Crotchety Rant!

I always like it when music and visual design get married. Or if you're Crystal Castles and Trevor Brown, get married blackout-drunk in Reno, realize after the fact you never intended to get married and you now hate each other, kick each other's ass, and take the nasty divorce proceedings public to be chimed in on by me and the guy from the Mountain Goats.

I won't get into the money side of all this art-ahj, the alleged contracts and non-payment, the conflicting accounts from each camp (...there I was, on my way to drop off some blankets and fresh peaches to the local orphanage, when Crystal Castles, wild-eyed and drugged-out, ripped my livelihood and identity from my organically-grown bamboo tote and printed it on their record sleeve...), but as someone who's been on both sides of similar situations, I can only say this: Get over it, everyone.

At it's core, this purported Horrifying Example of Artistic Plagiarism isn't actually so societal-fabric-shredding as the players and commentors would have you believe. It's really just a painter nobody's heard of sniping with a band nobody cares about over some queasy pictures on a t-shirt.

Yeah, we, as artists, all gots to get paid, and stealing is bad, and once lawyers get involved forget it, but can we please please please stop taking ourselves so goddamn seriously all the goddamn time, please? Very rarely, especially in creative circles, is anyone even remotely as important as they think they are.* Crystal Castles aren't groundbreaking, Trevor Brown isn't Earth-shattering, I won't change your life, and there are maybe three people in the entire world who give two shits about you and your schedule/kid/headache/job/opinions. Jus' sayin'.

*Unless you're Minor Threat and Dischord. Then, by all mean, go apeshit.