The Problem With ‘Bests’.

I don’t rank music.  I think it’s silly.  I don’t rank paintings or novels, why should I rank music or film?  It’s not productive, and it completely goes against the very notion of “art” in any form.  Music is not baseball; there are no rankings or statistics.  Monetarily?  Yes.  For example, this terribly annoying singer who sports American flags and money signs on stage during her show (wow, what a winning combination that is) called “Kesha” is ranked very high amongst single track and also album sales for the year.  But, who really gives a fuck?  Music as a business?  Yep, that can be “ranked”, if you wanna call it that.  Music as an art?  Not so much.

Every time we get to mid-December everyone and their brother — who writes over at Blogger on his site that specializes in perpetuating meaningless societal trends on a laughable scale (You’ve managed to get 1,000 views?  Wowwww), who probably abandoned said site with the “invention” of Twitter — comes out with their list of the best [_______] of the year.  It’s sad, I think.  And although I like to do somewhat of the same thing for my own personal reasons (to look back and see what I bought, didn’t buy, etc, and to look ahead at next year in music), I absolutely will not “rank” the music.  No.  Because it just doesn’t work that way.  I can share my favorite albums of the year, in the hope that some of the more under the radar groups and people get more recognition than they do, but I cannot rank the best albums of the year.

With that said, I’ll likely put together a group of my favorite albums in the coming days.  I hope someone, somewhere, is turned on to something they’ve never heard of before.

It was an odd year for music, though.  Part of me feels slighted a little, part of me feels thankful for the wonderful new bands I’ve discovered, and part of me just wants to move on.  More later…

-Sonny

10 Bucks A Pop.

Nothing too important today (is it ever?).  Just that there’s a 10 bucks per shirt sale going on right now over at Threadless.  A wonderful t-shirt outlet which has quickly gone from a small Chicago upstart to a thriving business with retail stores and the whole nine.  These caught my eye, so they’re coming:

Again, it’s 10 bucks a shirt at Threadless.com.

-Sonny

Make Something #3.

Allen Wiggs — St. Louisian, fellow Whitechapler, and all around interesting person — took Warren Ellis “Get Excited and Make Things” campaign/concept from early in the year and ran with it.  The idea was to use the borderline outrageous tools/means around oneself (these include things like POD, Magcloud, webzines, webcomics, blogs, Bandcamp, etc; to create art of all kinds for no other reason than because right now, it’s just damn easy; plus I hear it’s good for the soul; holy run-on parentheses) to create something.  Anything.  Now is the time.  There should be an asinine amount of media and art out in the world right now.  The only thing holding us back at this point in our history is ourselves.

Anyways, Allen made a magazine centered around this concept of “making things”, a physical object he’s made himself about he and others doing the same.  I know, “meta” right?  Allen’s released 3 of these magazines, each around 25 pages long, since then.  They each include things like art, photos, fiction, travelogues, comics, and the like.  I submitted something for issue number 3 and he’s put it to use.  But really I’m just a small piece of the puzzle here, as the talent sprawls wildly across the map.

This is the cover:

GO HERE to order Make Something #3.  Links to both 1 and 2 are clear.  Plus, MagCloud is having a sale right now.  So it’s about 5 bucks to get a copy.

-Sonny

A New Voice: Brass to Pickups.

Personal tidbits ain’t interesting; I get it.  Nevertheless: finally, FINALLY I’ll be jammin’ with my old drummer tomorrow sub-level under barely changing leaves and half gray skies.  I don’t mean jazz either.  Course, Roll & Roll wasn’t even born by the time my mind spun into blackness, a blurred Tony screamin’ for help.  It’s funny, I know what my fingers and lips should be doing, I can picture it in my head, just can’t seem to make them do it.  With a trumpet, I mean.  This version of me don’t even have a trumpet anymore.  Saw one last summer – the third summer? – at some giant church, the personal relationship with Jesus kind, sponsored flea market.  A big white tent blanketed small piano’s, picture frames, lamps, chairs, “Polaroid” photo machines (one example, along with 8-tracks and video tapes and a million others, of an invention born post my death and obsolete pre my rebirth; try makin’ sense a that…), dolls, buttons, toys, pillows, etc.  It was silver, not golden brass; a silver that would have represented a new beginning to ex-Sonny the trumpeteer.  Probably a brand new sound too.  Muffled, crisp but soulless.  And I’d regret ever pickin’ it up to try again.  No, this is Rock & Roll, wielded into noise through electricity and the new sax or trumpet, the jolted six string.  If Robbie only knew.  He don’t even need to sell his soul this time.  For the devil, or what the devil might sound like rolled into crunchy, ear-piercing crescendo, resides in these tones.  It strikes me as powerfully as brass once did.  Perhaps more so.  The raw power of it.  The bloodied, crusted hands… Mmmnn.  If only I could’a died by electrocution of the six string.  Now that’d be a way to go…

-Sonny

Stats and Tics.

I was listening to MPR’s out-of-Chicago-show “Music Heads” a few nights ago (Sunday?  I think?).  They were discussing some very interesting numbers and statistics from 2008.  Although overall music sales were down on hard copies of albums (CDs, tapes, 8-tracks, umm fuckin’ lazer discs… wait no- those were movies), one particular section of this did go up some percent: Vinyl.  What’s happening here?  Last time I went to Best Buy, the new one at the Mall Of America, I saw a good amount of both NEW and OLD vinyl albums for prices around that of a new CD.  Apparently vinyl’s coming back a bit, which actually is one of the shockingly cool things about the 2008 State of Music.  Of course, the money missing from the CDs went straight to legal MP3 downloads via sites/programs like iTunes.  One thing about this scares me.  This year the Industry decided (not sure if it’s set in stone yet) to change the “every song costs 99 cents” model to a more adaptive model which ups or lowers price per song based on demand.  Meaning the big hit singles will be pushed up to, say, $1.29-ish; and the less sought after album cuts will be lowered to, say, $0.69.  We’re teaching up and coming music lovers to be horrible music fans.  Possibly this will help sites like iTunes make more money (kids will STILL pay for the hit single; and since it’s cheap, possibly pay for the deep album track?).  But is that a good thing?  Are we coming to the point where we should simply submit the future of the Industry to iTunes and its many imatators?  I for one NEVER think we should.  But these are questions worth asking and wondering.

Some other odd statistics jumped out at me involving the Live Music Scene of 2008.  Concert attendance went up 8% in 2008 (don’t quote me on that).  I think they said 8.  This is a good thing right?  Yeah, it’s got to be.  But this didn’t come without a warning from the hosts.  They said although concert attendance went up, concert prices also went up quite a bit.  In 1998 a “highly sought after” Tour would average a ticket price of about $35.  In 2008, a “highly sought after” tour (what does this even mean?) ticket cost about $67.  All this, without the Ticketmaster bullshit.  Without parking.  Without food and drinks for you and you’re significant other or buddies.  If the trend continues two things can happen: concert attendance will drop off dramatically until Tour Managers and Promoters are FORCED to lower their prices, or concert attendance will stay relatively high, or climb, and hard copy album and MP3 sales will level off.  They’ve got to.  There’s no way people will be able to continue to afford these types of prices in this economy.  However, I did notice how much people were attending LOCAL music shows this year: quite a bit.  I asked the lot on the H-Board the best band he/she saw in concert this year.  A HUGE portion of the peeps (a bigger portion than I’d ever imagine) said the best show they saw this year was some sort of local band in SOME capacity.  Local music is alive and fuckin’ kicking.  GOOD, considering it costs $150 to see Fleetwood Mac.

-Sonny

Ain’t/Is Noise Pollution? Pick One.

I just read through my girlfriend’s December-January edition of Rolling Stone. Why I didn’t take that time to find some new, free web-comics is beyond me (most people wouldn’t even believe how many great ones are out there; they just require digging).  A bit disappointed in myself.  This being the last issue of the year, the magazine of course needs to flex its “2008- The Year In Music” muscle.  If music magazines were high schoolers Rolling Stone would be the asshole who lifts a ton of weights and bangs everyone’s little sister.  That bastard.  As always, there were a few things in this issue that chapped my ass a bit.  The one I’ll discuss now though is on the second page in the “2008- The Year In Music” section: where the main article of the page exclaims “Can’t Stop The Rock”.

Let me preface this though.  The spirit of Rock & Roll, the REAL spirit of Rock & Roll, will never die.  Ever.  Ironically, like the spirit of Christmas.  As much as O’Reilly shouts out his rallying call (from the top of a boulder holding a torch like that one Orc in The Two Towers), “there is a WAR on Christmas from the far-left!!”, X-Mas will never die.  Neither will the X-Men.  Rock & Roll will always soldier on.  It has since the beginning and will ’til the end.  It’s alive every time a teenager discovers Zeppelin for the first time.  Every time the middle-aged man, married with kids, breaks out his old Marshall when the wife and kids are gone and CRANKS it.  It’s there when fresh guitar players first improvise “Voodoo Chile”, or when fresh drummers take their first stab at “Moby Dick”.  It’s there when normally conservative women let loose and get drunk at the bar to Joan Jett or Janis on the juke.  When everything else fades or passes, it remains.  Broken, bloodied, tired, weary… maybe, but never dead or gone.

I’m referring to, as I said, the true spirit of Rock & Roll.  This Rolling Stone article is making the case that this was the year “rock” returned to its glory.  The year which Rock finally seized and people actually noticed and cared.  Why?  What evidence do they submit to prove this point?  Listed in order of appearance:

• New albums from Metallica, AC/DC, and Guns & Roses, in what they’re calling “Rocktober” and “Rockvember”.
• Kid Rock “had his biggest year ever”.
• Bon Jovi and Motley Crue raked in a whole bunch of cash and sold out a ton of shows on the road.
• Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band were sold in the hundreds of thousands.
• A special Aerosmith Guitar Hero grossed more than $25 million in its first week.
• David Cook, a “rocker”, won American Idol.
• 3 of the years Top 10 selling albums were Rock.

Really Jann S. Wenner (Chairman, Editor, and Publisher)?  Those are your reasons for why 2008 was the year Pop Culture “[couldn't] stop the Rock”?  Alright, alright.  Fair enough.  I’ll start with the videogame thing since it’s the only thing taking up two of those bullet points.

Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are HURTING Rock & Roll, and what Rock & Roll means (especially to the mainstream).  I know you don’t like to hear that since the main headquarters over in New York just got the Wii version of Rock Band, but it’s fucking true.  What could be more stifling to the future of Rock & Roll than these games?  “Hey kids!  Do you want the feeling of being in a rock band, or shredding on the guitar, without having to spend all that time and energy drinking beer and getting high with your friends, or learning an instrument?!?  Are you sick of picking up your ax only to not be nearly as good as the greats?!?  Then you need [one of these shitty video games]!!!  Call now, and don’t forget to tell Mom and Dad!”  There was a time when Rock & Roll scared the piss out of parents.  A time where if a kid came home from his friends house with a guitar Mom and Dad would ask each other: “would you ever had thought he’d turn into such a punk/hell-raiser?”.  Thanks to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the Rock & Roll experience is becoming as family and user friendly as Trivial Pursuit or LIFE. This way, there are no ringing ears, no drug experimentation, no sexual aspects, no pushing and shoving, and no real life experience as only Rock & Roll can deliver.

Speaking of ringing ears, 4 pages after “Can’t Stop the Rock” strolls an article entitled “Fans Say Rock Music Too Loud”.  It talks about how producers have begun to use a trick known as “dynamic range compression”.  A digital technique which broadens the volume range; it makes quiets very quiet, and louds very loud, essentially.  In the case of ear-splitting louds, this can cause a distortion on the Master.  I don’t like this simply because it seems like a cheap ploy to make a record sound more dynamic than it actually is.  However, most people don’t like it because it’s been making their rock records too loud for their ears.  Hey (need to look up the name again) Jann S. Wenner: don’t you find it ironic that your magazine has a section which features one article entitled “Can’t Stop The Rock”, and one “Fans Say Rock Music Too Loud”??  Or do you find it ironic that you’re magazine cites AC/DC’s return, the band who wrote “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution”, as a reason Rock is alive and well while also featuring “Fans Say Rock Music Too Loud”??  I mean, this is shit you’d find in The Onion for God’s sake.

Now the rest of it.  AC/DC has and always will kick ass.  AND, the new Metallica record actually ain’t half bad.  Guns & Roses I could give two shits about at this point in their careers.  I’ll say this: it’s fucking weak that AC/DC made a deal with Walmart to exclusively sell their CD, thank God Metallica finally got rid of Bob Rock, and fuck G & R.  Kid Rock??  Seriously?  I haven’t even heard that guys name this year until now.  I know he’s touring, and playing some sort of Warren Zevon/Skynard mash-up, but he didn’t seem to make that big of a splash.  Presumably because he’s too “rebellious” for the mainstream.  To say that Rock ruled the road this year because of Bon Jovi and Motley Crue’s tours is so lame.  I feel so bad for anyone who went through young adulthood in the 1980′s and these two are their version of Dylan and the Stones.  David Cook sings glorified assembly line mush that I’d hardly consider true Rock & Roll.  3 of the Top 10?!?  Well- considering the Top 10 features T.I., Lil’ Wayne, and TWO Taylor Swift albums, I’d say that’s not saying a whole lot.

Like I said before, Rock never “went away” and it never will.  And all these things combined point to the “mainstreaming” of Rock & Roll, which would be good if it were pure, but it isn’t.  Do you know how the term came about?  Why it was so scary for suburban whites in the cozy 50s to see their children become infatuated with it?  Because “rock & roll” was a term used by black dudes and gals back in the day to refer to fucking.  Ya know, back when human beings weren’t allowed to drink from certain fountains, or even marry each other.  Well- we’ve come a long way from what it means to the mainstream haven’t we?  I don’t even think the term “rock band” refers to a rock band anymore.

-Sonny

On Evolving Into “Ivory Garbage”.

A lady of mine advised me early on today of exactly what kind of day she would surely become. It turns out she did. Oh my dear; this can’t be happening to me. Not me. I enjoy things like Stanley Kubrick and comic books. Not me. Culture is changing, though; maybe I’m changing with it? Or perhaps this was nothing more than an anomaly? Those kinds of things happen all the time. White Trash Sunday she would become. Known forever in my mind as the warning (hopefully not the prequel) to hickdom.

It all started innocent enough. I said something really stupid to start the day- which warranted a backlash- which led into excursion. We went to the electronics store to preview a couple things and gander at whatever else. The moment we left EMPTY HANDED, I knew we were on the verge of something bad. Only certain types of people stroll into electronics stores and leave with absolutely nothing. If anything, someone with half a sense of art appreciation at least buys one CD or movie. Shit- even the common dipshit purchases a video game (probably something like Madden or Guitar Hero). But alas, I- we- did walk out empty handed. What came next is something I’m almost never prepared for when it struts my way.

Out of the blue someone (who shall remain nameless) shouted triumphantly “WHITE CASTLE!!”. Inside my brain I shuttered, inside my heart I wept, and inside my stomach I came. White Castle gets my gut aroused like a nice round ass does. But I went along with it. You see: I was hungry as hell, hadn’t had Castle in a while, and was scoring points (but that’s another story). So off we go to Castle. On the way we passed a gigantic “yardsale” outside of a Stadium-esque Evangelical Church of Gawd. That one. I knew right away I was becoming White Trash when the GIANT yellow tent captured my eyes; I followed that tent as we passed, not exactly watching where I was driving my car to.

White Castle did taste good; I mean goddamn, I gotta admit that. And I hate to say it. But an amount close to a hand’s digits is when the towel, or the white flag, gets thrown in or raised respectively. How could a single human being devour even a 10-sack?? It’s Uncanny [X-Men]. (Kitty Pryde is dead? What the fuck? For real? Serves her right for being so self righteous. Frost would never kick the bucket like that. Why? Cause she’s a fucking bitch dammit!) “That hit my spot. Delicious. Enough to make my innards dance”, I said. No I didn’t; but something close to that effect.

Driving back we made the decision to actually stop at this K-Mart rejection item’s Super Store known as the “BIG Yard-Sale”. Someone give me a gun; if I actually WAS a hick, I’d own one! This whole thing is starting to bite me in the ass. I parked and we entered through the gaping wide opening labeled “Enter Here”. Could sure use that firearm right about now. “I know my Second Amendment dammit!” But how many of them know the 13th? This was a mish-mash of nostalgia, actually quite the sight to behold. A playful batch of goodies so ignorant of the current year they’d cite the “Timelife” textbooks, from their own ranks, to tell us that mental disorders are poppycock. I shouldn’t talk too much shit though- there were some great items: a fully working Polaroid Camera, some sort-of Earth auger, a piano, keyboards, front doors, and the like. I found a beauty of a piece on row 5. A working Smith-Corona Classic 12 typewriter from the 70s. This thing is fucking badass. It came inside this ultra tough suitcase-type dealy; now I can forge my dreams of GONZO journalism into reality.

Onward we journeyed to AxeMan. This probably the least white/ivory-trash/garbage of them all. Besides the electronics store of course. No- scratch that; we came out with NOTHING. This store rocks hard. “Communist Red Toys”, Rubber Biscuits, motors of all shapes and sizes, stoplights, manikins, Batman Velcro straps and neckties, MPH guns, and a goddamn dentist’s chair. I bought a new little case, which will fit nicely into my typewriter case, which will again play into the travel-cross-country-beat-gonzo theme. Although, I’m not aspiring towards that; not because I don’t want to, because I CAN’T (unfortunately). New millennium interstate travel is vastly different from that of the 40s through 70s. It just doesn’t work that way anymore (I’m sorry WSB, JC, AG, HST, and the rest).

And to top it all off- I ate fucking fast food twice today. In order to balance out my levels I’m going to need to do these things tomorrow: 1) wake up BEFORE Price Is Right comes on, 2) listen to Wu-Tang Clan, 3) talk shit about NASCAR and Miller and Bud, 4) eat a salad, 5) wash my hands thoroughly and regularly, 6) read some classic Russian literature, 7) Spend at least 2 hours painting (abstracts especially), 8) *WHAT THE FUCK??  Since when is an 8 followed by a close-parentheses a goddamn smiley face with sunglasses?  What’s this culture coming to??  Sweet mercy fuck shit fuck… I need a drink.  Anyways… NUMBER EIGHT)  Go an entire session of guitar playing without the slightest inclination towards a Lynard Skynard riff, 9) think hard about global poverty and hunger, and 10) solve my own problems.

Good luck with that.

-Sonny