Going Postal

[zero]

Well this isn't even fun for me anymore. The bulk of you lurking dipshits think you've got it all figured out as you titter and point in the bar. Well here's a fu©king thought- you don't have it figured out in the least. Most of your lives are going nowhere because of your vices and addiction to live music and very shortly you will be faced with some very hard choices. Myself I have weathered the storm, I have faced suicidal levels of despair and come out the other end of the tunnel. I have endured in this 'scene' and kept shreds of my dignity intact. I covet recognition and respect and then I realize that I already have it particularly from the people that matter. The rest of you in all sincerity I couldn't give a flying fu©k what you do with yourselves. There is a reason I don't know who you are and that's because you bore the fu©king hell out of me with your namby pamby bullshit. And for the fu©king record Deisel Dog is a remotely decent bar band in the southwest Ontario region. Personally I would choose about two dozen other bands in the same region that are far far superior and far far more worthy of your concert dollar but hey that's just me and I've only been going to shows and befriending musicians for ten years so who knows.

[Velvet]

Good morning Luke.

[bouche]

who's the target audience on this piece?

[Blane]

Zero, ladies and gentlemen...

let's hear it for Zero.

[StoneMtn]

nice.

[Douglas]

[CyberHippie]

jebus, where's that coming from?

[zero]

That is coming from a little place we call the 'sweet spot' also known as my ulcer. Oh yeah baby! The bile is flowing ladies and gentleman. Taste the waste.

[StoneMtn]

With all due respect, I would suggest that your post would be better suited to a PM to the particular people you are impugning. It is inappropriate to insult innumerable people, publicly. Perhaps there is someone who truly deserves your "bile", but I doubt that everyone on this board falls into that category.

[zero]

With all due respect this is a broadcast message because I don't know who half the lurking dipshits are who titter behind my back endlessly. With all due respect I don't know you from a hole in the wall. With all due respect I have achieved a position or status in this culture for a reason. With all due respect I haven't really read anything of particular interest come out of your keyboard as of late.

[Booche]

With all due respect Douglas, I think he is more like this cat:

[CyberHippie]

Do you hate pants?

[StoneMtn]

ok.

[Mr. Musicface]

Jeez zero...

Dude, I have as much respect for your opinions as anyone on this board, but you're much more interesting and useful (and I suspect happier) when you're being critical and not vitriolic. You have plenty of creditability in my books but spewing random insults and cutting up good, hardworking guys like Diesel Dog for what appears to be no reason does nothing to add to it.

Look man, if you're gonna throw out your critical diatribes and not expect to be challenged on them, what the hell is the damn point? I understand there is a level of conflict that goes beyond the useful level of discourse needed to create better mutual understanding, particularly when things get personal and nasty. Well blah blah blah. Don't tell me you don't expect that going in. If you're gonna stir up sh!t, please do not be so disingenuous as to say you don't expect some of it isn't gonna smell bad to you as well as others.

As far as whatever personal conflicts or arguments you have in bars or whatever, as StoneMtn said, PM or email or call people directly. As Hux said, the suffering fools thread is interesting as a trainwreck, but the Golden Dogs or Indie vs. Jam threads that generally took a much higher road.

And as far as the lurkers - who the hell cares?!? And how do you even know that any lurkers are "tittering behind my back endlessly" anyway? That's either paranoia or mind-reading.

Anyway, I for one look forward to your future contributions as far as recommending music, true insights on the scene, etc. I also look forward to not always agreeing or understanding right away.

Oh and for what it's worth I bought the Golden Dogs CD yesterday as a direct result of our conversation. It's quite good, I look forward to checking them out live. Thank you for that zero, and for many other contributions in the past and I hope the future.

Peace,

Mr. M.

[zero]

I appreciate those remarks. I am getting some interesting back channel communiques to the same effect. Here's the thing I just said to someone else privately. On the one hand I want to elevate the level of dialogue around here and get people to thoughtfully reflect on what I would call the perennial aspects of this scene or subculture. On the other hand the whole benefit of this 'world' for me is not having to pander to anyone, that is to say I am using boardies for sport. Wook season is open and this ain't no catch and release.

[Mr. Musicface]

Hmmmm... reminds me of that Bart Simpson line "making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel".

Well happy hunting, I'll keep an eye out for the interesting stuff between shots.

- M.

[zero]

To your further point about discrediting a hard working band that is valid. I think what concerns me is that this is not a meritocracy. The amount of online support that band's get around here is not based on merit but rather social factors. There is a herd mentality and people don't want to break out of the herd. Do the Deisel Dog guys deserve getting slagged? Probably not. Do their fans? Most definitely. Are there harder working and frankly better bands out there that genuinely deserve the attention? Yes most definitely.

If you take two bands that are getting some play around here New Shady Groove and the Dog I frankly don't see very much of merit in either band. Having to sit through either of their sets would be like a slow death for me and I speak from experience. It strikes me as middling uninspired jamming and songwriting- basic chops with little of merit. Yet the hype that they are getting suggests they are worthy of at least some of it. Maybe I saw off nights, maybe people were in a different set and setting than I, maybe maybe maybe. I have learned to trust my intuitions, usually those bear themselves out and I also trust what other critical music fans i.e. journalists say. At the same time given the bond that say the Dog has struck with it's fans there is obviously something of merit there. If they can get a crowd of people up and dancing and enjoying themselves that is a worthwhile end. But at the same point don't expect me to give any thought whatsoever to your output or songwriting because you have basically relegated yourself to a role not dissimilar to a clown that makes balloon animals at children's birthday parties.

[Mr. Musicface]

Okay fine, certainly you're entitled to your opinion about bands and their fans, but you must understand that attacking people's current tastes just puts them on the defensive, right? If you want to open people up to new and better music, why not use the "hey, if you like this band, you'll love THAT band" approach. I dunno, perhaps that's too lovey-dovey for you but it does upset me to think that people are gonna ignore real insightful stuff you might have to offer based on the fact that you just cut up the band they were partying to on Friday. They immediately think "well fu©k him, what does he know" even if it's plenty.

Hey, you do what you want man, I just think some of the arguments you get into here are tantamount to Homer arguing with the parrot at the mall: "It's not enough to want a cracker, you have to earn it!" What's the friggin' point? Gonna change the parrot's mind? Good luck with that.

- M.

[Booche]

[onthejourney]

hmmm...where to begin...maybe what i am about to write is completely out of line but oh well. Zero, i have never met you in person or even had a discussion with you on this board, but from reading the things you post i don't think i would ever want to. Sounds to me like you put yourself on some pedestal above the rest of us on here and in the scene, using a ridiculous amount of long dictionary words to make youself sound superior. Personally, I would find this board pretty boring if all i read here was constant long-winded music reviews. I come to this board for reviews, tour dates and other things to do with the scene but also to read and to share like interests with other folks on this board...that isn't always about music. To group everyone together as "lurking dipshits" is ignorant. You yourself said you don't know most of us from a hole in the wall..well maybe you should take the time to talk to people individually and see what a person is all about before making such rash general judgements. And maybe, just maybe, if before you went and talked to a person, you went into a conversation without putting up this wall of judgement and bitterness and be open minded to the fact that we all have something to learn from eachother in this life...that you (and i for that matter) do not 'know all' and won't until the day we die. Open your heart and your mind man. See that in everything there is love and beauty, then maybe you will have more compassion and understanding and respect for the differences in us all. Everyone has their place...on this board, in the scene, in life. Some folks are gifted writers and therefore write great reviews or what have you. Others are not. Just because i lurk more than write or if all i say is "wow that show was awesome last night" instead of going into some long wordy review of it, makes no difference.

meh...i have written enough...think what ya want but judge not lest you be judged my friend...

[zero]

Alright I am loving the cartoons first of all. Secondly your point is valid again MusicFace. But let's think about how that would play itself out. 'So if you like Deisel Dog then obviously you're a Philistine who only goes to see live music for the release associated with a 13 beer/ THC infusion. If you like those guys then god help you'. I mean I can't bridle my tongue and never have been able to. I actually had a discussion with the fools about Deisel Dog vs. Golden Dogs if only because of the similarity in names and their predilection for the former so this comes to mind. I recall saying that what people are missing is that while you could take Golden Dogs out of Toronto and implant them in New York, LA, Chicago or Miami (basically ultra hip American centres) and they would be revered. The same is obviously not true of Deisel Dog. The gold standard for me is whether a band transcends provincialism (my expression). Deisel Dog literally does not transcend the province of Ontario indeed a small portion of it. Burt Neilson or Nero for instance does. While their content and songwriting may be intensely locally focused there is a universal quality to their expressions. That really is what concerns me or impresses me most about any band. When bands fall short of that standard to my mind yet receive undue praise it smacks of philistinism and hypocrisy. This sort of glomming on to any old groove band is precisely what prevents the broader music and music press community from appreciating the diverse benefits of our scene. They throw the baby out with the bathwater but the bathwater really did smell like mustardy baby pooh.

[zero]

To OnTheJourney:

I applaud and appreciate your remarks. Your perspective is not only valid and sincere it smacks of the truth. The irony is that this whole train wreck was set off by people not chiming in as you have with a sensible retort but instead taking this to the streets as it were. It is also ironic that I acknowledged my own complicity in having poor relationship skills or what have you elsewhere. Once the putz mongers got a hold of it this whole thing became a boondoggle. I am trying to love all things and in so doing be all things. That said I also gain a great deal of strength and vitriol from a jaded or cynical sense of self. The force is stronger on the dark side. So while I would like to take your remarks directly to heart I draw the line slightly. This scene needs to be shaken out of the morass of ignorance it has fallen into. There are great improvisational bands and there are not so great improvisational bands. Like a german who only says thank you when they really mean it we need to reserve our praise for those who have truly earned it. Thank you though for your prescient remarks and bothering to give them shape.

[paisley]

I like Diesel Dog because I get a vibe off the band that they have no urge to blow a record exec to "make it"... there's a certain non-pretentious honesty thats rare nowadays going on

and the keyboard really grabs me lately, though I honestly enjoy it all (Doug's Jerry-esque but not Jerry-esque guitar work was the first thing to grab me... have a fantastic wedding this weekend by the way buddy, will be thinkin of ya)

it can all make me feel like I'm back up crammed into the saloon at ghost town, a feeling I really enjoyed

each to their own, I've got my grade 7 classical on the piano which I quit taking because I hated being told the right way and the wrong way to play music... I had a feeling the music was mostly based in the heart and have evolved to enjoy the music that I do because it tends to seem to have the best hearts of the bunch to me... if I want to watch people claw their way to the top I can just stay home and watch the apprentice

[AdamH]

Well, your "undue" is another's "due" w.r.t praise. Some bands are party bands and choose to remain so...I've come to realize that. If that makes them provincialist because they only tour locally in your mind that's legitimate, but I'm trying to stop ascribing my musical demands on up and comers who just have no interest in being told what type or class of music to make. There's just not enough hours in the day to do that and if you keep on doing that kind of thing you're likely to bury yourself in a little corner. I mean, given the choice I will see Diesel Dog before I see Comfortably Dumb or the Practically Hip or any of those inane party bands who are bastard children that don't write their own songs for frick's sake! That's not just lazy that's an insult to the creators.

Akin to what I said via PM buddy I think you've grown up or out of the generic hippie groove genre, whereas others are still finding something fun about it for one reason or another...seeing their friends ona weekend, having a comfortable backdrop to drinking and drugging, doing something a little more stimulating than watching the bachelor.... It's not my or anyone's place to enforce musical creativity or inventiveness as a universal standard here, and I know that goes against my telling Beats not to fall onto "it's all subjective", but history shows us that not everyone wants, needs or even enjoys groundbreaking music. It's like that old rule about artists not making art for their audience, but making it for themselves regardless of whether people like it or not.

And the good ol' boys in the Slip are making the music they want to make, and some people love it and some people don't love and it's ALLLLLLLL good!

[Mr. Musicface]

Hey zero, thanks for your response. Yeh I see where you're coming from, but you're missing that provincialism actually has its place. Aspects of other music cultures, whether it's hip-hop or metal or whatever are not meant to be "got" by those outside the community. It's like advertising - if you're not in the target audience, you're not supposed to get it. Some of it is gonna be universal and some of it isn't.

I know a guy who is part of the hardcore/emo/whatever you want to call it culture who once told me he thought the Constantines were posers 'cus they had been on the cover of Now. God forbid anyone outside his scene like a band that claimed to still be a part of it, I think that was his argument. This happens in all scenes, in all locations. I've hung out in the village in NYC, and in New Orleans and other American cities, and there is plenty that is "provincial" there too, don't kid yourself. You should hear some of the amazingly crappy crap that was on the indie radio shows when I was in Seattle last month.

My point would be having provincial or pedestrian tastes doesn't necessarily preclude liking things that are truly excellent in a more universal sense. Hell, I love a lot of crappy music 'cus I grew up with it and I have certain associations with it. If I wanted to be surrounded by brilliance 100% of the time, I'd listen to the Beatles and Miles Davis and Bach exclusively, and toss out all my old Styx & Honeymoon Suite records. But I don't and neither do most people. I also prefer to drink really good beer over corp brew swill, but there have been more than enough times when I was listening to a bad bar play bad Rolling Stones covers while drinking Molson Dry, and I loving it! There's nothing wrong with that, and it's not at odds with the rest of my life, or at least it doesn't have to be. Enjoying something that is common doesn't necessarily make me a philistine, as long as I can appreciate things that are more sophisticated too. Most people are not as one-dimensional as you seem to want to make them out as being, at least from my experience. They are capable of holding what you might see as contradictory points of view in their heads at the same time.

- M.