Familiarity

I was born in 1980.  My childhood was filled with lots of great and marvelous new things like Transformers, G.I. Joes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, the A Team, Star Trek, and the Karate Kid.

My son was born in 2006.  His childhood is filled with lots of great and marvelous new things like Transformers, G.I. Joes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, the A Team, Start Trek, and the Karate Kid.

Wait, what?  That’s right, no one has thought of any new ideas in the last 30 years.  Could this be true?  Let me tell you my theory – people like what they’re familiar with.  They don’t like new things.  So, if you were making a movie, and you had only so much money to advertise and convince people to like your movie, what makes more sense – an action flick about soldiers saving the world called “Army of Awesomeness”, or and action flick about soldiers saving the world called “G.I. Joes”.  See?  You already like G.I. Joes.  Waaaay cheaper. People like things they’re familiar with.

Now apply that to the music business.  It takes a lot of listens for the average person to get a song familiar to them.  That kind of presence and exposure costs a lot of money.  Top 40 radio hits, if they’re not familiar songs, are familiar names.  And the big labels can only afford to make so many musicians familiar in a year.  Without naming names, I think if you put enough money behind mediocre talent, good technology, and a pretty face, then you’ve got a hit on your hands.  It’s marketing.  People like things they’re familiar with.

Outside of this big machine you have the artists, filmmakers, and musicians who make wonderful art that’s not as familiar.  Presenting new ideas outside of the machine of pop art has its own challenges.  I respect musicians that can package innovative ideas and musicianship into a familiar looking package that people are comfortable with.  Most of the people I work with struggle with “being true to themselves” and “selling out” (i.e. making money).

The next time you go see a movie, take a chance on independents.  The next time you see a concert, support a local musician.  Maybe, by the end of the show, you’ll be familiar with it. People like things they’re familiar with.

Instruments

There’s an old saying: “you can tell a man by the instruments he keeps”.  Something like that.  I firmly believe it to be true, at least for most of the musicians I know.  Instruments represent you, they become your voice, the natural extension, the physical tool that creates the fleeting sound that is your art.

And they’re just freaking cool.

Victor Wooten said once that he thanks his bass after every gig.  I like that idea.  You see, I have an idea, and my fingers transfer the message to the instrument, then the instrument has to do all the hard work.  And, somewhere along the way, the instrument adds something unique to the idea that I wouldn’t have expected, and I’m always surprised when I hear my idea back.  Sometimes it’s cooler than I expected.  Sometimes not.

Every instrument I own has a story behind it.  I’ve gone way out of my way to meet the people who have built my instruments, or I’ve tried to build them myself.  I’ve dinged and scratched and whacked and cracked them.  I’ve re-fretted, re-strung, re-wired, adjusted, polished, and babied them.  And, now, I’m thanking them.

A Tale of Two Crises

Musicians have their own way of doing things, and a mid-life crisis is no exception.  Allow me to tell you the story of two men, both loosely based on people I have actually imagined up in my head.

A man graduates college.  He gets a desk job, benefits, 401k, and a mortgage.  He dons a suit, cuts his hair, and then spends 10-15 years going back and forth between home and work, listening to talk radio and reading Seven Habits for Highly Effective People.

Then, one day, the man wonders what’s become of his life.  What has he amounted to?  Is this monotonous routine how he will be measured when he dies?

So the man makes a shift.  He buys some jeans.  He grows his hair out.  He puts drums and amps in his garage and buys a sports car.  He fires up a MySpace page.  He starts bungee jumping or some other hobby that threatens to raise his health insurance premium.

And he feels young again.  Like the world is full of opportunity, and he is content.

Another man almost graduates from college.  He joins a band, buys some gear, a van, and rents an apartment.  He dons some jeans, grows his hair our, and then spends 10-15 years driving around the country, listening to indie radio and reading Rolling Stone and The Hobbit.

Then, one day, the man wonders what’s become of his life.  What has he amounted to?  Is this sporadic meandering how he will be measured when he dies?

So the man makes a shift.  He buys a suit.  He cuts his hair.  He pulls the drums and amps out of his garage and buys a minivan.  He fires up a LinkedIn Profile.  He stops base jumping and any other hobby that has kept him from qualifying for any sort of health insurance.

And he feels young again.  Like the world is full of opportunity, and he is content.

Kids These Days...

One of the many indicators that inform me of my perpetual maturation process, aside from realizing I own a champagne-colored car and have developed a hankering for fiber-rich cereals, is my increasing disgust with the youth of today and doomful outlook on what our world is coming to. This doomfulness led to thinking, the thinking led to contemplation, the contemplation led to a bowl of Grape-Nuts, and the Grape-Nuts led to this conclusion: I feel the youth of today are blathering idiots who are bound to wreck everything. My parents felt that way about the youth of their day. Their parents also, and their parents before them, back to back to the time Adam yelled “Cain! Abel! So help me, if I have to come back there…” And yet the world is not wrecked (speaking in very general terms here). Mankind has continued to flourish, evolve, improve, advance, and make shinier things year after year, century after century. We have computers, planes, pop-tarts, Wi-Fi, mass-produced banjos – is this not the sign of an advanced civilization? Do I really think that one generation of incessant-texting grammar-slaying iPod-wearing disrespectful illiterate chubby kids whose reference for reality is MTV and celebrity gossip could really wreck everything? Nope. We’re gonna be fine. These kids are sharp cookies. They’re the perfect choice to be the decision makers of the future. Once they grasp the opportunity available to them, the knowledge at their fingertips, the chances afforded them to change the entire world (imagine! One person can change the entire world! You know how unlikely that was just 20 years ago?), once they realize these things they will be an unstoppable force. Who better, I ask you. I don’t claim to understand them. I don’t pretend to always like them. But I’ll do what I can to support them, because I’m placing a lot of hope in the kids these days.

Open Seating Policy

 

I’m sitting in the Oklahoma City airport right now, and Craig Miner and I have compiled a list of ways to ensure an open seat between you and your travel-buddy while flying Southwest Airlines, which has an open-seating policy:

Crank death-metal in headphones.

Wear an Amway hat.

Eat an obscene amount of White Castle Sliders.

Stare intently with a lazy eye.

Wear a turban.

Read a girlie-magazine.

Wear an inflatable fat suit, to be deflated after take-off.

Fake H1N1.  I don’t know how.

Read a Book of Mormon.

Put your bag in the middle and root through it indefinitely.

Pretend to be learning the Ukulele.

Smile a little too much.

Speak German loudly.

Wear an orange jump-suit.

Invite everyone repeatedly to sit by you.

Fake a heated argument on the phone.

Cough something into your hand.

Wear an appliqué sweater (preferably kittens)