The Musical Schizo

I said last week that I’d probably be back on track with music stuff this week, and yes, sorta. You see, I have an unfortunate divide in my life. I love music. I love making music. I love artists. I love artistic people. I love people who have free and interesting minds. I love making music with artistic people with free and interesting minds. I DON’T love the belief system that seems to have a solid grip on many of the musicians I know.

There’s a generation of people from about my age (46) through 60ish that grew up on arena rock and came of age in the Reagan era. The youngest boomers and oldest Gen-Xers. Most of the people that populate the jam sessions I like to attend up north fit this category. And sadly most of them are mindlessly conservative and reactionary in their beliefs. These are the “all lives matter” crowd. These are the idiots that shared “Plandemic” as though it had a shred of credibility (and still insist it makes good points when it’s been thoroughly debunked). These are the people posting “blue lives matter” all over the place as police escalate situations and beat, tear gas, pepper spray, and shoot peaceful protesters in the streets for merely being present. These are the brainless fucks that think people should be shot for looting. Like theft deserves a death sentence. Many are still saying COVID-19 is all a hoax Democrats created to hurt Trump. They buy all the bullshit conspiracies and lies from Trump’s GOP and their enablers at OAN and Fox. They sincerely believe “Black Lives Matter” meant “ONLY Black Lives Matter”, and refuse to accept that it actually meant “Black Lives Matter, too!” They’re probably not wearing a mask out in public.

I bring up all their moronic beliefs because I’m in a tough spot. I sincerely LIKE the majority of these people who hold these idiotic beliefs. I am a person who sees people for their goodness, I traffic in love and empathy. I do my best to look past their blindness to their white privilege, their ignorant hatred and fear-based reactions to everything.

But that’s getting really hard.

It’s a very good thing that we’re all physically distancing and not going to bars and clubs right now. Because I’d probably be in their face ripping them new ones for their thoughtless comments on Facebook. I can’t let it go anymore. I’ve unfollowed pretty much all of them, and that is actually quite nice. But it’s just a band-aid. I’m so disappointed in them as people, because their core isn’t necessarily rotten. Many of them are kind, at least in “real life”. But too many of them are too stupid and proud to be educated at this point. I think it’s time to let it go. To take my time and figure out ways to be strong in my belief, shit on them hard if they’re being stupid or racist, but love them anyway. Like I do with my relatives. Good people, believe in reactionary conservative bullshit and can’t see past their privilege and lack the empathy to consider how it might be for someone lacking their skin tone or upbringing.

So we’ll see how things go. I don’t generally go after people or post politically on social media anymore, because it’s just exhausting. No one wants to hear it. No one wants to be corrected. No one is really like me. I don’t mind having my ideas ripped to shreds if it means I’m learning something. People of the “Boomer/X” group (the conservative ones, anyway), lack the intellectual curiosity to actually challenge their beliefs when new ideas render them questionable. They just believe what they believe, and expect people to honor that, which is utter madness. And everything is taken so personally when they’re IDEAS not PERSONALITY TRAITS. Except when they are, I guess.

Living in this stupid society founded on greed and aspirational greed has taught me a few things: 1. Greedy people will continue to amass everything. 2. They will do anything in their power to tweak the rules to ensure they can keep amassing things. 3. They don’t care what that means for anyone but themselves.

So being calm and composed and maintaining my kindness in the face of all this idiocy is my goal. Equanimity.

On the music front – Chandler and The Bings’ new single is VERY CLOSE to being complete – one last mix tweak and then sent off to mastering. Its release will be accompanied with a performance video from our respective studio spaces.

I may be posting the audio from our 5/29 livestream concert here soon. I like my mix of it…and the band is kicking, even with no audience!

Last thing: NEW FRIDAY FLUSH WAS POSTED FRIDAY (finally). Okay it’s not new, it’s from March of 2011, but it is still pretty cool, in my opinion:

And that’s all for today. That should be my last word on anything political for a while. Black Lives Matter. Oh, and HUMAN LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE THAN PROPERTY OR A BUSINESS.

Stay safe, stay strong, stay curious, and peace be the journey!

TMS

Words are hard right now. My heart is broken, not that it hasn’t been for a long time on this topic. But the way police agencies are responding to peaceful protests, with military action and violence, is disgusting and makes me ashamed.

I realize this blog is about music, but I haven’t been able to really think of music with the shit state of the world right now. Police need to weed out the “bad apples” IMMEDIATELY and start implementing the changes in training, de-escalation, and disciplinary actions that they so desperately need. Communities need to take social aspects of policing off their plate and let them focus on real crimes.

Black Lives Matter. And fuck you if you’re still saying all lives matter in response. You’ve been told what it means, and if you still don’t accept it, you are a garbage person.

I hope every violent cop who started these police riots (that’s what the majority of them are – police departments’ overzealous use of force is what made them happen) gets prosecuted for their crimes and loses their job.

No more bullies as cops. No more dumb people as cops. It’s time to take the power away from them, because they’ve shown they’re not worthy of it anymore.

Black Lives Matter. Acknowledge your white privilege. Stand for change. Vote our piece of shit President and all his lackeys out of office in November.

Next Tuesday will be back to normal musical programming, probably. I do have a lot to talk about on that front. Just not now. Not this week. My heart can’t keep my feelings on this topic to myself anymore.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Peace to all.
TMS

P.S. STAY THE FUCK HOME. This COVID-19 shit isn’t over. If you must go out for a good reason, like a peaceful protest, follow the guidelines for being out in the world. Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your goddamn hands. Thank you. I don’t want you to die or to kill anyone because you were careless (or selfish).

I’ve heard people say you can’t schedule creativity. And they are correct, I think, but I do think if you set aside time to be creative on a regular basis, it definitely helps create things. I didn’t have time this week to really get any of my creative things done the way I wanted (hence the Museday Mumbling coming out basically at midnight on Wednesday night). And there are other issues, of course.

I still have to figure out the logistics of how to make the Friday Flush happen, because the only suitable bathroom in my current house gets crazy bright in the afternoon BEHIND where I’d be sitting and singing, so the lighting is terrible. I can’t record once the baby is in bed, because it’s too noisy. That leaves mornings (when I’m almost 100% trying to work and take care of baby at the same time), and then baby’s nap, when I can’t be noisy either. So you can see it’s a challenge. I’m going to have to carve out time on weekends to get it done. It will happen. For now I have one other singing video from a while back (might be 10 years ago, actually) that was banked and never released. I’m not sure why I decided not to release it, but I really like it now, so it’ll be Friday Flush Episode 2, likely released this coming Friday, as a sort of “holder” for when I figure out the Friday Flush logistics. I might end up turning it into something different, where I’m not recording in a bathroom. We’ll have to see.

Anyway, the point is, the road to regular creation is so far sort of a rocky one, but I’m doing my best. I have some neat ideas and I should be executing at least a few of them this week while I’m off work. Please bear with me, and head over to my YouTube and subscribe and ring the bell so you get notified when I do release the videos.

Thanks for your time, and keep an eye out here. I think there’s some good stuff on the way, and on a more regular basis! 🙂

TMS

A lot of big thoughts and emotions this week in the world of music-related things for me. First, I decided to start being a regular creator. Judging by the arrival of this blog post a day late (two if it takes me more than 6 minutes to post it), you can see that life has been a little more important than meeting my arbitrary internet obligations on a blog basically no one reads. That aside, I had some very nice experiences and I’m going to talk about them

First, I had a great social-distancing practice with my Chandler and The Bings homies. We’re playing a livestream concert this Friday night from The Venue ATX, and it should be weird and fun.

I also saw the Elton John biopic “Rocketman”. It was truly enjoyable. Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell dazzled. Just perfect performances. Reminded me that no matter what shit you put in the way, you should always strive to keep working and creating and never forget to keep yourself grounded. And remember that you’re loved…

Three minutes left until it’s Thursday. Okay. Shit! Two minutes. Well, the other cool thing is that I finished an electronics project to add some footswitches to my gear to give me a little more flexibility on stage.

Okay. One minute left. I’m going to just keep it simple. I love music. I love the guitar. I love the bass. I love playing with my friends. And that’s all for now. I’m going to keep plugging away, and next week, I’m going to be lazy AF because I’m off work. Hopefully lots of guitaring.

Peace be the journey!

TMS

I’ve decided that I’m going to start being more active on this site. So welcome to what I am now calling “Museday” I will release a new blog post every single Tuesday going forward. Sometimes it will be me blathering on about some musical topic that tickles my fancy that week, sometimes it will be to release new songs, sometimes it will be just life stuff, but it will happen every Tuesday, or “Museday”. I hope you enjoy it!

Now, on to today’s thoughts. I’m in a band with a guy who’s 11 years younger than me. In our teens, we were both very fond of the punk rock of our day. But the 11-year gap between what we love makes things kind of amusing sometimes when we talk about it. Now, he’s always had way more punk rock cred than me, in terms of his dedication to creating original music in the genre, and his look and stuff like that. I’ve never been into the fashion of punk rock. I think it’s kind of silly, actually, but I think that about most fashion, so it’s not really relevant. The music has always been the only thing I cared about.

When I started liking punk rock, it was the beginnings of what people would call “punk-pop” or “pop punk”. It was the Lookout! Records bands – Green Day, Operation Ivy, The Mr. T Experience, The Queers. And it was Rancid, The Descendents, All, NOFX, Offspring. It was all very California-style, steeped in the Bay Area/Gilman Street scene and the Southern California surf-punk thing. I loved when people mixed genres in to punk, like ska, especially, and I especially loved the bands with exceptional melodic sense, like Green Day. My punk rock was the softer, more pop version.

In discussing the genre with my bandmate and buddy, I found out something interesting. “Pop-punk” means something COMPLETELY different to his generation. It’s the bands that followed the Blink-182 model – the first generation AFTER all the bands that I loved. The production was slicker, the guitars were thicker, the drum sounds big. By the time all that stuff was getting popular, I had grown tired of the genre. I mean, I liked Blink-182 a little – definitely a fan of their more pop material (their “heavier” stuff sounded super derivative to me), but I was snobby about it. So I never got into the bands that he loved all that much. We do have some overlap, in that he was younger when the genre grabbed him, so we both dig the skate punk stuff and stuff like NOFX, because they kind of just kept making records, but I find it kind of amusing that we’re so far apart on some stuff. I think he sees a lot of the stuff I was into as almost unlistenable because he really digs that Pop Punk production quality that became very specific and a genre unto itself in the early 2000s.

By then, I had shifted my focus to more purely classic alternative/indie pop and power pop stuff like Fountains of Wayne, Jellyfish, Superdrag, Sloan, Marvelous 3, The Grays, Jason Falkner, and other super-melodic, dense music that had a melodic and harmonic sense derived heavily from the best rock and pop music of the 60s and 70s (and sometimes 80s). Often these artists added a lot of punk rock attitude and energy to what they did, and I think that gave me the “edge” I needed to keep devouring it. It’s probably still my biggest go-to when I want to listen to music. But I also was way into the “alterna-pop” stuff of the day, so I was into Barenaked Ladies, Fastball, Semisonic, and bands like that – they also derived their melodic and harmonic sense from classic rock and pop, but were less punky and more mainstream.

All the while I never stopped listening to the metal bands I loved (Anthrax, Pantera, Metallica), the hard rock bands I loved (King’s X, Extreme, Living Colour, Van Halen), the funk bands I loved (The Meters), and the progressive rock bands I loved (Rush, Queen, Yes, Zappa, Primus, Dream Theater). All of this plus a steady diet of the classics (Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown, Atlantic Soul, Zombies, Grand Funk, Led Zeppelin, 70s Chicago), 80s pop stuff, Next School hip hop (De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, etc.), a few classic hip hop acts (Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J) and a smattering of jazz and classical and soundtrack music.

So, circling back to the topic, I was never a punk rocker, even if there was punk rock that I liked. And sometimes I find it hard to talk to my buddy about the music partially because what he seems to really love is something very specific that I don’t understand – the Pop Punk, Hardcore, and Emo stuff of the early 2000s. I wasn’t the right age to “get it” and by that point I’d already had a kid (and then another in 2003) so it just wasn’t for me. In fact, at the time, I HATED it. Not because of the music, necessarily, but because of the culture surrounding it. I didn’t get it. I thought it was whiny, crappy, overproduced, edgeless music. Punk Rock Air Supply. I still find it hard to keep a straight face when someone says anything positive about any band of that time except perhaps Jimmy Eat World, because I really liked them (and still do). I also liked New Found Glory even though the singer’s super whiny. So I’ve been a kind of a dick about it forever for no good reason. And to get along, I definitely don’t talk shit about it to my friend who I love and don’t want to hurt by being an asshole.

But I have a confession to make (and not a Dashboard one…yay dad joke):

I REALLY DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT THAT GENRE.

My attitude about it is one based on ignorance and merely being annoyed by the people clad in what appeared to be Hot Topic uniforms who liked it back in 2002. How crappy and small is that? How “dickhead older brother” is that?

Now, I will say that I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here, and just say what I always say about music, “If it’s good to you, it’s good. To you.” Music is personal, it’s subjective, and anyone can pick apart absolutely anything for whatever reason they choose. So my hatred of the genre, however silly, considering how much of that type of music I enjoy that doesn’t really carry the label (I’m looking at you, Weezer), is actually just as valid as hating the stuff I love that most people agree is great (like The Beatles).

I want to have passionate opinions about new music again, but so much I hear that’s new just falls flat for me. Some people love the exploration – the next new creative thing from someone – but I’ve never been one of those people. New is just more recent. It doesn’t mean anything else to me. I find something special I like, devour pretty much everything they’ve ever done, and then listen to it over and over again ad nauseum until I go back to listening to something I loved 30 years ago.

A perfect sort of recent example of this is the English band Muse. They are a perfect combination of so many of my favorite bands all at once, so once I got hooked on them (their 2006 record “Black Holes and Revelations”), I bought EVERYTHING and listened to it constantly.

An even more recent example, which might be surprising to some people, is Billie Eilish. I heard The Interrupters’ cover of “Bad Guy” (I LOVE THAT BAND…) and then circled back to Billie’s original version, which I actually didn’t like at first. But it grew on me fast, and I had to consume as much of her stuff as I could find. When I found out her brother Finneas was heavily involved in all her music and produced it, I made sure I consumed whatever I could find from him (his EP is fantastic – go listen to it now).

But back to the point. I’m kind of a hard “get” at this point as a fan. I’ve blogged before about hating music, and honestly, that was probably never really true, even though it felt true at the time. I just find it hard to be inspired by new music. I pick it apart and ruin it for myself before it even has a chance to move me. It has to be something that surprises me or feels fresh. There’s very little of that in the mainstream. There’s very little of that in hip hop for me anymore. I’m such a fuddy-duddy when it comes to the style of flow I like in hip hop (basically, pre-1995) – and I just don’t like the over-processed vocals on most of those tracks, and trap beats are the high-waisted jeans of music – they work about 5% of the time. Even when I hear about a promising new hard rock band, I almost always end up going “meh” after a while. Not much feels fresh anymore, and very little surprises me.

But I admire my friend. I love that he can get joy from the stuff that I find endlessly boring. I love that he gets excited about the new stuff. I don’t know that I have the bandwidth to give a shit, to be honest. Sometimes I wish my ears were more open and I was less of a party pooper about music, but being true to me means I’d almost always rather listen to Toto’s “Rosanna” another thirty times to get the nuance of David Hungate’s bass phrasing or to nail that Luke guitar solo than listen to some mumble rapper, some wank-vocal-with-small-minded-lyrics pop chick or a guy with face tattoos who seems to sorta like rock music but is famous as a rapper.

(Although I did like that guy’s Nirvana tribute a few weeks back.)

I doubt I’ll ever be able to just listen to whatever’s current and enjoy it again unless the way they make music these days changes, but “new” is whatever you really haven’t experienced, so since my buddy’s favorite music is that Emo stuff I never bothered to really explore, maybe I should check out Saves The Day, The Used, Taking Back Sunday, Bright Eyes, Alkaline Trio, Simple Plan, AFI, Boys Like Girls, and Relient K. And maybe some more*. Maybe I’ll get into screamier bands like Thursday, Silverstein, Underoath, Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights, or Story Of The Year? Maybe one of them will hook me and I’ll be sucked in. Maybe not. Who knows? It’s probably worth giving it a shot. And if nothing works, at least my negative opinion of the genre will have a more solid, empirical base.

(* – But not Dashboard Confessional. I’ve heard enough of that already to know that the only Carrabba I’ll ever like serves me delicious fettuccine alfredo.)

Peace be the journey, and C U Next Museday!

(wait, that kind of ruins it the joke…crap)

TMS