CONNECT:
Virtuosos virtually vanishing
Written by Adrian Walter Monday, 28 December 2009 17:25
Music, by nature, changes.
As do people, generations and taste. However, I am still trying to decide if I am aging (which I most certainly am a victim of the inevitable as we all are), and thus becoming “crotchety”… a guy who is more akin to yell “Hey, you kids get outta my yard!” than to listen to current Billboard Top 40 Hits.
Let me tell you now, that I keep up. I am an NPR junkie who listens to Rice University radio as well as our local Pacifica station, and Houston’s 97.5 KTBZ (alternative), 97.9 KTBX (rap, R&B) and 104.1 KRBE (Top 40). As a result, what I have seen and heard since 1990 is a virtual lack of virtuosity in music.
It used to be every band or ensemble had killer harmonies (Yes, Extreme, Boys II Men, En Vogue, Destiny’s Child), or an untouchable drummer, or a shredding guitarist, or an off-the-chain bass player. There were 32 to 64-bar solos inherent in a single record…. But those days are gone. They (the Artists) were taken over by book, dime and stinker (multi-level marketing signed artists to make money—mostly for the label).
Don’t get me wrong, I was in the mosh pit when Pearl Jam played “Alive” while tripping on LSD at Lollapalooza with Soundgarden as headlined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while stagehands hosed down the pit with water so we wouldn’t die of heat stroke. I will never forget that time in my life. The music and experience moves me even through memory.
But I miss the bad-ass. The bands that had the virtuoso, the guitars of Van Halen, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, The Scorpions, Def Leppard, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Dio, AC-DC, Led Zeppelin, Whitesnake, Metallica, Guns 'N' Roses, Aerosmith and the others who had the very spine of tunes broken by their guitarist axe-masters.
And what about drummers, say you? From Rush’s Neil Peart, to Alex Van Halen to Charlie Watts and John Bonham, to Tommy Lee and Blink 182’s Travis Barker. Each artist had their time in the sun, proving their moxie time and again in a live performance.
Or even the bassists, like Geddy Lee of Rush, or Flea, or the driving force behind Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, with Alex Griffin on lead bass Matt Cheslin doubling bass guitar in a cacophony of jaw-dropping, balls-humming melodies reverberating in our collective colon.
You will have to forgive the prevalence of “older acts,” included in my lists, but therein lays my point. Virtuosity and musicianship have taken a back seat in today’s “sell now while the getting’s good—we’re in the McDonald’s Pimple Cream Commercial,” world. Bagpipes, as of right NOW are very much NOT commercial.
Hip-hop has also dominated the vocals, from Beastie Boys and DMX to Dido, to Eminem to Jay-Z to Nelly Furtado and Kanye West to engineers coming to the fore making the artists sound better than they even can… enter Timbaland, Moby, Brian Eno, Dr. Dre, Mike Dean, Daniel Lanois and Paul Oakenfold to name a few…. These are the vocal and engineering “virtuosos” of our time, yet there are gaps that can be found in their faster-than-a-speeding-bullet editing, reverb-heavy imagery and over-produced audio soundscape that steals from the ancestors who came before them. In short, don’t just sample world SH*T… be it. Be it. BE IT!
While the beats of Hip-hop have an indigenous basis in Middle Eastern and African rhythms that have lasted hundreds of years, “there is nothing new under the sun,” to quote Ecclesiastes. The old modes become new again, and Tartanic’s sound reverberates through ancient traditions, while embracing that je ne se quois of the ancient spirit, and presents music in a way that is very accessible way to our audiences be they 9 years of age, or 90 years of age. In short, Tartanic is timeless, motherf*CK%#R$!
© 2012 Tartanic LLC
Comments
Thank you for all that you do!
Oh yeah, just caught your show in Bristol, and loved every minute (damn but I love pipes and drums), and your CD's kept us awake all the way home to MN. Thanks!
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Also, should mention that whenever I try to refer to the term "Titanic," I almost invariably end up saying "Tartanic."
BUt youre correct - what is on the radio today, is NOT music - it is digitally enhanced trash. Forget Dave Matthews Band or Pearl Jam - they are yesterday's news. Today, we have Lady GAGA and Dr. Dre, who fill the heads of youth with crap unintelligible to human minds!
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