Since time immemorial — or, in any case, since the mid-twentieth century — adolescents have looked to rock stars for life lessons. This works out better with some rock stars than others, of course, and in bygone days kids would have to infer these lessons from song lyrics and the occasional Rolling Stone interview. Now that most of their musical idols maintain active, even garrulous presences on several forms of social media at once, internet-age youngsters in need of counsel have a great deal more material to work with. Certain rock stars have taken this responsibility seriously, as you can see in the video above featuring Radiohead mastermind Thom Yorke and producer/multi-instrumentalist Nigel Godrich (also known as the men behind the supergroup Atoms for Peace). If you find yourself confused by boys, let these two fortysomething Brits clear it right up.
You can find a little more coverage of the video at, yes, Rolling Stone. “Yorke is particularly sage about teenage love woes,” writes the magazine’s Jon Blistein. “ ‘If you have a crush on him,’ Yorke says, ‘if you’re really, really, really, really shy, which is what I was at that age — also, I was at a boys’ school so it was impossible to meet girls anyway — how about just write him a note? Or throw him against the wall some time.’ ” Yorke and Godrich’s seventeen minutes of advice comes as the latest installment in the series “Ask a Grown Man” from Rookie, just the sort of web magazine we wish we could have had back when we were teenage girls — if we were ever teenage girls, that is. We’ve previously featured Ira Glass’ segment, and you can enjoy other moments of sagacity with the likes of comedian-filmmaker Judd Apatow, talk-show host Jimmy Fallon, and actor John Hamm. You certainly wouldn’t find them in the pages of Sassy.
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Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on literature, film, cities, Asia, and aesthetics. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall.
this is so so cool. both talented artists! they rock.