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"Up and Coming like an elevator...later": Rock & Roll's Future is now
"I saw rock and roll future and it's name is..."
Ah, famous words from a famous man, John Landau. Who was he talking about? None other than Bruce Springsteen. Landau used those words the first time he saw Bruce play live. That was a different time. Rock and Roll, having recently emerged from it's nacent phase, was, by all accounts, beginning to calcify. Bruce, and Tom [Petty] for that matter, were R&R's future whether they knew it or not. The future was still bright then.
Today? The future isn't so bright...and we've certainly stopped wearing shades. The music industry is in a state of confusion. The role of the big record labels is up for grabs, the fucked up concert/touring scene and the true effectiveness that long tail has on the industry...all of these factors are having impact on the fragile infrastructure. Who is losing here? Big labels and touring conglomerates. Who is winning here? The fans...free music and bargain basement convert ticket prices are becoming the norm. Who is still not sure if they are winning or losing? The artists.
The balance of power has shifted to the artists. The rise of the DIY artists is at it's peak. Anyone can make music, connect through social media and use online distribution tools to sell their stuff. Yes, the power has shifted to the artists...but is that a good thing? Power comes at a cost. While this was, well, empowering at first, it just isn't easy to do it all. Still though, in spite of all of the industry confusion, power-shifts and pounds of flesh...new artists are still having a go at it.
The other night I saw Leon Russell play a gig a the Jazz Cafe in London, England. Leon is no newbie. No sir, he has paid his dues and played his ass for many a year. He's part of Rock and Roll's past. The opener for Leon that night was a young English kid by the name of Ed Sheeran. I am certainly not going to go so far as to make a Landauian statement about Ed Sheeran, but I will say that young guys like Ed are small part of what Rock and Roll's future needs to be about.
He sang this one the other night. He left home and moved from Surrey to London on his own. He wrote this on his first night in London...
Ed came on the stage solo with just his guitar and foot pedal loop gizmo. He had presence. He was comfortable in his skin and was extremely affable and gracious. He rattled off six or seven songs, each one his own work. He told stories in between each song about the songs or his experiences when he wrote them. He told of one he wrote when he was in L.A. he made mention of the fact that he could not drink due to his age while in the States. "Oh shit", I thought...this guy is quite young. Actually, Ed is still a teenager...19 years old.
Ed is young, but he doesn't sing and play like a kid. What he lacks in total experience he makes up for with exuberance. He is a product of DIY band culture. He creates loops on stage and plays to them to create a much more full sound for his songs to settle in to. Ed says that at an early age [!?] that he was "deeply effected by everything". Well, I guess we all are, aren't we? At only 19, Ed still has many experiences out in front of him to write stories about. It was refreshing to see someone 'going for it' and not getting caught up in it. He seemed grounded and took all the hype around him with tongue firmly planted in cheek. In one of his songs, he shrugs off the hype with a bit of indifference, "They say I'm up and coming like an elevator...later". Ed's future is bright.
There are lots of Ed's out there. Always have been. We can only hope that with all of the bullshit that prevents Ed's from enduring the already tough road of living out a rock and roll fantasy, that they still keep trying. Rock and Roll was never really about the future anyhow. It is and was about impulse, passion and self-expression. Those are the characteristics of now not later. As any Ed can tell you, you can dream big, but the future is now.
Check out a couple more vids from Ed:
A very cool program that shows Ed performing in London's St. Pancras Station
Ed sang this one as well.
Fitness Clubs and Flesh Pimps: they have more in common that you think...
I go to the gym every morning. I always use my iPod to listen to music. Why? Well, I am always listening to my tunes, but there is another reason: I need to drown out the shit-storm of sounds that blurts out of the gym's sound system.
Wow. It is just repulsive. Mostly it is "B", "C" and some "Z" level pop-star videos that throbs from the speakers. This is the shit that never makes it to the airwaves or gets its heaviest rotation on a lonely MySpace page. LA Fitness has decided that these no-talent, pop-hack wannabes are the perfect soundtrack to my trying to give it my all in the gym. I'd rather sweat to the oldies.
The cruelest punishment is when you hit the cardio equipment. No iPod can save your eyes from spontaneously combusting in their sockets when you have to stare headlong into the idiot screens filled with idiots gyrating and dry-humping each other for three minutes and forty-five seconds. These videos are the last desperate attempt to get noticed. Nine out of ten are filled with failed porn stars and anxious call girls. It is a shame that this shit is meant to pass for sexy. Seriously...I think I would rather watch scrambled porn in a fleabag motel room than watch these supposed sex goddesses.
To be very honest...I feel bad for the chicks in these videos. This is all they can muster: wear as little as possible and sell your sex parts for cents on the dollar. Adult-like Comment Alert: no wonder pre-teen and teenage girls have bad self images. They think this is their goal. Pitty the poor little fat girl! She really must hate herself.
And it is not just the bit part back-up dancers. Have you seen that "She-Wolf" video from Shakira? Do you think she finished that and said, "Yes, another artistic statement for women everywhere to look up to"...or even better..."Yes, I am proud of that"...or what I would say if I was her..."I look like an idiot. I am firing all of my Managers, PR people, Handlers and Chief Ass-Kissers.
She is not the worst of it.
The Pussycat Dolls: Oh. Fuck. Me. They remind me of the one girl in junior high school that was putting out way before the other girls even considered the thought of some punk jamming his tongue down their throat. Everyone knew she would put out and they wanted to get with her. EVERYONE. But, as time went on, she turned from one man's treasure to EVERYONE's trash. That is the Pussycat Dolls: Has-been High School Jezebels....used tires.
OK...and I didn't even touch on the music. Personally, I don't like it...but that doesn't mean someone else doesn't. I like Ledbelly and Bluegrass; that doesn't mean someone else does. But in this day and marketing age, the video is supposed to sell the song. If we didn't know it already, the music industry is in a lot of trouble.
But, hey, sex sells...and pop music is the world's oldest profession...
