i am at the launch party for the 90,000 square foot flagship Forever 21 store that’s opening in times square, the store has 121 dressing rooms and probably like 6 floors and i am in the basement with about 400 fashion industry people and there is a woman who apparently used to be engaged to terry richardson DJing, she is playing Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. almost all the women here have waxed upper lips (i think) and are wearing heels that look heavy and carrying bags that must cost more than macbook airs and i am doing what i really like doing which is sitting in the corner writing this in my blackberry memo pad and double-fisting a flute of champagne and a cocktail that a little sign at the bar referred to as the “East Village Hippie”, i think it has some like artisanal ginger soda in it or something, got two drinks because i didn’t wanna have to keep going back to the bar, people give me weird looks as i walk past them here, do not belong at a fashion party

there is a stage with yellow neon lights going every which way behind it, it looks exactly like what M.I.A.’s stage setup would look like if it was put together by a disposable fashion brand. the band The Virgins is gonna play after the “fashion show” that’s happening at 9:00. the publicist for the store just came up to me and my friend who brought me (he’s a magazine reporter) and said “we’re gonna bring you guys into the green room in five minutes and you can talk to the band”

now the DJ is playing Psycho Killer by Talking Heads

what i know about The Virgins is that they’re a fashion industry affiliated rock band, they are on Atlantic Records i think, i used to play their single Rich Girls when i DJed at this club in the east village, it’s cheesy and i felt like a whore but at least people wouldn’t leave the club when it was on

anyway the publicist brought us into the green room so i go up to the dude who i’ve been told is the guitarist, his name is Wade, he’s tall and wearing all-black jordans, gray skinny jeans, a batman graphic tee and a black leather vest

and i say “hey i write this blog about this website pitchfork, could i ask you a couple questions about your band?” and he goes “okay cool”

he is in the middle of picking out skirts and womens’ tank tops off racks in the green room because the band is gonna dress in Forever 21 womens’ clothes on stage because they think it’d be funny, i am following him around the room as i talk to him and he is pulling frilly pink shit off racks

“so do you guys consider yourselves an indie band?” 

“no way man,”

that catches me by surprise because i thought he was gonna stick to the guns of his aesthetic, i like this guy already 

“it’s, like, hard to say who’s independent. i mean i’m not gonna lie, we’re on a major label. we do everything ourselves but we’re not like a pop group [i think he means like the jonas brothers], but when i think of indie i think of U.S. Maple and like Pere Ubu and we’re definitely not like that. at least until we put out a noise record” and he laughs

Wade has long stringy blonde hair down to his shoulders and he’s wearing a flat-brim vintage basketball cap and he keeps picking his cap up off his head and flipping his hair back when he’s talking to me, he looks like Jay from Jay and Silent Bob, he seems kind of nervous, it actually puts me at ease. i look over to the bassist who has his hand in a bag of multigrain pita chips and is telling someone about what he thinks he’s gonna wear

the woman sitting behind Wade who used to be engaged to terry richardson lights a cigarette and says “how long do you think it’s gonna take before someone tells me to put my cigarette out?” and Wade looks back at her and says, “how long do you think it’s gonna take before they tell me to put out MY cigarette?” but he’s not even smoking a cigarette

he turns back to me, and i notice that when he isn’t flipping his hair back he’s fidgeting with his all-access credential that’s on a lanyard around his neck. anyway i say “so what do you guys think of pitchfork? i know they didn’t review your record”

and he goes “yeah man THANK GOD for that.” we both giggle. “i guess they’re pretty cool, they publish information way faster than magazines publish it. i like funny websites better, like failblog. and i look at some photo blogs. yeah i don’t really read pitchfork that much…”

he’s actually such a sweet and forthcoming dude and i realized i don’t wanna ask him any more questions that would get a real dumb quote out of him or try to skewer him or something

“okay cool. so i know this is a tacky question and you don’t have to answer it, i’m just really curious — how much money do you guys make off your record deal and being in the virgins? and like corporate gigs and other stuff?”

“our manager is like our pimp — he gives us an allowance, like a $1000 a month each because if we got any more we’d spend it like crazy. i don’t know how much the band makes total, i don’t handle that stuff. i know that some gigs we get like $500 for and some we get like $20,000. we get $20,000 just for getting a song in some asinine movie trailer”

we both stop talking to watch two other members of the band argue with a woman wearing a headset microphone about whether they can wear Forever 21 womens’ clothes on stage and i hear her say “if you do that i’m gonna lose my job” which i suspect is because forever 21 is owned by really religious korean catholics whose tolerance for cross-dressing is presumably minimal. Wade looks back at me and says “guess that’s settled then. anyway…”

so i go, “how much are you getting to play this forever 21 flagship store opening anyway?”

“we get 20 grand from forever 21 for this. and honestly they’re so much cooler than most of the other corporate gigs we do. they don’t hassle us. we did a mercedes-benz gig last week and they had some bullshit red carpet we had to take pictures on for like ten minutes. so far tonight, i just walked in and nobody has said anything to me. hip cool brands milk you for everything you have but forever 21 leaves you alone, they fucking rule. do you want anything by the way?” and he motions towards the snack table that has some fruit and Clif Bars and a box of turkey Lunchables on it. even the snackfood is corporate

so now i’m realizing exactly what The Virgins are: they’re like models posing as a rock band for corporations who want to enliven their brand images or sell clothes to, ummm, youth. they are like the “hot young rock band” as a corporate platonic ideal, you know? the virgins can’t sell out because they were never really in, and they address people whose idea of rock n roll is a set of signifiers from bygone eras, people who go out clubbing in manhattan wearing torn and faded Judas Priest tour t-shirts. and Wade is gleefully in on the whole game too, and seems like he’s having a lot of fun. i know this might not come as a revelation to some of you ethical culture consumers out there but maybe the difference between a virgins song appearing in a cadillac commercial and a big pink song in that commercial is that the virgins make no pretense at being, like, serious artists. they’re hustlers. they hustle music to people for whom music is an accessory.

he says, “yeah some bands are zionistic about this, and they don’t do corporate gigs and don’t get the money they could be getting out of this system, and then one day they’re down at south by southwest playing the fucking Fader Fort with a Levis logo right behind them and doing it for free! the difference between them and us is that we get paid. i don’t come from any money dude, i dropped out of high school, i don’t have any skills or anything to fall back on.”

that picture of Wavves playing at the Fader Fort that was on maybe Brooklynvegan flashes through my mind’s eye. the DJ is now playing Rudeboy by Rihanna out in the main hall. hope they’re not out of champagne

“before i was in this band i was a weed dealer, a Fedex delivery guy, and i also answered the phone for a bigger weed dealer. it’s easy to say you’re not taking corporate money if you have something to fall back on. i don’t mean that in a martyr way but you know what i mean. i heard Vampire Weekend in like every single Judd Apatow movie trailer and in Step Brothers and i was like ‘man that rules, i hope that buy a house with that money’. plus it’s awesome to play in a store. there’s so many hot girls here! how can you deny that you’d play in a store full of hot girls? AND these are mostly the same people who came to our shows when we would play lofts where the lights wouldn’t work and the cops would come and bust it anyway, so who cares?”

then he says, “have you seen the great rock n roll swindle? about the sex pistols?” and i say “no why?” and he says “well, what the sex pistols did was get signed to a label and fuck around so much that the label would drop them, so they would sign with another label and do the same thing, and they’d do it again and again just to keep getting the signing bonus. that’s like us sort of, with corporate gigs. we don’t care about looking cool or hip or credible. this isn’t high school where you’re trying to have the coolest posse. we’re just trying to get by.”

then i say, “i see bro. anyway the biography of your band on allmusic says you guys met at a ryan mcginley photo shoot, what’s the deal with that?”

()

“actually we didn’t,” and then he pauses for a second and maybe scrutinizes me face, “okay i’ll tell you, because why not, i’m tellin you everything.” (i swear he actually said that, i don’t know what’s compelling him to tell me “everything” except maybe he’s psyched to be interviewed because i guess people either never interview this band or just talk to the lead singer). “we actually met watching a yankees/red sox game at Sweet and Vicious [bar in downtown manhattan]. one time some journalist asked us about meeting at the ryan mcginley shoot and we just went with it, we thought it sounded cooler. i kinda regret it, we should have told the truth, but whatever.”

at that point i couldn’t really think of any more questions so we just stood around and ate off the snack table and he said he liked my sneakers and i said i liked his and we talked about the east village, then some girl from MTV came in to interview him so i went back out into the main room and waited until the band got on and watched them, they were pretty good. their new drummer was the drummer in be your own pet, jemina pearl was there too rocking out in the front row with a trucker hat on.

when they finished their set, my friend went to go find ryan mcginley to interview him and now i’m back in the corner writing this again, drinkin a flute of champagne with a blackberry (the fruit) in it, livin off the fat of the corporate land like the second most corporate band in the universe (after the Black Eyed Peas), the virgins. sorry for the tense changes in this writing, i took notes when he was talking about what he was saying and what i was thinking and then wrote around them so it might read weird, man it’s hard to keep tenses straight, also maybe no more champagne for me ;), you get what i’m saying i think