One of the things I enjoy most in life is sitting alone in the cinema with a turkey, potato salad and Swiss cheese sandwich. Unfortunately , despite all my brain wracking, that does not make for a good blog post. So I’ll put that concept aside for a while and tell you about another of my great pleasures.
Last night, thanks to my good friend Aisling, I had the privilege of seeing a group of immensely talented musicians performing on stage in the
National Concert Hall. Men and women doing what they love. Playing instruments they have spent years perfecting and entertaining the crowd with their craft.
It really is a joy to watch great musicians combining their individual talents to create a tight sound and to know that they are enjoying playing as much as the audience is enjoying listening and watching. A brass section of twelve horns, bass, drums, guitar, and Hammond organ made up the Rhythm and Blues Orchestra ,with their leader, Jools Holland on piano.
Along with four guest vocalists including Alison Moyet, this group of accomplished players treated the crowd to a collection of Boogie Woogie, Rhythm and Blues, Jazz standards and some of their original compositions. Each song had feet tapping, heads nodding and fingers clicking. Every member of the band had their moment in the spotlight and each virtuosic solo was greeted with tremendous applause by appreciative fans.
It was the type of gig that you can’t help but feel good about. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face. A smile that only gets bigger when you catch the eye of the person next to you and realise they are experiencing the same joy as you.
Halfway through the gig, I had a bit of thought. I looked down on the stage and it occurred to me that none of the performers, with the exception of guest vocalist Rosie Holland (Jools daughter) were what you would describe as young. They ranged from middle aged to legendary trombone player
Rico Rodriguez who is 76. Everyone a mature, experienced, musician.
And then I thought about all the people sitting at home watching the X Factor at the exact same time.
I’ve been thinking about how best to put this all day. I know it’s an incredibly popular programme and you possibly watch it. I’m trying not to offend or judge too harshly. I want to balance criticism with objectivity.
However, every time I start to write I just end up ranting about how Simon Cowell is an evil manipulator cackling as he constantly pumps trash onto our TV screens on a weekly basis and the people who watch the programme are BRAINWASHED FUCKWITS…..ahem…excuse me.
I’ve spoken before about the mind numbing effect of television and one of the main reasons I got rid of my cable TV channels was because of tripe like the X factor. I found it too easy to sit there, brain off, remote control in hand and let it pollute my existence. Saturday night zombification. Then they decided to show it on Sundays too.
Even now, when I don’t have the stations I still can’t escape it. I know about the Gamu controversy, Mary from Tesco, Matt with and without his hat. There are people called Cher and Katie on it who are ’spannerfaces’ apparently. I know Cheryl is having a hard time and Louis is picking on her…allegedly.
The free morning paper seems to have a two page spread on it every day. Magazine and newspaper covers blast out scandalous and shocking headlines about the contestants and the judges. Everyone I know talks about it or post something on face book about it. It’s like I’ve caught the X-Factor disease through secondary media. Joining the masses as we mindlessly wait for Cowell to give us our opinion.
You probably think that last sentence is a step too far. Have I finally joined the list of batty, conspiracy theorist nuts who blog? I’m haven’t honestly. But. If I had, I’d probably point out that, with the most popular TV programmes in the UK and the United States broadcasting his every whim, Simon Cowell has access to numbers of unquestioning subjects, I mean captive viewers, which Hitler would give his
one remaining testicle for.
The worst are the people who know it is shit and still watch it. For entertainment!!! Everybody loves the first couple weeks with all the mad, bad, self deluded lunatics. Those people who are awful or mental or both who squawk out cat torturing versions of Celine Dion tunes. We love to see the classless rejects get up in Simon and Louis face Jerry Springer style. ‘Oh no you didn’t.’
The thing is, if I were to stand on the street and laugh at someone who was obviously mentally unbalanced you’d be right to call me a bit of an asshole. Yet here we are enjoying the exploitation of simpletons all in the name of entertainment.
After that we are through to the live stages where the final 12 sing their hearts out to win the heart of the world. Except it’s never about the singing. In fact it would be very interesting to see what percentage of the show running time is actual singing
Instead it all about the backstage drama and whatever controversy was in the paper this week it’s about them ‘stepping out of their comfort zone.’ It about how the judges mocking one another because the song doesn’t suit the performer. It’s about backstage drama. It’s about production values. It’s about how loud they can play the backing track.
Some of them are very good singers but then so is the woman down my local who sings ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ after a couple of vodka tonics. Or my cousin. She is a very good singer. I’m not saying that acts have no talent. They do. I’m saying they have no soul.
Whores for fame, money and influence, every one of them would sell their grandmother for a record contract and a cover shoot on Heat magazine. Not one of them has any interest in art, integrity or creativity. They are dictionary definition charlatans cashing in on their fifteen minutes of fame.
The perfect example of this is Jedward. The hateful twins from Dublin personify everything that is wrong with the ‘music biz.’ Talentless hacks with no discernable ability, they perform bad cover versions of songs that weren’t very good in the first place. They distract their audience with stupid haircuts, bad American accents, awful clothes and complete lack of shame. Pushed by a multi million marketing machine, they are everywhere.
On bus stops. Shop windows. Newspapers. It is virtually impossible to walk down the street of Dublin without seeing their remarkably punchable faces endorsing everything from Abrakebabra (Yea, We totally love Taco Fries, don’t we Edward? Like totally John) to UNICEF (Yea, We totally donate to all the starving babies, don’t we Edward? Like totally John.)
I normally hear two arguments to counter my distaste for these peons. The first one is ‘Ah sure what harm are they doing, its just a bit of fun for the kids.’ Is this really what you want your children to aspire to? Spiky haired arseholes who think its ok to be really bad at what they do?
If you bought a car and it was it didn’t drive properly you’d bring it back. If you bought a car that you knew was rubbish in the first place, you’d be an idiot and all your friends would rightly ridicule you. Yet its acceptable to buy really rubbish music and just accept it. If someone tried to hand your child a cowpat you would call the police. Yet no one has reported their manager, Louis Walsh.
The second argument is ‘ They might be wankers but they are rich wankers.’ And whose fault is that. Who buys the cd? Who buys three tickets for their concert for their kids at 25euro a pop? Who buys the books? The Easter eggs? The tee shirts? The kebabs? The toilet roll?
So what if they are ‘rich wankers.’ The definitive word in that sentence is still wanker. Rich is just an adjective that is used to describe what kind of wanker they are. It doesn’t make being a wanker something we should hold up as a career choice. Including this sentence, I’ve used the word wanker five times in a paragraph. I really don’t like Jedward.
I’ll give the last word on the subject of X Factor and Jedward to a man who almost twenty years was railing against the talentlessness and pointlessness of the modern pop industry. Unfortunately things have only gotten worse since Bill Hicks died. Part of me would love to hear him rant on Simon Cowell….but then maybe he would have sold out and made a novelty record with him. Probably not though judging by these words.
“Because you know if you play New Kids on the Block albums backwards they sound better. "Oh come on, Bill, they're the New Kids, don't pick on them, they're so good and they're so clean cut and they're such a good image for the children." Fuck that! When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children? I want my children to listen to people who fucking ROCKED! I don't care if they died in puddles of their own vomit! I want someone who plays from his fucking HEART!”
That leads me right back to my original point. Musicians who are good at what they do and enjoy what they do should be revered. They should be held up as an example for children. I don’t mean all the sex and drugs part. That stuff is nobody’s business but there own. But if you can get a child to fall in love with an instrument and want to learn to play and want to be good at it, then they are on their way to being happy.
