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New Yorker Issues Correction To LCD Soundsystem Story

10:50 a.m. · June 9, 2010 · by Andrew Winistorfer

It's apparently the season of the stuffy old journalism warhorses having to issue corrections regarding out of context quotes in profiles about indie rockers. First was the New York Times and M.I.A., and now it's the New Yorker and LCD Soundsystem. In a recent profile of James Murphy, there appeared a quote from John MacLean of the Juan MacLean about Murphy and him working for Six Finger Satellite and how Murphy was the only non-heroin addict around.

After majoring in English at N.Y.U., Murphy set up a recording studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn. In 1996, he became the live-sound engineer for a band called Six Finger Satellite. He developed an approach to live sound that he called Death From Above, and became close to a band member named John MacLean, now know professionally as Juan MacLean.

 

MacLean recalled that “we all had raging heroin addictions, and James was the guy caught in the middle of the chaos, the straight guy hanging around with these people who were a mess.”

Apparently Six Finger Satellite didn't care much for being characterized as heroin addicts, so here's the correction:

In “Let’s Dance” (May 10th), Juan MacLean’s comments about heroin use were wrongly used to characterize the time period when James Murphy was working for Six Finger Satellite. MacLean’s remarks referred to a period of time several years earlier, and were not meant to exclusively describe that band or its members.

Nice. Though that quote did make them sound cooler than this correction. [Daily Swarm]