Schoultz’s Lo-Fi Motel

Pirates.  They are a big, big deal these days.  With balls the size of watermelons they take over cargo ships off the coast of Somolia in little more than outboard motors and semi-automatics.  When they are lucky, they make off with a decent payday and live larger than kings in their impoverished land.  When they are unlucky, the U.S. Navy Seals make them their bitches.  I never liked pirates, regardless of their fashion sense and whimsical speech patterns.  Disney has mislead us all along—pirates are bad news.

I was considering the term piracy the other day in regard to music downloads.  In the past I have been guilty as anyone.  I recall the golden years of Napster.  I remember news stories of college kids flunking out due to this new on-line music sharing drug of choice.  It seems like yesterday that Lars Ulrich was pouting and making a valliant attempt at jailing a large percentage of Metallica fans.  Well, the file-sharing sites are still out there and flourishing.  I for one am through with them.  From here on out, if I must download music I will go legit.

Many might lable me a techno-phobe, but let me assure you I am not.  Like everyone else and their grandma, I have an mp3 player.  It is not at all my first choice for enjoying music.  I’m not even sure I really like it, but it makes walking on the treadmill more bearable.  What I have a problem with is the excess of music that is, let’s say it. illegally available through a few clicks of the mouse.  And it is excess.  I have a healthy collection of Lps and Cds and it still gives me an odd sense of comfort to look upon all the music I have amassed through the years.  It’s like a trophy room full of stuffed wild boar heads.  I can say to myself “Damn it all, I’ve earned these!  I bought ‘em through the years with cold hard cash, muthas!”  Do they take up room?  Of course!  Most of the more wonderous things in life will take up room.  Plus I need covers and liner notes.  I need to know who sang back-up on track 5 and who produced what in what year, etc.  To me music is more than just background lulling. 

They say that the mp3 revolution has essentially killed the album format and returned to the “single.”  That can be considered both good and bad for music.  The good part is that the album format essentially died during the height of Cd purchases.  Eight, ten, maybe twelve songs and no filler?  Perfect.  Eighteen freaking songs?  Overkill.  And ass-loads of filler.  Hip-hop has been the main offender here.  What goes around comes around, and perhaps it is time for the “album” to hibernate for a spell.  What does that leave us with?  The single.  One song to break an artist out.  Send it out there to download.  Play it over and over until it wears ridges in your brain.  This is the way of pop music in the 1940’s and 1950’s and even beyond.  Now more than ever kids in a basement rehearsal space can get their songs out there for the world.  But where is that hard copy, that object, that thing you can hold in your hand to contemplate the cover art, photos or lyrics?

I’m dating myself big time here, but as a young boy I used to love going shopping on saturday with my stepmom to the local Woolco store.  Woolco was like the Target or Wal-Mart of the late ’70’s only waaaaay so much cooler.  They had a pet store section as well as a photo booth.  They also had a record section—all vinyl, 8-track and cassette.  One album in particular fascinated and terrified me both; AC/DC’s If You Want Blood, You Got It.  The cover featured Angus Young somehow being impaled through the chest with his own guitar Alien style while the late, great Bon Scott looking suspiciously like Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie stood close next to him crooning into the mic.  And yep, there was plenty of blood spraying out from Angus’s school boy uniform.  The back cover showed Angus lying on stage in a pool of blood with the offending guitar protroding from his back.  This was scary shit to me at age 10 or so.  AC/DC was the height of edgy for dorky pre-teen boys back then.  Being a catholic boy I was repulsed but I couldn’t turn away, and thus my love affair with rock’n'roll began in enthusiastic full.  Not long after I bout a copy of The J. Geils Band’s Freeze-Frame album much to the concern of my stepmom.  I liked the first single, “Centerfold,” well enough, but once again I was drawn to the cover art.  This time the cover art weirded me out more than repulsed.  Plus, the last song was entitled “Piss on the Wall.”  Yes!  What a boon to get this home and free from annoying parental eyes.

The point is that young kids are getting cheated out of the album experience with mp3s.  There is no more cover art to confuse, disturb, enchant or repulse.  An essential, mythological aspect to Rock is losing or lost. 

 Sad, really.  Just sad.

PS—I realize that I made misspellings in my last and first post.  I thought I hit the review button rather than the post button.  I am a tool at times.  Gawd.

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