All things bass, music, and ranty

Link: http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=41742c5d-07b2-45d6-abe3-d8abafd5a6f2&k=22484

Well, I just heard about this. And if ANYBODY finds a petition, or a way to encourage this, then PLEASE contact me asap.

Recently the CRTC has decided that CanCon is being abused, or more accurately, certain parts of it IGNORED. While many of you may not know this, radio and television in Canada is regulated in such a way that canadian broadcasters have to play 35% Canadian content. And while this canadian content is quite a loose broad term, even more so for television, this is an amazing thing. I there are some that don't approve of this, however, the canadian indie scene, just the music scene in general, over the last 5 or 6 years have become world class. Thanks in part to the CRTC and it's help.

Well, it has recently come to light that new emerging artists, part of a cancon regulation, are being ignored, in favour of playing tragically hip or nickleback 2000 times a week. Which, while I love tragically hip, is pretty lame.

This is the good part. Flatlined, as an emerging artists, (an artist that has not hit a top 40 hit in 1 year or less) should be played on the radio. By LAW. Well, not JUST flatlined, and even not flatlined at all, but you get the idea. Recently, the CRTC has gotten some stats back about this sort of thing, with emerging artists getting an 2.9% or less or something of airtime. Which is a really, REALLY, small number.

So if you stumble across information on this, or a petition that we as musicians and fans alike can sign, please, don't hesitate to contact me.

Check out the link above to read further.

Link: http://www.wiser-rocker.com/blog/2008/01/06/why-i-hate-guitar-hero/trackback/

So I've obviously been digging around the internet for other music blogs, stuff that relates to me. And this guy's blog, I wish I could find the authors name, is one that I've been digging through lately...

I actually agree with almost everything he says all the time. Until today. OMFG.

I'm going on record as saying that I'm a professional musician. I'm a bass player, but I don't want to hear a God damn thing about that not being a musician. Guitar players can suck hippo placenta. (Found that insult on his site to. Love it) I can kick ASS at this game.

And let me tell you why. The game is more or less a RYTHYM game, not a guitar game. While there may be five "frets" attached to this plastic piece of heaven, it's more about the strum bar than anything else. As a piano player and a bass player, this game panders to me, and my ilk. But that doesn't mean that some guitar player can't play it.

It's also a SITE READING game. While it may seem like I'm talking straight out my ass on this, there is no "sheet music" each note flies at you and corresponeds to each note in the song. On expert, each note in the song IS ACTUALLY in the damn game. So for me, expert is so much easier to play than hard.

Now people can complain that guitarist who actually play guitar can't play this game cause it's not realistic. Well I got news for you. That's fucking bullshit. Hammer ons and pull offs exist, and the general premise of it is pretty realistic. Holding a fret lower than the fret your playing on doesn't affect your note. Like a real guitar. The strum bar is both up/down. So it's just like playing. Hell, even the whammy bar feels real. The reason why guitarist can't play this game isn't cause it sucks... it's more likely that they can't read sheet music for beans. You can't site read? You can't apply what you see with what your fingers do in real time? Your probably gonna suck.

While I can't play guitar as well as I can play on guitar hero, I have to say that even this simply little game has improved my finger speed, timing, and ability to play with my pinky finger a great deal. It's not real, but it's about as close as your gonna get while still maintaining appeal to a HUGE audience.

If one more guitar player cries to his mommy cause he stinks at this game, I'm going to go on a shooting spree at the local guitar store, and local gigs, and aiming for guitar players only.

BTW, my drummer can even play this game. While he plays on hard, he still understands that it's close enough to a guitar that the game mechanics are easy enough to learn.

God dammit... SHUT UP ALREADY! But if you like the game, give me a shout, I'm down any time, any where, for a round of dragon force on expert.

Thank you, and happy guitar hero playing.

We'll, I'm a big fan of radio. Kinda. I listen to it constantly. While I work, or better yet, WHEN I work a regular job. Driving my car, gotta have some radio. Shit like that. I even listen to online radio when I'm sitting at a computer. Usually however, if I have the option, I'd rather listen to cd's or music the guys in the band send my way.

The reason I prefer to not listen to radio after a while is simply that it's getting terrible. When I was younger and not in a band making my own music, I used to love it. I could listen to it for hours, and I would buy cd's that I actually heard on the radio.

And then it started to go downhill for me. I realized that songs on the radio are fucking GARBAGE. Not all, but alot. In my area, we get 3 decent rock radio stations, plus tonnes of classic stuff. We have a university radio station, although the signal strength isn't all that good. So I don't listen to it much. And the songs these stations play, other than the university station, are crap. If I have to listen to that new puddle of mud song once more, paranoid pshycho or whatever, I'm going to walk right into 97.7 and shoot the dj in the face. The songs that pass as radio hits are horrible. 2 chord songs, terrible lyrics, just crap. Am I the only one who notices this?

I started wondering... Why? Why are these songs so big? Is it the demographics that these stations are pandering to? Do people with more money than me get better songs, because they listen to pay radio? Sattelite radio? I often wonder what I'm missing. I would get it if I could afford it... but why? Radio shouldn't be like this. And it's not ALWAYS crap, I do like some songs. But jesus...

Does anybody else feel the same way? My guess is that the people reading this aren't even INTO radio at all. Most likely everybody downloads, listens to mp3's. Is that you? That, however, is a totally different topic all together, and I'll dive into that soon enough.

My point is, music seems like it's suffering these days. It's harder and harder for musicians to do well. Is it because radio sucks? Is it because people are settling for artists and songs that don't offer a damn thing? I'm starting to think that people will listen to anything. Not everybody mind you, but there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't care what music has become... and radio isn't helping. Save me from this frequency modulated HELL...

Chris - Flatlined