January 28, 2009

I was listening to Attack In Black in the car the other days and pondering just how it happened that I completely ‘missed’ their fantastic Marriage album upon first listen… How it glided by me in a flurry of new music and how I dismissed it so quickly upon release thus robbing myself of many months of extended appreciation.

And then, in a dismissive huff I decided that the music industry was to blame. There is so much damn music out there, and so much of it is shit, that it seems inevitable that we become jaded to the point where we’re dismissing bands based upon band name, country of origin, appearance, anything. The sheer volume of bands out there, especially ones that are lumped into the punk/hardcore category ensures that the good stuff, the truly talented bands creating something unique get lost in a shitstorm (literally and figuratively speaking) of clueless ensembles throwing their hat in the ring for fame and fortune.

Stuck in brutal traffic my logical conclusion to this problem was to start placing taxes on labels signing bands- fees, if you will- to ensure that the band is certainly one worth investing in, and the music, truly worthy of entering the global musical soundscape. It seems a crappy solution but with the US government’s suggestion that iTunes start being taxed it seems about time we benefit from the throwing around of nonsensical tax laws. Surely that would stop anyone from staking any interest in such musical abominations as Town Hall Steps whom I heard on Nova the other day. I can only hope this horrible Panic At The Disco cover band returns to whichever two bit Irish pub they came from and disappear amongst the theatrical fog, disco lights and jiggling muffin tops back into obscurity. More power to bands who produce music and lyrics like Attack In Black. With that I leave you with ‘Northern Towns”.

Behold:
Make it so the handsome way of what never was turns to overcast what has become so away with that which makes a moment so discreet we hesitate, ashamed to really laugh or really weep maybe man is worth the weight of what his eyes have seen maybe there's a branch of wonder left here to believe there are places with horizons above a level ground a man's as much as the love he leaves behind in northern towns make it so what makes us mindful without reprimand fall behind the eyes of every man if the story of our lives becomes our sufferings penned and left begin to recount every time you ever really wept