A public service announcement to young, budding musicians out there…

Dear Young (or not-so-young) Indie/Electronic Musicians out there starting a band or wanting to start a band,

I’ve recently been taking a break from watching the news all day in my office at work because it’s made me hate humans.  Instead, I’ve been listening to various radio stations on the Almighty Interweb.  Because of this, I would like to announce that as of today, April 7th 2011, I am now putting into effect an official ban on electronic or indie bands with the “token female keyboard/piano player”.  All of the bands that have been around for over a year and are currently playing shows with this line-up are grandfathered in and can disregard this public service announcement- keep doing what you’re doing.  But if you are thinking of starting a band like this, or have just started a band like this but have yet to play any shows… Stop.  Now.  This is not a polite request.  There are no more voids to be filled in the music industry as far as this goes.  So for the sake of musical integrity- please knock it the fuck off.

In the late 90′s and early 2000′s, this worked well.  This was (mostly) interesting.  But now, there is nothing that anyone can create with the “token female keyboard/piano player” that hasn’t already been done 100 times over.  I’m sure you’re very talented- but no, you can’t do it better.  Stop reinventing the wheel.

To you kiddies out there who are too young to really understand why Nirvana was such a relief, let me explain it to you- and then I’ll explain how this pertains to the “token female keyboard/piano player”.   Before Nirvana, the primary thing you would hear on the radio was poppy metal hair-bands.  When these bands first hit the scene, they were pretty entertaining.  The Motley Crue’s were different and fun and had a sort of new sound.  But it didn’t stop.  Soon every single fucking band was in this genre… and towards the end of this era we were having to endure horrors like Nelson and Slaughter and 15 minute long ballads from Guns-N-Roses where Axl was trying to convince the world he was deep and artistic.  Those of you under the age of 30 see this bullshit as awesome- but to live through it was pretty brutal.  Then Nirvana came along, said “Hey, arty-wannabe cheezeball metal- go fuck yourself” (and this exchange happened quite literally in the legendary fist fight at the Mtv Music Awards between Kurt and Axl).  Nirvana put an end to something that was long played out but refused to die.  And that is why Kurt will always be a legend, and Axl is an overweight joke with cornrows, playing shows with Buckethead, still attempting to be relevant- but failing miserably.

My point to that little tale is that every indie/electronic bands that I’ve heard lately with the “token female keyboard/piano player” are the new Nelson.  They are the current day November Rain.  They are tired, overdone, and grasping desperately at attempts to be deep and arty- but failing as if they had cornrows and Buckethead.  When the indie/electronic band with the female keyboard/piano player really started to kick off  in the mid/late-90′s- we got the irony of it.  Yes… the piano is a ‘girl instrument’.  Most girls had to take piano lessons as kids.  So the girls took the girly instrument and made it rock.  We got the joke over 15 years ago.  Can we please stop telling that joke?  We know why the fucking chicken crossed the road already.  FIND A NEW JOKE!!!  Girls- get past taking the “girly instrument” and making it “ungirly”.  Enough already!!!!!!!  Find a new instrument!  How about showing some REAL creativity and giving the trombone a shot!  Or a banjo?  Or a motherfucking kazoo!!  Or hell… how about just taking a regular instrument and doing something actually creative with it (Meg White wasn’t even that good at the drums, but she OWNED it beautifully).

I’m not trying to crush dreams.  I’m not trying to hurt feelings.  But if all it took was 1 week of listening to the radio to get over-saturated by this one musical styling… then for christ’s sake, can we please not make more of it? It’s like going to store after store, and the only thing on the shelves is Dorito’s.  The bands out there that have been doing this for a while have covered these bases.  Let them keep doing that well, and the rest of you need to move on… and as of today, moving on is a social requirement ordained by me.

Thank you for your time,

Are traumatic sleep patterns hereditary?

I’ve had bad nightmares ever since I was a little kid. Not just “boogey-men in the closet” or “being lost in the mall” nightmares… but nightmares of disemboweled of loved ones, and of projectile vomiting tar and blood on people that makes their flesh melt off… and my teeth rotting. Every week in some dream, my teeth rot out of my head. Bad, icky nightmares that make me want to take my brain out of my head and scrub it down with clorox. Ever since I was tiny. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t have them at least 3 or 4 nights a week. I think it’s how I deal with stress. I’m used to them, and they don’t bother me as much as they used to… and they don’t look like they’re ever going away- so whatever. And then there’s the sleepwalking thing that I’ve mentioned in earlier postings…. I’m just not a good sleeper.

But now my poor little fella has been harshly thrust into the world of “bad sleep”. He’s always had problems with nightmares…. but starting a couple weeks ago, it turned into something very different. I’ll hear him moaning and shouting in his room, so I’ll go in there to wake him up. And he’ll sit up, eyes open, appearing to be awake- but lashing out and babbling incoherently. I’ll coax him into getting up and walking around (because I know he’s still in a dream state) and try to get him to snap out of it… but the whole time he’ll be cowering and shaking, totally disoriented. The last time it happened it took me about 10 minutes to pull him out of it, and I was able to do this by having him run his hands under cold water and wiping his face down with a cold washcloth. It’s totally heartbreaking to witness. And I know that he’s not getting a good night’s rest because of this, and the last thing he needs is something else to add to his already tumultuous school days.

So I’m making an appointment with a kiddo-shrink to see if he’s got some things he needs to work out, as well as with his regular doctor to see what he has to say.

Is this kind of stuff hereditary? I never really know. I was adopted, so I don’t know what my biological parents’ sleep patterns are, or how their bodies cope with stress. Along with inheriting my love for drawing, did he also get my hauntings as well? By “hauntings”, I don’t mean it to come off as some “Bright Eyes” Elliot Smith “oh-I’m-soooooo-troubled” bullshit whiny way…. but in that “life annoys the fuck out of me and I don’t know how to express it” kind of way. Can lack of emotional functioning be handed down from generation to generation… even if I’ve made great efforts to try to teach him to talk out his problems and emotions in a healthy way instead of bottling it up? I’m sorry, little Sully, for getting the bad parts of my brain. At least he got my ears.

And an update…. Brad has gotten off his German Industrial music kick, but has now embraced ZZ Top and has taken to standing as close as he can to me with his guitar and playing this vile music while I’m trying to work. He thinks this is so much funner than playing the ’80′s German Industrial music nonstop… but it isn’t. And he thinks it’s funnier because the more pissed I get about something- the better he thinks it is. This is my marriage. Someone needs to come and put me out of my misery.

But I kicked the shit out of him in Scrabble tonight… so I got a little vindication (and I didn’t even have to cheat).