Early Dawning, Sunday Morning

Outside of my dorm, there's a giant bulletin board where people are allowed to write whatever they feel like pertaining to the question an RA, Resident Advisor, has posted. This week's is, If you had $300 for The New School activities, what would you spend it on? Due to my not caring if we have extra movies where they show Marie Antoinette or have a Grey's Anatomy marathon, I wrote "Reunite The Velvet Underground."

When I checked my clever posting an hour later, someone had written under it, "Why? Warhol was a hack." Here's the list:

Five Best...Misconceptions people have about music

5. Warhol had a lot to do with The VU.

Truth: He let them play in the Factory, got Nico to sing with them and drew the banana for their first album. But after 1967, there was terrible animosity felt between Lou Reed and Warhol which led to their not speaking with one another.

4. All of today's music sucks.

Truth: It's not often that I'll give praise to anything released after 1980 but when people say that everything that's been recently released out there sucks, they're shielding themselves to some great bands and artists. For instance, check out Ryan Adams, Neko Case, The Decemberists, The Queers, The Killers (well, at least their first album), Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Roots and many, many others.

3. Pink Floyd rocks! The Doors too.

Truth: There will be more about this in a future posting but no, they don't.

2. "Weird" Al Yankovic is a no-talent hack.

Truth: I'd actually say that he's a very talented songwriter. Years ago, I remember having a conversation with my neighbor about who's the better lyricist, Weird Al or Britney Spears? Little did he know that Spears doesn't actually write any of her own material but I kept stringing him along anyways because, how often do you really get to have a Weird Al related argument?

1. Ringo Starr was a terrible drummer.

Truth: While it's true that he's no Keith Moon or Peter "James" Bond, The Beatles didn't need someone who played like a madman but rather, just someone to keep the songs together and moving along. If he had done anything wild, the end result wouldn't have sounded very good.