Joyrides for Shut-ins: Eno did a wonderful thing.

From Wikipedia: “In 1992, [Brian] Eno described his time with Roxy Music as crucial to his career, stating that ‘as a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy (saxophonist Andy Mackay), I joined Roxy Music and as a result of that I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform or missed that train or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now.’”

Having been a rock critic for quite a long time now, I do as much reading about the subject as I do writing. Having said that, I decided that, because it doesn’t seem to exist in the ether anymore, I would do my own version thereto of a great column I read a long time ago. Critic and sportswriter Phil Sheridan once wrote a piece a called “The Thrill is Gone” for Magnet magazine.

Maybe a decade or so ago.

Funny thing is, when I first read the piece, it resonated with me for some reason even though I couldn’t really identify with Sheridan’s point of view. And now re-reading it earlier this week, it almost feels like prophecy. Like I said, I’d post a link to the entire piece, but it seems it’s just not out there anywhere. Phil, if you’re a Google-alert kinda guy (and I suspect from reading your columns that you are...) feel free to pile on.

I’ll help this along. The gist of Sheridan’s column – which he’s done monthly for the back page of Magnet as long as I can remember – is that staying ahead on the next latest and greatest bands, and being there for every potential rock and roll moment that may or may not transpire, is just not that important to him anymore:

“Why did I subject myself to three hours of standing around in smoky bars, overpaying for crappy beer I didn’t feel like drinking and feeling conspicuously old and out of fashion, just to see some band that would be long forgotten in a year?”

Sheridan reasoned that it was time for his obsessing over music to end. “It’s time for that to stop,” he wrote. “It’s time to buy myself a gold watch, have a testimonial dinner and take up gardening, golf and incontinence.” While I never did dig his alternatives – a watch is cool, but I’m still considerably younger than Sheridan, so the Depends® are out – I just can’t bring myself to be the neurotic music consumer I once was. And I must admit to being sad about that for a time...

“I’m not giving up my caring about music or listening to music,” Sheridan wrote early on in the piece. “That would be equivalent to asking my heart to stop beating...I won’t care if I’ve heard the latest band. I won’t sacrifice work and family interests to drive four hours to see a band I just saw the night before. Music will continue to be a part of my life. It just won’t be my life.”

I’ve spent the last few years attending live performances of bands in a way that a collector would gather trading cards for a complete set. I know, this is a completely outrageous concept since there are many of these cards that are long out of print. There are some critical (and available) ones that I’ve felt the need, and others (like the Joe Shlabotnik Waffletown Syrups’ card from Peanuts) that I’ll always want to have duplicates of.

But I’ve realized something recently: I don’t think I actually need to collect them anymore. I feel like I’ve completed my mission… I never liked those “checklist” cards anyway… I've stopped looking for meaning in music the way I did before my family life began. So I’ve decided to toss my personal "band checklist card" into Lake Erie after this coming summer. Done.

I know I'll still go to shows and there will always be someone I'm interested in seeing, but it won't be an obsession anymore.

There are plenty of other things to tend to that feel more satisfying to me now. Like sleeping. Maybe it’s because I’m a sleep-deprived dad, but I suspect that there’s far more to it than that alone. Ultimately, I have found myself less motivated to attend shows lately – even those where I’ve already shelled out as much as a C-note to go. Ain’t that sumptin? Spending the money, then having the angst of actually having to go? A rather unpleasant byproduct, to be sure.

I remember the days when I’d scoop up every pair of “comps” I could get my hands on. I’d volunteer to cover every show. And if I didn’t have someone to hit that show with, or sucker into going, I’d just go by myself, sit/stand in my designated spot, and then wander around the venue for different vantage points before going to (the press room/home) to file the story. And seldom do I leave a club, shed or arena now with the kind of satisfaction that I used to, whether I am reviewing or not.

As Sheridan (and Evita) might say… don’t cry for me, Argentina. I estimate that I’ve been to enough shows that, end-to-end, it would take well over four years of attending nightly to repeat. And while I can’t lay claim to all of the great performances from the 60s and 70s – and I missed a couple big ones I had a shot at (e.g. Nirvana, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra) – I know that I’ve witnessed some incredible things:

James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Kinks, Cash, Springsteen, Dylan, The Stones, half of The Beatles and Lennon’s two kids when they were the in-thing; R.E.M., Husker Du, U2, the Cure, the Replacements, the original Guns N’ Roses and Metallica with Cliff, Iggy, the Sex Pistols, three-quarters of Zeppelin, "Pink Floyd" and Waters, the Heads and David Byrne, New Order, Sabbath, The Who (¾ of them); Pere Ubu, The Grateful Dead with Traffic (½ of them); Marillion performing Brave in its entirety, The Police, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, the Pixies, the original Kiss, Steely Dan, Jane’s Addiction, The Ramones, Jeff Buckley, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Jesus and Mary Chain, Eagles, Devo, King Crimson (the double-trio), Prince, Paul Simon, Nine Inch Nails (opening for Peter Murphy in a small hall) and Pearl Jam (in a similarly small hall, where the fire code was clearly broken)… Radiohead and David Gray in the same small hall… and probably every important and soon-to-be unimportant band emerging from 1986 until a couple years ago.

And if they were in Magnet, Alternative Press or Spin, you can bet I went and saw them. I was even at an aftershow party where Courtney Love was passed out, almost completely naked, on a pool table, and no one seemed to care. The list of experiences goes on and on.

How to top it? You can’t. But at some point, you realize you can’t really add to it either. There’s the rub.

You know, Brian Eno did a wonderful thing back in the 70s. When he realized that he couldn’t “rock and roll” anymore, he literally backed off (you watch, Trent Reznor will go and do likewise after last summer's NIN/JA tour). Eno left Roxy Music – under the guise of scrapping with Bryan Ferry – and went into producing other artists and making them better (see U2, David Bowie, James, Talking Heads, et. al) and creating his own atmospheric music that he wanted to hear.

And you know what? He’s done pretty well with that mentality, I’d say. To that end, I think what I’ve been looking for in rock music is really not there anymore – if it ever was.

Once upon a time I felt like rock and roll could change the world… or at least its most fervent fans. And that’s still true, by and large. It’s certainly changed me, and I’ve had an incredible ride – I’ve seen some incredible shows in my time. And I’ve seen my share of duds, too. But I think I got what I was supposed to get out of it.

To paraphrase Sheridan, that doesn’t mean you won’t find me in the record store, scouring the bins for some treat or treasure. It just means I won’t be flipping my lid if I miss someone coming through town anymore.

I think I’m only going to collect my few favorite player cards from now on, hit those must-see shows (referrals are often brilliant that way) and I'm gonna leave that extra pair of tickets out there otherwise... I'll let the rest of the fanatical completists out there worry about the rest of the card set.

PCHQ

Comments

Yeah, I caught that little "Pink Floyd" jab, sonny. I'm gonna box yer ears for that the next time I see you.

Yours truly,

An unrepentant and unashamed Gilmour fanboy and ex-scribe (whose last concert attended was over 3 years ago now).

Posted by: vbc3 | December 30, 2009 at 02:45 AM

VIC!!!! I knew if anything would pull you out of the woodwork, putting Pink Floyd in "quotes" would. How the heck are ya? We really need to talk!!!

Posted by: Sonny | January 04, 2010 at 08:22 AM

I've been well, Pete. Still a lifer at the record store (which is slowly becoming the last of its kind in the region) by day, and a shadowy web spider by night. It's good to see you back and writing again. I try to keep at it on my side with the blog, but it's very strange how the free time to do such things just seems to vanish as the years go by with distressing speed.

I don't have many regrets with cutting off the live shows (not that it was ever a conscious decision, mind). I've seen most of the bands that I have ever wanted to see, with the few exceptions mostly being the ones that peaked before I started attending concerts (1987) or started charging an arm and a leg for tickets back in the mid-1990s. Like you, there were a few shows that I had a wide and easy shot at and missed for whatever stupid reason (Radiohead 1996, Nirvana 1994, Roger Waters 1987, R.E.M. 1989, Thomas Dolby 2006), and a few that I feel like the one of the luckiest people in the world to have attended (Lindsey Buckingham's magnificent performance with a Swiss-lock like backing ensemble in 1993, Nine Inch Nails seamlessly morphing into David Bowie's touring band in 1995, the first Pink Floyd performance of The Dark Side Of The Moon in 19 years, that four-song string of absolute majestry in the middle of U2's Q-Arena show in 2001 that damn never leveled the place).

Speaking for the big shows in particular, I *very* much disliked the gentrified/"gold circle" concert experience that started to appear around here in 1994, separating the "wheat" from the "chaff" that Tom Petty so brilliantly illustrated in "Money Becomes King." I won't get into the whole "legalized scalping" thing here, but I thought the old system of "first come, first served" was the best way to guarantee that the fans would get to see the show. Charge whatever you want, but make people stand in line to earn the priviledge of good seats. When was the last time you remember this being the case? 1991?

Music still has the power to move me like no other form of expression I have ever come across, and I suspect we are alike in that we have a similar addiction to that priceless moment when the hairs on your arms stand on end and the chills go down your back. It's a feeling you don't ever want to end, and that keeps you searching high and low for that next "hit." Changing tastes in production and songwriting (and, perhaps, lifestyle) have made that high a lot harder for me to obtain over the last decade, but every now and then, a special album comes along that brings back that old rush and recharges the spiritual batteries.

Take care and see you around online, Pete!

P.S.: And yes, I said "album": don't spoon feed me one song at a time. Give me 8-10 tracks of "all killer, no filler" and you just might have a fan for life.

Posted by: vbc3 | January 05, 2010 at 02:10 AM