MTV eviscerated the experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts started swinging for the fences.\u00c2\u00a0 It became about image, it was no longer about experience.\u00c2\u00a0 It was as if Broadway plays were suddenly broadcast live on television every night.\u00c2\u00a0 And they toured arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 What was once intimate, what was once only seen in the dark, what was once a religious experience amongst very few, became a lowest common denominator state fair exhibition.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s magic in those records.<\/p>\n
But there used to be magic in the live shows too.<\/p>\n
I’m not talking about the magic you experience seeing the Rolling Stones with 50,000 other souls.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, I’m speaking of the electric jolt you feel in a club, a small hall, with only like-minded people in attendance.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not speaking of checking something out for the first time, going to drink beer with your buddies, but making a pilgrimage to the venue, just to catch a glimpse of the act whose record you’ve played to death.\u00c2\u00a0 When the lights come up, when the act takes the stage, there’s an adrenaline jolt far exceeding that from any drug.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel fully alive.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what you’re on the planet for, to experience THIS!<\/p>\n
It’s got nothing to do with corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing to do with piracy.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s as old as time.\u00c2\u00a0 A group of human beings gathering to be entertained, to be enlightened.<\/p>\n
Now the old English acts, most especially Cream, they let the music do the talking.\u00c2\u00a0 They hardly moved, they just played their instruments.\u00c2\u00a0 And, oftentimes, music is enough.\u00c2\u00a0 But sometimes there’s a bit more, a bit of role-playing, a bit of acting, a bit of theatre.\u00c2\u00a0 The Tubes were the apotheosis.\u00c2\u00a0 The records, and the first is brilliant, didn’t do justice to the stage show.\u00c2\u00a0 And, interestingly, the Tubes didn’t make much of a dent in the U.S., certainly not in their art rock A&M days, but in the U.K., they were stars.<\/p>\n
It’s different in the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t need years of musical education, you just need the desire.\u00c2\u00a0 To get up on stage and DO IT!\u00c2\u00a0 It can almost be talent show-like.\u00c2\u00a0 That guy you were just standing next to at the urinal, suddenly he’s up on stage, letting out elements of his personality you couldn’t conceive of, showing off, saying LOOK AT ME!<\/p>\n
Oh, they’ve got two-dimensional stars in England too.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’ve also got a vibrant scene of real players.\u00c2\u00a0 They might not be that skilled, not that well-rehearsed, but their ENERGY, it translates.\u00c2\u00a0 And, they seem to know the basic rule of art, that it’s not about professional execution but CONCEPTION!\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can learn to play, but WHAT you play is much more important.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you test the boundaries, can you deliver what’s not expected, can you WOW people.<\/p>\n
You woke up this morning Maybe you only know the version of Alabama 3’s "Woke Up This Morning" from "The Sopranos", you haven’t heard the original from "Exile On Coldharbour Lane".\u00c2\u00a0 With its intro story, about a long, debauched evening out on the tiles.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s an earthy organ accompanying the story, as if you’re in an alternative church, one in which drinking, drugging and fucking are worshipped.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, the drum starts to kick, the bass guitar starts to pump, and Larry Love starts singing the above lyrics.\u00c2\u00a0 If the Grammy Awards featured music like this, then I’d believe.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re so busy playing to everyman, they’ve abandoned us, the real fans, the true believers.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the Grammys were always irrelevant, they never got it right.<\/p>\n And "The Sopranos" was too hot for network TV, they wanted to change it.\u00c2\u00a0 So, it debuted on the outlaw cable channel HBO.\u00c2\u00a0 And like "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it revolutionized the industry.<\/p>\n I believe "The Sopranos" is the best television show ever.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it’s not the Mafia story that puts it over the top, but the family drama.\u00c2\u00a0 The way Meadow manipulates her parents.\u00c2\u00a0 The way Carmella makes peace with what she doesn’t like by ignoring it.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, the show would lose at least ten percent of its value if it didn’t have its theme song.\u00c2\u00a0 I fast-forward through the intro song of every other series, but I let "Woke Up This Morning" play at the head of "The Sopranos".\u00c2\u00a0 It sets the mood.\u00c2\u00a0 Tony’s been out all night in the city, doing illicit and illegal things, and as the sun rises, he’s driving back to a suburbia that looks safe, but really isn’t.<\/p>\n After getting hooked on the show back in ’99, I tore my house apart looking for my copy of "Exile On Coldharbour Lane".\u00c2\u00a0 When I finally found it, I couldn’t stop playing it.\u00c2\u00a0 And it wasn’t only "Woke Up This Morning", it was "Ain’t Goin’ To Goa", and "Hypo Full Of Love", and over time the rest of the record hooked me too, I became an Alabama 3 fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got their second album, "La Peste", in my iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 So when a DVD of a live performance appeared in my mail today, I immediately threw it into my Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 Where it wouldn’t play.<\/p>\n You see it’s PAL!\u00c2\u00a0 Macs can play PAL.\u00c2\u00a0 But, with region coding, if I switch my machine to this format, it won’t play U.S. discs.<\/p>\n This is the kind of bullshit the MPAA insists upon.\u00c2\u00a0 Enforcing its WINDOWS of distribution.<\/p>\n So, feeling desperate, I fired up the PC.\u00c2\u00a0 Inserted the DVD.\u00c2\u00a0 Was confronted with some Microsoft gobbledy-gook, who knew there were FOUR CHOICES how to play a DVD, but it turns out the one I picked worked.<\/p>\n I heard the crowd noise.\u00c2\u00a0 Then the acid house music.<\/p>\n There was a burlesque dancer on stage.\u00c2\u00a0 Tattooed band members priming in the dressing room.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, a faux policeman led a prison-garbed Reverend D. Wayne Love on stage.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after the handcuffs were unlocked, D. Wayne, in that bizarre nasal voice, announced he was…JOHNNY FUCKING CASH!<\/p>\n What’s my name? The organ is pumping in the background, the synth is repeating a pattern and Larry Love steps to the front of the stage and starts telling his story…<\/p>\n They had me at hello.<\/p>\n Something like this couldn’t happen in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 Where everybody takes himself so seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 Where everybody who picks up a guitar has got a lawyer and a ten year plan.\u00c2\u00a0 Stardom supersedes art.\u00c2\u00a0 But here, on this stage half a world away, was the essence of rock and roll.<\/p>\n I couldn’t believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 I lowered the blinds to see better.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to motion over my shoulder for everybody to come and SEE this.<\/p>\n But there was nobody there.<\/p>\n Oh, SOMEBODY’S there.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just not in my abode.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re a continent and an ocean away.\u00c2\u00a0 I can see them in the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re true believers.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re having the time of their lives.<\/p>\n I don’t get the DVD revolution.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to own a performance.\u00c2\u00a0 I just want to see it once.<\/p>\n Then again, most of the shows people buy today have ALREADY been on television.<\/p>\n But here, it was like the sixties all over again.\u00c2\u00a0 I had an artifact.\u00c2\u00a0 That allowed me entrance into a whole world.\u00c2\u00a0 A hip world.\u00c2\u00a0 Populated by thinkers.\u00c2\u00a0 Out to challenge and excite me.\u00c2\u00a0 Not needing to make me believe they’re satan, but just playing roles, to challenge my preconceptions.<\/p>\n I’d like to tell you they kill "Woke Up This Morning".\u00c2\u00a0 But Larry Love’s vocal is not as good live as it on disc.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, "The 12 Step Plan (Hypo Full Of Love)" kills.\u00c2\u00a0 And tracks that never registered before penetrated, played by this crack band.<\/p>\n Look at it this way.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you ever watch "24 Hour Party People" and wish you’d been at the Hacienda?\u00c2\u00a0 Lamented the fact that the Manchester club was closed?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, watching this DVD, you’ll be stunned to learn the scene still survives.\u00c2\u00a0 One in which you had to BE THERE!\u00c2\u00a0 Where what happened at the show that very evening is the only thing that counts.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MTV eviscerated the experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts started swinging for the fences.\u00c2\u00a0 It became about image, it was no longer about experience.\u00c2\u00a0 It was as if Broadway plays were suddenly broadcast live on television every night.\u00c2\u00a0 And they toured arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 What was once intimate, what was once only seen in the dark, what was once a religious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-3P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Got yourself a gun
Mama always said you’d be
The Chosen One.<\/em><\/p>\n
What’s my name?
Johnny Cash!<\/em><\/p>\n