Musing No. 18 - Not Quite There Yet

"Every hour of every day, there’s a talented musician somewhere on the planet who makes the decision to put their artistic side on the back burner in favor of a more stable career. Although they vow they will pursue music in their spare time, just this simple mindset shift could mean that writing songs and playing gigs will always take a back seat to almost everything else in life."

   I read this buzzkill of an article the other day. This was the highlight of the article, and unfortunately the words that bounced around my head for a day. So in other words, in order to pursue any future in music I have to abandon any remnant of responsibility? Fuck that.

   Music 'geniuses' may be quick to call my future hopes of a music career DOA, but I thought the whole point of music - specifically rock, was to buck the system. To not give a shit what others think of you. Sounds like someone is afraid of competition and wants to thin the herd. The fact that you are working full-time on music and I've never heard of you before you wrote your little article says very little for your music cred there, Mr. Author.

   This actually brings me to another little peeve of mine. Music snobs. If your music is technically good but doesn't SOUND good, then it's NOT good. Get it? Music is supposed to sound good. I cannot stand the 'music elite' that pat themselves on the back for the 'Amazing' string of notes, harmonies, and syncopated rhythms they can put together - with little regard to the fact that it sounds like complete shit. I've taken a few music classes, and one of the reasons I stopped is because I frankly couldn't stand music students. Every time I watch the movie 'Good Will Hunting' I gaze into the heavens and dream of watching someone putting a music student in his place like Matt Damon put that haughty Yale student out of commission.

"You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin' education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library..."

   Music should be fun. Music should inspire. Music should be the direct assembly of the musician's dream. Music should not be a contest. I think hanging out with some people who view music as a step in their ladder of success, rather than as something that is amazing and fun, is what has held me back for awhile. Do you know how amazing it is to play on stage in front of hundreds of people? I hope I always keep the wide-eyed wonderment that I remember having the first time I accomplished that goal.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley


End of Musing No. 18

Boredom

Musing No. 5 - Music & Morality

So you hear alot about these people who think that musicians make too much about sex, violence, drugs, cursing, and other such things they don't like to hear about. It's corrupting our youth, yada yada yada.

Old People

I suppose the youth are very impressionable. I will give you that argument to a degree. So I recently started to think about this. Two things occurred to me that apparently don't occur to any of these people who complain.

Young People

Point 1 - All you older folk turned out pretty well. Yet, weren't Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Eagles, and many many others from your day pretty open and explicit about alot of these things? Songs like 'Hey Joe,' talked about a guy going to blow away his cheating lover. Pretty much every other Jimi song had something to do with drugs.

Hey Joe, where ya goin with that gun in your hand?

AC/DC was violent and pretty explicitly graphic on the topic of sex. By the way - that song that you all love to dance to at the 46 year old's third wedding - 'Shook me all night long' by AC/DC is about nothing but sex. And yet you still dance to it. 'Brick House' by the Commodores is a all about how a lady has perfect dimensions - and is not missed at any older dance party. Pink Floyd concerts had more drugs than a pharmacy - in the lyrics & in the live shows - especially in the live shows. And yet you all turned out ok...interesting.

Led Zeppelin not promoting sex

So it brings to bear the question: Do you just think this generation is not capable of what you did - that is, being able to listen to songs with such 'awful' content and yet still turn out ok? Half the people who were at Woodstock are now running many areas of society. This generation is not able to do that? Is the fact that a good amount of this violence in music is in rap now a factor? I don't want to bring up the race card, but it seems like it would fit nicely here as well.

The board of ING on an executive trip

I think you don't give us enough credit. You would like us to think that when you listened to the music in your time you were somehow a whole lot more innocent and didn't know what the songs were about. I don't buy that for a second - unless you're too stupid to know what the lyrics meant, and that stupidity might explain some of the economic problems at the moment in our nation.

Or maybe you would like us to think that you were a whole lot more grown-up and were thereby able to withstand the 'horrifying' nature of the songs. That may or may not be true, as we have no way of knowing, but let's face it, older people always talk about how the current young people are awful and have no respect or morals or whatever. I'm sure when I'm old I'll be saying the same thing, lol. The point is, give us some credit, or at least let us make more mistakes than you did before you judge us.

Hi, My name is Wilbur, and it's been 60 days since I've listened to sexy music...

Point 2 - Why would the music business stop making something that people keep buying? I do happen to be a small business owner, and I know that if I have something that is selling - I'm not going to stop selling it. Not unless you want to pay me more not to sell it. It's really a simple situation. As long as people keep buying it, people are going to keep making it. That's Capitalism, which ironically enough many of these hot selling songs seem to be against it. I guess Anti-Capitalist music and movies can make Anti-Capitalists some major capital (or major hypocrisy), but that's another blog altogether.

I'm Michael Moore and I hate capitalism. Pay $12 to see my movie and I will tell you why.

There's all sorts of genres people can pick from, there's plenty of Christian bands out there too, so the people who don't want to hear it - don't have to. So it's not like they are forced to buy the 'bad' stuff, they just like it. But the very idea of telling people what they are and are not allowed to buy is very much not an American ideal in the first place, that's the kind of stuff we shipped over here to avoid.


So I guess the point is, that unless you can prove to me that your music hampered your ability to own companies or lead a productive life, and ruined you as a person - or pay all the musicians more than they are making doing the 'bad' music, then you should probably shut the hell up. Put your money where your mouth is.

End of Musing No. 5
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Musing No. 3 - Enough with the Politics in the Music

So I am more than a little annoyed by political music. Both sides. Seriously. Now I lean more to the right than to the left, but whether it be some country hack writing a McCain song, or Green Day or Smashing Pumpkins making anti-bush songs, or Lynrd Skynrd writing anti-healthcare songs - it ruins the listening experience for me.

I want you to stop making political music.

You have political views. I get it. You are very excited about those feelings. I get it. But don't write a stupid song about your political beliefs. That's dumb. Political debate is not art. Despite what is currently being considered art by people today - the 'Obama Hope' posters is just creative advertisement - much like this:

Really captures the teenage angst...

One reason not to do it is it makes your music dated very quickly. Do you think people care about Green Day's 'American Idiot' anymore? Once Bush was out of office, it doesn't matter anymore! There are songs that are written for and against Reagan, Kennedy, and even Clinton - by some pretty famous bands in the past. But do you know of these songs? The answer is probably not. Why is that? Because they became quickly irrelevant, and therefore faded away. Do you care about what someone's political views of Kennedy or Reagan was however many years ago? Of course you don't, it has no bearing on your life as of right now, and the music public has a very small attention span for things that aren't relevant to them - right now.

I believe this is the real 'American Idiot' hahaha...ok my puns suck.

I don't care if people hold personal political views, I would actually rather they did. I don't even care the position, if they pay attention to politics that means that they care about things outside of their own little realm. I don't even care if they give interviews saying what those views are - have at it. Just don't put it into your music, man. It ruins it for me.

Now of course, anti-war, anti-poverty, other transcending political topics are always going to be around, I don't have a problem with those. Just getting so specific ruins the poetry. There's alot of political songs that most people don't know are political, because they were written poetically or about general social injustice even if the artist was thinking something specific, it was open to interpretation.

" A King James I by any other name would still have dissolved Parliament..."

The beauty of music is that it connects with many audiences, in many different situations. I have many times listened to a song in a particular time in my life that helped me through that time and that I really connected with. Later on I have found out that the song was written about something different altogether, but I was able to connect with it because it was written in a way that was open to what I was feeling at the time.

Another reason it's not a great idea to make political music is because it instantly alienates a great part of your audience. This is not the days of Pink Floyd anymore - the average listening audience for a rock album or a rap album ranges to all difference races, religions, walks of life and political views. You are instantly alienating a portion without reprive when you blatantly state your political views in the contents of a song. The whole point of poetry is to create some mystery of what you are saying so the listener or reader can come to their own conclusions. Don't just state what are saying plain and out there. That makes for very little listening quality.

I'm sorry, I become deaf when people sing stupid.

On behalf of musicians and music listeners everywhere - please don't make any more songs for or against presidents, congressmen or city councilmen - I'm tired of skipping your songs on my iPod. Don't make songs for or against government policies or things you should be government policies, although I suppose people will never stop making songs about weed...what are you going to do? lol. Those are dumb things to make music about, don't make for great musical poetry, and frankly are getting pretty boring and repetitive.

End of Musing No. 3
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