Still thinking about the whole nuts and bolts side of band life versus how much I want to play band gigs. This line of thinking can come across as grumpy-old-man-ism, and would be less predictable were I the better side of 25, or female. But the entry-level trappings of it all are really getting to me, to the point of tears: the world of rehearsal rooms with broken air conditioners leaking water into a trough, malodorous microphones that I suspect have given me flu (I forgot to bring my own mic again), broken microphone stands, identical young men in corridors (and in the press) with guitars and matching hairdos, who call themselves The Somethings, who prefer to join in rather than say something new. Easily-pleased young fans looking for new gods, who recycle the sounds of old gods with younger faces. Some call it classic, I call it cliched. Soundchecks. The balance in the monitors. The tragic sight of the slovenly-dressed lone man with a guitar on his back, on public transport, in trainers. It used to be a romantic sight: the troubadour, the folk singer. Now it’s just a typically blokish and ugly and workaday sight. No style to it at all. Just depressing.
I feel increasingly apart from that world. I wouldn’t go as far to say I think I’m above it all (though that’s probably what I do mean). I still enjoy listening to indie rock and pop records, but the fact is I just don’t enjoy watching the gigs as much as I used to. Tom Lehrer’s quote about rock being ‘music for children’ is becoming more and more relevant as I get older and the people at gigs and clubs get younger. And the gig-goers who aren’t young, who are my age and older, they depress me too. Because they have made more sense of their lives than I, with their partners and mortgages and incomes and futures and everything worked out. Well, more so than me, anyway. And if they’re my age and older and they HAVEN’T made sense of their lives, if they’re like me or even more worse off, well that’s obviously depressing too.
At Latitude, I suspect I’ll catch a few of the bands, though I probably won’t stay for anyone’s full set unless they do something visually unusual, like a costume change. I get bored so easily in the audience at gigs. All festivals should be like those Live Aid-style super gigs: sets of three or four songs only: the greatest hits only. Otherwise all that’s interesting is (a) the band coming onstage, and (b) waiting for the band to play a song you know and like. The rest is all so dull, dull, dull, dull, dull. It’s just some people playing instruments and singing. I know this is all rather missing the point, but this is the way my head is today.
I suppose what I’m really saying is: right now, I hate rock and roll.
Which begs the question: what do I want to do with Fosca? What’s the point of doing Fosca, if it’s always on this lowest rung? Do I even want musical success, in the rock band sense? Did I ever? Perhaps the August 1st gig will be the last gig, and after that perhaps I should concentrate on writing words rather than attempting to sing them or play them on a stage. It’s been fourteen years of playing indie gigs. Perhaps that’s enough. I don’t feel a burning desire to keep treading the beer-stained boards in the Thick Neck & Firkin-style venues forever, with promoters still asking me how many people I think I can pull. I’ve given it a go. I’m not sure I’ll miss it.
I don’t know. I’m quite an unpredictable, unreliable, capricious, whimsical, and amusingly hysterical sort of fellow. Which is what keeps you reading, doesn’t it, Dear Reader.
