kilgore trout: hell I could even get cautiously on board with turn blue, it was fine enough. I don’t expect nonstop plateau albums. but shit the downward slide is so hard to not hear when you have the whole picture in mind over ten years

as someone who would fight tooth & nail to put attack & release / brothers era black keys very very high in the rock contribution pantheon in the last 25 years I think I can fairly suggest maybe it’s just that their recent output has been a huge overproduced bummer I have no interest in seeing live

I interviewed booking agents, tour managers, and other experts about the Black Keys debacle and why some high-profile arena tours are struggling to sell tickets right now. New piece for Stereogum:

The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tourswww.stereogum.com It's not just the Black Keys. Why are so many big tours selling poorly?

I also like el Camino, but this latest is just so bland and bad and if I recall they were one of the groups that got very defensive about people who suggested "selling out" should maybe still be a thing after their music over-saturated the market

hell I could even get cautiously on board with turn blue, it was fine enough. I don’t expect nonstop plateau albums. but shit the downward slide is so hard to not hear when you have the whole picture in mind over ten years

The drummer I guess issued some cryptic tweet saying they were fucked over somehow re: this arena snafu, but didn't follow up with any actual useful details introspection that they just maybe shouldn't overcharge for lower quality and greater scale doesn't seem too much of a priority

yeah I mean I guess I can buy they lost track of what their managers were doing but at a certain point I gotta wonder if they’re paying that much attention anymore

They have a couple of songs on YT from the Jools show. Not very interesting.

The producers and agencies are pushing for higher ticket prices. At the same time, a chunk of everyone's audience has not returned because they don't want to get covid and inflation has fucked a bunch of people. They are being very selective about shows.

Also, one of their managers was the CEO of Ticketmaster. Yeah man, totally shocked your management was garbage. But these are the same dopes that defended Daniel Ek after having a meeting with him and letting him sweet talk them so they wouldn't criticize his company as much.

Turn Blue really grew on me over time even if it was a step down, but they've just been kind of mediocre since.

"Rock Bands from my college years that haven't lost the juice" uh maybe QotSA? Vampire Weekend's recent had a solid start even if it never went anywhere.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs ripped live at least

spoon. definitely qotsa. uhhh I’ll think of some more possibly

Times New Roman was good but Villains is just an impossible to follow up album

An imprecise answer, but Dinosaur Jr.'s post-reunion (2007) albums have been mostly incredible.

the thing is that most of these bands are still pretty good, they’re just not, like, arena good anymore (and a lot of them never really were)

a black keys ballroom show would probably be fucking lit, but i’m not going to see them at moda

I entirely realize this sounds misanthropic af but I do not want to go see a band I love play music I don’t love around people I do not fit in around who love the current version of the band

i mean, i’m right there with you, i fucking hate arena shows

This is basically the Flaming Lips motto these days

One of the worst shows I ever saw was Guided by Voices at Hard Rock. It was so weird. A bunch of drunk investment banker types who talked the whole time

normalize seeing perfectly acceptable bands with 3-4 good albums at county fairs 15 years after their arena era again.

At my freshman orientation in college, there was a concert featuring Biz Markee and Duncan Sheik. Sheik was 27 years old at the time, only 2 years removed from his "big hit," and was already hitting the "free concerts in the middle of nowhere for teenagers" stage of his career.

Maybe the Goo Goo Dolls are a stretch at “perfectly acceptable” but they put on a fun show at the San Diego County Fair a couple years ago.

I paid 20 bucks to see ZZ Top at rinky dink small town heritage fest in the late aughts and it was one of the best shows I have absolutely ever seen

Yeah when I heard the black keys were playing Oakland coliseum my primary response was “wat”.

It’s revealing that the Black Keys’ UK tour was at the Brixton Academy, a nice little venue I go to a lot and where the tickets will have been, like £50.

I saw Depeche Mode last summer. They were still fully-juiced.

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