Low tolerance for today's "talent"

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 22 Feb 2011 6:14 am

Ah, yes, John - I was between Jr. and Sr. years at Brookline High. Every show on that festival was amazing, and I saw just about every one (I missed Johnny Mathis). I spent every Sunday on the Cambridge Commons playing with people of all sorts, hit every jam session I could find, had a band of sorts, there were free shows in the MDC parks, and I snuck into every joint I could get into to see a dizzying array of shows, it's amazing I ever made it through high school.

Lubbock to Boston culture shock - probably about the same as the Boston to Nashville culture shock I experienced when I met my wife a few years later, but it's all good. I think more people need more culture shock, it frequently leads to very good things. In the US, it's getting harder - I think because the nature of mass communication is homogenizing regional cultures a lot more, at least among younger people.

James Cann · Post by **James Cann** » 18 Oct 2011 7:55 pm

My culture shock was Boston's North Shore to Phoenix (East to West in the broader sense), which I initially celebrated. I agree that everyone should get a good dose of such shock, but, had I'd known then what I know now, I could easily have missed it.

In fairness, however, my last trip to Beantown (circa 2008) showed me a city that seemed to have a neutered vibe. Very disappointing.

So, a nice, quiet corner of Rhode Island or New Hampshire . . . ?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 19 Oct 2011 11:16 am

Nowadays a kid like this can get by on all hype & image:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3QfovGl ... re=related

Back in my time, it took a real class act to even get noticed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI-DXxY4 ... re=related

How far we've fallen.

Glenn Uhler · Post by **Glenn Uhler** » 19 Oct 2011 2:58 pm

Dang, after hearing all these experiences, I guess my band was really "second rate" or maybe even "third rate".

The best we ever opened for were the "Detroit Wheels", after Mitch Rider left them and went out on his solo career.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 19 Oct 2011 3:24 pm

Wonder if that's what the Skillet Lickers thought of The Gully Jumpers?

Steinar Gregertsen · Post by **Steinar Gregertsen** » 19 Oct 2011 4:14 pm

David Mason wrote:Nowadays a kid like this can get by on all hype & image:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3QfovGl ... re=related

Back in my time, it took a real class act to even get noticed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI-DXxY4 ... re=related

How far we've fallen.

Patrick Janka · Post by **Patrick Janka** » 24 Oct 2011 9:06 am

Dave Mudgett wrote:But really - there's tons of great music out there now, flying in and under the radar. I also think it's easy to forget how older generations back than really despised everything from the rock-and-roll, modern-jazz, and contemporary-classical era. "What's this crap, why can't you $^%*&*# play a nice melody like Glenn Miller or Frank Sinatra? That %^&* isn't music!"

Heard it all before.

/thread

Seriously, I'm tired of people complaining how there's "no good music anymore", and that the only good music is from the era when they were in their teens or whatever. Turn off MTV and look for it.

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 24 Oct 2011 10:57 am

It's the same old song again and again!

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 25 Oct 2011 8:52 am

I suffer from arrested development as it pertains to music.

My classic example of "good music" is Tommy Duncan singing "Bubbles In My Beer" with a coke in one hand and a hamburger in the other hand, performing along with those great Bob Wills musicians playing those harmonies and counter-points that they did so well for so many years.

Improvisation was the hallmark of western-swing musicians, where they would coordinate who would play when and what by a glance of expressions and raised eyebrows. I'm not sure that it can be easily understood by many of today's musicians, but I don't want appear to be judgemental.

Today, we depend on "charts" to do a gig. Are we better off? I don't know....I have been helped by music sent to me by vocalists, but only because I used the music to translate it my own number chart.

I think the answer is with current musicians who must compare the current music venue with the past. They must decide if there is any value in the past.

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 26 Oct 2011 7:14 pm

Gene,I'm from that old school of [a nod or raised eyebrow] meant a lot. I have played in a few bands over the years where that did'nt work because they were ALL so damn loud,they did'nt even notice each other,The worst culprits are lead guitar players.YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 26 Oct 2011 8:19 pm

I think there's lots of value in older music. In fact, that's mostly what I listen to - I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself. Most modern musicians I know improvise - I rarely see a chart on a club bandstand, except for perhaps mainstream jazz players with a Real Book so they can pick any one of hundreds of very complex tunes to refresh their memories about how they go. And believe me - those guys improvise their butts off.

IMO, there's a big difference between recognizing the value of what came before and dissing everything happening in the present - any present. Wherever and whenever you are - well, you can move, but you can't go back. Besides that, there's plenty of good music being played right now by current musicians. Time Jumpers, David Peterson, AATW, Pat Martino, Joey DeFrancesco, Duke Levine, Los Straitjackets, Dale Watson, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Jimmy Bruno, and countless others. Lots of the older musicians still performing are rightly revered for their contributions.

No generation holds a monopoly on good music - or bad, for that matter, and there was plenty of crapola back when too. I think you could hardly argue that Charlie Parker and Bob Wills were topping the mainstream NY/LA Hit Parade 50-60 years ago. I remember a lot of pre-pubescent stuff like "How Much is that Doggie in the Window", "Alvin and the Chipmunks", and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" in the late 50s and 60s. They drove what I call 'real' rock and roll off the radio - Elvis, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, and so on. Most 'successful' country records sold a small fraction of what is expected to be 'successful' record today (or a big mainstream record back then). What we now refer to as 'classic mainstream jazz' - bebop, cool, hard bop, etc. - was an even smaller audience. The great blues now so revered was relegated to the "Chitlin' circuit" back then. No arena shows, mostly small clubs - it was great, but you can still see great jazz, country, blues, bluegrass, or whatever music in small clubs if you're willing to look for it.

What has changed is money and politics and how they influence mainstream entertainment (music and anything else). It's more or less the same thing with other fields - the influence peddling was always there, but now it has pretty much captured the entire mainstream in all fields. Such is life - if you want to fight it, you're gonna have to radically change the political system. Good luck, but I prefer to just listen to and play what I please and let everybody else do the same. OK - we ain't gonna get rich on the music biz playing what we like. I think that is at the root of a lot of the unhappiness with what's going on - but generations have to turn over the reins at some point. My generation is grimly trying to hang on, but the party's gonna end pretty soon.

I know it's all been said before on here, but I thought it was worth trying to put this out one more time.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 27 Oct 2011 8:10 am

My generation is grimly trying to hang on, but the party's gonna end pretty soon.

I actually get kind of irked at "my generation", or at least those members of it who hold the keys to mainstream rock radio playlists. It's all nationalized, if you're not actively a member of the Clear Channel network, you still subscribe to a national listing that tells you which songs to play... and the songs they choose are the ones that sound most like stadium rock of the 1970's.

I noticed it getting bad already in the 1980's, where an instrumental band like the Dixie Dregs didn't stand a chance and it was only by luck that a few originals like the Police or Dire Straits could sneak in, at that time hairdo synth bands were what the powers decreed. Nowadays, every new rock band that gets awarded a place is "retro-" something or another, because my generation has decided that music stopped growing in 1978. There's wildly good stuff all over the place and we're lucky to have the internet to find it, but the big prize is still a major label contract, and to get it you have to please the ears of 55 and 60-year-old men. And country stations - somehow - are even worse. We just don't wanna let go...

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 27 Oct 2011 8:43 am

but the big prize is still a major label contract

It actually might not be the case anymore. I know plenty of bands making real money outside of the major label system. The model has changed.
As far as the "good music" debate goes I think that nostalgia can be a very dangerous vortex.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 27 Oct 2011 9:00 am

Since the eighties are mentioned... back than I was always looking out for what was new, and I found good stuff: Aztec Camera, China Crisis, Everything But The Girl, Long Riders, Wire Train, T- Bone Burnette, and the the so called New Tradionalists, you know who they were. You had to look hard for that stuff and keep informed.
It was like today, the only difference is personal, I've listened to too much already! Not much room left!

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 27 Oct 2011 9:46 am

David Mason wrote: ...because my generation has decided that music stopped growing in 1978.

For me, the decline began in 1975.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 27 Oct 2011 7:36 pm

Leslie Ehrlich wrote: For me, the decline began in 1975.

When did you get married?

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 27 Oct 2011 8:09 pm

Earnest knows the real secret of "good music" !

Marc Jenkins · Post by **Marc Jenkins** » 27 Oct 2011 10:23 pm

Earnest Bovine wrote:
Leslie Ehrlich wrote: For me, the decline began in 1975.
When did you get married?

Incredible.

Marc Jenkins · Post by **Marc Jenkins** » 27 Oct 2011 10:25 pm

nostalgia n. A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past. The condition of being homesick; homesickness.

Mike Anderson · Post by **Mike Anderson** » 28 Oct 2011 9:19 am

I'm in good company with Leslie and Gene I see.

I get to hear a pretty eclectic selection of recently recorded stuff any time I drive with my wife, because she likes to stay tuned to CBC Radio, our publicly-funded national broadcaster. It all sounds the same to me: emo rock or whatever you want to call it. Oh sure, you get these rad types who`ll throw in folk instruments - but it`s still emo rock, just with folk instruments.

Some day I`m gonna die, and there`s a lot of GOOD stuff I haven`t heard yet from the past - it`s such an easy choice it`s not even funny.

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 28 Oct 2011 10:06 am

Wow! Leann Rimes, Toby Keith & Vince Gills new CD's are worth buying!

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 28 Oct 2011 12:46 pm

Just thinking about it,maybe the decline of country music started when the public started to accept rock and blues artist such as Ray Charles,T.Gramn Brown,or Ronnie NMilsap as country. CCR was ten times more country than these guys.All three of the guys I mentioned were and are GREAT, BUT country

But a lot of people think so ,Waaay back when Ray did that GREAT album of country songs,He WAS country to the public.the same way today that the brain washed fans [some right here on this forum]will look you straight in the eye and tell you that Big and Rich, Kenny Chesney,Taylor Swift,Sugar Land,Cowboy Troy,Rascal Flatts, are country artists. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

Howard Parker · Post by **Howard Parker** » 28 Oct 2011 1:18 pm

A lot of great music out there today, country and otherwise. Much of it is linked and announced on this forum.

I look forward to the latest releases on CD Baby and always manage to pick up a title or two.

Wish I could afford to pick up everything that catches my ear. You want honky tonk, western swing? There's a ton of it out there, most of it by great independent artists writing fine songs in "the style".

I must be listening on another planet.

h

Mike Anderson · Post by **Mike Anderson** » 28 Oct 2011 1:23 pm

Howard, I LOVE honky tonk and Western Swing. If you can recommend me some new artists I promise I'll look into 'em.

Howard Parker · Post by **Howard Parker** » 28 Oct 2011 1:32 pm

Connie Smith has a great new project out, first one in ten years. Check out Amber Digby and Miss Leslie and Her Juke Jointers.

That'll get you started, especially if you like female songsters. These 3 artists all have all have prominent steel by forum members I believe.

There is much more out there. Seriously, go to cdbaby.com and browse the "honky tonk", Bakersfield" and "western swing" subsections and enjoy.

Then you can head over to Amazon and itunes...

h

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Low tolerance for today's "talent"

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