I don't know about the rest of the world, but in general I believe that music these days is a shadow of what it used to be. Call me a dinosaur if you will but being a musician myself, I can't help but miss all those acts of the 60's, 70's & 80's. They used to write so much then! Acts like
The Beatles,
Procol Harum,
Uriah Heep,
Led Zepellin,
The Who,
Yes,
Genesis,
The Police,
Bad Company,
Deep Purple,
Queen,
Pink Floyd,
Steely Dan,
Styx,
Rush,
Toto,
Journey ... etc! Gosh ... even in the 80's with the onset of the
'British Invasion' (when electronica was all the rage), you could still find quite a lot of substance in the music with acts like
Depeche Mode,
The Eurythmics,
Yazoo,
The Thompson Twins,
Ultravox,
Tears For Fears,
Madness,
Howard Jones,
Nik Kershaw,
Curiousity Killed The Cat,
Simple Minds,
U2,
Thomas Dolby ... the list goes on & on! Music then wasn't as formulaic as it is today (oh well, maybe there was a formula but a different one ... definitely a better one)! Songs weren't just written to
SELL but produced to evoke all kinds of emotions. Songs were written because the song writers almost always had an inherrant message and mood to convey.A musician friend told me that nowadays music is very 'minimalist' ... ha ha, whatever that means! Well it certainly evokes a minimal amount of interest from me.
It's also really sad what passes for
R & B,
Dance &
Rap music these days.Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I know the new generation has every right to their form of artistic expression and appreciation but come on ... what's happened to musical content??? A lot of them have forgotten what
R & B means. It's
Rythm & Blues as opposed to
R & D ... Research & Development, coz these days that is what it sounds like to me! They've also somehow managed to incorporate some form of porn into audio and video nowadays. Great to watch when your spouse is away but I personally think it would be better if one just rented a 'blue' movie. The 'action' sequences are a helluva lot better and some of them even have great background music! Give me music by
Earth Wind & Fire,
Kool & The Gang,
Tower Of Power,
James Brown,
Prince and definitely
Michael Jackson anytime. Ha ha ... I don't even want to talk about some of the other greats like
Rare Earth,
Average White Band,
Chic,
Rose Royce,
Aretha Franklin and
The Sugar Hill Gang <--------- (undoubtedly one of the best rap outfits ever!). Anyone reading this should go check out all these people ... trust me, you will come away from it with a wealth of musical experience. Of late, the only albums I really look forward to are ones by older acts trying to make a comeback, or acts that are still active in the scene.You should have seen the smile on my face when
Steely Dan released an album called
'Two Against Nature' in the new millenium.What a breath of fresh
'OLD' air ... and I was practically salivating when they did it again with
'Everything Must Go'. Thank you Mssrs.
Fagen and
Becker for the wonderful pool of cool music that I've been delving into all these years for ideas on composition & arrangement, and also just for simple listening pleasure! The two of you have made my drive to and from work so much more pleasurable. Hats off to you too Mr.
Robben Ford for getting back into the blues and infusing it with so much more. You to me are an inspiration to any working guitar player ... your sweet lines, sensible tones and incredible singing solos are an elixir in a world filled with new music that reeks of corporate stench! Dear Mssrs.
Lee,
Lifeson and
Peart, thank you so very much for 30 years of the greatest progressive rock and thank you even more for still doing it and better than anyone else!
Rush really does
ROCK!!!! I'm also really glad that Mr.
Mike Rutherford is keeping the torch aflame with both
Genesis and
Mike + The Mechanics!
Believe it or not ... I think one of the few genres of music that is actually still consistent is
Country & Western. I know a lot of you at this point are probably grimacing with hand on forehead ... ha ha ha. Well I was never a big
C & W fan before but performing almost all the time with Sherman Tan & Raymond Chia, literally two of the biggest
rednecks in Malaysia has altered my perception of it. I've still yet to grasp the mechanics of it's form of guitar playing but my appreciation of
C & W has grown tremendously thanks to Raymond constantly supplying me with an ample dose of listening material. I've come to love a whole lot the acts like
Dwight Yoakam,
Alan Jackson,
Alabama,
Albert Lee,
Vince Gill (no, he's not a banghra artist ... that's
Bob 'Dillon'! Ha ha ha ... sorry, it's a little private joke among us musicians here in Malaysia),
Allison Krauss + Union Station,
Garth Brooks,
George Strait,
Randy Travis and many more. The musicians who session for all these
C & W acts ... my goodness, simply
AWESOME!!! People like
Paul Franklin (that pedal steel guitar u hear on
Dire Straits 'Calling Elvis' track is him),
Mark O'Connor,
Brent Mason ... it's a really long list! Ha ha...so from this day forth, let me proudly come out of the closet and profess my affection for
Country & Western music.
It's really funny but as much as MTV has progressed these past 2 decades, I still feel the same way about the acts that appear on the tube. The video alone is just not good enough for me when the song has no substance! So I've resigned myself to the fact that it's going to be live concerts on DVD for me.Watched
AC/DC live at Donington the other day and they
ROCK!!! Good ole rock 'n' roll at its finest! I tried watching one of the newer rock bands (I shall not name names) and...well after 10 or 15 minutes, I switched to
AC/DC again! Watched a really excellent DVD the other day of
Procol Harum live at Old Chapel ... wow, what a band!Never thought of them as progressive but believe me, their music is out of this world!
Rush Live In Rio is another great concert ... still trying to get my hands on their other live DVD though ...
A Show Of Hands! I was never really a big
Eric Clapton fan before but over the years I've come to really appreciate the man. He's like good wine ... just getting better with age! His LIVE performances are absolutely brilliant and the
Crossroads Guitar Festival was a fine excuse to have a little guitar party all under one roof! Kudos to you Mr.
Clapton. I also watched
Yes do a live acoustic concert on DVD and they were absolutely brilliant. Mr.
Jon Anderson is still hitting those high notes effortlessly and the rest of the band are as sharp as ever! It was a real treat watching them treat some of the older suff acoustically!
Well I guess in a way, because of the stuff they're playing on the airwaves and showing on the tube now, I've actually been regressing when it comes to choosing what I want to
HEAR and what I want to
SEE. I'm actually moving backwards and discovering some of the older acts that I never really listened to then, giving them a chance and finding out that I really do enjoy their music. So maybe what's happenning now isn't such a bad thing! Whichever way you choose to look at it, it still comes back to what I've been saying ...
Screw what's New coz
Old is Gold! Ha ha ... or maybe my other musician friend was right after all when he said, "Gerard, maybe we're just growing old!" :o)
Gerard Singh
Hi everyone, this isn't what you'd call a standard blog entry ... but then again what is a standard blog entry? :o) I've just decided to share some links with all of you who have taken the trouble to check out my sites and blogs. We (BIG GAME) have posted a few short videos of ourselves performing at various places here and also in Singapore. For the moment it's all just covers but I think there may be a video of us performing our 2 original songs ('CALL ME' and 'DADDY'S LITTLE ASHTRAY') on the deathstar site ;
