So I talked Randall into letting me write on here. Let’s see how long it takes him to regret it. Anyways, I’m Adam and I am going to write on here whenever I’m bored and have something irrelevant to say. I like to complain about a lot of things, so this should be a lot of fun for me. Anyways, here’s my first article:

I was waiting in a hallway before one of my classes yesterday and saw a bulletin board with fliers for school events, people looking for roommates, and one flier for a band needing a bass player. I have played bass for over five years and am looking to jam with people in my new town, so I went up to take a closer look at it. It said something along the lines of “Indie Band needs bass player”. It made me laugh because I had just had a conversation with a friend about how much I hate it when bands classify themselves as genres such as indie and emo. What the hell does indie mean anyways? When I hear the words country, rap, or metal; I have a pretty good idea of what I am in for. I have heard the word “indie” apply to everything from Jet to Air. Also, quite a few bands classified as “indie” are on major labels, which is completely contradictory. I have also noticed that a lot of people who are in bands that are considered “indie” seem to be more concerned about looking a certain way and fitting into a certain gimmick in order to have credibility in their scene instead of focusing on their musical talents and abilities (or lack of them).

Of course an even darker cloud surrounds the use of the word “emo”. This little bastard of a word has damaged music on two entirely different fronts. First of all, it makes a lot of music fans look down on legitimate music that just happens to be about love or heartbreak. I would like to think that if a song as good as “Yesterday” or “Freefallin” came out today people would have respect for it. Sadly, I get the feeling that a lot of people would describe those songs as “pussy emo shit” if they came out today. People have been writing songs about love and heartbreak in western music for as long as it has been around. Yet now a word comes along and pigeonholes a lot of amazing music into the same category as the bad.

Which brings me to my next point about the word emo. Not only is the word a horrible description for music, but it is also the basis for a horrible scene. A lot of bands form just to fit into the emo scene where the want to sound the same as each other, look the same as each other, and play their crappy music to 15 year olds every night. So these shitty clone bands make legitimate bands look bad just for singing about a certain topic or having a certain style. Now I’m sure some good bands have come through the emo scene, but is it really worth it to sit through all of the shit to find the good ones? I like a lot of bands that are labeled as being in those scenes, but I like them for musical reasons or I just happen to like their songs. However, all the shitty bands are making it harder and harder.

The popularity of these genres have pigeonholed good bands and led to the formation of tons of bad ones. As a music fan, I am cynical of the bad ones yet I want to hear the good ones. But I have started to give up. And this is coming from someone who was proud to work the street team for Drive Thru Records in high school and went to the Glass House and Chain Reaction all of the time. A few years can change things, but I don’t think I have changed that much. Instead I think the music scene is turning into a bigger and bigger joke. I wish I was around before ProTools and MTV, when musicians were expected to be talented on their instruments or as songwriters to gain credibility. When rhythm sections had a far larger emphasis on groove and making the ground shake instead of being boring and covered up by 15 layers of guitars and vocals. My search for amazing music has largely led me out of the current decade and back to the 60s and 70s where I discovered the genius of Motown and the Funk Brothers, Stax and Booker T and the MGs, and a slew of amazing bands from the Byrds to Led Zeppelin. As one of my favorite songwriters ever, Brian Wilson, has sung: I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.

That is what I will cover in my next article, whenever I feel like writing it.

Adam