Zwickel Out at The Stranger
I don’t know about you, but this dampened my day:
Eric Grandy has just been promoted to music editor. He’s been a staff writer at The Stranger for more than a year, writing the weekly local music news column Fucking in the Streets, excellent profiles of local and national acts (Truckasaurus, MIA, Les Savy Fav—the list goes on), and editing special sections (the 2007 Bumbershoot guide, the oral history of the 500 block of East Pine Street). We’re really excited about where Eric is going to take the section.
Jonathan Zwickel, who has done fantastic writing for The Stranger in the last year—his gorgeous Cave Singers essay and his analysis of The Lonely H come to mind—is no longer on staff, although we hope he’ll still be a presence in the paper and on Line Out.
That’s a huge mistake (but what else is new for The Stranger). Eric Grandy is a no talent ass clown big fan of Daft Punk, while Zwickel not only brought a different (read: not Seattle indie hipster slant) mindset to the outlet, he also brought some journalistic integrity. But now that DJ Fucking In The Streets (who is most likely the worst DJ you will ever witness live) has taken his place, with Megan Seling quickly moving up the chain, don’t expect much actual music news. In it’s place you’ll see a lot of gossip and baseless attacks on genres they’re not fans of.
I wish I could take credit for some of these wonderful comments from the blog post:
“Hey Grandy, I got this great idea for a Van Halen piece I want to pitch to you. Let’s do lunch!” – Paulus
“What?! No Zwick? Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. Congrats on the super high school-ization of your paper!” – YrLame
“JZ will be sorely missed. Now it’s all cool-hairdo children at the wheel… awesome. Suck it, Stranger.” – CoryT
“are you serious? there’s no reason to ever read the music column ever again now that captain douchebag is behind the wheel.” – dizzle
“your a blowjob hack grandy, go hang yourself!” – fuck you grandy
Okay, maybe not that last one. I don’t wish death upon him. Just, maybe, something similarly negative but not so finite.
And yes, I have now taken Line Out off of my RSS feed list. Good luck, Stranger, you’ll need it.
1 Comment »
Leave a comment
Flickr Photos
The Daily Belmore 
Jesus Christ! Do you know who this guys is? He’s terrible! Unless you have a CSS shirt on while you’re playing, you won’t be impressing Grandy. As if this weren’t enough, he’ll not only dismiss important music, he’ll go the extra step to patiently and spitefully tear it to shreds…and in print no less! “There’s no such thing as bad press”…yeah, unless you’re a small indie band worked against the odds to get noticed!
If Seattle is going to have a thriving music scene that supports and perpetuates itself, we need to start moving away from this kind of cannibalism that Eric Grandy seems to enjoy so much, and go back to the days of having someone who actually likes music (see Jennifer Maerz) at the helm, sailing The Stranger’s ship.
It’s a good paper, but this guy isn’t even fit to be captain of The Duck.
Line Out sucks.