Interview With Mark Prindle Of Mark's Record Reviews.

I am shifting gears here at the Blog Of Least Resistance. I am going to no longer focus on free downloads. I'd like this to be more of a record review/interview site. So in my inaugural ceremony I bring you a quick email interview with Mark Prindle Of Mark's Record Reviews, the site I will be attempting to rip-off in the coming months. There will still be occasional downloads, but I will be including in depth reviews and the occasional interview to differentiate this site from the rest of the blogging scene. If you have been living under a rock, or have some semblance of a life away from the computer, Mark Prindle has maintained his website for 16 years. It is a resource for some of the funniest and brutally honest reviews on the web. As well as his hilarious interviews with many sorts of different figures in the alternative music world. His site has had me laughing my ass off for many years. What is important to note is that his site, while not a music blog, predates the structure (or lack of) and writing style exemplified by many of the blogs out there. I don't know how I'd be writing my reviews if it weren't for stumbling upon his site many years ago. He's a big influence. I just wish I had his wit. This is my first interview ever, as you can tell. My lack of interview skills is evident to the trained reader, but know I gave it my best here. He could of ripped into me and tore me a new asshole, but he didn't. If I had chosen to interview Metal Mike from the Angry Samoans, another noted music critic in punkland, he would have. If you can't guess, I am referencing the Punk forums on Myspace, circa 2006 and 2007...Anyways, here's Mark Prindle! Enjoy!

How has life been treating you lately?

Pretty well, thanks! I had a very difficult 2010, having to deal with a painful marital separation and long-term unemployment, but the past six months have been much better. I have given up drinking, found a wonderful new girlfriend and apartment, and begun working temp jobs to keep my savings from completely dwindling away. I still need a full-time job, but at least I'm not drinking myself into blackouts and waking up handcuffed to hospital beds anymore.

I stumbled upon your record reviews site many years back, before the blog had really caught on and although your site lacks free downloads, I think it is one of the precursors to the music blog. Some bloggers have developed a "Prindle-esque" style of record reviews. I know I have. I'm certainly nowhere near as humorous as you, but I give it a try. Tell me, what has influenced your writing style above all?

Boredom. I love talking about music, but I can't stand writing straightforward reviews. That's why I'd make a terrible journalist; straight, serious writing bores the hell out of me. Not to READ, mind you -- I read nothing but nonfiction and am thrilled that so many people have the discipline and interest to write in a straightforward factual manner. However, although I can write that way (and have for 15 years in my PR career), it's not all that fun. If I'm going to waste all my free time writing, it had better be fun.

I relate more so to a reviewer if they write in a similar style as you do. You seem to have a way of blogging through your reviews. Is that intentional? Or does it just happen that way?

My web site is the only personal writing I do, so I use it not only as a record review guide, but also as a diary and creative writing outlet. My site pre-dates blogs by several years, so I'm definitely not imitating that aesthetic. I think we all have the same drive though: the urge to write anything we want free of editorial constraints.

Is there something you wanted to review, but couldn't? Like there was almost nothing that could be said that hadn't already been said before?

No, I could review anything. All it takes is a few knock-knock jokes and stories about my dog.

I was reading your reviews of Agnostic Front the other day. On your "My Life, My Way" review, you say that speed alone isn't enough to hold your interest. I'm assuming you don't mean the drug, but what does a hardcore band have to do to hold your interest nowadays? Are there any bands that do?

They must display either a strong personality, a unique take on the genre, or simply the ability to write catchy and original chord changes. I don't keep up with current hardcore, but if Fucked Up counts, I do like them. I love how anthemic they are, and I find many of their songs quite catchy. I recently downloaded albums by over 100 old hardcore bands I'd never heard. Some were generic and forgettable, but there were some really terrific bands in there too. Check out Malignus Youth if you've never heard them. They had a really unique sound. If I could remember the names of any others off-hand, that would be very helpful.

Of the newer releases by older bands, which would you say have both stayed true to their roots and has been relevent to today? In any genre.

I don't think music needs to be relevant to a particular time period. In fact, it probably shouldn't be. Artists should strive to create timeless work, not work that will only appeal to today's listeners. The Spice Girls were plenty relevant in their day, but who gives a shit about them now? As for staying true to their roots, AC/DC, Motorhead and Neil Young certainly qualify. Bad Religion does too, but I'm not sure they even enjoy the music they're playing. If you listen to Greg Graffin's solo records, it's clear that punk rock isn't his chief interest anymore. It probably hasn't been for some time. But he knows that Bad Religion fans expect Bad Religion music (he learned that lesson from the reaction to "Into the Unknown"), so he delivers. I shouldn't complain, considering what happened to The Dwarves after Blag Dahlia got tired of hardcore.

I'd go as far as to say the new thrash metal bands are carying the torch of hardcore more so than the modern "Hardcore" and "Metalcore" bands are. At least in the delivery and attitude departments. There seems to be a genuine cross polination of style between the scenes. It's more musical than"crossover thrash" was, but it still sounds way more punk than the 80s pure thrash bands. What do you think of the New Wave Of Thrash Metal?

I love their sound. They remind me of old DRI and stuff like that. I haven't spent enough time with any of them to know which are the best songwriters of the bunch, but I love the fact that they exist!

What do you think of a genre like deathcore, combining Metalcore with the Cookie Monster?

That's actually not how I hear deathcore. I hear deathcore as a dumbed-down version of metalcore. Metalcore to me means intense, difficult aggressive bands like Converge, Botch, Coalesce, Every Time I Die and Dillinger Escape Plan. But all the deathcore I've heard is just guys blasting away at two or three chords and bellowing. Have I just not heard the good ones?

How has your musical taste evolved? I see you're becoming harder on punk and hardcore. What do you find yourself listening to mostly nowadays?

I'm all over the place. I keep buying books about musical subgenres and then downloading hundreds of albums by bands discussed in them that I've never heard. So for a while I was listening to British hardcore bands from 1988-1991, then American hardcore bands from 1980-86, and just recently I listened to about a hundred albums by "progressive metal" bands. That's a difficult subgenre because it includes everything from Dungeons & Dragons nerd-prog (Dream Theater) and overblown operatic garbage (Queensryche) to awesomely intense death/thrash/grind/black/psycho-metal (Enslaved, Voivod, Meshuggah, Deathrow, Deathspell Omega, etc). I currently have a book coming in the mail about British hardcore 1980-83, so I'm sure I'll be listening to a lot of that soon!

Are you a nostalgic person who goes back to the music of your youth, or do you prefer the new bands to the old?

I don't prefer new bands to old, but I'm always looking for great bands that I've never heard. I enjoy my old records too, but I can sing all of those in my head so I don't need to listen to them.

What was your favorite interview to conduct?

Billy Zoom because I was drunk off my ass!

Who turned out to be nicest? Who was the biggest asshole?

GBH's Colin Abrahall was belligerent, but he had every right to be; prior to our interview, Go-Kart's PR guy alerted him to my GBH review page, on which I ream pretty much their entire catalog! Aside from him, they were all nice -- at least until afterwards, when I've alienated a few through drunken emails and childish behavior (including Steve Albini, Henry Rollins, King Missile's John S. Hall and the Cows' Kevin Rutmanis -- though I think a couple of them have forgiven me by now).

Is there anyone you have been trying to interview, but it never seems to work out? Like the person is too busy all the time, or they do whatever they can to avoid you?

Jello Biafra refuses to speak to me because I sided with the other Dead Kennedys in my interviews with them. I can understand that; I shouldn't have taken sides in a legal dispute that had nothing to do with me.

If you could interview one person that you haven't interviewed before, before you died, who would that person be?

Paul McCartney

Is there anyone who you wished you could have talked to before they passed on?

Dee Dee, Joey and Johnny Ramone.

Have you been following any of the blogs that have popped up in recent years? Which one's are your favorite?

No, I don't follow any blogs. Unless Facebook is a blog!

What is your thought on the proliferation of free music downloads? Are we hurting anyone by sharing their music for free? Should music be free for everyone? Has it gone too far?

Music downloading has quite literally destroyed the record industry. Nobody buys CDs anymore, because why should they? It's much quicker and easier to just steal it off the Internet. Music should not be free, and it has definitely gone too far. Nevertheless, as an important record reviewer and tastemakers, I feel it is my duty to continue downloading every album in the world.

What's the status on Red Eye? You haven't made an appearance in a while.

The old booker accepted a production job with Greta Von Sustern's show, and the new booker ran across an extremely offensive and pointlessly racist joke on my web site. So I've essentially been banned.

If you could take 3 things with you on a desert island, what would they be?

A ship, a crew and enough gasoline to get me home

Say that you could only take records...A total of 5, and a record player. You had no access to water or food. As you slowly meet your demise, what would the soundtrack consist of?

The first Ramones album, The Cars' "Candy-O," Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," AC/DC's "Flick of the Switch" and Aerosmith's "Rocks." Those aren't my favorite albums in the world; I just think they'd be nice to die to.

Now for random questions cause I wanna ask...

Favorite food? Favorite drink?

Pizza and Diet Coke. If you'd asked me two months ago, I'd have said Vodka.

Worst band of all time?

Eagles, unless Billy Joel counts as a band

Worst genre of all time?

Deathcore and modern emo are equally abominable.

Best band in a terrible genres? Worst band in an awesome genre?

I'm definitely not a country-western fan, but I love Johnny Cash. Hardcore is an awesome genre, but the Cro-Mags are godawful.

Best TV show? Worst?

Best is Mr. Show. Worst is nearly everything else. I do like Community, Arrested Development and SCTV though.

Favorite movie? Least favorite?

Favorite is "The Decline of Western Civilization." Least favorite is "Breaking the Waves."

Any parting words?

Yes, several.