The Rules

1) I will only post music I like. This seems obvious but it doesn't always end up that way. Feel free to follow the discussion (read: destruction) of the new Coldplay record on Stereogum, Pitchfork, Idolator. It seems the bigger you get, the less you get to write about the things you actually care about and the more you're forced to rip things you can't stand. Luckily, I don't think we'll be pulling 40,000 pageviews-a-day around here any time soon. I am Geoff's unbiased outsider.

2) I will never post blog-hop. You will never hear the names Danger Mouse, MF Doom, The Jedi Mind Tricks (especially), Aesop Rock (even when featuring John Darnielle), Atmosphere, Dizzy Rascal, (fuck, even) The Streets, Mr. Lif, Clipse, etc. It's not that these are bad artists. It's not even that they "aren't rap." They are both good and rap. I just don't care. This isn't music that sets anyone's world on fire. It is music that makes over-educated white people feel a little more relevant and a little less bad. Which makes me a less-relevant, bad-feeling person. I can live with this.

3) If I tell you something is going to be big, just listen. I won't always say it's going to be big. I might just say something like, "hey, you might find this interesting" or "on the whole, this isn't terrible." But if we rewound to the spring of 2007 and I was spitting the Vampire Weekend gospel at you. Just listen. You don't even have to like it. Just hear what I'm saying. It'll make you feel less bad later. If you promise to listen and tell everyone you know immediately, I will promise not to be wrong.

4) This isn't going to be five posts-a-day type of thing. I'll be lucky to get something up every two or three days. Check in a couple times a week. I don't ask for constant contact. I am not particularly needy.

5) I may be more needy than I let on.

6) I will not simply post the press releases that get fed into everyone's inboxes. Yeah, so there are these people called "publicists" who send out hundreds of emails every week. Many of them inexplicably represent godawful artists. Everyone is just trying to get paid. This is fine. This part is actually understandable. The few publicists who actually represent good bands get to have their press releases paraphrased and posted by people like me about ten minutes after they're sent out. This is why all the music/album/single/band news breaks at the same time. There is no scoop. There is no inside source. There is a digital trough of information that everyone drinks out of. I am not promising not to drink from the trough. Everyone gets thirsty and it's delivered to your front door. I'm just promising not to spit that trough water back in your face. You're better than that.

7) I will go to good live shows and tell you about them. I will encourage you to come with me beforehand. We will make invisible friends. Music is a social project. New York is a great city. We are idiots if we don't end up in the same places at the same time. Even if we never speak to one another, this is about a coming together - our centralizing purpose.

8) The name is about gravity. I hate to explain it. It might not even make sense. We're fucking falling out of nowhere and into nothing. It would almost be a relief to hit the ground. Bands and artists are multiplying at something exponential. No one can keep up. Everything just. keeps. dropping. Labels fail yet "DIY" leaves us empowered and often alone. Bands go unheard. Great singles never make your Top 25 Most Played. Frankly, either your musical taste isn't good enough or you don't have the time for it to get good enough. It either means something to you or it doesn't. I hope it will mean something to you.

9) I'll end with an anecdote. There is a fairly amazing version of Ace of Base's "The Sign" that John Darnielle does once in a while on tour. It mostly ends up with him ad-libbing lyrics and encouraging the audience to sing along. At one of these live performances, Darnielle noticed no one in audience was singing loud enough for his liking. He closed with these words before going into the last chorus. "So you didn't dance and you didn't sing. Well, no one is gonna tell and there's no film in that camera. So when we get to the chorus, if there's a one of you that doesn't sing, I personally will open fire." Then he counted to four and the audience screamed every word.

No one's gonna tell and there's no film in that camera. Remember that.