Some hours ago I thought I'd log in and post
Talk about the Bully Boy, Iraq and other things
But Oh no, again!
Blogger's down for maintance, my friend.
I'm on time
And it's not ready?
Oh no, again!
Blogger's down for maintance, my friend.
Mike lost a post as a result of Blogger's maintance. Elaine mentioned that tonight on the phone so let me note that since Mike doesn't miss a post during the week and some may wonder since there won't be a post from him tonight. (He's also sick and Elaine said he better be getting rest.)
I've talked on the phone, worked on e-mails and listened to an interview with Paul Kantner on KPFA. They're discussing the remastered Blows Against the Empire (which I don't have). But that was strange because I had listened to Sunfighter Sunday (Paul Kantner and Grace Slick solo project from 1971) because I was just in the mood and then Betty's latest chapter yesterday quoted a song from that album (title track, in fact). Then, there's Kantner tonight being interviewed. It's almost over, the interview. But I'll try to remember to check tomorrow to see if it's archived (I know Susan wil want to listen). Kantner fans, Slick fans, Airplane fans, CSN fans, Dead fans, and those who know the Bully Boy has no brain will all enjoy the interview. The program is Dead to the World. It archives here and it airs Wednesday nights on Pacifica's KPFA.
Jefferson Airplane will be performing October 29th, Saturday at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater. Consider that a heads up. That was just noted at the end of the interview and I'm looking online to see if I can find any details. Okay, click here. They use "Jefferson Starship" but Kantner said "Airplane." I have no idea of the line up. The official Jefferson Airplane site doesn't have any details about the gig yet.
I'm not in much of a mood to write anything but I didn't have time last night and I don't want anyone to worry that there's a new pattern of non-posting at night. I was ready two hours ago (ready to do an entry) but after answering the e-mails and talking, I'm pretty much empty (on the subject of Harriet Miers) so we'll do a post about music.
Mike had a really strong entry Monday on music entitled "Sniper killed journalist, recruiting & music." The gist of it (if you haven't yet read it) is that this is no time for wasting time (and money) on "artists" who seem to suffer from Paul McCartney disease ("Silly Love Songs"). If you have strong convictions on the invasion/occupation and you're jawing everyone's ear off about them, don't turn around and put an album that has about as much to do with the reality of today as the "great romance" of Harriet Miers and her phone chum. A bunch of nothing little ditties may pad the bank account but don't kid yourself that you're making a contribution.
You're not. You're looking like a chicken and it is being noted. Take the "I'm domesticated and in love" nonsense we discussed last week. She's embarrassed among her peers. No one wants to hear one word from her in a private conversation about the invasion/occupation because she put out that crappy CD and did nothing but go on and on about her increasingly mundane life. Then she thinks she can giggle through interviews and come back to friends who are dead set opposed to the invasion/occupation and start talking about how wrong it is?
She should have put up. She didn't. Now people just want her to shut up.
She came off like a coward (a coward interested in the easiest way to make money). And let's face it, she's not fresh faced anymore. These are the times for which she will be judged, this is when she could leave a mark beyond her B-grade albums. But she chose not to. Didn't want to be slagged the way she was for having "peace" on her guitar strap.
So when she's blathering on now about Dylan's "Masters of War" and how deep and true it is (,"man,") no one wants to hear it. She's made herself a laughing stock. All her tough talk about how she's going to make a statement, then she goes into the studio (forever) and puts out that junk? No one wants to put up with her nonsense.
She could have participated in the dialogue, she could have done her part. She didn't. And she doesn't in those dumb interviews that are offensive not just because she leaves her views on the invasion/occupation unexpressed but also because "tough chick" is coming on like "the littlest Nixon" (Tricia). It would be like turning on the TV to find Gloria Steinem talking about how exiciting it was to wash out her "old man"'s underwear.
Her one claim to fame was she was a strong female. (It certainly wasn't the squeaky, cracky voice or her really bad lyrics or her "borrowing" music from classic rock songs written by others.) She's gone from Lillith Fair to "just another dull homebody who reads Good Housekeeping."
The make over may work for her (for this album) but it's disgusting and she's destroyed her own name. Fans may buy into her new image, but she's destroyed her name. She wasn't a huge talent to begin with but a lot of the excitement (in the past) over her had to do with the fact that she was a strong woman. Now that she wants to (willingly) play Victim of the Backlash, people are just sick of her. It's as though Chrissie Hynde were pulling a Pat Benetar and turning her career over to some guy she was sleeping with.
The latest album would have been embarrassing if it had come out under Clinton but it's even more so now due to the state of the world. As she goes weak in the knees (and mind), people are trashing her much worse than anything I've noted here. It's her own fault. She's over forty and she wants to play "the little woman" without a thought in her increasingly blond head.
Green Day, Bright Eyes, Rolling Stones, Joan Baez, and a host of others have found a way to add something to the national dialogue. She just wants to play "Aren't I pretty?" and "I'm just a girl looking at a boy" (which didn't work in Notting Hill). There is no album for her after this, no successful one. You don't come back from this kind of embarrassment.
When she wants to start another festival celebrating women (or womyn), the attitude will be, "Uh, did you check first with your fellow to make sure he approves?" When she tries to bore people with her thoughts on the invasion/occupation, the attitude is, "Tough talk from Ms. Silence."
She wants to be Dylan or Clapton but she doesn't have the chops. And now, when she could have made a statement of some sort, she has nothing to say but breathless gushing (in interviews) about Lance and stupid "love" songs that would be embarrasing coming from a woman half her age.
There are people who hope that if nothing else, she'll serve as an example to private bravery that runs coward publicly. But it's over for her, she's made herself useless. After years of speaking of the importance of music (backed up with weak songs), she now finds herself in the sort of period that led to the song writing Dylan's still known for and all she had on her mind was a bunch of lame ass songs about her "man."
A real artist, Carly Simon for instance, could do a personal album and do it with honesty. She's become the musical equivalent to Jerry Bruckenheimer -- she just wants you to feel good! (She really just wants your money. This is such a craven act of desperation that it doesn't result in a modicum of sympathy.)
At forty-plus, she's done an album that would be embarrassing coming from a nineteen-year-old. If she'd shown any bravery and written a song that reflected her own private conversations (even a bad song), she'd have a footnote in history. Even if the album bombed. But instead, she wanted to churn out product and long term fans should be insulted that this is the sort of thing, the only sort of thing, she thinks they can handle.
Conventional songs (bad ones at that) do not speak to the times. But she's still tossing out Dylan's name in interviews and every time she does, people burst into laughter. She doesn't have it in her to aspire to Dylan. Mick Jagger's making comments about Harriet Miers onstage and she can't even weigh in with a comment about a war she can't shut up (in private) about how opposed she is to it?
It doesn't cut it. And I hope people who are saying that she's so disgraced herself she'll serve as an example of others (in a what not to do way) are right. We don't need anymore crap in the world. There's more than enough mindless crap on TV, on the radio, in "books," you name it.
If I'm biting my tongue it's only because I know of the entry Kat lost last Friday and I don't want to borrow from that and steal Kat's thunder.
In Kat's first review for this site, she noted that it was time to draw a line. I agreed with Kat but I had no idea that the non-artist (who was so full of talk about the album that ended up being such a nothing) would put herself on other side of the line.
But if you make yourself useless then it's your own fault. Last week's product moved "units" and the woman is really "psyched" about that. She should worry more about the destruction she's done to her own image.
