Is it live or is it Memorex? (1 Viewer)

strangegirl said:
Musicians could really play.
ROC said:
All of them.

ROC said:
Maybe your impressions, but hardly objective or demonstrable.
It's absolutely demonstrable. Put The Kings of Leon or MUSE in a studio, give them three hours to record a song on two tracks and see what you get (I'll give you a hint: they wouldn't even be able to get levels on the drum mics in three hours).

When recording was more primitive you had to rely on all of the musicians to get it right at the same time. That never, ever (ever!) happens in the studio anymore. And it rarely happens in a "live" concert, where a good deal of what you hear through the PA is pre-recorded, and the drummer is playing along with a computer in his or her earpiece. If they are playing at all.

The sad fact is a band doesn't have to even be able to play together as a band any more in order to record and perform. That's not an exaggeration. Can most of them play a live song? Well, sure. Are they as tight as bands used to be? No. Pull those magic little earphones out of the drummer's ears and most of them would wander all over the tempo (and instead of denigrating guys like Ringo, people would hail them as history's foremost percussion geniuses).

---

All the technical information is nice, but it's unrelated to the point, which is the way people hear music, and their unfounded medium biases. Again, most people wouldn't know the difference, couldn't hear the difference, and don't give a damn about the difference. But the same people will blab on and on about the greatness of vinyl records because they are sheep.
 
Ahhh, back in the good old daze.

Sorry.

I get snippy.

But maybe, just maybe, the new music you are listening to is simply not as good as the old. Maybe the musicians you are hearing perform it are worse than those of days gone by. But there are some unbelievably good musicians around today and the levels of skill and creativity is astounding.

http://www.amazon.com/Splay-Jim-Bla...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1262129941&sr=1-1

Hit play on 'Cheepa Vs. Cheep'. Better still, buy it.

But, then, maybe we are limiting this discussion to pop or rock music?

In which case we were never talking about a very high level of craft anyway.
 
Sorry, I saw avant-garde jazz and experimental rock and lost consciousness for a few seconds. But I'm okay now...

No need to apologize. I didn't mean to suggest that all musicians suck now. Just all rock musicians. But it's still a widely varied field, so happily they all suck for different reasons, and you never have to be bored.

For example, MUSE is talked about around here, and I saw and heard them for the first time a couple Saturday nights ago. They may be fine musicians, I don't know, they only played a couple notes, but god damn it, they sucked the asses of diseased monkeys. What a barrelful of pretentious, unrelenting shit. I watch imbeciles like these and try to listen for as long as I can, trying to get what they're going for and give them the benefit of the doubt. But those boys are a waste of space and plastic or electrons or laser beams or however they sell that "music." It sounded like a 12 year old on his first day with a new computer music recording program. And that singing --- Jesus wept. Then he threw a beer can. Even Jesus thinks the MUSE singer is a miserable fag, and he loves everyone (and he invented fags, as well, so that's really saying something). (Now all you real fags calm down - TheBicycleTragedy, Bill Sikes, you lot - I'm not insulting you. I find your lifestyle charming and productive, and you are a tidy bunch, which is important - nuff respect! It was hyperbole. You of all people should understand hyperbole and grand overstatement used for dramatic effect. Get over yourselves, bitches!)

Well now this has spun off its axis, as these threads do. But since we're orbiting Jupiter now, I should also add that most of the musicians who play behind the prefab pop stars are "good," in the accepted meaning of the term. I don't think they're good, but they are schooled, and they can read music and all play the same song at the same time without ever making mistakes, and that's all that's really required.

But it's boring as shit.

Some kids realize that, most don't. Nothing ever changes. Every gaggle of malcontents that start every new musical movement or fad are disaffected and unsatisfied (are those the same thing?), so they tear down the status quo and replace it with something else. One in every ten of those tear-downs results in the building of something that is actually interesting. The rest of them are just change for change's sake. We are deep in a change-for-change's-sake cycle, and have been for many years, but it will end some day.
 
when i was first getting into non-mainstream music as a teenager, i had this thing about going to shows "where you could see what kind of shoes they were wearing." meaning, the performances were so intimate that there wasn't the room or the money to deck everyone out with in-ear monitors and such. heck, some shows you were lucky if they even mic'd the amps through the PA. most of the music i listen to now is from current bands (even though they may be old farts like nomeansno), and those fuckers can still play. they just can't be packaged enough to fill arenas. i'm not talking about experimental jazz or prog rock noodlefests either - straight ahead stuff like avail or harvey milk doesn't have crazy guitar solos or anything like that, but you see them live and know that it's 100% the playing that you're hearing, and nothing else. to me, that's what kim was talking about - not how good the jonas brothers sound live, but the bands who do actually play, and the drummers who do actually play without in-ear computers, and the singers who do actually sing without auto-tune.

mjp you old fuck, have you been to a concert in the last 25 years? or do you just watch the musical guest on saturday night live every week and use that as your barometer for the state of music today?
 
my dad, at 62, has just started listening to NOFX. he borrowed their new album from my older brother and then asked for a compilation of some of their older songs.
 
The aesthetics are superior, sure. There's more to hang on to. If you like how it feels or makes you feel that's a whole different bag of fish than sound comparisons.

I don't know about the experience though. I hated flipping albums, trying to play individual tracks --- and a double or triple album? Oy. Records were a pain in the ass. I thought CDs were the greatest invention of my lifetime back in the day. But music as computer files kinda bugs me (though I use them). I need something physical. I have thousands of MP3s here and it's too abstract, all these files. CDs take up as much space as vinyl LPs, but I like having them there. I can look at the mass of spines and see what's going on.
Our other quibble temporarily notwithstanding, your posts in this thread are dead-on and I could not agree with you more.

No.

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Sorry, I saw avant-garde jazz and experimental rock and lost consciousness for a few seconds.

Longer than a few seconds, I fear.
Is seeing what some wanker writes about the band enough to put you into a feint?

It's music.... it goes in the ears, not eyes.

I didn't mean to suggest that all musicians suck now. Just all rock musicians. But it's still a widely varied field, so happily they all suck for different reasons, and you never have to be bored.

Well OK then. :)

Oh, and I'll pay for all you faggots to come to my house. We'll get drunk and I'll force you to listen to my shit and you tough guys can duke it own on my lawn. When it's all over you can come back in, share a beer and a hug and behave like ladies again.
 
anyway, can we focus on my amazing dressing-down of that old coot mjp? come on - i really let him have it. the geezer.
 
mjp you old fuck, have you been to a concert in the last 25 years? or do you just watch the musical guest on saturday night live every week and use that as your barometer for the state of music today?
just wanted to repost this in case mjp missed it ;)
 
mjp you old fuck, have you been to a concert in the last 25 years? or do you just watch the musical guest on saturday night live every week and use that as your barometer for the state of music today?

just wanted to repost this in case mjp missed it ;)

YEAH! mjp that cantankerous brittle old cunt. Woohoo!! :D

Come out to play, mjp3.
What a bunch of fags!

By "concerts" do you mean those things with rooms full of other people all standing next to me and touching me and shit? Jesus christ, what kind of masochist do you take me for?

Well, I would have been at Spaceland seeing First Aid Kit in October if their U.S. tour hadn't been squashed - is that pomo enough?

But for the most part, going to see some band I've never heard is too painful. There is no point to it when you know in advance that you are quite likely to want to gob on the miserable fag singer, and stand in front of the guitar player and point and laugh. I can do both of those things right over on Colorado Blvd. in Old Town Pasadena. Not to guitar players and singers, but to garden variety clueless douchebags.

Besides, you fag creeps, I did my time on that circuit. I've seen more bands play than any of you homos, and what did it get me? A headache most of the time. Especially when that fag from the Dickies whacked me on the head with a big, heavy rubber caveman club, and Iggy Stooge whipped me repeatedly with his vile, sweaty tshirt. I still have nightmares about those horrible, tragic incidents. That and seeing the Plasmatics 20 or 30 times. You didn't have to endure that! It would have scarred anyone.

Besides, a 50 year old guy shouldn't be hanging around places like the Whiskey unless he's trolling for young boys. You know, like a fag.

I hope that answered any lingering questions that you fags might have had.

Fags.
 
Hey Hooch - whats your address? I've got some shiney new anal beads I'm dying to try out!!! :D

don't worry, there's a car coming to pick you up. just be ready by 7, and wear the outfit I Fed Ex'd you. you're ok with a ball gag, right?
 
nice.

I have a regular ball gag and one made out of a wiffle ball, in case you have a cold with a stuffy nose. I'm a thoughtful lover.

o, my safe word is 'butterfly.' just an FYI.
 
Happy new year to all us faggy fag fag fags!

May your latex stay supple and your gag reflexes be gone!
 
Funny, mine is Morrissey.

that's what you were saying? I thought it was "More, Steve! more, Steve!"

but everything gets muffled with a ball gag, as you know.

I was worried when you passed out. I didn't stop doing my business, mind you, but I was worried.
 
I don't think there's any need to hide our naked rough man love from people anymore.

we are who we are, if they can't accept it, I wasn't made for this world.
 
hahhaha, that was great! Everytime I go to a Laker game, Jake Gylenhall(sp?) is around, chatting it up and I always want to quote that line to him. But I respect some of his work, so I chuckle inside and walk away. But I swear it makes me laugh everytime.
 
hahhaha, that was great! Everytime I go to a Laker game, Jake Gylenhall(sp?) is around, chatting it up and I always want to quote that line to him. But I respect some of his work, so I chuckle inside and walk away. But I swear it makes me laugh everytime.

A few years ago my wife wanted to go see a movie on her birthday. She loves horror. We got a babysitter and went to the movies. The movie that she wanted to see was sold out. She saw a poster for Brokeback Mountain. Neither of us had heard anything about this movie (I guess that we were the only 2 people that had not heard about it). I hate cowboy movies, but love my wife and figured that I could suffer through a country music cowboy music movie. About half way through, they just start fucking each other. I was stunned. I have no problem with gay people, but need a little warning! We were both shocked. The movie was good. I would have had no problem seeing it, but again, knowing what I was getting into would have been nice.

We still laugh at ourselves because of that one..

Bill

p.s. If anyone remembers the movie Deathtrap it was the same thing. As some point, out of NOWHERE Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine just start making out. Tongues and all. Ha!
 
Yeh, I initially watched Brokeback just to be able and get all the quotes, scenes that Howard Stern was so interested in talking about every morning, back when it first came out. It was fine. Not bad, not great.
 

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