I was talking to a good friend of mine up in good old Pittsburgh, lets call him Mike, because that is his name. He was showing me videos on YouTube through Yahoo Instant Messenger. He happen to mention a singer I was not familiar with. To which he replied "Dude you don't have to be stuck in the 90's". I had to think about this. Was the song kinda upbeat dance style britpop? Yes. Would I buy it? No. Do we share may common tastes? Of course.( We both love Garbage. and I worship Shirley Manson for example). Then I realized that me and Sir Mike had huge differences in what we listen to. I do play a couple of instruments so I am always drawn to what I play as well as the style of what I play. For me, Alternative Rock, Grunge, Hard Rock , and Metal are what I happen to listen to. I have been this way for years when I first bought my first copy of Master Of Puppets. The question I was posing myself was, "Was I really stuck in the 90's" and the answer...yes. I graduated from Scott High School in 92 and that was the year I started to come into my own as a young adult. It was also the last "pure" time I can say I have had in my life. Those were my halcyon days. The salad days as Nic Cage said in Raising Arizona. I miss the innocence of those times. I had the privilege to see at six am the reason for my next musical evolutionary step. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" not only took my breath, but that past year Seattle had hit and hit big. Now for you kids, these were the days when MTV actually played Videos, if you don't know what they are look it up. I was always a huge Metallica freak at this time and I of course was into The Cure and The Smiths as long as the Pixies to name a few of my influences. I was never a big fan of the 80"s Hair Metal scene. That I came to appreciate later but as far as what I would categorize as "True" music, the early and mid nineties were one of the last great musical revolutions in a few decades. I can never think of a time when everyday it almost seemed that you could find something new, fresh and in depth. I was simply blown away. Soundgarden was simply brilliant, Alice In Chains, the dark poetry of addiction, Pearl Jam, rising from the ashes of Mother Love Bone. Original, poetic, powerful. I could not come up with enough adjectives to supply how I feel about that time. Then non Grunge. I became a HUGE Smashing Pumpkins fan and still am to this day. At the helm was the great Cobain. It seemed for a time that this was going to last forever. I was lucky to have been old enough to appreciate it, and lucky enough to be able to say I was there where the musical world cracked open. Robert Smith said years ago when I was reading Guitar World, "the music you listen to from 15 to 25 would be the music that would mean the most to you and even though you would find other things you enjoyed, that would mean the most and your core group to pick from". He was definitely dropping science. I have to agree. Now there are many other bands that I have left out but I will post about them later. I was thinking. It may be my age but to me now I am finding less and less that is as inspiring as what I find when I listen to The Pixies, The Smiths, Queen, Janes Addiciton, and some of the others I mentioned above. It just seems to me that no matter what I find lately( The White Stripes are an exception). It does not add up to the past. Are we going to see another Kurt Cobain? or are those people fewer and fewer. It seems to me that what is passing for depth these days is a shallow pond that is hardly inspired. Now I know that you will say "YOUR NOT CHECKING HARD ENOUGH!!!" or just a crabby older fuck who is dreaming of his former glory days. Both could be true. I just see that when people pick up guitars and start bands that what they choose as what made them are the artists I was old enough to see the first time. I would not trade in my flannel or black for anyone. I would like to see that ambition and feeling we had for music be a little more prominent these days. Maybe it will. I can only hope..and we all know that springs eternal. love and light. JD
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