Ranting Against the Machine...

I'm sick of Madison. More over, I'm sick of the music I hear in Madison. I've become convinced that over 99% of the music performed in Madison is just plain boring. The music that occurs in this town is often the most recycled, mid-life crisis, Blatz-league crap. The musicians in Madison tend to fall into one of the following categories:

• aging punk trying to relive youthful glory of "sticking it to the establishment"


• rocker gone country because it's "where my roots are"


• UW music grad that thinks that playing in a group with his/her professors is the greatest


• aging metal guys that jump on every 'alt*' bandwagon to come down the pipe

I didn't include the Pabst drinking hipster crowd as they're generally just one of the above in disguise.

As John Cage said, "I'm not scared of new ideas. It's the old ones that scare me." I tend to agree with his statement, at least in principle. It's so frustrating to have to listen to CDs and bootlegs and mp3s to hear any new ideas. Or just to hear some honest-to-goodness art. Something that actually speaks to life and experience today, rather than simply regurgitates the experiences of others from bygone times.

I want to blame the sad state of music here (and most everywhere it would seem) on the accessibility of cheap instruments and promoters/booking agents desire for a quick buck. However, I can't. These seem to be a part of a larger problem in our culture. A problem of product and passivity. A problem that I'm not interested or equipped to address at this point.