She could end up like James Murphy or Cat Power. But it’s just as possible — in fact, more possible — that this will not happen. She will probably just make a bunch more albums of varying quality, none of which will get the collective adoration of w h o k i l l. And then Garbus will end up with this bizarre 40-year-old life, where her singular claim to fame will be future people saying things like, “Hey, remember that one winter when we all thought tUnE-yArDs was supposed to be brilliant? That fucking puppeteer? Were we all high at the same time? What was wrong with us?”
This is basically how I feel about that Panda Bear album.
“It’s just going to be this interesting battle in my life; not only am I performing, but I’m performing songs about self-loathing in front of people, or about sex, or about violence. These things are very dear to me in some ways and, in another way, I feel that this is my job and my role and I need to have a distance and get over myself and my self-hatred to do my job well. And as more people are telling me how they are moved and affected by my music, that becomes clear. I think, “If you get over your crap from adolescence— which is where it comes from— then you get to do this more and better and for more people. You get to be more empowered in this new job.” There’s a lot of incentive to not let it paralyze me, and that was one of the reasons I quit puppetry; I had a huge eating disorder and I was performing in front of people and I had this huge, incredible stage fright. The combination of being so messed up internally and having to perform— I’d see myself perform externally and constantly be taunting myself as if I were an audience member. I told myself, “I have to quit and go into my private life so I can heal what’s going on and go back to what I want to do.”” - Merrill Garbus aka “that fucking puppeteer.”
Man I was almost too high to read that right now! Can’t wait to forget about the seven times I’ve seen her and the life-affirming, moving, inspiring performances she’s given that have made me feel better about life, being a woman in a male-dominated society constantly trying to make you hate yourself, and given me confidence in trying to be creative myself. What was I thinking?! Better go listen to some dude band with guitars before I get caught up in this hippie bullshit.
God, yeah. As if all the recent discussion of what a loser Klosterman is recently hasn’t been enough. Fuck that guy. Who Kill was easily in my top 5 albums this year.
