By Alanna Loosen
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 27, 1997

Buchheit misconstrues criticism

Editor:

This letter is in response to Ezekiel Buchheit's editorial, "Yeah, So I Sold Out," which ran on page four of the October 23 issue of the Daily Wildcat:

"The words this girl used were painful, shocking, and upsetting." Oh, Ezekiel. To walk this world so easily bruised. I only stated my own belief that Reel Big Fish were sellouts and that I disliked their music. Didn't mean to rip you from top to bottom, as I did, shown by the length and ferocity of your retort. As of now, I'm terrified of saying anything else that will leave you as hurt, so please read this letter with the understanding that I am, at heart, a cruel person. And I apologize for any damage that I've done with my "mindless dribble."

A while ago I saw King Django and Skinnerbox play in a tiny club in Tempe. I am fairly obsessed with Django- it is beyond my capabilities to understand how such a sweet, unassuming fat man can sing just like the devil himself. Later that moth I saw Reel Big Fish at the Ballroom when they played with the Pietasters. Perhaps it's just my own prejudice, or perhaps stupidity, but I couldn't see how Reel Big Fish, while definitely energetic and obviously talented, stacked up to King Django, hunched over the blue lights, growling out old Desmond Dekker lyrics in the smoothest voice ever created to a tiny dark room crammed with wide-eyed rudies holding cheap cigars and gaping at him.

It's not like I simply hard Reel Big Fish on that Fruitopia commercial and decided that they were no longer worthy of ranking alongside the ska elite. Their popularity doesn't surprise or offend me. I've just never liked them. Perhaps it was from the long car trips with my now-ex-boyfriend when he insisted on nothing but an incessant soundtrack of Reel Big Fish and Suicide Machines, to my extreme discomfort.

Maybe it was simply a reaction to the sudden burst of too-jangly radio ska that appeared out of nowhere last summer. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I think Reel Big Fish sounds too orchestrated. Don't take offense. It's not that I dislike ska-punk. My life revolves around Operation Ivy. But I like Op Ivy's rawness- and I can't find that kind of emotion in RBF.

That's why I called them sellouts, Ezekiel. I can't find any soul to them. That doesn't mean they aren't talented, but to me they sound like music meant to sell records.

I like music that sound like you fell over bleeding on the kitchen floor to make it. I didn't call them sellouts because they've sold fifty trillion records or because they're on the radio and juice commercials constantly. It's because I can't find heart in them.

And - Ezekiel - don't take my criticism so deeply. If you like 'em, and you obviously do, don't listen to me. I'm condemned to hell for every sin but politics and I'm continually sour. You know that.

See you in class Monday.

Alanna Loosen
Creative writing freshman