In March 1969,
“America’s only rock ‘n’ magazine” was born. It was called Creem. Barry
Kramer and founding Editor Tony Reay were the originators, but it was Lester
Bangs, an in-your-face brash Dionysian music critic, who gave birth to the idea
of music being evaluated like literature or film. Now, 35 years later, Creem
magazine has officially called it quits as of January 2013, although its level
of intimacy with music and its history of honest rock 'n' roll critiques will
go down in history as a one of kind publication that helped shaped music from
the late Sixties to modern times.
I first learned about Creem, and
other publications of the "rock critics" heyday, like Crawdaddy!
and Rolling Stone, while
researching my senior year college thesis, The Role of the Rock Critic in Sixties
and Seventies Music. I was inspired to write about this subject for a
variety of reasons, which at the time, being 22 and on the verge of graduating
college, I thought most of my ideas were grand and unique! I consider myself to
be an in your face, honest critic and fan of music and film, by nature; I am also
a musician; I love 1960s and 1970s culture/music; and, clichéd enough, one of
my favorite films is Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.
Why I bring up
this film is its relevance to the discussion of the rock critic in today’s
world. This film gives visual and harmonic homage to the purpose and life of
the rock critic and the times in which they thrived and were both secretly
honored by literary geniuses and openly considered "the enemy" by
many. Philip Seymour Hoffman impeccably plays the role of Lester Bangs, the
real life Iggy Pop-boozing intellect who lays out the role of the rock critic
in the crazy rock 'n' roll landscape of the 1970s to William Miller, a 15 year
old “wanna be” music journalist (a fictional precocious character loosely based
on Crowe’s early personal life), with a passion for writing about the heart and
soul of music. During their first conversations in the film, Bangs makes some
comments that still resonate today:
“I'm telling ya, you're comin' along at a very dangerous time for rock 'n' roll. I mean, the war is over. They won. And 99% of what passes for rock 'n' roll these days, silence is more compelling. That's why I think you should just turn around and go back, you know, and be a lawyer or somethin'. But I can tell from your face that you won't. I can give you 35 bucks. Give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath...Hey, you have to make your reputation on being honest and, uh, you know, unmerciful.”
Recently,
after watching these early scenes between the jaded yet prophetic Bangs and the
naive but meekly raw Miller, I was inspired to write a piece about where these
ideas fit into the world’s notion of rock ‘n’ roll several decades later…
“Everything in Music Has Now Been
Said”...
There is a
scene in Portlandia (Season 2, Episode 6), in which the fictional band "Catnap," headed
by "breaking ground" rock artists/actors Fred Armisen
(vocalist/guitarist), Carrie Brownstein (keys, guitar and back-up vocals), Kristen Wiig (gun
"player"), and none other than a cat named Kevin, yes a cat,
playing drums. The scene from this episode, which I find most memorable, is the
scene in the office of Pitchfork magazine, where a writer is reviewing
Catnap's album, and quickly proclaims: "Hey, you guys, this band
Catnap, everything in music has now been said. I think we're done; we can shut
the site down. Good job everybody. Shut down your computers, shut down the
site." (end scene)
"Catnap" has achieved what they set out to do- do something no
band has ever done- and in doing so they bring to surface a clearly funny but a
painful truth of what music has become in the twenty-first century. Music has
become an "industry," where each new band does everything they can,
absurd at best, to set themselves apart from other bands, using an addictive
mix of marketing, branding, sexy and/or controversial looks and image,
“ingeniously original” blending of genres, anything and everything they can do
to GET NOTICED, by the fans and the rock critics.
But are these
bands truly being heard? By the masses, perhaps, as this is what they started
out to do- get noticed, get signed, get out on the road, soar to the top of
iTunes playlists and the Billboard Hot 100, get the most hits on YouTube, sell
copious amounts of MP3s (as albums sales are declining to the point of no
return), make money from advertising and touring, and, if their lucky, get
reviewed in the good old Rolling Stone…And if you are “really
good," get recognition from the likes of Pitchfork, the
self-proclaimed “essential guide to independent music and beyond,” a magazine
inspired by the real passion of music journalists from the 1960s and 1970s.
But, when it comes to Pitchfork and modern “rock critics,” I like to
believe that the likes of Lester Bang's is rolling over in his drug-induced
grave.
The Medium is the Music
Moving forward
with this discussion, I think of Marshall McLuhan's everlasting philosophy of
"the medium is the message," hence, each time the medium has changed
from record to 8-track to cassette to CD to MP3, the music’s message has
subconsciously changed with it. Today's musicians have more to contend with and
the notion of making "good" music has dissipated from the mainstream
again to the underground, much like it did in the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll.
The masses did not want to “like” the godfather of punk Iggy Pop, Britain’s
"pissing on a rock" band The Who, or whacky poet Bob Dylan in
electric, at least not at first. At least not until the so called rock
critiques deemed it “good,” and the once rebellious nature of rock ‘n’ roll
became the message of the masses.
But where does
rock ‘n' roll fit in today's culture? With so many subgenres and auto-tuned generations
of musicians relying on tour sales to even make a cent, if any money at all,
the place for the authentic musician is now between a rock and a hard place.
And where does the rock critic fit in today's music scene, if anywhere?
At age 29, a previous
Staff Writer for www.muzikreview.com, I
predominately listen to music from the late 1960s, early 1970s, early-to-mid
1990s, and an occasional fresh of breath air from the 2000s. For me it is
classic rock and alternative all the way. Anytime I hear a twenty-first century
artist playing real music, I'm all open ears. Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, The
Black Keys, Norah Jones, Pete Yorn, Ryan Adams, Eminiem (yes, I'll argue to
anyone he is our generation's greatest rapper and boo hoo to those Tupac and
Biggie bangers), Cage the Elephant, Jack White, Adele, Amy Winehouse, and the
list, although limited, goes on. All of these artists have done one thing
right— they kept playing their music, regardless of the price and the media's
criticism or lack of it. For as is in many art forms, it is more important to
get recognized and positively critiqued than to not be heard at all or be
underappreciated by the press.
The Aimee Manns, The Gagas, The
Project Autumns, and the Dylans
Aimee Mann: Driving Sideways with Elegance
There's another
episode of Portlandia (Season 1, Episode 3) entitled "Aimee,"
in which Aimee Mann plays the real life prolific singer songwriter forced to
fictionally make money as a regular house maid alongside Sarah McLaughlin, a
house gardener. This episode is absurdly indicative of the state that even
talented musicians have been reduced to. I am by no means saying that cleaning
houses or gardening is not an honest living. But when you have some of the few
great songwriters left of our generation, struggling to make it in the music
industry, while Lady Gaga is free to strut whatever Madonna meets Marilyn
Manson costume of the week and be called a genius artist, then I believe we
have a problem. And I find it a troubling one.
Project Autumn: Quite the Project
So what is my
beef with Lady Gaga? It is
pretty simple. I see myself in her. I could have been her in all reality (well
maybe). Well if I didn't have a soul. Let me explain further... She grew up in
NYC and recorded her first tracks in Parsippany, New Jersey, (only about 20
miles outside the Big Apple), the same city where my band, Project Autumn, recorded
its first demo. Our self-titled album, released in 2010, received great praise
from anyone who heard it, but we did not have the capital to market it and like
a Gwen Stefani-kind of drama, with me dating the guitarist and person I shared
the copyright with, I kind of subconsciously derailed the entire blood, sweat,
and tears of three years of work. We still sell several MP3s a month, even with
limited Internet marketing; we make a mere nine cents a download after CDBaby
and all the music download sites get their cut. I could probably buy a meal for
three off the dollar menu with all the money I made off what I thought would be my "great
masterpiece."
I even tried
out for American Idol and got my 15 minutes of fame on the front page of my
local newspaper wearing a goofy hat I thought would make me
"different" singing Fiona Apple's "Criminal." After trying
out at the jam packed Izod Center in Rutherford, New Jersey, with hundreds of
thousands of dreamers, waiting for hours just to stand in line hearing one
excellent vocalist after another filed like a bunch of soldiers in twelve
different lines to step in between two pitched curtains like a giant triage
center to sing for thirty seconds in front of an unknown "producer"
for American Idol, I was told, "Thank you for trying out, but we’re
looking for something a little different. Have a nice day." I handed this
"producer" a copy of my band's CD, which probably landed in the
garbage and currently wastes away in one of New Jersey's hundred superfund
sites. Now if I had worn some outrageous outfit maybe I would have made the
cut—like I saw at the Idol audition, a superwoman costume actually landed a
girl a ticket to the next round...Ok, so enough about me, back to Gaga...
Stefani
Germanotta (Lady Gaga) with Former Producer Rob Fasari: During Her Early
Recording Days in Parsippany, New Jersey
Gaga: The Ultimate Poker Face
A few years
ago I read a couple articles about Gaga's early days in my home state of New
Jersey. She had dark hair, her real name is/was Stefani Joanne Angelina
Germanotta (quite a mouthful), she is a natural Italian brunette and liked to
write and sing rock ‘n’ roll. But she was convinced that this "kind of
music" would never make her a star. And thus the alter-ego of Lady Gaga
was born. Also, it is alleged that Gaga ripped off her producer Rob Fusari, who guide
her and gave her, her start.
I hate the
term "sell out" because I think the term has lost its original
meaning. I mean if you are really in the music business, it is a business, and
you need to sell something, even if actual quality music is not on the top of
the list. But I believe that it is an entertainer’s job, first and foremost, to
sell. I believe it is the mission of a musician, to rock out instead of sell
out regardless of compensation or fame. I mean, who knows, the guitarist
singing songs written on a napkin at the local bar, might have been/be the next
Bob Dylan.
But First There Was Dylan
But there's no
room left for another archetypal poet/songwriter like Bob Dylan. Or is there?
Ironically enough, Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga similarly fit into the discussion I
am attempting to articulate. Bob Dylan was just a curly haired Jewish boy from
a small Northern Minnesota coal mining town with a guitar and a dream. Sure,
Dylan is one of the best songwriters and lyricists of the past fifty, maybe
even the past hundred years. But what did he have to do to get there? After
watching eye-opening Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home (2005), a
detailed biopic of Bob Dylan from his meager beginnings to his rise to the top,
you really get an insight to what is behind the genius… a homegrown folk rock
cocktail of ego, the too close to call plagiarizing "influence" of
Woodie Guthrie's folk guitar style, and the love entangled "running over
the bus" of Joan Baez, Dylan's once girlfriend and, still unknown to many
of my generation, the sole woman responsible for introducing Dylan to American
audiences and an amazing song writer genius in her own right. Who is to say if
Dylan would be the icon he is today whether these things happened or not. No
one can deny his talent and artistry, but the road he took to get there, well
it is curious to see how this "rolling stone" became the king of Rolling
Stone and every music critic's wet-dream.
When it comes
to the existence of the musician, sometimes it is all about
"becoming" rather than "being" a musician. Music is not
just about the verse and chorus, it is about showmanship, costumes, branding,
flashy stage sets, reputations and rumors, love affairs and taking ideas from
others before you and reinventing them while using others as stepping stones
towards the great grand world that some call fame and others call recognition.
Rock Music is Still Alive (The Old
Meets the New)
As 2013 comes
to an end and 2014 unfolds, the increasing trend of local and underground
successes popping up everywhere is meeting the demands for diehard music fans.
But with a guitar, amp, an iMac, and ProTools at the hands of anyone and
everyone whose pipe dream is to be the next rock star, it is becoming
increasingly difficult to define "good" music. With publications like
Pitchfork and Rolling Stone telling us what good music is, who
are we to argue? I will not call it a hopeless plight, as true music fans can
smell, feel, taste, and hear authentic music whether it reverberates from a
small club, a college radio station, on Pandora, or through any other channel.
It courses through their veins, elegantly and hauntingly, while the pop hits of
today are mostly like a puff of smoke dissipating and fading into the morning
after a bad night of drinking.
Yet another
interesting trend is occurring now. Popular hits are reinventing the old and
introducing music from past decades. An example is Flo Rida's 2012 hit "Good
Feeling," an upbeat hip hop celebration of life. With an
astounding 150 million views on YouTube, this song is what it is because of the
powerful hook from the original, Etta James' 1962 "Something's
Got a Hold on Me" (although this video barely has 200,000 hits on
YouTube). Christina Aguilera also covered this song for her movie
"Burlesque," (2010) and her official YouTube video has 11 million
hits.
Unfortunately, Etta James died after years of illness and addiction
issues in 2012 and never felt the amount of success of this same exact song,
which brought millions of viewers to Aguilera and Flo Rida. Which begs the
questions: Must a true artist suffer for their art to be authentic? What makes
music authentic? Is using another artist’s music, a form of artistic
expression, similar to the folk rock tradition? Is translating classics into
modern hits a form of reinvention or an expression of lack of creativity? The
questions are as endless as the songs we play in our heads throughout our
lives.
Music in Television, Commercials,
and Movies: The New Wave
As I've
written in past commentaries, the newest trend-- the branding of music in
commercials, movies, and television--I was previously opposed to, until faced
with the reality of it with my own music. Questioning myself of whether I would
want my music heard, even if it was selling cars in commercials, or as it has
currently been featured in a local New Jersey film, "Dealer," (2012,
Feenix Films), a low-budget film about the symbiotic relationship between two
drug addicts, well I assume this is the premise, since I never even got a copy
and I never saw a cent (this is what happens when you date and write music with
the same "lovely man"). Yet I can't help but be a little bit happy
that my music was at least heard, by somebody, anybody who watched the film.
And I believe that is what it has boiled down to. Being heard, even if in an
absurd or previously branded "selling out" way, is better than never
being heard at all.
The Portlandia
episode "Aimee," as
overdramatic as it may have been, still does not take away from the fact that
Aimee Mann is an amazing musician, who actually wrote the majority of the
soundtrack for Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 film "Magnolia." I heard
Aimee play at First Avenue in Minneapolis about a year ago to a packed
audience, mostly a thirties and older group, but it was great. So at the end of
the day, I guess we need to appreciate the commercialization of music,
otherwise, we wouldn't hear it in the first place.
Like the 1967 Friend
and Lovers’ classic, "Reach Out of the Darkness" covered by Jocelyn Alice in the form of
"So Groovy (Finally Getting Together)" in a recent Target commercial. I
never would have known it was a cover. It was catchy and resonated with me and
then my mother told me about the original from the 1960s, which I later looked
up on YouTube. I think that this brings up perhaps the most important lesson to
us all: Teach younger generations where modern music came from. If you hear a
rapper sampling a snippet from an original song like Aerosmith's 1973 haunting
classic, "Dream On," tastefully sampled by Eminem's 2003 smash hit,
"Sing for the Moment," bring your children or another adult to
YouTube and play them the original, or better yet, if you have a record player,
get out the original. There is nothing like the sound of a record spinning and
resonating the way it was originally intended to. Educating future generations
and even current generations about the origins of today's hits is vital to keep
the soul of rock ‘n’ roll alive. And at every opportunity, support your local
artists, or artists who make true music, whether they are on tour or not,
whether some hipster journalist deems them hot or not.
As far as I am
concerned, marketing geniuses and music journalists' mission, to discover the
"next big thing," has been done already as Portlandia points
out so blatantly. Or just turn on your local pop music station in your car and
nine times out of ten you will know exactly what I am talking about. But this
leads my point: I believe that the music’s most dominant medium has changed. It
is no longer the radio, the Billboard Hot 100, or Rolling Stone. The main medium for new and/or exciting music
is the music itself, which now dominates films, television, and the Internet on
web sites, such as YouTube. Case and Point: "Orange is the New
Black," a surprisingly addictive Netflix original, which features Regina
Spektor's, "You've Got Time" (2013). I love the song and the show.
This is an example in which good music was brought to life by the medium of
television.
I Love Rock
‘n’ Roll…So Put Another Dime in the Jukebox Baby
Once a
critique of the commercialization of music, I have now accepted the fact that
although there are artists that commercialize themselves as artists and do
anything to cut-throat their way to the top, I do advocate that film,
television, and the Internet is now the medium where authentic artists can
heard. I am done with the notion of "finding" or
"discovering" an artist. Yes, you can happen upon a new song or an
artist, but a music critique who thinks they have "found" the next
big thing, that is completely unique and original, is only in it for the
attention and if they are lucky, the money. A true rock journalist, like Lester
Bangs, a person who lives, breathes, starves, and dies for rock 'n' roll is a
thing of the past, but a true blue rock 'n' roll fan and the music itself, in
all heart and soul, will never perish.
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