I just saw a tweet (ugh, sorry!) roll by from Bill Pearis (better known as the man behind Sound Bites and a big contributor to Brooklyn Vegan). He’s at the Siren Festival at this very moment, watching Japandroids chug Jaegermeister in the middle of a set. Now, I know it’s a Saturday, and we’re all having fun at Coney Island and all, but Bill’s observation is the final straw — I can be silent no longer.

Baby bands pumped up on Internet hype, for the love of all that’s holy, stop being so fucked up all the goddamn time! Please attempt to play a show or give an interview when you’re not hopped up or wasted beyond recognition.

Everyone knows about the now-infamous Wavves meltdown at Primavera. Sure, it happens. You play a big festival, you get a little nervous and overly excited, so then you get a little too “relaxed” before the show, and suddenly, you’re so blitzed that you can’t play. We all saw it happen in the ’90s, when the exact same thing happened to a bunch of baby bands with stage fright then, too. Thing was, visceral evidence wasn’t all over YouTube a couple hours later back then.

[Time for an aside: last night I happened to catch a large chunk of Kevin McAleister’s 2005 documentary You’re Gonna Miss Me, about the very, very sad life of Roky Erickson. If you ever thought being a fucked up, burned out rock star seemed like a fabulous career choice, I suggest you watch this film.]

Now, I’m not so naeive to think that artistic temperments and substance abuse never go hand in hand — in fact, based on my personal experience, I know that it’s almost always the norm and hardly ever the exception.

But there’s something about the way kids today are going about their partying that leaves a bad taste in my mouth that’s more than just the side effect of getting old and crotchety and impatient with people’s bullshit. It’s as if the documentation of partying as a professional pursuit that anyone can take part in (thanks, Misshapes and Last Night’s Party!) has lowered the bar (forgive the pun).

Earlier this week, there was a profile of San Francisco’s Girls in The Guardian. Now I have no beef with Girls, save that they sound, at turns, more like Elvis Costello and Okkervil River and … Soul Asylum than themselves. Their music is precious and inoffensive and tailor made for 20 and 30-something yuppies. But I do take exception to the fact that about 20 percent of the profile was a discussion of drugs and being fucked up. Not the music.

And did you see that profile of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart in New York this week? The one where the punchline is Peggy Wang, the band’s “adorable” chick on the keys, demanding to do shots after their first Bowery show? Classy.

I suppose I could just as easily fault the writers of these profiles for putting the partying front and center so as to give these up-and-comers a little bit of rock and roll crediblity. And to a certain extent, all the participants — the bands, the writers and readers — are all complicit in the equation. After all, the documentaton of conspicuous and excessive drinking and drugging is the very bedrock of all great music journalism.

But how am I supposed to take any of these bands seriously if their “charming” lo-fi (read: shambly and inconsistent) sound is being trumpeted along their propensity for being charmingly fucked up, too?

xoxo c. hotpoint