product placement

Franz Ferdinand is so horribly, unforgiveably infectious, that they should be made illegal.

--

Dear Diary,
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the harder I try to put something wonderful and profound and philosophical here, the more and more of an idiot i'm going to look like - and maybe I can't think at all, but I'm just pretending. Do you think that if I try too hard I ruin the art or the flair or just that magic of it... or am I trying too hard already?
The irony of it is, the more and more I try to tell you about it coherently the less and less I know what I'm talking about - have you felt that before? Sometimes I think that the world is too caught up creating profundity to stop and listen to themselves blither in a horribly, beweaponedly silly manner.
Dear diary, sometimes it's tempting to think that there's no such thing as honesty- only different degrees of fabrication and contrivance. But that's a horrid thing to think - let me tell you something. You know, sometimes, you can look at the world and what a terrible time other people are having because they're so forsakenly blind and then you think, 'wow, that's terribly silly', and then - you suddenly realise, wow, that's ok. I can still live on. Sometimes being the most profound doesn't matter. And that's the most wonderful feeling.

adam

Talentime's over. The results came as a massive surprise, especially since the judges gave us one of the lowest scores (if not THE lowest). Okay, let's not fool ourselves- i think we screwed up quite badly, and the good results could be due to any number of things quite rather unrelated to how well we played.

I think that a musician's ability falls under two important spheres: technical ability with the instrument, and ensemble ability to work with other musicians - and for last night I quite feel that we somehow didn't manage to click together like during rehearsals. The judges said it quite well- we looked like 5 individuals on stage. Gah.

Anyway, immense respect for the other performances, especially the other 2 bands who I think are MUCH more deserving (esp. the first one), and will definitely have to tighten up for the next gig.


adam

EDIT: 7 good things about this week.
Standard tuning is good.
Listening to the blues is good (die rockers!)
Single-coil pickups are good.
Working cable jacks are good.
Colours which aren't black are good.
Gain set to anything less than 9 is good.
Best of all, not having to play the bloooooody riff from 'slither' is good. I have no idea Dave Kushner does it all the time and doesn't go completely barmy.

Metheny vs G

http://www.carrothers.com/pat_metheny_vs_kenny_g.htm

This is hilarious. Pat Metheny slams 'smooth jazz' and their sax-blowing head honcho, Kenny G. Okay, it was a little shocking to hear this sort of comments from a professional musician, but it WAS on a relatively personal forum, and I completely agree, so Pat is forgiven.

Apparently, Pat was majorly pissed off when Kenny G overdubbed himself over a louis armstrong track. He calls it 'defilement', and "spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over" all of which I agree with.

On the other end of the spectrum, it is (as Metheny mentions) immensely frustrating to musicians as a whole to see people with the fewest bits of talent making it successful. No, I wouldn't exactly hold it against them for being successful, but if the world has come to this state then perhaps musicians (and other people) should take a couple steps back and see where exactly our entire culture is headed - and I can assure you that it's a fairly ugly place.

Simple Plan is like the Kenny G of our generation. Again, nothing against them for making money - after all, there are PEOPLE who buy their records. However, it's kind of sad to see grown men still making music for 13-year olds, and perhaps even sadder to see people of MY generation listening to it. It's kind of frustrating, as a budding musician and writer, to see that this kind of standard is given even the tiniest iota of professional credit.
I honestly hope Simple Plan stays well within their teeny-bopper circuit, because if they trample on the long and noble roots of contemporary and classical music like Kenny G did to Louis Armstrong, there will be an uproar.
Please, sell your records, but don't step on my music.

adam