Arthur Rock
Sometimes when a band is hard to describe, they are refered to as "arty". I've used the term when talking about both of my bands, but now I'm not so sure if I should.
In a way I was flattered that someone would describe GS as "arty", but the feeling subsided when I found out it wasn't meant as a compliment. It made me think more about the word and what it means. I wouldn't object at all if one of our friends used the term, yet when it's used as an insult I find myself on the defensive. "Hey, we're not that arty."
What would make GS an art-rock bad? All those fancy chords we play? No, about 90% of what we play is power chords and blues riffs. What about those prog-ass song structures? Come on. Is it because we don't have a bass player? Would the Ramones be an art-rock band if you took Dee Dee out?
Was the person implying that we were a bunch of pretentious fucks? If so, what makes them think that? Have they even met us?
But let's look at this again. Maybe we are an art rock band. Our songs don't have typical verse-chorus structures. We do use two tunings, with a third on the way (the "others" are drop tunings that actually simplify playing). There is the matter of that 10% non-power-chord element. I guess it's significant.
I suppose I shouldn't worry about comments like this. I mean, I really don't give a fuck if ANYONE likes my bands or not (outside our close friends, of course). There's nothing wrong with wanting to be liked, but there's something I find really attractive about not giving two shits. Not pandering. I like playing whatever I want and not sticking to a plan (unlike vitually every other aspect of my life).
In all of my pre-2004 bands I kind of focused inward when writing - that is, I set limits on what I wanted to do so I could focus on doing the most with the least. "You have this amount of time per song, this number of chords, these types of chords, these tempos. That's all you get. Make it into something great". I really liked to work that way back then, and I don't regret it at all. But now I want to write differently. It's silly to think that punk rock requires the above process for writing songs. You'll run out of weapons fast. I'd get bored.
You'd think "getting bored with the same old thing" would be a young person's attitude, with the older crowd sticking to the tried and true over the long term. I find I'm the opposite. The older I get the more I want to... not so much discard the tried and true, but twist it around and fuck it up so that it's still monolithic and awesome, yet modified and different to experience.
I'm getting too abstract here, but hopefully you get the idea.
I feel the turning point for me through it all was discovering:
In a way I was flattered that someone would describe GS as "arty", but the feeling subsided when I found out it wasn't meant as a compliment. It made me think more about the word and what it means. I wouldn't object at all if one of our friends used the term, yet when it's used as an insult I find myself on the defensive. "Hey, we're not that arty."
What would make GS an art-rock bad? All those fancy chords we play? No, about 90% of what we play is power chords and blues riffs. What about those prog-ass song structures? Come on. Is it because we don't have a bass player? Would the Ramones be an art-rock band if you took Dee Dee out?
Was the person implying that we were a bunch of pretentious fucks? If so, what makes them think that? Have they even met us?
But let's look at this again. Maybe we are an art rock band. Our songs don't have typical verse-chorus structures. We do use two tunings, with a third on the way (the "others" are drop tunings that actually simplify playing). There is the matter of that 10% non-power-chord element. I guess it's significant.
I suppose I shouldn't worry about comments like this. I mean, I really don't give a fuck if ANYONE likes my bands or not (outside our close friends, of course). There's nothing wrong with wanting to be liked, but there's something I find really attractive about not giving two shits. Not pandering. I like playing whatever I want and not sticking to a plan (unlike vitually every other aspect of my life).
In all of my pre-2004 bands I kind of focused inward when writing - that is, I set limits on what I wanted to do so I could focus on doing the most with the least. "You have this amount of time per song, this number of chords, these types of chords, these tempos. That's all you get. Make it into something great". I really liked to work that way back then, and I don't regret it at all. But now I want to write differently. It's silly to think that punk rock requires the above process for writing songs. You'll run out of weapons fast. I'd get bored.
You'd think "getting bored with the same old thing" would be a young person's attitude, with the older crowd sticking to the tried and true over the long term. I find I'm the opposite. The older I get the more I want to... not so much discard the tried and true, but twist it around and fuck it up so that it's still monolithic and awesome, yet modified and different to experience.
I'm getting too abstract here, but hopefully you get the idea.
I feel the turning point for me through it all was discovering:
posted by the baron ash von foolishness at 10:27 AM
1 Comments:
I guess Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry were once 'art rock.'
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