Monday, November 16, 2009
The Downtown Music Scene
During the past two weeks of not writing, I attended two nights of a music festival in a small Greenwich Village nightclub. I had many friends and acquaintances in the line-up, and also several acts that I had never seen or heard of before. A few moments from the two nights got scribbled in my notebook that I keep with me at all times. I am not going to name the musical acts.
People have strong feelings about music. It's all a matter of taste. Some you like, some you don't care about, some you don't like, some evokes a visceral feeling of revulsion. What follows are notes from three moments in time, one of which is a reconstructed conversation fragment about a musical act that was not on the bill, but has a hit tune that I can't seem to get away from, since it is on the piped in music in a large number of stores and workplaces that I frequent.
Moment #1: I have seen a band that made me consider a positive aspect of being arrested for public urination.
Moment #2 (While watching someone on the bill): Some say this guy is the poor man's Neil Young. I'd go further. He's the destitute homeless guy's Neil Young. Not just any destitute homeless guy- the one that approaches you when you're in your car stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic who spits on your windshield and smears it with his filthy sleeve while talking to his invisible friends, and then makes an impassioned request for the cigarette butts in your ashtray. He's that guy's Neil Young.
A fragment of The Conversation (not to be confused by the film of the same name starring Gene Hackman). Prologue:
There's a hit song being played on a lot of store's music systems, and even my favorite radio station from Chicago that I listen to via the internet, WXRT. This is a love song to a woman named Delilah that sounds like a funeral dirge. The guy singing about his undying love for this woman Delilah sounds like he's about to open his wrists. I've met some women who find this song touching, and other women who find it beyond annoying. I'm with them.
If I were a woman and a guy sang this song to me as his statement of undying love, I'd kick him in his nonexistent balls and dump him.
I expressed this feeling to someone who likes the song, a female friend.
"How could you not like it?" She said.
"It's not that I don't like it, I flat out hate it."
"Well, I like it. It's sweet."
"It's a dirge."
"No it isn't. And the tune is catching."
"So is malaria."
People have strong feelings about music. It's all a matter of taste. Some you like, some you don't care about, some you don't like, some evokes a visceral feeling of revulsion. What follows are notes from three moments in time, one of which is a reconstructed conversation fragment about a musical act that was not on the bill, but has a hit tune that I can't seem to get away from, since it is on the piped in music in a large number of stores and workplaces that I frequent.
Moment #1: I have seen a band that made me consider a positive aspect of being arrested for public urination.
Moment #2 (While watching someone on the bill): Some say this guy is the poor man's Neil Young. I'd go further. He's the destitute homeless guy's Neil Young. Not just any destitute homeless guy- the one that approaches you when you're in your car stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic who spits on your windshield and smears it with his filthy sleeve while talking to his invisible friends, and then makes an impassioned request for the cigarette butts in your ashtray. He's that guy's Neil Young.
A fragment of The Conversation (not to be confused by the film of the same name starring Gene Hackman). Prologue:
There's a hit song being played on a lot of store's music systems, and even my favorite radio station from Chicago that I listen to via the internet, WXRT. This is a love song to a woman named Delilah that sounds like a funeral dirge. The guy singing about his undying love for this woman Delilah sounds like he's about to open his wrists. I've met some women who find this song touching, and other women who find it beyond annoying. I'm with them.
If I were a woman and a guy sang this song to me as his statement of undying love, I'd kick him in his nonexistent balls and dump him.
I expressed this feeling to someone who likes the song, a female friend.
"How could you not like it?" She said.
"It's not that I don't like it, I flat out hate it."
"Well, I like it. It's sweet."
"It's a dirge."
"No it isn't. And the tune is catching."
"So is malaria."
