My real name

For a good while kevinwillingham.com would direct people to this blog. But I’ve decided to make that url actually be used for a self hosted website. I may still update this place but more likely all activity will now be over at http://kevinwillingham.com 

You know, I have never really used this blog to post any thoughts on music related matters. Well I am thinking I should do this more often!

So, for today I pose the question; has anyone else’s local music scene degraded into almost nothing? 

When I was a kid and through most of my teenage years the St. Louis music scene was crazy and something to be proud of if you were involved in it. In recent years though I have found it to be shallow and to be a hindrance to the music it is suppose to celebrate. It has become sad to watch what was once a community of like minded musicians become a disjointed gaggle of egotists. 

People use to work together to book shows, promote shows, write, record, distribute, create etc. The DIY community was once real strong because no one was ever shy to share their methods of printing their merchandise or how they got their CDs to look so nice. Now I see people getting all upset because you claim to be a DIY musician but someone else helped you. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t have a magical fountain of crafting knowledge just floating in the middle of my studio; I usually had to find someone to inform me on a few things. The first time I decided to try and print my own CD I asked questions, looked things up and asked for help prior to trying to do it. If I ever decided to do screen printing I would for sure ask someone I know who does it all the time for a tutorial on the first few I do instead of just jumping into it and potentially ruining a set of good shirts. Would that make the rest of the shirts I made less valid? I don’t see why it would or why it should matter anyway. If someone gave me all the shirts to print on it still shouldn’t matter! It is called “Do it Yourself” but it doesn’t actually mean you have to sit in your dark basement and have no outside help at all or ask anyone to lend a hand. It is about making things by hand and not using a large “corporate mechanism” to make your merchandise. 

Then of course we have all the snobs which is pretty much all that is left; “Your name isn’t original enough”, “your sound sucks”, “you’re a bunch of posers”, “you’re just hipsters”(the new posers it would seem), “You’re not Indie enough”….I could go on for a while. 

I don’t know when this happened but it seems like a large faction of people split off and decided to make a governing council to decide who is legit enough. They all sit around in their band shirts supporting musicians who don’t even play anymore, drink PBR and Stagg and decide who should be allowed to be supported by their group. Then of course you have their flock who all nod in agreement with everything that happens because they couldn’t survive not being labeled as super legit punks. What happened? When did this become about stifling people’s creativity and telling everyone what is good enough for them to listen to? Sure there are bands that are awful or bands who don’t want to contribute to their local music but let the people play their music. That awful band may just learn a few things and get better in a few months and blow you away, or hell break up and the two actually talented people in the band finally got to meet new musicians and start an even better band. Same for that band that doesn’t seem to care at all.

Now I’m not saying book them on every show or keep risking your income to support them if you book shows; I know and fully understand the need to put food in your fridge. But when you have an empty slot that really needs filled or are setting up a free show, throw the kids a bone and give them the opportunity a few times. 

But worse than this is the bands and musicians that are good, want to work and want to do more, but someone has decided they aren’t fitting in so they are just ignored. This kind of behavior is rather disgusting, no one person or small group of people should have so much weight on someone’s creative future. Or just the general crowd member or musician who ignore the groups, actually heckles them, tells other people to forget about having them back; just plain wrong. It is impossible for everyone to have the same feelings about every form of music but supporting each other is the only way to keep things going. I’ve played plenty of shows with bands I thought were just not good or entertaining. But I had no reason to look down at them, ignore them the rest of the night, or ignore their contact if they emailed me at a later date. If they came up and talked to me and asked to trade CDs, I would do so gladly as I was glad to see someone liked my work and I probably knew someone who would like theirs. 

Now granted I’ve been on the bad side of things too, I’m no saint and in fact I can be quite the asshole. This kind of behavior, this snobbery, it can get under your skin like a virus. But frankly I’ve finally seen it so much that every time it has become so apparent, I just can’t stand it anymore. I feel awful when I’m a jerk, I’m angry when I see people putting down others for the sake of doing so; “Why are these guys booked on this show? They aren’t punk! I’ll show up late and you should too”. 

Alright I’m officially rambling, so I’m done with this post!

Peace,

-Kev