The following article was forwarded to me by a friend, its just an interesting perspective on things, I thought everybody should be aware of. It's really long so I am putting it up in two posts. The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle. "My purpose was always just to express myself," he answers. "People are kidding themselves when they think music is going to change the world or enlighten people. It's a bunch of hogwash." -- Paul Stanley, Kiss The peace and serenity of my smoke-filled suburban dystopia where I often sit for hours, chewing my metaphorical pencil and thinking about the future of mankind while listening to Whitesnake, is sometimes disturbed when some misinformed people stop by and ask me questions about music. On one such balmy summer's eve when 'Here I go again' was playing in the background, a certain guy asked me the question that has plagued newbies since time immortal, "how do I get into the scene?" Now at this point I must say that over the period of many years that I strained my ears to figure out what Mr. Varg Vikernes was to convey through his immensely under-produced albums have done irreversible damage to my auditory canals. And the fact that someone forgot to mention to me that rock n' roll excess stopped being cool twenty years ago I am usually slow to comprehend what anybody is trying to say. However when my few remaining brain cells processed the information the answer became quite clear to me. I called him up the other day and said to him "You my friend have been swindled." That question brings us to an even bigger question. Why does anybody like rock music? Let us look at the cold hard facts. A guy with long hair howling at the top of his lungs, a drummer who should be arrested for creating noise pollution, the bassist playing an instrument which nobody can hear and the guitarist who is making strange noises at 180 bpm. No wonder not many dig this kind of music. But then this isn't about those people. This is about those who do, and most importantly why they do so. Over a fairly long period of time that I have been a small part of the 'scene', first as a kid awestruck by the fake sense of glamour and largesse that many rockstars extrude, to the chain-smoking, 80's obsessed, alcoholic writer who writes extremely long and senseless articles that I am now, I have observed the people who form the scene. Mostly they come from rich homes with a great future ahead of them, they don't drink or smoke, they go to the temple everyday and have a secret crush on the girl/boy next door. But then one day everything changes. The cushioned life of the school is traded for the vast openness of the college campus; and most come with a pre- conceptual filtering of life is going to be. A matinee induced dream of going on bike rides with boy/girlfriends, going to prom like Jennifer love hewwitt in that movie, excelling in sports and studies and eventually landing up as a successful investment banker drawing 60k a month and amazing dental plan. When you are 16 you dream and dream hard; there is no tax on dreaming. Far from the shores of practicality a castle is built and the flag of life flies steady. Someone once said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. College turns out nothing like it was meant to be. Losers in school remain losers in college. Freedom comes cloaked in the garb of answering a higher authority; and your well being depends on how well you bend before it. Dreams dissipate leaving behind a ****ed up life as the alkaline precipitate. Something like that Thermal and a Quarter song... "Reality crumbled like a cookie / Left its pieces on the floor..." Feelings of general well being are taken over by depression, paranoia and sheer helplessness. There are questions which no one answers, there are secrets there is no one you can confide to, you can't relate to anything and you don't give a **** about anything anymore. Old friends, people, parents, relatives all don't seem to understand you. Then there is the million dollar teenage rant (people have actually made millions using this line); "nobody understands me, I'm so different". Yes Ms Naïveté you are very different; like twenty five thousand others, will all the 'different' people stand in one line? Oh that's a very big line... please everybody wear black t-shirts and grow long hair and buy this CD; ok thank you, you all do look very different. A fact that might disturb some is that most people are not fans of this music because they like the music, but because it fills a void in their lives. When you are a pimply teen there is an inbred desire to be a part of something, to belong, to cling on to a branch that prevents you from falling down. This is where the scene comes in; and brings the noisy music as an appendage. Something I learnt in school eons ago; Man is a social animal. I was sitting on the last bench writing a poem so I didn't listen then, but it became clear to me much later. Lone ranger was a black and white serial in the fifties; there are hardly any such people in real life. Its in our genetic code, we always strive to be among like minded people if nothing at least they must dress like us. You can see it everywhere; the longhaired chain smoking death-metallers, the spiky hair cut sporting trance addicts, the bling-bling sporting nigga wannabes and the flashily dressed bollywood fans. There are a many more but you get the point. Something great about the groups is that they accept you as you are, as long as you do everything they ask you to do. Thou shalt not be different and thou shalt be accepted. Often disowned by their own flesh and blood they find acceptance in complete strangers. You are not alone in a group, you have the mob behind you; "dem niggas will take care of dem homies in da hood", "we are rockers man... **** this world, we are in a band now, those ******s can't touch us". Take your pick from the above, in which hood/band you want to be. Trust me; even though they sound different, they are essentially saying the same things.
Music is a very powerful medium. In its purest form it cushions you, it encompasses you, it flows through your body and takes you to that special place. If nothing it makes some suit wearing Harvard grad very, very rich. Ever wonder why you are a bigger fan of music than your dad? Do you wonder why you listen to fifteen hours of metal everyday while your old man tunes into that really ****ty and old music they play late on Sunday nights on the radio? Chances are that you listen to music the same reason why junkies do drugs and middle aged men watch ****. Not because of addiction, but because of escapism. Have you ever watched ****? Who are you kidding? Obviously you have. Have you marveled at how a seemingly serious business meeting turns into a riot party a few minutes later? Wouldn't it be cool if your cute chemistry teacher would hit on you? Wouldn't it be cool if the feeling of free-floating you get after licking a LSD soaked blotting paper would last forever? But things don't happen that way in the real world. After permanently injuring your lungs the nicotine gets washed away, the towel is brought out and the **** movie ends, you try to headbang your pain away but the band stops playing and its time to go home. But wait you want more, and more, and more. Sorry can't do. The dream has ended and reality hits hard. Its time to go back to your house and lie about how you spent the night studying hard with your friend. Its time to get on with your sorry, miserable and pathetic life, devoid of any excitement. You have enjoyed enough; its time now to become a cog in the wheel of the draconian master-slave system hell-bent on extracting every last drop of life from you, it'll stop at nothing until it turns you into a spineless brain-dead zombie incapable of thinking for itself. But that girl from that band said '"we will rise", trust me; she lied. There is no revolution, you ain't no Guvera. 'Escapism' is but a figment of your imagination. You like billions of others have been born into bondage. Your arms and limbs have been entwined deep in the system and if you think you can defeat it or run away from it you are sadly mistaken. Entertainment. That was what music was envisioned as. And that how it should always be. But no, it aint no fun that way. The record labels packaged hormone fuelled noise and sold you as the revolution. Your father brought the 'revolution' in a 12" vinyl disk, your elder brother brought it in a cassette, and you download it through Kaazaa. Sorry to break it to you; all three of you have been fooled. When Elvis thrust his pelvis onto the face of this world people were conned into thinking that this is what is going to change the world, they thought this again when Hendrix played one of his never-ending solos, and again when Sid Vicious screamed, when Marley wailed and Cobain whined. What happened? They all tried to change the world and failed. They became a part of the very consumerist culture they were once against and were consumed and thrown away like a bag of popcorn like after the movie ended. All was lost again wasn't it? No, somebody is still making millions out of royalties, merchandise and memorabilia brought home by out of touch has beens and wannabes. OMFG sn't he the suit wearing Harvard grad who is very, very rich? LMAO!! Music can never change the world. Years of consumerist capitalism has spawned a race of unintelligible race of herd following sheep, disguised as humans. Decrepitude and impairment have corroded the very ability that separated us from animals, the ability to think for ourselves, but what do we do? We create soul-killing malls to replace forests and marvel at how much our city has progressed. We spend a lifetime trying to be with the 'in' crowd and strive for social acceptance. We are supposedly independent people in a democratic country, but are we really? When majority of the public are like what Death/Massacra drummer once described as, "Nothing but talking monkeys with car keys", incapable of thinking for themselves, it becomes clear that a few arpeggios can hardly stem the rot. Rebellion and anger are two basic human traits that are overexploited by rock bands from time immortal. Nothing wrong with that, but the problem lies with the 'manufactured rebellion' that is pumped through the syringe of mass media into the masses. I have seen happy people suddenly acting adopting this angry rebellious mad- at-the world attitude. Why? Because Curt said so. And this short lived attempt at rebellion is not towards protecting the rainforests or preventing the local animal shelter from shutting down, it's mostly as trivial as being allowed to wear a short skirt or sport long hair. Also there is a very big problem of "Rockstars". Those long haired, groupie-abusing junkies everyone worships; boys want to be like them and girls just want them. Again it's usually more than music. He is all many could never be. Most fans could never achieve anything in life, and find it necessary to deify anyone who does. Like a shining star he blinds you of any of his shortcomings, he is perfect; I am not, so I must worship him. And many a times people forget that he is just human like you and me. Because one day when you learn that Cobain couldn't play the guitar, Schuldiner had converted to Christianity, MJ is a pedophile, Milli Vanilli used to Lip synch, Ozzy never worshipped the Satan and so on and so forth the people who worship the man more than his music feel cheated. So there you have it. Rock music, which means many things to many people but more importantly a force that has transcended the airwaves to spawn an entire counterculture of 'scenes', 'forums', associations and what not. The scene seems all good and dandy when you go to your favorite nightclub to see your friendly neighborhood band while having a quite smoke with the guys, but when it doesn't stop at that all hell breaks loose. Then people try to find the answers in the lunatic rythmscapes painted by drunken bands. The 'scene' becomes reduced to nothing but places where distraught teens inject death into their veins aided by bands that condone such behavior. In a false sense of unityivity and brotherhood, people leave homes to settle with their new found friends. Careers, ambitions and finally life itself is washed down the drain when people substitute reality with dreams, needless to say doom is but a foregone conclusion. So what's the point of it all? It's simple, its just music, it always was and always will be. If it means something to you then great, but one things for sure it will not solve your problems and it will not answer your questions. The answers lie within us, not in some pirated MP3 disk with 150 songs. The rock n' roll lifestyle is not real but a dream that has been sold to many people over the years, and the trick lies, as Chuck said, in drawing the line between them. However there are thousands who cannot and in a chemical induced vim chase the illusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Soon the realization dawns that the scene is going nowhere, the meek have inherited the earth and you are stranded in the island of your dreams. One day nothing that once seemed important seems that way now. The bands don't matter, the scene doesn't matter nor does the music. Then you realize that your life is more ****ed up than before and rock n' roll only complicated matters further. It is then when you give up this life, cut your hair and find mundane job, like your father did years before you. And as a friend once said this is why rock produces bitter old men, since 99.99% of those who get involved with it experience no real success, and the remainder are neurotic lapdogs kept by the industry and discarded when their usefulness is over (enjoy your suicide, Mr. Cobain - you're right: you failed). It is this severe sense of disillusionment that once sets in, causes you to fight against the very things you once fought for. That day my friend, like thousands before you and thousands after you will, do you realize that you have been the latest victim of The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle.
*clap* x 3 bahit lamba tha ... i ran outta patience ... but the gist is ... it is true for most of the ppl ... (but then not for some) ...
