Yes to Music, No to Muzak
February 14th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
Corporate rock and radio dominate, and “the top four radio station owners have almost half of the listeners and the top ten owners have almost two-thirds of listeners.” Only twenty percent of US public school students receive music education at least three times a week. Digital theft of songs is so commonplace we (us included) hardly notice it, rarely thinking of it as wrong. Progressive musicians are the exception, not the rule, and get ignored by the masses like they’re street-corner apocalyptic apologists. It’s time for change, daddy-o. As Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs wisely sing in “Wooly Bully,” let’s not be L7. Seriously, who are we to argue with Sam the Sham?
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Make Progress:
During the summer of ‘99, I was asked to describe my one of my oddest and most interesting friends by a different group of friends, friends with whom I was about to form, what the kids call, a “rock and roll” band.
“So, Big John,” I whiskey-slurred, “he’s on some sort of kick where gets a new cartoon character tattooed on his thighs each month, and he’s an accountant, and he’s an at-home nudist, and he works out all the damned time, you know, he’s totally Jack Diesel, man. It’s sick. No steroids, either. Au naturale.”
“Dude, that’s the name,” said Dave, our future lead singer and rhythm ax-slinger, exhaling a blooming puff of cigar smoke.
“Au naturale?” I asked, stunned.
“No. Jack Diesel. That’s us.”
And it was. We played our tunes loud, loud, loud and sloppy as teens kiss, and we gigged and gigged and played on TV and at Baldwin-Wallace College and rocked with Sony-signed Howlin’ Maggie and made $190 bucks our first night, an amount never to be topped, because, my friends, we sucked. But we had a lot of damned fun. And for me, that’s all music’s ever been. And since my days in hard-rock Diesel, I’ve played the drums for (in order) the bands Nasty Aunt Francis, The Flood Plain, Lower Lights Burning, and Furlough. And I’ve recorded albums. And I’ve handed out bumper stickers. And I’ve played in front of thousands, at one time even. And I even got to play a gig with this delightfully insane outfit. But since fourth grade when I started playing, drumming was always a hobby, the greatest hobby I can imagine.
And during 2002, Bris Robinson and I followed the band Wilco around the Midwest, catching nine shows in five months, until I finally met Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer. (I think it’s only a coincidence that he checked into rehab about a week later.)
And I love music, more than just about anything material of this world. And so I want to protect it. And so I want it to be shared with folks of all ages. And I think it can be an impetus for progress and can be progress itself. And so, here goes…
First photo courtesy of Rob Alder.
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Second photo thanks to one of our faves, Alex Drum.
(Hey Alex, let us know if this is cool.)
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