Rant

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RideTheCrash

RideTheCrash

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Hey...I just have to rant. Me and a buddy were hanging out and jamming a bit today and we did a bit of Stairway To Heaven and might be playing it at this concert at our high school. So anyway, I was talking to another friend of mine I regularly jam with and he is a real bland straight head music person with no variety. He mainly just listens to 3 power chords. He went on to complain about how he doesn't listen to "oldies" because the quality sucks.

Quality of recording has improved of course, over the years, but doesn't it just piss you off someone will blow off good music just because it's not up to par with something that slams into 0dB/clip all the time? The will probably lead to him not learning it and me being stuck jamming to 3 chords for the rest of my teenage years.

Stupid? Yeah, like I said, I needed to rant, opinions welcome.
 
Well you couldn't pay me enough to learn that song. But to say the quality sucks is ludicrous. The "quality" will not rub off on your proposed performance. If he says the song is overplayed I'll agree with him.
 
No, he's too music-illiterate to realize what's been really overplayed and whatnot. He just thinks 'I don't like slow songs and bad quality'. I know Stairway is a real overplayed song, but I'm trying to play anything that will dig me out the same old crappy pop punk music he plays. He's just like that with everything...one sided.
 
RideTheCrash said:
He just thinks 'I don't like slow songs and bad quality'.
Click to expand...

It's good to learn the classics. I don't care what anyone says Stairway is a great song, and those Skynard tunes too. I am a little surprised to hear some say that the quality is just bad. I would like to think it's just different from how things sound now. I really like the way the old analog recordings sound, before everything was getting compressed so much. Withstanding the low end, the sound seemed to blend better somehow.

Sounds like you need to find someone a little more open-minded to jam with.
 
I'm into pop-punk and power punk and whatever you want to call it - I call it California punk.







But man, you can't beat a bit of Rumours era Fleetwood Mac.
 
Maybe I'm wrong, but a different angle

Okay.... you're in highschool. That makes you 16 - give or take two years. If you're 16 or younger, you're at an age where Nirvana's Nevermind album came out when you were in grade two - or thereabouts. Maybe even kindergarten. Yes, folks, we're talking about moldy-oldie classic rock here. ;) Given that, a song like When I Come Around by Green Day is probably over-played. Teen Spirit is probably over-played.

A lot of the people here who are telling you that Stairway is over-played are probably in their thirties or older. Among that age group, to which I also belong (32), they are SO right about it being done to death - to the point where it is almost one of the seven deadly sins to play. We can all name them.... Roadhouse Blues, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Satisfaction, Some Kind of Wonderful, Sweet Home Alabama, etc. If I have to play ANY of those songs again, I'll slit my wrists. :mad:

However, I can't help wondering how many people under the age of 16 or so have even HEARD Stairway to Heaven any more than a half a dozen times or so. In four years, when you're playing clubs, it just might go over okay. The people will all start rolling their eyes, though, when you start cranking out What's My Age Again, though....

Maybe I'm WAY wrong here, but just a thought.

Chris

For those people in their 30's, do you remember when Run DMC teamed up with Aerosmith to re-do Walk This Way? I found it SO aggravating to hear everyone referring to it as being by Run DMC, and then openly asking "Who's that?" when you tell them that it's by Aerosmith, but Run DMC is playing with them on it. That was probably less than 10 years after its original release by Aerosmith. Same thing here, I'm thinkin'.
 
If "Stairway" is Oldies and Lofi,...

then give me lofi-oldies any day. I like the sound of "classic rock", [I hate that term], a heck of a lot better than modern music. There is definitely a qualitative difference in the sound. Today, IMO, music definitely has a "stamped out of a mold" sound to it, where every album from the 60's and 70's had a real personality to the production style. YMMV.

You seem like a pretty smart kid, and I basically agree with your attitude. At least you're open to the idea that maybe something good happened in music before you were born, which is probably quite a bit more open minded and mature than your average teenager. I'll give it to your parents for proper upbringing, ahaha.

Just stick with what you like, keep an open mind and open ears, keep playing, and maybe find some other players who think like you. Maybe your friend can't handle the changes, and feigns that he doesn't care. Regardless, your friend is entitled to his own narrowminded opinion, and you shouldn't lose sleep over it, because you may never see eye to eye with someone with this attitude.

I probably never learned to play "Stairway" all the way through without using a songbook, and any time I ever jammed on it, it was nowhere near a true or properly played performance of the song. In short, I butchered the song. However, just because I could never really master the song, or even pretend to hold a candle to Led Zeppelin itself, it's still a worthwhile song to endeavor to play.

Rock on, dude, you'll go further than your 3-chord friend, in the long run.
 
Besides, my man, your 3-chord friend is wrong,...

Oldies aren't Lofi, it's modern music that's NOFI.
 
That's my rant, & you can have your rant thread back now.

;)
 
it's funny - when i was about 14,15,16 . . .(i'm 22 now) i thought that the worse sounding a record was the cooler it was! if something sounded too clean and polished and commercialized to me i would immediately disregard it!
 
Re: Maybe I'm wrong, but a different angle

Chris Tondreau said:
For those people in their 30's, do you remember when Run DMC teamed up with Aerosmith to re-do Walk This Way? I found it SO aggravating to hear everyone referring to it as being by Run DMC, and then openly asking "Who's that?" when you tell them that it's by Aerosmith, but Run DMC is playing with them on it. That was probably less than 10 years after its original release by Aerosmith. Same thing here, I'm thinkin'.
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Heh…yeah, I remember that. I was DJing in a club while I was in college and had to play it…a lot (for a brief time anyway :D). I really hated that version of the song (I loved Aerosmith BTW). :D
 
Re: Maybe I'm wrong, but a different angle

Chris Tondreau said:

For those people in their 30's, do you remember when Run DMC teamed up with Aerosmith to re-do Walk This Way? I found it SO aggravating to hear everyone referring to it as being by Run DMC, and then openly asking "Who's that?" when you tell them that it's by Aerosmith, but Run DMC is playing with them on it. That was probably less than 10 years after its original release by Aerosmith. Same thing here, I'm thinkin'.
Click to expand...

Good post Chris. Got me to thinking about the irony of your example. Back when I was growing up (the 1950's and 1960's) the problem was just the oppoiste: white groups constantly came along and covered songs originally released by black aritists, and ended up making 10 times (or more) the money that the original artists did. Examples probably run in the hundreds, but think of Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" (Elvis), The Temptations "How Sweet It is to Be Loved by You (James Taylor), and so many others (Midnight Hour, God Bless the Child, Mustang Sally, Get Ready, etc.) Not that covering other people's material is necessarily bad... it's just that the white covers were, with a few exceptions, incredibly lame compared to the originals. And the lame covers ended up making all the money...
 
He didn't say it was overplayed, he said he just didn't like "slow songs" and "bad quality". I can't help it, I might not be old but I've spent my life listening to "classic rock" almost everyday of my life. Sometimes I'd hang out with my dad for a few hours and listen to some songs, he explain the bands, where the music came from etc. Music today... I can see right through it, and I have to see it everwhere because I spend 5 days a week in a building full of gullable teenagers.

Nirvana...heh, exactly what I said when we started ending up covering Teen Spirit. Overplayed. I've really tried my best to refuse any blink-182, used like to like them somewhat but now I can't stand them. I have a really good guitar player who's music likes go more to alternative rock, but unfortunately he just learned the What's My Age Again riff... I think anyway.

I'm just the drummer... well not exactly, problem is I have to sing for this crap too or hear a high pitched voice for it.

Some older songs I've managed to get him to grasp are...

- You Really Got Me/All Day And All Of The Night (hardly do them, but they are really basic...)
- Magic Carpet Ride
- Yummy Yummy Yummy (you read that right, except I can't go high in parts)
- Wipe Out (Overplayed, but still enjoyable)
- Green Eyed Lady (just bits)
- Break On Through

Now I'm shooting for Fortunate Son from CCR.
 
Dude, that's really ambitious to cover those tunes.

That's really cool. Some of those songs I've considered covering myself.

I'm not going to say 3- or 4-chord "punk" is worthless, on the contrary, I'm one of the biggest Ramones fans out there, but 3- or 4-chord punk is not all I listen to. I like music that's heavy, and also music that's very melodic. It's not just one narrow thing, however if you want the cream of the 3-chord punk, then try anything by the Ramones, especially the early stuff, pre-1980, and skip that Blink 182 crap. Actually, 3-chord punk is just a label, and the Ramones used well over 3 chords in most of their songs. IMO, Ramones songs are the models of tight arrangement in Rock & Roll.

My recommendation: check out The Ramones. Are they Punk? Yes. Are they 3-chord wonders? That maybe an oversimplification of what the Ramones really did,YMMV.;)
 
I really dislike these "the music I listen to is better than the music you listen to" threads.

I was and still am a music snob. I have learned though that it isn't really all that important. I hate commercial radio, and a little voice in my head usually rips on popular bands that don't have what I consider to be talent. I change the station.

There is nothing to be gained by debating this though. You will still like the "slow, low quality" music, and your friend will like his three chord punk.

I have a friend who is a phenomenal bass player. I don't throw that out lightly.... he is very, very good. He could have the biggest ego because he could outplay anyone (not just technically but with the right groove for really any kind of music).
But he really mellowed out and has achieved a Zen-like attitude about his playing, but more importantly the playing ability of others.

Do you gain some sort of cathartic satisfaction from playing a killer riff or covering a great song and just rocking out with your band?

Does your friend get the same feeling from playing his three chords with sloppy abandon?

I bet that somewhere there is some kid with a groovebox booming 808 bass drums and a radio shack mic feels the same thing?

That's what its about...it's not about newer, older, better.

If you have an open mind, maybe you can open your friend's mind and expose him to a few new chords.

And I happen to prefer the Run-DMC version, but its ok to like Aerosmith too.

/end my rant
 
He can't play any other type of chord and he refuses to learn.
 
I can't stand by and watch this thread go on and on while calling a Led Zeppelin recording "lo-fi", or "low quality". Frankly, there are VERY few modern popular recordings which can lay claim to being as well recorded as ANY Led Zep recording.

Is there noise, and bleed, and technological limitations? Absolutely. Their stuff isn't highly produced, and over-engineered. Which is the beauty of it. The recordings capture the raw energy and sound of an absolutely tremendous band. As a recordist, I can only aspire to make recordings which achieve the desired outcome as well as the Zeppelin catalog.

---------Steps off the Soapbox-------------

Thanks.

-mg
 
BTW, one of the tunes I use to audition monitor/speaker systems is "Achilles Last Stand", from the album Presence. If you haven't heard it, it's a must.
 
Alright! Killer opening tune to that record. Some of Zep's best production, lots of dynamics...

Ride: If your axe man refuses to learn to play anything besides power chords, then he's not going to develop much musically. I know-- I can play power chords at tremendous speeds and then screw up simple scales. I'm the world's sloppiest acoustic player. But I digress...

I get the feeling that maybe you guys should have separate bands unless you can find a middle ground between classic rock and pop punk (and heck that might be very interesting music!). It's very annoying to jam with refuseniks. "I don't wanna play that! That sucks! I don't need no stinkin' chords! Listen to this Creed riff I figured out..."

Best of luck to you. Good choice on the CCR tune. :)
 
The funny thing is that most classis-rock tunes that are lovely to play are not played anymore because they are 'overplayed'. Now it is quite rare again to start such a song at a gig.
We're doing Child In Time now and then with my band between our own songs in. The audience almost always loves it!
 
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