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| Mr. Happy Face June 28th, 2005 -- I'm trying to get out of this mindset of negativity and sarcasm in my writings. It never fails -- I try to think of something interesting to write, and I always go back to calling something stupid or some aspect of society evil or something, and the sarcasm always runs deep. Ugh. I think it goes back to the idea that everyone just wants to be cool. Unfortunately, my idea of cool was established during the grungy nineties, when sarcasm wasn't a second language, English was, and sarcasm was the native tongue of the motherland. The funny thing is that I never (and still haven't) bought a Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, or Nine Inch Nails album, but that mentality is still festering deep in my subconscious. I think something can't be cool unless it's tearing something down. I wish that I could write songs about how great sunshine is, or about how much I love my kids or about how God is an amazing and gracious God, but I just can't. Or, rather, I can, and when I'm done I think that they're hokey and cornballish. Maybe I'm just not good enough yet to write about the best things in life. I feel like if I try to address them, I give them short shrift. Maybe when I get better at what I do, I'll be able to make music that reflects the things that I love the most, things that I want to uplift and praise. But for right now, it's like I don't want to waste my best things on an unrefined art, a work in progress. Someday, though. Keith |
| Almost as Good as the Real Thing June 21st, 2005 -- I watched a few minutes of the Elvis movie that came on TV the other week. The only moment that really stood out was when Elvis was signing up to do a recording at Sun Studios, and the lady says "who do you sound like?" He replies "I don't sound like nobody, ma'am." Awesome. The funny thing about Elvis is that he revolutionized pop music in the fifties, but he never wrote a song. Neither did Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, yet all three were enormous stars. It didn't become standard for bands to write their own songs until the Beatles came along. In some ways I see advantages to the way things used to be done, where bands or individual performers would pick out songs that worked the best for them, or they hired writers to write music, or the labels would pick out music from their catalogs for them to play. Your "sound" wasn't defined so much by the substance of the music itself but by the quality and the character of the performances. After all, most people aren't music critics, and number one songs aren't necessarily successful based upon the strength of the songwriting. A song like "Big Girls Don't Cry" would never have been a hit if it hadn't been for Frankie Valli's weird falsetto screeching, and "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees was a huge success, but the version by it's writer, Neil Diamond, failed. Neil's version of his song Red Red Wine also wasn't a hit, but UB40 made a hit out of it. But, we've had some great music performed by their writers, not just recently but also in the past. Beethoven was said to be a fantastic performer, as was Mozart, Chopin, and Liszt. Not many would argue that the Beatles were slack in the performance area (although most vastly prefer Joe Cocker's version of "With a Little Help From My Friends". Of course, the Beatles version probably wasn't helped by the fact that Mr. Richard Starsky sang it.) Anyway, it's pretty much accepted that a modern band is supposed to write it's own music, and very few bands break through with a hit single that's a cover and are able to maintain success. Remember Orgy, anyone? Anyone? But, if you really look at them, some of our best singles have been covers of someone else's music. Venus by Bananarama, Faith by Limp Bizkit, I Shot the Sheriff by Eric Clapton, Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Guns n' Roses (or Bob Marley, or Eric Clapton), All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix, Mr. Tambourine Man by William Shatner (all three of these last ones, by the way, were written by Bob Dylan) and, with the possible exception of Faith, the versions were better and more successful than the original songs. Also, the performances were markedly different than the originals, which I think is the most important thing. So, you had unoriginal music being played in an original way. Contrast that with one of my favorite punching bags, Nickelback. They write (technically) original music and perform it with a profound level of unoriginality unknown outside of Canada. The songs I believe are the key, but there has to be something about the performance in order to make the song come to life. Bob Dylan is an awful performer but a great writer (most people think, I've personally never been a big fan), and Elvis I'm sure was a terrible writer, but was a fantastic performer. Whose music would you rather listen to? I think one of the problems of most bands is that they try to cop the sound of one of their favorites bands, and then they write music. It ends up sounding like "music written by Hoobastank as performed by a slightly off Incubus", or "music written by Travis as performed by a more boring Radiohead," or "music written by Godsmack and performed terribly by an unholy alliance of Metallica and Alice in Chains." It just doesn't work that well. However, if the band puts on a better performance than those they try to rip off, it can work. Muse comes to mind. Yes, they are extremely derivative of Radiohead, derivative to distraction, but they are also incredible performers, much better than Radiohead. Therefore, I'm still listening to Muse many many months after I've given up on all of Radiohead's Kid A and beyond albums. I think the lesson to learn is, if you're going to rip off someone's sound, make sure you're better than them, that you aren't just almost as good as the real thing. Do what they do, just do it better than they can do it, and you'll find that you'll have something worthy of respect. As to us, I still don't know what our "sound" is. I'm too close to it to be able to judge impartially. I think a lot of people would put our music in the same vein as the Foo Fighters, even though none of us are fans of theirs and I know I've never listened to any of their albums. But, if people compare us to them, or someone else, I'm going to make sure that it's not an albatross around our necks, that we'll make sure we're better than whoever it is, and hopefully it will make all the difference in the world. Keith |
| Food and Economics (ROCK AND ROLL, BABY!!!!) June 11th, 2005 -- Okay, first things first. the right shift button on my keyboard isn't working, and it's a huge pain to type while thinking about correct capitalization, so I'm just going to let it go (must . . . try . . . to . . . let . it . go . . . ). so, I'm not even going to go back and correct "the" or "so". My hands are only shaking a little as a result, and my left eyebrow is only slightly twitching, so I should be good to go. the subject for today is food. I like it a lot. I eat a lot of it. Maybe too much of it. actually, I don't know if I eat too much of it. I know I'm not physically active enough, but I've mostly stopped eating between meals, and I don't really stuff myself regularly. from what I've read, that means I eat about the right amount. but, yeah, more than likely I eat too much. Now, I would like to be healthy, but I don't want to sacrifice my life to be that way. to me that seems like spending 70 hours a week for your whole life trying to invent a labor-saving device, it's kind of ridiculous and in the end, pointless. I know people that spend hours every day working out in a gym, supposedly so they can live an extra five years. Me, I view my body like a car engine -- it only has so many miles, so why waste them on climbing pretend stairs or riding pretend bicycles or rowing in pretend boats? worse yet, why buy those protein mixes to make you gain weight when you could just eat delicious food instead? but, regardless, here we are, most of us are overweight and out of shape, and the ones that are in shape have to spend their lives to live a life. Has it always been this way? are the only two options to either obsess about fitness or be horribly out of shape? I can't think that's the way it's supposed to be. I watched Manor House a while back, which was a show about life in england in the early part of the 20th century, and they talked about what kind of food they ate. It was appalling. everything was completely saturated in butter and cream and/or fried. they would eat these enormous multi-course meals, and yet they still weren't terribly fat. Plump, sure, probably had cholesterol problems, but not really fat. It's like they were trying to get fat but just couldn't. so what's changed? the only thing I can come up with is the type of food we eat. Now, I think we're often too willing to find a bogeyman when we can't control our own urges, and that may very well be the case here. but from what I can tell, our food comes in three different varieties: 1. Yummy, cheap, and bad for you. 2. Nasty, slightly more expensive, and a little better for you. 3. fairly good tasting, horribly expensive, and good for you. Up until about fifty years ago, we only had option number three. then came good old processed food, and everything in the world was right, we thought. then our health started going downhill, so the food industry heaved upon us option two, the "light" versions of number one. Ugh. I think this is where the food from those seventies sci-fi movies came from (and the Matrix), the chalky or runny white blobby stuff that had everything you needed to be healthy. this stuff was supposed to taste similar to what number one tasted like, just not nearly as good. and to get number three, you have to go sign up with the communist party, give them your entire income, and pledge to donate your children for plugging up the hole in the ozone. It doesn't seem to be an easy choice to make. I started thinking about this mostly because of this article, and because of the article regarding the life of a modern cow that it refers to. Now, I cannot stand the organic food crowd. One of my old room mates believed that free-range chickens were better for you because they contained more sun energy which transmitted positively to its eater's karma (or something.) Organic food people aren't pushing healthy living, they're proponents of raging against machines, and their philosophies more often than not interfere with actual known facts. I think many people say "it's healthier, so it's worth the money to keep yourself healthy." Maybe, but only to an extent. I wouldn't spend $10,000 to extend my life by one extra day, but I would spend $10. You can even get into a moral argument and say that spending that extra money on food is wrong, since there are people in the world that are actually starving, and the money saved could be spent instead on helping them. again, maybe. this is why it all, in the end, comes back to money. everyone wants to live the least expensive life that they can while getting as much out of it as possible. You want bang for your buck. You might not spend $50 to stay on life-support for one more day, but you'll gladly give $50 to spend a day at Disney World. Likewise, I'd rather live my life being able to provide for all of my family's needs than to work myself to death trying to buy them the nicest boutique food. quality vs. quantity, and finding the perfect mix between the two. I've noticed that whenever I'm offered the choice between chicken and beef, like at a Mexican restaurant, I unwaveringly choose chicken, because I just feel nasty after eating beef. I might get a lot of food at a cheap price, but the cost is the enjoyment of my life for the next few hours. the only thing I can see as an answer is to find an actual economic study of the costs of health care over the course of a life when it comes to eating fresher and less processed food versus eating the evil cheap stuff. almost all of the organic folks explain away the high prices by saying "you'll end up saving money in the long run", but I want to see some real numbers, not philosophical projections. then we'll have the answers we need. Keith |
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