To be honest I half expected to lose enormous numbers of friends in my self induced mass rapper-cull frenzy bulletin but to my delight and surprise most people seem to agree with the [...]]]> Let Me Entertain You part II
Category: Music

Let Me Entertain You!

part II

(follow-up to a recent bulletin on Myspace)

To be honest I half expected to lose enormous numbers of friends in my self induced mass rapper-cull frenzy bulletin but to my delight and surprise most people seem to agree with the general sentiment.

That said….

Why crap all over poor old Tom? Well, my reference to Tom was more or less metaphorical, and please bear in mind I did pay tribute to the fact that Myspace has its uses for which we should be grateful. It’s just that to me there’s a certain irony at play here because Tom, believe it or not, is in fact a musician of sorts, played in a band called ‘Swank’. I can’t believe it. Of course here in the UK that’s only one short of calling yourselves Lumpy Cum and the Tossers! I’m not joking btw this was the actual name of a local band where I live. There debut gig is something that is irrevocably etched on my mind for all time!

Anyway, despite this I am still of the opinion, rightly or wrongly that Tom’s A&R dept has appalling taste in music. Mind you, I say this about Tom having never met him. For all I know he might go home and listen to Chic Corea and or Waltons first symphony and his web presence here on Myspace may well be a front to make yet more money for dear old Rupert Murdoch who has Tom’s testicles trapped in a mangle for which the handle is ratcheted with the customary Myspace aggression unless he promotes P. Diddly-Squat?

Tom also has a degree in Rhetoric – this explains a lot! Tom is clearly a product of his apparent education. Just goes to show – education – not always a good thing. For someone to end up with such power/influence and effectively only promote one style of music is a tragedy of biblical proportions in my view. Not only for Myspace but for the rest of the planet because it perpetuates the closed-shop mentality that the major labels suffer with!

I say one style of music, they do claim to promote several different genres but they all conform to their particular commercial model, if you know what I mean? And don’t tell me they are only trying to make a living! Otherwise, as John Cleese said I shall come and visit you in the small hours and put a large venomous bat up ya nightdress!

I don’t know how many bands reading this will have asked Myspace if they could be a ‘Featured Artist’. There can be no doubt that this certainly bumps-up the profile hits if you are accepted. But here we are again; you are at the mercy of their discretion. So, if you’ve been successful in this department and you have somehow impressed the Myspace music dept, well done! Three gold stars! Of course this has all the credibility of being told “you’re f….kin brilliant you are” by an alcoholic with gonnersyphaherpeaids, but well done nonetheless.

I do children’s parties by the way….lol

Their chart system still remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe too. Myspace claim to be taking a discretionary editorial approach to Featured artists. If the same process is applied to their charts then this would certainly explain why Allan Holdsworth (greatest fusion guitarist, ever) lags way behind. Utterly baffling. I’m up and down the Myspace chart like a prostitutes drawers! Not that I’m taking much notice you understand. And not that I have in any way experienced the rapid movements of prostitutes smalls, details, thingamajigs’!

Am I embittered? No. Is there any other style of music I like other than my own? This is a ridiculous question; of course there is. It has obviously escaped some peoples notice that my stuff is FUSION, fusion being a mixture of all genres. I say all genres’, in my case I usually draw the line at rap and reggae, and surely I can be forgiven for that! Notwithstanding, I have said on my site that I am influenced by everything I come into contact with – so I guess I am subconsciously affected by all that I dislike just as much as I like.

Leaving purity to one side for a minute; —- it has occurred to me that people who just stick to one genre to the exclusion of all others are simply pandering to a market? Of course it could be the product of a closed mind rather than the implied dishonesty; we’re entering Worzell territory here! Take Blues or Folk music….the local folk club here is full of purists…I get critically bored by all the reminiscing of who did what where how etc. which is, in my humble opinion the cleverest aspect of folk music. btw that’s not to say I am not influenced by folk music. And, that’s not to say I don’t like some folk music, after all Joni Mitchell in her early years was very folk en-orientated and her album ‘Blue’ is one of my favourites. It’s all the bollocks n’ politics that goes with it that causes me to get my arse in my hands.

No, I recently found myself goose-stepping to the local folk club, ended up propping up the bar eating a bag of dried rats arses and having to listen to the most god-awful din…..believe me nothing can prepare you for someone who cannot play the firkin bagpipes!

Incidentally, cats-ball on a biscuit tin was a reference to some teenagers living opposite me who have a “band”. I use the word band in its most basic form. One day they were “rehearsing” and I’m not kidding, I nearly called the police because I honestly thought someone was actually being murdered! There we are, a new genre is born (Stabba-Rap)

I would imagine that in the not to distant future the purists of this genre will have their own club whereby communication would be limited to using a series of subtle shoulder shrugs and grunts- eerhgg urghs kzzz paaah! He didn’t reach b3 coz yooz didn’t stab him hard enough! The purist gangsta rappers will be up in arms “you can’t call this f***ng music”…Open warfare with the new stabba-rappers would then ensue. Mark my words in a few years from now Brits 2010 will have more in common with Baghdad than with any form of recognizable music.

Anyway, I dare say there will come a time when even the gangsta rappers of today find themselves being appalled by something, but how far down the road is this going to go is my question? I mean just how long is it going to be before the people that are into this shit, think its shit? Probably never..I believe in free speech btw unlike the rappers who seem to be of the opinion that I’m completely ‘out of order’ for criticising anything or anyone. And, that this somehow means I am unhappy and unfulfilled, au bloody contraire!

Don’t get me started…..

Now, I’m no aficionado of the “official way of doing things” but people these days do seem to take the easy way out or the least line of resistance, no matter what there line of business; why bother to learn anything about a particular subject when people’s expectations are so low? And, what’s the point in learning or getting qualified in your chosen subject when the qualifications themselves have had to be dumbed-down to such a degree that anyone with the intellectual capacity of a deranged flea could pass? Don’t take my word for it, this was recently on the BBC national news about so-called A levels.

I’m going way off subject here, but who cares. Now I don’t know what the state of affairs is in the good old U S of A but here in the UK things are absolutely dire! Here you can now get a degree in ‘surfing’, what pray does this entail? Well, I would imagine the first year would be ‘how to role a splif on the beach? The second, how to lay as many women or men as possible and the third, well I suppose some study would be a requirement, I mean standing on a surf board does promulgate a degree of concentration?

I am absolutely bewildered by what Britain has become, a nation of mouth-breathers who need to go on a course to learn how to put up a shelf. How fucking stupid do you have to be? I noticed back along that the local college were advertising a course on ‘how to celebrate Christmas. I’m lost for words. Well, what kind of knuckle-dragging buffoon enrols on such a course? Britain it seems is bursting with over qualified mouth-breathers, educated to well beyond their intelligence and what’s more they’re in well paid employment and all because some bewildered overpaid college lecturer thinks he’s dealing with some form of higher intelligence. Is there any justice? If my experience is anything to go by, no. There are enormous numbers working in high paid jobs that simply shouldn’t be in those jobs. There are lawyers who should have been carpet fitters and vice versa, Builders who should have taken up comedy and last but not least people in the Myspace A&R dept who should be cleaning out dog-shit bins!

It’s a good job I’m not a politician! Vote for Higgs, and get shot!

No offence….

Higgs Boson

http://www.higgsboson.com

Higgs Boson Myspace Site

Copyright: Higgs Boson – 2009