>>
>> Lousy music is a drag, but since when has sucky music stopped talented
>> musicians from making great music?
>
>It hasn't, but it can make it harder for them to get heard, both because of
>the turn-off factor already mentioned - "Yeesh, those guys couldn't carry a
>tune in a paper bag. If that's what bluegrass/alt.country/blues is, I don't
>like it." - and because it's often the case, at least in my experience, that
>lousy bands will play for next to nothing. Or nothing.
>
>
>Jon Weisberger, Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger
You know, this sort of musical Gresham's Law -- that bad music represents a
threat to the good -- has been discussed here before (we talked about it in
relationship to Split Lip Rayfield, if I recall), and I still just don't
buy it. "Boy if weren't for those damn Moonshine Cousinfuckers (insert
"sucky" alt.country act of your choice here) misleading everyone about
alt.country, they'd all be listening to Dale Watson and Hayseed."
This kind of thinking smacks of an elitism that I can't tolerate -- as if
the "sucky" bands are doing something they shouldn't be allowed to do, or
are actually harming the bands a certain cogniscenti deem to be "real"
(read, band with chops, bands that are sincere, bands that write "good"
songs, etc. ) If you think a band sucks, fine, but don't blame them for
turning off audiences from stuff you happen to like better.
Now as for the major-label marketing machine, which tends to push the bland
crap least offensive to the broadest swath of the mass audience at the
expense of edgier acts, that's another story....(and not, I think, what was
being talked about at SXSW).
Todd
