"The Way the Music Died" ...Thursday Night on PBS

[Tom Capasso]

I never thought of Woodstock as the begining or end of anything. As we've seen in other posts, there was business before and after (and it kept "growing" through that period). There was counter culture before and after. There was diversity before and after (one of the interesting thing about these festivals was the different styles of music played).

 

The sheer magnitude of it, and the potential for disaster (realized at Altamont) made everyone notice. It made people notice music and counter-culture more than they had before. And it restated that (mostly young) people wanted to stop the war in Vietnam and live a life with differnt values. The war eventually ended, but I don't think the values thing was as successful (mostly because it was too hard to define or agree on).

 

That's my take, anyway. I was 15 and impressed as hell at the whole thing then. It helped raise hope for a better future. As I say - it wasn't the only event to do this - perhaps just the best publicized.

 

Maury - as to the disco thing - maybe you had to be there. It wasn't pretty, and I still get twinges when some of that music comes on. Even if it's got a cool groove. I considered the music below the rock I was listening to, and the "disco culture" a horror. It's a prejudice based on living through it.

 

Interesting and well-thought out thread - and the show hasn't aired yet!!

 

Tom

[jeremy c]

Tom, I lived through the disco era too.

 

And I made a large amount of money playing in a disco cover band. All four of us in the band bought houses at some point during our five year run of playing 6 and 7 nights a week in packed clubs.

 

And on the occasional night off, I hung out at fashionable discos. It was a very exciting scene and hearing some of that music (which I haven't heard in a long time) can bring back fond memories. Boogie Down by Eddie Kendricks and Love's Theme by the Love Unlimited Orchestra were two of my favorites.

 

And the women were all beautiful.

 

Of course for musical values, I was listening to Weather Report, Return to Forever, etc.

[doc taz]

Originally posted by getz76:

Jim T, I have two points of contention:

 

Originally posted by Jim T.:

In my view, the Big Hair Bands of the '80's preceeded by Disco (Oh the Horror!)

What's wrong with disco?

 

signaled the truly accountant run merged record companies

Why does everyone blame the accountants?

 

- Maury, CPA

It's not the accountants that are the problem. (Really, it isn't. I wouldn't mind being a CPA for id software, for instance. I'd love a free copy of DOOM III, and a few game sessions with its creators. ) It's the damned program directors on the networks, the "Marketing geniuses" and others (like managers) who seek to squeeze more $$$ out of the artists.

 

I've looked at the way artists like Prince and Ani DiFranco do business. If you want to be as possibly true to yourself as is humanly possible in the music industry, these two are among the best examples one can find these days.

[abaguer]

Yup. Playing bass in disco/top 40 bands was actually a hell of a lot of fun. Packed houses with people dancing all night and every band member made good money. I always really liked trying to cop Bernard Edwards's lines the most.

[way2fat]

And the really long lines for coke snorting in the bathroom.

[jeremy c]

And as I told the drummer, stop complaining, the next big thing will be even worse.

 

And the next big thing was New Wave and I was right.

[BenLoy]

 

Well, at least New Wave brought Devo with it. We can all be thankful for that, right?

[doc taz]

Originally posted by BenLoy:

 

Well, at least New Wave brought Devo with it. We can all be thankful for that, right?

Q: Are We Not Men?

A: We Are DEVO.

 

That's engraved at the end portion of one of my DEVO records. It was there when I bought it.

[57pbass]

I posted this thread and cannot watch it..

I have rehearsal....

[jeremy c]

I'll tape it for you. I have a rehearsal, too.

Fortunately mine is a paid rehearsal. I hate rehearsals.

[Jim T.]

Dr. Taz,

Well, true, the accountants just follow the orders of their label's "higher ups". But the "'bean counting" aspect of putting out music with next to no consideration for art or "meaningful" entertainment. (Like Brittney Spears etc.) So perhaps "bean counters" would be more appropriate and less damaging to Maury's rep.

 

Disco for me and countless others consisted of (mostly) vapitidity, debauchery, etc. In other words, for the most part, it was entertainment more than "music" or "art". That's all well and good and whatever floats one's boat, but for almost a DECADE! it overran the public's opportunity to hear other music/styles, art and going to dance at the disco for a Sat. nite is fine but for a DECADE is too long!

 

I find it ironic that "disco" bands who exhibited great musicianship like the Bee Gees pretty much ended their popular/chart careers by becoming associated with just that music.

 

I would guess that disco supporters or people who profited in disco bands in those years, would feel the same way if we more or less only heard Brittney, Byonce, Debbie Gibson on the radio for a DECADE! and no R.E.M., Rush, Clatter, etc.

 

Disco Rant #2 in a continuing series.

 

Oh yeah, Big Hair Bands. Actually a big improvement over disco in my book.

 

Old cumudgeon Jim

[Jim T.]

Jeremy, loved your "next big thing" thang!

 

I should explain bout the disco DECADE thing.

Near or at the end of the U.S.'s facination with glitter balls and coke and ice cream dance suits, it remained popular in third world places I lived and worked (including a Yupik Eskimo Village), for an addlitional 4-5 yrs.

I guess that brought home, to an extra degree, how long term vapid entertainment music can dislodge, destroy, cause to be forgotten, roots music, indigenous musics, music that has genuine emotive power and canons that have a sense of reality and cultural pride to them. Besides, YOU live in the Tundra in millions of square empty of scenery miles, and listen to disco for three solid years without cracking!!!

 

Music for entertainment's sake alone is fine.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sinatra, Earth Wind and Fire, Sam Cooke, Weather Report, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, you name them... had soul, emotive force that shook your soul not just your booty.

 

As the Cumudgeon net slowly descends over the unwitting old man....

[Father Gino]

Music has probably always been a bizzinizz since the days of traveling minstrels. Always trying to make a buck with whatever means possible.

 

I think the difference now is that it (like everything else) is such a science. Everything is pre-calculated to a T to figure how much $$ it's gonna make before anyone does anything. Mind you they're not always right. The public can be fickle. And there's always something new that arrives on the scene under the radar of the bean counters.

[getz out]

Thanks Jim, I'll call off the hounds from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

[dcr]

My favorite was the line that greed has infiltrated the industry over the last 20 years.

 

Evidently, when people want to get paid for creating valuable things, they're greedy.

 

And before 1984, nobody was concerned about that.

 

(There's also this raging inconsistency in the blurb: Woodstock was "it" because that's when rock became a major industry! But, oh my gosh, look now--rock is a major industry! What a betrayal of the spirit of Woodstock!")

 

At the very least, the editor who writes these abstracts for Frontline seems to have dropped the ball, imo.

[Jode]

Originally posted by getz76:

Oh, I am too young, believe me. I wasn't breathing air until mid-year 1976.

 

Fair point on Jerry Lee Lewis.

 

But was Woodstock not a notch up? Jerry Lee Lewis might have been a full-blown rockstar, but was it so in-your-face in the media? Yes, he was a wild man, but I think the details were left a bit more to the imagination. Was there such a "grand" (at least in media terms) event before Woodstock that displayed such complete debauchery on that scale?

Maybe not, but no one's called rock and roll "devil music" since around the time the Killer was all over the charts. That should tell you something. And no rockstar in my lifetime has married his 13-year-old cousin. Nothing left to the imagination there.

[jeremy c]

Jerry Lee Lewis played my hometown when I was about 14. And almost incited a riot. It was all over the newpapers the next day and I'm sorry I didn't go. The word was out on the street that it would be an "event".

[rockinredneck69]

The best thing about this thread is that it makes ya think about the differances between what makes music a business and where it seperates what we love about the scene itself. The scene changes constantly, sometimes backwards, but always evolving. Any event like Monterey or Woodstock has been missing since and that is something to take into consideration. I can't think of a single event that takes the place of those two festivals...do Lolapalooza or Ozzfest come into the picture somewhere in the future? At any rate, it comes down to what makes the next generation want to play music, not what the suits want. I doubt that Jimi playing Woodstock was a tool of the labels for future funds, rather, it was a fortuntate accident. Just a thought.

[Jode]

You mean that Jimi may have had different motivations for playing Woodstock '69 than Limp Bizkit had for playing Woodstock '99?

[Steve Force]

Well, I will be watching PBS tonight (10pm here in Detroit) to see what they have to say. I find the "teasers" interesting, especially David Crosby's comment about record companies starting to want to make money at a certain point of time (late 1960's).

 

My research suggests this "certain point of time" was in the 1930's--well after Edison, et al, stopped having to produce recordings to sell the phonograph equipment itself. this was when many recording companies sprung up--some made it, many didn't.

[dcr]

Well, if Crowe's Hendrix bio has any credibility, it seems that Hendrix couldn't take a leak without say-so from the label. Woodstock would generate sales, & somebody knew it. (Although I doubt Hendrix himself cared all that much.)

 

That line by Crosby is hilarious. I think he's one of the most brilliant artists of our time, but you've got to laugh when someone seems sincerely surprised that record companies want to make profits off record sales.

 

Artists have the option of doing it for the love of music. That is, as long as they get paid so that they can afford to keep doing it for the love of music. And as long as the label gets paid enough to make it worthwhile for other people to support the artists while they do it for the love of music. The label, on the other hand, does not have that luxury. They have to make sure everybody's getting paid enough to make it worthwhile.

 

It's hilarious that people think this is a recent phenomenon, as if 300 years ago money wasn't an issue. The Brandenburg Concertos were essentially a job application sent in by a guy who was working at least two full-time jobs to keep food on the table. Would you find it easier to make a living by trying to find & please private patrons & royalty, or by getting signed?

 

I'd love to live in a world in which food found its way to you already prepared, in which comfortable shelter founds its way to you already furnished, and so on, leaving us all free to do everything just for the love of it. When you find that world, please be kind enough to let the rest of us know. In the mean time, no matter how you slice it, everybody needs to get paid.

 

In a sense, of course, that's the bad news; watch the music interval on SNL sometime. In another sense, though, it's the good news: people have no guarantee that they'll be successful, so they have a reason to develop talents. The Beatles once set up a record label that wouldn't discriminate between artists: whoever you are, whatever you're doing, you get a share of studio time. This plan lasted about 2 seconds. People who had nothing to lose, no matter their talent or effort, clamored to the label, and the Beatles realized that it wasn't just the cream rising & the best stepping forward for that golden chance to be heard. It was a talent train wreck, and they'd have to foot the bill. Suddenly, the bills mattered. They should have mattered all along.

[dcr]

Just watched it.

 

 

Major insights offered:

 

Everything would be better if only there were more "scratching."

 

Guns & Roses/Velvet Revolver are all there is to rock & roll.

 

The drummer for G&R/VR thinks that "explenitives" is a word.

 

Sarah Hudson's "Girl on the Verge" is a great song that speaks to women of all generations. So it's a pity no one's listening to it.

 

There is no limit on the number of times that PBS viewers can hear and enjoy the refrain from "Girl on the Verge." No limit.

 

People will do publicity stunts to boost sales.

 

MTV put image before substance.

 

Most bands are made by cookie cutter.

 

Britney Spears has nothing to say.

 

There aren't enough independent radio stations.

 

Again, . Stop the presses.

[Daddygreenjeans]

Thank You dcr, thats exzactly what I was going to post. That documentary was a totally let down. Of the 60 minutes it was on, about 5 minutes of it was good and what was needed to be said. They just didnt get nearly as deep as they should have gotten. I seriouslly think I could have done a hell of better documentary.

[rockinredneck69]

Originally posted by Jode:

You mean that Jimi may have had different motivations for playing Woodstock '69 than Limp Bizkit had for playing Woodstock '99?

There is no doubt in my mind that Jimi had "da man" pushing and prodding him to play when and where he did, free axes always have worked for that end. Its just that I live in a fantasy world of sorts where, Jimi doing Woodstock (at a time where even if somebody told him it was a good idea and...heres another new Fender for ya!) and Limp Bizkit doing the '99 version where they are playing a card already played just doesn't seem credible as a comparison. Its kinda like a cousin of mine a few years ago was doing the whole "Dead Head" thing, back in the day I may have been envious of him but when its been done for twenty years already and its being presented as something original...well, its just wrong. Bad example? OK, how about this...Limp Biskit pretending to be Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock '99.

[Steve Force]

I watched it--not much substance IMHO. Pretty much the same stuff we have always heard.

 

Did enjoy reading the stickers on David Crosby's wall--the "Lick Bush in '92" presidential campaign sticker was particularly appropo--just change the 92 to 04..

 

All in all--wasn't worth watching.

[badgerbass]

I watched it too. I agree that there wasn't much substance, but for the general public (i.e. non-musicians) a lot of this probably comes as news to them.

 

It was, admittedly, not supposed to be a comprehensive, in-depth report. It was a "slice of life" concentrating on two very different comtemporary approaches to the music biz.

 

I taped it and will show it to my 15-year-old daughter. She plays piano, guitar, and sings beautifully and wants to get into the music biz. I think this program shows a bit of what to expect.

 

On the other hand, the industry is in such flux, it would be impossible to say what it will look like in 5 years.

 

Badger

[Jim T.]

Velvet Revolver: Great, more idiot-non musicians whose drug addled brains (what there were to start with-who knows?) who can't put a complete sentence together. Explentitives? Guess these idiots were too young for Watergate eh? You KNOW they'll make tons of dough (again). Whatever happened to even TRYING to master your instrument let alone your life!?

 

Sarah? OK but no cigar. No writer or singer the caliber of Sarah McLachlan for example.

 

This entire show was falsely publicized in my opinion. It dealt with almost NONE of the promised issues like royalty payment scams, possible solutions for independent labels, etc.

 

VERY disappointed. Oh well. What did we really expect? This is why more and more, I listen to jazz where at least the creativity and virtuousity is more often there- than not.

Something to wrap one's brain and body around!

[Cthulhu Fhtagn]

I will most certainly miss this one, but I can't wait to hear how PBS blames the Republicans for this one!

[MattC]

Sarah Hudson's "Girl on the Verge" is a great song that speaks to women of all generations.

Just like every other song by Avril Lavigne. Been there, done that. Next?

 

I'll admit that Velvet Revolver aren't exactly symphony class players, but when was that ever the point of rock? I've sworn off rock many times but I've got to give the guys credit for sticking to their musical "guns" all these years...

 

What's unfortunate is that everybody on the street knows that music is a cuthroat business...

[dcr]

What was really sad about the whole Guns & Roses/Velvet Revolver segment was how they praised these guys to the heavens, as if rock was nothing before them or after them. Of course, all the producers had to do was put a mic to them, & they said all these things themselves.

 

The highlight of it all was when they talked about themselves as new & revolutionary & fresh & something real unlike all those "commercial" bands.

 

Cut to stock footage of Guns & Roses boarding their private jet, courtesy MGM.