Rock & Roll Vivesection

The problem with writing about a band or musician is that the moment you mention the name of your subject, the reader's bias immediately appears.  I am equally guilty of these charges when I am in the position of being the reader.

I see or hear the name of the band and a mental checklist appears.  Do I like or dislike this band?  Are they relevant or irrelevant at this stage of the game?  Am I supposed to say they are underrated or overrated?  What do I think about these people?

I believe there are absolutes in music.  Some bands and some musicians hacked their status from the wilds of the music frontier, made their homestead on solid ground, and their contributions cannot be denied regardless of how the periphery of their estate now appears.

Dylan, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles all fall into this category.  Why stop there?  Go back and pull Armstrong, Holiday, Carmichael, and Cohen into this same elevated place.  Grab Parker, Mingus, Davis, Coultrane and show them the same respect.  Dozens of artists to select out of the many thousands who have recorded music for more than a century.

Knowing the history of music is important.  It allows you to understand relationships in the evolution of artists and styles.  But it isn't the music itself.  History on it's own terms does not care about the sounds Brian Wilson was hearing when he wrote the music for The Warmth Of The Sun.  

Knowing the technical details of recorded music and how music is constructed is also important.  This allows you to understand why the oldest Jazz records sound flat and why popular music sounded so airy and open in the 1950's.  It allows you to differentiate between echo and reverb as well.  Only a trained musician's ear can recognize Carter picking style, the rest of us hear a rich sound that evokes a feeling in our heart.

Music is not technical writing.  An architect cannot blow his gig by scribbling the words I need a big beautiful window right here. in the corner of an elevation plan, followed by a big looping arrow pointing to the center of the drawing.  It is the same with music, you cannot point out the obvious or explain the technical in layman's terms without destroying the visceral effect of the work.  It requires an emotional response.

I'm not talking about a simple emotional attachment to a song or an album.  I'm talking about an emotional response that wells up from deep inside and alerts you to a shift of focus in your consciousness.  Music that allows you to defy the physics of our world.

This is the essence of music.  It is communication on a deep level, one that goes beyond language itself.  This is the reason to die a little to the right song.  It is the reason to explode when the high note is hit and the lead guitarist goes off on a tortured solo while the rhythm section lays a groove a mile wide.  It is the reason to consider the limitless depths of the human soul.

Leave your math at the door and your form at the gate.  Music, when performed with total absence of fear and with complete devotion transcends the science of structure.   It is salvation for the desperate.  I am, and live among, the desperate.