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| Excellent Mediocrity This is part II of the post I made below titled "Blue Collar Virtuoso". Really, it's what I meant to write in that post but I kind of got off-course. August 22nd, 2006 -- I was reading something the other day talking about how our culture loves mediocrity and can't stand excellence. Excellence is classist, it's snobby, it's not "keepin' it real". We all suffer from this ridiculous misperception. If someone does something excellent, we often assume it's because they're silver spoon kids whose parents were rich and they've been able to go to the best schools where they learned from expensive teachers and hence they can make stuff that's super-snobby and elitist. However, if someone makes something that obviously requires no skill but has a slightly interesting aspect to it, well, that must have been made by a talented-yet-underprivileged kid from the ghetto, so do you take cash or credit? Like I said, we all suffer from this, though. If a 75-year-old artist at an art fair was selling this . . .  Would you buy it? Maybe for $100? Most people would unfortunately say no. Eh, religious figures, realistic painting that some old guy did, that's just really not that cool, like one of these (especially the painting of Supergirl at the bottom of the first page). It might make a difference if you knew that it was painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1900 (when he was in fact 75 years old), one of the greatest artists of all time. However, beginning in the early 20th century, his paintings went out of style. He was basically made fun of by all the cool people like Kazimir Malevich who did super-cool paintings like this:  The ironic thing, though, is that excellence has always been a way for the underprivileged and the underclass to succeed. If an uneducated, poor kid from a small town works really, really hard for a long time, he can make something excellent. However, a kid with connections and some rich parents can produce some crap and have his little support network sell it and make it a success. Excellence, regardless of class, always takes hard work. You can have all of the talent in the world, but if you don't do the work, you won't make anything that special. A prime example would be Rossini, the guy who composed the Lone Ranger theme (it's actually the William Tell Overture). He was as talented as the greatest composers of all time, but he gave up composition in his late thirties and spent the next forty or so years eating food and getting fat. As a result, Beethoven wrote his 9th symphony, and Rossini wrote music for Bugs Bunny cartoons. Keith |
| Uniquely Angry August 15th, 2006 -- I saw this article today. It features the band Cattle Decapitation, and it's about how they're part of the "new wave" of metal protest bands. First, the whole concept of a "protest band" in pop music (widely defined) is kind of ridiculous. Anytime you use mainstream music to try to sell non-mainstream ideas, there's already a disconnect there. It's a lot like the heavier Christian music, where they use a form of music that's largely existed to give an outlet to male teenage agression, and then scream lyrics like (and this is an exact quote from a Rage Against the Machine soundalike) "our God is freakin' awesome" over the top. It's like the band said "hey, we'd like people to know God is awesome, and Zach de la Roche would used the f-bomb here, so let's combine the two together, Christian-ize the f-bomb, and then we'll have some awesome Christianness packaged in an agressive masculine teenager's music." But, anyway, that article. What does Cattle Decapitation protest? The meat industry. "jun jun jun PLEASE DON'T HURT THE COOOWWSS!! jun jigga jun jun COWS ARE PEOPLE TOO!!! jigga jigga jun jun THEY MIGHT BE DELICIOUS!!!! jun jun jun BUT THEY'RE NOT FOOOOOOOODDDD!!!" The other bands listed are Six Feet Under (Iraq War), Lamb of God (Iraq War), and System of a Down (Iraq War). Come on, the rest of you metal guys, aren't you mad about anything creative? If you can't think of anything substantive yet different, follow Cattle Decapitation's lead, and get angry about something that barely bothers anyone else. What about a band called Rusty Wheels which protests shopping carts left out in parking lots? (jun jun jun CAN'T YOU SEE THE CARTS!! jun jun jun OUT IN THE RAIN!!! jun jun YOU WILL TASTE THEIR FATE!! jun jun jun AND KNOW THEIR PAIN! PAAYYEEEEENNN!!!) How about Green Death, protesting green fruits ("KIWIS, LIMES AND GRANNYSMITHS!!! jun jun YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR BACKS!!!) The possibilities are really endless -- Death Mouth (protesting people making loud noises while eating), Perverse Foundation (protesting bricks which aren't red), Screeching Death (accordians), SpeedKill (people who walk too briskly), Service Murder (waiters who talk too much), Arachnophile (spider adultery), and Iron Suicide (depressed robots). Wow, I better do some quick copywriting, these ideas are GOLD! 
Keith |
| Blue-Collar Virtuoso August 10th, 2006 -- It seems like all of the most technically advanced rock musicians are popular when they're young, and then they fade away. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time, you hear about some incredible singer, or someone who's a virtuoso on the guitar or drums, and then they release a couple of albums and they fade away into total obscurity. Ever heard of Nuno Bettencourt? If you're a guitar dork like me you have, but most of the rest of you probably have no idea. He was the guitarist for Extreme, the band which was famous for the ballad "More Than Words". He played guitar on "Black Cat" by Janet Jackson, was basically the number one guitarist in the world in the early nineties, and his career went completely downhill from there. Why? I'm sure he's still an amazing guitarist, probably a lot better than he was back then. Shouldn't he, logically, be more famous now that he's forty or so than he was back then, when he was in his early and mid-twenties? Why is this? In classical music, some of the greatest virtuosos are middle age or older, but in pop music, the only virtuosos are young. I think I've figured it out: our culture hates achievement. Or, rather, it hates most kinds of achievement. It hates the kind of achievement that takes work, that takes discipline and education to attain. Excellence is only allowed if it flows naturally and effortlessly from a person. Imagine there are two rock bands: Band A consists of four guys in their late thirties/early forties who have all been together for around twenty years, who have gotten some decent success but have never really broken into the mainstream. However, they've worked tirelessly and are always getting better, and they have a new album out which is getting some really good reviews, and is probably going to get at least some regional distribution. Band B consists of five twenty-year-olds from New York, who are playing a lot of clubs up there, have gotten a spot on the Warped Tour, have gotten ten-thousand plays on their awful Myspace page, just released their first album last week, and have a song on the soundtrack of the new Heath Ledger movie. Both bands are playing in town tonight, and the shows cost the same. Which do you go see? Most people, I'm afraid, would go see Band B. They're just more exciting, right? These guys might be humongous someday! I could buy a t-shirt! I'll buy a CD! I'll talk to the guitarist! I'm so excited! That other band? What other band? Well, where is it? Oh, I love their pizza, and they have drinks half-off after eleven . . . but we can do that any night, let's go see this band tonight and we'll go to that place tomorrow night . . . I'm so EXCITED!!! I've seen the concerts of a lot of both kinds of bands, and I'm here to tell you, Band A is going to put on a better show, and Band B is going to break up in a year or so. Band A is also going to wallow in obscurity and continue to work their day jobs and make good music at night. It might sound like I'm bitter, but really, I'm not. This is, in all reality, the first rock band I've ever really been in where I was a significant creative force. We haven't recorded much of anything, and we haven't played many shows. In a lot of ways we're like Band B up there, only we're all a little older than that. Once we get out and play some shows, that's when I think we'll see if I'm right or not. Will people be willing to accept a new band consisting of guys who have spent more than half of their lives in a post-pubescent state? I hope so. Ultimately, all I want people to do is to give the music a fair shake first, decide whether they like it or not, and then decide to go see us live. If it happens in that order, I'll be happy, and I can deal with the results either way. Keith |
| Pointless But Awesome August 7th, 2006 -- Check it out (it's not by me obviously): Keith |
| Check It Out August 1st, 2006 -- I've been working on the beginnings of a new webpage. See what you think: spinning cube of death. It has a very early MTV/A-Ha/Take On Me sort of feel. Those colors are just temporary. I think it's pretty cool. Eventually you'll click on whatever part of the cube you want to go to and that section will pop up next to it. What do you guys think? Keith |
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