Your Music & Waterboarding

What were you in high school, a band geek, a stoner, a jock, and metal-head-art-fag (here's me) or where you simply part of the fabric? Unseen, unheard and begging to get on with your life. I'm not going to go on elongated tirade about about how much I think music sucks these days, as I find myself hearing the band I grew up with on the "classic" stations but I'll say this – it's nice to get kicked in the stomach from time-to-time.

What does that mean? Well most of the new music these days 'takes some listening to.' What the hell does that even mean? "Well, you'll liked it after a I listen to the CD two or three times." Oh my god. Is this what we've become? Dan Zarrella calls them "sheeple" and I have to concur. When did we bow down and become fed from a tube? Why must we torture ourselves to conform in parties? Are we only listening to what we think is safe or has the most views on YouTube? Where's the angst? Where's the anti-establishment? Where's the shakeup? Where's the band that kicks you in the teeth the moment you hear it and you say "hell yeah!"

I give you:
The Bronx – "Inveigh"

Yes, I know the song's three years old, and that I'm old, get over it. Send me some new music! Send me some new links. Show me the music that made you wake up. Keep me young and angry and thinking! I don't want to be in the box. Give me your band to promote and I promise I will spike your traffic by four or five people. Talk to your hosting service to insure that I will not bring down their infrastructure with this wave. Best ~

Addendum:

My friend Sean "8-bit" Smith just brought some points in the comments below that make me think. I guess it's never been about anger in the sense of hatred or malice, though that music exists too, as a father and humanist I don't agree with that sensibility. It is about "change" pure and simple.

Comments

[Seanis8bit]

Welp Justice, time to get educated son.

The Bronx are good, agressive chord structure, good beat- seems to have alright
stage presence.

Before I go to show you, that *in your neighborhood* there are bands that still hold
hard to the angst, the stomach kicking, knee breaking lyrical convictions that you
crave-

Don't talk shit 'bout Bieber.

Here's why you shouldn't:

Sure, he's not the most politically charged, "eff the establishment," the most agressive,
and far from anything that could be considered, "Hard Rock,"- and yes, Chad Kroger
uses the same writing structure and chord progressions as Bieber does- but the kid
is talented as hell.

Not only did he sit down and co-write his whole album, but the thing went DOUBLE
PLATINUM. in the US and Canada. He's a 16 year old kid who is doing what he loves
and making more money than the two of us combined could ever hope to make, and
has the opprotunity to really make a difference in the youth today- and I'll defend that with fists and facts.

We can only hope that he uses his powers for good and not evil.

THAT BEING SAID.

You want something to kick you in the teeth?

bam.

A Day To Remember- Sticks and Bricks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aps31A8XVtg

Four Year Strong- It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGGlHQfsU0

Music has turned inward, the problems we face are less and less related, as a whole,
with the government. What can we do to change how things are going with these old people,
who have an endless amount of money to prevent us from doing anything in the first place?

Not worth my time.

What is worth my time, and music's time, is to make a difference in peoples lives as much
as possible, by creating a community with our fans, other bands, and people who
feel the same, act the same, and that relate to eachother.

It's not about being angry for the sake of being angry- it never was.

It's about creating something tangable you can look at and say, " I agree with this, and i'll know that people will fight for this with their fucking fists,"

" I'm making a difference, I'm taking a chance- You can say what you want about me but no one, can tell me I can't,"

I'm going to keep you young and thinking, and even angry- but angry about the right things.

The Government is too big to topple and change- but your daughter? My life? Creating something worthwhile? You're already making a huge difference and being a boss.

Alright. Time for my bus into the cubicle mine. You should really listen to everything these two bands have, I think you'll like FYS more than ADTR, but all of their albums are superb

PEACE!.

[Justice Mitchell]

Great comment and links - keep em' coming.

It's interesting for me that you evaluated their stage presence. I can see why you would as a musician (http://www.facebook.com/Seanis8bit). As a life-long listener and fan I guess I care less and less about the live aspects of music. Maybe that comes with age and not going to shows anymore, or maybe again just the passion to go see anyone anymore. With tickets costing $100 so I can hear the crap so loud it's like white noise and a desperate plea for me to sing along to the songs I paid you to sing maybe I'm just jaded.

As far as Bieber I meant not to advocate that I don't like him, I don't know his music. I meant the sheeple effect of his music's popularity and how that, in this day and age, is appealing because there's the safety net that 'others like him so should I.' But your point is well made as I'm sure his talent has brought him to his success. At least one would hope so.

Anyways, keep em coming. Love the links. Gimmie.

[Seanis8bit]

*disclaimer this post if filled with spelling errors and poor grammar*

using terms like "sheeple," makes it seem like you don't like how branding, and mass appeal work, when as an advertiser, you embrace those two things on the daily, don't you? [ not meaning to sound condecending, that's a legitimate question.] But yeah, I totally feel that in a way- it's the formula.

Like, these kids at the shows will know who The Devil Wears Prada is, but anything that has softer elements, like, Chiodos, they frown upon, or anything like New Found Glory- there isn't any screaming in this- it's a mainstream shit band.

It's confusing and stupid.

And if B looks like A?
B will sell records, and get 356259729527 views / plays on youtube and myspace.
If C looks like B but also some of Y?
You're a "gamble," instead of a gauruntee.

Silly, silly sociology and business.

[Justice Mitchell]

The shame of it is this, the "mass appeal circuit" is unfortunately was is brought to the top and presented as 'the best.' I'm in advertising and social media for God sake! If anyone should be frowned upon it's me! Advertising is by it's very black-hearted nature is the act of telling you what you want to buy, taste, use, hear, see and feel. Admittedly it's a sliding scale of severity, I don't do any work that I disagree with. I don't sell cigarettes to kids or advocate cologne that will induce promiscuous sex but I digress. What's frustrating is that the internet has failed the independent music so far.

MySpace! Really? Please. Someone still needs to hold my hand and take me to page and tell me these guys I've never heard of are cool. Where's the 'I listen to these bands', -- click, click, click and based upon your criteria here's ten songs a day from bands you've never heard of! Oh you can tell me that there's Amazon's relational profiling and because of that I should look at "X" band but that's running in sand. iTunes does a better job of it but it still feels so mired in capitalism. I don't know, I still WANT to reach out to people like you and get the music/products/services from like-minded souls. We'll see. We still need the human element.

[Seanis8bit]

Well, it will never ever be soley the internet being the place where people come and find new / different things like that.

I would have never found out about either of the bands I linked you, if it wasn't from my friend Andrew. He found them from a friend, who saw them at a show and got a CD of theirs.

I mean, someone has to tell someone first, then it gets posted online, then other people tell people in class, at work that they saw _____ online, and then they show their friends, who show theirs, etc etc.

If you want to find new music Justice? Go to the local shows in your area. Just go to a bar or venue, not a big one, but a small divey one. Not a like, "Bar Venue," either, because you'll just get terrible hard rock bands there. Go see some 18 year olds, see some 20 something year olds- Your local scene has so much that you're missing.

Every kid in portland who likes rock music, knew who the Promise Hold was when they were playing shows around here, and they were local.
They would pack venues, and have kids screaming their lyrics back to them. Did they get signed and make it big?
No.
The independant music scene is disposable, unless, as an artist you make yourself a commodity, and you can do that without having a label, i mean, look what Fall Out Boy did, or Epitaph records and Pennywise. Fueled By Raman and all those boys didn't have a label, they made it up, called promoters bluff man.

Now they're huge, and helping out other small bands.

Look up Rise Records, Victory Records, Decaydance, Hellcat, Fat Wreck Chords <--- good music on those labels, for the most part.

Myspace is still the most effective way to reach your fans on the internet, and still a very looked at one by the industry. You have 2 - 5 million plays, and you're selling a moderate amount of merch from your myspace with one of those easy merch sites, and you have names on your merch? Like kyle Crawford, or dan mumford- a label gets your myspace page and pays attention to that.
They say, "well damn, these guys got a design from someone who makes *every shirt you see in hot topic*, and they're making money- we want some of this money!"
and so they sign you.

Pandora is a great way to hear new bands? Like, do genre searches on myspace or something :P haha.