I think any good movement adopts a song to go with it, and I’m thinking of starting a movement. An anti-retro movement.
Earlier this week, in conversation with a friend over Pere Ubu and how fucking great they are, this friend expressed surprise that I listened to anything that came out before I was born. Thought-provoking. I’ve amassed a decent amount of music from the 40s on, but it’s apparently odd to consider the thought of me listening to anything old. Well, I know exactly why that is; it’s because I only recommend newer music, and because I actively shit on music that tries to act like old 70s jams.
What I want to talk about today is the start of anti-retro, and the retro song we’re going to use to shit on the Black Keys of the world, who have taken their wanking material and shown it to earth like they’re so proud of what they can do. All the Black Keys comes down to is an old cummy rag taken with a digital camera, and they’re not the only act rushing to photobucket with the slick socks they grabbed from their dad’s dresser. Something has to be done.
Captain Beefheart is one of those figures that these shitheads claim to like, understand, want to emulate, et cetera. The reality of the situation is that they say that to try and convince themselves that his desert breakdowns have relevance to them in the year 2010. They don’t. However timeless the music may seem, it’s ultimately rooted in that origin, and it’s aging more and more every day.
The issue I have is not the act of listening to old music. It does have what it has to say, and there are certainly little points of interest. Where we start pissing me the fuck off is when you don’t take a look around in the world you live in and just go deeper and deeper into this old cult. Here’s reality: If music is a living thing, that music is dead. It’s had a good life and it’d probably be happy to know they were remembered, but they can’t know, because they’re fucking dead, and the fucking dead’s time has passed.
So I say we repurpose “The Smithsonian Institute Blues” as a fucking bile-filled shout at these “old is new” doofuses. It’s a caveman stomp that sounds like the shit they wish they were making. Now their only connection to that music are museums and archives of music. It’s not happening. They can dig through old record after old record, but the fact remains that it’s dead music, old bones they’re dragging up. So if you see someone you know digging up some bone and their gym sock, swat both down and tell them that it’s just fucking old bones and they should really look around the world they’re in right now.
WINNER: John
WHY: Because 2010 is the year you are alive in, not 1970.
disclaimer: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is off the hook.
Fermata over Whole Rest 