furthermore...

I am compelled to expand a bit on my previous blog entry, lest I be construed as some grumpy, aging misanthrope.

I still wholeheartedly support the democratizing potential of punk rock. I still believe most of what I wrote here (even though I sound like a bit of a pretentious turd in this old article). The earliest phases of rock n' roll are the most real, when the band isn't yet hindered by scene politics or their own popularity. I still believe that a concerted effort to create a particular kind of music tends to kill the original inspiration. It all makes me sound like some kind of free jazz junkie, but this is far from the case. The raw and primitive brilliance of bands The Sonics and The Ramones - free of pretense of full of spontaneous passion - epitomize the unique power of rock n' roll, but Ornette Coleman just comes off as an academic deconstruction of music itself, a contrived attempt at "anti-music" more in line with the atonal noise of Half Japanese.

So, go start your own band. Anyone can do it. That's the beauty of punk rock.

That said, please don't send your demo to me.