Wheat vs Chaff

 Now as people who do a bit of music here and there and people who see quite a few acts around the place as we ply our lone furrow a phenomena has become quite apparent. A lot of those who play music are just shit. But here's the rub, idiot audiences lap it up!

 Now I'm not saying we are made of awesome, because we're not ...yet. But we've played original material to bar staff only to watch in astonishment as the room fills up to welcome some ropey singer songwriter strumming for half an hour and coming out with the most banal lyrics that would embarrass a primary school kid. Nobody cares that he/she left you, or that he/she barely notices your existence despite your constant fawning after this object of your pallid affections. Perhaps if you stopped with the moping around in your bedroom writing dirge after dirge this person would notice you. At the very least it would leave you with less material to waste my time listening to.

 Most bands are no better. They spend thousands of pounds on enough equipment to sink a moderate sized liner  just so they can have that pillock from Muse's guitar sound and then just play the worst kind of average shit imaginable. No one song distinguishable from the next. But hey, the guitarist sounds just like that pillock from Muse so it's ok.

 I have seen people play sweet child o'mine, forget the words and even get the chords wrong only for it to be greeted with rapturous applause! Once some girl who, it was announced, had only started learning guitar a month ago brought the house down with variations on A E D. So it doesn't seem that a lack of any technical skill is a barrier from pleasing the slack jawed yokels. In fact, the less skill you play with the more they appreciate your efforts.

 Fat fingered mashing at the fret board seems to be the way forward. Forget everything you know because no one will notice your arpeggios or your deft songwriting. All it takes for a crowd to like you is a nervous grin, some between song muttering about nice everyone's being and poorly executed material. But don't think you can do this if you're a bloke. Oh no. Tits also help confuddle an audience. It seems girls have no place on a  stage and if one of the pretty little things has the gumption to enter this male world then extra effort should be made to encourage her. The delicate thing has feelings and emotions you know.

 My point being, if you're going to present yourself on a stage, have the courtesy to rehearse the tunes, learn the words and don't waste everyone's (mine) time by relying on the sympathy vote or that pillock from Muse's guitar sound.


This blog was brought to you by the letters A D and E, and the musings of this other blog

Lazy boy and the recliners...

 So....it's been a while.

 We have been busy though. New material is in the offing (wonder what offing means...or even if it's a real word!). With all new banjo parts played by everyone's favourite 40 Horses member Hux. We've also been playing a gig or two in the time your humble narrator has not been arsed to post on here.

 Our most recent gig was a thing called Jo-Co music festival. It was a charity outdoor affair with a really big truck thing as a stage. Yes, one of those. The venue was in Coalville so little was expected by way of crowd or that the crowd might appreciate something that wasn't 80s rock, and we weren't disappointed. That aside the gig started badly as with one stomp of his mighty boot Darren put the beater through the drum skin. Ace. This meant that our erstwhile hero used the main kit's bass drum. Not too shabby unless you noticed him having to stand at a ridiculous angle and constantly on the verge of toppling over.

  Anyway, the long and short of it is everything going ok....not great...but ok.