essays

Am I a Cliche?
After narrowly escaping myself being a punk I'm now faced with another fucker of a question. Am I a Cliche? This is pretty hard for me personally to answer and I know I can't ask my friends because any time I ask any of them a question like this about me they usually pussy-foot around it. Either to save my feelings or to not make themselves feel bad, regardless I know I have to answer it, and I know it's gonna be hard. The problem is I have always felt that I have a fairly original and possibly even interesting personality. I'm also quite vain when it comes down to it. I think I am talented, attractive, funny and nice but obviously other people see things differently. Now, if I am a cliche on a very broad scale like a punk or something like that then one of the attributes of this group of me's is that they don't know that they are so cliched. They don't notice people the exact same as them and they don't notice that they are a carbon copy of however many people across our fair planet.
I got to thinking about this after thinking about making a band. I was wondering, as I will really be putting myself out there whether or not people would be interested. I would really like to make interesting, original music but I dunno if the music I would make would be just as cliched as the rest of the crap out there. For example, I am listening to Godsmack right now and goddamn are they terrible. They're on MTV2 at this very moment (which is now long since passed) and all I can think is, is that they are the lowest common denominator. Their music is just real bland. Their lead singer guy is singing about "The Scorpion King" movie. My usually healthy vocabulary has been diminished and this song has basically hurt my feelings. Yet again thank you Limp Bizkit.
I really miss the days when alternative music was actually alternative. I'm sure you know what I mean. When the bands were only famous because they made the best music, rather than having the right image to interest a certain demographic. I wanna be the band Sum 41 should have been. I wanna be good. I want the other people in the world that share my cliche to be inspired. I wanna be a hero. I wanna be a fucking saviour. I really wish I wasn't such a little cliched bitch about all this but it's all true. There's just so many bands out there it's too much to fucking handle sometimes. Like normally I can just ignore it. But other times. I hate that there are bands being signed now obviously just because they don't want the other labels to have a monopoly on that band. Mushroomhead. Mushroomhead are the band to listen to if you're missing you're fix of abnormally numerous american angry guys in disguises..it's just silly. American Head Charge-AMEN/Coal Chamber. It's not even the music sometimes it's just the fucking image and you have to see that so many bands are very popular for image. I'm not saying all their fans only like them for the image what I'm saying is that there are kiddie rockers out there who rather than express themselves personally choose to put on a hoodie and buy a c.d. and show how much they're not like their sister or something fucking retarded like that. I can't help but hate these bands that pull a Backstreet Boy and try to hide it. Look at the dress codes installed by Nirvana for fucks sake. Look at the fact that all the members of Lostprophets wear the same clothes. Look at the fact that rock bands and pop bands have been spending roughly the same time on make up and costumes over the years....here's a list: Metallica, Kiss, Judas Priest. The real question is which came first, the costume or the satire? The regular defense for conversations on this subject are that bands that wear masks or make up are doing so to poke fun at the pop bands but I can't remember when the pop bands started with the costumes. The earliest would be like take that or spice girls I remember and rock bands have been rocking the mascara for sooo many years. Fuck it. Cliche me now you bastards.

Making a Band
Well, thank you very much American television. According to that Mecca of wonderful hair I had a misconceived notion that this was going to be easy. It really, really isn't because, as I should have realised very quickly, my friends don't like music as much as I do. The guys I wanted to make a band with are quite bitchy, well one is. The other is lazy...to the max. It really hurt that they just didn't seem to like the idea and weren't willing to, you know, make an effort towards starting a band. That really did hurt, so I started thinking that it probably wouldn't work for ages, especially with my current group of friends and I consoled myself with deciding to buy a gibson les paul (soon, soon) and entertaining ideas of being a one piece and performing for myself. Then, as all good things do, it worked itself out. I had forgotten conveniently that a good friend of mine wanted to play bass and he re-introduced me to an old friend who informs me he wants to play guitar, we talked for like 2 minutes today for what we want out of bands and, well we sort of are going to try sort of. It should be real fun. We also worked together to work out an idea that I like to call "Rock Orchestra" it was mainly him and after getting his permission I'll stick his name up for the world to praise. Of course, I need a freaking drummer (isn't it always the way). I know two drummers, well three but two that are exclusively drummers. One of which I've already been in a band with, with hilariously unfunny circumstances. Anyway I always get the feeling that that guy doesn't freakin' like me. Same with the other one and the majority of people I know over a little time. Basically, long story short, I need a freakin' drummer. Bad. And, I have no idea how to find one. I'm gonna have to look for friends of friends and their friends and stuff and basically hope that if anyone out there drums that we get along. Long shot. I'm lucky my friends like me. Oh well I'll keep ya posted and I'll put a picture of my guitars up soon, cause I wanna.

For quite a while I have been planning on getting myself a mohawk. It sort of went hand in hand with me getting my head shaved again which I've been doing for ages since finding out I was too lazy to get my hair cut more than a couple of times in a row when it got all shabby. Well anyway, I told a lot of people in school and a fair few acquaintances and friends all of whom either faked interest or seemed interested not that I can ever tell the damned difference. Well more recently someone brought it up in front of one of my good friends who said that I was stupid for getting it. When asked why he told me that only punks get mohawks and I'm not a punk. I said the exact same thing to him and said that I'm still getting a mohawk. He didn't seem to understand even when I told him that I'm only getting it for a few days and may aswell as I'm getting my head shaved anyway. The only response he would ever give was that only punks get mohawks, that I wasn't a punk and that punks are bad. It ended quite abruptly as he had to go to work which was good as (I can get really stubborn sometimes and seemingly so can he, it would have went on for quite a while).

I'm getting this mohawk one way or the other, people like the idea and I'll be a little bitch about it if I don't. But I have found myself thinking about what people will think of me when I while I have it, which is a quality found in some people that I really, really hate. But it's started me thinking all about the cliches and problems we have sometimes with other sort of factions in the alternative music world, sorry for putting it so dryly but it's the only words I could think of it for. What I mean is that all the rockers, skaters, goths, punks and all the other groups are more prejudiced than anyone else ever was. Back in the days before Limp Bizkit et al's popularity and the new turn around of rock becoming mainstream and all the problems that came with it the problems between the different factions (skater vs. blader etc.) have just gotten worse and worse. It's like gangs now, some people only spend time with people that almost have the exact same interesrts as them e.g. a goth that wouldn't be seen dead near a rocker and there's only one reason for it that I can think of now and that reason is that all the weak willed ones (and we all know what I'm talking about) feel the need to be persecuted. They thrive from it. We've all seen it, people who seem to ask for bullying and stuff, and it goes past the principle of not changing yourself because they've always done it. It seems that when rock became more acceptable the more cranially challenged among us felt that they had to get into harder/stranger music just to weird people out and the divisions among youth today went from two or three factions to fuckloads everyday. Already existing factions grew in anger aswell (skaters vs. rockers) and it makes me really sad because I've really known this all along. So many people feel like they have to be the sensitive troubled guy or the bullied guy. They seem to have gotten the idea that because some people who have gone through personal trauma have ended up famous that they should be going through personal trauma for them to become famous. People like Eminem and Jonathan Davis are perfect examples of musicians who have had hard childhoods which they often talk about in their music. It's like comitting suicide cause your favourite star just did. It may have even gone as far as kids attemting suicide cause it would look good in their biographies in future years but having been all too effective. It's just another way in which humanity keeps on worsening it's own shit reputation. For every seemingly perfectly nice person I meet (and I'm lucky to have met a lot of these) there are hundreds of horribly weak-willed bastards going around fucking it up for the rest of us. Look at the gang situation in America, the scumbags that us in Ireland have to live with every day. The only good thing from this is that it makes you appreciate the good people in yourlife more and more, and probably makes it easier to fall in love. It also makes my trips to my family in the country all the more enjoyable, although infrequent.

I'm really excited (stupidly) because on Thursday we're going on a trip to Belfast and I'm making a mix tape for the 3 hours there and back. I have a shitload of batteries, headphones I love and a fucking cracking c.d. collection nowadays (which I'll probably add to before then) so I'm really looking forward to making this one. As you no doubt now yourselves this can be a bad ass situation as after listening to an album to see if there is anything you want on you'll find that you wanna put more than one on from each c.d. so it's super hard to budget. In the past I've always found it mighty hard to make them and end up having a good first 15 minutes then just leaving an album run for the rest of it. I am looking forward to this one, I'll be posting up the final playlists in here but for now I'll put up the prelims now. The Deftones'll be on there, a lot actually cause I just love them now so much. Elbow and Turin Brakes will definitely be on there to add some mellowness, Divine Comedy, Weezer, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Manic Street Preachers, Slipknot, Soulwax, Muse, Placebo, The Strokes, Will Haven, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Death in Vegas etc. O.k. there'll be a couple of tapes. I was sort of looking for upbeat stuff, songs that really work for losing time by just watching the scenery go by. That idea always remind me of Hendrix because I drove from Naas to Laois listening to Hendrix just watching the world go by with a big grin on my face just admiring the world, it was really nice. Really driving music for which Metallica spring to mind but also stuff that just rocks out cause I'll need to keep myself awake (7am departure). That doesn't sound that bad but I'll have to get up at 6 and I'm a little bitch with not sleeping so...I really wanna be kept interested too so I'm not just going for my favourite songs I'm going for the songs on c.d.'s that really draw your attention, you know what I mean. White Pony is especially good for that. Songs that of course I like but also distract me from whatever else is going on and draw me into the song, I've been known to make people to leave me alone for these, (yep, sad).

The Importance of Music
To be honest this isn't a very original sentiment. I've heard it mentioned many times before and obviously you all have too but, well, it's my site and I can talk aout whatever the hell I feel like. What I'm thinking is, can you imagine a world without music. Not just not having music to listen to or not being able to go to concerts, I mean not having any music in movies, not having any little music breaks between scenes in a sitcom or any music in an elevator or in supermarkets. It'd be so horrible. Obviously, but you would get used to it. In fact we're only used to it now because it's been like that for longer than our parents have been alive, a lot longer. But I really do think that we do need music in public just to function as a soceity. This might sound a little drastic but it is true when you think about it. Music is known to most people to be calming and really does evoke an emotional response whether it be anger, sadness, happiness, nostalgia. Everyone has songs that when listened to can completely change them for the rest of the day. Out of the people I know I am the most likely to have this happen to them. I listen to ceratin albums sometimes on the way to school or wherever I am going that day to inspire me for the day ahead. I know it's weird but, it's true. I know that I can be fucked for the rest of the day if I don't take time out to listen or just indulge in something that is really well made, music being the most readily available most of the time. This isn't going anywhere at the minute I'm a little drained but I will add to it in the future.

O.k. As we all know the almighty Korn's 5th album "Untouchables" is soon gonna be released but that's not what I want to talk about. I'm sure you've all heard about the controversy over their album hitting the 'net amazingly early, I don't wanna talk about that though. What I do want to talk about is the horrific amount of coverage MTV2 (uk) is giving to Korn's first single from the album, the no doubt prolifically titled "Here To Stay" which combined with their album name might show a new over confident mentality for the Korn chaps. Anyway, today is Tuesday, some date in April and the video "hit" our screens yesterday seemingly requiring some special treatment. If hallmark had only known. Basically they played the vid NON-STOP from midnight until 5-30 which although mental was acceptable. As I said it's Tuesday evening, 9-30 and I turned on MTV2 cause I was gonna watch MTV2 recommends which is usually just a platform for the new Linkin Park "product" or bands like Nickelback with the occasional gem like ...and you will know us by the trail of dead. When I put on the channel I saw that they were showing the Korn video which I thought was funny cause that was the last thing I saw before I left for school this morning. Then it finished, then it started again. It seems MTV2 recommend watching the antisocial Korn video ad nauseum 'til you feel like beating people or breaking stuff.

Speaking of antisocial it now seems like the time to actually talk about the vid. It's not that I'm bitching it's just that I know I'm gonna hate it soon. It's just too much. It's a documentary on the problems with society (which is a cliche in itself after bands like Rage Against The Machine and System of a Down) and all that's wrong with the media accessible by our youth...basically they have porn, riots, the discovery channel, police brutality, random beatings, car wrecks, pictures from the womb, pictures of the "Discovery" shuttle blowing up and many other cliched images spliced with the blokes from Korn performing the song studio style in choppy black and white. The song is quite good to hear by the way for quite a few reasons (from the perspective of an OLD Korn fan) 1. For a single it's good to know that Davis made no reference to his father, unless he got really cryptic. 2. It completely bypassed the piss poor "Issues" funkiness, and no I don't say that to be cool, I say it cause I hate the album. When a song is unlistenable to me something has gone drastically wrong. 3. The song also has tremendous hook with a riff that'll bore a way into your head and arise in the middle of work or something completely unannounced (real heavy too) and the lyrics are deceivingly simple which seems to be a lesson all bands learn with time, don't over complicate.

When you talk about internet music you really have to break the ice with Napster. The great thing for me was that around the time of Napster's peak some of the bands I really like/liked were supporting the use of Napster, bands like Radiohead seemed only to be interested in people listening to their music rather than worrying about whether or not people have payed for it. This was great and I saw no problem in using it and seeing as I really only downloaded songs I couldn't get here like the excellent "True love waits" (which turned up on the new b-sides cd.) I still see no problem.
With all the new technology about like portable mp3's and the new wave of md players that can download music straight from the web, the scene of internet music (herein known is i.m.) seems to be expanding and getting more commercial but it makes me think whether or not in the grand scheme of things if that is good or bad for music on a whole. As it is now there's just not enough people downloading rather than buying music exclusively for the companies to care all that much. The people downloading music will also be buying quite a bit so there isn't much of a problem, but, in the next 5 to 10 years it'll be so much more practical for people to get music that way. Think of what you were listening to in '97 or '92 some sort of brick walkman or cd player. Look at where we are now...and where we will be. All you'll have to do is actually buy the (whatever format) machine and start downloading. You'll never actually have to go to music shops, where, if you're like me there often isn't what you're looking for. The internet will be better aswell. With better connections more easily attainable. Surfing the web will be like browsing a gigantic shopping mall looking for music...and all the shops are free. This won't be allowed to last for long though obvioulsy, it'll be like Napster on a grand scale with each year goes by more and more people will invest in getting the technology for i.m. and stop shopping regularly altogether. The logical conclusion of this will of course be money. The biggest, most popular sites will begin charging to use their services. You'll probably be able to buy in dribs and drabs or pay a membership over a fixed amount of time or on amount of music downloaded, all very boring of course.Obviously there will be sites that won't get all that popular and stay as they are...god bless 'em. The whole process will no doubt de-romanticise the whole thing for everyone and will gradually fade out, the companies being a couple of steps behind of course. It'll also change the pyschology of music if it did go exclusively internet. Think of it, no need for videos, cover art, nothing. No packaging, no ads other than on the web itself, nothing. It should be really funny aswell with so many funny guys in bands being exclusively live. Har de har har...no.

A lot of people seem to think that the internet is the future of music e.g. Spin magazine which although handled in a tongue in cheek way seems to believe it's true. Of course, theories for the future have never really been, perfect. Not only in music but in everything. The face of music will never truly change as dramatically as some feel it will. Bands are always improving themselves whether conciously or not. Some of course do, Billy Corgan was never one to rest on his laurels, famously stating that "Rock is Dead" a couple of years as one of it's figureheads at the time. Seemingly, Billy was using the the idea of trial and error and that comment was seen as most of the music media that I am open to as an error. Sometimes (now especially) I feel that he had a really good point. Maybe he didn't mean it in the way we all thought, in my opinion he could have meant it in the context that the cliche of long-haired, devil fingered, over distorted, hairspray, black leather rock is out of date. Maybe it was intended to be an upbeat overview of the current situation in rock where some of the guys rocking the hardest are wearing slacks and tight t-shirts. Not just in their music, because rock was never just about the music of course, it's about the mentality. The mentality of course being the "fuck you I'm gonna play what I wanna" ideal that some people still have in the "biz" that don't necessarily come in the most obvious of places. Yet again, the Divine Comedy come into this. The Divine Comedy had made their money and they had made a lot of it playing what most would novelty, or at least humour based music and that meant that they could play the music they felt like playing and the music they were more comfortable with, and in my opinion the music they were born to play. This resulted in the world shaking album "Regeneration" which is just amazing and has a nice little spot on my cd shelves for the rest of my natural life. More recently the man himself Wes "I was in Limp Bizkit" Borland who has obviously made a shitload of money but wanted to cut it off and use it to make something he feels expresses himself and may express others, something music should be about. Basically what I'm saying is that the ideals of rock were personally imortalised by one of my favourite singers in the last decade Zack (ex Rage Against the Machine) De La Rocha when he said "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me". I dunno if that's what it was about though.
Of course Mr. Corgan could have been referring to the other current situation in Rock music that seems to be on the tip of everyones tongue but no-one seems to be able to get past the comment "fuck it, I hate it". What I mean is, the new generation of kids into Rock, and those kids are...everyone. It seems every single child in Ireland (dunno about the rest of you) is into rock music. Bands like Limp Bizkit, Sum 41, Linkin Park and Papa Roach are basically the new Beatles. The bands that seem to break genre boundaries. The only difference is they aren't really that good. In some cases they are really really bad. Of course some aren't that bad. Sometimes I feel really bad for Papa Roach because they seem to really want to not be what they are being huddled into. These bands are doomed to get a grating from the media and significant bands either now or in the future because just like in every other situation the novelty WILL wear off.
That or maybe Billy meant he had a real stiffy for drum machines and keyboards.
Thanks to the music media we also have new genres to contend with like the ever popular EMO which seemingly stands for emotional punk. That's what I've heard most often. Bands like Rival Schools and Jimmy Eat World are at the fore front of this buzz word, so the question to answer is will the EMO be the future of music. The answer is of course no. Unless EMO is emalgamated into a genre more suitably named "absolutely everything you like and nothing you don't on a disc" then the chances are dismal. Mainly because a huge part of the music trade comes from sales of bands a legion of eight year olds love this week. And don't think I just mean pop. Every child in the world is as impressionable as the other. Don't think you haven't been duped like all those kids you laugh at for liking Britney Spears or A1 or something just because they were "force fed" as seems to be the common mentality on the subject. The only way you can be truly original in liking a band or not is if you happen to go to a concert by yourself to see a band you've never seen and are really good. How many of us can say we didn't start liking a band because of our bigger brothers or those guys you think are cool down the street etc. To a lesser extent hearing (or seeing I suppose) a band on tv is another way you can be sort of original unless of course you only like them because the show is cool. It's very confusing. Myself I first heard many bands I really like on the MTV show Brand New. Bands like And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, the new Divine Comedy album, Deftones' "White Pony" etc. were all thanks to Brand New among many others and I can't help but feel maybe it's because I think I should like them or they've worn me down in a way, or maybe even that I like the video. Wait a second this was about the future of music wasn't it?