It’s just a long, long argument that goes on, and will go on until the dawn of time.
This argument will go on because music is down to what one likes…what one gets. Basically, some music is great because you get it, some music is great because you’re brain-washed and some music is great because you think by being technically brilliant makes it good music.
The problem lies in the latter.
The pomposity of Technically Brilliant (TB) musicians, and also fans of TB music, is quite incredible. The way that they look down on anything with nothing less than 993 chords in a song is…again, quite incredible.
THESE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT DON’T GET MUSIC !
They, unfortunately, can’t see past their TB noses.
This goes back a long way.
All those slick blues runs, the million-dollar rifts. That flaky virtuosity, the fastest-guitar-alive shit. Don’t they know that rock wasn’t/isn’t about becoming a fret-board Paganini, about how many notes you can cram in? Or how many times you can hit the drums in a second?
Modernism has been all about un-learning. Forget the jiggery-pokery, the bag of tricks and the clever-lad devices. How could you ever think the sacred cow of rock could be cornswaddled with arpeggios?
The whole point – fools! – was to regain the purity of the original vision…a flaming black pig screaming down the streets of the mind.
How could you stray so far from the true path as to think that tumescent zoom could be caught in overdub upon overdub? Hadn’t Little Richard, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Reading, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran…the real guys, the Progenitors…recorded whole albums, mixed and everything in three hours?
Now groups are taking a year and a half to make an album! There are 1000 track studios. Dear bleeding Jesus, how could they ever expect to harness the mad bull of teen paroxysm in those airless labyrinths? Hundreds of thousands of dollars mixing, sweetening, perfecting that which should not be perfect. Madness! Delusion! Tricked by the smoothing, sweetening devils.
If Punks glommed on to one person as the target of their scorn it was Sir Mick. He was symbolic of all that had turned sour. The love-hate thing with Jagger took on mythical dimensions.
Why Sir Mick? Surely Paul McCartney would have been a more appropriate culprit for the pillory. But McCartney wasn’t a useful mark…he was beneath contempt. Too wet and schmaltzy to be a worthy target for Punk wrath. The bogeyman was Mick Jagger.
But was he…?
The real culprits are the metal bands…metal thrash bands…Eddie Van Halen……fuck me, Eddie Van fucking Halen…what a load of bollocks!
Yes he can play the guitar very fast, but what he’s actually doing…isn’t music. He doesn’t CARE about music. All he cares about is ‘playing guitar really, really fast’. The song will be shit, the tune will be shit, and some poncy looking hairdresser will be giving his all in the most contrived way. Listen people, it’s all contrived, it’s all shit.
I guess we’re back to the whole, ‘Let’s put as many notes as we can into the next five seconds as humanly possible. Then let’s act really theatrical, so that folks listening might think we’re actually talented…you know, so they can’t see how really contrived we really are. Then let’s wank ourselves silly while we self indulge during a break after the 17th guitar solo and 29th drum solo…’
Well, I guess what I’m trying to say, is don’t bother trying to explain to these TB fools, metal fools, kidders of rock fools…because they’ll never understand. They are delusional and clueless. Who cares if it’s got a soft bit in the middle of a song after 9 minutes?
If you get it, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you don’t get this and think I’m talking shit…then you won’t EVER get it. And the most annoying thing, is that you think you do get it.
To you, the people that get it…you know who you are. Keep on looking for a bit of ‘realness’, not someone pretending to be….and to you who don’t get it, pay heed to the before sentence…it’d be a start on your way to recovery. And if you don’t take any notice of the truth, then get used to being:
Clueless, delusional, soul-less, pompous, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…………….
by Wallace McTavish
