I suppose this is to be a blog about music and me. Music and
movies and books and me. General thoughts on life, and me. It all comes back to me. And of course, my esteemed
colleague who will hopefully join us on this blog shortly (more on that later).
Considering I’ve laid out a very egotistical mission
statement for this blog, and started it out with three fragments, I’m off to a
rip-roaring start.
Normally this type of general interest blog starts with some
sort of manifesto. “Here’s why I’m writing! Here’s my goal for writing! Here is
a little bit about me!” *proceeds with 18 paragraphs about self*
I’m writing because I would like to write or speak for a
living someday, and blogging seems like the most reasonable practice facility
to hone at least part of that craft.
My goal for this blog is to still be writing it six months
from now. 85 percent of small businesses fail after one year. My guess is that
the success rate for blogs after one month is about the same. I started a
website just after graduating college for my friends and I to write, broadcast,
and photograph anything that piqued our interested. At our “peak,” we had a
dozen regular contributors and fresh content rolling in daily. By month six, we
had two writers and three-week lulls between new posts. Astonishingly, a
website with no direction and no way of incentivizing its writers didn’t last long.
As for “a little bit about me,” I hope whoever stumbles upon
this blog and reads on a semi-regular basis (I’m looking at you, half-dozen
family members and three unfortunate strangers) can paint a picture of the type
of person I am, or would like you to believe I am, based on what I write. If I
can’t communicate as much to you, I’m probably out of my element anyway.
I’ll do my best to be genuine and candid. And speaking of
being genuine and candid…
 |
| Segway! / Segue! |
This summer, I finally had a chance to see The GaslightAnthem live after two years of friends telling me how much I’d like them – and
two years of me nodding and saying “Yeah” with eyes glazed over. All I knew of
the band was their native state (New Jersey) and the most common musical idol
associated with their act (a fellow Jersey native whose name I will try to
exclude for the sake of standing out from the crowd).
Without having heard a single song of theirs more than once before,
I thoroughly enjoyed their set at the Orion Festival. The band packed an arena-ready sound into a tiny
ball of punk ferocity that showed even in their slower, stomping numbers. Due
to my awful hearing and our distance from the stage, it was difficult to
understand most of lead singer Brian Fallon’s lyrics, though I caught the word
“radio” once or 26 times.
A few weeks later, I was hooked on the noxious combination
of speed, power and dramatics that saturated the band’s discography to date,
Fallon’s throaty vocals matched by his affecting vignettes, Alex Rosamilla’s
simple-yet-effective guitar leads mixing up what would otherwise have made for
repetitive rhythm sections. While heartache by way of relationships constitutes
most of his inspiration (watching the taillights of his wife’s car as she leaves,
leaving a message for each of his ex-lovers with a friend should they come
calling, promising to buy his love a coastal home someday so "we can sleep on the beach all night,"), Fallon’s retro imagery and passionate delivery make even the
depressing seem kind of cool.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, then, to eventually read
reviews essentially accusing the band of being disingenuous, implying the
members don’t really feel the pain and bear the crosses their fans believe they
do. In a music market where spectacle often means playing a character on stage,
it was bound to happen. The band is compared so often to its idols that
anything they do is simply a carbon copy of those prior greats, not an original
work. (Some of those idols have received similar criticism to boot)
It’s a matter of perception, though. Today, public relations
representatives, record labels, pro sports teams and whoever else has a vested
interest in their image coach up all musicians and other public figures, even
those at the bottom of the barrel. It’s such a common criticism of pop culture
that even mentioning it is somewhat cliché.
Whether Brian Fallon and Co. truly feel the way they say
they do on their albums will likely never surface. Even at their most candid,
no musician who claims to put heart and soul into their craft will admit they
stopped caring (unless they’ve really, really stopped caring).
What matters is what listeners derive from what they have to
say, and the music they play. If you find Nicki Minaj’s schizophrenia speaks to
you on some level, whose place is it to tell you it shouldn’t? If If the
Gaslight Anthem fuzzes a few corners of their picture-perfect ‘50s blue-collar style,
is it really worth dissecting for someone who feels like they’ve been born in
the wrong decade?
This isn’t the equivalent of holding up a patriarchal figurewith a seamy side that put actual human beings in danger, or, as a lighter
example, Gotham City holding up Harvey “Two-Face” Dent as a symbol of justice.
It’s goddamn music. It means what you want it to mean.
I have a bad habit of reading every review I can about bands
I love. In some ways, it was as if I hoped to gain confirmation that no, I’m
not a lunkhead for liking what I do. I hope that, as I grow older, I shed this
insecurity. Particularly because there is no way to quantify earnestness and
sincerity, it’s up to the listener to derive as much earnestness and sincerity
from a song as they so please. Even if it’s something as simple as growing
nostalgic over a bland little lyric like “Do you miss her right now?”
Until next time, when I hopefully won't devote as many words as I did to such a basic concept...
-Matt
Until next time, when I hopefully won't devote as many words as I did to such a basic concept...
-Matt
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