Pitchfork

Some heavy stuff's been going down on the blog recently inaugurated by the members of Deerhunter; a few silly posts on the band's digestive prowess, followed by one not-so-silly post featuring some rather explicit sexual exploration. And, now, an explanation of sorts. After receiving a number of responses to the band's blog update yesterday, frontman Bradford Cox removed the post and added this statement:

First of all, if you do not like what i'm about don't read this blog or buy our records or come see us play. If you think we are overhyped and shitty then find another band that strikes your fancy and go hang around their blog. I am not trying to shock anyone. To those who recognized it, yeah, Dennis Cooper is a huge influence on me since I was about 15. I highly recommend his blog (denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com). Now onto something more serious... Don't even think about pulling this child pornography shit with me. I have not used a single image that did not come from a legitimate site that keeps age records. Child Pornography is fucked up, and as someone who was sexually abused since I was seven, I take it pretty seriously. I don't need thought police on here. You can eat the shit you'll be seeing photos and journal entries about in the next day. I can't help it that some of you think I am sick or fucked up or twisted. My job is to express myself how I best know how. Usually a mixture of sadness and humor. I was really writing about lonliness. I don't feel like I need to defend the fact that I am fucked up because I was fucked with and sexually abused at a VERY young age. At this point in my life I am a 25 year old virgin with a body image that decreases exponentially everytime some dipshit with a blog takes a jab at how ugly I look. I don't blame myself for my adolescent fantasies because I am still an adolescent, looking for someone to connect to, I guess. Sorry to get all serious but I don't need this shit from cunts that come here expecting "Shock and Awe". That's not what we are about. We are about honesty. Everyone shits. Honestly. And everyone has fucked up things they hide. I show mine with a sense of humor.

When we spoke to Cox today (July 12) about the controversial blog post, he emphasized that, in writing the entry, he was "not trying to create some kind of sensationalistic magnet for attention." He added, "The news article that you guys wrote-- if you want to call it that-- inspired a lot of people to start writing really negative, attacking things about me on our blog, which eventually inspired me to remove that blog entry. I'm not doing anything illegal, or anything I'm ashamed of. There's not a single image I would use that wasn't from a site that had legal documentation, requirements they have to meet for showing somebody's age. Not a single image I used was of an underaged person. I would never, ever support anything that was exploitative of actual children. Child pornography is a fucking hardcore term. And I take that very seriously considering I was abused as a child."

Repeatedly evoking-- as he did in his most recent blog entry-- the name of radical explorations of sexuality in the work of author Dennis Cooper (to whom he considered the entry an homage), Cox opined, "Culture has already gone through so many radical shifts in terms of what's acceptable, realism, dadaism, fucking punk rock. A lot of it has been about not taking yourself too seriously, and just allowing shit to just come out of you, stream-of-consciousness style." Cox saw the recent entry not as an expression of any personal sexual desire, but rather as what he terms 'existential humor.' "The last entry on our blog was violent, and kind of a bizarre fantasy," he says, "but it's not like a fantasy we actually had. Those were presented as jokes."

Cox is aware that many of his actions could be construed as controversial, but repeatedly emphasizes how far controversy is from his intentions. "The blame," Cox admits, "I guess could rest on me for writing something controversial. But the intended audience for that are people who identify enough with our music and the culture surrounding it, and know enough about us to understand the context of it, which is really, really reliant on humor, and not seriousness. It's kind of like absurdist, existential, over the top, funny and sad humor."

Deerhunter will be playing Boston tonight, and the Pitchfork Music Festival over the weekend.

Deerhunter:

07-12 Boston, MA - ICA !
07-15 Chicago, IL - Union Park (Pitchfork Music Festival) &
07-16 Cleveland Heights, OH - The Grog Shop !
07-17 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick !
07-18 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace !
07-19 Montreal, Quebec - Lambi !
07-20 Providence, RI - AS220
07-21 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar @
07-26 Athens, GA - Caledonia Lounge
09-08 Portland, OR - Doug Fir (Musicfest NW)
09-27 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn #
09-28 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge #

~ with Man Man
^ with Ex Models, Blues Control
$ with Keith Fullerton Whitman
& with the New Pornographers, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, Of Montreal, Jamie Lidell, the Sea and Cake, Klaxons, Nomo, the Ponys, Menomena, Craig Taborn's Junk Magic, Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra
! with the Ponys, Jay Reatard
@ with Battles, Singer (ex-U.S. Maple)
# with No Age