( 4:21 PM )
Monday, July 12. Late Afternoon. Music Currently Playing: Explosions In the Sky, The Earth is Not...
It's monsoon season here in Tucson: At noon the sun boiled the ground. I fled the cubicle farm and went walking down by the Santa Rita with my water bottle. I stood under a Palo Verde tree cringing in the shade and listened to the sweet hiss of cicadas. Now it is past 4 and I just got back from walking again. The sky is bulging, erotic with grey breasts of thunderclouds, and to the south, every two or three minutes vericose bolts of lightning wipe the sky, expectorate massive belches of thunder that roll and continue toward the Catalinas. The hot wind is twisting up the yellow gray brush the way it does and even the flattened palms of the prickly pear are rocking, a hundred spikey green hands in the air, saluting, hallelujahing the coming storm. Hail to you big storm, hail to you hot wind, hail to you fat black drops of rain.
Only 2 weeks left in the cube farm, btw, and I am finished for good. It won't pass soon enough.
-M.S.
#
( 12:09 PM )
Wednesday, June 30. Afternoonish. Music Currently Playing: Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians
Recurring Dream again last night:
I am in the old Skylark with it's brown vinyl seats and it's so hot my skin is bonding with the vehicle through my t-shirt. I am at one with the 1972 Buick. There is no AC, so the windows are down and hot air is blasting in. I am using a discarded bag from some unrecognizable fast food restaurant to grip the steering wheel. There is no stereo (there never was) so I am singing. I don't remember what I am singing. The mirage on the horizon goes all chrome on me the way that it always happens in the summer, I can see the edge of the world being incinerated, boiled away in the distance and it makes it looks as if the road I am driving on goes straight into the sky. I remember that in the backseat are loose pages and they sort of violently crash around in the wind. When I look at them in the rearview mirror I can see large words in black magic marker written all over them, but they are in a language I don't recognize. Something calligraphic almost, but sacred like Hebrew, and there are these drawings of spirals. For some reason these pages make me feel extreme anxiety. I want to know what they say, I know they are somehow important in that general way that always happens in dreams, but they are slapping around in the wind so I can't really examine them. I know I should stop the car and reach back there and collect all of them but I can't. The need to keep driving is even stronger than the need to decipher the pages. I am looking up in the mirror at the pages when I hit the rabbit. It's huge, the size of a horse. I look down from the review mirror in time to see it leap out in front of the car and then just panic, cringing, and I can hear it screaming a rabbit scream as I barrel into it. I can see it's bulging black eye right before impact. It's so black that it seems to soak up all light, and there is something about it that reminds me of the writing in the backseat. I know that the rabbit's eye and the writing are somehow connected, but I don't know how that could be. They just are. Then I slam into it. And the car buckles and then spins in circles. My forehead hits the steering wheel hard and it hurts, but it doesn't. It's like I am separated from the pain, or outside of myself somehow and so disconnected from it. The world goes crooked, everything is this nauseating, violent merry go round and then everything stops. I am shaking. There is blood in my eyes. It's warm and it sort of burns and makes everything a red blur. I involuntarily vomit on myself, all down the front of my shirt. I sit there for a very long time, as if I am confused, it just doesn't occur to me to do anything but sit there. I know somehow that the pages that were flying around in he backseat have disappeared, and I know now that is why I didn't stop, because if I did, they would go away. It's weird the way the logic of dreams works itself out this way. Anyhow, after this I wipe the blood out of my eyes and the first thing I see is the shattered windshield cobwebbed outward. I open the door of the Skylark and fall out on my side into the gravel. I don't remember wearing a seatbelt at all and I didn't unfasten one before I fell out of the car, but it occurs to me that there is no way I would have survived a head-long collision, even in a big old car like this, without having one on. I am laying on my side and the ground is scalding hot, and again it hurts but I am strangely detached from it. I am squinting in the white desert light. I can hear a hiss from the front of the car and I imagine water is steaming out of the radiator. From where I am lying I can see the rabbit in the middle of the road, only it's small now. It's still alive and it's panting. It looks at me again with that big dark eye and and it starts convulsing and after a while it stops. I know somehow that it dies. After a long time I finally manage to stand up. I take off my t-shirt which stinks like throw-up. I walk over to the rabbit and lean down and carefully pick it up in the shirt. I bring it close to my face so I can see into it's little black eyes and about then I usually wake up.
So I have no idea what it means, but I have had it often enough that I felt I should write it down.
-M.S.
#
( 8:00 AM )
Tuesday, June 29, Morning. Music Currently Playing: Mike Doughty, Rockity Roll.
Wanted to say a few words about the Mike Doughty Band show Sunday night, but nothing formal enough for an official review, especially since most people who are not big gigantic fans of Soul Coughing (which I am) won't really even know who Mike Doughty is.
It was a great show. Mike has this drummer named Shazad who is literally about six and a half feet tall, but dangerously thin. I think he was south asian or black, but it was hard to tell. He had skin like dark curry. The thing about Shazad: During those songs when he was not needed on drums he sat at his kit reading a novel.
"What are you reading?" Someone called out from the audience. Shazad looked up.
"Netochka Nezvanova, one of Dostoevsky's first novels."
And what killed me about this was not that it was Dostoevsky, or that he was doing this, READING, while he sat on stage in the middle of a concert, but his tone and expression - he said this as if it was not only the most natural thing for him to be reading, but also as if it was the most natural use of time, up there on stage, in the middle of a concert. Who knew old Fyodor could be so gripping? (Well I did, but no one ever listens to me.)
Anyhow, while he read, he pulled is long, thin legs to his chest and mouthed all the lyrics Mike was singing in front of him, which made the scene all the more surreal. Mike's response to the Dostoevsky thing was to note to us that HE would never read that sort of thing.
"These days about the deepest I can go is Entertainment Weekly," he said. "No, that's not true, I also read Vibe."
The music was brilliant. Aside from the drums, and Mike playing his sort of default strumming on an undistorted Fender electric guitar, they had a guy on an old 1970's electric piano that Mike named "The Dove Man". The Dove Man added this chill, jazzy element to most of the songs, but he kept making fun of Mike by playing either Schubert, or that intro piano line to that song by Vanessa Carlton.
Show opened with Great Grey Ghost (with actual lyrics for the bridge this time), and most of the show was extremely laid back. Several of the best Soul Coughing songs were played including True Dreams of Wichita, and Rolling, Super Bon Bon (which mike played buy himself with guitar, sans piano and drum accompaniment) and ending the entire show with Janine. I was disappointed not to hear So Far I have Not Found the Science (which remains my favorite song by him) or 27 Jennifers (a track from Rockity Roll that I had previously downloaded out of curiosity.)
I should note about the venue: Solar Culture is essentially an art gallery in an old warehouse in downtown Tucson. It was built in 1908 for storage and sales of oranges and other fruit. Now it's walls are covered in all the weird folk art from local artists (some of which is brilliant and some of which it utterly uninteresting). The owner build a big stage setup in the back to host shows. Before each show, apparently, they cook a home meal for whichever band has arrived. Recent bands to play the stage include Yo La Tengo (a show I was disappointed to have missed, being rated an elitist music snob per the quiz elsewhere on this site.)
Anyhow, Solar Culture backs right up to the train tracks. They left the large storage door to the back of the building open to the tracks during the show because it was so damn hot. So during the songs, the train would blast by, expectorating it's whistle, and chugging along. This was not an interruption but a sort of blessing, it added some sort of uncanny flavor to the whole experience. And the band knew it, every time the train blasted they would grin and nod, because it was as if, for that evening, the city itself, or at least the train, was participating in their show.
I also noticed how unaffected Mike was. He just appeared totally relaxed and laid back. He paused midway through the show and told this funny story about riding the Mr. T float at the Bonnaroo music festival with members of Galaxy. I won't repeat it here because I can't really do it justice. I was also amused by the cover the band did of The Gambler. Yes, Kenny Roger's the Gambler. Mike forgot the lyrics to one of the verses so he just sort of burbled and hummed.
So anyhow, Mike was selling copies of "Rockity Roll" after the show to, as he said, "help fill the gas tank on the van for their trip to Dallas." And by selling I mean, he sat on the edge of the stage with a duffel bag and a grin and shook everyone's hands and signed each copy he sold. Which struck me as the least pretentious I have ever seen a musician act. He didn't even seem embarassed or sheepish about it which is how musicians often act if they ar confronted with a line of people who can't wait to tell them how happy they have been made. His attitude was simply, this is my music, I am selling it for gas money. I hope you like it.
So I have a signed copy of the album and it makes me feel like a total fanboy. Which, ahem, I am.
M.S.
#
( 3:41 PM )
Thursday, April 22. Late Afternoon. Music Currently Playing: Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet
Just read Dustin's Modest Mouse Review, and his mention of the newest Nissan commerical using Modest Mouse got me pondering in general about the use of music to peddle goods. This is not a new subject to 2walls - I seem to recall Mike ranting at some point about how despicable it is to have Led Zepplin songs played in car commericials.
I would tend to feel a similar disgust. Commericals are... well, commericial. I guess you could say I am suspicious of them. This suspicion derrives from an awareness that the primary purpose of advertising has changed. I think originally advertising existed as a way to notify consumers of your product, and to a greater extent, show them what differentiates your product from your competitors. In that way, a commericial is the natural expression of a business in a democratic and capitalist context. And yet, commercials have become much, much more. They now appeal to our emotions in strange ways. They use abstract imagery, music, visions of beauty and sexuality, visions of adventure, visions of humor and comedy, and appeal to us on a much deeper level than merely the logical, reasoning place where we would assume our decisions are being made.
Maybe this is the result of having too many choices. Do we need thirty-five different ways to wipe our asses? When I stand in the aisle at the grocery store, even a hip, semi-organic grocery store like Trader Joe's, I face such a tremendous selection between products as basic as toilet paper that a mini-existential crisis occurs. What kind of toilet paper defines me as a person? This question is actually more important than it may originally seem. I think that this is the exact type of decision a consumer ultimately makes when faced with the prospect of spending money - indeed, this is actually a conscious factor when it comes to things like buying cars and houses - what will make me happy? is what we ask ourselves, and we settle for a compromise between value (cost, gas mileage, reliability) and enjoying ourselves.
If enjoyment, identity definition, or some other abstract factor is the thing that helps us determine which product to select, how does it come into play during the decision process? I can't speak for others, and I don't have qany research to cite. What I can do is share with you my personal experience. The basis for my purchasing decisions come down to two things - price, and product recognition. I will generally, when selecting products like this, chose whichever product is cheapest, and my problem is solved. But if more than one of the same product has the exact low price, I end up needing to make another decision. What makes Happy Flower Suprise brand toilet paper so much better that Flowery Suprise of Happiness brand toilet paper? I look to the packaging. Let's see HFStp promises a cushiony soft experience because of its extra layering. My anus approves of cushiony soft. On the other hand FSoHtp offers dual ply, which insures the soft fluffy feel. Again, my anus says "Soft, and fluffy!"
You can see my dilemna. Other than the fact that I am hallucinating a helium squeeky voice for my heiny, I still have not been able to make a toilet paper purchasing decision. At this point, my wife is calling for me to help her lift the 645 pound bag of Guapo Gato's New and Improved Hairball Reducing Catstravaganza Feline Food. And my son is trying to convince me that it is indeed in my best interest to purchase him a squirt gun (depsite the fact that I have said "No" fourteen times allready) and that I too could use it for such hilarious antics as squirting the cats, the mommy, the mommy holding the cats, or even the dangerously slippery kitchen floor, and damnit!-I need to decide which fricking package of TP I'm going to spend the next two weeks getting intimate with. So I let my gut decide. And my gut is probably deciding based on that gut experience it has had watching commericals.
So commericals become ways to manipulate not merely my mind, but my gut. I find this appalling and strange, and somewhat embarassing - that I still have that animal mind in me, and it's that animal mind, that Freudian "ID," that gut feeling that is responsible for making some of my decisions. Our culture, our society doesn't like to admit we have that animal mind. Indeed we are appalled continuously by examples of others in the news excercising their various unrestrained desires, leading to violence, stupidity, harm. Consider the puritanical response to a little bit of Janet Jackson nipple. But as much as we try to knit together the illusion of our civility, it seems like on the other end, things like advertising, the commercialism of MTV, etc, is unraveling it from the other side....
Just thoughts. Some impulse in me tells me I should just embrace that animal mind, accept it for what it is, realize that I cannot rid myself of it, and that as a natural force within me, being in synch with it may lead to far greater success, as a human being, than fighting against it and repressing it... Why does this possibility still seem so frightening?
Reading Heart of Darkness with my students right now, and that may be why. Kurtz, the monster, turning the severed heads inward toward him because he needs an audience, because he has so fully embraced the inner animal that there is very little man left. That his lack of restraint lead to violence, madness, and death. That, I think, is the reason to struggle against that inner animal. Because the lack of restraint, the lack of civility is the thing that leads to an early, untimely end...
Whoa, way too philosophical for a blog.
#
( 3:37 PM )
Monday, March 8. Afternoon. Music Currently Playing: Saul Williams, Amethyst Rockstar
Aha! Finally my impulse to write explained! Per T.C. Boyle, all writers write because they secretly wish they had their own rockband. More here at NPR.
In other news...
My mentor teacher right now, who is an old Dead Head, has exposed me to several of his favorite artists, further expanding my palette of amazing music:
-Hot Tuna
-String Cheese Incident
-Ozric Tentacles
...And lastly a host of Grateful Dead live recordings that I am amazed to discover far exceed any commercial recording that the band ever did. I suppose this is just musical naivete on my part, since when people talk about the Dead they always seem to prefer the brilliance of their live shows... and for me, I think up until recently, I had sort of written off the Dead as an audio sub-culture I just couldn't relate to. This may have been a mistake.
I have discovered that those "in the know" about the Dead, are "in the know" because of a set openly shared live recordings of various Dead shows that they all exchange with each other. I still don't really know enough about the Dead to know their philosophy behind this (since it is legal and acceptable); but speaking to other Deadheads confirms that it's completely normal for fans to have their collection of Dead music dominated by bootlegged concert recordings rather than commercial recordings.
In terms of the live recordings themselves... some are better than others. In many cases this has as much to do with the quality of the recording as it does the band. I listened to one show recorded as recently as 1994 to discover Jerry Garcia's voice sounding strained and slightly flat. On the otherhand, there are some recordings where every note is right on and there is this exhuberance projected through the country-sounding interplay of guitars.
What characterizes all of the recordings I have heard is the band's ability to just... play. It's almost as if, due to the improvisational nature of their shows, the band is rediscovering each song every time it's played. The consequence is that no two live recordings ever have the same song. Ok sure, you may hear "Box of Rain" on two separate live recordings that span fifteen years between them. But it is not the intervening years that differentiates the sound of the song... it's the unique exploration that both live performances took of the same core melody. I think that the Dead may have accidentally discovered something most bands never find... the ability to continually reinvent themselves and their music through the improvisational exploration of old musical ideas. I think this is what great Jazz does, or at least tried to do before it killed itself with free jazz and fusion... And in that sense perhaps it's a pity that more Coltrane and Monk and Bird live recordings are not available. (Or perhaps not--the genius of good jazz is that it is so improvisational that you really do have to have "been there" to know what it was you experienced...)
Anyhow, I am not entirely sure if I have converted yet to full Grateful Dead fandom; perhaps this is because I am too attached to things like regular bathing and shaving... really what it is for me is the bluegrass elements in so much of the Dead's music. They still feel very foreign to me - bluegrass is just a genre, a sound, a flavor that I have so little exposure to... (Drop me a line if you can recommend something to educate me!)
Ultimately though, I have to admit there is a powerful appeal for me in a band whose best music is music *freely shared between fans.* Suggests to me that it was only ever about the music for these guys, another powerful lesson that too many of today's musicians have clearly missed.
And anyhow, some of the guitar work is beyond compare...
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( 10:21 AM )
Monday, February 23. 10:30AM. Music Currently Playing: Anthill Society (streaming)
>From: "Michael Walls"
>Uh...here's craig's band's website. He's got some samples for downloading. Go figure.
>http://[url removed]
Yeah, I'd noticed. All mp3's. They have cleverly attempted to thwart filesharing by disabling the right click save-as function, but any fool can click view>source and with minimal knowledge of html write a quick proxy page that will allow all the right-clicking in the world. I will refrain from comments about hypocrisy.
Now, for some brutal truth:
I listened to most of Anthill's samples streaming and was deeply unimpressed... there is this genre of rock I like to call "Middle Age Failure Rock" and indeed I would say that about half of the cd's I get from bands to review for 2walls fall into this category - all of these musicians in their late 30's and early 40's who have nothing new or original to offer us musically, but persist in their teenage fantasy of "making it."
This is what I was satirizing in my Hot Pork Deathpie rant in my blog entry for November 20 down below--which I know was also, apparently, controversial because it was so viciously direct. In my defense I should explain that I do love listening to the indie music I get as much as anyone else that writes for 2walls because of the hope that it doesn't suck, and the reason why I felt I could be that vicious about some of the mediocre music I do receive (though note that Hot Pork Deathpie is fictional, people) is because I have been there myself:
Like many American teenagers, I taught myself to play guitar when I was fourteen, I saved up to buy an amp, I used to carry my guitar around high school because I was a big geek and it made the girls notice me (and ahem, it worked). Turned out I was a passably fair lead singer and charismatic and unafraid enough to front the stage so that I ended up in a few rock bands (dig this: they were called "The Starving Artists," "Thirtheenth Floor" and "Sputtermonkey" - true cheese); we recorded demos, we did live shows, we fantasized about "making it."
BUT, the difference between me and someone like Craig is that I never took myself so seriously that I started *believing the fantasy.* My bands were never better than mediocre, and some part of me always knew it. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. That doesn't mean I didn't work hard at it while I was doing it. But that self-awareness kept my motives pure: the idea was to enjoy myself, and to make sure whatever audience was listening at the time enjoyed themselves too - and it never went any farther, because in reality, *it couldn't*. We just weren't very good.
When it came time for me to get married, have a kid, and get a "real job" to support that wife and that kid, I set that fantasy aside and acted like an adult and buckled down and did what I had to do. I don't regret it. I could have chosen not to get married, and pursued my teenage fantasy I suppose. Been a "rock star." At age thirty five I would likely be the sketch I provided in that blog entry: single, sleeping on the sofa at a friend's, dreaming of "making it big." I could have been one of the bands sending mediocre music to webzines for review. But instead I found a new dream for myself. A dream that involved the love and protection of others - and in that sense it was not a dream that fullfilled my own bloating ego the way the typical rockstar dream would have done, but fulfilled my success as a member of humanity, by spreading love, patience, and safety to those I live with. I know without a doubt that my life is far better off, far more enriched for the wife and the child than it would have been without them.
That makes me feel sad for those middle aged musicians who are still trying to "make it" - that they don't get this, that they are still caught up in a dream that fulfills only themselves, only their egos, and no one else. It implies that their lives are, comparatively, a failure. At the end of that blog rant, I tried to clarify that this is not necessarily true, since they are doing something that I, arguably, did not have the balls to do - pursue a dream in spite of the logical alternatives. That's something that takes guts, courage, hutzpah, and beleif in yourself. More power to them for trying, I say. And I should clarify that Craig and the Anthills may not fall into this category at all - I don't really know - Craig could very well be a husband and father. Good for him if he is.
Either way, it doesn't change the fact that his music is and will remain mediocre. I know, those are tough words. And generally you won't see them on 2walls webzine, because the underlying philosophy here is that it is counterproductive to give a negative music review to an indie artist. I felt the need to call the bluff here though, and the consequence of this is for me to say explicitly, "I am not a fan." That doesn't mean, necessarily, that you the reader may not have a difference of opinion. Taste is, after all, the enemy of art.
If I were Craig, I wouldn't be making some financial argument against music downloading, I wouldn't call those in favor of it communists. Instead I would point out that before mass media, even a mediocre band could be successful because there was no way for the audience to have a basis of comparison. In that sense, music downloading very much is responsible for destroying the dreams of struggling musicians. The advent of technologies like radio, vinyl, cd's, and now especially mp3's and the internet, means that your average audience will be far more familiar with various types of music than the audience of past eras. The less educated audience would probably be satisfied with a band like Anthill Society because they had no basis of comparison.
In a sense mass media means that we, as an audience, will always be provided with the best and the brightest of any area - music, sports, art, literature, so that there is no room for merely average dreamers to dream of success in any of those arenas. Mass media guarantees that there will always be someone smarter and better at what we wish to try.
It used to be that communities had a decent, and fair division of labor. There was the town joker, the commedian of his time, the musician, the artist, the writer, and because the communities were small, and because as an audience, the members of the communities did not know what they were missing by not necessarily having the best and the brightest living and working in their community, they were thrilled with what they got. Fullfillment was achieved on both sides; by the audience who was fulfilled by the art and music they got however mediocre, and by the artists and musicians who could fulfill their dream of providing it. In the present, such a scenario is impossible. I find Anthill Society mediocre because of how many better bands I have heard that I can compare them to. The bar for success was raised by my access to mass media. Not just the internet though. I grew up listening to my dad's Led Zepplin and Beatles records. And compared to those two bands, most everyone else falls far short. Does that mean I immediately compare every band I hear to those two I noted?
No. In the end I just like what I like, and my response to the objection that mass media destroys the success of mediocrity is just that. You either got it, or you don't.
#
( 11:53 AM )
Wednesday, February 18. Noonish. Music Currently Playing: TV On the Radio, Young Liars EP
The article I wrote is apparently beginning to generate a variety of responses.
I received this in email this morning from a Craig R. from San Antonio, TX:
> Mr. Scrivner, you are way off the mark on this one. I own a small independent
>record label, Tone Quarry Records, and I play drums in an originals rock band,
>Jim Murray?s Ant Hill Society. We have aspirations of market success. We
>scraped together what money we could to put our album together. The hard earned
>cash which went towards producing this project was invested with the intent of
>returning profit on that investment. Does the corporate Fat Cat philosophy
>apply to us as well? Jim Murray, our lead singer, wrote the tunes. We, the
>band, arranged and did the studio work. We were in studio for nearly 8 months.
>A friend did the art work for a small fee. Our web designer, Motion Picture
>Graphics, did the web site work on a contingency basis. Is there no value
>placed on our time and effort? Is the songwriter's creativity and time a
>donation to the consumer's enjoyment?
I am wondering if my tendency to be long winded has resulted in people reading the first half of my article and not getting to the particulars of my argument when I get done with pumping out my long-winded rhetoric.
In response to Craig, From my own article, I quote:
The argument goes that the musicians that make all the great music we enjoy, are being deprived of money they need to live, and without it would therefore not be able to share more music with us. Seems clear enough – and I need to be explicitly clear that in principle I agree with this; I have no objection to any musician being paid for his or her work. I think this is exactly what should happen. Music enriches our lives, and those that produce it should be rewarded. But do not be misled into thinking that music downloading necessarily equates starving musicians.
and
Fact: there has been no concrete proof offered so far that music downloading has caused financial loss for musicians. While there has been a downward trend in record sales in the past three years, that downward trend matches a similar downward trend in the rest of the economy. In a time when dad can’t find work and mom is working retail to make sure the mortgage gets paid, you can sure as hell bet Johnny isn’t going to have an extra $18.99 to buy the latest release from Hot Pork Deathpie. Conversely some studies are showing that music downloading may be helping smaller labels and their artists get attention in an industry that is normally dominated by the major labels.
Proof of that? The EP I am currently listening to. Who the fuck is TV On the Radio? I would never have heard of them had I not read Dustin's recent review. And given the aforenoted poor economy, I am not in a position to afford to pick up a new CD just because a 2Walls staffer found it better than mediocre. So what did I do? I jumped on the label's website (an indie label mind you, Quarterstick records, the same label that carries Calexico) and downloaded an MP3. It was good enough to convince me to purchase it. And this exact scenario has happend time an again to me. I think I have spent more money on music in the past five years since I became aware of music downloading, rewarding the artists who produce it, than I have ever spent up until that point.
But let me respond to reader Craig's rhetorical question "Is the songwriter's creativity and time a donation to the consumer's enjoyment?"
Yes, Craig it is. Abso-fucking-lutely. Are you really so disconnected from your audience that you don't get this? You are fooling yourself if you claim that you are making music "for yourself," or "for art." Because what if I saw your band play live in a bar some Saturday night. The bar may be paying you for your time, but I just showed up to see some friends. And if you're good enough, if your time and creativity make me actually pay attention, than you have indeed donated to the enjoyment of my evening. Why are you playing music if it's not for people to enjoy it? Stop taking yourself so seriously Craig. Your music is not about you. It's not about your band. It's not about your vision, or your genius, or your creativity. It's about how much those who hear your music connect with that. If you fail as a musician, it will not be because of music downloading, or because the lack of exposure in a marketing dominated industry, but because you have failed to make that connection.
Look my point here was not to encourage internet users to shaft hardworking indie artists like Craig (though I should clarify--which I thought I did in the original article--that I don't think music downloading shafts indie artists but HELPS them). My point was to clarify that the moral argument being made about music downloading by the record industry is morally flawed and amounts to cultural oppression. Networking, by nature, creates an environment where things are shared between people. If we could just as freely share food and medicine over the internet to those without the financial status to afford those things on their own, we would be morally corrupt for not doing so. Sharing music is this scenario applied on a cultural level.
Those who claim that beauty should only be made available to those that can afford to pay for it are morrally corrupt.
I cannot state it any more simply.
#
( 2:34 PM )
Thursday, November 20. Afternoon Some Time. Music Currently Playing: Neutral Milk Hotel, In An Aeroplane Over the Sea
I haven't blogged in a while because I have lacked the conviction of my own cleverness. Have been reading several bloggs and that seems to be the prerequisite - this beleif that you are some charming witty fellow who has interesting and important things to say about the world. Ha ha, aren't I clever? I made some obtuse observation about the world around me. I notice things and report back to my readership with a shrewd comic voice and humorous slant! My readership which is probably two people: one of which is some guy named Mark K. from North Cranton Idaho who wants to know if I got his band's CD (Hot Pork Deathpie * Deodarant Skull Chicken) and when I am going review it.
Mark: I will never review your CD. No offense meant, big guy, but it's just not worth my time to give language to something I found at best a tower of rock and roll mediocrity. That isn't to say you should give up your dream and go back to delivering Pizzas at your Uncle Marty's "Mexitalian Buffet and Pizza Kingdom" while taking night classes in Japanese Art History at Fountains Eastern Community Education Services (FECES) while simultaneously breaking up and getting back together with your girlfriend Marleesa in a destructive relationship cycle that has previously fueled the majority of the lyrics you write for Hot Pork Deathpie.
Nevermind that she is totally out of her gourd and makes your life a constant misery of suffering and humiliation, you get plenty of drunk college tail when Hotpie tours the small club circuit, and have deftly avoided contracting any serious social diseases that aren't quickly treatable by a high dose of antibiotics you keep in your gear bag. You are doing what most of us only wish, Mark. You're following a dream. You probably have no money, and sleep on the sofa at the apartment of Jason, Hot Pork's long time bass player and keyboardist, and it smells like cat box because he never changes it and anyhow the cat, Gertrude, (named after his great Aunt Gertrude Finkleweiss who was a major name in the Womens International Badmitton for Peace and an End to World Hunger Organization back in the 1970's), just pretty much poops wherever suits its fancy anyhow including such choice locations as in your shoes, on your Hot Pork Deathpie Leather Jacket, under the sofa where you currently reside, and in the soil of every house plant and landscape acoutrement in a ten mile radius. We're talking about THE Jacket. The one given to you my Marleesa, during one of those periods during the holidays two years ago when you, lonely, emotionally desperate, swallowed your pride and moved in with her for three weeks of incessant relationship analysis, foot rubs, self-help books, and evenings in front of soap operas she tapes while she's at work. The one you wore for the promo photo shoot. The one you want to be cremated in for crissake after you and the band die in some tragic airplane and/or tourbus and/or boating and/or Stage Show Pyrotechnics and/or Drug Overdose and/or Freak Sex Toy accident and you get your own VH1 Behind the Music special and copies of Deodorant Skull Chicken (and it's prequel "Anal Satan Yodel") go sailing off the shelves and grieving fans run to their record stores and hold candlelight vigils at local parks demanding to know why, why did it have to end so tragically, and local radio stations put all of your hits in constant rotation and they start a Hot Pork Deathpie Educational Scholarship which is awarded once a year to a promising young student in the field of Japanese Art History. All of this were it not for the now permanent stink of cat poo.
Nevermind that hits to the band webite, www.DeathpieRocksAmerica.com (and it's British sister site, www.DeathpieRocksUK.uk), are slagging and the company hosting it wants to raise the cost and the last drummer, that stoner asshole Rick is the one that has backups of everything and you don't even really know how to use the damn internet unless it's to guiltily beat off to golden shower porn thumbnails or check blogs for Hotpie album reviews.
Mark, when you are forty-seven, and you and Marleesa are bitterly divorced and your wages at Payless Shoes are garnished because you have repeatedly failed to pay your alimony, and you spend your weekends giving guitar lessons for under-the-table marijuana money to young kids who mommies buy them better hardware than you could ever afford to use back in your rock and roll days, you will look back at your stint as lead singer, guitarist, conceptual mastermind, and bandleader for Hot Pork Deathpie as a time of glory and freedom and triumph against all that sucks and does not rock. Here's to you, Mark-O. May your choruses always repeat after the 2nd verse. May you never have to bear with contempt and guilt that phone call with your father where he asks you when you are going to get a real job. May your rock and roll moments be bright, may they play with distorion and thundering drums, may all your solos be greeted with hoots from the audience. May you one day get the stink of cat poo from your Hot Pork Deathpie leather jacket. And whatever you do, keep sending those CD's. Who knows? Maybe someone will see you for the latent talent and musical genius and offer you that big break!
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( 2:42 PM )
Tuesday, August 12. 1ish. Music Currently Playing: The Mars Volta, Deloused in the Comatorium
Just finished reading Greg's Mets' Story and really enjoyed it. I think this may be because of the manner in which it vastly differs from my own recent Major League Baseball experiences.... Have traveled up to Bank One Ballpark a couple of times this year to see the Diamondbacks and while some of the games were relatively exciting, and the technological and architectural wonder of the stadium itself is impressive (I mean they can close the roof off and air condition the place!), the sheer amount of corporate greed that abounds is so overwhelming it distracts from watching the actual games being played.
Now, I've never been to Shea or Yankee Stadium (hell, I've never been to New York) so I can't really say one way or the other whether the "Californication" of those parks has happened or not. Still, from Greg's description, it sounds like baseball in that part of the country, even shitty Mets baseball, is still at least baseball, still a pastime, still about fathers and sons, seventh-inning stretches, and yelling at your favorite hated players, and not, as it is here, a three hour advertisment to a captive audience. Here in Arizona, baseball is just another money-machine: there is not a single empty space in BOB that isn't covered with some bit of advertising or corporate logo, and the giant megotron screen that broadcasts player stats and instant replays, and lots and lots of regular old tv commericals is almost bigger than the field the players are playing on... My feelings are that if I wanted to watch the game on a tv screen I wouldn't have made the hour drive north to Phoenix, and at least at home I wouldn't have to stand in a line to buy a six dollar beer between innings.
I'm no pinko commie.... Ok, well, maybe a little--I'm anti-war, anti-Bush, in general anti-Republican, I'm registered Green, so whatever label you'd like to use.... But I do have a basic understanding of the overall benefits of capitalism--like access to better medicine, food, and general standard of living. Still, as a compasssionate human being I am continually disgusted with the worst excesses of it, and I am not just talking about the tyranny of oppression it creates between the wealthy and the working poor that you can see living so close to Mexico (where NAFTA has turned the borderlands into a death zone from the thousands of immigrants fleeing the poverty of maquilladores and factories just south of the U.S.)
But in addition to this, it seems like everything I care about.... music, books, baseball, is inevitably bought out by some mega-conglomerate, repackaged, remarketed with slick logos and advertising, and then sold back to me at double the price. The same thing that is being done to baseball has happened to the rodeo here in Tucson. No matter if you're against the general animal cruelty or not... Fiesta De Los Vaqueros is a serious cultural tradition here, since the 19th century when this was literally a true frontier cowboy town, and even when I was growing up I remember it as, despite what you may imagine, not just a bunch of tobacco spittin' hicks choking livestock with rope, but a really fascinatingly dangerous contact sport. But they got a hold of it, and corrupted it, burned out it's spirit in the name of making another dollar. Now it's The Verizon Wireless Tucson Rodeo Brought to you by Wrangler Jeans held at the Montain Dew Rodeo Grounds. It just kills me...
Anyhow.... checkout Mars Volta if you get a chance.... it's a couple of members from At The Drive-In (I scored a 36 on the snob test btw, making me an elitist snob) but it includes Flea on bass, with Rick Rubin producing. Some serious emo-experimental rock with a nice classic-rock integrity... several of the songs remind me of old-school Yes (reminiscent of Heart of the Sunrise type stuff.) Perhaps a full review in the near future.
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( 12:41 PM )
Monday, July 21. Noonish. Music Currently Playing: None
Just another reason to love the desert: presently, outside my window at work, sleeps two wildcat kittens in the crook of the mesquite tree. They came wandering up this morning, trying to get into the shade, stretched themselves out and fell promptly asleep. I would guess by their size that they're probably 10 weeks old (in adulthood they tend to be only slightly larger in size that full grown house cats). People keep walking up to the tree though to take pictures and are generally making a nuissance of themselves pointing and talking loudly underneath it and while I certainly share their curiosity and joy at being a witness to this tiny bit of nature, I just wish they'd be a bit more mature in their enthusiasm.
I suppose it's a testament to how urbanized we've all become when creatures like this cause us all so much excitement. I think this underlies a bigger truth; that we all in some way want to connect with nature, but are too busy, or have forgotten that it's even there to connect with. That sounds cheesy and I think any moment now I'll be joining a drum circle at a men's self-exploration retreat and pounding on a drum while sitting around a campfire and chanting positive life affirmations while pine-needles poke into my butt. But really. I think many people basically miss the element of nature in their lives. They see it more as an inconvenience, possibly a barrier to some other goal, something that is so frequently mastered and controlled through heating and airconditioning and etc, that they get cut off from experiencing it as a place, an environment, as a force in their lives. So along come the little wildkitties and they get to remember again.
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