Now THAT was confusing.<\/p>\n
For those of you lamenting the end of personalization, the end of human contact, let me suggest you go to the live gig.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the hoi polloi now think a live gig is some spectacular where people ready for embalmment trot out replicas of their hits to tape, with a backup keyboard player to hit the high notes.<\/p>\n
Then again, the more intimate gig lost its flavor when they took the seats out of all these clubs in the name of rock and roll, in the name of touching your partner.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know about you, but I’m not eager to have some sweaty, inebriated soul rub up against me, no matter what the sex.\u00c2\u00a0 I yearn for the old days.\u00c2\u00a0 When the venues had seats.\u00c2\u00a0 That you could sit in and contemplate the music, where you could RESPECT the music.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no longer about the music, but the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 And there was no scene at last night’s Feeling gig because there was a giant disconnect.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the band had the illusion that L.A. was just another hamlet in the U.K., and those in attendance, other than those right down front singing along with this unreleased here band’s material, were under the illusion that this band was hip, the cutting edge, and that’s a laughable concept.<\/p>\n
We’ve got two kinds of music in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 The disposable and the credible.\u00c2\u00a0 The disposable is all about looks, image, manufactured personality, the record is constructed AROUND them.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas with the credible, it’s the opposite.\u00c2\u00a0 No one believes the disposable has any talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And if someone crosses the DMZ (the demilitarized zone for those not Vietnam savvy), they’re no longer seen as credible.\u00c2\u00a0 Now more than ever, it’s a badge of honor to like something obscure.\u00c2\u00a0 In an age where your personality has no purchase, you fly your freak flag high (after getting your tattoos and piercings, making you ultimately just like everybody else.)\u00c2\u00a0 As for crossing over from disposable to credible…presently IMPOSSIBLE!<\/p>\n
Whereas the U.K. is different.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t take music so seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s something that’s always going to exist in this island nation.\u00c2\u00a0 A given like TV and milk.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a staple, not a religion.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, most of those hard rock English bands revered here?\u00c2\u00a0 They oftentimes don’t\/didn’t mean shit in their mother country.\u00c2\u00a0 Up until recently there were weekly music papers, advancing this or that act, and then cutting them down seemingly minutes later.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a giant game.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like their football.\u00c2\u00a0 An addiction.<\/p>\n
And this addiction encompasses all kinds of genres.\u00c2\u00a0 All umbrellaed under one radio station, a handful no matter how you slice it.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s in it together in the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas in the U.S. we’re as spread out intellectually as we are physically.<\/p>\n
So, if you want to be credible in the U.S., at this point, you chart your lineage back to the Ramones, and then along the continuum through Nirvana.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about what’s in your head, your ATTITUDE, not your skill.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there’s the hippie\/jam band circuit.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s important in that world to never do ANYTHING catchy, for fear of having a hit and losing you audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Dave Matthews broke this rule, but no one else has.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you see Jon Popper\/Blues Traveler doing a lot of business today?\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind the Spin Doctors, seen as a joke by the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 Their crime?\u00c2\u00a0 Too much success too fast in the MAINSTREAM!<\/p>\n
As for the disposable…\u00c2\u00a0 The whole era of the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 When a faceless band like the Association could have monster hit singles that everybody loved…\u00c2\u00a0 Or Bread.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t exist.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, we had Matchbox Twenty for a while, but if they went on the road today, they’d be lucky to sell out theatres.<\/p>\n
But everybody’s in it together in the U.K.<\/p>\n
One rule of the U.S. disposable…\u00c2\u00a0 You CAN’T have talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you can sing, you can’t write, and certainly can’t play.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be lacking.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if you’re not?<\/p>\n
We had the boy bands.\u00c2\u00a0 And they made some damn good music.\u00c2\u00a0 Just listen to the Backstreet Boys’ "Millennium".\u00c2\u00a0 It even rocks.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s meaningless, but ear-pleasing.\u00c2\u00a0 But unacceptable to the cognoscenti.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas as soon as Justin Timberlake starts acting black and signs up with the producer du jour, HE’S credible.\u00c2\u00a0 Confused yet?\u00c2\u00a0 I certainly am.<\/p>\n
All this is a lead-up to the point that the Feeling can not only sing, but PLAY!\u00c2\u00a0 And certainly at least co-wrote the tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 Which have hooks.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re not PREPARED for this in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Oh, there were cute boys in the band.\u00c2\u00a0 The lead singer looked like a younger Tom Cruise.\u00c2\u00a0 And he not only played his Les Paul, he hit every note.\u00c2\u00a0 But he thought he was in a cabaret in the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 He connected with the audience not a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d have thought it was a TV show, for the cameras only.\u00c2\u00a0 But there was no transmission, this was it.<\/p>\n
The little he spoke to the audience exhibited no identity, and no connection.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s great to be here!\u00c2\u00a0 Cheers!\u00c2\u00a0 Come see us again!\u00c2\u00a0 What did he think, he was the Beatles in ’64?\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not like he was nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 He was totally calm.\u00c2\u00a0 The disconnect was palpable.<\/p>\n
As was the constant din of the L.A. crowd there to be impressed and not.<\/p>\n
The Feeling belonged at the Key Club about as much as I belong at a black tie dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 They needed to be at a sit-down club.\u00c2\u00a0 But those don’t exist.<\/p>\n
And their record not being released yet, maybe just available on iTunes (released as an EP sans their great "Never Be Lonely" on 10\/3), their target audience is not in attendance, only hipsters, checking out the next big thing.<\/p>\n
And in a modern era where you can hear four songs on MySpace, the label’s not releasing the full-length until March in the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about a lack of spontaneity.\u00c2\u00a0 What, they’re gonna build it on the road and then wait until after the Christmas rush to appeal to youngsters who are going to forget this band after they have one or two hits?<\/p>\n
But there’s a din.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t get noticed.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to line up your marketing.<\/p>\n
Then again, the only way to counteract this is to be credible, and right down to their English everyday clothing, these guys weren’t credible.\u00c2\u00a0 They were a curio.<\/p>\n
And the sound was too loud.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, after all, this is rock and roll, and a club, that’s the rule, right?\u00c2\u00a0 Win through assault, subtlety is for pussies.<\/p>\n
And the second-rate material, and there’s a bunch of it on "Twelve Stops And Home", was boring, and made you want to go home.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean if the guy bonded with us, created some intimacy, and then played the songs in an intimate way, but there was no intimacy here at all.<\/p>\n
They didn’t start with it, but soon in the set they played "Never Be Lonely".\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to tell you I was filled with testosterone, thrusting my arms in the air, but it was creepy.\u00c2\u00a0 Like sitting in on something fake.\u00c2\u00a0 A band doing a facsimile of their big hit, losing all charisma in the process.\u00c2\u00a0 "Never Be Lonely" is a record.\u00c2\u00a0 And when played live, it lost all its magic.<\/p>\n
The magic of 10cc was they were in on it with us.\u00c2\u00a0 Poking fun at the mainstream by playing with the form.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the Feeling seemed to believe in their faux performance, and reminded we Angelenos of every fake act that ever made it over there and never crossed over here.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only the Stock\/Aitken\/Waterman acts like Rick Astley, but Robbie Williams too.\u00c2\u00a0 These acts just make us feel superior.<\/p>\n
Then again, unlike our hit acts, these acts are polished, and in some cases talented.\u00c2\u00a0 So when the Feeling played "Sewn" it wasn’t quite a tour-de-force, but one could believe in a way one never does when they see Justin, Beyonce and just about everybody on the American hit parade.<\/p>\n
How long did these guys rehearse?\u00c2\u00a0 How did they get so GOOD!\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not supposed to be good.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s for long-haired guys who practiced guitar in their bedrooms and never got a date during high school.<\/p>\n
I came alive.\u00c2\u00a0 My body started to move.\u00c2\u00a0 I started singing along involuntarily.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want the song to end.<\/p>\n
And it didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 The guitars soared.\u00c2\u00a0 Every vocal note was hit.\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted everyone to share in the joy.<\/p>\n
But then the act went back to cabaret mode.<\/p>\n
It cannot be illegal to make hit music.\u00c2\u00a0 Good vocals singing memorable songs.\u00c2\u00a0 With great melodic changes.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I’m not talking about those beat hits we have today.\u00c2\u00a0 Something more akin to the Backstreet Boys.\u00c2\u00a0 Who were NOT like New Kids On The Block.\u00c2\u00a0 Both might have been manufactured, but the latter’s material sucked.\u00c2\u00a0 I dare you to sing ONE NKOTB song.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas I can sing "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" and "I Want It That Way" right now.<\/p>\n
But the Backstreet Boys couldn’t and still can’t play.\u00c2\u00a0 And the big hits were written by middle-aged men across the pond, WAY across the pond.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t there an INHERENT credibility in being able to write, sing and play your own memorable tunes?<\/p>\n
I guess not.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not an open avenue in the U.S.<\/p>\n
In the U.K., it’s a viable option.\u00c2\u00a0 But the issue of credibility doesn’t weigh so heavily there.<\/p>\n
"Never Be Lonely" and "Sewn" are hits in anybody’s book.\u00c2\u00a0 Will they make it on Top Forty radio here?\u00c2\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00c2\u00a0 And if they do, the Feeling will be seen as empty as Jessica Simpson and the other airheads.<\/p>\n
We loved not only 10cc, but Stories and so many other bands that made\/played melodic rock.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, what about Badfinger?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, what about the BEATLES!<\/p>\n
If the Beatles were debuting in America today, they’d be seen as a joke.<\/p>\n
Then again, if they were playing the Key Club, they would have demonstrated some personality, some cheekiness, an identity\/loop for us to grab our velcro hooks onto.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the Feeling slid right off of us.<\/p>\n
Some magic music.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s right there in the record\/disc\/MP3.\u00c2\u00a0 Hear it twice and you not only want to hear it more, you find yourself singing the tunes all through the day, and wake up with them on your lips.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say the same about what is paraded as credible in the U.S?<\/p>\n
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