you know what im tryin', people in school listen to that screaming emo high voice crap, im tryin to get em hooked on some good music. Tough as nails it is tryin to get em to listen to it. It's just makin me angry because nothing has really happened to be remembered for ya know? The 60s you had the Beatles and Woodstock, the 90s Lollapalooza, now.....some bands got reunited. Thats the extent.

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

Martian I was just talking about the Ritz in an Email to Doc a week ago. One of my favorite clubs,depression night on Monday and Tuesday with a $2 cover charge. I was saying how big a disappointment it was when I saw Chuck Berry perform there in the late 70s as he just about talked his way through every song and outside of playing the openings to songs hardly played any lead, and looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. But I had a lot of great times like hanging with Tommy and Joey Ramone and Belushi and Ackeroid amongst others. One of the all time great clubs.

Well Stryder I would have to agree and say this was without a doubt the worst decade in terms of music that ever existed. But still you young guys have tons of great music to go back and explore where as us older guys are screwed. So all you young guys it is up to you to make a change and be the ones to turn this around and start making great music. It has to happen sooner or later.

When Elvis went into the Army is when the original teen Idols were created, guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian who were just good looking guys with no substance so this is nothing new. It just took the Beatles to appear and set things right. Sooner or later things will get set right.

I might not be to popular saying this but I believe the web has really helped cripple the music buisness. I would rather go out and pay for a CD than download it for nothing. I also do not want to be a hypocrite as I am guilty of having done it. But I believe a performer is being robbed when there music is swiped for nothing as this is there living. A big part falls on the companies who got so greedy and wanted to charge almost $20 a CD that they did not see this coming and cut there own throats.

When I see a CD come out and sell 25,000 units and is a #1 album that is a joke, back in the day you would barely crack the Billboard 200 with sales like that let alone be number 1. A lot of things have to be fixed to correct things. I know there are a lot of talented guys on the web but truthfully how the hell do you find them.

I was born in 1979. I remember the first memories of music were hearing Led Zeppelin and The Eagles on the small radio we had on top of the fridge. U2 hadnt been together long, The Clash were were playing "London Calling" Sex Pistols played "God Save The Queen" on the Thames River, "Another Brick In The Wall" was playing on the countdown on the only television station we had. The Police were big at the time, the cure... ahh, I could go on couldn't I? I never [i]really[i] started to take much interest untill the late 80's. Even then, there was a very wide variety of music. If you didnt like hearing one type- you listened to something else.

Then came Kurt Cobain.... Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers released Bloodsugarsexmagik... and someone please answer this- was Seattle the new Liverpool back then?

Metal, Rock, Funk, Pop etc... it was all there on offer. If you didnt like it, Robert Plant and Jimi Page made a come back, aswell as the eagles etc...

Even Hip-hop was better back then. It was funny and tastefull. Now they rap about guns, drugs violence and err- women of burlesque thesedays.

Labels used to sign anyone that sounded good or half decent- and they either sunk or they floated. Man, that was when the punters were in control of what we listened to. Thats why there were so many 'one hit wonders' it was fun even to listen to. Today, it is all force-fed upon us.

Now look. It's junk. Well, the vast majority of it is. Dance music is not music. Im sorry but its not. If it's not played with a musical instrument, it's not music.

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The "disadvantages" of being a Post-WW II Baby Boomer are those of physical youth having been left far behind and feeling somewhat bewildered, sad and often a mis-fit in this oft-seemingly-insane, electronics-replaces/defines-reality world-situation.

The priceless advantage of being same...having lived in and voigorously participated in and through some of the most incredible times in recorded history, especially doing so as a middle-class American.

Some were far beyond exceptionally great, others far beyond indescribably tragic.

That said, 'feel kind of sorry for you folks who do not like your current generation or these times. Empathy and sympathies.

At least some of you are astute enough to recognize the banality and can draw on the "historical" better-times music and culture. Time travel with six strings and a tube amp.

In its own way, the late 50s through early-mid 70s music-culture sort of is shining in a historical way as the continuing, magnificent, timeless music of Gregorian Chant, Bach, Beethoven, Holst, Grieg, Handel, Verdi, Puccini....

inbalance99, I think you just described the "parlor" from when I growed up

For me music of the 50's (listening to parents playing their stuff on the 78/45/33 console with the stack of quarters on the arm) 60's (I attended the 60's, I know it, really, just can't remember much of it), & early 70's (woke up on day married and working in a printer stock room) is burned in as the sound.
However I will listen to most anything new, just haven't found much new stuff I really like except maybe for SRV.

I think the same happens for every generation, you sort of lock in on the music you spent many a nights with having good times with friends.

I do miss those daze of the group ditching skool to go catch the latest Pink Floyd/Zappa/Zeppelin album, then spending days sitting in between speakers just really listening to and discussing them.

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

How many folk musicians does it take to change a light bulb?

20. One to replace the bulb and 19 to sing about how good the old one was.

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"...Compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an Apeman."

Agreed from a fellow young one. I can't listen to a radio unless it's set to some kind of classic rock or oldies station.

Oldies are definitely the most interesting songs for me, though. Growing up I listened to one particular classic rock station until I knew every song they played in and out. Now when I flip it to the local oldies station chances are I've never once heard the song that's being played. This music is fresh and also makes for excellent guitar inspiration.

Seriously, 50's/60's music puts todays crap to shame. For one it's actually music.

I've heard some guitarists of the current generation play in private settings and they can be terrific. One of my employees is a master guitarist who can move from classical to classic rock and all points in between with ease. But that's not what he plays on stage because that's not what the paying audience wants to hear.

In my condo, he's mellow, very accomplished with subtle nuances between each note. On stage, three chord power rock through 3 100W Marshall heads at a volume that's painful. I can name a number of other young guitarists in the same situation. Sure they love and appreciate all you can do with a guitar and most have profound respect for the greats of my generation -- Clapton, Beck, and on and on.

But like they don't pay Ford to put fins on cars anymore, they don't pay you to play "good" guitar either. Sure, in a city the size of LA you can still find some great music (other than "names" at the large venues, that is), but you'll need to look hard.

So in defense of this generation's artists -- let's not be hasty -- it could be the audience! I ended my active playing days in the mid-70s, another time when musical ability had taken the far back seat to stage antics, fast but sloppy solos and massive volume covering a trainload of mistakes.

Nah, I can't let this generation-ism (did I make up a word?) go unchallenged. I simply do not buy into the current inherited wisdom that everything the baby boomer generation did was better, especially their music.
I live in a town where several nights a week I can go see bands playing original music, and some of them are great, inspiring bands. Most of them are unknown, but they're out there.

Maybe the industry has just become better organized and more conservative over the years, so the acts which are chosen to be mass marketed are more likely to be bland, generic, manufactured and uninteresting to actual musicians, who are acutely aware of the lack of quality. Definitely the recording industry has changed a great deal, there's been a concentration of ownership that never existed before, with the majority of the market in the control of three majors, and many of the so called 'indie' labels controlled by the same companies. Labels are far less likely to take risks now, to sign acts that are too original, that are still developing, that have a new sound etc. They want acts that sound and look like something that has already proven successful, they want clones. They also want the whole package now, they want acts that are sober, highly ambitious and driven, good employees prepared to compromise, and who look good on camera.

Every now and then they'll take a risk on something new, you'll get someone like Amy Winehouse with a style that hasn't been heard for a while and now sounds fresh. The risk pays off, she sells a lot of records, so every record company wants an Amy. Then within two years you get a whole bunch of clones, good looking and same-sounding female torch singers with a little bit of street sass. And if you travel you get to see that every country has a local version for the local market. Yes, it's that cynical. Touring Europe in the 90s I lost count of how many Nirvana clone bands there were, Germany had one, Holland had one, Switzerland etc etc. Some of them were a clever blend of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and maybe Soundgarden... but every country had one. In many cases they were signed to the same label too, Sony had a few that's for sure.

Outside of the mainstream fodder tho I suggest there are great bands all over the world, they are just buried beneath the massive mountains of plastic product that is being pumped out. And that's the other thing - we're in a historical moment where there are more bands than ever before, there is so much music being released now it's hard for any act who don't have the benefit of a global marketing campaign to get noticed. I think we need to find those good bands, go to their gigs and buy their CDs, support local independent music and have fun while we're doing it.

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"...Compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an Apeman."

At 63, I can look back and there were times that I truly believed my generation sucked. The good muisc seems to run in cycles. A lot of the music that I thought was horrible at the time, I have truly come to remember fondly. I can remember the amps from way back that we didn.t like because they distorted. At one time Fender amps were the hot setup because they were loud and clean. Back then if an amp distorted there was something wrong with it. Thing's change over the years, and most of the time it's for the best. It takes me a little while to warm up to a new singer, band, or player. Same with a guitar or amp. Generally if I really like an amp in the store, it turns out to be a real pig at a gig.
I have made peace with my generation, and several others, over the years.........Hell, some day I may even warm up to RAP and BOY BAND stuff..............well................then again I am 63, there may not be [/b]that much time left.

+1!

This is a nonsense thread, there's tons of great music being made by young musicians.

n. (50 years old)