Disco rules (in a sucky sort of way)

A friend of mine swears that I select music based primarily on how much it will irritate him. That's not true, of course. My tastes in music are very eclectic and you might find me listening to anything from techno to jazz to industrial to opera. In truth, I do have a soft spot for the unusual and gravitate to genre defying acts like Ned Sublett or Steve Tibbets. But I also have no problem with the most popular, even lightweight acts. I find that I can discuss music with most anyone, because while they may not like everything I like, chances are I like something they like. Music gives me a common ground of discussion, even if that discussion is about how "weird" my tastes are.

So lately I've been listening to a lot of disco.

I vaguely remember the "disco era". Mostly what I remember about it is how much I hated disco music. Like most young males trying to come to grips with their own testosterone, I wanted to rock. I didn't know that disco came out of the gay bar scene, but there was something about the music that seemed very un-masculine to me. So I shunned disco with a passion traditionally reserved for things you don't understand.

As the years went by, I explored every musical genre I could find; jazz, classical, punk, country, opera, Prog rock, funk, metal, electronic... you name it, I was into it at some point. Ultimately, disco was all that was left.

I've heard some people describe disco as "anti-music," and in some ways, they're not all that far off. There is a mechanical aspect to it that is anathema to what we normally respond to in music. It's only real purpose it to provide a beat for dancing, so it seldom deviates from a steady pulsing tempo (hence the mechanical aspect).

Does that make it bad music? Well, there was unquestionably a lot of bad disco music shoveled our way in the 70s. But in actuality, not all of it was bad. There were some genuine innovations that came out of disco production that are commonplace now and even accepted as hip in a plethora of dance genres (trance, house, acid, etc.). Even a lot of the bad stuff is now kind of fun in a kitschy trash sort of way.

So now, I couple of decades later, I don't find disco music so threatening. Maybe I am now far more secure in my masculinity.

Or maybe I just don't care any more.

Neo-opsis

In an earlier post I mentioned that Neo-opsis Magazine was nominated for the 2009 Aurora Award for "Best Work in English (other)". This was for issues 14 and 15 of their magazine, one of which (#14, for those who keep count) included my own story, "Shedding Skin." The Aurora is basically Canada's version of the Hugo Award, which is fitting since Neo-opsis is a Canadian Magazine. It also seemed fitting to jokingly refer to myself as "internationally published author" once I was published in a Canadian magazine.

The awards were handed out at Anticipation, the 67th Worldcon in Montreal a few days ago, and Neo-opsis deservedly won. This was their second award, as they won in the same category in 2007.

So do I now refer to myself as "award winning author"? No, at least not unless I'm in one of my sardonic moods. The award went to Karl and Stephanie Ann Johanson, as the editors of the magazine. My story is certainly connected to the award, but claiming anything beyond that tangental connection would be misleading. After all, it was "Shedding Skin" that moved Fix-online reviewer Lyndon Perry to refer to me as "competent," which is probably like referring to your blind date as having "personality".

(But I did like the tag so much I put it on the front page of my website. Did I mention sardonic moods?)

Les Paul

Les Paul died today.

I wouldn't be surprised if more people know that Jimmy Page played a Gibson "Les Paul" than actually knew who Les Paul was or why he was important.

He was not only a talented guitarist who could play a number of different styles with equal proficiency. More importantly, he was the primary inventor of the solid body electric guitar as well as a pioneer in the development of modern recording techniques such as overdubbing, tape delay and multi track recording. If he hadn't come along, somebody else would have invented at least some of these things, but the fact remains that he was there first and without his work, rock and roll wouldn't exist in the form we know it today.

And yet...I wonder just how many music fans realized the significance of his passing. It's ironic: we live in the information age. We are bombarded by more date and images than any generation in history and yet so many of us are woefully ignorant of cultural history.

A couple of years back I was talking to a young man who wanted to pursue a career in the music industry. His ultimate goal was to own his own recording label. I took his boasts of music knowledge at face value and assume he more than just the last few years of recording artist. Then one day I happened to mention Duke Ellington and I noticed his blank stare. I paused in whatever I was saying and asked "Duke Ellington? You do know who Duke Ellington is, don't you?"

He stammered for a moment and replied "uh, I think I've heard the name, maybe."

Now, I might not expect someone to be able to quote all of Ellington's works, but someone who is interested in music should at least have some familiarity with him legacy. I can think of only a few other American composers who could be argued to be equally impotrant. Ellington is part of our cultural legacy, just as is Les Paul.

This internet could be a really wonderful tool. Perhaps it's time we started using it for something other than downloading the latest pictures of Lindsy Lohan.

Learning to love the dinosaurs

In my youth, it was easy to tell the dinosaurs from the technologically competent: The dinosaurs couldn't program their VCRs. However, despite their helplessness at what I perceived as a simple task, I still looked on many of them with respect. After all, while I was a whiz at anything that involved parallel wiring or potentiometers, I was pretty clueless if you stuck a wrench in my hand and said "stop the water from gushing out of the sink."

Somewhere between those days and now, I underwent a strange metamorphosis. I can do a number of basic technological things. For example, I still write the HTML for my websites. But as I grew older, it seems I became less technological savvy. Now when a program suddenly starts spewing gibberish, I call my son, who clicks around until it somehow works again. I'm not sure how or exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped caring about the latest innovation. The older I get, the less time I want to spend "keeping up."

Ironically, I'm discovering some advantages to Dinosaurism. For example, I used to love buying CDs, but had to be very selective in what I acquired because of the cost. Now that everyone is converting the music to MP3s and discarding their CDs, I'm adding stacks of new discs to my own library at a tiny fraction of their original cost. Yes, I have a lot of room tied up in storing shelves of CDs and DVDs. But I'm okay with that. I never felt comfortable with the idea of containing all of my media on a hard drive. Besides, while I'm aware of lossless audio file formats, the MP3s that most people are filling their ipods with are of inferior sound quality. Convenience is actually more important to the less fanatical than I. I understand that. But I am happy perfectly happy amassing all those cast off discs, clogging up my personal space and life. So there.

Anyway, there comes a point in life when "keeping up" is just not as important. I'm aware that change is inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing. But the wonderful thing about our lives in this era is that we can pick and choose which innovations we want to incorporate into our lifestyle.

I am computer savvy enough to get by for all the tasks that I need to accomplish, and for anything else, I have three children who are more than happy to show off what they know. After all, when the water is gushing onto the floor and my children stand there helpless, I grab a wrench and remind them that there are somethings you still can't fix with ctl+alt+dlt.