common presence around here but, we’ll just have to see if I can get over that little
“Shazam, you’re a rock star.”
So said the manager of the Guns N’ Roses second coming, Velvet Revolver on last nights Frontline expose on the music industry “The Day The Music Died”.
Read what I just instinctively wrote: “Guns N’ Roses second coming”. I mean, yeah, let us not forget Scott Weiland, the perpetually out of his mind singer from Stone Temple Pilots is there, and there’s that other guy who some credit as being in Dave Navarro’s old group, others that he used to be in punk metal band Suicidal Tendencies. But who cares about them, right? Especially that Suicidal guy, whatever the hell his name is. That’s not what’s going to sell the record. And sure, the fact that Scott used to be in STP can’t help but boost sales, but it’s the fact that the man is still alive after how much toxic waste his body has consumed that’s more interesting and, do I smell triple platinum, if he ends up blowing his wad during the tour and has to go back into rehab.
I’m actually not negative about Velvet Revolver in any way, despite what the previous paragraph might relay. I think, as far as mainstream music is concerned, it’s some of the best coming out this summer. I know I’ll more than likely pick up a copy and blast it in my CD player, windows down, glad that this is a hit rather than a whole lot of what I hear. But, I keep thinking back to what that manager said. A radio station gets a song. They play that song. People call up requesting that song. They play it some more. As long as people request it, they’ll keep playing it. Until, well, you know where this is going.
It’s well established that radio stations, at least the ones owned by the big corporations are concerned, have a set list of songs that can be played at any certain time. So, technically, when you called to request Velvet Revolver’s “Slither”, they honor your request. But if some other band who’s not on there got requested? Well, you know where this is going, too.
Sucks, right? To think that your favorite band, some little known group from the Midwest with a rabid cult following but no major label deal or niche or look can’t get playtime on station X. “But what about their guitar player, isn’t he dating so and so movie star? No? Oh, well what about any drug addictions? Anybody got one? No? Hmm. Did any of them used to be in some other famous band? No? Dammit, how the hell are we going to market this?”
And then, with all that in mind, it’d be easy to pine over “the good old days” some folks talk about when FM was young and anything you wanted to hear could probably get played on the radio. Sigh, the good old days, weren’t they just great? Back then, long, long ago. The good old days. Everyone’s crying in their spoiled milk because “the good old days” are gone. Yeah, the good old days are gone, that’s why it’s called the past.
Now I’m not about to say that for many, those days weren’t good and now, maybe not so good, but people talk as if the three minute hit is a new concept, that image being more often more important than music in the music industry is something that came in vogue around the time men started having dirty thoughts about the Olsen twins. Perhaps, once established and with nothing to lose, The Beatles of their own accord chose to let their hair down, but what about when they were those “mop top liverpuddlians”? Do you think there might have been just a little corporate tweaking there? What if one of them suddenly decided he hated how long it took for his hair to dry after a shower or how his beard itched like a mother and wanted to cut it all off? What if Johnny Rotten suddenly had the urge to put a power ballad on the next Sex Pistols record? Do you think that would have gelled with their anti-establishment images?
I listen to the radio for probably five minutes a week. That’s not day, not hour, a week. And when I do happen to accidentally put it on, I usually tend to hear the same damn thing that I heard last month. What do I do? I promptly put in another CD, one that I like. So I’m not about to defend the way every single thing is today, not everything at least. When I hear people who remember FM when it was young tell me how whole sides of albums would be played just because the DJ felt like it, I sometimes get a little jealous. So, we don’t really have that now on K-Rock, or KROCK, or whatever your regions version of Infinity Broadcasting’s hard rock station is, we still have college radio. Granted, my college radio station’s signal went about as far as the north end of campus but I, and many other DJs, were playing the music we love. I know I loved being able to play nothing but Marillion for two straight hours, just because that’s what I wanted to listen to. Freedom in music’s still alive and kicking, if perhaps on a smaller bandwidth.
What about the smaller labels? What about the self distributed albums? What about all of that? What about the Internet? Not for stealing music, be nice, but to become educated about the bands that don’t get a deserved chance on big radio. Canadian bands, English bands, Finnish bands who, when I contact them about a possible interview are asking, “How the hell did you hear about us?” And it’s not because I write for a music site. I would have never heard of them otherwise – never, not in a million years – had I not found out about them on the Internet. Consider it our generations FM if you want to. I do.
Not to turn this into a lesson in Buddhist belief but one thing Buddhism says, that everyone no matter what religion or belief structure one follows should take heed of, is that the past no longer exists. It’s gone, it’s done, it’s over, you can’t relive it, no matter how much you think you can or want to. The future’s not here, either. The only thing that is here is now. Right now. So why not enjoy what we have right now? Why not enjoy what college radio and the Internet and the Friday night originals lineup at the local bar can offer you? And if you can’t, why not try to change something instead of bitching endlessly about it to people who obviously can’t do anything to help you, who are simply an ear for your diarrhea of the mouth? Live and enjoy or change what you must. When GNR were bigger than The Beatles, whom John Lennon in turn believed was bigger than Jesus, they could have, according to bassist Duff McKagan, at one concert in a particularly hostile country, shouted “Revolution” and they would have done it. But, hey, that’s in the past. Why not start your own revolution right now? There’s no better time than the present.
