Musical Goodness

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.