conor wha? conor who? (or, maybe it’s the booze)

The New Dylan. or at least, she could be touted as much by phallocratic prognosticators looking for a new one, probably. or rather, who is bob dylan, anyway? i haven’t even read his book yet. What I really want to know, is, who was La Lupe?
NOTE: I have no probs with Bright Eyes; in fact, I quite like his musical stee. I think I have probs with what he represents, and how he is interpreted. (I.e. why is “fury at the injustices of life” a quality of “only a very young person”?)
Mirah is just as conor oberst as conor is, but nobody ever calls her the new dylan, which is not me splitting hairs or even taking on some hyperbolic rock-crit impulse to hand over the kingdom to the prodigal son. I am, because I adore her music, pointing out she’s an equal talent, marginalized. for one, she is an over-30 simply pretty queer chica. pour deux, her distribution on K records might be slighter than that of the the Saddle Creek worldwide underground.
There’s'more abnegational tragedy up in conor’s world, though; Ms. Mirah doesn’t deny herself, her ex-lovers, her sorrow, or her healing. She chooses hope. In a break-up/cheating song, she wrote the sweet line “I’m so number one that it’s a shame/that you let other numbers in the game.” Perhaps that’s not as sexy as Conor’s pre-political platform as a lyrical meta-cutter,”sexy” defined in this epoch as the generational martyrdom that gives kids bonerz over their/our own relational melodramas. (& we are all fuct by the emo gender-scripts: in two extreme and general hetero forms*, for the ladies, they read, “he doesn’t like me because i suck” viz “he’s just not that into me!” in lieu of the boysterz’ “she doesn’t like me because she sucks”/”i am holding out for something better” outward foisting. toeing the line of all our cot-damn oppression and unactualized “halfness”) (word to gloria steinem) (empirically, not scientifically) (p.s. let’s change how we do bizness! go team!) (pps these selfsame gender scripts cross over into homo form, too, unfortunately… soon I hope to write about the smart gayboys i know attending a major ivy league school who assume pre-feminist roles in their relationships with older boyfriends. you know, “cook clean and iron” type of Jadakiss relationships.)
anyway! mirah’s 2002 album, advisory committee, ess mucho bananas & hot magma. just listening again today. she is just as conor as conor is: as political (though not as barky), as sexual, as relationship-wrought-and-enda-the-world, as going double-’naners for gigantor sweeping melodies, as accompaniment-to-yr-breakup. vegan. about the only thing missing is le booze. maybe folx just like booze in their music. that is why i liked the shawnna record–the arc of alcoholism / realization / repentant step-1 of AA (w/Missy Elliott) mid-album. and Just Blaze.
i mean, mirah has phil elverum, and he is the just blaze of indierock.
in further news, I have stepped up my “Z” game with Raheem DeVaughn’s “Guess Who Loves You More.” His website is theloveexperience.com, for chrissakes, people. You cannot be mad at me for loving the love experience.
hi, i am mad jacked on fair-trade columbian. i will try to write more coherently next time I am not ramble-riffing.
(& lets not get it twisted, the scribe of conor’s inital nytimes magazine blow-up was one pagan kennedy, whose fanzine semi-defined my late-’90s goodtimez in cambridge MASS, big ups to the ellery street posse, thanks for the digital compass. MIT students, I SWEAR!)