My Big, Gigantic Drum Kit

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on why his band is not performing at the Grammys. (via pitchfork)

Jesus fucking Christ, Justin Vernon. “My music is precious and special, like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

(via barthel)

WAHHH, I ONLY GOT IN THE POSTER, WAHHHHHHHH

(via maura)

I won’t chalk it up to superhuman integrity on Vernon’s part, but might this also have something to do with Bon Iver’s live configuration being enormous and specialized for their material?  From the performance I saw, this incarnation of the band is a super well-rehearsed outfit, and with that many people involved on that many instruments, they’d have to be.

Vernon still has a (decreasingly apt) folkie rep, but with the current lineup, Bon Iver’s way less suited to “hey, everybody, let’s all grab acoustic guitars and strum along” than were the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons for last year’s Dylan thing.  You have to do a fair bit of reading into Vernon’s intentions to get “I’m super special” from his declining to participate in a collaboration of someone else’s possibly ill-conceived design.  Or, y’know, dislike him on principle, which is obviously what’s going on here.

(Source: billboard.biz, via maura)