Hey-
I just thought you guys might be interested to know that
when I post a blog, I say I'm currently listening to whatever is literally
playing on my iTunes at the second I am posting.
This way, you will be able to get a true feel for who I
am, without my having to pretentiously choose some impressive or trendy record
for you. Seriously, people do that.
Oh, and by the way, did I ever tell you the Meat Puppets
story?
um... ok this is going to be a little random, but here
goes:
About 10 (??? it was when I was music director at WVCW, so
like 95 or 96) years ago, I was in Peaches, shopping for something (I think it
was for Orff's "Carmina Burana"), and these two kids were at the
racks next to me, flipping randomly through the CDs. They were blabbing and
babbling and chitchatting about this and that and nothing in particular, when
they came upon the Meat Puppets CD (I don't remember the title, it's the one
with Backwater on it...).
Anyway, so here is how their conversation went:
boy1- "Oh! The Meat Puppets!"
boy2- "Who are they?"
boy1- "I don't know, but my brother says they're
awesome."
boy2- "Awesome"
boy1- "I'm gonna buy it."
Isn't that absolutely horrifying?
It's a weird subject for me to have an opinion on, but I
do.
When I was music director, I used to get calls from the
record labels, and I found out how seedy the music industry really is... You
guys think it's all about the sex and drugs, but it's not.
It's Payola.
You see, in the '50s, the government made it illegal for
record companies to pay radio stations to play their music. So what they do
now, instead, is bribe college DJs with stuff.
So when you hear a song on the radio, it usually does not
mean it's there because someone thinks it's good. It's really because DJs get
all this swag for playing it. The radio stations seriously don't give a rat's
ass about the quality of the music, they just want to play what's popular. And
popularity is based on charts. And charts are based on actual rotations, and
they even get audited for accuracy... And for a new artist to break big on
commercial radio, they have to break on college radio first. College kids are
poor. College DJs are college kids. College DJs need stuff. College DJs get
stuff, for free, from record companies, in exchange for heavily rotating
whatever crap the record company wants them to. You always thought it was about
experts listening and sharing the good stuff with you. You were wrong. Its
about a can cozy with a picture of the Hawthorne Heights album cover art on it.
You gotta keep your beer cold, right?
Furthermore, the American public has no idea how little
they really care about music. Everybody thinks they are into music, but most
people just listen to whatever they get stuck in their heads, which is usually
there because the radio is playing it all the time, which is usually because
it's on the charts, which is usually becuse some record executive bribed all the
DJs to play it. (See above)
This is why you listen to Creed, Alanis Morissette,
Chingy, The Presidents of the United States of America, Linkin Park,
Evanescence, and so on. I could make a list that goes on forever and ever, but
I think you get the drift.
Meanwhile, the really good bands have to struggle to
survive, in the underground, in bars and nightclubs, constantly touring in
their VW Bus, hoping people will watch their video on Havoc. These poor guys
have so much talent and they love what they do, but their careers are
foreshortened by capitalist machinery. Art and money should have to be mutually
exclusive in this world...
So, I urge you to listen to the music that you actually
enjoy listening to. If, instead of everybody just being trendy and trying to
fit in, they were to spend a little of their brainpower actually judging the
quality of the music they listen to, we would never have to suffer through the
likes of Celine Dion, Ricky Martin, Gerardo, Phil Collins, Kanye West, Garth
Brooks, Hanson, New Kids on the Block, Dokken, the Bee Gees, The Dave Matthews
Band, recent works by Elton John, the Black Eyed Peas, or Britney Spears ever
again, and good, talented folks might be able to eat something more than
Maruchan instant ramen and Sam's Choice Cola for dinner every night. (Maruchan
means "circleboy" in Japanese, which is so cute to me. Their logo is
even a cute circle with a little boy face!)
I'm just saying...
By the way, when I was the music director at WVCW, I had a
nickname with certain distribution companies who had integrity, and who I
respected. They called me "the only honest music director in college
radio." When the station dissolved because of political strife, lies,
dishonesty, and ridiculous control issues on the part of a certain faculty
advisor, I went away with it, and I took the nickname with me. I can only hope
that somewhere out there, there is some new kid that takes the music seriously
enough to stand up to these corporate punkoes. Seriously, if you are a music
director at a college radio station, and the guy from SubPOP calls you and
tells you he has a brand new band that sounds just like Green Day crossed with
the Offspring (which is seriously what the guy from SubPOP said... no... yelled
to me about Goldfinger, of all things...) and that you have to play it, tell
him Walgreens sells t-shirts, 4 for ten dollars. That ought to shut him up.
Thank you for your support.
-Josh
Currently listening :
Animals
By Pink Floyd
Release date: By 25 April, 2000
