“Picked to Click: WTF?!” or “Interview: CP Music Editor Sarah Askari”

This was a big week over at City Pages, especially for CP music editor (and sometimes glamorous DJ) Sarah Askari — the votes were tallied, the summaries and introductions written, and the newest “Picked to Click” list has hit the internets. Now that the local musical establishment chimed in on who will be the next big fish band in our small musical pond, the big commish herself takes some time to answer a few questions:

F-bombs and stuffing ballots down your shirt? Does P2C really cause that much craziness over there?

It’s actually a matter of what material I choose to stuff my shirt with on any given day. Usually it’s just used tissues or children’s socks, size 3 medium, but in Picked to Click season, it’s noncompliant ballots.

In the introduction, you mention P2C is like democracy, but which kind? The kind where the voters spend all their time watching cable news channels, the kind where everyone votes but sectarian violence continues to tear the country apart, or some magical form of democracy that really works?

It’s like a democracy where all the candidates are still young and sexy, so that if they get caught in airport bathroom liaisons, people would giggle and wonder “What if?” instead of retching at the very thought.

Are the “let me tell you about the Picked to Click curse” pieces at this point mandatory? What’s going to happen next year if Mouthful of Bees actually stays together?

If Mouthful of Bees stays together, City Pages will lose all credibility in the world of music criticism. I will not allow that to happen based on the “Picked to Click Curse” article, because it was written by Peter Scholtes, and destroying City Pages’ credibility in the world of music criticism is my job! Back off Peter!

Have some musicians/ bands already clicked? Take Brother Ali and Cloud Cult for example; they weren’t on previous lists, but seem to have more than just that sort of scenester buzz possessed by most of the names on the ballots.

This is a good observation—the best example of this type of thing is Tapes’n’Tapes. Now, I’m pretty sure Lindsay wrote the first-ever-in-the-whole-world piece on Tapes n Tapes, but City Pages never got to write them up as Picked to Click winners. They clicked all over the internet but didn’t start off making a big impression with the local bookers and label types.

You get to write the introduction, but do you get a ballot? And who would you have voted/ did you vote for?

I forgot to look back on previous years’ ballots to see if the music editor voted, and by the time I thought about it, I already had a good sense of who was winning and how I could sway things. I would have gone Dance Band/Skoal Kodiak/FCAP/Bees/Baby Guts

Now that the list is done, are you going on vacation or something?

I am teaching a week-long workshop with the bands who came in 11-20. We’re just gonna tweak some stuff, try out new chord progressions, wardrobe and figuring out how you should wear your bangs, wherever bands see a weak spot we’ll brainstorm it. We’re in it with the bands, is how we look at it here at City Pages.