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Thread: What if we just refused to let our music die?

  1. #1
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    What if we just refused to let our music die?

    I am so sad having read that John Abercrombie passed away... That got me thinking.

    Many of us (I don't mean anyone in here, I mean in general) have a hard time accepting and liking modern players/bands for real.

    I know the feeling, I can't listen to anything that has been composed after 1979 and feel as thrilled and excited as when I listen to classic Sabbath/Zep/Pink Floyd/Dead concerts. That's perfectly ok.

    Some guys like my own drummer just can't understand a band like the Black Keys, because he only likes what he already knows. It's very hard to get him to learn any song you introduce him to (and he is a KICKASS drummer).

    But I was wondering if that feeling leads us to a state of non acceptance of great musicians we have today, guys that pick up a classic guitar like a Les Paul or a Stratocaster and stand tall, they compose and play real blues, rock n roll, southern rock and jazz with spirit, regardless of all the autotune/playback laden bunch of crap that swarms the radio stations and teenager's mp3 players today.

    Men like Joe Bonamassa, John Mayer (yes, listen to him live and the latest albums), Kenny Wayne... And so many others that are still around in their best days like Warren Haynes...

    I myself am taking my time on iTunes and the web to actually learn about who's playing what and searching for new blood and new sounds... And whenever I can, I will attend their concerts and buy their records. I mean Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, and so many other heroes aren't still around anymore, but there are many others out there to be discovered and enjoyed.

    I kinda refuse to let good music fade away.

    Guess my next post will be in the "what are you listening to" thread

    Just sharing my thoughts.

  2. #2

    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    In my 20 years of playing out I have learned one thing;

    People like what they know and know what they like.

    Creatures of habit maybe?

    A few years ago I heard a story on NPR related to a study on why the vast majority of people go to the same few restaurants, vacation spots and listen to music from their high school years.

    It was crazy to hear that 80% or more (I don't remember actual numbers) people who were surveyed don't try new food after the age of 21.

    Another high percentage of people like to return to their favorite vacation spot and frequent less than 5 different restaurants.

    The thing that amazed me was that another majority of people do not listen to new music past the age of 20 or so. Bullshit I thought. Many people listen to the top 40 stations all the time. Yes, this is true. But apparently when people chose to listen to music, they revert to the songs that were hits back when they were coming of age.


    Are we as musicians any different? I am anyway.

    I love finding new music and trying new foods/restaurants. While I am no longer a fan of act of traveling, I still have a case of wanderlust and get a natural high when I get to visit new places. I love to sight see and get a thrill out of being somewhere I have never been before.

    Now I play in two Classic Rock bands that play originals and more obscure covers. They refuse to be party bands -so I play out a few times a month with them at best.

    A Classic Rock party band I am subbing for plays the "hits" from the 60s and 70s and while the band is okay it is just a cover band that plays out a lot and is making money.

    People want to hear the hits, not obscure tunes.

    I am keeping it alive as much as I can in my own way -as a player and a listener.
    Fuzz is proof God love us and wants us to be happy. - Franklin
    http://www.frankdenigris.com

  3. #3
    Forum Member redisburning's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    personally I think that today music is less engineered in a way, at least as far as the personalities go.

    ok let me preface by saying Elvis and The Beatles are true loves of mine BUT let's be honest in those days the studios controlled everything! sure they were revolutionary but they were revolutionary on the terms of the record labels. and those huges gates to get anything recorded because it was so expensive meant that there were far fewer acts at the top jockeying; the labels had their thoroughbreds and worked them hard.

    what young kids are inspiring people to pick up a guitar today? Mateus Asato? Josh Smith? Julian Lage? Nathan Salsburg (for my one fellow millenial folkie)? they are doing it through the internet. often through short clips on instagram. how cool is that?

    I love the music coming out today. I love the music that came out in the past. these problems come because we're taught to value preference over knowledge and learning.

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    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    I like some of the new music that I hear, but none of it has me coming back for more. My tastes were formed out of music of the late 50s through the new wave and punk of the early 80s, and Radiohead and the like from the 90s--that's the stuff that I go back I discovered a love for symphonic music and jazz in my early to mid 20s, so I listen to that stuff too.

    It's not that I dislike new music, but none of it excites me like the stuff of my formative years. Friends have turned me onto some new bands that are really full of talent, and yet, it just doesn't speak to me like the music of the past. I'm 55 and full of nostalgia--wishing for a fictional past when things seemed easier.

    But I do love traveling to new places--at leas that's something that hasn't dulled.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    In the past year I've tried to record stuff I wrote - one song back in 1974. My way of letting the music live on after me.

    As far as comfort zone - when I attended the David Crosby and friends concert back in May I observed that there wasn't any good Protest songs from this generation - like "Fortunate son", "For What it's Worth", 'Ohio", etc... a few days later Crosby himself tweeted a similar sentiment. So I cranked up a protest song I wrote back in '73 and played if for Charlie Karp as a possible song on what will eventually be the "Hartford" album. Here's where it gets interesting... there is an interlude between verses that used to be a guitar piece, but I decided that between verses I'm going to try and add parts of the Declaration of Independence in rap. I didn't listen to rap and can't say I'm a fan, but I'm trying to do something new... we'll see!!!
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

  6. #6

    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie View Post
    ... there is an interlude between verses that used to be a guitar piece, but I decided that between verses I'm going to try and add parts of the Declaration of Independence in rap. I didn't listen to rap and can't say I'm a fan, but I'm trying to do something new... we'll see!!!
    And that right there would interest me to give it a listen.

    I'm probably the last person that needs to chime in here because I don't fit any consistent or stereotypical demographic. I listen to just about everything besides speed/ death metal genre's/ djent. What I find is that I have a willingness or desire to check out new things no matter the genre or artist but what happens these days is that I quickly move on to something else. There are songs by a certain artist that I absolutely love, but I'll be damned if after hearing just a couple additional songs by the same artist, that I'm suddenly uninterested. I don't really know why but part of me thinks that this is due to the sheer overload of new music out there now.

    Back in the day I would scrape together every penny that I could find, in order to purchase the latest King Crimson, Floyd, Stones, Yes, etc album. And I would cherish every moment of that album... sometimes replaying a song or side over and over and over. That's what has changed dramatically over the years. I suspect that my age plays into it but as I stated already, I think that it's also due to having so many bands/ artists vying for my attention. I still love all kinds of music but I don't believe that anything has ( or ever will) captured my attention and enthusiasm in the way that music did in my youth.

  7. #7
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    I always felt that as a musician you need to keep evolving. I love to play some of the newer stuff.

    People tend to have selective memory - Most of the classic songs we still like were standouts in their day. Most of what was on the air in the 60's and 70's was REALLY, REALLY BAD! Muskrat Love, Sylvia's Mother, YMCA, Tony Orlando, 1910 Fruit Gum Company, the Archies, and many many more.

    Today there is fantastic music being created by some people, and still lots of crap.

    I really enjoy learning new songs if they're good.


    Years ago, on nights we did't play we'd go into the bar and hear what people played on the jukebox. I figured if people will pay to hear it it will be good on our set list. Today I look at how many hits a song gets on YouTube.

    Playing pop tunes takes a lot of effort. You need to learn the hooks, learn the arrangement and dynamics. To do Badfinger, Thin Lizzy or the Black Eyed Peas correctly takes work. Most bands don't want to do that kind of work and cling to the 12 bar format.

    If you're into jazz you can work out of the Real Book and improvise, but pop is to me, the test of a guitarist's mettle. You'll need to cover so many styles and sounds in a single set.

    Chuck
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  8. #8

    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    .....but pop is to me, the test of a guitarist's mettle. You'll need to cover so many styles and sounds in a single set.
    Chuck
    I agree. Not only many styles, but many tones. You may also need to emulate other instruments, play awkward parts and sing at the same time, play rhythm and lead at the same time.... etc..

    To be honest, playing Blues and similarly structured I-IV-V tunes are almost like a break in the set for me. There are some simple pop tunes that also are so simple and can be fun to play since you don't have to think too hard!
    Fuzz is proof God love us and wants us to be happy. - Franklin
    http://www.frankdenigris.com

  9. #9
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Inspired by this thread, I went to spotify and listened to new rock releases. I like the latest from Royal Blood, Foo Fighters, and Liam Gallagher, the rest not so much.

    I like some contemporary pop, but again, it doesn't speak to me. And I do agree that it's tricky to play it, requires being open to a lot of styles, but I'm just not interested in doing covers of the stuff.

    I might be tempted to play bass for a mid-50s to mid-60s rock band, only because outside of an Elvis covers band I played in in 1977, I've never played that stuff live, and with modern gear, you can just rock that stuff. I'm just worn out on playing the hits of Black Sabbath, The Doors, and others.

    And by the way, when I was a teenager, FM rock didn't play just the hits. They played deep album cuts too, sometimes whole sides and whole albums, sometimes the b-sides of singles. The stuff that radio pushes as "classic rock" is mostly the crap that started in the late 70s and early 80s, stuff that became single-driven, after the album as a tiny universe became eclipsed.

    I'm not knocking any of you or the stuff you play--I admire you for playing stuff relevant to contemporary audiences.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  10. #10
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post

    People tend to have selective memory - Most of the classic songs we still like were standouts in their day. Most of what was on the air in the 60's and 70's was REALLY, REALLY BAD! Muskrat Love, Sylvia's Mother, YMCA, Tony Orlando, 1910 Fruit Gum Company, the Archies, and many many more.

    Chuck


    This is true, but it depended highly on where you were and which radios...

  11. #11
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sérgio View Post
    This is true, but it depended highly on where you were and which radios...
    We had AOR in the 70's, but again, despite the master narrative, it mostly sucked. Trust us old guys, we were there.

    I was lucky - I could hear The X.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  12. #12
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    We had AOR in the 70's, but again, despite the master narrative, it mostly sucked. Trust us old guys, we were there.

    I was lucky - I could hear The X.

    Lol, well I ain't that young either (I wish I were)

    btw what's AOR?

  13. #13
    TFF Stage Crew
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Album Oriented Rock
    Personally, I find what some of today's young people are turning has a fresh & interesting sound. Check out this young fellow from Chicago:

  14. #14

    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    That's very cool. ^^^

    I had never seen this guy before but this is him at 17... I really dig him:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQ87Al-huo

    EDIT: I can't get it to link... ugh. He goes by Kingfish. Good blues player.

  15. #15
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cogs View Post
    Album Oriented Rock
    Personally, I find what some of today's young people are turning has a fresh & interesting sound. Check out this young fellow from Chicago:

    Oh, ok!

    yeah, indeed.

    great video! These boys can play!

  16. #16
    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    We had AOR in the 70's, but again, despite the master narrative, it mostly sucked. Trust us old guys, we were there.
    I'm more of a late-Sixties-early-Seventies guy. I was fortunate, in that where I lived there was a choice of "underground" radio stations that played stuff not heard on mainstream, top-40, pop stations. DJs with names like "Cerphe" (Donald Calwell, who can be heard introducing Little Feat on their Waiting For Columbus album), "Bob, here," "Weasel" and the like introduced us (me) to acts like Captain Beefheart, Sons of Champlin, Traffic, and (album) side-long tracks like Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida," Pink Floyd's "Echoes" (for which a long-running radio program was named), Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Who Do You Love (Suite)," the aforementioned Sons of Champlin's "Freedom," and similar lengthy, jam-style compositions that could never be played in a 2-3 minute format.

    The "San Francisco Sound" and the "British Invasion" loosed the bounds of what music was expected to be: polite, short, unassuming: ear candy. In our modern "let's forget the past" society, we have quickly forgotten the debt we owe to Elvis Presley and the "Memphis Mafia," for introducing us to rockabilly and the gritty, pelvis-gyrations that offended the older generation. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and more came out from the shadows and jumped jarringly into our living rooms.

    The pushback was tremendous. But somehow, the music survived. I think it always will.

  17. #17
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: What if we just refused to let our music die?

    where I grew up we had some cool stations before Clear Channel mucked it all up. WBCN whom I remember listening to back when they were powered by car batteries (if the urban legends are to be believed), WCGY, and a few others. There was a lot of competition to see who could be the coolest and edgiest and the FCC did occasionally find reason to sanction or fine some of our on-air personalities. The last really cool station was WCDQ out of Sanford, Maine, Mount Rialto Radio as they liked to call themselves. God I miss that station so much. Deep tracks galore.

    There was a station I heard last year or the year before that played Stranglehold. Kept having to watch my speed while hearing that one.

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