Captain Purplehead

Whether you like to admit it or not, music plays an important role in your life. It makes up the soundtrack. You can choose to support contrived and meaningless morons like boybands, girlbands and people whose only creative thrust comes from sampling other people’s music but is that the music you would want in the soundtrack to your life? I’m not telling you that you should like what I like but people should place more importance on the music they listen to. There is incredibly beautiful music out there that is just waiting for you to discover it. Before I took to the decks of the Thirsty Kipper, I was a musician. I wasn’t a particularly gifted or unique musician but I wasn’t bad. My problem was that I simply couldn’t go down the road of playing songs simply because they were popular and familiar to the audience and that’s kind of necessary if you want to achieve any kind of longevity on the periphery of music. I have lost count of the amount of times I heard people say, “play something we all know”. Now why in the name of fuck would I want to do that? Why do people want you to play something they’ve already heard on the radio in the taxi on the way to a gig?
I’m not saying that I deliberately chose obscure songs - some of the songs I played, when playing covers, were well known - but I did choose songs that I liked. There’s nothing worse than watching a band go through the motions in order to get paid. What’s the point? I always believed that, if you could infuse what you play with passion, you will win the crowd eventually - or at least find a following. If you do that, people will remember you. How many times have you heard someone say that they were at a pub gig last night but they couldn’t remember the name of the band?
Live music in this country is dying. In fact, it’s being murdered. The people perpetrating this crime are those fuckers that stand in the corner of your local pub with and acoustic guitar that is little more than a prop. The instrument that they rely on is the bank of midi files that accompany their annoying drum machines. What they are basically doing is removing the vocal track from a cd and singing over it and you wouldn’t believe the amount of morons who lap it up because they’re too fucking lazy to find something decent to listen to. People like to categorise music. That, of course is utter shite because, if your refuse to accept a decent song simply because it’s sung by someone you detest, you are being provincial, dishonest and you’re losing out. I can’t stand Elton John but I will readily admit to liking some of his older material.
Look, my point is this: while you’re wasting your time listening to shite that is churned out for the sole purpose of making money, you’re simply looking at the window dressing of musical possibility. I’ve chosen two beautiful songs to illustrate my point. I know that the Jeff Buckley one is a cover of a song by the brilliant Leonard Cohen but I think his voice lends its own beauty to the song. I’ll be back to my irreverent self soon but, for now, enjoy.
Sorry, but I was about to hit the “publish” button and send this post out but a car just passed with the stereo blaring that horrible fucking Cher song, “do you believe in life after love.” I mean, for fuck’s sake!