Luckily today’s kids just aren’t into music they way we Baby Boomers were. Why is that? I’ll tell you why. When my son was little he saw these commercials for the Red Lobster restaurant’s Lobster Fest and he decided he wanted lobster for dinner. Well, I had to nip this in the bud, I didn’t need him developing any expensive tastes, so I took him to Dennys, ordered the liver and onions and told him it was lobster. This is basically what’s happened to rock and roll over the last twenty years. Madonna is called a rock star, Prince is a rock star, even Michael Jackson wanted to be called The King of Rock. He had to settle for The King of Pop because, come on, enough’s enough. But these days everyone is called a Rock Star even if they do country music or R & B or even Rap.
What’s worse is how the very term, Rock & Roll, has been high jacked in movies to mean acts of violence. Governor Schwarzenegger straps on his fifty caliber machine gun and his hand grenades and says, “Let’s Rock and Roll”. That’s just wrong.
Part of the problem is that the music business has turned up-side down. It used to be the business of the music business was to sell music to the fans. Now the music business sells business to the musicians. I was talking to a guy in a band who was going to play the Whiskey in Hollywood. I was pretty impressed. The Whiskey is famous, you’d have to be pretty good to play there. I thought maybe I’d go see his band and I asked him how much it cost.
He said, “four hundred dollars”.
“Four hundred dollars for a ticket to the Whiskey?!”
“Oh, no, “ he said. “They charge the band four hundred dollars.”
They don’t even have to audition. Anyone with four hundred dollars can play the club. I can stroll into the Sound Arena Rehearsal Studio in Van Nuys and hear the same bands that play the Whiskey for free. They don’t have a bar, though. So, I asked him how late his band plays and he said, “about a half a beat behind the drummer.”
It used to be being a musician was special, I mean, they even called them Rock Gods.Now they make jokes about being a musician; How can you tell when a drummer is at your door? The knocking speeds up. How can you tell when a the singer is at your door? He can't find the key and doesn't know when to come in. What do you call a guy who doesn't play a musical instrument but hangs around with musicians? A drummer. What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend? Homeless. Seriously, can you even think of another profession that has as many jokes about it? Well, maybe lawyers, especially music business attorneys.
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