“We didn’t plan on this, but it didn’t just happen either. This monster, now better known as Buddyhead, didn’t manifest itself into what it is now so that it could become just another website, or even some sort of public service for you and your select group of cool scenester friends. What started out as nothing more than a tightly knit group of friends who shared a similar thought process and a love for all the good things in life, has become so much more.”
Its manifesto is pretty cut and dry, but the creators and contributors of Buddyhead.com are far from the stereotypical fanzine or online magazine staff. Buddyhead is like a tall, icy glass of water (or over-priced Frappuccino, depending on your taste) on a hot day. Or, it’s just a pretty cool magazine/website catering to the best worlds of music, art and life in general.
The concept of Buddyhead originated in the self-proclaimed warped minds of Travis Keller, Aaron Icarus and Aaron Farley. These are three guys who don’t care about the world at large and independently run Buddyhead because “getting up early, waiting `til the weekend to have fun and schedules are for … dips who wear suits and drive off-road vehicles only within the city limits while listening to the latest club trance groove remix.”
Not only do they not care who you are, what music or art you think is super-trendy or about the new emo band supposedly getting rave reviews, but Buddyhead is strictly committed to going its own way and doing its own thing in every sense of the word. Often times, this image is a little too force-fed, but it certainly offers a refreshing change from corporate-driven publications covering stories on musicians because they have, like, nice hair or something.
The website — although it is plainly stated that calling Buddyhead.com a “site” falls short of what it represents — is eye candy. Navigation is easy and fun, and, despite the fact that it isn’t printed on paper, the site still gives the sensation of paging through a magazine.
The current issue of Buddyhead features interviews with bands Alkaline Trio, Playing Enemy and Botch, a virtual rock `n’ roll coloring book, their take on the Best and Worst albums of 2000, photographs of the artist Chris Duncan’s work, a tips column on being a freelance photographer and sex advice from one of Buddyhead’s contributors, among a number of other articles.
Staple items appearing on Buddyhead include a semi-regularly updated news/gossip section, always updated album review section and the letters to Buddyhead section, where people have free rein to complain about bad reviews given to favorable bands.
The album reviews, although they are what Buddyhead is most well known for, are not for the weak-hearted — Buddyhead has a specific taste, catering solely to what its staff members think is good rock `n’ roll and what they think is just irritating noise. To Buddyhead, this is better known as “weak pretty boy rock” or “little girl music for mall kids that wear stupid clothes and hang out at the cookie booth,” which described the rather popular indie bands Saves the Day and New Found Glory. To the crying scenesters, Buddyhead literally and figuratively extends its middle finger in response.
It goes without saying that Buddyhead’s band interviews are far from the conventional. In many music magazines, rock journalists are often too intimidated by the bands they interview to actually produce a piece of real substance. Buddyhead, yet again, displays complete indifference to the bands people drive across the country to see play in some dark, dingy basement. Again, Buddyhead tries to be as rebellious and apathetic as possible. Usually the interviews work, though occasionally, they lose focus of the point — interviewing the band, not using the opportunity to crack their own jokes.
So they don’t care what you like and they don’t even seem to be very nice people. When was the last time the staff of a magazine publicly dissed and dismissed something that represented a kind of pop icon to their readers? Obviously not since Buddyhead. The magazine is free, and as a result, Buddyhead squeezes everything from it that it can. It may seem off, but you can’t help that little part of you that actually respects them for that, if not the rest of their work. No matter what its audience thinks, Buddyhead just laughs, even when people send them death threats (which they clearly gain amusement from, due to the new addition of the Death Threats section to the magazine).
Buddyhead clearly appreciates music and art for what it is — a creative outlet open to the harshest of critics and the crudest of humor. However, the staff manages to take back what used to be good about rock journalism with the sharpest of wits and a very clever knowledge of what looks good. As they state yet again in their manifesto, “We have realized that it can’t even be defined at this point in the game, not even by its perplexed, yet delighted creators. It has now become its own living, breathing, manipulative being. We are the Doctor Frankensteins of the 21st century, nice to meet you.”
Nice to meet you, too.
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