Moby : Latest former New Yorker to praise L.A (Los Angeles: 2014, to live in)

[jm1982]

Not sure if anyone else saw this, but apparently the musician Moby is tooting L.A's horn over NYC...as a place for creatives. He's basically saying NYC has gotten way too expensive for artists and NYC is all about success,success while L.A is supposedly more welcoming to experimentation/failure

"New York had entered the pantheon of big cities that people visit and observe and patronize and document, but don’t actually add to, like Paris."

Nothing really groundbreaking, but kind of interesting as it's pretty rare for former NYCers to praise L.A so deeply. It seems if most of them live in L.A , it's more as a temporary place.

This is the laist article:
Moby Champions Los Angeles As A Haven For Creatives: LAist

LAWeekly picked up on it too:
http://www.laweekly.com/informer/201...urtesy-of-moby

Los Angeles Magazine:
http://www.lamag.com/citythink/cityt...-rules-over-ny

NYC Focused Gothamist(Laist for NY) - Lot's of comments on this one
http://gothamist.com/2014/02/04/moby_1.php

This is his article on a website called Creative Time Reports:
Moby: Los Angeles, The First City of the Apocalypse | Creative Time Reports

[Nerf Herder]

oh wow, the great moby has spoken

[Fontucky]

Who is Moby?

[Bunjee]

I've read Moby's blog before and he reads sort of a like a Stranger in a Strange Land. I believe he's more New Englander than New Yorker, so for urban environments it's no surprise to me that he's fascinated and perhaps more creatively charged by the relative quiet of L.A. than NYC. I forget his exact term but he refers a lot to poetic disuse: vacant mid-century architecture, empty Hollywood star mansions, etc. It seems a dead end observation as these buildings will eventually get refurbished and reused, though there's a lot of them.

As for who he is: musician, late 80s/90s, famous for ambient electronic music, descendent of Herman Melville (hence the name Moby).

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by Nerf Herder

oh wow, the great moby has spoken

Yes, you must bow down and worship this man with the Buddha like head.

[ProjectMersh]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

Who is Moby?

He is a musical artist (dance music/eletronic music) who gained notoriety in the 1990's. He also has an ancestral relatiionship with Herman Melville (hence the nickmane "Moby").

[ProjectMersh]

Originally Posted by Bunjee

As for who he is: musician, late 80s/90s, famous for ambient electronic music, descendent of Herman Melville (hence the name Moby).

Ah sorry, you beat me to it!

[jm1982]

Although he's a celebrity, he is one that many people seem to view as 'intellectual' or smart so I think people might take notice of this versus another type of celeb.

[ShipOfFools42]

Originally Posted by Bunjee

I've read Moby's blog before and he reads sort of a like a Stranger in a Strange Land. I believe he's more New Englander than New Yorker, so for urban environments it's no surprise to me that he's fascinated and perhaps more creatively charged by the relative quiet of L.A. than NYC.

I agree with this, sort of. He was raised in one of the richest towns in Fairfield County, CT, which is one of the richest counties in America. I definitely can't think of him as a New Yorker. Thing is, it's not really New England though. I lived in New England for several years, and I really don't think New England starts until you get north of that part of CT that is just an extension of the NY metro area. But anyway.

Clearly Moby hasn't been to Brooklyn lately. Or Queens, for that matter. A friend of mine lives in Astoria and says that he's seeing good things going on in Queens. And the gentrification of Brooklyn is well publicized (sometimes with undeserved scorn). But hey, let him say things like that about New York. More room for people like me who want to be there. (Nothing against LA of course; I just noticed this thread because it mentioned NY, and I thought it was kind of funny that he said that.) The thing about New York is that for every person who gets disillusioned and leaves, there are three more just waiting to take his/her place. I don't know if LA is that way, but I imagine it is.

[ElysianEagle]

@ShipOfFools42 - you're exactly right about people clamoring to live in NYC.

as if moby's endorsement of LA is going to be the final word in the ever lasting LA vs NYC debate :roll eyes:

seriously, for every person that claims LA > NYC, you can find one making the opposite claim...