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David Kushner
interviewed by Harry Goldstein
"A chat room is the only place where fans and bands can occupy the same space on equal terms."
David Kushner has been producing and hosting chat events on SonicNet, an alternative music Web site, since its inception as a BBS in 1994. He is also the technology columnist for Spin magazine. His writing has appeared in Details, Mademoiselle, HotWired, Blender, Mondo 2000, and elsewhere. Tripod spoke with Kushner about fame, fans, and rock 'n roll in the Electronic Age.
Tripod: How do "stars" deal with sharing the stage with their fans?
DK: Some deal better than others. On SonicNet, we do mosh-style chats where everyone's in the room together, live. There's no separation between the artist and the fans like there is on America Online. The chat tends to be very fast, like a cross between improv comedy and a talk show. For artists who have a go-with-flow attitude, it's fine. It can really be the only occasion where they have such direct, and safe, contact with their audience. Granted it's hard to have a real in-depth, linear conversation, but you can get some thoughtful responses.
Bob Mould was a good example of this. He just relaxed and tried to respond to as many questions as he could without freaking out. Sometimes, though, you get artists who can't deal with it all. And, often, they're the ones you'd least suspect. The Jerky Boys were on once and they were getting pissed off at all the "stupid questions." I said, "they're coming from your fans." The whole thing about being online like this is that it's a free-for-all. I guess you can't take yourself too seriously in this environment, people just don't have the patience for it.
Tripod: You mentioned Mould and the Jerky Boys, people with relatively small audiences compared with a Madonna or Michael Jackson. Have you had any freakishly huge stars on SonicNet? If so, do you find that they have a cocoon of PR people ready to run interference?
DK: We've had big name alternative stars like Henry Rollins, David Byrne, and Laurie Anderson. They (and we) are fortunate enough not to have deal with very thick cocoons.
Tripod: AOL has a whole filtering mechanism in place for the megastars so they aren't sullied by unflattering questions from the peanut gallery, which goes to another question: what do people expect to get out this online interaction--from the fan and star's point of view?
DK: I think the fans expect to bond with rock gods. Like I said, a chat room is the only place where fans and bands can occupy the same space on equal terms. There's no stage, no backstage, no separation at all. That's why a lot of fans don't like a system like AOL. On AOL, they still feel separated from the artist, since they have to instant message their question to a moderator who may or may not pose it to the band.
Artists' expectations vary. For a lot of them, these chats are their first exposure to being online. When that's the case, they sometimes get all giddy about the technology, just like anyone else seeing it for the first time. Then again, there are always the ones who just think the whole thing is a load of crap. For the most part, though, I think they're excited about talking to fans from around the world. A lot of times, they end up hanging out online for a lot longer than they or we expected.
Tripod: I saw an MTV presentation on Friday night, MTV Online, where the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed live and backstage the band members answered questions from fans logged into MTV's site on AOL. They were reading the questions from a teleprompter and sort of rapid-firing their answers back.
The live visual component must have been quite a turn on for the people yammering away on AOL, but it seemed like that format would be pretty boring for Joe Average Viewer. Can you speculate on what kind of interactions are going to be coming up down the line that combine live video, performance, online, etc.?
DK: If Andy Warhol were alive today would he be projecting live chats on a wall while a rock band plays? Probably not. But, there's been some experimentation along these lines. SonicNet did one of the first ones (if not the first) with Timothy Leary. While Leary was speaking, a Rolling Stone writer was hunched over a keyboard, giving the play-by-play online. It was probably more weird than interesting, but it was a sign of things to come.
We've tried to push the envelope with live, text-based chat in different ways. First, there's event coverage, like the Leary thing. We tried this to a larger degree at last year's Macintosh Music Fest, by sending a bunch of kids with computers to clubs and having them review shows over the Net while they happened. People got a real kick out of it because it was so immediate. And we also left some kiosks open for anyone to come and post an instant review. There's no other medium where that can really be done to such a degree, reaching so many people.
Of course, there's also CU-SeeMe. It doesn't look that great right now, but it's still kind of cool to see Mick Jagger typing at his keyboard. For some people, I think it validates the whole experience if they can see the artist typing. And with The Palace and Worlds, there are all kinds of new opportunities to have more character-based chat environments. Text-based chat as it exists today might soon seem like Dixie cups and string.
I just hope it remains somewhat text-based in the future. After all, what's going to happen to cybersex if everyone can see each other as they really are?
Check out SonicNet at http://www.sonicnet.com/
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