Start the Revolution Without Me

“Gimme Shelter” swirling around my head, in my veins, clinging to sinewy bits of my conscience.

At once  feel dangerous, on edge, about to whirling dervish it all to hell.  Smokes, drinks needed.

“Rape, murder! It’s just a shot away.” Indeed they are, capital in the moment.  Transported, transfixed, transmogrified.  Music as chemical voodoo, catalyst, personal sea level, to move to somewhere anywhere but here, now.  

*     *    *

Grew up small, the runt, smart enough to know to fight with your mouth and brain rather than your fists.

Small town rundown, 20 years in the past and pasty white.  Quiet , quaint, protected and staid.

Nothing ever happened, except the car crash in the old Chevy that suspended my five-year-old life for a while.

God was everywhere and three times a Sunday.  Parents were like fire and water; sometimes I got burned, sometimes I got drowned. Mom played hymns, Dad sang gospel in a quartet.  Looked forward to the piano dusting that would lead to the enviable boogie-woogie breakout – that was more like it.

Music saves.

*     *    *

Later night crank-fest (parents gone) of Rush and Zeppelin out of 50’s stereo distortion, brother freaked me out with the beginning of “Detroit Rock City”. Car crash.

House full of usual suspects: Boston, Alan Parsons, Elton John, Cars, James Taylor and Bread. 

In this case, Marvin Gaye saves.

Chose to remedy the situation and start to grow my own.

*     *    *

Earned a Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl LP in a walkathon – even knew to leave the Steve Miller. That was the start. Albums were expensive on an allowance where frugality was pervasive.  Hey, I was 10 and Jimmy Carter was president (the best of the past 40 years).

Paper route brought the rest:  Police, Monks, more Beatles.   

*     *    *

Lennon dies, puts my young world in an uproar. Collect all papers and special mags (some still remain to this day).  Music becomes conviction.  Music is invincibility. A world to return to, to take a hit off the musical spectre.  “Let me take you down – ‘cause I’m going to...”

*     *    *

Forward 16 years to university. Musical journey truly begins. Doors opened to everything, no borders, just like Ellington said, “Two kinds of music:  good and bad.” Spider worked his magic. Everything was on the table.  Next came the radio show and LP library: Captain Beefheart, Coltrane, Replacements, Lost Patrol, Primitives, Husker Du, Eugene Chadbourne, Minutemen, Butthole Surfers, Mingus, Motorhead, Monk. 

Had a blast, late-night broadcast free-form freedom. It’s been this way ever since.

Always tell a lot about someone from their musical tastes.  Perhaps more than anything else.

It’s the “gateway drug” to all their opinions, feelings and place in the world.

Save that for next time…

The Real Deal

Transcendence. Big word, big idea. I'm going to bastardize it and use it for my own purposes.
To move from one state to another. Specifically how film and music move us from a relative "normal" state
to another more "heightened" one. Normal being a relative term, depending on the day and circumstances and
heightened whether it be a state of angry, sadness, depression or joy or a mix of these from moment to moment.

Stodgy to say the least, reduce it down to a film or album moves us from where we were to where we are presently, reality being flexible and warpable.
The best of them alter our altitude, open spaces into unexamined parts of our brain, emotion, psyche.
How do movies, music and books move us; move us to tears, anger, enlightment, excitement. I'll leave this to the fine medical establishment to probe and explore.

My ideas in this blog are not to explain how or why but what - in essence what moves me and what I find immovable junk in these here modern times. Not strictly just relegated to the present continuous collapse of all things "cultural", - a turd is a turd no matter when it got birthed, but to push people to examine their consumption of culture and why there's such a creeping low standard when it comes to amusing ourselves to death.

Another man's feast is another's famine but then again shit is just shit there's no excuse it just is, it's a fact.
"High" art is not my providence, although if you pushed me, I might grumbly confess that it does exist.
I don't pursue it like a cultural zealot, I weave my way through the detritus of film and music etc. looking for that one 'hit'! That one thing that day, hour or instant that will change my outlook from gloom to hope or ecstatic joy.

Do we get the culture we deserve?

Stay tuned for this and more like:

Why modern hip hop is the return of Uncle Tomism to a once great musical force?
Why 1967 was a shit year for music?
Why online music services as a whole stink?
What are the five typical music consumers and how they affect the role and availability of music in our culture?

Okay enough, enough!  It's not going to be all that serious but it'll definitely be a rantastic journey.
The great, the good and the crap!

Cheers
Thanks for joining
Come on in the water's warm
Pappy