In recent years, I've come to think of music as a recreational, natural, and very therapeutic drug. The word 'drug' certainly has a stigma attached to it (probably well-deserved), but for my purpose in this blog, I simply mean an agent that acts to change your state of consciousness - nothing more. When some people hear their favourite music, they see colours in their mind, others feel emotional states without an inner visual element, and some (like yours truly) enjoy the way my preferred music fills my head with unexpected images (usually of people or places I know, exhibiting some aura of mood or emotion)- perhaps as symbols of emotional states. Why is this so enjoyable? Perhaps the same reason we pay to watch movies - we like to be taken on rides to exciting places, whether that means geography or consciousness. That's my guess for this evening, anyway.
Flash back to the Spring of 1978 - a teenage girl (i.e.: older than me) is staying with my family for a few weeks. She has brought her record collection with her. Where the closest my family's collection comes to toe-tapping tunes might be a big-band 78 rpm of "One Mint Julep" or, much worse - James Last brass & pop arrangements of Beatles and CCR tunes, Kelly's collection is exotic and strange. Some discs don't even have jackets. One afternoon when I'm home alone, I put one of these alien recordings on the family turntable. Cooool! That's the sound I've been hungering for in my primitive boy-brain. So much cranked guitar! Mozart's all very well for serene moments, but ten-year-old boys are not known for sustained serenity, are they? When the disc finishes, I examine the label to see what I just heard...Side 3 - Kiss Alive! I'm a bit disappointed. Isn't that the band with the painted faces? Aren't they just a little over-the-top? I ponder...
For the next few years, a lot of the bands that grabbed my attention had quite a distinct visual element to their presentation, and their music burned onto my brain indelibly - and yet - I have zero interest in following such a visual route with my own band. I spent a few months playing sporadic gigs in 2005 as part of an 80's hair-metal revue, complete with costumes and wigs - and it got old mighty fast. I didn't enjoy most of the music, and I felt like I was in an air band, posing and phony.
Tomorrow, my band will pose for a series of promotional photos. It's a necessity for a band with any interest in playing publicly - but I face the prospect with a lot of inertia. The first place that web surfers visit on a band's website is usually the photos and video section, and anyone hiring a band wants a look at what he or she is getting, and even bands as musically accomplished as the Police credit their good looks with at least some of their success...why? If the music does it for you, what does it matter what the band looks like? Is anyone visualizing David Gilmour as he sings most of Dark Side of the Moon? How many of you out there could even recognize the guy? Perhaps we have a natural inclination to try to visually equate the artists with their song when possible - but don't necessarily miss it if we don't know what the singer looks like. Now that the music video age seems to be on tottering legs, perhaps we can find out for sure. Meanwhile, I'm going to sit back with some good tunes, let my mind fill with welcome images...and then try to figure out what the hell to wear tomorrow.
Flash back to the Spring of 1978 - a teenage girl (i.e.: older than me) is staying with my family for a few weeks. She has brought her record collection with her. Where the closest my family's collection comes to toe-tapping tunes might be a big-band 78 rpm of "One Mint Julep" or, much worse - James Last brass & pop arrangements of Beatles and CCR tunes, Kelly's collection is exotic and strange. Some discs don't even have jackets. One afternoon when I'm home alone, I put one of these alien recordings on the family turntable. Cooool! That's the sound I've been hungering for in my primitive boy-brain. So much cranked guitar! Mozart's all very well for serene moments, but ten-year-old boys are not known for sustained serenity, are they? When the disc finishes, I examine the label to see what I just heard...Side 3 - Kiss Alive! I'm a bit disappointed. Isn't that the band with the painted faces? Aren't they just a little over-the-top? I ponder...
For the next few years, a lot of the bands that grabbed my attention had quite a distinct visual element to their presentation, and their music burned onto my brain indelibly - and yet - I have zero interest in following such a visual route with my own band. I spent a few months playing sporadic gigs in 2005 as part of an 80's hair-metal revue, complete with costumes and wigs - and it got old mighty fast. I didn't enjoy most of the music, and I felt like I was in an air band, posing and phony.
Tomorrow, my band will pose for a series of promotional photos. It's a necessity for a band with any interest in playing publicly - but I face the prospect with a lot of inertia. The first place that web surfers visit on a band's website is usually the photos and video section, and anyone hiring a band wants a look at what he or she is getting, and even bands as musically accomplished as the Police credit their good looks with at least some of their success...why? If the music does it for you, what does it matter what the band looks like? Is anyone visualizing David Gilmour as he sings most of Dark Side of the Moon? How many of you out there could even recognize the guy? Perhaps we have a natural inclination to try to visually equate the artists with their song when possible - but don't necessarily miss it if we don't know what the singer looks like. Now that the music video age seems to be on tottering legs, perhaps we can find out for sure. Meanwhile, I'm going to sit back with some good tunes, let my mind fill with welcome images...and then try to figure out what the hell to wear tomorrow.