Slapback Guitar Records

“I think it is fair to say that, had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me, we might not have married,” the President said. “The fact that we agreed on Stevie was part of the essence of our courtship.” VIA

Now, aside from the embarrassing fawning going on in the media nowadays concerning the first couple this particular idea is particularly meaningless. The reason is b/c I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like Stevie Wonder. I mean, everyone on the planet isn’t necessarily his biggest fan but everyone who has heard his music likes it and similarly likes the person himself. You can’t help it. It’s like Mozart or cake. You’ll never hear a person say, “that Stevie Wonder, I just don’t get his music.”

If Barack and Michelle bonded b/c they could agree on Stevie Wonder then that his no great feat. Now if they bonded over Eric Dolphy or something I would at least be impressed in a elitist sort of way. So they both agree on Stevie Wonder – well, join the club with every other human on the earth.

I have never seen the music scene as dead as it is now. Since about 2000 I’ve liked less and less new music. In 2008 it totaled less than 10 songs and I’m open to everything.

Some of this is generational. GenY is moving in culturally and GenX is dying out (culturally only – you’d have to read Strauss’ Generations book where this shift was predicted – it’s a repeating pattern) and the demographic spotlight as usual gets younger and younger. Remember Debbie Gibson – she was Miley Cyrus during the last Republican presidency except a little older and with better songs.

When Clinton came in it was like a explosion – music changed forever and it was so exciting. Even film was good – Pulp Fiction to The Matrix, an incredible run of artistic but marketable culture. From Nirvana and ending with the White Stripes debut album in 1999, the Clinton era (coincidental or not) was great. Regardless of your politics (which is mostly genetically predisposed anyway), culturally the 80’s and the 2000’s can’t compare to the 90’s. There are still neo-Grunge bands making listenable music today and the last great album was probably American Idiot done by GenXers.

“Indie” it seems was just a hipster marketing term and indicated nothing more than the high probability of a xylophone solo and pull-forward hairdo. If you call yourself “Indie”, you aren’t. Sorry GenY but you don’t get your define yourself – that’s not how it works. Grunge was a derogatory term. If you get called a slacker, your actually industrious and if you think your generation is the best one that has ever existed then you will actually create nothing of value. Hipsterism takes image to the extreme. It wallows in the facade and eschews the substance with glee. It doesn’t sound like music but it has all of the correct gimmicks in place. It almost seems real – like cultural nutrasweet, a cancerous chemical.

Myspace was created by GenX and is filled with vacuous pics of people with bad hair who use the site and believe by using it they themselves invented it – by simply uploading their pics. Why can’t this generation take a simple picture of themselves without crossing their eyes, sticking our their tongue and/or pursing thier lips ? It’s enraging for some reason but on some level it’s just sad to be so empty and non-unique that you must take every opportunity to stand out in the most obnoxious way.

With the political wind shifting I was really hopeful that by now some new wave would be forming but it actually seems deader than before. Maybe that’s a good thing. I think I’ve been enraged at culture for last 8 years or so whereas now I simply don’t care. It’s more like a void now – or maybe it’s just mirroring the economy.

Maybe we’re entering the age of the one man (person) band. I can dream…and do my own Something/Anything – why not?

The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.” And we kill those people. – Bill Hicks

Or they simply just die too soon.

I’m sadder than I thought I would be:

Blossom Dearie, the jazz pixie with a little-girl voice and pageboy haircut who was a fixture in New York and London nightclubs for decades, died on Saturday at her apartment in Greenwich Village. She was 84.

Enjoy Long Daddy Green

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If I see these words, I know that I will not get along with this person. What true artist had Pro Gear? Did Kurt Cobain have Pro Gear? If you haven’t previously made it in the music industry, then the size of your home studio is inversely proportional to your talent. Just my experience. Looks like I’m not alone:

Stuckup Musicians In Here!!!!! (VisionsofGrandeurville)

I’m so tired of these “Pro drummers” and “Pro Vocalist” and “Pro Guitarist” that are availlable “only for touring, high paying gigs and studio work”Question: If you are such a pro at your craft, why are you not in high demand? Why must you post your nonsensical advertisements on craigslist and further hinder others from finding an actual person that doesn’t have his head shoved so far up his ass, that he actually thinks he is a pro! Get over yourselves, because lets face it the reason you are on craigslist is because you want to make it just as abad as everyone else on here. So I think alot of you guys need to come to some self realization and examine just how “pro” you are. Thanks for your time.

Look at this beautiful photo with a good poser:

“The analog hole is a fundamental and inevitable vulnerability in copy prevention schemes for noninteractive works in digital formats which can be exploited to duplicate copy-protected works that are ultimately reproduced using analog means. Once digital information is converted to a human-perceptible (analog) form – as it must be, given the analog nature of our human senses – it is a relatively simple matter to digitally recapture that analog reproduction in an unrestricted form, thereby circumventing the restrictions placed on copyrighted digitally-distributed work.”

The following is a list titles recorded from my collection of 78 rpm records. All of them are linked to MP3 files and will play what was recorded. No sound enhancement, just what was recorded. Right now, there are 3,739 titles on this page linked to mp3’s.

One Man’s Quest to Digitize and Publicize Rare Records