Tuesday, June 23, 2009

What the hell kind of music?

So pretty soon I'm going to turn back on the studio, play with some new drum kits and the synths, and finish another song or two for the live set.

My problem though is I'm really unsure what kind of music needs to be written right now. How it should sound, and thematically, what it should be about.

During George Bush's reign it was so much easier. The outlook was bleak, the world was terrible, and the music they played at goth industrial nights was even worse. So something overtly full of youthfully energetic, punky, political rage and avant garde noise elements made sense.

Obama is fucking up a lot of things but still, having his face there instead of Bush's creeps me out less. At least he's an intelligent promoter of American Imperialism- rather than a total moron- and he is willing to pay lip service to the needs of ordinary people, even if he is nonetheless content to let the employee free choice act die on the senate floor. The time to abandon political struggle and musical agit-prop in some form is certainly not now.

But the future still looks a lot less bleak. Most of the people with whom apocalyptic ideas best resonate right now are right wing crazies with guns, like the guy who shot the security guard at the Holocaust museum where my brother works. That's not too cool.

Apocalypticism is ultimately a shallow, over reactive response to economic crisis. I think the fact that Swine Flue didn't destroy the world and turn people into zombies was sort of like the last gasp for the hope that the system would just sort of implode on its own.

Instead life continues. It is harder, but it keeps going. There's no president that facebook idealism will elect who will just fix everything, and the best diseases the sewers of globalized agribusiness have thus been able to come up with still aren't good enough to wipe out all forms of governmental and corporate organization on their own.

I like the long, epic, stream of consciousness stuff that Savage Ideal has done... but music needs to be more upbeat to retain an audience. And to put lyrics into it.. hmm...

Well, let's see what happens. Feel free to offer any suggestions!

1 comment:

  1. More stuff full of rage and energy would be great. Still love that last Bajskorv album.

    I think that when we run out of oil the shit is going to truly hit the fan though.

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