Don't Judge An Artist By His Guyliner

I haven't written in a while. Sorry to those 3 people out there who actually read this thing. Apologies from the depths of my soul.

I realized the other day how fed up I am with the images that go with music. The "scene" kids, the "emo" kids, the "indie" kids who buy used CDs to look artsy and bad ass, not because they just want to save some money...the kids who say they live for music and know it all and keep the Jonas Brothers on repeat.

I went to a show the other night. In a church basement-ish-thing. Now that's what I call indie. All you little 12 year old "music freaks" with your My Chemical Romance and your dime-a-dozen pop/punk bands take notice. Go to a church basement for 4 or 5 hours and listen to some real music. Haha. No, really.

I've been to probably 10 or more shows in this place with bands ranging from mindblowing to pathetic. But that's where the good stuff is. Not on the commercials on Fuse TV or some emo girl's myspace.

I remember one show I went to there. We were there for a good 3 or 4 hours and everyone was leaving. Not that there was anyone there to begin with. I'd say like 50 kids at best. But it was really winding down to the end of the night and now there were probably 10 people in the audience. Pathetic. And the band that was going up next consisted of two rather large, rather scary looking guys with Biggie shirts on and dreads. Sweet. I had this feeling though that they must be good. Because if they're that strange looking they must have minds twisted enough to create something good...and they were in my opinion the best of the night. Yay for my amazing musical instincts!

But basically the point is, those attractive boys in skinny jeans with big flippy hair and high pitched voices may be cool for about five minutes, but it's the big fat guys with dreadlocks of the world that make the real music. Look at Bob Dylan. Now there's an unattractive guy. Or Michael Stipe. He's no GQ model. But they're quality musicians--two of my favorite. But when Joe Jonas starts aging and starts losing that jet-black pseudo mullet thing he has going on, I'm sure the 12 year olds [and sadly some 17 year olds] will start to lose their undying love for him.

And the whole chains on the pants/guyliner/strange piercings thing is getting old too. The whole point of dressing in that way is to ostracize yourself from everyone else and defy stereotypes. But after the unbelievable influx of mediocre emo/screamo/hardcore bands with guyliner and black nails, that look in itself has become a stereotype. I'll never forget the words my friend said once that I just thought were so true and so poignant. He said "You're not being original by wearing a uniform. The uniform may be skinny jeans and tattoos, but it is nonetheless a uniform.

Have you ever noticed that the kids that love music, I mean really love it, wear normal clothes? I wear cardigan sweaters. I have friends that wear jeans and band t-shirts everyday. I'm really sick of these kids walking into school in trench coats or skeleton hoodies because that's what Gerard Way does. Its kids like that that ruined My Chemical Romance for me...I own their first two albums, yea that's right. And I'm not ashamed either! Back in the day, I'm sorry but that band was solid. Then all these kids glorified them into some weird vampire-obsessed hot-topic marketing scheme, which turned almost all [normal?] people off to them. And they missed out. Or for you older folks, Alice Cooper. My uncle and I had this conversation the other day. Cooper was such a weirdo and attracted such strange people that it detracted from the music he made which was actually pretty decent.

So basically, in conclusion, be yourself and accept artists based on talent, not sex appeal. And that's my lecture for the day...Thank you and goodnight.