Music Is The Opiate Of The Masses

(Originally Posted March 16th, 2005)

As I was walking down the stairs of my apartment building, and listening to my Ipod, I had an epiphany. I could suddenly, finally, and almost concretely describe how music affects me. Music is like a drug. I say that it is "like" a drug only in the sense that it is not a physical thing, and therefore cannot be classified as a drug as we know it.

But it is a drug. Lets examine some characteristics.

Music affects every person a different way. Just like a drug, whether it alcohol, cocaine, or designed to help with depression, it affects someone's biochemistry a different way, because everyone is different.

Music can be designed to make you feel a certain way. Whether consciously or unconsciously, people make music that will affect the person listening to it. It makes sense that someone would have an idea of the affect they want to reach as they are creating the music.

Music can help develop and strengthen bonds and relationships. Its been done for thousands of years, possibly for as long as humans could have been considered humans. Look at religion. Music is simply distorting the sounds one can make into a mixture that is agreed upon as music.

So, if you think about it like that, that means people have the power to affect others in a powerful and extremely deep way. Simply by singing, people can make the listeners scream, cry, laugh, or hate. So when people simply talk to one another, make a sound as they pass, it has the potential to affect someone in the most intimate way...even if they aren't consciously listening, if any part (and there are many many parts) of their mind picks up on that sound, it can affect it.

So, back to my original point. Music is the opiate of the masses. It has been said, quoted, cliched, and now again, said by me. I don't say it because its been said, rather I finally understand it coming from my own direction. As I said, music can affect you, like a DRUG. It can change the way your body works. So music can be used to keep people happy (or angry, but we'll stick to the happy side, for now). If you have music, its like you have drugs, so you can make yourself feel different things. Have a problem? Feel bad? Listen to a song. You'll feel better. If not, than you have this wonderful music to lose yourself in, so you won't feel anything.

So, in short, commercial music of the last 50 years or more has sought to take advantage of that weakness in the human condition. It has grown into a huge and powerful industry that churns out bands and singers that are put together by formula. Business smarts, capitalist business smarts, has always stated that if it sells, keep selling it. Don't change. So we've been fed the same garbage for years, but we still love it. Yes, there is innovation, yes, music can be anything, I obviously think that, but POPULAR music, as it is known, is formulaic. The formula will grow and adapt itself, but it still remains a way to make money.

So, music is the opiate of the masses, and people feed it with their souls. Does anyone have any questions?

The Human Vs. Fly Battle....

(Originally Posted Thursday, January 27th, 2005)

The fly that had been plaguing me all night in my room as I played and fiddled with my itunes had finally made a fatal mistake.

All night I had been seeing him out of the corner of my eye, but he moved too quickly for me to follow...and way too quickly for me to grab my brand new electric fly swatter and fry the fucker.

Finally, he flew up the right side of me towards the wall right next to me on the left. I rose and backed up a foot or two to box him into the corner; he took refuge on the upper molding of my double doors.

We stared. We stared at each other for what lasted like ten minutes, it was probably only one. When I had ascertained that he probably wasn't going anywhere for the moment, I quickly snatched up by electric fly swatter (which will from now on be called Mary). We continued to glare at each other, but neither of us would budge.

I realized I had to make him move. I instantly thought of my gun, the orange plastic dart gun that shoots soft darts. I darted into my living room to get it, scrounged an old dart from under some old stuff, and cocked it.

Holding Mary in one hand, and my gun in the other, I aimed, and fired. I wanted to just get it to move, but I actually hit about an inch or less from it, and I may have actually hit it a bit, and it bounced off the wall and behind my desk. Crap. Couldn't find it. Looked, but no good.

Sat down to write this, and in the fucking middle of it the fly zooms out from under my desk. I grab Mary, but she's to no avail, the fly has dissapeared again. The battle continues...

A Night At Carnegie Hall With Trey, The Vermont Youth Orchestra, And Tons of Adolescents - 9/15/04

(This post is a transplant from a defunct blog, and was written on Wednesday, September 15th, 2004)

A NIGHT AT CARNEGIE HALL WITH TREY, THE VYO, AND TONS OF ADOLESCENTS
My friend calls me up this morning to see if I wanted to see Trey Anastasio (Phish) play with the Vermont Youth Orchestra (VYO) at Carnegie Hall.

I'm like, what? Having dreams of Run Like An Antelope being played by flutes and trombones, I agreed, and only later did I realize that Trey would be playing a very short amount of the time, and most of it would be classical.

It was worth it, though it did start off slow. While the first act was not bad to slightly boring, the 2nd more than made up for it. Two very nice and nicely played pieces, more pop in them than the first act, led into Trey Anastasio taking the stage to tumultuous applause, much shouting, and several "I Love you Trey"'s, of course to be expected. (What wasn't necessary was the lout whooping right after the first piece. Time and place buddie, time and place.)

Trey only ducked his head in for his first piece, done soley by the VYO, "Guyutie." This is a piece that you will hear on the weather channel, during local on the 8's. I'm not kidding.

It was, in a word, awesome. The first part was an intro that he originally wrote to be in the song, but eventually became "My Friend, My Friend." Guyute was explosive, done very well, and put the weather channels ez listening version to shame.

The 2nd piece was The Inlaw Josie Wales, with Trey on Guitar, the Conductor on violin, and several other Alumni of the VYO on other string instruments. It was so good, you just forgot that it was 7 people playing, and it became a part of you, just flowing along. Very nice.

He did an encore with some other female alumni,and it was absolutely beautiful. They sang a simple song on the guitar, him using the mic during his lines, them shouting them out together for the chorus. One of the more touching pieces of music I've heard in a long time.

The scene was absolutely ridiculous. I'm 26, and I was among the oldest there. The majority of people were kids below the age of 18. Thats fine, but geez, they acted like it was recess right after nap time, and they made a fool of themselves. (Yes, I was probably like that too once, not too long ago, but I couldn't have been that annoying...could I?)

Overall, I'd give it an 8.8.