Feeling wistful.......keep music live!
Hi all - I woke up feeling wistful this morning after our first proper gig with Kim our new drummer at the Victoria Club in Chesterfield last night - a great venue, fantastic stage, big room, good acoustics and staff who really seem to care about music and want to keep rock music playing there. I am not sure if I dreamt/remembered or imagined a night of people dancing, loving live music and engaging with the band. Didn't it used to be like that?
But so often these days there is no real audience to play to. I'm not sure if it's the recession biting deep - times are definitely hard and pubs are closing down at an alarming rate, as we all know, and people are probably staying in more and watching the pennies - or something deeper about a changing response to live music? Hmm - ponders....
As for us, it was a big night in some important ways - our first proper gig with Kim and we were all nervous, truth be told. So we really got into our stride musically by the second set. Whilst we did over 60 gigs last year, a 5 month break definitely has an effect and no amount of rehearsing - which we've been doing since the new year - can subsistute for the live experience. And with any new member in a band, it's like starting over. A whole new combination of people, experience and expectation. It's visceral, pretty scary at times but can also be wildly exhilarating. I guess that's why we do it. But I also reflected this morning that it's much harder singing your heart out to an empty room - there's no interaction, no necessary lift when people dance, sing along or applaud or even when they don't like something!
It strikes me though that when times are hard it's easier to go over to karaoke and singers with backing tracks - they're cheaper, more likely 'to sound like the record/CD', less inclined to give in to moments of human error and easier to accept as a backdrop to conversation. There is no collective of four real people or more all playing their own instruments, working together, getting it just right at times and experimenting through those live moments when things catch you out. But to me there's a whole world of possibility lost in the super-slick game of reproduction, a kind of soullessnss and blandification (is that a word?!) which is neither challenging nor exciting. But maybe it's just me and times have changed. I was never a fan of the pre-packaged product or the X Factor culture.
All I can say is keep music live! And I think I've heard that before......
- sharon's blog
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Comments
Exactly.......
For blandification - it can be a word by the way if enough people use it and its recorded in public places - read 'classic rock'. Nothing wrong with it per se but it has the effect of bending history as though 'they' were the only songs that mattered. We're talking here the trotting out of some fine songs like Alright Now, Smoke on the Water, Sweet Home Alabama and a whole load of Pink Floyd etc, etc, etc for the over 50's, who, like cats that have only ever been fed one thing turn their nose up at anything else. I would like to call this Primark fashion syndrome. In pursuit of creating an 'individual' look everyone goes to the same shops and end up wearing an individual uniform where everything looks, feels and sounds the same.
So, we're going to carry on and re-create a state of independent rock, where we acknowledge the good but champion the lesser known to enrich the lives of the people. We will wean them off their drug-like dependence and offer them alternative recipes that include designer alternatives - we being the designers of course; and when we have converted the lowly to the holy we will celebrate with the newly (No not Anthony Newley) re-recorded SWALK to replace schmaltz and go forth to take back the colonies....................
(Web-guys note - at this point the orderlies returned to the room to re-fit the strait-jacket and return Steve to the padded cell reserved for musical zealots)
Mrs Treacher's Last Word
Ooooh, me 'usbands just died. He liked 'Alright Now'. Bloody good riddance to 'im. Baaaarstad.
Mrs Treacher
Oi Gollum!
Dear Mrs Treacher,
Shouldn't that be Waaaaaaahnkah?
Absorb.......
Oi - Mrs Treacher - who is gollum?!
Perhaps now Mrs Treacher will be absorbing our various sound creations.........
Absorb II
I think you'll find that they are word and melody constructions actually..................
So stick that up your pipe and stroke it,
Count Arthur Strong