All Tomorrow’s Parties Today

You also have Cat Power on the bill. Are you a fan?

Yes. There’s a kind of outsider thing there.

Yeah, you listen to her records, and she’s this incredibly skilled composer and arranger. And then when she performs live she’s got a kind of shtick of not being able to hold it together.

Devendra Banhart is on the bill, and he’s another one like that . . . I gotta mention Wild Man Fisher. An Evening With Wild Man Fisher, the first album, the one that Frank Zappa produced, is a classic of that kind of thing, that outsider music. And I like his other albums as well. Rhino Handmade put out a collection that included the duet he did with Rosemary Clooney.

I can’t say I’ve ever sat down and listened to a whole Wild Man Fisher album. That’s hardcore . . .

[Laughs.] There’s some great stuff. I introduced Wild Man to Daniel Johnston backstage at the Key Club. Wild Man was afraid . . .

Matt, you are indeed a music fan who obviously knows whereof he speaks. And you’ve just guest-edited Best Music Writing 2003. Do you read a lot of music writing?

There’s such a huge array of amazing things going on in all different genres, but nobody’s listening to all of it. To keep up with what I consider to be interesting music, I read The Wire and Folk Roots, and there’s no crossover [into pop dross] in them. I read Mojo and Uncut. And Aquarius Records in San Francisco has an amazing Web site with some of the most entertaining record reviews. And there’s WFMU in New Jersey [the last freeform station in the country] — I like the idea that people are programming truly eclectic music.

I feel sorry for music critics because of the dismal state of the current pop scene in general. I mean, this stuff [the ATP lineup] is great, but it’s not being played on the radio. We’re inundated with pseudo-hipness, and if I had to write about the big bands, I’d quit. But there’s still great music out there, if you search for it.