It was a pretty twisted and dark “joke.” It also early put us off our dinner, but there we were at a friend’s restaurant talking about why his and other restaurants were not exactly doing well: People were staying in and eating other people as, for some reason, cannibalism is making a “comeback.” The grisly case of the male model who ate his Chinese boyfriend and sent hi body parts to different addresses was the most gruesome of all these new zombie attacks taking place around the world. Babs Streisand singing, “People needing people” has become “people eating people.”
What the hell is happening to this world? Or are we actually in purgatory and paying for ours and everyone else’s sins. Just watch the news: Europe has gone tits up and so Adios to those women who kept telling me “we should retire in Greece or Spain or, maybe, Italy.” Aw, shuddup. And do what? Grow prunes up ones arse?
In America there will soon be a re-election and where, again, the lesser of two evils will win and take the rest of the world even further down the crapper.
Meanwhile, in this now-world of hackers, Wikileaks, Anonymous and great economic collapse, “trending” everywhere, like these attacks of the new zombies, everyone and their mother is a “fund manager” or a “private equity” expert. None of these people have name cards, no on really knows what they do other than that their “portfolios are bulging” whereas the companies for whom they say they work for are usually from places like the Mauritius, the Cayman Islands, or anywhere in Mexico and Brazil. Who ARE these people and where do they come from, Eleanor Rigby?
In the Second City social media whirl, MySpace plods along with Yahoo in now, Spotify is, simply put, a business model that is well-and-truly fucked as it gives nothing back to the artists, “Zuck” now rhymes with an F letter word and Facebook is Failbook while million continue to blindly give content away for free and showing a certain misguided desperation to feel loved.
Television limps along with formulaic crap like all those vampire series and which “trend” for a while before being lost in the darkness and fangs not being what they used to be. How any people can you suck until they start being suckers, too? Twilight has come and gone and so have Team Edward and Team Whatever and “True Blood” has lost its bite. After all, who needs television shows like these, when there are real life zombies cannibalizing the world?
I find Emily Deschanel, the Actress who plays “Bones”, to be bloody stunning, but how many more of these detective/cops series with this “sexual tension” between the lead male and female characters can one take?
How many American “comedies” can we take where the cast seems to have been created by clones and where there is the bratty kid, the teenage daughter with raging hormones, the hen-pecked husband, the loving and understanding wife and the nosey neighbour plus one black friend. Seriously now, how much more? No wonder people are being driven to gnawing off the noses and lips of other people. Yes, indeed, people eating people are the weirdest people of them all.
So, in the midst of all this madness and mediocrity, where does music fit in? We talked about this as well last night and it wasn’t until an hour later that we realized we were in a restaurant playing some of the most classic music ever made. Did we hear it? Were we listening out for it? Nope. It was all background music and, sad to say, it’s not just Kenny G recordings that have become elevator muzak. U2, Bon Iver, Roots, Alicia Keys- you name it- their music is filtered through shopping malls, fitness centres and, yes, elevators and has become the background music to our lives as, we, too plod along on the Starship Non-Enterprise searching for nothing in particular and with no one guiding us. We need a Captain Kirk.
Those who pontificate about “the state of the industry” are a joke ‘cos they cannot/refuse to see the forest for the trees as they remain part of that same old Boys Club listening to the sound of one hand clapping. They have seriously lost touch with the consumer and so just happily talk to the animals and those who think alike and talk and talk and talk and come up with zero solutions. Are there any solutions other than making music purely for “promotional use” and to help make real money with ‘live’ gigs? And how many ‘live’ gigs are there and how many venues are out there and also how many will hire an unknown name? It’s all about the music, yes, but this music needs new “carriages” and not just YouTube and posting a few clips on fan pages. It doesn’t work this way, anymore. And then, even if one is lucky nough to get a gig, it doesn’t mean it will be a guaranteed success. Again, we need a Captain Kirk to lead us outta this formulaic thinking.
Today, if a muso hasn’t “made” it work for themselves financially by 26, play for the sheer joy of making music, but forget abut making money outta it. Again, we come back to the consumer and today’s consumer has put an “age cap” to those whose music they will download- even legally- and help promote and become part of their “street marketing team.” Using social media to spread the word about a new artist’s music? Sure. And then what? You think this will go “viral”? Puhleeze.
We are on Overload with gadgets and apps and have become mostly saps who have forgotten how to use our God-given brains. It’s the blind leading the blind and everyone- even the men- becoming a cross between The Stepford Wives and The Night Of The Living Dead. Again, I come to Zombies.
So, where are we? There is no music business and, honestly, no need for one. No one outside of this “business” gives a fuck if it succeeds or fails. It’s not a life priority. A ‘Live’ music business is different: We need it and we’ll pay to see and hear music. Will we pay to hear new artists? Perhaps, but all the din of clutter is making all this new music take a backseat role and is often buried in the bullshit of talk, talk, talk.
If a new, young band or artist today, I’d try and tour Scandinavia as Scandinavians are far more open and friendly towards hearing new music- and from anywhere in the world. In return, there should be some sort of mutual music exchange programme with Scandinavia as, I reckon, this part of the world makes some of the best damn music in the world- but it has no one to truly champion them. What happens in Scandinavia stays in Scandinavia and which is a damn pity. You know one of the biggest markets for ‘live’ appearances by bands outta Scandinavia? Indonesia. Strange how little the current “music industry” or “music business” knows. Why? They don’t get out much. They’re happy to be little people sucking up to the same old little people.
Re-invent, re-invent, re-invent. These are the three key words today. It’s, yes, being inspired and respecting the past in everything- especially music. But it also means looking forward, using our own brains and not being so damn easily led..and this is usually down the garden path.
Re-invent yourself, re-invent your thinking, re-invent your lifestyle and re-invent the way we do things with everything which have been created for us and not be happy just being sheep and lemmings and following what’s “trending”.
BE what’s “trending” instead of jumping on an already-over-loaded “trending” bandwagon. And try writing. It’s therapeutic and cheaper than seeing a shrink. It might even help you to be “trending”- whatever that means.
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