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Misprint Magazine interview: The men behind the masks
For the past four years, Harvey Merrybottom, aka Anthony Moschella, and Chadwick Pennyrich III, aka Bryan Keplesky, have entertained thousands of Austinites by pointing out that the emperors (and serfs) of Austin’s hipsterocracy are wearing no clothes.
But coffee is for early birds and closers. Bourbon is the official drink of choice for these two scathing and sarcastic, yet eminently likable, chaps who have been self-publishing the small zine since 2005.
Fueled by a love/hate relationship with the Austin music scene and a desire to take just about everyone on the Austin hipster scene down a peg, these two kindred spirits decided to start poking holes in the mythos of the city’s tastemakers and musical heroes.
In 2005 the ubiquity of blogs threatened to overload our servers and minds while throwing the traditional media world into a frenzy, so Virginia native Keplesky and New Jersey native Moschella decided to go against the prevalent thinking of the day. Everyone and their mom had a blog and fancied themselves an expert on something, but these two wanted to kick it old-school.
“You would just see that so much value was placed on these music bloggers. Some guy from Pitchfork with an English degree is writing this stuff that doesn’t make any sense. And people take it as gospel, and we couldn’t let it slide,” Moschella said.
“What were we gonna do about it? Were we gonna make another blog that said your blog sucks? Also part of it was to create something tangible. Even though it was completely ironic and meaningless. And it seemed like sort of a ridiculous idea to do something in print, on paper, because it was so irrelevant.”
Since its first issue, Misprint has been skewering the overinflated egos of musicians and mocking those who find social currency in the bars they frequent, the skinny jeans they wear, the fixed-gear bikes they ride and the bands they follow.
“People take themselves entirely too seriously. Look, you’re in a band, so’s everybody,” Moschella says.
But Moschella and Keplesky, who have kept relatively low public profiles writing under pseudonyms, have made it clear since their first issue that they “don’t love to hate, but hate what they love.” In an age of irony, these two are the jesters of Austin’s royal hipster court. And for those who would deride the duo as being sarcastic whiners with an ax to grind born out of jealousy or insecurity, they’ve already beaten them to the punch.
“It’s because we were too crappy to be in a band. That’s what it comes down to,” Keplesky says of the zine’s genesis.
“When people get to meet us, we’re just nerdy guys. I’m a software engineer. I’m not like this cool guy in a band. I just sort of notice what’s going on,” Moschella says.
That perception has led to 14 issues, many of which have ended up serving as something of an archive of Austin’s changing social landscape. Moschella and Keplesky take the temperature of Austin and filter the city’s shifting dynamics through their writing.
“I think it’s a pretty accurate capturing of what people who are about our age who do roughly the same thing that we do are experiencing,” Moschella says.
From fretting over the smoking ban to mocking the arrival of condo-mania and gentrification, the two have found a way to stay topical on broad Austin cultural issues. But the main focus of their humor almost always finds its way back to the music scene. In discussing their most recent issue, “The Grown Up Issue,” the two made an analogous comparison of a maturing and softening of Austin to Misprint’s primary readership.
“The city as a whole is sort of growing up. Austin’s lifestyle is changing. It used to be a place people would come to play in a band. People still do that, but now it’s also a place people come to buy a condo,” Moschella says.
“It’s playing out on Red River (Street); it’s playing out downtown; it’s playing out in the bands that are getting popular. A perfect example … look at the bands that have emerged from Austin the last couple years, the ones people have really latched onto … totally dad-friendly, safe-rock: Okkervil River, Shearwater, Spoon, What Made Milwaukee Famous. And they’re great bands, and I like them, too, but you can’t call Spoon an edgy band; you can’t call What Made Milwaukee Famous an edgy band. My mom could like those bands; my mom does like those bands.”
If those sound like fighting words, you haven’t read Misprint. Their brutal honesty in criticizing the things that they love has led to an uncomfortable run-in or two with ice throwing and car vandalizing musicians, but more often than not, the targets of their snark generally love being in the spotlight. As it turns out, the Misprint guys aren’t the only ones who appreciate irony.
“I find that more bands actually want us to make fun of them,” Keplesky says.
And it’s not just musicians who can laugh at themselves and appreciate a little bit of publicity.
“Our first advertisers were the ones we called out by name,” Moschella says.
“That’s pretty much our business model,” adds Keplseky.
As for the state of their business, Misprint is pretty much a labor of love for these two, despite their ongoing joke about their unbelievable wealth.
In truth, the guys say they make just enough money to where they’re “not totally discouraged from doing it anymore.”
“Do we have to pick red or black? Is there another color? We’re in the pink,” Keplesky says of their finances.
While some people might consider the two cynics and pessimists (charges that roll off their backs), it is apparent that these affable and unassuming guys are wholly in love with the city they mock.
“I like the people. I love the energy. I like the pace of life. I like everything about the place. I think this town is on the cusp of great things,” Moschella says.
And Misprint will be around to make fun of those things as well.
Misprint Magazine party
Saturday, October 25
9:30 pm
Club Deville
$3
Music from Queen cover band Magnifico!, DJ set by Weston from White Ghost Shivers, and free Misprint coozies
Check out these photos from previous Misprint parties:
Misprint Mustache and Beard party at Club DeVille | Misprint party at Flamingo Cantina | Misprint party at Scoot Inn
Outtakes from the interview
Odam: “If you could have anyone in the scene beat you up, who would it be?”
Moschella: “Will Sheff [from Okkervil River]. I’d fight that cat and his tiny little blazer. With his blazer on, I’d almost definitely win. With his blazer off, I’d give him about even odds. I’m scrappy.”
Keplesky on the two-man operation and poseurs: “I met someone who apparently wrote an article for us that didn’t. That was kind of awkward.”
Keplesky on typography: “That was like the first thing in my life that I really noticed and would annoy me, when I’d see like bad typography. Everybody has things that they obsess about, for me type was always one of them. But even then it’s like a heightened thing. Or maybe I’m just mellowing out.”
Moschella on the plethora of live music in town: “Bryan wants Austin to be the live background music capital. You wanna be in a place where a cool band is playing, you just don’t wanna watch them or hear them that loudly.”
Keplesky on the relative positive aspects of Austin being the Live Music Capital: “It’s better than like visual art. You gotta put it in perspective. It could be a lot worse … like digital art.”
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Comments
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By stan
October 21, 2008 11:15 PM | Link to this
Hey guys, thanks for doing this. It is nice to see “them” put in their place:)
By Will on Nueces
October 22, 2008 2:16 AM | Link to this
Misprint blows! The Nueces Loudmouth rules! So does Van Halen.
By richard
October 22, 2008 11:19 AM | Link to this
“completely ironic and meaningless” - Yeah, that about sums up these two yankee hispters.
By truecraig
October 22, 2008 1:32 PM | Link to this
ALTBROHAMS!
Let’s wrestle. Using only faces.