Whatever Happened to the Swagger?

by JESSICA FERRI

These days, it seems like twee indie-rock is just what people want to listen to. That, or Susan Boyle, or Lady Gaga. But really just twee indie-rock, played by dudes in sweater-vests, or dudes and ladies in sweet sweet vintage duds. Listen, I'm not a hater, I'm one of those girls and I really enjoy beautiful music. OK? I do.

Nice album, guys. Really.That said, what I've always loved is rock stars. Come home with me to my mother's house. In it you will find my childhood bedroom, covered wall-to-wall (and ceiling to ceiling) with Blink182 posters (ages 14-16). Later, in my more mature years (16-18) I was really into The Who and Led Zeppelin but mostly just how tight Robert Plant's jeans were and how you could totally see his package. At that point, I wasn't entirely sure what a "package" was, but, you know, whatever.

Whoa.Then this band came out, called The Strokes. They released an album in 2001 (16) but I probably didn't really listen to it until I was 17. My friend Amanda handed me a burned (!) copy and (full disclosure) I never bought the album. But boy I wore that burned CD-R out. As I sat in my car driving to Starbucks or to Target listening to Is This It? I wondered where these boys came from. Then NYLON magazine did a story on them and saw them for the first time. My eyes probably just bounced right out of my head: I had never seen dudes who looked like that before. I guess they were hipsters? I don't even know at this point things have gotten so complicated. But they were tall, thin, sort-of dirty, dark looking boys in tight jeans and t-shirts and converse with jean jackets with holes in them. To say I fell in love is putting it mildly.

Mm-mm good.I grew up in a place where dudes wore cargo pants. Cargo pants and fucking oversized shirts and baseball hats. They put fishhooks in their hats and wore big white tennis shoes and listened to Eminem and Dave Matthews and drove jeep wranglers and flew the Confederate flag. Be still my heart, not. The only guys worth having an actual conversation with were gay, or punk (and let's face it I was not about to bring home a guy with yellow hair and a ring through his tongue to dinner).

No offense.Luckily for my eye-candy needs I moved to New York in 2003 and I've been fine ever since. I rarely have to look at cargo pants, and that's great. Sure, there are some downsides, like almost every guy looks like a Stroke so it's hard to tell them apart, and women in New York are so fucking gorgeous and cool that's it's difficult to compete. People find me interesting because I have a weird accent, don't have a trust fund, and I like to think I'm funny.

Typical New York Woman.A few weeks ago, I went to see Julian Casablancas (former lead-singer of The Strokes) at Terminal 5 (this place is fucking huge) on his first tour for his first solo record, Phrazes for the Young. I didn't really know what to expect, how many people would be there, or if people were still obsessed with The Strokes. In my experience, everyone listens to Vampire Weekend and The Dirty Projectors and Lady Gaga. But whoa. Upon arrival at Terminal 5 it was pretty obvious that people love Julian Casablancas. The whole place filled up (I guess it was sold-out) in an odd mix of people my age (got the Strokes album at 16) and current NYU undergrads.

It was more crowded than this.Julian was surprised, too. He took the stage and immediately uttered "Holy shit, guys," and continued to make exclamations on how he couldn't believe how many people were there. "Fuck, guys," he said. "I mean, fuck, it's really good to see you."

So, news-flash: Julian Casablancas is really hot. I think I had managed to bury all of my 16-year-old obsession / hipster-crazed love mongering sometime ago, because even when Julian appeared I was like "yeah, whatever, there he is." Then I noticed he was wearing an outfit made entirely of leather that made him look kind of like Elvis. His prowess jumping on and off the stage in these ultra-tight leather pants was really, really impressive. His hair was dirty and all in his face, and he sang into the microphone like it was some combination of a phallus and a really beautiful woman's mouth. Suddenly, it was all coming back to me, there was this flush of heat and sweat and everyone was screaming and I was like, oh, so THIS is what a rockstar is. This is rockstar swagger.

YeahBecause I had forgotten — I had forgotten what it was like to stand in an audience and feel the bass and be totally in love with the dude with the microphone because he has so much fucking confidence that you feel like magnetically pulled to him. I've been to some great shows in New York, where there were dudes playing guitar and singing, and yeah, I was like oh, he has a nice voice or, that was pretty. But I was never like "I want to have sex with that dude." Julian Casablancas has it, man. He has that swagger. I don't think you have to have a dick for it, either, guys, just fyi.

Case in point. Vagina-swagger. Consider this a petition. Twee guys, keep doing what you're doing. It's fine. And plenty of ladies like sweet melodies with cardigans. But can I just be the first to say that some of us really dig the swagger? You don't even have to be an asshole. Just get up there, put on some leather, and rock.

Jessica Ferri is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She blogs here.

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