Turnstile Blues….

If you happen to live in Cape Town, you will certainly be spoilt for choice in the next few months.

Concert-wise, that is. You can allow some ninth-level-of-hell music promoter the privilege of stealing your money in….wait for it……..TWO ways.

And both of these ways, though vastly different, are somehow equally insulting and equally indicitive of a shocking statement that will close this post.

Option A:

Now this option has been carefully constructed for the harder-to-please, more esoteric music fan. They have been so hard done by in the last few years, I think it’s time we throw them a bone and arrange for one of their indie darlings to perform at an intimate, low-key gig. The average local will never have heard of him, but enough will have to sell out a smaller venue at R210 a ticket. But we must be careful. We can’t give him too much exposure, or start playing his stuff on local radio, because people might start to broaden their musical tastes and that’s just a whole other can of worms. But then again, he’s safe and non-threatening enough to not disturb the equilibrium, so it’s not too much of a risk.

Who I am talking about? Why, Jose Gonzalez.

Who’s that? Why, my point precisely.

Option B:

Guns & Roses and Evanescence headline the CocaCola Massive Music Mix, or whatever the hell they decide to call it as long as enough sponsor’s names are squeezed in. R400 a ticket. And that’s just to get in the backrow. To see a band who haven’t released anything new in a decade. Wait, er….if there’s just one member of the original line-up in the band, can you still even call them that? But don’t worry, you’ll also be seeing Evanescence. They rawk. And that lead chick/singer/thing is, like, totally foxy, dude. And that’s not even counting the numerous local bands you will have to endure….er…I mean enjoy for eight hours in the blazing sun sans drink sans food and probably by about 7:30pm, sans sanity.

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I’m just so sick of giving a shit about music. I’m sick of vacant-headed Musica clerks. I’m sick of regimented radio. I’m sick of every SA band that sound like an SA band (oh Michelle Breeze come back and save us). I’m sick of a public who lap up every little morsel thrown their way by promoters, like a starving vagrant who is supposed to look ecstatic when thrown a crumb of mouldy bread.

No! But wait! Have you heard this trio in Muizenburg who have incredible potential?

I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care if the next Trent Reznor is holed up in a bedroom in Kenilworth, because it wouldn’t matter. The industry would never give him the time of day, and he’d spend the rest of his days playing small clubs for a small but dedicated following.

But what about Seether! They made it!

Dude. Seether suck. They sucked when they were Saron Gas, and they suck now.

So. This brings us up to the shocking closing.

I’m done. I’m packing it in. I refuse to spend R300 on an import of Armchair Apocrypha. I refuse to pay Telkom just so that I can spend an hour surfing online in the hopes of discovering something original. I would like whoever has a copy of Josh Groban’s music to send one to me, so that I can lock myself in a room and play it, repeatedly, until I know all the words to You Raised Me Up.

You’ve beaten me. I surrender.

If anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be in the Top 20 section…….

~ by tenmiles on February 12, 2007.