Kids, learn to play an instrument

I read an article about Dave Grohl in the Delta Sky magazine while on a recent trip.  He gave what I personally believe to be the best, and most relevant advice to any aspiring musician when he said go to a yard sale, get a $30 set of drums, bring your friends over to jam in your garage and have fun completely sucking. 

That, is how great music is created.  Lars Ulrich, before kicking off a little known upstart garage band in LA first committed to coming up with a track for a compilation album (Metal Massacre).  He then proceeded to learn how to play and then put a band together.  His recording was turned in literally at the very last second, and that is how the story of the biggest heavy metal band of all times begins.  Their lead guitarist made his first amplifier out of a shoe box. 

How great music is not created is by talented kids wanting to 'get it right' career wise.  But that's what we have today.  The corporate entertainment industry has all of the talent of tomorrow convinced that what you need to do in order to do what you love is wait in line for 8 hours with 500 other wannabes outside a warehouse just to get a 2 minute audition in said warehouse where you are praised or berated by a bunch of celebrities who have very questionable taste in music.  And that, my friends; is destroying our ability to create anything good.  Good is being replaced with what makes money. 

"But Steve!" you say.  "If it weren't good, it wouldn't make money!"  Au contraire.  There are plenty of examples of quality diminishment in our society where economic viability has not been impacted.  Does anybody remember the NBA in the 1990s?  The NBA on NBC, with it's instantly recognizable theme (albeit written by the ever douchey John Tesh) was an immediate indicator that you were in for a great show of talent among some of the greatest ever to play the game.  There was Bird, Magic, the Mailman, Isiah, Sir Charles, Clyde the glide, Patrick, and that one guy that they named the Nike shoes after. Nobody has had to lace up against a literal 'Who's Who' of basketball hall of fame talent all playing in the same era since Michael retired in 1998. 

But the NBA crapfully lives on presenting an inferior product to the NCAA every year without going bankrupt, and without any desire to bring the 90's level of play back.  Of course LeBron and the Heat are putting up impressive stats these days, but put them in the previously mentioned era and the Heat would be a competent contender, not the dominant powerhouse you see right now. 

Nothing illustrates the cavern between quality and economic viability more than art.  Listen to the teen pop star of your choice.  Pick a hit song, any one of them.  Listen to it.  Listen to it again just to make sure you've absorbed it.  Now listen to 3 Days by Jane's Addiction.  I don't care about the subject matter of either song for purposes of this example. 

3 Days is the song that:

1. an aspiring artist studies
2. a real artist wants to write
3. an accomplished artist wishes they wrote
4. a band like Evanescence thinks they write all the time but doesn't have the ability to comprehend why they don't even come close (remember, these are the folks that made Mozart 'cool' by turning the Requiem into a song about teenage love angst)
5. the pop-star you listened to prior doesn't have the musical capacity to understand nor the dedication to attempt such a level of depth and granularity

Nobody will be performing 3 Days on the next episode of "America's Got Karaoke Voice Idols."

So kids, listen to uncle Dave.  Turn off the TV, scrape under the couch and pounce on that beat up Gibson with 3 missing strings in the classified ads.  Head to your friends garage and jam like there is no tomorrow.  And if you can't do that, just learn to play.  And have fun.