I just heard this song on the radio. It’s got some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard. First of all, who rhymes way and away like this anymore? Man, never heard that before. Also, they have the word “theory,” in their band name? That was stupid like 8 years ago.

Needless to say, when you write lyrics this way, it would make me happay to throw your CD away. Whoa…I should be on the radio.

I found this website called fuzz.com that allows bands to upload good quality mp3s. I’ve uploaded a bunch of songs over there, including some new ones. Check it out.

Last night, as much of humanity did, I heralded in the new year. Personally, I don’t give much heed to times and seasons. To me, time is something man invented to ease the task of monitoring his own decay. The way I look at it, the New Year is arbitrary and doesn’t really exist.

That being said, one thing that’s notable about this whole deal is a show called Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve. First off, let me say that I admire the man for being on television after a stroke. All things considered, he did very well and I was extremely impressed with him. On the other hand, just as much as I was impressed with Dick Clark, I was sickened by the production as a whole.

All of the musical guests I saw were lip-syncing *yawn*. They’re really not even trying with this crap anymore. What’s the point of a performance if it’s obviously fake? Really, that’s what is most frightening to me. It’s not that they parade these vapid, plastic, culturally irrelevant shells of humanity (such as Fergie and Carrie Underwood) around the stage, it’s that they’re obviously faking it and no one cares! After Carrie Underwood “sang,” Ryan Seacrest said something like “another flawless performance by Carrie Underwood.” I can only hope this was meant to be sarcastic somehow.

Music is not meant to be an over-produced exercise in perfection. Music is supposed to be an expression of the soul of man. Guess what? Man is not perfect. I can’t help but think that this is just another example of our humanistic culture trying to rebuild the tower of Babel and pretend that man is slowly overcoming his flaws.

At this point, technology is really a double-edged sword in music production. You can create beautiful results with it, but at the same time, it’s ruining most popular music and creating an impossible standard for us to reach in the arena of a live performance. This is the reason these people are made to lip sync. It’s plain to see that these American Idol types and their ilk have good singing voices. The problem is that , for some reason, we’ve elevated the generic pop vocal style above the artform of music as a whole. In other words, we’ve somehow made the vocals, a part of the song, bigger than the song itself (and especially bigger than the emotional content). No one, I don’t care who you are, sings perfectly in pitch all the time. But, because of the impossible standard we’ve set with pitch correction in the studio and the impossibly high pedestal we’ve built for vocals in our culture, no one can measure up anymore, even those who are supposed to be the best singers in our country.

Also, just as a side note, I find the style of pop singers currently to be the most emotionally empty vocal style I’ve ever heard. It’s about as fulfilling as listening to static. Could this be because they’re not really musicians? Could it be because they don’t know the pain of an artist? Could it be because they know nothing of the emotionally draining process that creating real music is? When you write a song, it’s a part of you and it’s something important. When all you do is sing other people’s music, you’re nothing but a glorified karaoke bar patron.

My cynical and analytical mind can’t help but jump to all of this as a microcosm of the trend in human thought right now. Namely, that technology can solve all our problems. Honestly, I like technology. I really do. If it stopped existing tomorrow, I would like it even better.

I let a whole month go by without an update, that’s a no-no. I think there are exceptions made for holidays, though. Who sits around reading blogs during the holidays anyway?

I finally fixed the whole site, a lot of my stuff got clobbered when I updated Wordpress. It’s all back to normal now. Even the picture gallery is back up.

There are some exciting things happening for me right now in regards to the band. I’m getting into music licensing for one. Hopefully, there will be money to be made in that area. I’m also hard at work on recording. I’ve got new music that’s close to done and, of course, I’ve got old stuff that I’m revamping. The next update I make will definitely have some songs along with it, so stay tuned.

-John