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.
Someone once told me I was eccentric. I laughed out loud because I am the least eccentric of any people I know. I am, in fact, so normal and middle-of-the-road that I occasionally label myself boring. I am. Boring, that is. I am a puddle of mediocrity in a pool of ordinary. The jack of all trades and master of none. Neither the dimmest bulb nor the brightest. Plain yogurt. A one dollar bill. I am as exciting as baseball in the off-season and Christmas in July. I have been the second choice of too many girls to recount (Gosh, Frank, if it wasn’t for— insert name here— it would be you) and the tenth choice on a team of nine. I write because I have no other talent. I am the sponge which lives vicariously. Even the kids who love me abandon me when they are old enough to realize…
Jesus Christ, but 2016 was a tough year! The musicians (and people) we lost! The impending doom of a Trump-inspired government! The division of what was in some ways a country, a world even. Ideals crushed beneath the boot heels of hate, news warped beyond any rational thought, a world based upon a semblance of logic now an anarchy of thought and emotion.
…but I could never pull it together. Of course, when I was young I thought I was a musician, piddling with the tonette in fourth grade, drafted into the junior high band in the fifth grade because they badly needed a bass drum player, playing drums in what could be called a jazz band then (though we were really not good enough to be called that), playing drums in the high school band and in a couple of rock bands and carrying it on through college. I loved music and was always around it but I was never really a musician.
One thing about history. Given enough time, it is a shadow of its former self. No matter what happens, importance of virtually everything is either magnified or diminished depending upon a number of factors. By the time it has been filtered over the years, it is not even remotely what it started out to be. The Twenties obviously weren’t all Gatsby and The Thirties weren’t all dust bowl and depression. There was so much more than the War (that would be of the Second World variety, sports fans) and recovery from to the Forties and if the US had lived the Fifties like Hollywood said, we would have fought like hell to stay there. Of course, by the time it got to us, it was Cliff’s Notes all over again.
Here I go on one of my cerebral journeys, most of which run into a brick wall and consign themselves to the ash heap. I, like most of the world, have a very short attention span, it seems, and while I have bursts of genius (I swear!) little of it makes it to the outside world. This time, the message(s) is(are) spurred by a link posted by friend Greg Phipps, with whom I worked at Peaches Records in Seattle in the 80s (Phipps, btw, records under the name Palestinian Israel-Jones, should you desire to visit his planet), who has been on a roll finding and posting or reposting questions and videos worth my, if not your, attention. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, he asked about the negativity toward celebrities “selling out,” whoring their wares for profit.
A couple of years ago— well, maybe a few now— I spent a summer reading and hearing about how this Sheryl Crow track (I can’t think of the title at the moment) was the anthem of the summer and captured everything good about the season. When I finally heard it, my mental jaw dropped. I could not believe that anyone could hear anything inspiring about the song or the performance. It was decent enough, I suppose, but it didn’t make me want to sing or dance or hit the freeway with the top down and sing along at the top of my voice. That’s what an anthem is supposed to do, right? Inspire?
I’m tired. I mention this at the outset because this inevitably is going to turn in to one of those stream-of-consciousness tirades in which logic does not play a part. But I don’t care. I need to get something off my chest and I don’t care if you stop reading right now, but the stench of what is wrong with the music business has me gasping for air and there is little oxygen available. But before I start…..
There are a large number of reasons I love writing for DBAWIS. For one thing, I get to write amongst some of the best writers out there. I have had it in my mind to put together a list of must-read columns with thumbnail reviews and easy links so others could read what I have read, though I am sure with different eyes. You see, I found DBAWIS very early in its existence, when Bob Segarini was writing what was then his column for FYI Music in Canada. At first, I was just following Segarini, a musician I much admired after having interviewed him for Pop Culture Press for their “Summer of Love” issue.
Whaaa-a-a-at, you say? 2012 ain’t over yet? You’re right. It ain’t. But if the Mayans have it right, it will soon be all over so if you don’t mind the indulgence I’ve decided to do what I do every year— post my list of albums which have floated to the top a month early. I do it for a couple of reasons. One, I hate for my list to get mixed in with the rest of those end-of-the-year lists which swarm late December and early January. The timing is all too predictable and if there is anything I don’t like, it’s predictability (which is why I don’t go gaga every time Keith Richards adds another day to his fossilized remains or Mick Jagger farts).
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 