Okay, this is one of the sillier musical feuds I’ve ever heard of, but I feel the need to pass it along because it eventually ended up with Beck making a new song called “Harry Partch.”
It’s named that because Partch is the guy who created the 43-tone scale (whatever the hell that is — I’m tone deaf!) And Beck created this because some douchebag named Matthew Friedberger of some doucheband named the Fiery Furnaces lashed out at Radiohead for writing about Partch in a song named … Harry PATCH.
Patch being, of course, the longest surviving English WWII veteran in the world, and probably someone who has no freaking clue what these strange noises leaking from his phonograph are. But yeah, so F-berger misunderstood what Radiohead was saying with their song and lashed out, saying this:
“‘Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch,’” Friedberger says mockingly. “F— you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That’s a put-on. That’s a branding technique and Radiohead have their brand that they’re popular and intelligent. So they have a song about Harry Patch.
So, yeah, what you don’t want to do is insult Radiohead — does anyone not like Radiohead? Who is this assclown anyway?
All that aside, Friedberger found out he was being a dickwad and apologized. Except in apologizing, he actually didn’t apologize and decided to try and cockslap Beck. On his Myspace blog!
Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and their various chartbusters.Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, as opposed to his imaginary one about Harry Partch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn’t like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and the band can continue with their triumphant artistic interventions.
Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists.
So, naturally, Beck banged out a song that’s 100x times better than anything Friedberger has done. But the quality of the music is besides the point — what the hell is Friedberger thinking here? I get that it’s totally on-point to be trendy and hip and douchey by insulting “popular musicians” but it’s one thing to go after Rob Thomas or some other Harley-riding bag of D; it’s an ENTIRELY different ballgame to try and lash out at Beck and Radiohead, both of whom are awesome and will forever be awesome.
So, to sum up, Friedberger is like the Scott Tenorman of music, and someone needs to chop up his parents, cook them in chili and feed it to him. Or something.
Here’s Beck’s tune at You Ain’t No Picasso:
Beck – Harry Patch
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