This is a blog post from Aurther Magazine talking about how kids are being deprived of live music. - This MUST change.
02/15/2007
CHUCK DUKOWSKI on ALL-AGES SHOWS from the pages of ARTHUR MAGAZINE.
Originally published in Arthur Magazine No. 25 (Dec 02006)
Let the Kids In Too: A History of All-Ages, Part II
By Jay Babcock
For whatever reason, it wasn’t until earlier this year that I realized the best music events in Los Angeles were missing something really crucial: people under 21. That is, under-21s—let’s call them ‘kids’—are routinely excluded from seeing of-the-moment bands and old masters, in relatively accessible and human-sized settings, at an affordable price. These kinds of shows almost always happen in over-21 bars; or in tiny clubs, in sketchy environs, late on schoolnights. Occasionally they happen in Clear Channel/Live Nation-managed venues—amphitheatres, sports arenas, football fields—but even there it takes heavy change ($65 to see The Mars Volta open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 18,000-capacity Forum?!?), and most of the time all you get is an accountant’s idea of spectacle. Put simply, kids today are deprived of the formative live music experiences that previous generations of human beings—of almost all cultures, from here back to the cave days—experienced as a matter of routine. Music: intimate, intense, performed as something deeper than mere commerce, and received by the community of listeners in the same way.
If music succeeds in connecting to kids today, it is in spite of the music industry, not because of it. How do we know this? Because that’s what some of us have experienced for ourselves, and, more importantly, because that’s what those who came before us tell us.
More.....
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The War We Wanted To Lose?
Yesterday an additional 80 people were killed in Iraq.
Last November, the United States electorate made a clear statement, No More War. This is a stark contrast to the election of 2004 when the nation solidly stood behind America's most famous frat-boy and his fellowship. What makes our citizenry staunchly pro-war and then two years later, not?
People romanticize war. We hadn't had a war of this magnitude since we lost "the war we wanted to lose" as my dad used to call Vietnam, The Original when I was a child. By the way dad, what the hell did that mean? I guess since we decided to pull out and not fight in a dead-end war, we wanted to lose. Touche!
I have friends my senior who talk about protesting Vietnam, The Original in the 60s. They talk about the era with a whimsical nostalgia akin to describing your first boyfriend or a good spring break trip in college. They see the famous frat-boy as their chance to re-capture the era. While I appreciate the good intentions, I would have preferred they remembered why they originally protested and stayed on top of things so that we didn't have to go through Vietnam, The Sequel.
Just like The Original, as time passed, The Sequel left a bad taste in peoples mouths. Death isn't romantic if you are intimately involved. As more time passes, more people become involved.
Being a post-Vietnam era child of the 70s and 80s, I wasn't there, to young to know, but old enough to care. I googled "1960 love peace war music." My intention was to find out why, after such a large movement that my senior friends speak so highly of, we still ended up making the same mistake? Surely at the very least, the music would live on and remind us why this was such a bad idea. That is the intention of music, to live on and to bring emotions to life.
The first Google result listed was a really cheesy children's site that listed the lyrics from 1960s anti-war tunes. Which is fine. Just give me a break with the frenetic keyboard music. They're children, not drunk old men doing the chicken dance at their accountant's wedding. Which, by the way, isn't romantic either.
Here is a protest song my six-year old daughter loves and it doesn't remind me of the old chicken-dancing drunk:
Steve Earl - The Revolution Starts Now
The music lives on and brings her to life. I'm going to make a deal with her. I won't romanticize death and destruction in the name of patriotism and nostalgia, if she keeps listening to the music. I'll make this deal with her when she is old enough to understand why peace, love and understanding is romantic. After school today.
Last November, the United States electorate made a clear statement, No More War. This is a stark contrast to the election of 2004 when the nation solidly stood behind America's most famous frat-boy and his fellowship. What makes our citizenry staunchly pro-war and then two years later, not?
People romanticize war. We hadn't had a war of this magnitude since we lost "the war we wanted to lose" as my dad used to call Vietnam, The Original when I was a child. By the way dad, what the hell did that mean? I guess since we decided to pull out and not fight in a dead-end war, we wanted to lose. Touche!
I have friends my senior who talk about protesting Vietnam, The Original in the 60s. They talk about the era with a whimsical nostalgia akin to describing your first boyfriend or a good spring break trip in college. They see the famous frat-boy as their chance to re-capture the era. While I appreciate the good intentions, I would have preferred they remembered why they originally protested and stayed on top of things so that we didn't have to go through Vietnam, The Sequel.
Just like The Original, as time passed, The Sequel left a bad taste in peoples mouths. Death isn't romantic if you are intimately involved. As more time passes, more people become involved.
Being a post-Vietnam era child of the 70s and 80s, I wasn't there, to young to know, but old enough to care. I googled "1960 love peace war music." My intention was to find out why, after such a large movement that my senior friends speak so highly of, we still ended up making the same mistake? Surely at the very least, the music would live on and remind us why this was such a bad idea. That is the intention of music, to live on and to bring emotions to life.
The first Google result listed was a really cheesy children's site that listed the lyrics from 1960s anti-war tunes. Which is fine. Just give me a break with the frenetic keyboard music. They're children, not drunk old men doing the chicken dance at their accountant's wedding. Which, by the way, isn't romantic either.
Here is a protest song my six-year old daughter loves and it doesn't remind me of the old chicken-dancing drunk:
Steve Earl - The Revolution Starts Now
The music lives on and brings her to life. I'm going to make a deal with her. I won't romanticize death and destruction in the name of patriotism and nostalgia, if she keeps listening to the music. I'll make this deal with her when she is old enough to understand why peace, love and understanding is romantic. After school today.
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