101 Friends

Today Davey Dreamnation celebrated an important milestone – the signing up of his one hundred and first Myspace friend. Cynics will, predictably, moan that most of these so-called friends are just placeholder pages for bands both currently active (hello Bloc Party, Love of Diagrams, Sonic Youth, The Fauves, Boards of Canada, The Early Years, Silver Jews, Clint Bo Dean et al) or nostalgically non-existent (goodbye Crow, Sun Ra, Swervedriver, That Petrol Emotion, Chris de Burgh – ooh, hang on a minute).

However, cynics are well known for their lack of a sense of humour. They need to get one fast. Or else, a Myspace page of their own. Sure, there’s people out there who ascribe way too much importance to Myspace (hello everyone) but for the most part, I think most people sign on just to send silly comments to each other and also to perve on otehr peoples’ comments. Then again there are the hardliners, including UK band Wire, whose Myspace page uncompromisingly declares:

I was initially nervous about submitting a friend request to such a hardcore principled band, not least because at the time my profile proudly wore its Chris de Burgh influence on its sleeve. Nevertheless, I was promptly signed up by Wire anyway, who obviously do not actually check every profile at all. I mean, how else do you end up with over 8000 friends. Just ask Howard Jones. Personally, I’m happy that I’m able to display 24 friends who are all real people.

I also like listening to music and trying to poach other peoples’ friends. That being said, I am aware that Sun Ra is dead, and that were he alive, he probably wouldn’t be into having his own Myspace page. I’m also aware that unlike Wire, most musicians don’t actually have anything to do with their Myspace page. But I ask you: how much does a musician have to do with their website, tour poster, CD packaging or whatever in the real world anyway?

Myspace: the Ultimately Me Space for Those Who I Might Not Want to Come Back to My Place.