The Liquid Kosmos

Turning Shakespeare into asswipe

There is a songwriter festival in town and it is truly heaven for music lovers. Guys and girls who are behind some of the biggest songs on the radio have a chance to showcase their original work in front of people who otherwise would never have known who "came up with" the idea for that song.

It's big business in Nashville because Country stars have been traditionally groomed as entertainers first and the best songwriters are usually more comfortable in front of a wall then a crowd.

Last year I went and saw this skinny white guy with long scraggly hair and an acoustic guitar churning out a huge Mariah Carey hit. "That's how I wrote it anyway," he said. Then he launched into "Crazy Train" or some other hit Ozzy Osborne made famous. It was a striking contrast in styles and equally intriguing that this guy wrote two major hits for different ends of the spectrum.

Sounds cool, right? Well, I stumbled on this guy after about 30 other songwriters with no on stage presence. It's kind of embarrassing to admit (for a self proclaimed music enthusiast), but I was bored off my ass at this thing. All I could think about was, don't EVER underestimate the performance and a good voice. Sure, some were good singers, but they just sat around on a stool (Nashville for "in the round") and played a bunch of lackluster tunes while "geeks like me" sat there and listened patiently in a room where you could hear pre-cum drop.

The point of all this is that I really WANT to be into stuff like that, but I don't have the patience for it anymore. I'm a lyric freak, but the truth is it's the phrasing and the chemistry of a band that makes a song powerful. For example, Bono could sing a corporate training manual and make it seem like killer lyrics and a bad vocalist could turn Shakespeare into asswipe. But if that bad vocalist is say, Bob Dylan, then it's a totally different story.

Therein lies the mystery of music and what makes a band rock. Everyone talks about Lennon and McCartney, but without Harrison and Ringo, they would not have been the Beatles we know today.

I site Van Halen after they kicked Dave out of the band and forever fueled the debate of Roth or Haggar? While I personally prefer Roth, Van Halen was such a good "band" that even Haggar couldn't jack it up too badly. They were different, but not a bad band.

So, these songwriters are where it all begins. Many bands write their own songs. Many solo pop performers do not. Songwriters get the royalties, while the performers get the fame. But neither could survive without the other. Just like songwriter festivals couldn't survive without bored fans like me.

posted by The Oscillator @ 4:24 PM