movements you find as being perhaps more important or relevant than they usually are.

So that’s the tricky thing: finding people who’s real goal is just to write about and think about music, not make it or promote it or make money off it in some direct way. And we’ve had battles with that from time to time. We’re lucky to have a really good, low-drama freelancer pool at the moment, but there are areas I definitely need to fill out.

5. You also help run “Portland Makes Music”, a monthly show at the Someday Lounge that highlights local artists. How do you feel that has been going since it’s inception?

I think they’ve been a blast. Because we pick artists we really love, they are really a huge treat for us. That’s the upside, that we get to have our own little private show almost. Which is also the downside: With a few notable exceptions the crowds haven’t been great, and that’s in part because we do the thing on Sunday nights when a lot of people don’t go out, it’s in part because we’ve picked a few more obscure artists, and it’s in part because I think neither Michael or I have fantastic organizational skills and we often put the booking and promoting of the show off until the last minute. But we love doing the shows, and I think you’re going to see them get better as we head into 2010. We’ve had a lot of amazing artists express interest in playing the shows but have conflicts with times, so before the run is done, whenever that is, I think you’re going to see some big names and some really fantastic artists. And in the hopes that calling them out will make this become a reality, we’ve talked about trying to get the Shaky Hands, Point Juncture, WA, Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose, etc. I hope that those bigger artists will see the show as more of an opportunity to play a short set and get a podcast up on the web then something that would step on the toes of another show. The other thing is that we really want to be able to pay the artists to play, and we’re trying to figure out a way to wrangle some budget for that. As you know, the shows aren’t paid (in the interest of full disclosure, Hoyt played a PMM a few months back), and that always feels sorta shady. I’d hate for anyone to think that playing a showcase meant we owed them something, because there are obviously ethical problems with that idea, so I’d much rather be able to pay them. Plus if we’re inviting people to play they ought to be properly compensated with more than just a few beers or whatever. So we’re working on that. It’s never going to pay much, even if it does pay, and we can only thank some of the great and generous folks in the local music scene for coming down and playing grats–it’s a huge treat for us.

6. What kind of characteristics do you think defines a band that gets a lot of attention here in town?

That’s tricky. Obviously the indie rock scene and folk-pop scene and such get more attention than, say, the hip-hop scene or jazz scene. From the local media in general and not just us. And on one hand I’d really like to see that balance shift, but on the other hand there are just sooooo many rock and folk-centric artists in town that it’s pretty overwhelming. They’re moving here at a clip of a few bands/artists a week, I would guess, and that’s an honest estimate. I’m sure at least 100 bands move here a year at this point, which is utterly insane and there’s really not an economy to support that, unless they’ve already made moves to support themselves and moving to Portland is just a lifestyle choice.

I think what gets a band attention here is largely the same that gets a band attention elsewhere. Innovation being the number one thing, I would argue. I mean Starfucker and Nurses and the Builders and the Butchers and bands like that are big because they are sonic innovators as well as really talented musicians and songwriters. And YACHT and Lifesavas and in the underground scene groups like Breakfast Mountain and Congratulations and whatnot. These are artists that are really following a muse wherever it leads them, and I think there’s a lot of appeal in that. And talent, plain and simple, though obviously like any critic there are bands and artists that I think are hugely talented and inventive that don’t get nearly enough play locally. I’ll never forget going to see Pete Krebs play at LaurelThirst when I first moved here and seeing twenty people sorta chat through the set and five people paying attention. That stuff breaks my heart. Right now I feel that way about the Chicharones, who I think are making the most interesting and warm music in this city but not getting a ton of attention just yet for it. I feel that way about a handful of bands. I could go on about a ton of bands locally. To me, Old Growth is one of the best bands in Portland but a lot of people don’t know about them. That shit is on rotation at WW all the time. Lovers are that way for me. We all felt that way about Sexton Blake before Josh left to start Starfucker.

So, yeah, I don’t know. I honestly don’t think there’s always a huge link between media coverage, locally, and how big a band is. I think that bands have to find a niche that really excites the audience and bands like Starfucker or Blind Pilot or the Helio Sequence would get attention from audiences whether the local media ever wrote about them or not, because the music connects directly to an audience and that audience snowballs.

7. Any advice for when bands should try to get press for their shows?

Well, as a disclaimer I’d say that because your band doesn’t get press doesn’t necessarily mean that people in the local media wouldn’t like your band. It MIGHT mean that, but a lot of times it just means we haven’t gotten around to you yet. And that process can be really frustratingly slow, I understand. Even though it’s my job to listen to music, and specifically local music, I don’t do it in assembly line fashion. And I think that’s true of most of us in the local press. We might throw your album on and it sounds good but it just doesn’t fit the mood and we move on to the next thing and don’t give you enough of a listen for a while. It’s overwhelming to work here in that you’re on the receiving end of TONS of music. And as much of an effort as I make to listen to tons of different stuff, I’m not a robot. So there’s not a science to what I listen to. Sometimes there’s just too much going on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled on a record six months after it was sent to us and go “holy shit, this is great!” And I feel terrible when that happens, but being a music critic isn’t like being a movie critic. You’re not often in a situation where you can clear up two hours of your day to do nothing but listen to a release you’ve been sent. A CD can go on so many different journeys once it reaches us, and we really do try to give everything the attention it deserves and I can honestly say that we try to listen to each local release we’re sent, but sometimes if that first song doesn’t grab us, it gets a thumbs down and sits in a stack. That’s sort of how it can work, and I wish it were more mechanical than that but with the volume of CDs and digital downloads we’re sent (by the way, I’m just as happy to get a digital download these days as a CD), it would be physically impossible for us to listen to everything in its entirety.

But to give yourself a fighting chance, the best things you can do are these: Send us a disc, make it clear that you’re a local artist (because it does still give you a leg-up over national artists, I think) and send the disc well in advance, three or four weeks even, if you can, and let us know exactly when your release show is and where. Write a note that addresses us specifically. Mention who you’ve played with, if possible, or what bands inspire you if you haven’t played out much, because that helps our radars a bit. Then be honest. Don’t oversell yourself. Don’t take a stupid press photo where you’re looking all pissed off or where you’ve put a gallon of product in your hair. Don’t say you’re the next big thing. Don’t reach for a stupid metaphor that you can’t pull off. Just be honest and be yourself and I think that gives you a much better shot than artists who are trying to look amazingly professional when they really aren’t. Professionalism is sort of an old notion and I think nine times out of ten your band will do better not taking yourself too seriously.

I think that networking with other artists is hugely helpful. If I get a musician or producer I respect telling me they’re really excited about a new band, I’m very likely to check it out and give it a serious listen. I hate to say coverage is about ‘who you know,’ because I’ve written quite a few articles about musicians that are anti-social and some who had never really played shows, but it goes a long way, just to find like-minded groups and book shows with them and dig into that aspect of being in a band. I’m more likely to see your band if you’re out playing shows with other great bands. One can’t really be a successful musician in this town, I don’t think, without building some community. And that’s probably the greatest/most oppressive part of making music in this town. It’s who you know.

Then just make good music and make YOUR music. If you make music to get in the papers or to make money, it’s usually going to show. It’s just not going to be any good. You have to be following a real passion and you have to, i would argue, consider the possibility that no one is going to like it.

And for me personally, I’d say my number one gripe with local music is that a lot of bands think of lyrics as an afterthought and it shows. Nothing will turn me off an album faster than a dumb rhyme or really cliched, really run-of-the-mill lyrics. Play instrumental music if you don’t have anything to say. Or write nonsense lyrics that still sound good. You don’t have to be hyper-literate or a poet or anything, but you have to care about the way the words sound and what they mean if you’re a songwriter, and a lot of self-proclaimed songwriters just don’t put enough effort into that, I think.

8. What do you think is the most neglected genre of music in Portland currently?

I think a lot of people could argue for their genre here. Country and radio-stlye pop artists don’t get much play, neither does the hip-hop scene. Goth and metal bands. But my personal suggestion would be that a lot of the local emo bands that make a habit of playing the Hawthorne Theater and Red Room and whatnot have a legit beef with us and the Merc and such, because they’ll sometimes gather a pretty impressive following locally or even nationally without ever being mentioned in the local press. That’s pretty impressive, but the audience is often so young that it’s a crowd that it doesn’t really have any critics to represent it yet. So they’ve got a legit beef. For me personally, a lot of that music seems so uniform and so heavily marketable that it’s a huge turn-off to my old man senses. To be honest, I open up an issue of Alternative Press and see 300 bands that look exactly the same, have the same haircuts, have the same kind of band names, wear the same black hoodies and vans or converse all-stars. It’s a uniform, and it scares the shit out of me. But then, when I was 16 or 17 I didn’t think third wave ska got nearly enough play in the media, you know, and now I realize that 80% of that stuff was specifically marketed to my generation because they knew we’d eat it up, and I’m ashamed to have gone for that. I thought fueled by ramen was this really punk rock label with a passion for its bands, but if you look at that label now they’ve sorta led this charge to emo and really slick post-hardcore music. So I’m not sure the interest was ever on talent, I think the interest might have been in sales all along. There were exceptions then and there are exceptions now, but a lot of it depresses me because I’ve lived long enough to see a couple of trends come and go now and this one has been monetized so quickly and turned into big business so quickly that I feel bad for the kids who think they’re doing something radical by buying into the whole industry of this stuff. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t try to keep up with some of the emo stuff (and I don’t think anyone likes the term emo, so I apologize for using it), and a lot of it is really assembly line stuff. I’m creeped out when I see 30 year-old dudes with these long flip haircuts and a lip ring and tight jeans who are marketing themselves to teenage girls. Which is nothing new, of course, but I’m just waiting to see a youth movement that really feels radical and doesn’t have a uniform. I don’t know, those days might be dead and maybe I’m naive to think they existed in the first place.

All that said, I have a real soft spot for Paramore because I like that girl’s voice and I think they have some heart. The thing is that I’m a sucker for the whole scream/sing formula, but I don’t think anyone knows how to scream anymore. I haven’t heard a great scream since the Refused broke up. Take that as a challenge. Those dudes at least had an agenda. It seems like emo bands are always screaming about the most fucking inane, stupid shit in the world like texting their girlfriends or pop culture references that make me wanna barf or really cliche love song bullshit like how they’re going to claw their eyes out if they can’t have some guy or girl. There’s so much to be pissed off about in 2009, how could anyone listen to ironic, marketed, bullshit music that doesn’t say anything? Again, take that as a challenge. The only time I get really pissed off at musicians—because I don’t have a problem with making bad music so long as they believe in what they’re doing and are having fun at it—is when I’m convinced that the primary inspiration behind it is to get famous and make money (though I have a respect for artists who are up-front about that being the reason they make music, and there’s certainly a lot of rap that’s all about getting money that I still like). So that’s when I rant, and even though I’ve met a lot of fantastic kids who are really into the kinds of bands that fill the pages of Alternative Press, I think they’re going to feel swindled at some point and I do think that I’ve got their best interests in mind, even if I’m misguided.

Thanks for letting me go on and on and on about stuff. It’s very rare that people ask me about my job in a thoughtful way (usually it’s just “that must be awesome, you’re so lucky”) and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it in a long-winded way.