But there are all these other fucking pretentious art bands out there that are acting like they are not marketing at all. Meanwhile, they are in the board meetings just like we were trying to figure out how to market themselves.

They play this shell game with Pitchfork. "Oh we aren't really marketing ourselves," but they are. They are going to figure out that the hand they are licking now will turn on them.

RO: As tastes change?

My friend tweeted the other day: "Live by the Pitchfork, die by the Pitchfork." I saw it with Spin magazine, and Alternative Press before that. Those bands that get the hype thing from the indie-world machine, eventually that machine just by the nature of its design, will turn on them. That system will not allow them to grow up. It's a shell game.

RO: What does this mean for the future?

BC: You are going to have this massive hole of time where bands that should have been like a Talking Heads, super-quirky and able to cross over into the mainstream, you won't see those crossover bands. They won't rise up beyond that level because they won't be allowed to, and they won't have that opportunity because they will be worried about that world turning on them.

The maturation process is so artificial that bands will not find their ultimate stride. It's pretty clear in rock history that when people find their stride, if they are lucky, it only lasts five to seven years. Relationships burn out and the audience grows and changes. They have these peak moments and we are beneficiaries of those peak moments.

When the audience is extremely invested in the haircut or whether or not the band sold their song to the right commercial, when the audience is invested in that you see it is not about music.

With Bad City, 8 p.m. tonight at Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel, 713-225-5483 or www.warehouselive.com.