Back in the days when music ruled the world, we all had our benchmarks. The night The Beatles played Ed Sullivan. That day at Altamont. The many deaths of greats and those who would have been greats, from Buddy Holly to Duane Allman and too many others. Musical moments which marked where you were in your life and how important music was. Because music used to be that important.
That’s right, sports fans, I smell baseball. When I was a kid, sports were seasonal. When the seasons changed, so did the sport. It’s hard for me to relate to sports these days. Football goes all the way into February. God knows when basketball ends (seems like it goes on forever— in the Pros, at least). And baseball ends about when the snow flies. But it always begins in Spring and it’s Spring now. Almost.
The reason Charlottesville is being (Revisited) is because I do believe that somewhere out there in the ether Charlottesville has already been Revisited and, hell, I am sure I confuse people often enough without reusing headers. It would be akin to writing a book and naming all the chapters “Chapter One,” which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good idea. But the second Revisited, placed in parentheses, separates the first from the second, does it not?
This is not my favorite column to write. In my youth, death was death, something which happened to everyone else. As a young man, I looked upon it as simply draining the talent pool because by then I was consumed with music— immersed in it to the point that life beyond it was a blur. In middle-age, it began becoming personal— friends and favorites taking the dive either stunningly quick or in dire circumstances.
Those who’ve known me a long time – including the pre-curmudgeon me in the days before the intertoobs – can attest to my unapologetic, jingoistic rah-rah All Canadian mantra. I love my country. I love my music. But despite my seemingly anti-‘Merika crusade dating back to Ronnie’s Rocket Regalias in the early 1980s, I do love my American pop music.
So you think you know something about music, huh? I thought I did too until I started writing this column and getting schooled by people not only more aware of psych than myself but more knowledgeable. Why, some of my past columns spawned related columns (not mine) at least as long, disputing my claims. Okay, not quite. But almost. Let us just say that, like many of us, the more I know, the less I know.
I sit here, a pool of phlegm and what would be blood if the body would allow enough into the mix, feeling like six buckets of shit. My right eye is a stream of tears and swells each night. In the morning, the eyelid is a peacock feather dried to perfection against cheek, awaiting its morning ablutions necessary for it to even be and eyelid. I don’t know how it happens because with all of the coughing racking what is left of my body, there shouldn’t be enough time for the tears to dry. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, sleep coming in short and shorter bursts, the phlegm either stopping life-giving breaths on a fairly regular schedule or spewing itself in massive quantities on pillowcase or wall (both, when a sneeze takes control). Here’s the thing: I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop coughing. I feel like those six buckets multiplied by ten and would sell my soul to the devil but there never seems to be one around when you need one.
“When you say ‘there is no good new music anymore’ – what you are really saying is ‘I don’t own a computer’.” – Modern Facebook Proverb
Of course, if you’re reading this page then you obviously do own a computer. So what’s your excuse? What is that inherent need to slink to the fallback position of “there’s no good music anymore”? Is it because your tastes have changed? Is it because the music has changed? Or is it because you’ve built a musical mausoleum around yourself where only Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Vaughn, and Lennon now reside? It isn’t that there’s no good music. It’s that you gave up. You stopped trying. You’ve become complacent in life or buried your head in the sand so that all the evils of adulthood can be ignored or blocked out.
With a nod to Neil Young: “’Live music is better’ bumper stickers should be issued!” God knows how few of us realize what we are missing out there these days. The bars and taverns and music listening rooms are being stocked with an amazing array of excellent artists and we are either sitting at home with our fingers up our ass or hanging out in some bar with no music beyond that hooked up to stereo speakers on walls, bitching about there being no good music. For all of you who do that (and you know you do), I have a finger for you and you can bet which one.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 