wish they weren't such big sellouts and were more protective of their musical integrity like radiohead is. unfortunately $$$ makes the world go round. too bad. sad but true.

band of horseshit!

they f'n rock. get over it.

if you were in their shoes, what would you do jackoff?

Wal-Mart = lame

Yeah BV, get over the sell out thing.

nice hat bridwell. athens loves you.

Band of Horses actually played 4 shows during cmj.

It was on Saturday afternoon in my bathtub.

Daft Punk was supposed to open, but got there late because they missed their connecting flight. So, they ended up just playing an acoustic set in my kitchen as everyone was leaving.

This Band of Horses bashing has got to stop. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's just hard to respect a lot of the nonsensical, unreasonable, and often hypocritical attacks on this band's decision to sell their music. BV, you seem determined to remind readers about Walmart. I'd like to hear your take on artists licensing music rather than thinly veiled call-outs which may or may not influence a very large readership. I'd have to guess that if there were a Walmart in NYC BOH wouldn't have played it. Just as if one of your benefactors- say HSBC bank- had offered you a BV showcase in a bank branch you'd have probably said 'no thanks.'
Knee-jerk commentors crying sellout without any rational discussion is getting old. The greatest works of art have nearly always been financed by the biggest businesses going at the time-be it the church or general electric. Michelangelo was a bitch too, right? Do artists like Tom Waits and Ian Mackaye deserve respect for their anti-consumerist position? Sure. Do you have a right to deride other artists for not following the same path? Sure. But as long as you're deriding these artists and participating yourself in consumer capitalist culture (where's your paycheck coming from? how firm is your stance on paying for records instead of getting them for free? how often do you go out of your way to shop at independent retail? What company would be too ugly for you to turn down $100,000 to have your name listed next to it for the equivalent of 20 minutes?) then your arguments are tough to consider because you're a hypocrite by making them. And I'm sorry if I've mischaracterized anyone here. Who knows, I could be talking to Noam Chomsky, the publisher of Adbusters, or someone currently living in a tree. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and yeah, it sucks when a song you love begins to lose its hold over you when all you can think about is the Hummer commercial that it's placed in. You might not agree with how people are making a living, you may also not appreciate Wilco's 'Pot Kettle Black,' and that is your problem, not Band of Horses or any other artist.

This Band of Horses bashing has got to stop. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's just hard to respect a lot of the nonsensical, unreasonable, and often hypocritical attacks on this band's decision to sell their music. BV, you seem determined to remind readers about Walmart. I'd like to hear your take on artists licensing music rather than thinly veiled call-outs which may or may not influence a very large readership. I'd have to guess that if there were a Walmart in NYC BOH wouldn't have played it. Just as if one of your benefactors- say HSBC bank- had offered you a BV showcase in a bank branch you'd have probably said 'no thanks.'
Knee-jerk commentors crying sellout without any rational discussion is getting old. The greatest works of art have nearly always been financed by the biggest businesses going at the time-be it the church or general electric. Michelangelo was a bitch too, right? Do artists like Tom Waits and Ian Mackaye deserve respect for their anti-consumerist position? Sure. Do you have a right to deride other artists for not following the same path? Sure. But as long as you're deriding these artists and participating yourself in consumer capitalist culture (where's your paycheck coming from? how firm is your stance on paying for records instead of getting them for free? how often do you go out of your way to shop at independent retail? What company would be too ugly for you to turn down $100,000 to have your name listed next to it for the equivalent of 20 minutes?) then your arguments are tough to consider because you're a hypocrite by making them. And I'm sorry if I've mischaracterized anyone here. Who knows, I could be talking to Noam Chomsky, the publisher of Adbusters, or someone currently living in a tree. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and yeah, it sucks when a song you love begins to lose its hold over you when all you can think about is the Hummer commercial that it's placed in. You might not agree with how people are making a living, you may also not appreciate Wilco's 'Pot Kettle Black,' and that is your problem, not Band of Horses or any other artist.

I bash them because I just dont think they make good music.

You start losing integrity as soon as the qui pro quo starts. Adds supported mags integrity has to be questioned every step of the way. Why do you think no one trusts Rolling Stone / Spin? These are corporate mags that have a stake in giving support to certain acts.

Bloggers lose integrity the same way, as soon as the free tickets, cds, interviews, press passes start to be mentioned, you have to question it.

It's common practice for BV to link to recent stories about an artist, so it's hard to say that this should be handled any differently. Still, it does come off as baiting.

LEAVE BAND OF HORSES ALONE!!!

You are lucky they even performed for you.

What you don’t realize is that they are making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about them.

Leave Band of Horses Alone. Please. Leave Band of Horses alone...right now. I mean it.

did he complain about bloggers taking his picture?

hahahah. daft punk in the kitchen. hahah

Do not stop reminding people of Ben and BOH's selling out. I think their choices of who to sell out to was disgusting even! F- BOH.

last time i checked radiohead were making a shitload of $$$. if you're going to write in about selling out, why don't you include a detailed list of where your money comes from, as well as the number of times you've been to wal-mart and mcdonalds.

Remarkably average set turned in my BoH at the Bowery. Good -- but nothing exceptional. Stale setlist if you were at their McCarren Pool show or anything previous. Generally I could care less how a band licenses their songs, but the context of the use -- painting Wal-Mart as benefiting local communities -- is extremely disgusting.

Foals and Le Loup were both quite good. Really enjoyed the energy both bands brought. They completely left The Brunettes in the dust. Their rapport with the audience was awkward at best and the performances left a lot to be desired. Unfortunate because I liked the songs on their MySpace page but seems to be a case of style over substance. Bonus points awarded however for the eye-candy (front woman).

band of fancy shoed horse shit.

Are people still calling bands sell-outs? Ha how early 90's of you.

dont bands have to make more money from these kinda gigs because we like to download their music for free? i dont mean "we" as in "me" but just "you".

judging from their fancy wardrobes, band of horses is doing just fine in the making more money department. when promising bands sell the integrity of their music short, then we are left with is essentially with soundtracks to push and peddle product. end of story.

um...do any of the complainers in the audience actually know how the music industry works? a band signed to label - even a label like subpop - doesn't own the master recordings of their songs. they probably get some small percentage of the license fee, but subpop is really calling the shots on who to license the song to since the master recording is always the most expensive license to obtain. wal-mart would still have to clear the publishing rights with the songwriter, but sometimes that isn't even the person that actually recorded the song. in this case, ben bridwell obviously signed off on it, but he's only one person in the manager-label-artist trifecta that stands to make money from a deal like this. the money side of the music industry is a giant clusterf**k, and the artist is almost always on the losing end. so i guess i'd much rather see walmart enrich ben bridwell and publicize his music than have them do the same for some major label-generated band of posers.

also, has anyone actually paid attention to the lyrics (or the title) of "The Funeral." the way i see it, the joke is on walmart for choosing that track as their public service theme song.

fuck the current music industry model. out of complaining and questioning critically, a new model with arise that allows promising artists to still make music and come out of it with their integrity intact. don't stop questioning. don't be complacent. don't accept what is being force fed to you.

who ultimately cares? has anyone mentioned that the new album is a bore?

clap your band of deer! horse! wolves! bear! hooves!

The previous post won this conversation.

anon 3:34 it is quid pro quo, not qui pro quo... if you are going to throw Latin out there make sure you do it properly

Go back to the 60s, Anonymous 7:13pm. There's no such thing as a sellout after Andy Warhol. An artist is a businessperson too, and if they want to let Corporate America pay for my television AND my music, so be it. A song isn't going to make people buy the product, but it will probably open up a whole new market for the song...and help keep the Of Montreal's of the world supplied with spandex and face paint. Though I can see how that might upset you. It lets too many people from the band of sheep into the kool kids klub.

mind blowing conversation you bunch of losers.

you seem to have forgotten that band of horses rocks with three guitars they are from the south i almost cried at their show i wish i had i am from the south too when he strums the lap steel i am reminded of my fathers idols on the covers of country music records.

you sell yourself out immediately every time you wake up in an industrialized country. every time you turn a fucking light on. our entire country has sold out no one is innocent. blaming BoH is like blaming a shadow for the existence of the sun. you pretentious and myopic fools.

so what BoH sold a song to walmart. i haven't bought a record in three years. the show i went to at gramercy was free. i haven't put one dime in their pocket. i'm glad walmart did, because if they hadn't then they would be working at a stupid company like i am to make ends meet, and then they sure as hell wouldn't have wrote all those god damned songs!

explosion bomb!

re: anon 6:31 "judging from their fancy wardrobes, band of horses is doing just fine in the making more money department."

Umm. Isn't he wearing jeans and a t-shirt?

i went to the blender show. they're jeans and shoes -are- fancy. it's like hipster white trash chic. pretty hilarious.

i went to the blender show. their jeans and shoes -are- fancy. it's like hipster white trash chic. pretty hilarious.

boo hoo hooo...

"stop with the bashing"

the band sucks ass, hence all of the bashing.

"The Funeral" shot live at the late night Blender Sessions, CMJ 2007.

"mind blowing conversation you bunch of losers.

you seem to have forgotten that band of horses rocks with three guitars they are from the south i almost cried at their show i wish i had i am from the south too when he strums the lap steel i am reminded of my fathers idols on the covers of country music records."

Actually they are from the PacNW, douche.

Er...A8ROC? They are from the South...moved to the PacNW, and, having had their fill, moved back.

TD in SC

Oh: I forgot.

Douche.

Ben Bridwell of Horses is originally from South Carolina. The guys in the band now live in Mount Pleasant, a city outside of Charleston, SC.

If you posters were from South Carolina, even one of the largest metropolitan areas in the state, you'd understand that a Wal-Mart store looks differently than it does from your Prospect Park apartment.

New Yorkers who eat at vegan restaurants and attend concerts at Terminal 5 have about as much first-hand knowledge of the place of retailers like Wal-Mart within the typical American community as native South Carolinians have of the NYC subway system.

And I bet all of you denouncers endlessly extol the virtues of "tolerance," "mutual understanding" and "contextuality" in your weekly conversations.

I don't see any of the guys in the pictures wearing any fancy clothes. Did you go to see Spoon or what?

their jeans are GQ hillybilly fancy. so are their boots. i actually laughed out loud when they came on stage.