Things that I've learned last night...

My wife was invited to sing at a Prince tribute concert, and I was in the VIP room, trying to watch the show...
 
The band was on stage, playing Nothing Compares to You and the guitarist was playing an incredible solo, building up in intensity and tension. He was just about to peak when I was completely blinded by the flash of an iPhone - two ladies in front of me were having their picture taken together by a friend. I just couldn't believe their sense of timing. Whoever let those idiots in the VIP room...
 
Obviously, one of them subsequently spent quite a bit of time editing the picture and adding filters before posting it to Facebook. Ironically, that's when she was done editing that I recognized a somewhat familiar face that appears regularly in my newsfeed, as the lady in question appears to hang around musicians quite a bit. She's simply not recognizable in person...
 
At one point, I was also asked if I would mind having my picture taken with a lady I didn't know from Adam. I had to ask her friends to repeat the request a few times because it simply did not compute. I politely declined.
 
At some point, worrying that I might be blocking the view of people in the back, I turned my head and looked... Nope. They were having a meal and chatting, a young couple was busy making out - the person who had invited them wasn't onstage at that particular moment, so they didn't care.
 
In fact, the majority of them were guests of guests - even if the artists were allowed to invite their spouse or a friend, some of them obviously felt that the rules didn't apply to them, as per human custom.
 
I also realized in this week that, even if I have a tremendous amont of respect for him, I really don't like Prince much. Most of his songs appeared to me to be little but a simple melody on top of a riff and a groove, going on for 4 or 5 minutes without ever modulating, the simplistic melodies themselves being far from memorable in most cases. The few songs which evolved a bit more seemed pretty mediocre - nothing to write home about.
 
But there are obviously a couple of gems, great pieces of pop music. But that's a handful - and just my opinion. Obviously, when compared to the majority of inane pop stars out there, I guess that Prince does look like some kind of genius.
 
Anyway... I'm much better off at home with my books and cd's, away from people.

People?  You went out to a PUBLIC place?!  What a horrible thought.
 
Did you learn anything?  Hmmmmmmmm?
 
 
 
 

duplicate

You have described a few reasons why I retired to the comfort of my own studio.

Bit,
 
Portland is a homeless person's paradise.  We treat them fabulously.  

That's too bad. I really enjoy watching post-modern jukebox on YouTube. They have some killer vocalists in front of great players.

Hi there Rain,
if you get tired of the bubblegum pop crap like me, then let me turn you on to ambient, drone, new age music. There's a lot of interesting, variety, experimental stuff going on that I think you might actually like some of it.
For example, Steve Roach, Michael Sterns, Jeff Pearce, Jeff Oster, etc. Just too many creative artists to name...
There's even some really experimental, glitchy type of electronic music, but I really don't care for that.....
And of course, this is the type of music I compose is ambient like my last album, Interstellar Love and many others which can be found over at
http://darrenrogers.bandcamp.com/
 
If interested, I can probably pop you a list of other great new age/ambient musicians I think you might like, esp. guitar musicians:)
 

I cannot stand most bars. The last time I went out to a bar it was for the birthday of a friend of a friend, and the place we went to was toe-to-hell packed to the rafters, it took 15 minutes to get served, they were playing the most godawful music at full blast and you had to literally shout 2 inches from people's faces to communicate, and even then you only got about 50% of what people were saying. I was stood there, sweating, hemmed in on all sides by yelling douchebags, trying to shout banal small talk with all the power of my lungs at someone I really had no interest in talking to. It was horrible, and I think I left at about 9:30pm. Said my goodbyes and just walked out. The looks on everyone's faces - "you're GOING? When we're having such an awesome time?" It's at times like that I feel completely alien to humanity due to the fact that so many people are seemingly enjoying something which is excruciatingly irritating to me. But then I start to thinking, maybe none of those people are enjoying it either. They've just been conditioned to believe that unless you give the impression that you love loud music and people yelling crap to each other over overpriced, watered down drinks, then there's something wrong with you.
 
And then there are those bars where there's a wall of widescreen TV's showing sports. Again.....hell.  
 
I think the only bar experience I've ever enjoyed was many years ago after a harrowing day's climbing in the Lake District, where I almost slipped to my death scaling Scafell Pike in the snow, and then we took a wrong turn on the misty descent and ended up walking 5 miles in the wrong direction. About a mile from our camp we stumbled into this homely looking rustic pub, exhausted, frozen and soaking wet, and there was no music, there was a big crackling fire and real ale. And a few rosy-cheeked farmers dotted around the room talking at sensible volumes about perfectly sane things, like sheep dip and pig feed. I honestly felt like I was back in the womb. 

 
 

 
all the best,
 
Kenny

I miss a good chinwag now and then as well.

A man after my ossified heart

Corbin is certainly a cute looking fella
 
all the best ,
Kenny

Well , he sure looks like a character  
 
Kenny

jamesg1213
I'm sure you do Dafydd.

I'm definately beginning to like the sense of humor in the coffee house.
 
Once I get over being the new kid and loose my inhibitions, I'll surely start to join in.