“Hey! Aren’t You The Great Southern Brainfart?”: The Occupational Hazard of Being Me

“Hey!  Aren’t you The Great Southern Brainfart?”  When I am out at a show and someone comes up to me and asks this question, my chest gets just a tad tight as I prepare for one of two things: a hell yeah high five or a punch in the kisser.  As you all know, I’m not shy or filtered when it comes to my true, honest feelings about a band.  If I love them, I say so.  If I think they’re just “ok”, I say so.  If I think they fucking suck, well, I say so.  There’s really nothing more to it than that.

I know that by being this brutally honest I am putting myself out there not only as someone my readers can respect and appreciate but someone who pisses of quite a few bands.  You all probably remember the now infamous “deBACHle” (read about it here if you don’t) where Sebastian Bach had a few choice words for me via Facebook.  That was a good example of an artist that was not too happy with my negative review of his show.  In a lot of ways, I guess you could say it was kind of an honor to be threatened with bodily harm by Sebastian Bach.  I’ve had Guns N’ Roses completely blacklist me from their press list because of negative reviews and again, that’s fine.  Now when being confronted face to face by an angered band member that I talked smack about, that’s a whole different level of scary.

I was out recently at the 120 Tavern to take in a performance by NWOTHM veterans Widow.  I was at the bar with their guitarist Chris when out of nowhere I was approached by a very tall, scary, and seemingly intoxicated individual.  He gets in my face and goes, “Hey!  Aren’t you the Great Southern Brainfart?”  Ok, so this is where that feeling comes in but this time around, I kind of knew that it wasn’t going to end with a high five.  It was going to probably end with a dinner consisting of a knuckle sandwich and a side of teeth.

So there I was, face to face with this guy.  “Hey!  Aren’t you the Great Southern Brainfart?”  “Yeah, that’s me” I replied.  He looks at me even more mad looking and says, “Man, you said that we were the worst band in Atlanta, man.  That was pretty fucking shitty of you to say that.”  I just looked at him and said very honestly, “What band are you in?”  At this point he looked somewhat perplexed and he says, “I’m in Brazen Angel.”  I had to think for a second and when I remembered them I just replied, “Hey man.  I said that A LONG time ago.  Don’t worry, plenty of bands have taken that title from you since then.”  He just stared me down and I figured at any moment that knuckle sandwich was coming but then Chris pulled him aside for a photo op and I used that as my opportunity to make a brisk exit.

The next day, I had to actually go on my own website, search their name, and see just what it was that I said about them.  I saw that I actually did say that they were the worst band in Atlanta by awarding them Worst Local Band on my 2012 Farty Awards.  I was pretty harsh but I was 100% honest and I still stand by my opinions of Brazen Angel.  Since that post, I have actually seen them another two times and never said another thing about them because I figured, “Why flog a dead horse?”  It then dawned on me that this guy has basically been carrying around with him anger from one paragraph written in 2012 and he was ready to just unload on me…. four years later.

It will never cease to amaze me how some artists are completely  unable to take and accept any form of negative criticism in the press.  What are you going to do?  Punch the teeth in of every person who gives you a bad review?  In my opinion, there is nothing more pompous and arrogant as someone who gets angry enough to actually come close to physical violence over a bad review.  If you don’t want bad reviews, stop playing music.  As an artist myself, I know that not everything I do will be liked or even appreciated by everyone.  Those that have negative things to say about my work whether it be my writing or my music, I take a moment to analyze what was said, I process it, and then I decide if said information is worth growing off of or if it’s just something that I can ball up and toss into the mental trashcan for a three pointer.

When people get angry at me for negative reviews, my first thought is that they must actually believe that in some small way I am right and that the ugly truth presented to them is something that they cannot accept.  More than anything, I feel bad for Brazen Angel dude for the fact that this has been brewing up in him for four years.  That can’t be good for the body, mind, or soul.  At the end of it all, just let it go.  Regardless, in the future when I hear someone say, “Hey!  Aren’t you The Great Southern Brainfart?”  I will still tighten up and I will still flinch, but I will still stand by my words until I have seen and heard something to change my mind.  That, my friends, is the truth.

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