UPDATE: John Maus posted a public apology for his comments, stating foremost that he was happy over the demise of “the Megastores” and not DIY record shops. As he “(rightfully)” asks, “what could anyone possibly have against the small DIY record stores of the world?” You can read about how Mr. Maus fell into the sharpened bear trap that is the heavily edited interview here.
PREVIOUSLY: Wow. In an interview with Pitchfork, John Maus went off on record stores, publically stating his dislike of their very existence. This is both forward-thinking beyond the ability of most music lovers to conceive (we like to fetishize our desires into vinyl objects, see), and a direct affront to the infrastructure that helps make people like John Maus John Maus.
In short, his answer to “Favorite Records Shop” went like this:
You don't know how happy it makes me that the days of the record store are coming to an end. $20 for an LP? Do you remember going to the record store and not getting what you want because there was no other place to get it? Now we can get it all for free, and I think that's wonderful. There was always something really depressing to me about record stores and music equipment stores. There's something oppressive about them, like the guy who looks you up and down and looks at what you're buying. You're bound up in exchange with the snobby clerk. So I'm glad they all have little “closed” signs on their doors now.
He was already getting finicky about the list format Pitchfork was throwing at him. His response to favorite book started:
These questions are difficult because they're part and parcel with a situation that would define us as a list of cultural commodities we've consumed. This is a very banal idea. Facebook doesn't seem to have our genetic code on it– it has the list of books we “like.” That's how we define ourselves today. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a douchebag making an obvious point. One can't help but sound like a douchebag when talking about the books you like.
The response has been predictable, and probably exactly what he's asking for:
The interview wasn't going so bad up until the aforementioned fall-outs. You can see the whole thing here.
