As
I said I would, Friday I did several #FFs on Twitter.
That
stands for Friday Follow, or Follow Friday, and it is basically giving your
recommendation for others to follow these accounts. I only started
understanding the concept recently, and an impulsive decision regarding it has
drastically changed my life, but that will be another post. The point is, after
doing a long post on the follower inequities between front men and the rest of
the band, it seemed natural to send a bunch of #FF tweets for various musicians
that I like.
It
did not go exactly as planned. My first thought was to send one for each
instrument, and none for lead singers, but there were two snags on that. One
was that I wanted to promote Revenir, but I only know what some members of the
band do. Also, in the case of Fall Out Boy, we have a vocalist who is not the
front man, so it mainly went by instrument, but there was a sort of a
“leftover” tweet—the Professor and Mary Ann if you will.
Anyway,
one interesting thing that happened with that is that a couple of the people
being recommended for following wrote back and they both said it was an honor
to be included in that company.
My
tweets being noticed by anyone was a surprise, but once the notice happened,
their reactions were not that surprising, because one common factor that I have
noticed with the bands that I like is that in addition to being good musicians
themselves, they have an appreciation of others, and they don’t feel a need to
knock down other bands.
Well,
some bands; @themerchdude (http://themerchdude.tumblr.com/)
refers to bands trashing other bands pretty regularly, so it must happen. I’m
not encountering it. Still, I’m pretty out of it on a lot of things. My bands
don’t seem to do it. @JADEDPUNKHULK does pick on bands,
but as far as I can tell is not a musician himself, and The Gaslight Anthem
retweets all of his tweets about what a nerd Brian Fallon is, so I assume that
is just good-natured ribbing.
One
reason that is interesting to me is that while reading I Want My MTV, there was a lot of that. There were so many quotes
where one band would dismiss another as just being hair or just for girls or
being poseurs, and it was just so idiotic. It doesn’t serve the fans, and it
doesn’t serve the cause of music.
Actually,
that book is full of corruption and corporate idiocy, and technology changes
would certainly have transformed the industry anyway, but it’s hard not to
think about how being better people would have improved a lot.
It’s
not just the business practices, though there was some crazy stuff there, and
that goes back to earlier in the recording industry as well. It’s also the
happiness of the participants. Everyone sounds so much happier after they get
off of the drugs or the alcohol. It’s not just that they were addicted and now
they’re not, though that would be huge. Tommy James was really interesting
because he used the substances for his stage fright, but he found that he
enjoyed performing a lot more without them. There was room for spontaneity and
creativity and enjoyment.
At
the time there was so much money in the industry that a lot of people could get
very rich, and so on that level it made even less sense to be competitive in
that way. Now, there is definite scarcity of resources, and it’s not that bands
don’t want to be number one and to be the best, but the better ones still seem
to be willing to see other people succeed, and I like that. I see it in the
comic industry too. So many of the writers and artists have to have other jobs,
or move to cheaper areas, or scrimp in some way, but they are still always
promoting each others’ work. I guess it makes sense that there seems to be so
much crossover. They have the same kind of hearts.
So,
I’m grateful for that, and I am more grateful as I keep reading the things that
young people write, and how much these bands mean to them. I don’t want to get
into that too much today—I’ll have so much more to say on that after I finish
researching Emo. Still, it seems right to say something now.
Some
of that is in preparation for my turn to the dark side tomorrow, and some of
that is because I started writing this yesterday, and shortly thereafter there
was a wave of anger, denial, grief, and devastation because some person I have
never heard of in a band I never heard of is accused of child molestation, and
it matters to them.
Different
kids will post about a band saving their life, and that sounds melodramatic,
and it is kind of, but there are those for him it is literally true, because there
is enough bad in their lives that there was actually a danger, and music
becomes a saving grace.
Beyond
that though, for the kids who are not in danger that way, music still helps
them find their voice, process their emotions, and find their talents and
creativity at a time when they are learning how to be and a lot of things are
up in the air. I know Charles Barkley didn’t want to be a role model, it’s bad
if only celebrites are role models, and I think the concept of a role model is
flawed in general.
Understanding
all of that, I am thankful for those who by following their passion end up
attracting the admiration of others and then use it well. I am grateful for
Sing for Japan, and Don’t Hate on Haiti, and Everest Rocks, and iPods being
collected at concerts for Alzheimers patients.
I am grateful for bands who do mingle with their fans
and talk to them and pose for pictures with them. Especially, I am thankful for
the ones who notice the cuts, and make them promise to stop, and remember that
when they see them again. Bless you for that. Your lives are better for it,
your music is better for it, and the world is better for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment