Fuck it, here's a new one (by popular demand!)

Those of you who know me are fully aware of how much I like music. Those who don't but who read the last entry can probably divine that I have at least a passing fondness for it. And those who fit neither category should man up and read the other entries, there's hardly a lot.

But for the sake of moving this current one along, let it here be said that I am a devout believer in the true Trinity, that of course being the one consisting of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And when you factor in the price and illegality of one of those, and the...infrequent presence in my life of another, we're left with the music end of things being the most prominent and faithful of those big three elements in my life.

This is why it pisses me off when I hear assholes bitching about the lack of good new music being produced today. Said assholes, who seem to make up a fairly sizable portion of our population, annoy me on two levels. One, they are blatantly wrong, yet flap their lips on the matter whenever music is mentioned like they're some kind of righteous prophets doing the rest of us some great service by pissing and moaning about how they haven't been able to get into anything since REO Speedwagon's heyday. Two, and this is a big one - they're insulting my taste. And that just does not float.

Don't get me wrong. I understand if you're past a certain age, particularly if you're archaic enough to have come of age prior to the arrival of rock and roll and pop music as a whole in the mid-50s. You are then entitled to bitch all you want about how rock and roll is noise pollution and hip hop is just black people talking about killing each other over clicks and whistles. But then again, if you are that old, you are entitled - no, expected - to bitch about a lot more then just that, and it's ok to be similarly wrong about all of it. Should I make it to such an unfortunate age...well, watch out.

I also am alright with people who aren't really passionate about music to the point where they feel the need to seek out new songs and sounds to entertain themselves. I probably don't want to be particularly close friends with these folks, as they likely suck, but given one golden rule, I don't begrudge them this. If you're content with replaying one era or decade or whatever of music over and over and over again for the rest of your life, then hey, fine. The golden rule here, of course, is that you either be happy with it or keep the fuck quiet about it.

See, there are those that fit that description to a t, and they're at one with their laziness and lack of any sense of adventure. Cool. But there are so many, I'm tempted to say so many more, who act as though they're like some awful town crier tasked with informing us all how much music has shit the bed since, alternately, the 70s, 80s, or mid-90s. I assume there are probably some who make similar cases for things going south after the early turn of this last century, but their opinion was never valid to begin and this is as such the last mention of them I will make.

But the others, they fucking get me every time. And while you might be thinking "Well, I dunno Karl, it's just their opinions, opinions can't be wrong," YOU would here be wrong. And not just in the belligerent way that I might otherwise say "Nope, these opinions ARE wrong", but in that this variety of anti-new-music verbal diarrhea does not in fact constitute an opinion to begin with. Rather, it is pure and utter laziness given voice, and what a whiny, messy-fart sounding voice it is. See, opinions are formed when a person experiences something and decides, based on their own preferences, personal history, etc, what they think of what it was they just experienced.

But these people with chips on their dicks about how the last 10 or more years have been void of anything worth listening to haven't actually listened to any of the music they're lumping together as being so awful. They're just assuming because MTV stopped playing videos or the record industry is dying and can't force new music on them the way it used to that nothing worth while is being released or recorded. But they would know if they actually tried to find something to their liking that this is hardly true, and there is tons of new stuff worth checking out, whether it's from new acts picking up where their favorites left off, new acts playing exactly the same kind of thing their favorites played, or their favorites still putting out music, some of which is even good.

The record industry's slow and painful demise may have made it harder to get the word out about new music, but at the same time, it's made it that much easier to find music that is tailored EXACTLY to what you might like. All that takes is a tiny, minuscule modicum of effort, and *boom!* no more need to bitch. But no, these shit stains wouldn't dream of that...because then they couldn't bitch. It would invalidate their entire stance on music, a stance they have probably been carrying around without change for years and years of spewing hot air about it towards anyone who will listen. And hey, who wants to find new music to enjoy when you could just continue to pretend you've been right all along?

Let's play a really simple little game here. See, I'm sure that people of all races, creeds, genders, orientations, etc are all guilty of the crime in question, but let's face it - by far the most vocal are aging white males. Maybe they're fat, balding old rednecks who've never gotten over the dude from Skynard crashing and burning thirty-plus years ago. Maybe they're soulless Patrick Bateman-type 80s fucks who got salty when the underground broke big and made way for sincere music to take the charts back when the 90s came on. Maybe they're some late-20-something metalhead fuck who still lives with their parents and wears all black to match their long, died black, unwashed hair and compliment their body odor. It's all the same in the end, and I bet damn well that you know these people. I will thus stick to stuff they might bring up in this game.

See, no matter what you claim to like, music has not moved so far away that it would even be hard to find a modern analog or keeper of your particular flame.

You like Neil Young? Then I find it hard to believe that between bands like Built to Spill, Wilco, and My Morning Jacket (all very different bands) you can't find anything you like.

More avant garde and into Zappa and Beefheart? Why not check out Man Man or Ween?

Pogues fan? Gogol Bordello are also raucous old-country-Europe sounding lunatics.

The Band? Dr. Dog.

Springsteen? Shit, half of the bands who've released albums in the last two years are either aping or integrating Springsteen - the second Arcade Fire album, the Killers, the Gaslight Anthem, the Hold Steady, you name it.

Punk and metal were never in-style to begin with, so they will never go out of style. You will always be able to find somebody somewhere playing the variety of those two styles of music you like. Don't even pretend otherwise.

And jam bands almost never put out good studio albums to begin with, so nothing's changed there either.

Wait a minute though - what if you like really shitty old music? Fear not, my un-friend, there is still hope for you as well.

Perhaps you liked disco? Well you probably only liked it because you were doing mounds of cocaine, which is still readily available today to help you like shit you shouldn't. Not only that, but disco is totally in - even the once-chorophobic (that's fear of dancing, kids) hipsters now love nothing more than going out and shaking their skinny asses to disco-fashioned music.

Did you like grunge-latecomers like Bush and Candlebox but just feel they were a little too good and authentic? Nickleback has been robbing dumbasses like you blind for like a decade now!

Are you the guy I mentioned earlier who can't get over Skynard, no matter how many Budweisers you guzzle? Go listen to Widespread Panic or Kings of Leon.

Bloodhound Gang? Asher Roth.

And shed not a tear, fans of Journey, Styx, and Foreigner - so long as there is enough money to rent a studio with a decent soundboard, there will always be over-produced sentimental horseshit to sing along to come 1:55 AM. Coldplay wants to be that for you so bad they can taste the sheer bloated flatulence of it all.

Finally, if you're really such a stubborn bastard that you just can't fathom discovering a new band, consider the possibility that maybe you shouldn't just go to see your favorite old band and immediately yell out their biggest, most cliched hit two minutes into the show. Maybe, just maybe, an act or two that you used to like is still worth a damn later into their career. Tom Petty was still cranking awesome shit out all through the 90s - Wildflowers came out like 17 years into his career and had 3 or 4 legitimate hits and everything. Tom Waits didn't even really get good until ten years in and has never looked back since. The Flaming Lips similarly took years to peak. Hell, 90s fans half an almost 50/50 chance that their bands are still dropping good if not peak material (let me hear apologize to fans of the Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Cornell/Soundgarden, Weezer, etc). But just like dumbasses out there will never consider the possibility that Hello Nasty is a better Beastie Boys album than their debut Liscensed to Ill from like 13 years earlier because they heard Licensed first, most of the people I'm talking to here by referencing bands they probably don't like will anyway never give any of this a try or second thought.

Because they're shitheads. And they would much rather cry like bitches about problems that only exist in their heads than be happy with the ability to add some variety into their morose, repetitive, boring lives. "Don't rock the boat" and all that. Because that might call into question just how great the "good old days" they associate with these tired old songs actually were, and make them realize that it's probably been a decade or two since they made any kind of forward progress anywhere else in their life - musical habits are often a pretty solid early indicator for other habits and tendencies one will develop in life - finding new music is joyful and life-affirming; giving up on the pursuit of it is almost an early warning sign that you're also giving up on the pursuit of joy and adventure. Like in American Beauty (even if he listens to Jethro Tull when he gets his edge back, and they kinda suck). So when you're bitching about how all this shit today is garbage, you're really telling me that you hate your life and are a used up shell of your former self.

Well shit, now I feel bad for just ragging on the poor bastards for so long. But Hell, I probably lost all but the music geeks somewhere around name-checking Captain Beefheart, so no biggie I suppose. Hey, you guys were the ones who wanted me to crank one of these out.

* Disclaimer - not all of the bands I mention in "good" paragraphs are good and some of the bands I reference for shitty bands are better than their predecessors. I'll let you guess who I'm talking about...or choose not to. Also, these are obviously just some of the easier, more sound-alike analogs for the sake of keeping this somewhat shorter than Moby Dick.