Difficult Music

Weapons of Musical Destruction
Being cable-free hostages of the CBC, we sometimes see unfortunate things on television. One weekend we caught Steve Burgess’s opening monologue on The End. We reacted as if the couch had been electrified—we sprung up and started pacing around the apartment. “What the fuck was that?” “Were those jokes?” “I think they were supposed to be.” “The hell?” “Did that just happen?” Having just seen a man die on television, we couldn’t sit back down. Our night was done.

Yesterday we saw a few minutes of The Great Canadian Music Dream, which plunged our home into madness and despair once again. First of all, that Moxy Fruvous guy hosts it. Hasn’t he already got a show on the CBC? For that matter, doesn’t he have a band? Maybe he should get back together with them and write wacky love songs about Ann Medina or something. Since the Barenaked Ladies went serious, there’s a novelty tune market niche to fill. And he can take solace in knowing that nobody will devote more airtime to his new material than the CBC.

Then there’s the eerily still, not-about-to-rock audience—I didn’t see any close-ups, so I suspect they could just be cardboard cutouts.

Then there’s the acts. I’ve got nothing against homegrown talent. Probably a good quarter of my all-time favourite bands are Canadian. Still, I’d like to say something to all the young musicians out there: Stop it. Put that down. Take a break, go to school, get a trade. Make yourself useful. There’s way too much music out there in the world already. It’s all I think about, and I can’t keep up with it. While I respect your need to spread your “message,” please keep it to yourself. I know it’s fun strumming that guitar you bought last year, I know it makes you happy to sing that song about your funny friends, but believe me, the enjoyment of your mediocre outpourings begins and ends with you. Can’t that be enough?

I won’t discuss my feelings about musicians competing against each other. I’ll get into a digression about Shindig and start crying.