Keepin' Time: Why 'Rolling Stone' will never hire me

I am not good at very many things. I really don't consider myself to be a person of many talents at all, to be honest. I know I can write a little bit and I actually make a pretty good omelet, but other than that all I've got is this ridiculous wealth of useless facts about music. I have met a lot of other people like me in my travels; geeks and nerds the world over who would love nothing more than to debate their top five Vagrant Records releases between 2002 and 2005 or fight over which Warped Tour line up was better, '02 or '06. There is one way that I find that I differ from my fellow nerds, however: I am in no way concerned with "cred" or "scene points."

What I mean is, everyone spends all this time saying how much better a band's first record was (it wasn't) or how awesome it was to see Recover open for Jimmy Eat World on the Bleed American Tour (it was, but we weren't there for Recover, we discovered them there. We were 14 and just wanted to hear Jim Adkins play "Sweetness.") These people hide their guilty pleasures and base all of their opinions on music on other people's opinions about music.

If you're a music writer, you're "supposed" to like The Beatles, but I don't care for them. I fully understand and appreciate the contribution of this group to the modern alternative rock climate, and I have heard all the records and read all the books and watched all the documentaries. It just doesn't speak to me, so I don't listen to it. You're "supposed" to think indie rock is cool and exciting and interesting. It's the future of rock n' roll, right? It bores me. I have no interest in Phoenix or Grizzly Bear or Fleet Foxes, although I read the reviews and keep up on what the kids are interested in.

So to completely demolish my cred, I will tell you I own every Marilyn Manson full length and have paid to see him live. I like the first LFO record as a piece of pop perfection, not as a novelty toy. Much maligned Victory Records punching bags Aiden are a favorite of mine, with all their make up and bad lyrics and laughable stage attire. I think Kim Carnes is legitimately cool outside of "Bettie Davis Eyes." My favorite Anti-Flag record isn't "Underground Network," it's "The Terror State."

I like bad, campy death metal bands like Oceano and Emmure. Blink-182 is my favorite band. Not in a nostalgic, classical way as it has become popular and acceptable to view them. I like them in the way that I used to sit in my room with the lights off and play their albums over and over again when I was a kid (and I still do), because I legitimately believe that band made me who I am. I own all three 3OH!3 full lengths. I am a 22 year old man who listens to The Maine and Cobra Starship. I like Fall Out Boy more than the Rolling Stones. I think AFI is only getting better with age.

All these things, in the eyes of many, serve to discredit my knowledge and general opinions about the music world at large, despite how many "acceptable" canonical albums may be in my collection. I am not a cool kid, I have never been friends with the cool kids, and I am pretty positive at this point in my life I will never be considered cool or "legit" or "chill" or whatever the kids say these days. I keep my thousands of CD's alphabetized and in chronological order by band. I have every back issue of Alternative Press dating back to 2002, and I haven't missed a Warped Tour since then either. I am a pop punk nerd with what the critics say is a terrible, terrible taste in music and yet I still maintain what I think is a pretty well rounded, informative column in a college newspaper. It's not that I wear my guilty pleasures on my sleeve in an ironic way as many do, I just don't have any guilty pleasures.

I just listen to what I listen to and if you ask me about it, I'll tell you. I may not fit the stereotype of the people who usually get to write about music and decide what bands are cool and what bands aren't, but damn it I don't really care to talk about anything else. This is what I like, and I won't tailor it to fit in with those who feel their opinion is more valuable than my own because they came to college and discovered The Arcade Fire and now he thinks he's a musical genius.

You can keep your Pavement b-sides or whatever SPIN magazine tells you is cool or whoever played on some tiny stage at Bonnaroo last year and you and your friends heard them first; my friends and I are having an Against Me! sing along later at my place. I'd invite you, but we're doing songs off "New Wave." You know, after they sold out.