Get off my lawn!

[justin3am]

I try to consider the means and the result independently. I can enjoy a performance or recording by someone who is not familiar with their instrument... I can also appreciate skill and technique, even if I don't enjoy the way they are expressed.
There are so many facets to even the simplest music. I think it's easier to enjoy music in general if you value each aspect on it's own. I know I can't always do that, but it's what I aim for.

I can also acknowledge that my approach to music appreciation doesn't jive with everyone. Some value technique and skill above all else, others appreciate production or sound design over musicianship, some people prefer the sound of a beginner discovering their voice. I think these are all valid ways to enjoy music.

[herodotus]

As you're quoting me I assume you're asking those questions in response to that statement, so I'm a little confused as I neither called anyone an idiot or said that they're full of shit

I know. It seemed to me that you were implying it, though.

Nope, not at all.

I actually said I don't attach importance to whether they can play or not i.e. both cases are valid as far as being a musician is concerned. Prompted by hearing the oft quoted "at least they can play their instruments"

I'm sorry. To me, 'I just don't attach any value to the perceived ability to play an instrument or not' sounds like a dismissal of those who learn to play their instruments well. Just as 'I just don't attach any value to the perceived ability to do math problems or not' sounds like a dismissal of the importance of math education. If you were merely stating a 'live and let live' sort of position, then I misapprehended you.

I was and you did.

[tapper mike]

My bad.

[herodotus]

I try to consider the means and the result independently.

I don't. I know that cool people don't care about intentions, but I do.

I can enjoy a performance or recording by someone who is not familiar with their instrument...

If it is interesting, I won't even notice.

If it isn't, no amount of tolerance will help.

I can also appreciate skill and technique, even if I don't enjoy the way they are expressed.

Many people can't, though. They might pretend to be open minded, but their open-mindedness always stops short of embracing their 'other'

There are so many facets to even the simplest music. I think it's easier to enjoy music in general if you value each aspect on it's own. I know I can't always do that, but it's what I aim for.

I used to try to be this way. But after 40 plus years of seeing geniuses like Milton Babbitt dismissed by journalists whose ignorant opinions have more influence than Stravinsky, Bartok, Webern, and Schoenberg combined, I gave up on it.

The open-mindedness of innocent people will always be drowned out by the plausible ignorance of articulate cultural demagogues.

My job, as I see it, is to do every little thing I can to strip these failed short story writers of their totally undeserved musical influence.

[herodotus]

I've seen guys walk onstage with toolboxes and the front end of a car covered in mics and just beat the hell out of it while one guy screws around with an old analog synth and another plays a guitar through 3 different distortion/fuzz boxes. I talked to the synth guy after and he said they knew each other but had never rehearsed ever and that the guitarist was the only one who ever learned 'how to play' an instrument. f**king awesome gig though, and it didn't in any way suffer from any of them not having learned to play their instruments.

You were lucky, then.

It's far more common, in my experience, for a bunch of pretentious dickwads who couldn't play their way out of a paper bag to receive accolades for stumbling around on stage in a drunken stupor, because they were, like, famous and stuff. Plus they were skinny as hell because they were crack addicts, which some people think is sexy.


Seriously, I long for the experience of being blown away by the innocently brilliant musical imaginations of untutored amateurs. I have been longing for it for years. Without any gratification at all.

[thecontrolcentre]

It's far more common, in my experience, for a bunch of pretentious dickwads who couldn't play their way out of a paper bag to receive accolades for stumbling around on stage in a drunken stupor, because they were, like, famous and stuff. Plus they were skinny as hell because they were crack addicts, which some people think is sexy.

You're going to the wrong gigs man ...

[herodotus]

It's far more common, in my experience, for a bunch of pretentious dickwads who couldn't play their way out of a paper bag to receive accolades for stumbling around on stage in a drunken stupor, because they were, like, famous and stuff. Plus they were skinny as hell because they were crack addicts, which some people think is sexy.

You're going to the wrong gigs man ...

No doubt.

But at one point in my life, I just went out all of the time, going to major venues on a weekly basis, taking what I could get when I could get it. I was frightened by just how little there was to see that was worth seeing. And the strangest part was that the best gigs that I saw, with a handful of exceptions, were all on new band night. And of all of the bands who played these wonderful shows, not one of them has become famous.

I admit that I am cynical. But this isn't because I haven't tried to believe. It's because I did try.

I have seen some great shows, mind. But they are all the more memorable because they have been so rare.

[thecontrolcentre]

I just went out all of the time, going to major venues on a weekly basis, taking what I could get when I could get it.

There's the problem right there ... the best stuff (imho) tends to happens in smaller venues. The kind of clubs where your feet stick to the floor a bit.

[ntom]

I just went out all of the time, going to major venues on a weekly basis, taking what I could get when I could get it.

There's the problem right there ... the best stuff (imho) tends to happens in smaller venues. The kind of clubs where your feet stick to the floor a bit.

Well it is true.
In Austin you have a hundred tiny venues, you're bound to find some sort of talent in a large pile of shit.
I didn't go to a lot of shows - they were my kind of thing - but when I was younger I went and saw Nightwish at the Palladium Ballroom in Dallas. The Palladium is just a bar where when you move all the tables and chairs you wind up with a large open area...the area they set up the stage. There was no seating, the entire bar was the "mosh pit".
Anyways, they opened with a couple of decent bands, I don't remember the name of one but from what I remember my brother telling me was that they actually made it pretty far shortly after that concert.

[robogone]

I think you're definitely going to see the more experimental and one off shows in smaller venues. Larger venues tend to play it safe so the vast majority of what you see there is going to be the well-rehearsed (or lip synched) type act as opposed to the fly by the seat of your pants type event.

I've seen awesome acts in seedy nightclubs, coffee shops, community centers, etc. Major venues probably have the narrowest range of music of all venues so definitely good to go to a range of sized venues to really get the whole experience.

[tapper mike]

But at one point in my life, I just went out all of the time, going to major venues on a weekly basis, taking what I could get when I could get it. I was frightened by just how little there was to see that was worth seeing. And the strangest part was that the best gigs that I saw, with a handful of exceptions, were all on new band night. And of all of the bands who played these wonderful shows, not one of them has become famous.

I admit that I am cynical. But this isn't because I haven't tried to believe. It's because I did try.

I have seen some great shows, mind. But they are all the more memorable because they have been so rare.

Back in the 70's I'd gotten into this "Disco Fusion" band It was like Chic Corea meets Donna Summer with a little Rush mixed in for good measure. We practiced our arses off. 6 nights a week 5 hours a nite. Our band leader was this keyboard player egomanicac virtuoso. We'd play one song all five hours a night straight till we got it down. My fingers bled we didn't go out live for our first 9 months. We all wanted to be in top form from our first night onward. We actually got radio play...well 3 am on a sunday after the talk show but radio play nontheless.

So we finally get some gigs. We are doing all our own stuff. We were great but we couldn't get call backs in anywhere because we weren't playing covers and the places that would accept originals bands were these jazz haunts that hated our stuff. We were lucky to get one gig a month. Meanwhile I'd been co-opted into a rock cover band that was getting weekend gigs left and right. Yeah I sold my soul for rock and roll.

So bands come and go I try to make it big, fail miserably and start playing for a house blues band on open mic night. I see all the could be would be and never will be's. I always give them a fair shake on my stage even if the audience doesn't. On occasion I too see the youthful and talented but they are few and far between. I too see the bands just coming together who have had experience but not with each other. And I see the talented individuals with a few years of playing under their belt.

These days I don't go out talent scouting. I'm not impressed with performance art that shows neither performance ability nor art and tries to pass itself off as music. There is this local "city club" that I know many young people go to. They hate the music and still go. Why? for the freak show and illegal substances.

[vurt]

Why? for the freak show and illegal substances.

all the best freaks are here...


or as bruce hornsby once sang "did you really think about that before you said it?"
not that i believe thats the way it is...

[tapper mike]

When they tell me that's why they go I believe them. Perhaps I was lied to.

[vurt]

i dont care what you beleive, im just sick of the dismissal of this nature.

imagine if id said, theres a jazz club in town, but no one really likes all that widdly shit, they only go for the doobies and pizza...

there would be an outcry of immense proportions from certain people around here and rightfully so.

[tapper mike]

There proly are and I'm not offended by the statement. I used to play in a jazz band where the leader sucked. It was standing room only everytime he played because it was the only place to hear live jazz on the island. He'd been entertaining for 40 years and wasn't getting any better. He was a regular Steve Allen. At first I was in it simply to play jazz live. But his performance brought down the band not lift it up. For the most part I was in it for the money. Eventually integrity got the better of me and I left the band.

As well my favorite band of all time were terrible in college. Not only by thier own volition but by others who had heard them way back when. For them they preferred to work out thier chops live on stage rather then rehersal. They were pre punk. They knew they sucked live back then and named themselves Bad Jazz.

So yes music can be good bad or terrible in any genre.