About 17 years ago, or so, I did a bunch of music journalism for newspapers in Calgary and here at the U of S and I was given some minor insights into the modern music industry. One of the things that has stuck with me is the record label's insistence on a band being pretty and marketable first, and then being good musicians second. I think Ben Folds nailed it when he sang in Rockin the Suburbs, "Some producer with computers fixes all my shitty tracks."
This all came leaping to my mind when I came across the following old video from waaaaay back in the 70's, where the very ugly and obviously stoned/drunk boys from Dr. Hook do a live set on Shel Silverstein's houseboat. These guys are glued, and at points I'm not sure that anything other than dumb luck and sheer willpower are keeping them upright, yet they stay on their feet, and more importantly they nail the live take!
Wouldn't it be nice if we could get back to the music first, and the brand second, or third, or not-much-at-all?
When music came first
On
2011-05-04
1 comments
1 comment:
I am positive this is the band that inspired the Backstreet Boys!
That's the beautiful thing about music James, is that you can be glued to the tits and still play amazing. I completely agree with you. Music first, the rest a very distant second.
My favorite was the guy in the background when they panned to him.
Peace
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