The death of the music writer....

Current mood: BLASTING OFF AGAIN!!!!
Category: BLASTING OFF AGAIN!!!! Music

Well, you can probably tell that music writing is doing little more than annoying the shit out of me at the moment...

Yes boss, I think I can consider myself retired as a 'music writer' now...

Truth is, I find the whole musical game depressing.

Furthermore, I feel I've learnt what I need to know and that now I want to write more about sport, feelings, people and relationships between people....


My time as a music writer started pretty well...

In fact way back when the very first free CD popped through my letterbox some 18 months ago, I was impossibly excited by the huge bevy of free shit that was about to come riffling my way!!

I was also excited by the idea of being in and about the music business on what looked to be something close to a free lunch!!!

However time breeds learning, and in the last 18 months I've learned that as a trade, music writing isn't for me...

No boss, it's just another PR job and the key downside in that is that it's slowly killing my passion for music, rather than fertilising and increasing it further...


I realised the game was up yesterday, when I started flicking through Stool Pigeon with the idea of pitching a feature to some mags in an attempt to resurrect my interest in a way that could see payola fall into the highly barren Giovan-coffers....

In the consumation of this act, I found that rather than being inspired by ideas and/or jealousy, I was instead incomparably bored by the pieces it contained (even though Stool Pigeon is an acre or so above most of the rags out there...)


I feel that the fundamental problem with music writing is the same as with reading music journalism and the same problem the music bizz is suffering in general in 2008...

Basically, the whole game is mostly completely fucking boring and horrendously over-organised...

Yes boss, there's no danger or risk allowed.

You pay your £3.00 for a can of shitty beer, wander about like sheep, download onto itunes and be HAPPY as LIVE music is throttled...


As I've said before, I find it close to impossible to enjoy gigs now that smoking is banned.

In place of fags, I end up drinking 3 times as quickly, which causes problems.

Furthermore, I can't relax and I get enraged each time I go to the bar and get charged £3.00 for something that would cost 89p from the nearest corner shop...

Thing is, I've always understood bars could charge more for drinks beacause they provide something extra...

In drinks terms I expect this to be:

1) THE DRINK IN A BASTARD GLASS
2) THE CONTENTS OF THE GLASS TO HAVE COME FROM A BARRELL VIA A BASTARD PUMP!!!
3) I ALSO EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO SMOKE (NOT EVEN REGULARLY - BUT OCCASIONALLY) AND DRINK AT THE SAME TIME WITHOUT HAVING TO ADHERE TO MORE RULES AND REGULATIONS THAN ARE REQUIRED TO ADOPT A CHILD.


Gigs aside, my problems with music writing as a practice are easy to isolate and I'm running out of energy and desire to fight with them...

The key problem is that each and nearly every piece in the genre of music writing has the same dull format:

1) Music writer meets musicians in bar/cafe/aftershow
2) Music writer asks samey questions about musicians 1st/2nd/3r/4th LP/Tour/Single (delete as appropriate)
3) Musician answers them in what they consider to be an amusing or surly fashion. 4) Music writer asks for an opinion about some fashionable cause
5) Musician tries desperately hard to say something interesting or better still radical.
6) Music writer opines that (if there is any justice in the world) we'll be hearing a lot more from this act in the future!!!

or

this band/act is crap.

End of piece...

If you don't play by these rules or abide to the taste of the magazine (Stool Pigeon included) you get nowhere - basically, it's the story of normal life in miniature and if I'm doing the story of normal life, I want (more to the point - NEED) to get paid...


Of course, if the products of these 'interviews' made good copy, I wouldn't be complaining so much as lining up 10 for next week.

And I don't mind reading about the inane thoughts of the musician if the artist in question is in some way important, has achieved something BIG, has a way with words or something to say - but most have nothing of any of these and nearly all of the younger bands have none of any of it at all...


Which brings me onto age...

It recently occurred to me that nearly all the good 'new' (new to me, that is) music I've seen and heard recently both LIVE and on the HI-FI, has been made by old and/or dead artists...

George Clinton, The Coltranes, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Billy Childish, Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, Sparks, The Fall, Iggy Pop - they're all bloody gerrihatricks!!

And without hardly trying, these acts piss on what's available now, with very few exceptions...?!?


I think what's happened is there was a musical development BOOM blip between the 1960's and the mid 1990's and now everything has flattenned out....

Excepting the odd electronic innovation and innovater, there really is very litte that's genuinely new, different and interesting...

For all the fuss, Hip Hop hasn't changed much and none of the stars of the genre have very much to say, meanwhile indie rock is a corpse and dance music keeps repeating itself...


So...

From now on I'm mutating this blog...

I'll tie up a few loose ends with the half done music pieces, and from then on I'll be largely writing about whatever I feel like, without feeling at all compelled to occasionally tie it into music.....

Of course music will still feature in both an off and on the cuff way, as it has throughout because music and sound remains a big part of my life - but the day of traditional GIG and LP reviews is most likely over full stop...

Currently listening : Hercules and Love Affair By Hercules and Love Affair Release date: 2008-06-24