Your Music Really Does Suck

Disclaimer:  these are my opinions. You’re welcome to enjoy any kind of music you like. This is just my reaction to contemporary artists, based upon my musical background, experience and tastes.

So, as the WHO asks,”Who…...are you?” 

Short answer, I’m a 64 yr. old musician who’s been playing, performing and recording since I was 16. My first instrument was clarinet, during which instruction I learned the basics of reading and writing music. From there, I learned guitar, sax and keyboards. I can keep a solid drum beat. I’ve written and recorded between 50-60 songs and performed in clubs and concerts regularly till 1990, when I got more involved in studio work and just having more free time on weekends.  I enjoy playing and listening to a wide variety of genres, from 40s swing classics to alternative rock, blues, and jazz. I’m not really into classical music (Bach, Chopin) although I can appreciate it. I’m not into hip-hop because it’s not “musical” enough for me. The closest I’d come to spoken verse would be Arlo Guthrie or Tom Waits. I think they’re better lyricists.

So, what do I enjoy listening to?

Here's a few of the artists and groups for which I have huge respect and affection. In no particular order:  Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Chet Atkins, Michael McDonald, the Doobies, Steely Dan, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rippingtons, Fourplay, Sting, The Manhattan Transfer, David Sanborn, John Hiatt.  Remember, I said a few. My music reference and listening library is huge. I have two different satellite radio stations, in addition to myriad online stations, plus iTunes, so I’m probably exposed to more music than a lot of people, both in terms of volume and variety. We also have satellite TV, so there’s another wealth of music. We watch a fair amount of concert and performance video, mostly because except for the Food Network, a lot of the rest of the programming is shit. And during our (thus far) 47 years together (44 married), my wife and I have probably attended more top-name live concerts than most folks. I won’t bother listing them all.

I like music that I think displays a certain level of effort and dedication, as though the artist worked hard on it as opposed to just whipping something out in 15 minutes. Some songs do happen that way, I realize that, but most of what are considered landmark (rock) songs - such as “A Day in the Life” (Beatles), “Time” (Pink Floyd), “What a Fool Believes” (McDonald), “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (B.O.C.) - involve creative rhythm patterns, interesting chord sequences, actual melodies and vocal harmonies, not to mention other advanced musical devices. I like music that displays variety and good lyrics are a plus, but I listen to an equal amount of instrumental stuff.

Loud? Hey, my generation fucking invented loud. I saw Hendrix live, twice. But he wasn’t just loud, he was talented. He played riffs I didn’t understand, and on an upside-down guitar, meaning it was a standard Fender Strat, but flipped the other direction. That’s technically insane, but definitely talented.

Weird? I grew up with Frank Zappa. Now THAT was some cutting-edge weird, and that dude could shred a guitar, plus write scores for an entire orchestra.

A contemporary rock group like Theory of a Deadman plays music that's loud AND angry, but it also displays a good degree of creativity and skill.

What do I think “sucks?”

OK, look. Don’t take offense here if I trash something you like - it just doesn’t sound good to my ears. Henry Rollins said,”There is no possible way these sonic sadists sat and listened to the final mix, looked at each and smiled, knowing they had just created something to the world's benefit.” That’s the way I react when I hear a lot of the newer stuff being showcased today. The other day, we were watching “Later...with Jools Holland” and if you don’t know who Jools is, this musician/celebrity has been hosting music performers since 1992, from Johnny Cash to Elvis Costello, from ZZ Top to Metallica, and hundreds of new progressive acts.

Anyway, on this particular episode, he showcased no less than three groups in a row whose songs contained no more than one or two chords, whose melody lines (if you could call them that) were a limited range of notes, and whose instruments weren’t always in tune.

Now, the very first thing I would require in a musician - whether listening to them or working with them - is that they could count to four and tune their guitar. Yeah, a guitar can quickly get out of tune if you’re really bending the strings or laying on the tailpiece, but I’m talking about from the start of the song. If your instrument is out of tune, it’s either because you’re incompetent or you did it intentionally, which I think is a bit odd. I’d rather run my fingers across a blackboard.

But this kind of music is nothing new; I had been seeing it since the 80s on Saturday Night Live, which has always been a favorite show of ours, mostly for the comedy but occasionally for the music. SNL would frequently showcase a new, upcoming pop/rock group and I was left asking myself,”How the hell does anybody think these clowns are worth $5K, much less worthy of prime time media coverage?"

Yesterday, while channel surfing, we came across this segment about an apparently popular Minnesota band called Run Westy Run and once again, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing or seeing. These musicians talked like instead of rehearsing, they just got together and jammed, and it sure sounded that way. The music was loud, raw, out of tune and very simplistic, and the fans in the audience were fawning over them like they were listening to the Beatles at the Cavern Club.

That’s when I turned to my wife and said,”Y’know, there’s got to be a point where raw folk art meets simply fucking lazy and awful.”  I can teach any person with at least 3 fingers and a thumb to play some basic guitar chords and turn up a Marshall amp to 11, but I wouldn’t call that music. 

I’m definitely no art critic, but I do appreciate quality photography. I don’t see anything fantastic about the work of Andy Warhol, whatever kind of statement he was making. I don't get Picasso, but I can appreciate Dali.

I am an authority on poetry and the best poems are meant to suggest.  Verse like haiku, in its simplicity, should convey 1) a season, 2) an activity, and 3) an emotion.  By contrast, when you write something as arcane as T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, you’re writing for a very small and specific group, because everyone else has no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.

But back to music that “sucks.”  Now, I understand and appreciate really basic music like Delta blues, and American songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams, but the difference is, those people put some really intense emotion and thoughts into what they wrote. It wasn’t complicated, but it was legit.  I understand the significance in rock history of a group likeThe Clash, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy listening to (nor would I spend money on) out-of-tune instruments and singing. 

Just playing loud and angry isn’t any more artistic than flinging dog shit at a canvas to see what kinds of splatters you can make.

I don’t evaluate performers by awards or how much they gross from concerts or album sales.  By that measurement, Timberlake and Eminem are huge. I got no use for either one. Same goes for Usher, Beyonce, and a hundred other contemporary artists. Popular doesn’t equal good.

It’s got nothing and everything to do with being old, because I’ve just been exposed to and influenced by so many incredible artists. Before I could read and write, I was listening to my parent’s recordings of Glenn Miller and Sinatra. I recall hearing my first Elvis tune over a tiny transistor radio. Soon after I learned music came the Beatles, so my whole life, I’ve been riding this virtual tidal wave of incredible sounds. And unlike many of my peers who chose to define themselves as country bands or rock bands, I absorbed as much of it all as possible, so you can’t say my influences were limited. 

I spent years performing cover tunes, so I knew well how to pander to the public. The most popular and effective club songs were those that people were very familiar with, that had a solid dance beat. I knew how to cater to everything from bikers to grandparents. And the songs that seem to pass the test of time are those that display a good degree of artistry. 

I know good music when I hear it. 

You groove to whatever beat blows your dress up.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Too bad this title is already taken, I could write a parallel novel from my own life. Years ago, I read this when I was more into science fiction literature and I think it had a profound effect on me. Everyone can point to specific novels and movies that they feel moved or influenced them. This is one of them, along with the original b&w 1949 version of Orwell's 1984 with Edmund O'brien. Scared the shit out of me. I enjoyed all the classic monster movies, but 1984 really impressed upon me themes like Man's inhumanity to Man, political duplicity and betrayal.

I've written previously on this I feel like an Alien theme, and I probably will again. It's unnerving to be a person who was raised under some fairly specific life philosophies, to have taken all that to heart, and then to mature into a world that seems almost the antithesis to all that. I think most of us have accepted the notion that change is inevitable, in all things, in all ways. But I also believe that most of us - well, at least the friends for whom I wrote this - also subscribe to the notion that Life has to be built upon some kind of foundation of predictability. We wake up in the morning and expect that gravity is still working as it always has. The sun comes up, we turn on the spigot and water comes out instead of blood. The laws of math and physics remain constant. I could go on, but you get the idea. 

Unless you're a person that - as a child - experienced a very fragmented and traumatic home life, where at least emotionally things radically changed from day to day, even hour to hour... unless you were a war orphan or grew up in a band of gypsies, there was some degree of consistency and predictability.

I grew up in a fairly middle-class Protestant, American family unit. Mostly, dad worked and mom raised the kids, although there was always a good amount of love and nurturing in addition to just discipline.  Basically, and I think most importantly, there was structure as opposed to chaos. What this does is allow a young, impressionable mind to develop smoothly, to devote attention to absorbing all the wonderful aspects of Life without worrying about hunger or harm. Thus, just about every day was a wonderful adventure, no matter what I was doing, alone, with family, or friends. I feel that all aspects of my life - emotional, intellectual, spiritual, political, sexual, etc. - got off to a positive start, such that I was not only able to begin accepting my own self, but others around me. I saw that in general, people had more in common than that which set them apart, and as regards the differences, I could have some understanding and appreciation for the roots of that diversity. 

I didn't begin to experience real, significant antagonism until about high school. At that point, young people have really begun to establish a personality and like most teenagers, my classmates were clearly defined by things like socio-economic level, appearance, fashion, music and other various tribal similarities.

Social grouping became evident, as the pretty ones (both male and female) stood out like peacocks, the affluent ones looked down upon those from poorer or rural homes, the athletic ones staked-out their own social territories, on and on. 

For the first time, I wasn't sure of my place in the scheme of things, in the teenage social fabric. I wasn't an A student, I wasn't much of an athlete, I wasn't the most handsome. I was just sort of average, which was fine, but I recoiled from all the cliqueishness around me. It was all designed, so to speak, to make one feel inferior. Then came the day I discovered the guitar and I quickly found my niche group. I was a serious musician, devoting hours to practice and rehearsal, so performing any kind of music from any era was like falling off a log. And of course, I reaped all the benefits surrounding rock music and teen girls. Life was suddenly really, really good.

For a couple decades, Life was just one celebration, one adventure after another, following my heart, following the breeze. I found a wonderful life partner, I got married and things just seemed to continue on a steady course from city life to country life, back and forth, hither and yon. Life was an all-you-can-eat buffet, a smorgasbord in the broadest sense and we were loving it.

My life's journey has pretty much always been a pleasant, fun experience, and we've always been people to say yes to new experiences, new tastes, sounds, vistas. What seems to have changed over the years is a certain social-political attitude, and yes, I will admit to perhaps being more sensitive to it, but I contend that it has in fact changed, and not necessarily for the better. Well, it's gone in both directions to be honest. There have been improvements and advancements in American society. There is more mutual acceptance of differences in cultures, although that's what this country is supposed to be about, isn't it? There's more cross-cultural, cross-ethnic marriage. There's less visible racial discrimination (I'll get back to that shortly). Musical genres have become more diverse and cross-over. There are more shades of gray in the broadest sense.

Perhaps that's part of the problem, if not the process. While, as a society, we've become more diverse, the people who are less able to adapt to change have become more vociferous, more vitriolic, more set in their ways, more opposed to change. Their little worlds - and don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong per se with a simpler lifestyle - simply cannot adapt to concepts like same-sex couples. Then, there's that thing called religion, but central to it - as I was taught - was the concept of forgiveness, not to mention benevolence, which is perhaps the thing I notice more than anything else.

More than being just non-accepting (or in addition to it), a lot of people have adopted a very condescending attitude toward those of lower income or those who work other than suit-and-tie jobs, and I'm telling you it's exactly the same attitude I experienced back in high school. Worse, I believe that this attitude is identical in its immaturity, only more intense as it's been contorted and distorted over time; it's adults behaving like children, in terms of socio-economic-political thought. I contend that if a person is fully developed mentally, that they should be cognizant of being part of a larger picture. They certainly have to deal with that in terms of things like traffic laws. There has to be some sense of flow and going with it. Of course, we've all experienced drivers - and not necessarily younger ones - who seem to have forgotten much of their Driver's Ed. training.

Regarding discrimination, as laws are passed (which are a direct reflection of change in society), things become illegal (if you can prove your case), things become verboten, things become unacceptable in a mature, evolving society. What happens is, the hatred becomes sublimated and disguised. 

One place I worked for a while was really weird, in that they had this diversity policy that was like zero tolerance for racial slurs, sexual slurs, on and on. If you had a problem, you were expected to deal with it in a proper manner. That or just suck it up and not be abusive. Well, the upshot of all this was that people became afraid of losing their jobs if they said anything too offensive, and bear in mind, this particular area of the country was not what you'd call ripe with jobs, let alone well-paying jobs. So, what happened was that if you did something that unintentionally pissed-off a coworker, you'd get these if looks could kill glances, but they'd never actually SAY anything to you.

That…was creepy. I'm glad I found a better job.

This alien world I frequently find myself in just doesn't feel right. It's not scary in terms of change per se; I've probably had more change in my life than a lot of folks, and much of it has been by choice, not chance or fate. It's a world that seems more hostile, antagonistic, and afraid. And of course, change and misunderstanding breed fear. Fear! Security! Buy a gun! Stand your ground!

What the fuck is going on?

I've always said that if I was homeless and hungry, I'd knock on the door of a simple, less-affluent home before ever approaching anything more luxurious, assuming I could even get up the front walk before they dialed 9-1-1, or pointed a gun out the window.

Too many people - and people who have plenty to eat - have adopted what I call a lifeboat mentality where they're more than willing to toss anyone overboard who doesn't seem to be rowing as vigorously as them, or who seems  in ill health and unable to make a contribution. That's the really scary part.

I don't want to be guilty of condescension. Rather than look down upon these people from some point of moral superiority, I feel sorry for them. They seem so myopic. And yes, I am perfectly willing to admit that in their own way, they might see the world out their window as alien, but it is from the other end of the telescope…or kaleidoscope. I feel that the resistance to change and benevolence is alien; they feel the exact opposite. 

I push my canoe away from the shore, off on another adventure, and they just stay safely on dry land, waving with one hand,  clutching their backpack with the other, in which they keep their coin purse, gun, Bible and jerky.

For the most part, my immediate world, my microcosm is in good shape. It's a calm and happy place, but when I venture outside it, when I look through the window of media and the internet, I see some pretty sad and strange things. I'm like Spencer Tracy, the one-armed man in Bad Day at Black Rock, as he walks into the diner where Borgnine, Ryan and Marvin are waiting for him.

Balance

Balance

A favorite topic of mine and a good Facebook friend, and something that affects us all, whether or not we're aware of it. Everything that we sense, think and experience is in a constant state of flux. Nothing remains static for very long, and so the concept of balance is not simply how we manage to stand upright without falling over, but how - successfully or unsuccessfully - we maintain everything else in our lives, including (but not limited to) physical health, mental health, and a sense of mysticism or spirituality.

Many things exist as a continuum - a range or series between two different possibilities. Perhaps not everything fits nicely into a black-or-white, either-or model. There may not be an antithesis for every concept or philosophy, but for the most important and basic things in our lives, the example of a graph or scale works well enough. At one end we have zero, an absence, a vacancy, and at the other end a sense of absolute, or excess or infinity. For simplicity, think of this scale as just ranging from none/very little <--> all/too much.  

Let's apply human sight to the scale. On one end there is blindness. Darkness. And on the other end perhaps photophobia (acute sensitivity to light).  In the middle we would have 20/20 vision, which as you may know is not perfect but merely an average measurement.

Hearing.  One one end, there is deafness. Silence. And on the other, someone with incredible auditory ability, who notices very slight sounds and also those of very low or high pitch. 

Hot and cold. Pleasure and pain. You get the idea. Humans exist and thrive within fairly limited parameters; levels of oxygen, hydration and temperature. But given that - relative physical comfort, sufficient food and atmosphere - we find ourselves scattered on a variety of other scales that constantly affect our sanity and quality of life.

For the purposes of this discussion, I am focusing on one's mental state.  Some people are organized; their home or workspace is fairly clean and uncluttered. Tools - from wrenches to kitchen utensils - are grouped accordingly in some logical way. They can manage time and deadlines. They have no difficulty starting projects. They are usually on time for appointments or meetings, whether business related or social.

Some people are too organized - at least as compared to others. It's called OCD and they are slaves to ritual. Things much be perfectly in order. They check and re-check things constantly. They are preoccupied with symmetry and become upset when anything is out of order. 

And in the middle is a person with a fairly good sense of balance. They know how to find something in their home because it has a place. They're generally not running around in panic mode for any reason. They have learned/achieved a relative mastery of their immediate time and space. And when Life throws them a curve ball they neither fall apart at the seams or go into a freeze mode. They simply adapt to change as best they can and move forward.

Change is inevitable, and how we react to it makes all the difference.

Now, let's move on to one's emotional state, which is not only pivotal to dealing with change, but also affected by change. It would be fair to say that most - if not all - of us endeavor to maintain a state of happiness, or at the very least a state of mind that is not one of total chaos. 

People seek social happiness - relationships. They seek/find another person for a life partner; someone with whom to share life's moments, both good and bad. Obviously a lot of folks have trouble with that; with maintaining a level of peace or at least one of not arguing about something. Roughly, the divorce rate for people 20-25 is 60%. Some people do well living together and others not so much.

People seek object-related happiness - things. Objects. Cars, boats, toys, etc.  We are told this is a dead end; that true happiness is not found in things, but I don't think that's an absolute truth. For example, I enjoy creating music, therefore I like my guitar. I wouldn't say I love it, but I'm fond of it as a tool.  I have more than one of them but I don't have 50 or 100. That would be absurd, unless of course I considered myself a collector, but then, there's the issue of maintenance and storage. I like to paddle and explore, therefore I like my canoe. But otherwise, I'm really not that into things, per se. I'd rather be doing than hoarding, which is at the other end of the scale. For the hoarder, there is never enough stuff, or enough space in which to put it.

My biggest challenge is maintaining a mental balance regarding my reaction to a combination of evil-malice-duplicity-counterfeit. The dark side of Man. Unless we live in a cave without a smart phone, we're exposed to it daily, almost constantly. It would be possible to ignore a lot of it - don't watch, read or listen to any kind of current events and adopt an attitude of insouciance. It don't affect me personally.  But I cannot totally subscribe to that state of mind. I am not an island. One way or another, I am part of a larger society, like it or not. What happens to other people does affect my mood - injustice, discrimination, etc. 

On the other hand, I don't make a hobby out of the news. I've known a few people like that; they were almost glued to news channels of all media. I don't need to be that plugged-in to what's happening.

Some days, for me, there's an overwhelming tidal wave of stupidity. Some public figure will say something so ludicrous, so totally disconnected from reality that it literally makes my head spin. And rather than going in one ear and out the other, it lingers in my brain like a Mobius strip of insanity, and I try to make some kind of sense out of it, in terms of how does a person come to think-say-believe something that deranged?  And, of course, that's never successful or fruitful, but it has the ability to lock-up part of my thought process, such that I can't effectively deal with other considerations. It's like a wrench in the works.

Lots of folks find that taking a walk or getting some air is an effective antidote to moments like the above. That's fine when it's not freezing and blowing outside. We do live where winter gets real.

So, during the colder months of the year, I need to find other ways to maintain that mental and emotional balance. Just lately, I've decided that a combination of yoga and meditation - not at the same time - can provide the buffer, the disconnect, the path to the balance I seek. Physically, I need stretching to maintain flexibility, especially when I can't be outside doing activities like gardening, paddling, hiking, etc. Also, it's important even while I'm doing those things. But since mental tension can translate into muscle tension, yoga is essential. We already practice mutual therapeutic massage, so yoga is only a logical extension of that. At previous locations, we used to have both a sauna and hot tub. Presently, we have neither, but we do have almost free access to same.

And the meditation provides that more mental-emotional counteragent that helps me uncouple from the dark side and just hit my body's reset button.

It's not important to me to try to maintain a constant state of balance or nirvana. I don't think that's necessary or realistic. I'm not interested in maintaining a constant state of cool.

I just need an effective way to reboot, and the combo of yoga and meditation, combined with my marital relationship and my music, seems to be working pretty well.