catapult magazine

as I like frozen pizza. I tried to live on it, but it’s still junk food. I know this isn’t the most popular opinion on this board, but there has been so much praise lately. Are we deifying them yet?
Anybody else find them mediocre? Or am I a lone wolf here?

I don’t understand this “two worlds” theory. So we listen to certain music when we’re in the mood for it. What does this prove? Sometimes I decide not to listen to Hendrix because I’m in the mood for classical music. That doesn’t make Hendrix any less great or whatever. I don’t play U2 all the time either. There’s no two worlds. Music affects moods and is desired for its specific moods. But we’re talking more than mood here.
We’re talking about people’s taste. Taste is more than just what you’re in the mood for.

For me, music is not split up into mood or technical excellence. In fact, if I hear a technically excellent piece of music that sucks, it puts me in a bad mood. A simple piece of music that is true and real is not operating on some technically excellent model, but it is technically excellent according to a different definition of technical excellence. For example, B.B. King has learned to communicate soulfulness as technique. He knows the proper technique to evoke a certain mood. Technique is not divorced from mood. A technically excellent performer knows how to get the right mood. Which is what I’m saying about U2.

lopez: your comments on hip hop show just how rigid your definition of music is. I think Hendrix and all the great artists of the sixties who championed the freedom of rock’n’roll to move and morph into whatever it wanted to would be ashamed at your stuffy attitude when it comes to music. You sound like those church leaders in the dark ages who thought polyphonic harmonies were of the devil and unmusical and just a bunch of noise, not refined like the music that rises and falls along with the voice. Actually, though your attitude has the same kind of rigidity, your opinions are directly opposite the ones in the dark ages. They probably would have thought rap music is closer to true music because music’s origins were alot more like rap than any other musical form we have today. Technically. But they would have disliked our music’s focus on the passions and expressivism. All that aside, I think it’s fair to say that most of the artists from the sixties that you admire so much would be really excited about the birth of hip hop. These artists grasped onto the blues, gospel and country music and made it their own. Hip hop artists are doing the same thing. Hip hop probably captures the spirit of the sixties rock spirit better than any musical form today.

Can you explain how they do that Grant? I’m curious as to how bitch-slappin’ my ho is similar to the Grateful Dead.
Obviously I’m stereotyping here, but there’s always a kernel of truth in a stereotype.

Can you explain how they do that Grant? I’m curious as to how bitch-slappin’ my ho is similar to the Grateful Dead.
Obviously I’m stereotyping here, but there’s always a kernel of truth in a stereotype.

Well, rock and roll is just about sex and drugs, right?

Check out Blackalicious, Jurassic 5, Talib Kweli and De La Soul. They might interest you.

thanks for the suggestions jason. i surfed the net a bit and listened to some samples of these bands. still not really my cup of tea. i’m a real geek for that classic james brown style funk such as “sex machine” and “cold sweat”. this stuff still had a cold over produced sound to me and alot of it had those r&b overtones. modern day r&b is probably at the top of my “music-i-would-probably-shoot-myself-if-i-was-forced-to- listen-to-it-for-any-lengthy-period-of-time” list. it’s a surprisingly big list.

i think that for me there’s no artistic niche that hip hop could fill for me that is not currently being satisfied by funky jazz bands such as galactic and robert walter’s 20th congress.

I don’t understand this “two worlds” theory. So we listen to certain music when we’re in the mood for it. What does this prove? Sometimes I decide not to listen to Hendrix because I’m in the mood for classical music. That doesn’t make Hendrix any less great or whatever. I don’t play U2 all the time either. There’s no two worlds. Music affects moods and is desired for its specific moods. But we’re talking more than mood here.

We’re talking about people’s taste. Taste is more than just what you’re in the mood for.

yes, i realize that i probably should have phrased this a little less abstractly. i used space’s quote as a jumping off point and i think that ended up muddying the argument in the long run. what i mean to say, and hopefully this makes more sense to you, is that there is a difference between LIKE and GOOD. most people walk around believeing that just because they like something it automatically makes that thing good. i talk to alot of people about these sorts of subjects so i know this to be true. of course this argument makes perfect sense in the context of a postmodern and therefore relativistic society. “what i like is what i like and good for me and what you like is what you like and good for you”. well i whole-heartedly reject this way of thinking, especially when it comes to music and art and i can’t see how any intelligent person could go along with such hogwash; especially when taken into account the garbage that is, was, and always will be embraced by the masses.

so when i said that i choose to live in a world of discerning. i simply meant that i believe there is great and terrible music that is qualified as such apart from whether anyone, including myself, happens to like it or not.

this being said, i am proposing that on my attemptedly un-biased scale of rock music, which ranges from great to terrible, U2 falls somewhere in the middle. therefore, mediocre.

For me, music is not split up into mood or technical excellence. In fact, if I hear a technically excellent piece of music that sucks, it puts me in a bad mood. A simple piece of music that is true and real is not operating on some technically excellent model, but it is technically excellent according to a different definition of technical excellence.

yes, i hear what your saying and i do agree to a certain extent. what i’m saying is that an artist (or band) who has mastered this more simple model of technical excellence along with a more musically complex model: shouldn’t this person (or band) be held in higher regard than one who is confined to a certain mode? the fact that you admit that there is more than one way to rock the house seems to almost require a ‘yes’.

For example, B.B. King has learned to communicate soulfulness as technique. He knows the proper technique to evoke a certain mood. Technique is not divorced from mood.

this is true, but due to his limits of skill, for whatever reason, he is unable to work with the same size musical pallette as say a jimmy page or an alvin lee. these guys possess the ability to evoke a mood in either a simple mode or crazy guitar hero mode because they not only have soul, but greater technique. that is excellence and that is admirable and i just don’t understand why an artist such as this would not be held in higher regard than another without such abilities.

it would be one thing if i thought U2 could play a complex song such as yes’ “long distance run-around” or anything by ELP (besides ‘lucky man’), but chose not to due to differing artistic views, but i don’t. i feel U2 is limited as to what they can do musically by their levels of technical skill and therefore fall to a lower rung of musical greatness.

it would be one thing if i thought U2 could play a complex song such as yes’ “long distance run-around” or anything by ELP (besides ‘lucky man’), but chose not to due to differing artistic views, but i don’t. i feel U2 is limited as to what they can do musically by their levels of technical skill and therefore fall to a lower rung of musical greatness.

Woody Guthrie musn’t be any good, then.

Or Bob Dylan …

Ah yes, restarted the thread. and i see that lopez has been eaxing ecstatic about hendrix and zepplin. and for good reason i suppose. but it is just not as simple as he states. like they are simple and the classic rock is of the gods. it is really like comparing apples and oranges. someone spoke of modal changes. i find the technical apect of the edges playing quite intricate. like the the actual, technology technical part. not so much that he is a technical/cmplex guitar player. but he does come up with some amaxing snounds out of that axe. that is not to say jimi didnt, but, ah, like i said apples . . .

but i tell you, they put on a hell of a show. saw them recently on the tour, and anyone can say they are as simple as they wish, but what they do live, the spectacle at hand is unreal. it is visual. emotional. heartfelt, moving, powerful, tight, well played, and the list goes on.

and jimi is dead. all those frigging guys from the ’70 used drugs to create. is that what the best of the best ios all about? that is like saying the buy who wins the 100 meter dash in the olymipics is the greatest because he won using steriods. hello ben johnson 1988. anyway my point being — would hendrick really be so creative and artistic if he wasnt up to his tits in an acid dream?

on another note, bono should keep the politics/campaigning at home. he should just decide if he wants to be a rock star or work for the UN or World Bank. some many choices so little time hey bono.

but the show was something else. . .

Or Bob Dylan …

bob dylan, woody guthrie, tom waits, nick drake, greg brown. i love ’em all! these guys are all interesting songwriters and great performers in their own right.

however, if i was to judge their musical output as if they were bands they would fall short a majority of the time. solo artists such as these are generally focused on message and writing. there are exceptions to this, of course. people like leo kottke and phil keaggy are pretty much musical forces all on their own, but this takes an almost para-normal level of musical talent.

it’s as if many of you folks feel that i’m saying somebody such as bob dylan is worthless just because his music is not on par with that of a collective of musicians whose primary focus is to communicate through the sounds they create with their respective instruments. well i’m not. he’s awesome and i have more cd’s of his in my collection than any other single artist or band. at the same time, though, i’m not going to pretend that his greatest talent lies in his performances of the songs he writes. its just not what he’s all about.

put it this way. if i was from somewhere way down in south america and spoke no english and was required to listen to both bob dylan’s version of “all along the watchtower” as well as hendrix’, i’m quite sure there would be no doubt as to which version was musically superior. although dylan’s artistic force may well be 10 times that of any member in ten years after or traffic it does not negate the fact that music is an artform built on sound and when judged strictly on that basis people like bob dylan and woody guthrie will often be weighed and found wanting.