So, with the blessing of those who will not be named though know who they are, our lovely expose on the users of Sputnikmusic shall make a bi-weekly return to no remarkable avail; with little haste on my end, the first of the revived series ended in a crossfire of three reviews that all took a trip to the ~features~ queue, but in the end, TheBoneyKing won an all-expense paid trip to meet yours truly for a one-on-one interview that ultimately revealed Boney’s level of thinking to be far superior to my pea-brained self and by proxy, all of Sputnik. In a way, he really made me think! And with such a fierce appetite for knowledge, Boney has an equally voracious hunger for Indie and Americana (or alt-country idk); his review of Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You can be read here.

~Boney’s true form~

Let’s start with the beginning of the user known to all as TheBoneyKing: how did you come to find sputnik in the first place? What drew you to this wonderfully outdated music website and its community?

I remember when I was first falling down the wonderful rabbit hole that is music, I spent a lot of time reading about albums on Wikipedia and Sputnik reviews would often be linked on those pages. Usually these were klap or SowingSeason reviews due to the kind of music I was exploring at the time. So I was aware of the site’s existence early on in my music exploration. Then I remember spending one day reading through all of the site’s reviews of Radiohead’s Amnesiac and figured why the heck not just join up on the site. The rest is history.

Ah, so that explains your being here. However, how did you decide on TheBoneyKing? Was there no boneless option available, or did you deem yourself not a prince but a king? Horrendous jokes aside….

Well, it’s no secret that I’m a Radiohead fan (my first, rather uncreative avatar on the site was the Radiohead bear), so when I was searching for a username that represented my musical interests Radiohead was the natural place to look. I wanted something a little less obvious (gotta seem like a trve fan, y’know?) so I went with one of the subtitles from Hail to the Thief. I had always like the flow of “There, There (The Boney King of Nowhere)” so I went with that. In retrospect I might have chosen something different if I had seen the, ahem, rather obvious pun, but in my naivete I went for it.

I’d say a lot of the userbase is quite naive, or once were, but it’s a part of the charm, no? How else could we get a ton of “ranked” lists spam on the daily?

Haha, I guess you’re right there; one of my first ever lists was “OK Computer Ranked” so I’m not entirely without fault here either.

And at last, that obsession with alt-country and folk; how did that come to be? Sputnik doesn’t have too many country fans, whether it be of the ye olde variety or modern day ~alternative~

Ah yes, I knew this question was coming.

Once upon a time, I was a country hater. As many people do, I thought it was just stupid music, lacking musical “complexity” or some bullshit, that only people with backwards values liked. Now, it’s relevant to note that when I was first getting into music (and in fact for several years after the fact) I actually wasn’t in complete control of my music consumption. I started really getting into music around 7th grade and for several years after that I pretty much only listened to music in my dad’s iTunes library, which is pretty extensive across all genres, but I mostly stuck to the newer stuff he was buying at the time, which happened to be indie stuff, folk, and, you guessed it, country (in particular, Americana and alt-country). So while alternative rock was my first love I was gradually exposed to more and more folk and country and eventually it started to stick. It was a long process (I’m pretty sure my dad labelled a lot of stuff that should have gone under country as alternative rock just so that I would be more willing to try it) but by the time I joined Sput in 2015, I was the rootin’ tootin’ country boy you know today.

Papa Boney pulled through!

Now that we’ve covered the history, why not do something a bit more interesting…if not unoriginal: head on over to your music player of choice and shuffle that shit. Let’s see your first three results.

Alrighty then, let’s see what we get here.

Shuffling my Spotify library, I get: James Blake’s “Points”, Kurt Vile’s “Kidding Around”, and Jade Jackson’s “Better Off”.

An interesting enough cross section of my taste, though admittedly three songs that I would struggle to remember any particulars of.

Struggle to remember, huh? Are there any records of the past few years you loved when they dropped, but are, at their very core, forgettable and not worth the time? Or better yet, are there records that simply grew off of you. It happens to everyone, so let’s see what were the record(s) that killed your hype.

Hmm, that’s a tough one. I think my nature I’m more prone to improve my opinion of things over time rather than the opposite. One that does come to mind however is Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial. It blew me away when it came out, I was almost ready to 5 the thing, but now I feel a bit more moderately toward it. I still have it at a 4, but have I can’t say I’ve gone back to it more than once or twice since my first batch of listening to it. Even now I’m struggling to convince myself to sit down for the Twin Fantasy rerecording – 70 minutes of Will Toledo sounds like a bit more than I can take at this point.

Yeeeah, Twin Fantasy was a record that entranced me for approximately a week during a humid summer a few years back, then I came to realize it was simply okay. Moderately okay Bandcamp indie rock – and that’s okay, believe it or not (CSH stans, refrain from obnoxiously disagreeing, please and thanks!!)

Okay, while we’re on the subject of hype: what are you hyped for?

Well, it’s not a release, but I just today snagged tickets to see Radiohead this summer, so I’m stoked for that as it’ll be my first time seeing them. As for upcoming releases there aren’t a whole ton on my radar. The ones I’m most looking forward to right now are the new Decemberists and Wye Oak albums – two of my faves from my early music exploration days, even though both may be a bit past their prime at this point. Hopefully a few other releases will come from left field and surprise me.

Wew, that ought to be a good (sleepy) time. I can’t afford concert tickets, so I had to settle for a bad Thom Yorke tee that looks incredibly tacky but never fails to crack me up. Lemme get a pic.

Haha, yeah I imagine they’ll still be playing a lot of AMSP stuff so it should be a nice chill time. I’d better not be “let down” (cringe) by Thomo Yorke and the Radio Headz.

Oh shit, I found the design

I actually paid money for this (and I’m wearing it right now) 

Oh my goodness, that’s incredible. [that one laughing crying emoji should be here but idk it ain’t]

Let’s switch things up a bit more: in a twist of fate, you find yourself in the shoes of the one and only DoofusWainwright. What do you do?

Probably write a ton of 0.5 reviews for Sputcore classics, stir up the community a little and further solidify that 100% objectivity rating in the process.

Any albums in particular? And for the sake of a challenge, no Devil and God. Anyone would 0.5 that bad boy if they could.

(Boney would go on to take a nice, long think on what Sputcore albums he’d 0.5 for a couple minutes…)

Of course, TDAG is low-hanging fruit. I’d hit ’em with some Tool or Converge, maybe something from ol’ Jeff Rosenstock’s oeuvre. Oo and The Smiths too, that would stir some people’s blood. And close as they are to my heart throw a National album in there for the fun of it.

Brutal…

And finally, for the sake of prolonging this overlong interview, I’ve allowed someone else to ask a question for shits and giggles…

So from Rigma, I got “Is cereal soup?”

Ah yes, a very good question, in fact one I’ve devoted a probably-unreasonably amount of time to recently.  My intuition is that it isn’t, but then if it’s not a soup what the heck is it? And well, is there anything else consisting of solid things suspended in liquid served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon that’s not a soup? I certainly can’t think of one. So if it is a soup, then it only is in the strictest sense of the term. Can I give you a clear yes or no? Well, I’m just not sure.

Whoa…that made me think [insert thinking emoji spam here]

[…and here]

Holy shit, I’m listening to Shiina Ringo right now and I’m crying wtf (totallynotfilleridlechatlol)

Embrace the sadness boi

It ain’t sad tho.

Isn’t all emotion just some form of sadness though, in a sense? [more emoji spam]

How are you so woke? Is it the Harvard education or the dozens of Destroyer scrobbles you’ve amassed (legit jealous you saw him/them btw)

Probably a little of both – the wisdom of Dan Bejar holds no bounds. Gotta admit I was rather underwhelmed by their live show, may just be because I wasn’t totally on board with Ken though, all the older songs sounded great.

(Got anything else for me or are we about done here?)

Uhhhhhhh

Actually nah, I think we got a decent interview/pseudo shitpost article on hand

any last words?

Thanks for picking my review and for the interview. Keep it real.

is that dumb idk

Fuck it keep it real, cheers