You Are The Generation That Pays To See Shows At Webster Hall And You Get What You Deserve

Your pardon, friends, while an old soldier tells his trouble. My heart, my old soldier heart, is heavy within me. It is a strange thing, this age which creeps upon one. One does not know, one does not understand; the spirit is ever the same, and one does not remember how the poor body crumbles. But there comes a moment when it is brought home, when quick as the sparkle of a whirling sabre it is clear to us, and we see the soldiers we were and the soldiers we are. Yes, yes, it was so to-day, as I surveyed the campaigns that lay before me and felt a shiver of disillusionment.

What happened to the days of PJ Harvey at CBGBs? Of Built To Spill at Under Acme and Sunny Day Real Estate at Brownies? Has it really come to pass that the best for which a retired soldier on a pension can dream is two nights at Webster Hall as opposed to one at Roseland? I say it is time to draw a line, my friends, and proclaim that we shall no longer tolerate soldiers who proudly wear their indie credibility on their epaulettes (see, e.g., Fiery Furnaces, Shins, Spoon, Bright Eyes) playing any venue larger than the Bowery Ballroom.

And so I raise my hand to my busby and turn upon my heel, my heart glowing at the thought of the great exploits which lay before me. For it is there, in the future, that our hope lies with the next wave of recruits who shall ride into town with little fanfare and stable their horses at some small, intimate venue such as the Mercury Lounge. The Rakes, Johnny Boy, Art Brut, the Apartment...oh, my friends, the pride and the glory and the beauty, the flash and the sparkle, the roar of the hoofs and the jingle of chains, the tossing manes, the noble heads, the rolling cloud, and the dancing waves of steel! My heart shall drum to them as they arrive for the first time in our fair town, and at that instant the years shall fall away from me, and up shall fly my cane. "Chargez! En avant! Vive l'Rock!"