It’s tough being a pretentious person in a rock band
Glynis Roache
23 days ago
Mamas Don’t Let Your Children Grow up to Be Cowboys! Equally with rock bands. American Country is not the only music of pain. I recognised almost every sentiment in this article – except the conclusion about needing more Kurt Cobains. Like every mother, I prefer that sons survive. Unfortunately, the gift that grants the talent and the inspiration can be accompanied by a very turbulent wake. Our twin sons formed a band in the late nineties, early 2000s. Even I remember it all with pain. The early gigs in pubs and village halls playing through useless sound systems … Then the progress – radio appearances on Janis Long etc, Rough Trade CD of the week, BBC T in the Park, Hultsfred Sweden, the ups and downs of negotiating with big record companies who had one eye on the new bogeyman that was file sharing and Napster, the decision to be an ‘Indie’ band, the long hours in recording studios, the build up to glory – and then the pain when it all fell apart. It wasn’t even obvious to me how it fell apart, but it did. Conclusively and agonisingly. It wasn’t drugs, it wasn’t drink. I think it was just that neither they nor, to some extent, their physical bodies could take the constant pain of what looked to me like an endless round of creation and destruction.
Our sons are nearly 50 now and I still feel it in them. One is a successful life coach for companies and individuals but if anybody asks him for help with songwriting or even playing the guitar he won’t go there. The other teaches the grades for Rock School drums and the grades for classical piano – in schools and from home. He does help budding creatives but it seems to take a hefty side dish of tai chi and dedicated Buddhism to let him keep this toehold in the world of music.
Yes, they put their lives back together but it would be foolishness to say that rock music hasn’t dictated the entire way those lives went and are still going. Professional creativity in any form is a life choice that is seeded with difficulty, but Schopenhauer was right. Music is the most metaphysical of the art forms and, as such, it has a direct effect on our consciousness. For better or worse.
Nanda Kishor das
22 days ago
No, we don’t need more dope fiends turned to cultural heroes. What’s so admirable about blowing your head off?
But did he blow his own head off? There was speculation that he actually had way too much smack in his system to even pick up the shot gun.
He was more than a ‘dope fiend’. He was only the leader of one of the most successful punk bands on the planet, capable of drawing a crowd of thousands of people. Can you do that?
Have you actually listened to any nirvana?
Have you read his journals?
He constantly criticised the media and American corporate culture describing America as a country that had ‘sucked and f*cked itself into rehashing the value of greed’, he also advised throwing your television out of the window, good advice I reckon.
Why wouldn’t they. Do you not think throwing your TV out is good advice then? Don’t you know too much telly will give you square eyes? Don’t you know the amount of television Americans consume is now obscene? Don’t you know Americans are getting stupider by the year? Do you not think too much telly might have something to do with that?
A lot of Americans don’t even bother with TV. And if we’re “stupider”, it’s because education started going down the toilet in the 50s and now “math is racist”.
The young ones have swapped TV for Internet I think but:
According to the most recent data, U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average almost three hours watching TV per day in 2022. Adults aged 65 and above spent the most time watching television at over four hours, whilst 15 to 19-year-olds watched TV for less than two hours each day.
It says the young ones do Internet and video streaming services like Netflix instead now.
Education going down the toilet probably doesn’t help, have seen other Americans elsewhere, mostly on zerohedge, complaining that ‘maff is racist’ 🙂 it is here too, our government doesn’t really do maths either it seems.
In the interest of not bashing Americans too hard, British TV consumption is actually very similar, our average IQ, at around 98, is also the same as America, we are getting stupider too.
In conclusion I still feel throwing your TV out the window is good advice for both British and American citizens.
Absolutely. Make sure you book the top floor every time.
Tell the hotel manager you are spear heading a cultural revolution and you are an activist fighting media oppression. Jso, blm etc. seem to get away with those kind of excuses for smashing sh*t.
Tyler Durden
22 days ago
As regards his tragic end, I could never picture him doing that. He was a gentle soul probably destined to overdose. But the scene around him was very sinister and his wife was very Nancy Spungen.
He was also in nearly continual physical pain from irritable bowel syndrome, which made heroin use appealing, and went from being a poorer kid in a low paying profession to being a wealthy celebrity.
He certainly could’ve been a bit more mature – even at 27, one shouldn’t become despondent at life’s realities. Of course MTV was mindless consumerism on display, in an often mindlessly consumerist era – what would one expect to find?
But he still composed clever and appealing lyrics, and constructed exciting, innovative compositions.
His band mate Dave Grohl went on to found the Foo Fighters, a far more commercially successful but also far more upbeat band. Grohl in general strikes one as a far more well adjusted individual, a happy go lucky McCartney to Cobain’s dour and self destructive Lennon.
Dennis Roberts
22 days ago
Trying to be a ‘star’ in any field has always been arduous (unless you have wealthy parents with connections) – music, sport, art. Only a few will make enough to survive more than a couple of years and fewer than that will make it really big, and luck will play a large part of that in addition to the hard work and talent. Most will fail and if they have no back up plan the failure could be absolute.
Abhi Garg
22 days ago
“I don’t want to come off as negative”. Really? Then don’t write. Statements like that drag otherwise good journalism into sheer mediocrity.
George Locke
22 days ago
What a load of pretentious hogwash.
AJ Mac
22 days ago
A scattershot load of generalizations This one seems to me among the most accurate:
More than any other type of artist, musicians are eternal children. It’s why so many of them — like Cobain — don’t make it past 27. And the bigger the star, the more freakish the Peter Pan syndrome should things drag on too long, Michael Jackson being the prime example, who went as far as actually building his own personal Neverland. There’s nothing comparable in any other medium
Even so, quite a few make it past that oddly-common death age of 27 and become some version of real adults, if not Regular Joes. I’ll mention Paul McCartney (despite his boyishness), Bruce Springsteen (despite his adolescent-angst lyrics), Joni Mitchell (despite her struggles), and Dolly Parton (despite her “backwoods Barbie” persona).
It’s also entirely possible to live a middle class, respectable life as a musician, or as any other kind of artist.
Matisse said it best – be steady and traditional in your private life, so that you can be violent and original in your work.
No one denies how gruelling travelling entertainment can be. There’s also no requirement for drug and alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profligate spending, or taking poor care of one’s health.
Lots of musicians teach, record, play live locally, or give private lessons. They can earn money that way, and if they’re good enough at learning, practicing, and teaching, they can earn enough to more than survive.
Ian McKinney
22 days ago
He still doesn’t understand the cracks and light metaphor, which is a shame, given that he constructed a whole article out of it.
Robert Paul
22 days ago
This a free associative piece that perhaps needed a second draft and a good editor to bring some clarity, discard some clutter, add some vigor. It’s telling that my kids, and their pals and gals, are more enthralled and thrilled by the old stuff, Led Zepplin and Marvin Gaye, and universally, if it’s boiled down, it’s because they artists and their music is ‘soulful.’ The dreck that’s issued today is boilerplate, whatever the genre, whoever the artist, vapid and predictable and overproduced, drained of vitality and mostly little more than the solipsistic scribblings of a not so very bright high school sophomore. Does the fact the only three of Billboard’s top 100 were songs made and sung by a real group — the rest are solo ‘artists.’
The old stuff? Is the arch from Chant to Rap cause for hope? Did Kurt see that, after his Grunge, there would be Rap? Did he look at the “evolution” of music and say to himself: Surely now we needn’t worry about sitting on the edge of abysses?
hassan anderson
22 days ago
Agree that there is a systemic stranglehold on artists today that negates extravagance, and stamps out the broken.
But disagree with the idea that excess = artistry. The book ‘Bodies’ by Ian Winwood makes a strong argument against this.
The rock n roll cliche of the self-destructive artist is manufactured by the same machine of banality that you rail against.
The world needs more Mackayes not Cobains.
Scott McGhee
12 days ago
Maybe music just isn’t the exit from the machine that it once was. I always sort of thought of counterculture as the place beyond the blob of business, of decorum, of the world the fogeys had built. But that territory kept getting razed, graded and developed by capitalism. The same year Cobain died, William Burroughs appeared in a commercial for Nike. It’s hard for me to think of any transgressive element in our culture that didn’t eventually get gobbled up and stuck on a beer can or something. What’s left of the counterculture then? What turf will not get gobbled up by the blob? ISIS? Mall shooters?
Well, certainly a lot of potential lyrics in that piece. I’ll look at it that way, because I lost track of what the actual argument was.
The map is not the territory. And today we live in a map, the same map and a low-resolution, inaccurate map at best.
It’s tough being a pretentious person in a rock band
Mamas Don’t Let Your Children Grow up to Be Cowboys! Equally with rock bands. American Country is not the only music of pain. I recognised almost every sentiment in this article – except the conclusion about needing more Kurt Cobains. Like every mother, I prefer that sons survive. Unfortunately, the gift that grants the talent and the inspiration can be accompanied by a very turbulent wake. Our twin sons formed a band in the late nineties, early 2000s. Even I remember it all with pain. The early gigs in pubs and village halls playing through useless sound systems … Then the progress – radio appearances on Janis Long etc, Rough Trade CD of the week, BBC T in the Park, Hultsfred Sweden, the ups and downs of negotiating with big record companies who had one eye on the new bogeyman that was file sharing and Napster, the decision to be an ‘Indie’ band, the long hours in recording studios, the build up to glory – and then the pain when it all fell apart. It wasn’t even obvious to me how it fell apart, but it did. Conclusively and agonisingly. It wasn’t drugs, it wasn’t drink. I think it was just that neither they nor, to some extent, their physical bodies could take the constant pain of what looked to me like an endless round of creation and destruction.
Our sons are nearly 50 now and I still feel it in them. One is a successful life coach for companies and individuals but if anybody asks him for help with songwriting or even playing the guitar he won’t go there. The other teaches the grades for Rock School drums and the grades for classical piano – in schools and from home. He does help budding creatives but it seems to take a hefty side dish of tai chi and dedicated Buddhism to let him keep this toehold in the world of music.
Yes, they put their lives back together but it would be foolishness to say that rock music hasn’t dictated the entire way those lives went and are still going. Professional creativity in any form is a life choice that is seeded with difficulty, but Schopenhauer was right. Music is the most metaphysical of the art forms and, as such, it has a direct effect on our consciousness. For better or worse.
No, we don’t need more dope fiends turned to cultural heroes. What’s so admirable about blowing your head off?
But did he blow his own head off? There was speculation that he actually had way too much smack in his system to even pick up the shot gun.
He was more than a ‘dope fiend’. He was only the leader of one of the most successful punk bands on the planet, capable of drawing a crowd of thousands of people. Can you do that?
Have you actually listened to any nirvana?
Have you read his journals?
He constantly criticised the media and American corporate culture describing America as a country that had ‘sucked and f*cked itself into rehashing the value of greed’, he also advised throwing your television out of the window, good advice I reckon.
Why would anyone look to take “advice” from someone who can’t hack life for longer than 27 years?
Why wouldn’t they. Do you not think throwing your TV out is good advice then? Don’t you know too much telly will give you square eyes? Don’t you know the amount of television Americans consume is now obscene? Don’t you know Americans are getting stupider by the year? Do you not think too much telly might have something to do with that?
A lot of Americans don’t even bother with TV. And if we’re “stupider”, it’s because education started going down the toilet in the 50s and now “math is racist”.
The young ones have swapped TV for Internet I think but:
According to the most recent data, U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average almost three hours watching TV per day in 2022. Adults aged 65 and above spent the most time watching television at over four hours, whilst 15 to 19-year-olds watched TV for less than two hours each day.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/411775/average-daily-time-watching-tv-us-by-age/
It says the young ones do Internet and video streaming services like Netflix instead now.
Education going down the toilet probably doesn’t help, have seen other Americans elsewhere, mostly on zerohedge, complaining that ‘maff is racist’ 🙂 it is here too, our government doesn’t really do maths either it seems.
In the interest of not bashing Americans too hard, British TV consumption is actually very similar, our average IQ, at around 98, is also the same as America, we are getting stupider too.
In conclusion I still feel throwing your TV out the window is good advice for both British and American citizens.
Don’t know about throwing your TV out, unless if it’s out of a tenth floor hotel window. Now THAT’S Rock’n’Roll!
Absolutely. Make sure you book the top floor every time.
Tell the hotel manager you are spear heading a cultural revolution and you are an activist fighting media oppression. Jso, blm etc. seem to get away with those kind of excuses for smashing sh*t.
As regards his tragic end, I could never picture him doing that. He was a gentle soul probably destined to overdose. But the scene around him was very sinister and his wife was very Nancy Spungen.
He was also in nearly continual physical pain from irritable bowel syndrome, which made heroin use appealing, and went from being a poorer kid in a low paying profession to being a wealthy celebrity.
He certainly could’ve been a bit more mature – even at 27, one shouldn’t become despondent at life’s realities. Of course MTV was mindless consumerism on display, in an often mindlessly consumerist era – what would one expect to find?
But he still composed clever and appealing lyrics, and constructed exciting, innovative compositions.
His band mate Dave Grohl went on to found the Foo Fighters, a far more commercially successful but also far more upbeat band. Grohl in general strikes one as a far more well adjusted individual, a happy go lucky McCartney to Cobain’s dour and self destructive Lennon.
Trying to be a ‘star’ in any field has always been arduous (unless you have wealthy parents with connections) – music, sport, art. Only a few will make enough to survive more than a couple of years and fewer than that will make it really big, and luck will play a large part of that in addition to the hard work and talent. Most will fail and if they have no back up plan the failure could be absolute.
“I don’t want to come off as negative”. Really? Then don’t write. Statements like that drag otherwise good journalism into sheer mediocrity.
What a load of pretentious hogwash.
A scattershot load of generalizations This one seems to me among the most accurate:
Even so, quite a few make it past that oddly-common death age of 27 and become some version of real adults, if not Regular Joes. I’ll mention Paul McCartney (despite his boyishness), Bruce Springsteen (despite his adolescent-angst lyrics), Joni Mitchell (despite her struggles), and Dolly Parton (despite her “backwoods Barbie” persona).
It’s also entirely possible to live a middle class, respectable life as a musician, or as any other kind of artist.
Matisse said it best – be steady and traditional in your private life, so that you can be violent and original in your work.
No one denies how gruelling travelling entertainment can be. There’s also no requirement for drug and alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profligate spending, or taking poor care of one’s health.
Lots of musicians teach, record, play live locally, or give private lessons. They can earn money that way, and if they’re good enough at learning, practicing, and teaching, they can earn enough to more than survive.
He still doesn’t understand the cracks and light metaphor, which is a shame, given that he constructed a whole article out of it.
This a free associative piece that perhaps needed a second draft and a good editor to bring some clarity, discard some clutter, add some vigor. It’s telling that my kids, and their pals and gals, are more enthralled and thrilled by the old stuff, Led Zepplin and Marvin Gaye, and universally, if it’s boiled down, it’s because they artists and their music is ‘soulful.’ The dreck that’s issued today is boilerplate, whatever the genre, whoever the artist, vapid and predictable and overproduced, drained of vitality and mostly little more than the solipsistic scribblings of a not so very bright high school sophomore. Does the fact the only three of Billboard’s top 100 were songs made and sung by a real group — the rest are solo ‘artists.’
The old stuff? Is the arch from Chant to Rap cause for hope? Did Kurt see that, after his Grunge, there would be Rap? Did he look at the “evolution” of music and say to himself: Surely now we needn’t worry about sitting on the edge of abysses?
Agree that there is a systemic stranglehold on artists today that negates extravagance, and stamps out the broken.
But disagree with the idea that excess = artistry. The book ‘Bodies’ by Ian Winwood makes a strong argument against this.
The rock n roll cliche of the self-destructive artist is manufactured by the same machine of banality that you rail against.
The world needs more Mackayes not Cobains.
Maybe music just isn’t the exit from the machine that it once was. I always sort of thought of counterculture as the place beyond the blob of business, of decorum, of the world the fogeys had built. But that territory kept getting razed, graded and developed by capitalism. The same year Cobain died, William Burroughs appeared in a commercial for Nike. It’s hard for me to think of any transgressive element in our culture that didn’t eventually get gobbled up and stuck on a beer can or something. What’s left of the counterculture then? What turf will not get gobbled up by the blob? ISIS? Mall shooters?