MISSING OLD MUSIC

I can't believe it's been that long since I posted here or at Digital Views! This being sick stuff sucks! Finally feeling good enough to do a few things. It seemed like every time I felt that way while sick it just made me sick all over again. Yesterday (1-5-13) was the first time I'd actually left the house (other than to go to Stat Care) since Christmas! It felt good to get some fresh air cold though it was.

I went to see JACK REACHER. If you haven't seen it then by all means go. It was a treat. Plenty of action and Tom Cruise may have a new franchise on his hands to work on between MISSION IMPOSSIBLE features. Two interesting items about the movie. The first is that the bad guy in the film, the Russian, is played by Werner Herzog. Most of you won't know him but he's a film director that made some highly popular foreign films in the 80s like FITZCARALLDO and I think he even did NOSFERATU, both with Klaus Kinski. The other is a cameo in the film. When Reacher is being released from jail the desk sergeant is Lee Child, the author of the Reacher books. Just some tidbits there.

While I was getting ready to go out yesterday I turned on GUITAR CENTER SESSIONS with Joe Walsh as their guest. It was great to see Walsh cleaned up and legible after the many years he spent wasted or drunk and he even talked about that. One thing he discussed that I hadn't thought about out loud but realized I'd been thinking about for some time was the effects of digital involvement in music. He said that it had destroyed record stores, destroyed radio and was harming music. As he described it music was layered one piece on top of another with no musicians ever having to even see one another when making a song, no interaction between them. He also said that in recording this way they could go back and take out any imperfections making it perfect in every way and in so doing you lost the spontaneity of recording live. In his words you lost some of those mistakes which led to some of the greatest things in music.

As I listened to him I thought he hit the nail on the head. I started thinking about the music kids listen to today and while good I realized that I didn't find a lot of lasting things there. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there will be tunes there that they will find themselves singing 20-30 years down the road. I just feel like performers like Rhianna and Katy Perry and Justin Bieber are turning out music that is toss away stuff. While it may top the charts now I don't see people listening to this music down the road. It's become a consumable product that gets eaten and spit out with speed.

That made me think of the music I listened to long ago. I still listen to it now and some kids are even discovering how great some of it was. And those bands that I used to listen to were getting their inspiration from the musicians that came before them. Some of the new bands/performers do the same but they only go back to the past 3 years for inspiration. Groups like The Yardbirds, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who all went back years before that to the original blues musicians from the deep south. The majority of the bands from the 60s and 70s had this as their influence and then they influenced each other. Only disco was different (and I love disco too so no I'm not bashing it). 

This in turn made me go back and pull out some music that I hadn't listened to in some time. Black Oak Arkansas, Foghat, 30 Special and more rock out and are still great to listen to. The thing about these bands was the simplicity of instrumentation they used yet the sound they got from those few instruments. Think about the number of musicians on a stage with these new performers not to mention the dancers they have with them. It's like an army these days. When the bands we listened to were performing you had maybe 2 guitarists, a bass player, a drummer, a singer and once in a while a keyboard player. That's 6 people tops. And the sound they got was phenomenal. I went back and listened to Mountain, granted not my most favorite band, but the song "Mississippi Queen" still kicks butt. And that was maybe just 4 members playing! 

I know some will say that this sort of rock music is still out there but I don't see it getting the attention that this other stuff does. And these days it seems people are more focused on what they do when off stage than when they are on stage. I think it's time bands made a come back. I know a few are like The Black Keys, but how about some more? Anyone else think this way? I hope so. Feel free to leave comments.