Mike Luno Band performed recently at a gig that boasted a total of eleven bands on the bill for one night. Each band would whip onto the stage with guitar rigs, bass head, instruments and drum hardware, play a 25-minute showcase, and clear off in an instant for the next act.
I enjoyed the experience of hearing such diverse and numerous local acts blasting through their original material. There was punk, power pop, folk, alt-metal, folk-pop, plain ol' rock, and, of course, us (however you'd like to categorize MLB; I've given up trying). This was a variety show in the truest sense!
Despite the fact that it was a competitive venue – one band/artist will come away with a grand prize – performers were generally friendly and non-competitive at the personal level. When the punk band guitarist broke a string, I lent him my cherished Les Paul to finish off his set, and I was happy to help. When our drummer was short on hardware (thanks to my inaccurately hopeful forecasts of what equipment he'd need), another competing band helped us out. There were a lot of kudos, well-wishes and congratulations backstage among the various musicians. Just the way I like it.
The one less-than-pleasant surprise of the evening, though, was in the dearth of originality from a few of the acts. In a couple of cases, I was initially impressed with some of the bands, until it was pointed out to me how derivative some of the music – and even some of the visual presentation – was. Frankly, I don't listen to many of the genres listed above, so I had to do a little investigating to verify the truth of this observation – but true it was.
Perhaps the first reaction from many would be: so what? If you're going to be completely pragmatic about it, these may be the days when being a knock-off of another band may have great advantages. As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, familiarity actually tends to breed not contempt but affection for songs and styles, at least in some contexts. If you're a fan of, say, Marianas Trench, and the band you hear at the local watering hole sounds just like them, would you be perturbed or elated? There's a saying that the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land. Perhaps it just doesn't pay to pioneer?
When Eddie Van Halen was trying to cobble together a workhorse guitar for himself, he bought a cheap, factory-second Strat-style body and neck from Charvel, tossed in an old Gibson pick-up (in the days before early Patent-Applied-For humbuckers commanded an exorbitant price), gave it a distinctive look with the help of electricians' tape and Schwinn bicycle paint, and voila – one bash-around workhorse for under $300. A few years later, when he entered into a deal with Kramer guitars to mass-produce the basic workhorse “Frankenstein” guitar, he took the original instrument to the Kramer factory so that the manufacturer could collect specs and tool up. Many of the Kramer guitar techs present were shocked to find that this famous, history-making instrument was a “piece of shit” (their words), at least by conventional standards. Over the next several decades, the original guitar in question suffered numerous dings, burns, gouges, surgeries, chips and strange additions (e.g.: reflectors, coins, alternate bridges). Fast forward more than a couple of decades: Kramer is gone, and the Fender company has bought out the Charvel name. Fender enters into an agreement with Van Halen to build an exact replica of the Frankenstein – right down to every last cigarette-burn. The price? Over $25, 000.
They sold out immediately.
Not bad for $300 in cheap guitar parts slapped together in the mid-'70's.
I wonder if they used authentic factory-second bodies?
The Van Halen case is not unique – you can buy factory clones of guitars played by Clapton, Beck (from Fender and Gibson), Page, Duane Allman, John Mayer, Andy Summers, Ace Frehley, Billy Gibbons, Danny Gatton, Trini Lopez and dozens more. They're built because they sell.
Some people are willing to pay big money to have a guitar exactly like that of somebody else.
Curiously, this seems to be a rock phenomenon. If you can buy a Yo Yo Ma signature cello, a Wynton Marsalis trumpet or a Toots Thielemans harmonica replica somewhere, I sure haven't heard of it. Perhaps this has a lot to do with how visually distinctive each guitar happens to be (most other instruments, for example, only come in one colour!), but might it also have to do with the nature of pop and rock music?
Although rock/pop music (or the sub-genre names they go by today) purports itself to be the untamed music of the young generation, it's actually deeply conservative in its construction, generally speaking. There's a joke going around Facebook these days: a rock guitar typically plays three chords for three thousand people, while a jazz guitar plays three thousand chords for three people. Complexity and innovation are actually a turn-off for a vast majority of music listeners, for better or worse. Simplicity can keep music deliciously primal, but it can also make it reactionary and stale in the wrong hands...not that that necessarily hurts sales...
The situation isn't helped by the self-inflicted collapse of the major record labels in the realm of setting trends and breaking innovative new acts. As labels grew bigger and more conservative over the last few decades, they grew far more interested in a quick return for their shareholders. It's safer in the short-term to back a Nickelback sound-alike in the short-term (and forget about them next week along with the rest of the world) than develop the next great musical innovator over the next five years. Let your kids worry about the long term, right?
This topic gets a bit thorny because anyone who writes music tends to start out in a derivative style before finding her own voice. If you listen to a lot of the Smiths and your first song you ever write sounds suspiciously Smiths-like, that's only natural. Even a seasoned writer may have an obvious influence or two – but in my book, intentions matter – and they show up in your music.
There's a big difference between the sound of a songwriter who needs to get something off his chest, and the sound of a songwriter who wants to have a songwriting credit and be regarded as cool (or at least accomplished).
Do I have a pragmatic reason for unoriginal acts to stop what they're doing and seek their own voices? Probably nothing very convincing. I find songwriting deeply satisfying, cathartic and energizing, but these aren't very sexy reasons to stop ripping off another band if you're enjoying some success with it (measured in money, prestige, gigs, etc). All I can say is that it's ultimately the pioneers who have had more interesting lives, who took risks and (sometimes even) enjoyed some recognition for their pains, if posthumously. Perhaps one is either a pioneer or a settler by nature.
I hope to meet more local musical pioneers in the future.
I enjoyed the experience of hearing such diverse and numerous local acts blasting through their original material. There was punk, power pop, folk, alt-metal, folk-pop, plain ol' rock, and, of course, us (however you'd like to categorize MLB; I've given up trying). This was a variety show in the truest sense!
Despite the fact that it was a competitive venue – one band/artist will come away with a grand prize – performers were generally friendly and non-competitive at the personal level. When the punk band guitarist broke a string, I lent him my cherished Les Paul to finish off his set, and I was happy to help. When our drummer was short on hardware (thanks to my inaccurately hopeful forecasts of what equipment he'd need), another competing band helped us out. There were a lot of kudos, well-wishes and congratulations backstage among the various musicians. Just the way I like it.
The one less-than-pleasant surprise of the evening, though, was in the dearth of originality from a few of the acts. In a couple of cases, I was initially impressed with some of the bands, until it was pointed out to me how derivative some of the music – and even some of the visual presentation – was. Frankly, I don't listen to many of the genres listed above, so I had to do a little investigating to verify the truth of this observation – but true it was.
Perhaps the first reaction from many would be: so what? If you're going to be completely pragmatic about it, these may be the days when being a knock-off of another band may have great advantages. As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, familiarity actually tends to breed not contempt but affection for songs and styles, at least in some contexts. If you're a fan of, say, Marianas Trench, and the band you hear at the local watering hole sounds just like them, would you be perturbed or elated? There's a saying that the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land. Perhaps it just doesn't pay to pioneer?
When Eddie Van Halen was trying to cobble together a workhorse guitar for himself, he bought a cheap, factory-second Strat-style body and neck from Charvel, tossed in an old Gibson pick-up (in the days before early Patent-Applied-For humbuckers commanded an exorbitant price), gave it a distinctive look with the help of electricians' tape and Schwinn bicycle paint, and voila – one bash-around workhorse for under $300. A few years later, when he entered into a deal with Kramer guitars to mass-produce the basic workhorse “Frankenstein” guitar, he took the original instrument to the Kramer factory so that the manufacturer could collect specs and tool up. Many of the Kramer guitar techs present were shocked to find that this famous, history-making instrument was a “piece of shit” (their words), at least by conventional standards. Over the next several decades, the original guitar in question suffered numerous dings, burns, gouges, surgeries, chips and strange additions (e.g.: reflectors, coins, alternate bridges). Fast forward more than a couple of decades: Kramer is gone, and the Fender company has bought out the Charvel name. Fender enters into an agreement with Van Halen to build an exact replica of the Frankenstein – right down to every last cigarette-burn. The price? Over $25, 000.
They sold out immediately.
Not bad for $300 in cheap guitar parts slapped together in the mid-'70's.
I wonder if they used authentic factory-second bodies?
The Van Halen case is not unique – you can buy factory clones of guitars played by Clapton, Beck (from Fender and Gibson), Page, Duane Allman, John Mayer, Andy Summers, Ace Frehley, Billy Gibbons, Danny Gatton, Trini Lopez and dozens more. They're built because they sell.
Some people are willing to pay big money to have a guitar exactly like that of somebody else.
Curiously, this seems to be a rock phenomenon. If you can buy a Yo Yo Ma signature cello, a Wynton Marsalis trumpet or a Toots Thielemans harmonica replica somewhere, I sure haven't heard of it. Perhaps this has a lot to do with how visually distinctive each guitar happens to be (most other instruments, for example, only come in one colour!), but might it also have to do with the nature of pop and rock music?
Although rock/pop music (or the sub-genre names they go by today) purports itself to be the untamed music of the young generation, it's actually deeply conservative in its construction, generally speaking. There's a joke going around Facebook these days: a rock guitar typically plays three chords for three thousand people, while a jazz guitar plays three thousand chords for three people. Complexity and innovation are actually a turn-off for a vast majority of music listeners, for better or worse. Simplicity can keep music deliciously primal, but it can also make it reactionary and stale in the wrong hands...not that that necessarily hurts sales...
The situation isn't helped by the self-inflicted collapse of the major record labels in the realm of setting trends and breaking innovative new acts. As labels grew bigger and more conservative over the last few decades, they grew far more interested in a quick return for their shareholders. It's safer in the short-term to back a Nickelback sound-alike in the short-term (and forget about them next week along with the rest of the world) than develop the next great musical innovator over the next five years. Let your kids worry about the long term, right?
This topic gets a bit thorny because anyone who writes music tends to start out in a derivative style before finding her own voice. If you listen to a lot of the Smiths and your first song you ever write sounds suspiciously Smiths-like, that's only natural. Even a seasoned writer may have an obvious influence or two – but in my book, intentions matter – and they show up in your music.
There's a big difference between the sound of a songwriter who needs to get something off his chest, and the sound of a songwriter who wants to have a songwriting credit and be regarded as cool (or at least accomplished).
Do I have a pragmatic reason for unoriginal acts to stop what they're doing and seek their own voices? Probably nothing very convincing. I find songwriting deeply satisfying, cathartic and energizing, but these aren't very sexy reasons to stop ripping off another band if you're enjoying some success with it (measured in money, prestige, gigs, etc). All I can say is that it's ultimately the pioneers who have had more interesting lives, who took risks and (sometimes even) enjoyed some recognition for their pains, if posthumously. Perhaps one is either a pioneer or a settler by nature.
I hope to meet more local musical pioneers in the future.