Live Music

[SG Jones]

Tonight my wife and daughter participated in a walk for cancer. Real life sad story. The seven year old brother of my daughter's friend has brain cancer.

 

While they were walking I had an enlightening evening of draught beer (please excuse any typos), chicken wings, and LIVE MUSIC. I am blessed to live in a port city that has a tradition of taverns with live music dating back to 1749, granted it is not what it used to be. In the early to mid 80s we would be paid $3500 for four or five nights at a major club in town. By the mid 90s it was down to $1600 for two or three nights. Now they want to pay you $250 a night with an "in house" sound system and a DJ as a sound man. He can't mix his way out of a wet paper bag and he plays the "thump" music twice as loud as the band. To add insult to injury half of the people in the bar are wearing Depends and pumping their pay cheques into video lottery terminals and ignoring the band.

 

One of the guitarists in my classic rock band is also a high school music teacher. He was Canadian music teacher of the year last year. Anne Murray presented him with the award. He was acknowledged at the Junos. He won $10.000 for both himself and his school (he bought relic Strat). His jazz band wins international competitions. He shows up at rehersal and says you play this part, you play this part, and you play this part. He has a jazz duo with Skip Beckwith. Monster player. Enough bio.

 

 

Every couple of years we play a "recital" at his high school for the kids Three guitar players. Les Pauls and Marshalls. Very frightening. Some of his "kid" bands also play. They are no slouches either. The kids love it. They talk about it for weeks. They are used to dances with DJs or even worse VJs. From talking to them it seems that they are all programmed to watch music rather than listen to it. How else would they be able to sell some of the crap that you hear pulsating from trunk lids as you walk down the street. They don't seen to get any exposure to live music anymore, but when they do they love it. The question that begs answering is "Why don't they seem to seek it out if they enjoy it so much?"

 

 

Will we look back at music videos twenty years from now and say "those musicians sure were pretty bad actors" and "how the hell did they manage to get people to buy that crap?" or are we witnessing an inevitable evolution of pop media?

 

Is live music at the local club level dying? I certainly hope not.

 

Anybody else having similar experiences?