Budget rack
Let me relate an incident that I think illuminates a problem with modern musical performers. Back in September I saw a concert at the WOW Hall headlined by locals The Rock n’ Roll Soldiers. It was a great show, and I was especially impressed by the band’s attitude toward its audience. The band was playful and seemed to genuinely enjoy performing for people. No ego, no pretense, just good old-fashioned rock n’ roll the way it is meant to be.
This remained true the next time I saw the Soldiers, which was at a rather disastrous show in October where the set crumbled into chaos. The band held out as long as it could, especially lead singer Marty Larson-Xu, who ranted and yelped like the bastard son of Mick Jagger, essentially expressing the fact that he was the coolest S.O.B. in his zip code. Eventually everything sort of fell apart. Near the end they were inviting up audience members to take over the instruments.
The Soldiers are just part of a grand tradition in this part of the country. There seems to be an inclination in the Pacific Northwest for the low-down-and-dirty as far as rock is concerned, from the whole garage rock trend in the ’60s to the grunge rock farce of the early ’90s. From the wailing and distortion of the Sonics right up through the powerhouse riffs of Mudhoney, it all boils down to the same noisy, loud, abrasive sound. It makes for great rock just like great rock was meant to be made. And one of its key benefits is a complete lack of artistic pretense.
Pretension is not something that fits in well with rock ‘n’ roll, especially when performed live. And yet, I see it day after day in almost every performer I read about, from the indie rockers to the big-name stars. They want to be taken seriously so much you can almost feel them strain for it, yet they never seem to take into account the fact that they are playing an incredibly simple form of music.
It seems rock has been overcome by a constant stream of boring hacks who play the same rote nonsense over and over, holding their guitars as if they were the world’s loudest phallic symbols and playing chords eighth graders could learn after an hour of lessons. Am I expected to take this seriously?
This is not why I listen to rock music, or any music for that matter. I am not interested in the god complex these mega-stars always seem to develop. They perform as if they must be worshiped by their fans, like they can move the world by pure force of will, when in fact they would be laughed off the stage if they tried to play anything more complex than “Wild Thing.”
I am also not interested in the latest breakthrough in rock form committed by a small indie band. An artistic breakthrough in rock is like an artistic breakthrough in Lego construction. Combining two forms that have never been combined before does not make you a musical visionary, it makes you a chemist.
So why do I listen to rock? I guess I see it as a sort of modern folk music, but not in the highfalutin’ coffee shop singer form of folk. I mean the kind of music people played before radio, recording technology or any multinational form of “music industry” came about. Simple, to the point and often highly creative. Taking the confines of a simple form and doing something really gnarly with it.
So I listen without feeling any need to take part in this cult of celebrity that some musicians seem to develop. I also don’t feel that there is any artistic relevance in whether music is made by someone in a basement or made by someone with a million-dollar recording contract. I just dig the tunes, man, not the hype. And that’s about as simple as it gets.
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