Z is for Zanzibar

Z is for Zanzibar

“The two men exchanged pleasantries then Wittaya quickly drilled to the core.

‘What happened on the Albany?’

Wittaya pictured Cassidy’s face during the brief pause before he answered. ‘Was it a mistake? Did someone do something wrong? Is that what you want to know?’

‘Don’t play @#$%ing games with me Cassidy. I need more than what I am getting from Admiral Masters. I’m getting the feeling that the Navy is closing ranks on this one.’

‘I’m meeting with Masters this morning, and I’ll be looking for more answers than I got yesterday.’

‘Why didn’t you stay and press him?’

‘I had personal business to attend to in Canberra.’

‘Personal business? For @#$% sake. We don’t have the luxury of personal business. This is serious. You understand that don’t you?’”

from chapter 3, Ashmore Grief

For my final 2014 A-Z Blogging Challenge post, I will make my greatest leap. Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar. I have loved Queen forever. They are one of the all time great rock bands, and the man behind the mike and tinkling the ivories, Freddie Mercury, is one of the all time great rock singers. I read Leslie-Anne Jones definitive biography of this rock legend, and I was appalled by the man behind the music. It is no exaggeration to say that I seriously contemplated ditching Queen from my playlist. Wisely, I overcame that extreme initial reaction and I still enjoy their wonderful and unique sounds.

It did make me think about the divide between the professional and personal lives of superstars of music, movies and sport, and from there to thinking about politicians, and regular everyday low profile people like you and me. Is it a question of integrity? Do those who entertain me, inspire me in some way, or even lead me in a political sense have to be perfect people? Of course not, there are no perfect people. This is a vexed issue which cannot be dealt with in a blog post.

What, you may ask, is the connection to my novel Ashmore Grief? The characters in the book all have personal and professional personas. Readers will know more about them than many of the other characters in the novel with whom they interact. Most of us have public personas which may or may not align with our personal lives. Do you?

Photo source

www.telegraph.co.uk

Sell Out or Die

Byron Bay metalcore band, Parkway Drive, headlined a show at the Hordern Pavillion in Sydney back in September 2010. That gig was sold out. People wanting tickets on the night, at the door, couldn't buy any. Parkway Drive have been accused of selling out in another way. Some people say they make music to make money. (There's something wrong with that?)In other words, making more popular, commercially viable music in order to make more money.

This accusation is nothing new. Throughout the history of popular music, bands and solo artists have had their integrity questioned by alleged fans and music lovers whenever they have, in the artists' own words, "changed" musical direction.

Recently I watched Australian hard rock band Grinspoon perform. Grinspoon started their musical journey as a hardcore post grunge band but over the years they have developed into a more mainstream rock act. Some people don't like that they've changed. They are angered by the irony of Grinspoon performing a cover of INXS Don't Change. But what's wrong with a band growing, even changing their style? Writing and playing music requires creative force. Why should Grinspoon, for example, keep writing the same style of song about the same subject matter? People change and mature, so why wouldn't their music reflect that? What's wrong with a band trying to attract new fans to their music by writing a few radio friendly songs here and there? Or even all over the place?

Payable on Death is another band which began as a punk band in the early nineties and over time developed a style of their own with elements of reggae, hardcore, rock and rap all fused together. Some people say the old POD was better, and they wished they still rocked like they did back in the day.

Fans of groups like POD, Parkway Drive and Grinspoon (like me) love what they do. They have opinions about songs and albums they like better than other songs or albums, of course, but they follow the band. They grow with the band. If you start rocking with a band when you're a teenager, and they are a bunch of teenagers then the connection is solid, but you don't want your fave band singing about teenage angst and pimples when they, and you, are in their thirties or forties. Being a fan means liking the way the band does business. If your favourite band wants to go on writing new music and experimenting, or if they want to carry on producing the same beast in different clothes, then it's all good. If they want to start writing songs about the environment instead of songs about getting wasted at parties, then good luck to them. When interviewed about the band's last release, When Angels and Serpents Dance, Sonny Sandoval from POD admitted that they were no longer a bunch of kids playing punk in the garage. There's no selling out here. True fans know it. The critics can rack off and listen to something else.

What about bands who deliberately write songs to achieve, and then to maintain popularity? Nickleback comes to mind. They smashed into the mainstream with Silver Side Up and the modern classic single, How You Remind Me. They followed that CD with two more just like it, and fans lapped it up. Dark Horse was their last release and it was less popular than the previous three because it was different. Was Nickleback selling out with Dark Horse, or trying to return to their hard rock Metallica inspired roots? Speaking of Metallica, they are another band who have been accused of selling out and going soft, but they are rightly numbered among the great bands of all time, and Death Magnetic proves they are true masters of heavy metal.

What about stars who burn brightly for a short time? What would Jimi Hendrix have been playing had he survived the sixties? Would Nirvana have developed into the Foo Fighters even if Kurt Cobain had not killed himself? What might Jim Morrison have written songs about had he made it through the muddy swamp of drug addiction as Phil Jamieson of Grinspoon did? What do Hendrix, Cobain and Morrison have in common? They didn't grow up. They didn't live to go on writing great music. They killed themselves before they had time to mature as people and as artists. Maybe they had nothing left. Maybe they were afraid of being popular. Who knows?

Hate a particular band and their music if you must, but don't waste your breath on pathetic self righteous judgements about them "selling out". They don't care and neither do their fans.

Cultural Snobbery

There is something I don't understand, something that troubles, even annoys me. Why is it that people have to condemn as worthless the things they don't like. By all means, voice your opinion, and justify your view with criticism by why write it off altogether especially when you know full well that somebody else actually likes it.What am I on about? Read on.

I'm reading a book called "A World Without Heroes" written by George Roche. It's a book of philosophy, if you like that sort of thing, from a Christian point of view. I happen to agree with the author's world view for the most part until he comes up with stuff like this;

Talking about modern music, "...the jungle throb and infected themes of rock (music)..." So we know he doesn't like rock music and then this, "The simplest, most accurate statement of our arts is that we no longer have any. Virtually all of our best theatrical repertoire, our art, our music, our ballet, our architecture, our sculpture, our literature, is a century old and often far older...we make no art. We make daubs and junk and boxy buildings and screeches." I don't have time or space to quote more extensively, but how about this to finish, "the ghastly sounds which bombard us in this music starved age."

Let's focus on music. Many people think that the only good music is the music they like. A radio announcer I regularly listen to, always talks about how they don't make music like they used to in the 1960s and 70s. Nobody writes great songs anymore apparently. Some people enjoy listening to opera which is often sung in a foreign language and then bag heavy metal music because they say you can't understand what they are singing about. Other people criticize heavy metal because they say its monotonous but they get off on dance music. Can you tell I'm a heavy metal fan?

Bruce Dickinson is lead singer of the hugely successful heavy metal band, Iron Maiden. Bruce has arguably one of the finest voices in his genre. A classically trained opera singer who according to some cultural snobs probably crossed over to the dark side when he joined Iron Maiden. Some of the world's finest musicians, singers and songwriters have entertained us through heavy metal music.

Anyway, this was not intended to be a defense of heavy metal.

The high culture/low culture divide is an artificial distinction. Why should ballet be considered high culture and breakdancing low. Why should classical music be above rock music? Why should so called literary writing be deemed superior to so called pulp fiction? I do not accept Roche's assertion that good art, in all its forms is no longer being produced. That modern art, music and literature is rubbish. The question of what makes good art, is and always has been entirely subjective, and its not determined by popularity contests either.

Only God knows how much time we have left but I reckon Metallica's song Enter Sandman is a classic and perhaps in the future it will be recognized more widely as such. On par with Beethoven's 5th.

I guess the point of this rambling, disorganized babble is that I believe you don't have to like something to recognize that it is good, (in other words that someone else likes it.)

What is the best music genre?
	Pop
	Country
	Classical
	Rock
	hip hop/R & B
	Opera
	Heavy Metal
	None of the above. It's a matter of opnion.
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