[Nashville, TN] The next
band of my one night of ***freedom*** in my ***beloved Austin*** was hardcore.
The lead singer/screamer looked like a hobo – I don’t think he’d be offended by
my use of that term because it’s surely a look he cultivates. The bassist
cultivates a sexy look with a long pointed beard, well appointed sexy clothing,
and scary eye-making. The drummer was a doppelganger for the nerdy accountant who
dates Grace’s sexy daughter Brianna on Grace and Frankie. I hate screamo
music – I’m amenable to hardcore but only a select few and I’m struggling to
think of who that few are that I authentically enjoy …. The Minutemen (but are
they really hardcore??) … Fucked Up (but they’re like glamorous overblown hardcore
<3). Converge but it’s not like I pull them up on my little lists.
Regardless, I Could see that these people were excellent musicians – virtuousos
but all sludged up, and sludging things up is surely an approach I respect. Well,
come the next day, I met up with the FrustratedPhilosopher and, OF
COURSE, he’s like, ‘Oh, you saw members of Mastodon’ … ‘I know them all
personally.’ Sigh, so Mastodon is a band that a friend of Rockboy’s promoted –
I really respected this friend of his (far cooler than me, many tattoos, a
guitar virtuoso) but we had very very different opinions on music and Mastodon
is specifically one band he promoted that I tried but couldn’t get behind,
along with Saint Etienne. The closest we came to being simpatico is when he reluctantly
agreed that a band I dragged our SXSW group to was ‘okay’: Bright Light Social
Hour, an amazing disco rock band that I see, haha, has gone nowhere. It’s obviously not for me to decree what bands
are good or bad – there’s this old man music podcast (Indiecast?) that I don’t
really like but they said this wise thing: “Thank you for being in a band” that resonated
because I’ve spent decades being a critic when I do fuck all as a public
musician and should only be recognizing the people who are brave enough to
stand up and shift culture and minds through art. Gonna keep critiquing though 😊
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