The new Queen movie did a pretty darn nice job of capturing how bad ass it is to be in a Rock & Roll band in that moment when a song and a band is kicking so much f☆cking ass…and that joy is in a genuine circuit with a willing and participating audience.
A living. Breathing. Audience. (Shatner voice)
…a crowd of humans so enthralled they forget to look at their phones. In Queen’s hey day the audience had no phones. Because if they did they would have been tripping en masse over those thick coiled cables attached to the receivers. And imagine how stupid you would look in the late 1970s at a concert staring at your receiver.
I also love how the film cleverly embraced how much critics savaged the song “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as they were probably calling Lou Reed a great singer or something. There are no more music critics because there are no labels to feed them. But even though many Critics were often no talent ass clowns that could sort of write, I miss them.
I miss Rock & Roll. Tom Petty’s death struck a chord, because my generation is missing a couple hundred good bands.
I think movies like Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody touch this deep emotive nerve in our heart because there is a certain type of nostalgia, this feeling that something is missing, because Rock is definitely Dead.
…and Rock’ll be Dead tomorrow, as long as humans no longer buy music, and there remains nada; no radio gafa; no money to launch the careers of bands and get them out on tour.
That is how bands get better and have something worth writing about. Show after show, night after night.
10,000 hours, then 10,000 more.
Even the best Youtube tutorials cannot save Rock or its more funkier soulful predecessor, the goddamn Roll.
People tell me it is just different now. And then I tell them,
“Yes there used to be a lot money in music. But now there is just billions in selling phones that would just be bricks without music.”
Humans up until this century, bought and sold music, and this funded incredible pieces of music critics got paid to hate, like “Bohemian Rhapsody.” What would a band like Queen have recorded if their first hit song was worth a box of Hanes V neck T shirts?
Sure Rock & Roll of the so called classic era was sooooo over the top. There was so much money in Rock, Freddie Mercury could literally alpine ski through mounds of cocaine in his aviator glasses and speedo.
I am just talking today about enough money to travel around Western Europe in a van. Basic tour support. Bare bones.
If 1% of phone sales went directly to musicians playing LIVE to support new music on our phones, millions of musicians would have pretty nice jobs, and music would tranform our culture for the better. Again.
1%.
No greater showLong Time Music Writer Steve Stav Responds:
As a [what Davin described above as a] “no talent ass clown,” I often think of what it would be like to be a “successful” musician in today’s climes… I don’t think I would tour, if I could afford a modest living without it. The phones would just bug me too much. They bug the fuck out of me as a member of the audience. If I’m reviewing a show, I’ll take my pit pics and then go to the very back – because being in the midst of those phones makes me want to punch someone. It’s bad enough seeing a sea of them from the entrance.
There’s also no energy in money, really, because money is often associated with age. I can’t tell you how many great shows by long-established performers I’ve seen where I’m left thinking, “Where are the young people? They need to be here.” Countless shows. Not just to learn something, not just to witness true greatness, but to BE the crowd’s energy. Case in point: If ever aliens land and ask me to take them to one show representing rock n roll, I’d take them to see Cheap Trick. No greater show. But the last couple times I saw them were at casinos. And CT comes out with guns blazing, “Surrender” and “I Want You To Want Me,” and I feel like I’m in a tomb. The crowd is averaging my age or older, and there’s no energy. No screaming, no gals trying to get onstage, just older folks standing – or sitting – there. It was awful. It was like Houdini performing for the blind.
The new Queen movie did a pretty darn nice job of capturing how bad ass it is to be in a Rock & Roll band in that moment when a song and a band is kicking so much f☆cking ass…and that joy is in a genuine circuit with a willing and participating audience.
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com, and is one of the driving forces behind the Staxx Brothers. This past spring he spent weeks networking in and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica. He will return there soon for more recording. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is now available as well.
