Slapback Guitar Records

There are two types of art. The first, and I argue the most important, is art that is incredible during the time it is created and even more incredible as time goes by. The second type is art that while seemingly incredible and awe-inspiring during its heyday tends to leave people in the future a little vexed or at the very least embarrassed. Buster Keaton, Bach, Monet, and Jimi Hendrix and examples of the first type. They were popular during the time of their creation and will continue to be popular in the future. Everyone just “gets” them. Even if you don’t particularly like this or that style, you can still determine what makes it last. Vaudeville, Two Wild and Crazy Guys, innumerable other no name but very popular faddish entities and Bob Dylan I would put in the latter category.

I just don’t “get” Dylan in the same way I don’t get Two Wild and Crazy Guys. It’s just not entertaining and I vacillate between being embarrassed and bored. I remember laughing uncontrollably to Jim Carrie making his butt cheeks talk but to look at this now only brings embarrassing shudders. Buster Keaton can having you in stitches without ever changing his facial expression or making silly faces. This is the type of art where “you had to be there”. They are a product of the specific milieu in which they’re created. Dylan is the quintessence of this. I can understand the stream of consciousness poetry thing, the artistry of copying Woody Guthrie’s (who’s in the former category) style but not his substance, Dylan’s cool factor. I mean, he’s a cool guy, don’t get me wrong but did he create lasting art? I don’t think so.

I have tried over the years to “get” Dylan but I just can’t. His grating voice, barely capable guitar work – unfortunately his vocal slurrings and other silly mannerisms were copied by so many at the time. His songs are too obtuse to really mean anything. This has been admitted to by Dylan himself who has no idea what the songs means or how he wrote them. He basically got stoned which definitely doesn’t disqualify something as art, obviously, but being on drugs can create garbage as easily as it can Bob Marley. Jimi Hendrix wrote about being a Merman. That is art. Dylan wrote about nothing but everyone else just filled in the blanks regarding the meaning. The only time Dylan has ever entertained me was when he didn’t react during Soy Bomb. Maybe you just had to be there.

The Great Ennui

It’s not so much boredom as it is the nagging suspicion that you’re not doing enough but you’re at a complete loss as to what it is you could possibly be doing to further “it”. The amorphous it that is your life. What’s the point? Existential angst is passe. This is something less grand than that. It’s mostly an understated desperation and dissatisfaction.

Everything is dead. When Sonny Boner of U2 says that rock is dead b/c his album isn’t selling then you can be sure that it is the gospel. Wasn’t it Jim Morrison who wrote an unreleased Door’s song called “Rock is Dead” in the late 1960s? Rock music peaked in the mid 1970s and had a small resurgence during 1991-1995.  That’s it folks. The machine called capitalism that promotes and drives cultural trends like art movements has figured out that it doesn’t pay to fund anything less than a sure thing and a sure thing is a teenager b/c they’ll buy anything.  What will get promoted from now on will be only that which can make a profit (not necessarily a bad thing), no make that an instant and guaranteed profit.  I’m not bemoaning this, just reporting the facts as I see them.

Besides, artists don’t need them any longer b/c the technology to record an album just got cheap and easy enough where I can do it and that surely means anyone can do it if they can at least learn a song or two and even if they can’t. Noise will suffice as long as your peers can identify with your whining.  Electric ukulele, xylophone solo – even better if you’re scantily clad.  Just play some old recording and lip sync.  No one will know the difference nor would they care if they did. Also remember to have your face be the only thing in the frame, use a laptop camera. What was once elitism is now simply a cynical disappreciation of the state of things or am I being redundant?

Double Bass

It’s a catch-22.  If you’re a double bassist then you don’t have time to waste on someone who wants to pursue a non-lucrative career as a composer and occasional performer.  You’ve got to live. I’ll put it out there though.  There are others like me. I found myself late and the self I found isn’t even a 100% musician.  More like 60%.  The other 40% of the time I’m burned out and I watch films (and some movies also). I’m simply spent creatively. During the colder months I feel like I’m burning and “It gives a lovely light!” except that I’m not a poet, nor a bisexual woman. Yet, this is the way it is.

I’m in between a novice and professional. I’m not gifted but I’m far above average.  Stuck in between greatness and mediocrity.  Are there others out there? If so, do they like Lars von Trier and Bill Evans?

Interesting and sad story for today.  This is why I’m against animal entrapment (zoos primarily).  Other than the dog and cat which evolved symbiotically with humans, all other animals deserve to be free.  Like that chimp that attacked last month, animals in captivity are not happy as any caged human wouldn’t be either. It’s simply torture and abuse but we all need our amusement, don’t we?

There’s a lot of BS intellectualizing about why the dorsal fin of dolphins and killer whales collapses in captivity but I believe the answer is much simpler:

It is due to stress and mental knowledge of being captive. They show the same behaviour when they are locked in a lagoon or cove and can not get out to the open ocean.
Source(s):
Life in Alaska

I always thought it was because of injury at some point. But I s’pose it could be just cos it’s unhappy!

“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.

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: