Re: Warez (was Sharks Lungs in Haggis)

["Ben Porter" <azrix@n2music.com>]

Sorry, but I've got to say something here.

>And I have to compete for ear-time with people who make their music on 
>computers, who know software rather than harmony, who judge a 303 as a 
>standard for time-keeping, instead of a good bass player.  Or with people 
>who 
>stand up with a cheap acoustic and their clinical diagnosis and sing 
>four-chord songs about it.
>
>And let's face it, we all have to compete for ear-time with Britney 
>Spears 
>and the Back Street Boys and Mariah Carey and the usual.  If John 
>Coltrane  
>came back to earth and landed in your town, how many people would show up 
>to 
>see him?  More than would go see Blink 182?  I bet not.

It is very unlikely that you would have to compete with anyone who makes 
music on their computer or with the Britney Spear's and Mariah Carey's of 
the world. You compete with people who make music that is probably almost 
exactly like yours. 

A person who would be into techno or something ("made with a computer") 
and know something about the scene would not also be into the blues-rock 
scene enough to know about anyone that doesn't get a lot of press or who 
isn't a local act. So, the people who would go to a blues-rock show 
because they know of and like the band, are not going to go to a rave 
because they know of and like whoever is going to be DJing (or whatnot). 

And for competing with Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys or Blink 182, 
these people are being "marketed" to kids that are about eight to sixteen 
years old. Kids are generally more easily persuaded by advertising (MTV) 
and the "bandwagon" marketing scheme. Most of that music is listened to 
because their friends listen to it and because they are told, through 
advertising, etc., that that is what is *cool* to listen to. 

As you get older, your listening tastes mature and it doen't matter as 
much what your friends listen to or what anyone thinks about what you 
listen too. And you go and find other, "underground" things to listen to. 
So, you can then move into stranger and more ecelctic music styles and 
bands like King Crimson, Rush, Primus, David Torn, Miles Davis, Michael 
Hedges, Tengerine Dream etc.

As for John Coltrane vs. Blink 182, there wouldn't be 16,000 screeming 
teenage girls at a John Coltrane concert, but would you really want them 
there? I think you are confusing what is visible with what would be 
considered good and that you are confused with music as art versus music 
as commerce. Big difference there. Which is why you will never see someone 
like Negitivland on TV trying to sell hamburgers.

So, I find it very difficult to believe that the person who would listen 
to Mariah Carey and the Backstreet Boys would listen to anything else, 
even if you exposed them to it. 

One last thing. I always have to laugh or cringe when someone calls up a 
radio station requesting an N'Sync song and the announcer asks the caller 
why they want to hear N'Sync and the person on the other end of the line 
always says "because they are good dancers".

Ben Porter.


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