Oh, you like The Strokes? Yeah, that’s cool. You know they were all like little rich glitterati kids from New York City, though, right? Like going to galas and Sotheby’s auctions and shit. Garage rock revival my ass! I’m sure those leather jackets weren’t cheap either. Not like the ones we bought at Forever 21. I even heard they like, paid people to make their sneakers look dirty, it’s wild. But that’s how the industry works, man. All you need is daddy’s checkbook and an era-defining debut album to make it big!
I swear if it weren’t for their seminal debut album, or their excellent follow-up Room on Fire, or the rest of their albums which are actually pretty decent, The Strokes would just be another early aughts footnote. But noooo, 25 years later, and they still get to headline festivals and have successful solo projects because they’ve made a “career” out of being really gifted musicians whose songs we all know and love. Such bullshit. I mean, they’re basically The Vines but with trust funds. And like, much better songs.
The whole thing is pretty much rigged. Looking back on it now, my band, Kevin’s Nightmare, never stood a chance. First of all, my dad works at the post office, so what was he ever gonna do for us? Pass our demo along to the Postmaster? Fuck that guy! Secondly, our debut EP Lunch For Breakfast is really bad. There’s only four songs and none of them are memorable or good. It was recorded on a TalkBoy, but instead of sounding lo-fi and cool, it mostly sounded like drunk guys who didn’t know how to write or record music. We also had to have 2 bassists because the only instruments we had were 2 basses.
Not like the dainty little Strokes boys who had the proper amount of instruments for a rock band and got to record in fancy studios, pinkies pointed outward as they strummed their custom-made guitars, delicately soft hands diddling their vintage Moog synthesizers, and so on. Must’ve been real nice to have the financial freedom to practice songs on their instruments until they had timeless classics with catchy hooks and memorable choruses. Normal guys like us don’t have the luxury of being “disciplined” or setting and achieving “goals” or doing “heroin” with “Ryan Adams”. But hey, some guys are just born with shitty dads.
