By David Stewart

You smug people of today have no idea how easy life is. Back when I was smug I had to work for my self-righteous feeling of superiority. Back then finding a band nobody had heard of took hard work. You had to go to obscure clubs, you had to hang around the cool record shops. We had to search for our street credibility. The only place to buy a band’s T-shirt was at a gig and if you wanted to get your hands on an obscure B-side or demo tape you had to know someone and prove to them that you were smug enough to deserve it. I remember back in the eighties when I was proving everyone I knew was beneath me, I had to really work for it. When I sneered derisively at a guy who listened to something you could hear on commercial radio I earned that sneer through months of hunting around for the music and fan cred that earned me the right to be smug. But today, today you can jump on the internet and within half an hour you can download a band’s entire catalogue including B-sides and live bootlegs. You can order T-shirts from their website and get your smugness delivered straight to your door. Hipsters of today have no idea what being truly smug is all about. You think you’re the cutting edge of smug but let me tell you I was smug back when smug was only available on vinyl.

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