You Said It Kid. You Said It!

I’d like to start this post by thanking Charlie Day for introducing me to a procession of great and increasingly loud music by bands that are made up of people who are roughly my age, as opposed to being 40 years old and having been in the band since 1986 or whatever. I had previously almost lost hope that bands that made music that I espeically enjoy listening to were going the way of the buffalo.

Actually, the buffalo are making a nice comeback and are no longer endangered and are far from from being extinct. So, I guess in that way, the music I like is still going the way of the buffalo, in that it’s recovering from nearly being hunted to extinction by hipsters and scene kids, who in this case play the role of the Native-Americans and Anglo pioneers driving the buffalo that represent bands that I like off a cliff made out of pretention and petrified scene points. Having killed ska (represented in this analogy by the do-do bird), they needed a new challenge. Emo was too easy. Buy, sucking the fun out of music that was positive and encouraging while still being loud and…um…moshy, that was an accomplishment. It should be noted that the attire of the people pushing the metaphorical buffalo off the cliff is in many cases as outlandish (to a modern perspective) as that which was worn by original Native-Americans.

I want so badly for music to be popularly considered to be simply fun again. No more popularity points based on how many times a band is mentioned at a You Tube party at the Beauty Bar or whether their latest review on Pitchfork passed the necessarily 7.31224 threshold (out of 10.0000) in order to be considered worthy of your precious time. I particularly resent Pitchfork for reasons that I will someday hopefully engage in a cathartic book-writing process about. No more hating ska because “it sucks” or punk because “it’s dead” or hardcore because it’s “too hard”. Music should just be about what you enjoy or don’t enjoy listening to. Bottom line. I may listen to Wolf Parade and Neutral Milk Hotel…but I don’t do so because Pitchfork coronated them into the “indie” royal family…but because I enjoy the music. I listen a lot of bands that can be classified as: punk, ska (*gasp*), ska/punk, hardcore-punk and good old fashioned hardcore (the punk kind more than the metal kind) for the same reasons. If I enjoy listening to a band, then I like them. If I don’t, then I don’t but I try pretty hard to remember that other people may like Fall Out Boy (a band I have never been able to stand listening to) for the same reason…but it’s tempting to overlook that and judge them for it. So, I understand how the scene point system really got going. In fact, I once was falling into that hole where I began to judge bands by what kind of people were into them. Fortunately, I realized that was not the best way to go about it, and music became fun again. I am hoping that I can help other people realize the same thing.

Check out a Buzz N' Bangs show in San Marcos (and hopefully sometime in Austin and other places as well) for a great example of the pure fun that I want music to be again: Another great example is Zlam Dunk...and if you don't like them, then it's whatever but don't just hate on them because you resent that a lot of kids are having fun at their shows. There is going to be a backlash in the next few years involving the reemergence of fun bands and their fans against the tedious scene-point/indie-point doldrums that have taken music hostage. At least, I hope there will be.

- Jordan