The world doesn’t always go my way and sometimes I get so pissed about that that I have to vent. GodDAMN if the world isn’t going the way of idiots and psychopaths as the Trump Generation attempts to destroy everything good, but I will be damned if I will let it happen to my music. That’s right. My music! Sure, you have your music— The Beatles and Floyd and Queen and even Beyonce and Kanye and whoever the hell else. YOU don’t have to worry. YOU can find that music and plenty of people who still love that music just walking down the street. Me, I have to work for it. I have to scrounge and search and listen and question at every turn. You think that’s easy?
And it’s my view. It won’t mention Heart except to say that I knew their days were well past when they became a tribute band (and it was long before The Kennedy Center performance) and it won’t mention Nirvana because, let’s face it, Nirvana has already been mentioned enough (Okay, I might mention them once). I might mention Perry Como, though, because he had the hit with those lyrics and I might mention Bobby Sherman (just for the hell of it). I will mention many artists and bands of evidently little consequence outside of that fair city because I certainly do not hear them mentioned by people outside the Pac Northwest (by the people I know, anyway). But first, should you think Seattle a mere backdrop for movies and TV programs, let us look at what the youth think, and before you start pounding the keyboard in protest, I have not vetted the information and don’t really care (though having lived in Seattle for over thirteen years, I can attest to the fact that everyone does love Dick’s… Drive-In, and how can you not love the fact that they have a train/trolley called the SLUT). I’m just glad to see the youth making this attempt:
My yardstick for music is a simple one. If everyone likes it, it can’t be worth a shit. Think Hitler as a rock star. He, too, had a following, though few would own up to being part of it after the finale. What is it that makes everyone so enamored with this musician as opposed to this other musician who is playing practically the same thing? Hell if I know. How does one become a hit overnight? Hell if I know. Why are people attracted to certain artists, en masse? You guessed it. Hell if I know. But I can goddamn guarantee you that while you are talking about the Lady Gaga halftime show, and my guess is that most of you talking about music are, you’re missing a few thousand musicians worth hearing, some of them playing music way outside the formulaic box the Gaga has built for herself. Taylor Swift? I love some of her songs but there are songs as good as that out there if you take the time to listen.
Fall is a beautiful time of year. Leaves turn color, the air gets crisp. It’s football time and the kids return to school. Hunting season is just around the corner. I have lived through more than a few and can attest to the fact that it is not like any other season, but then I say that about all the seasons. I love them all but I learned to love Fall best when I worked retail in the old music stores of my past for that was the time record labels came alive. It was their last chance to release the albums they wanted to push before Christmas needing the two or three months to gain traction for the big push, for there was no other season like Christmas season when it came to hawking music wares. Well, those days are past but it seems like they are back because some of the best have chosen this Fall to release their new albums and, man, am I pumped!
I took a drive yesterday. I had been sitting in front of the computer screen too long and accomplishing little of anything at all and I needed a break. Usually when I hit the road I take music I need to hear for writing reasons but this time I needed time to myself. I grabbed one I had the urge to review by Town Mountain which when I pulled open the CD cover discovered was minus the disc. I had left it in my computer player at home. I have lost more than one disc that way. The other two were there though and I had heard neither all the way through for over a year: Lisa Parade‘s Finding Flora and Maxi Dunn‘s Edmund & Leo. I couldn’t wait.
Continue reading
In all my years in music, I never worked for a label. I wanted to. But I wanted to work only in A&R. Artists and Repertoire. They were the people who found the artists, who were liaison between the artist and label management, who groomed the performers and worked with them on the songs for their albums and maybe just the direction of focus. I knew a few A&R people in L.A. They loved it. They wouldn’t have done anything else. Most of them, when their A&R gigs ended, got out of the business because it was a sewer everywhere else. Sales? The pits. Promotion? Real work. Management? A path, most of the time, to disaster. I mean, A&R was where the adventure was. And is.
New and impressive albums are piling up on me and I have been on a listening tear. I cannot even imagine how far you are behind. Way behind, if you’re still giving time to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. I would have thought you had memorized those by now. Like our fearless leader Bob Segarini is always saying, there’s more great music out there than ever, whether you choose to believe it or not. Set yourself. This column skims what I think are the best and most overlooked over the recent months. Starting with…..
Ah, Psychedelia! A musical underground which fed on the springs of youth. God knows where it came from or how it evolved (there are many theories based upon preconceived notions which may or may not have anything to do with anything except ego), but it most likely was a media conception: Old people trying to write about things they didn’t understand, looking at the new world through cataracts and prejudice, and that view taking hold.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 