must have been all that mahler and wagner.

but let's face it, a lot of music is shit. it's the most expendable art form. you don't have to be a genius to create it these days, and you definitely don't have to be talented to be successfully marketed. it's too bad, christina aguilera has a really nice voice, and her talents could be used much better in either a more experimental genre, or old skool blues. skinny little white girls probably shouldn't sing the blues as much as they do though. maybe she could be on stage with some old black guy singing the blues, and in a a fit of rage the guy could lash out at her like she's the master's daughter or something. i don't know. i'm all about poetic justice, in it's most absurd setting i guess. but violence isn't cool. maybe he'd spit on her new shoes, or make some lewd yet witty and ironic comment about her cotton panties.

i worried once that it isn't jazz so much that's pissing me off, but the freedom of expression, etc... but i learned pretty quickly that that's not true. freedom of expression is far more evident in contemporary classical, experimental, noise, minimalism, avant garde, etc... jazz is not free. jazz is a look, a sound, a style that sticks to super pretentious standards, (at least the jazz i was versed most in at Hartt) and worst of all long fucking boring as snot solos . at the hartt school we were forced to sit through an hour and a half every thursday in "musicianship" class, or as it quickly became known as "musician-skip", becuase if you had any common sense on the matter, you wouldn't waste you or the performer's time suffering through a concert that you wouldn't go to unless someone made you. yeah, sure, it's great to support your peers and fellow students, but come on, you can't force people to do that! you just create musicians like myself. anyway, whenever my department, composition, would have their thursday, the audience would groan (except the percussionists, of course) - 'oh shit, here come the weirdos, what are the psychotic freaks going to do today? another smashed amp? smashed guitar? smashed records? smashed umbrellas? yeah, composers like smashing things. especially things that represent conventions. like Fender Stratocasters, amplifiers and rock and roll. when the vocalists were presenting, it was another snore fest for most, because who wants to hear opera at 1130 AM on a thursday? oh, but when it was the jazz department's time to present, look out - it was like the crowned king and queen of prom night were stepping forward to allow the peasants to be so greatfully shat on. fuck jazz. it pissed me off. everybody thought it was so great, because they were afraid of the possible reprocussions of being called a racist, if god forbid, someone didn't enjoy the most "diverse" department at the Hartt school. bullocks. great bolshy bullocks, they are. my friends and i didn't buy into it. the solos, which ordinarily were painful to sit through, were especially painful because they were student solos. anyway, i could at the time appreciate jazz. that wasn't too hard. i was in love with zappa at the time, so it didn't seem that hard to appreciate solo lines, and pick out the melodies. doing musical math - maybe that's what got me through the 18 minute power solos of these novice douchebags. so constrained and tied down to the image, the image of them trying their best to impress their elder professors. what a bunch of bullshit. ok, i just fell aslepp for a seond.....maybe i'll continue this later, if the mood strikes me.

"jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" - F. Zappa

sounddoc