JAIMIE VERNON – A NEW MUSIC WARDROBE

I’ve done previous columns about the vacuous business that has become nostalgia-peddling so I have no interest in rehashing that…but I’m fascinated by the idea that people cling to it so desperately. The Boomer Generation has become really good at criticizing the newest trends in music but cannot shine the mirror back on their own sacred cows and say, in all honesty, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m getting half as much entertainment value as I used to at triple the price.” Folks would rather see (and hear) a simulation of The Who’s former selves with its surviving members doing the 32^nd anniversary tour of their final show in various stages of disability (Townshend’s deafness and Daltrey’s failing vocal range) for $500 than something new and organic for $10 at the local pub. They’d rather watch the decrepit mummified remains of The Rolling Stones trot out predictable, laughable, cartoonish interpretations of their own back catalog and pay 10x the price for the insult because they copped their first boobie feel during ‘Angie’ in the 1970s.

JAIMIE VERNON: NO BITTERSWEET SYMPATHY

This week I was told not once, but twice, that I “sound bitter”. You mean an antagonistic hostility? Hell, yeah. Guilty as charged. The provocation for being called bitter was my two brutally honest music comments online in separate conversations.