I'm a HUGE fan of short sets. If you're competent and what you do, you can usually get 20-25 minutes of attention out of me, but after that I'm done.

Anytime I do sound for a band that I know, or who might value my opinion enough to sway them, I always try to push them to do a short set. "Dude...leave them wanting more!" is like my battlecry in FOH.

When I go to shows I don't work, it's so easy to get bored that I oftentimes forget I'm even there. This was winter I ended up at a Social Distortion show and literally had a conversation throughout the whole thing. I couldn't tell you one single thing about the show, it's all lost on me. When I do actually end up watching a band, unless they are pretty mindblowing, I just end up feeling like I'm standing in line, waiting for something better to happen.

The only bands in recent memory who held my attention throughout the whole set were Fugazi and X, both of whom still have more passion and energy in their 40s and 50s than 99.999% of the bands full of teenagers that I see. What happened?

Dudes. THIS is what happened http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9948.

Apparently, my "echo boomers/all ages" post wasn't very riveting but this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Why are shows so boring now? Because the majority of "kids" (those born from '82-??) are into the package deal. Today, if you come out of left-field (i.e. diy) you only alienate yourself from your audience. You gotta give away an ipod or free eye-brow piercings or something (with mom's ok, of course!)

It's totally ridiculous and goes against everything good music should be about but that's where kids are these days.

geiginni wrote:I don't care about the social interaction, the "scene", picking up girls, getting a buzz on, discovering some cool underground act before "everyone else does", or any of that shit.

Hmmm...me neither. We have something in common! Except that I can enjoy rock music!

geiginni wrote:The only thing I care about when going to hear music is the music itself. Does this group perform music that is original, engaging, complex, and well played. [...] Is this good music?

Again, we share a common desire in our search for "good music"! Except that I am able to usually find these qualities in rock without much trouble. Yes!

geiginni wrote:What I do find is young scenesters who have put a great deal of work into looking the right way, sounding the right way, placing themselves in the right crowd, and producing the appropriate music for the scene that they've chosen.

Give me any genre of music and I can show you a group of people who attach themselves to it for the wrong reasons.

The reason I can ignore most of these things at a rock show is precisely because it tends to be a youth culture involved for stupid, superficial reasons. I can't fault a sixteen year-old kid for acting like a moron or going to a show just to mosh around like an idiot, paying little-to-no-attention to the music. The only thing I can hope for is that said moron will eventually outgrow that kind of behavior, as kids tend to do, and come to an understanding of music that has a little more depth beyond drunkenly knocking into someone.

The opposite of your "young scenesters" example could be - and what seems to me a much worse, hopeless predicament - an "old scenesters" dilemma. I don't think it's using too broad of a stroke to say that most people into classical music are usually older, and therefore less likely to change their habits. What I'm saying is: young moron into music for the wrong reasons > old moron into music for the wrong reasons, based on the likelihood of growing out of that mentality.

geiginni wrote:The music is a derivative of thier collective musical experience, which often doesn't amount to very much scope - historically or geographically, and their personal experience, which usually reeks of solopsy - amounting to their immediate interpersonal and personal turmoils and pains. This "package" that results, may be a more holistic socio-cultural method of communing with an "audience", and to also satisfy the material and cultural requirements of an "industry" that uses and promotes a "lifestyle" from it...

Oh, Christ. Where to start...

First of all, "solopsy" isn't a word. You mean "solipsism." The pristine circles of High Art will never accept you if you go around using made-up words. Most of them will be academics, and will let you know it. I mean, damn, saying shit like that almost makes you sound like a rocker! Yeah, so quit it!

Secondly, these huge over-generalizations about the motives behind rock music are just plain lazy. I can do the same regarding classical music. Watch:

Classical music is made and enjoyed by old, monocle-wearing closet homosexuals with an intellectual chip on their shoulder.

See how easy that was? See how I didn't take into account the enormous range of artists involved in the genre? See how I let the bad (and mostly false) qualities totally obscure the truly great ones?

geiginni wrote:For example: Shostakovich lived through Stalin's "Great Terror", the seige of Leningrad, and was subject to great personal and professional hardship at the hands of a regime that controlled all aspects of his and his countrymans' blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah proof of greatness blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

Oh, okay. So unless I lived through the hardships of a dictatorial regime, my art isn't valid? Huh? Why not? One of the great things about expression, and music in particular, is that it's open to anyone. ANYONE can do it, and as long as it's sincere, it's valid. It's one of the most liberating things I ever came to realize about art. It's why I love it. You can be the poorest man alive...you can be a prince born into wealth...you can write a song about escaping a concentration camp...or you can sing an ode to a snail...and it's ALL valid! This is great! Re-fucking-joice!!!

geiginni wrote:How can I be expected to show interest in the whinings of young middle class white males because girls don't understand them, or can't stay together, or resent their place in middle american ennui, or they don't "fit in" to "normal" society? It all seems so petty and contrived. And, in addition, I don't find I relate to the world around me in any such way anymore. Yet, this is the way that 99% of band playing shows around town express themselves.

geiginni wrote:I find myself bored by most shows and therfore don't go.

These two quotes are strange. First, you talk about how "99% of bands" around your town express themselves, but then later go on to say that you never go to shows. So how would you know what these 99% of bands are doing if you no longer mix it up with the low-brow rock culture? This all sounds like more of a personal problem than anything else.

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:I don't care about the social interaction, the "scene", picking up girls, getting a buzz on, discovering some cool underground act before "everyone else does", or any of that shit.

Hmmm...me neither. We have something in common! Except that I can enjoy rock music!

So can I. It just seems to happen less for me than it used to.

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:The only thing I care about when going to hear music is the music itself. Does this group perform music that is original, engaging, complex, and well played. [...] Is this good music?

Again, we share a common desire in our search for "good music"! Except that I am able to usually find these qualities in rock without much trouble. Yes!

I can too, but not without much searching and scouring. My "hit rate" is so low now, that I don't go through the trouble I used to. And, yes, it is my "problem".

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:What I do find is young scenesters who have put a great deal of work into looking the right way, sounding the right way, placing themselves in the right crowd, and producing the appropriate music for the scene that they've chosen.

Give me any genre of music and I can show you a group of people who attach themselves to it for the wrong reasons.

The reason I can ignore most of these things at a rock show is precisely because it tends to be a youth culture involved for stupid, superficial reasons. I can't fault a sixteen year-old kid for acting like a moron or going to a show just to mosh around like an idiot, paying little-to-no-attention to the music. The only thing I can hope for is that said moron will eventually outgrow that kind of behavior, as kids tend to do, and come to an understanding of music that has a little more depth beyond drunkenly knocking into someone.

The opposite of your "young scenesters" example could be - and what seems to me a much worse, hopeless predicament - an "old scenesters" dilemma. I don't think it's using too broad of a stroke to say that most people into classical music are usually older, and therefore less likely to change their habits. What I'm saying is: young moron into music for the wrong reasons > old moron into music for the wrong reasons, based on the likelihood of growing out of that mentality.

Agreed. Old dried up bitches that hiss and boo at Elliot Carter and Pierre Boulez premieres are just as loathsome and tiring as the Deadheads, Parrotheads, and the fucktards that pay hundreds of dollars to see the Stones do their tired old thing.

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:The music is a derivative of thier collective musical experience, which often doesn't amount to very much scope - historically or geographically, and their personal experience, which usually reeks of solopsism - amounting to their immediate interpersonal and personal turmoils and pains. This "package" that results, may be a more holistic socio-cultural method of communing with an "audience", and to also satisfy the material and cultural requirements of an "industry" that uses and promotes a "lifestyle" from it...

Oh, Christ. Where to start...

First of all, "solopsy" isn't a word. You mean "solipsism." The pristine circles of High Art will never accept you if you go around using made-up words. Most of them will be academics, and will let you know it. I mean, damn, saying shit like that almost makes you sound like a rocker! Yeah, so quit it!

Secondly, these huge over-generalizations about the motives behind rock music are just plain lazy. I can do the same regarding classical music. Watch:

Classical music is made and enjoyed by old, monocle-wearing closet homosexuals with an intellectual chip on their shoulder.

See how easy that was? See how I didn't take into account the enormous range of artists involved in the genre? See how I let the bad (and mostly false) qualities totally obscure the truly great ones?

Yeah, it was easy...and even lazier and more convoluted than my generalization, which is based on my feelings in this situation to which you have taken offence. I'm not going to write a fucking treatise to justfy personal opinions that require little justification... And thanks for the correction on my fucked up grammar there. I truly appreciate your concern for my standing in the hallowed halls of "high art", where by the grace of English teachers and editors dare tread I.

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:For example: Shostakovich lived through Stalin's "Great Terror", the seige of Leningrad, and was subject to great personal and professional hardship at the hands of a regime that controlled all aspects of his and his countrymans' blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah proof of greatness blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

Oh, okay. So unless I lived through the hardships of a dictatorial regime, my art isn't valid? Huh? Why not? One of the great things about expression, and music in particular, is that it's open to anyone. ANYONE can do it, and as long as it's sincere, it's valid. It's one of the most liberating things I ever came to realize about art. It's why I love it. You can be the poorest man alive...you can be a prince born into wealth...you can write a song about escaping a concentration camp...or you can sing an ode to a snail...and it's ALL valid! This is great! Re-fucking-joice!!!

I'm not questioning the universal validity of your or anyone else's art. What I'm saying is that it may lack IMPACT and SIGNIFICANCE to me. Yes , ANYONE can do it, but should I be expected to give a fuck if it doesn't do anything for me? You seem to have taken great offense at a PERSONAL statement regarding how I feel about going to shows.

Christopher wrote:

geiginni wrote:How can I be expected to show interest in the whinings of young middle class white males because girls don't understand them, or can't stay together, or resent their place in middle american ennui, or they don't "fit in" to "normal" society? It all seems so petty and contrived. And, in addition, I don't find I relate to the world around me in any such way anymore. Yet, this is the way that 99% of band playing shows around town express themselves.

geiginni wrote:I find myself bored by most shows and therfore don't go.

These two quotes are strange. First, you talk about how "99% of bands" around your town express themselves, but then later go on to say that you never go to shows. So how would you know what these 99% of bands are doing if you no longer mix it up with the low-brow rock culture? This all sounds like more of a personal problem than anything else.

Okay...."99% of bands that I have seen or borne witness to"...how's that! You seem to think I'm being a "highbrow snot" here. I am attempting no such thing. It is a personal problem. You hit it right on the fucking head. If I'm bored by such things, it's my fucking problem. And I deal with it by not putting myself in the situation.

Your post seems to suggest that it isn't just my problem, and that perhaps you or others might take offense at the suggestion that I would not go to see your little band play, or might not enjoy your little band if I did.

Mr. Dragon asked an honest question and I responded with an honest answer.

I had an awsome weekend of live music. there is a small bar, crappy pool tables, that has been remodeledtoomany times. They book the best touring acts. They book acts that play a larger venue the night before and then head to New York or baltimore, the next day. Sweep the leg jonny play there twice. They were good and they came back.

That's the other thing about this bar. The touring acts always come back

Clutch, Dave Brockney experiance/GWAR, Archers of loaf have played there multiple times.This band from London? keeps coming over playing my bar, The Thieves. And I even saw Mushroomhead for twenty bucks. I'd say the room holds 180 tops and a sold out show means choose-yr-beer keg party.

What I enjoy the most is when I go to a club and see a band i wast there to see, some one who is on tour, Also the philly bands that come to Rex's tend to rawk and er roll

ad nauseum -----Ban the emoticon

Anyways, I am very burnt out on shows. Before I met my significant other, I loved going to shows, bopping around and enjoying myself. After I met him, I no longer like going to shows, feel bored, and just want to go home. Here is what happened:

I used to go to shows for just myself and enjoy what I watched and hanging out with my freinds. Also, I think the music was better or something because I'm just not digging what is coming through these days. But anyways, I loved to dance. Oooh, I would dance my heart out. Dance-a-dance-a-dancedance dance.

Then I met him and I didn't dance. He played a half dozen shows a week for a period of time and I went to most of them (bad Idea! Why didn't anyone warn me!) I was there when he set up, there when he played, there when he took down and there till everyone left. Totally not cool. I was just at shows too much. I just got plain old burnt out on shows.

So, I stopped going to shows. I went through a period where I was like "significant other's name right here, I cannot go to shows any more" and I didn't. I didn't go for a very long time and now I actually kind of want to go to shows again.

But I have rules:
I have to want to go. On my own, not with encouraging from anyone.
I can dance-a-dance-a-dance-a-dance.
I can leave whenever I want
and

The end!

redlights wrote:Then I met him and I didn't dance. He played a half dozen shows a week for a period of time and I went to most of them (bad Idea! Why didn't anyone warn me!) I was there when he set up, there when he played, there when he took down and there till everyone left. Totally not cool. I was just at shows too much. I just got plain old burnt out on shows.

Oh my god! My dear, why would you do that to yourself? My girlfriend steadfastly refuses to go to every single show we ever play, and sometimes, when she's thinking about going, i just discourage her. "No, don't come. The room's sound sucks, you're going to hate the other bands playing, and i don't think any of your friends are going. You're going to have a terrible time." Sometimes i do like to have her there, though.

But I have rules:
I have to want to go. On my own, not with encouraging from anyone.
I can dance-a-dance-a-dance-a-dance.
I can leave whenever I want

Onopa on Thursday will enable you to exercise rule #2. However, i have just violated rule #1, so forget i said anything!

DrAwkward wrote:

But I have rules:
I have to want to go. On my own, not with encouraging from anyone.
I can dance-a-dance-a-dance-a-dance.
I can leave whenever I want

Onopa on Thursday will enable you to exercise rule #2. However, i have just violated rule #1, so forget i said anything!

But I must either
A)Get a fake ID
or
B) Turn 21

redlights wrote:But I must either
A)Get a fake ID
or
B) Turn 21

Well, look, if you can't be bothered to warp time and space for my benefit then i have no use for you.

geiginni wrote:I'm not going to write a fucking treatise to justfy personal opinions that require little justification...

No treatise necessary, friend. Maybe just explain yourself a little better, since your statement about not attending rock shows did have more of a general "classical concerts are majestic, sophisticated, and superior to rock concerts, which are dumb, shallow, and inferior" tone to it. It's like Rock n Roll fucked your girlfriend or something, and now you're bitter about it. That's how it came off, anyway.

geiginni wrote:I'm not questioning the universal validity of your or anyone else's art. What I'm saying is that it may lack IMPACT and SIGNIFICANCE to me. Yes , ANYONE can do it, but should I be expected to give a fuck if it doesn't do anything for me? You seem to have taken great offense at a PERSONAL statement regarding how I feel about going to shows.

No, no offense taken. And you should absolutely NOT be expected to give a fuck about something that doesn't move you. But that wasn't my point. All I was trying to say is that Shostakobitch and his experience under the rule of Stalin doesn't give him any more credibility as an artist than anyone else and what their experiences have driven them to create. It's an irrelevant point, but one that you felt was a necessary part of his greatness as a composer. I'm saying that that barometer of "genuineness" based on experience is total bullshit. If this wasn't implied in your compare-and-contrast between Shostakovich "keepin' it real" in his compositions fueled by his hardships versus some "white, middle-class" kid crying about not fitting in or whatever, then I guess I missed your point.

Oh yeah, and I'm well aware that you were just stating personal opinions (as was I). Fuck, nearly ALL the contents of ANY message board are just opinions. Is this news? If we decided that discussion of personal opinions were off-limits, I'm fairly certain that this board would come to a grinding halt (Crap/Not Crap, anyone?).

geiginni wrote:Your post seems to suggest that it isn't just my problem, and that perhaps you or others might take offense at the suggestion that I would not go to see your little band play, or might not enjoy your little band if I did.

Ha! Not likely, chief. Something tells me my little band (good guess!) wouldn't lose too much sleep over one missing audience member who seems pre-determined to yawn throughout a rock show. But you are invited to attend anytime you like. Introduce yourself! We'll shake hands like men!