Posted on Feb 14 2019 09:30 AM
My comment regarding this region upon moving here (and before joining any local bands) was 'they have one of everything.'
Now...that can be taken any number of ways. Is there variety? Yes. Are the area's residents a bit blase' about it? Yes again. Do they support the local music scene? Yes, barely. There are enough locals and enough transplants arriving from previous cities that had decent-to-good music scenes that combining these two minorities makes for a larger percentage...but still a minority.
That said, the music scenesters are fair and (fairly) open-minded. Like food and craft beer, they are willing to try anything once and a certain segment will display enthusiasm during the gig and loyalty in taking an interest in future gigs and showing up.
But local music suffers many of the same modern-day hazards as local food and local shopping/retail: there are almost too many options and too many ways to entertain oneself and to socialize without ever leaving the house. Without diverting into too much of another rant against millennials, those older than millennials are equally guilty by taking up (belatedly) the tools of sloth and inertia ie mobile devices, laptops, streaming TV, etc. One bright note is that the generation(s) following the millennials seem to be aware of the pitfalls of living in their personal technological bubbles and are attempting to (gasp) have face-to-face interaction and to physically get out more.
One unavoidable gripe is that numerous bands think that mostly empty venues are a license for dadaism. Music is creativity and vice versa but some of these bands are trying a little too hard to be 'primitive.' Call it the White Stripes/Black Keys phenomenon.
Which takes us back to music and performing. By now everything is so hyper-documented via Google, review apps like Yelp, etc. that there are few surprises, pleasant or otherwise. Whereas musicians and audiences alike used to resent and resist pigeonholing, the current trend is clearly one of restaurant-style order-pay-eat. By this I mean that the venue's marquee, the band's posters and the social media accounts usually include one or two (at most) descriptors: blues, zydeco, Americana, etc. It’s a classic supply-and-demand scenario although the onus is on the bands and venues to offer the supply before any demand is created. Now, for the band that describes itself as ‘Revolver-era Beatles combined with Joy Division and other influences’ this can be tricky, even self-defeating. Simply put, audiences are lazy and their laziness is reinforced by catering to them ie narrowcasting. Once upon a time, programmers at iHeart applauded themselves for creating terrestrial radio stations in which one station had, at most, 40 songs in its entire list and even fewer than that in some cases. 24/7/365 of heavy rotation. The question then and now: ‘Why not make a CD or iPod playlist with those 40 songs? Nothing will be missed except long commercial breaks, canned DJ patter and ultra-compressed noisy station IDs.’ In a bit of cosmic justice, iHeart got its comeuppance in more ways than one for this suicidal – and creatively vacant – approach.
Which takes us back to music and performing – again. After painting that bleak and/or cynical picture, what’s the good news? Well, there are several rays of light especially where surf is concerned.
1) It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. Assuming you know how to dance. ‘Dancing’ to hip-hop and hip-hop-inflected music (read: anything relying on drum loops) is a stultifying combination of pole-dancer grinding and the raising of arms and pointing of fingers (at what or whom is unclear) while the ‘dancer’ essentially bounces in place with feet rarely moving. The same can be said for country, particularly the bro-country that is a blight upon the musical landscape. We’ve all seen the videos or have attended the tailgate parties: girls in cowboy boots and shorts standing with feet together. One hand is raised while the other holds a beverage and the ‘dancer’ does the feet-together knee-bends described above. These people don’t need a dance floor when a dance phone booth would suffice. But here comes surf with its signature snare beat, typical fast tempos (except for obvious ballads) and energy created and conveyed by players who embrace and foster a musical gestalt theory ie an airtight band is greater than the sum of its parts and, optimally, the audience responds to the whole. Their particular like/dislikes where pop vocal-oriented music is concerned often dissolve at a surf gig. They may listen to Adele. They may listen to Lady Antebellum. But they can and do enjoy music with a driving beat as well as stringed instruments that still often create percussive, rhythmic sounds. It’s rare to see any audience member who isn’t at least shimmying or nodding along.
2) Surf doesn’t fear the threat of classification described above or being sold as a commodity. Hell, we do that ourselves! We can quibble over subgenres but surf is never sold as anything but surf to the general public. Masks, costumes, lighting, animated backdrops, etc. are certainly part of the presentation (a debate for another time) but all parties on all sides are aware of what’s on offer. Contrast this with maddening terms like ‘post-rock’ which is meant to be descriptive but is actually anything but. As best we can tell ‘post-rock’ is an excuse for marginally-talented chin-stroking anoraks to overload a board with pedals and engage them all at once while the drummer (if there is one) avoids anything resembling a tempo or a beat. To hell with that. Surf is surf and everyone knows it. Thankfully.
3) As is occasionally discussed here, surf (and a few other genres) are currently scratching an itch people didn’t even know they had. The proliferation of autotune, quantizing, chorus, compression, stereo expansion, ‘brickwalling,’ etc. has worn out the collective ears of the listening public. Music often sounds like a video game soundtrack: twee and repetitive. Thrown in popette ‘singers’ whose voices are processed mercilessly until they sound like they’re coming from a speakerphone and you have a recipe for aural exhaustion. Digital was once hailed (by some) as the superior hi-fi successor to analog…but older generations remember the warm, smooth sound of songs recorded to tape and younger generations are, admittedly, jumping on a bit of a hipster bandwagon by buying vinyl and turntables. But, in the words of Apollo Creed, whatever gets them in the ring and helps them discover the joys of grooves and vibrations rather than 1s and 0s. (Live) surf, for the most part, has always relied on the even-order harmonics produced by tube amps and traditional drums. People’s enjoyment of surf is often (partially) occurring at a level of hearing and perception they aren’t even aware of. They just know they like it and it’s very different to what they’re listening to in their car, on their headphones, etc.
3) To finally arrive at the point, surf gets a better-than-average reaction from laymen and often a wildly enthusiastic reaction (depending, again, on the band’s delivery) from laymen and surf fans alike. It’s longstanding and familiar but it’s new (to many). It’s unambiguous. It’s energetic. It’s expressive. It’s usually strictly instrumental which means the focus is not on a vocalist and/or lyrics. In sum, it gets a good reaction for what it is as well as what it isn’t.
Last edited: Feb 14, 2019 09:37:22
May Birthdays 
That has to be one of the most intense responses I've ever read, and I loved it.
