Taking it back to the old school, 'cause I'm an old fool, who's so cool...

In case you weren't aware that's a lyric from Whoomp There It Is which hit #2 on the Hot 100 Billboard chart in 1993.  The song is pretty tongue-in-cheek, but it serves its purpose for this post in function.  That song is now 20 years old.  20 YEARS OLD!  The song we jumped around in our bedrooms to while the sound permeated the walls of our houses and annoyed our parents is nearly legal drinking age.  Aside from that fairly obnoxious song 1993 was a pretty good year for music and films alike.  In music you had album releases like: Dr. Dre - The Chronic, Pearl Jam - Vs., The Digable Planets - Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) among other notables.  In movies you could've ran to the theater and saw Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Philadelphia, The Firm, or Pelican Brief.  Good stuff.  I look back on those times with great fondness and still catch myself reminiscing of those days when people say 'ten years ago', weird.  I often wonder what is so different now.  Why does it seem all the happiness, innocence, and romance has died in our modern age?  To find those answers I'm going to have to jump back much further than the mid 90's.  

The first stop is the 1930's.  I recently acquired a GEM Open Comb Micromatic safety razor from a very generous donor.  I did some research and have dated it back to 1932.  That's pretty cool.  I've been viewing shaving as a chore since about the third time I'd done it.  I found shaving tedious, unsatisfying, and a time constraint on my morning routine.  I could sleep an extra 5 to 10 minutes or get up and shave.  Looking back I feel a bit silly for being upset over a measly 10 minutes, but therein lies the problem.  We are in such a rush anymore.  Precious seconds make up our day and we rarely slow down to see the forest for the trees.  So that's what I decided to do.  I decided to slow down; way down.  I polished up this old razor and studied the way it worked.  The device itself was simple enough, but no amount of study can be considered too much when you realize you're about to run a medical grade razor blade across your throat with virtually no protection.  Right away I felt a calmness rush over me - when was the last time you studied your Mach 17 razor to understand how it works?  Never.  After some research I found it was important to get a brush and lather set to accompany the GEM to provide a safe and smooth shave.  The prep time alone had been pushed to something like 20 minutes, a far cry from the 10 minute start to finish process I had experienced the previous 11 years.  The romance and excitement in something as menial as shaving was back and it felt good.  Start to finish the entire ordeal took me about 45 minutes and I'll admit a good amount of blood was spilled.  Oddly enough I was totally OK with that and was already looking forward to my next shave(s) so I could try some new techniques.  

Let's jump forward to the late 50's.  While I was shaving like my grandfather I wanted to listen to music like my dad.  Not exactly like him, as I don't think he ever took a shine to Gershwin or Jazz, but on a turntable through a Hi-Fi system.  I acquired Miles Davis - Porgy and Bess on vinyl just before my birthday.  It's a truly phenomenal piece of music and if you consider yourself a connoisseur of fine music it should be in your collection in one form or another.  The album has the song Summertime, which has been sampled ad nauseam, so it's easy to bridge the gap with 'youngsters' on this one.  While I listened to the album and shaved I noticed the warm hisses and pops between songs while the needle tracked the old grooves; again a calmness came over me.  I then posed the question to myself "what's gone so awry in the musical world?".  The only real answer I could find was the idea of quality vs. quantity.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there was no sub-par music made in the 50's and I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of it.  I just think that today there is a race to the bottom in the corporate world that is being aped by nearly every industry.  The most for the least, the first to release, etc. are commonplace and pushed by the social media you and I enjoy.  I remember following the Boston bombings on twitter and how often misinformation was spread in an attempt, not to be credible, but to be first - we don't need Nostradamus in the news, we need Walter Cronkite.  I see it in music too.  Constantly.  If I am forced into listening to pop music today a common thought I have is "one catchy hook a song does not make".  Why when I'm surrounded in my community by great musicians do I see open mics and concerts poorly attended?  Among many other things, including shows like The Voice (hooray that's back on the air...) shoving a wholly over-hyped product down the collective publics' throat to push prepackaged garbage rant, rant, rant, I think it's because people don't value quality nearly as much as they value their time.  The seconds in our day are indeed precious, so treat them as such.  We should strive to connect with our community and support our artists and musicians locally, not line the bank accounts of already fabulously wealthy stars in a side project.

So, I pose this challenge to those reading this in the Billings community.  Jazz Night at The Garage (Yellowstone Valley Brewing Company) is almost in season, go check it out.  Walkers does a great job of providing talented musicians to listen to while you eat or drink, go check it out.  Noise & Color goes to great lengths to provide the community a calender of events, check it out.  Remember, just because you hear a song 20 times a day on a radio station doesn't make it good.  To the contrary, just because you've never heard of a musician doesn't make them bad.