You're Making Me Hate You (23 page)

No one’s listening. No one cares. People just accept it as is. The art was discarded a long time ago. I sit, drinking my coffee and scratching my ass, and feel my heart break every hour on the hour. “Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, but first, here’s a slew of trash set to current music you don’t need but apparently can’t live without!” Fuck. My. Life.

You want to know why I’m still angry after all these years, after I’ve been able to leave all the nightmares and pain of my childhood on the battlefield? It’s very simple: the world has cheapened EVERY FuckING THING I spent my life dreaming about doing, and
you
let it happen. You: the Great Consuming Leaches of the world. You: the easiest route between points A and B. You: the Global Sense of Entitlement and Expectancy. You: the Holder of the Keys and the Maker of Change. You have done this, all because it’s so fucking easy. Your ability to make excuses to feel okay about it also seriously makes me want to fucking kill myself. You cast around for any way to condone your actions, and those rebuttals are as shallow as a puddle in a desert. You go online and look for people like yourself to help back you up, and it looks like a bunch of spoiled brats having a fit, throwing yourselves on the ground like irate toddlers who don’t get a piece of candy. Face it: you steal music. You
steal
it. What’s worse, I know why you steal it. Because 98 percent of the music out there today isn’t worth buying.

There’s the Catch 22. I sit here, indignant about how the state of the music union is, and I know damn well that if I were just another listener like you, I’d probably be stealing it too. Modern music is a joke. If it ain’t Katy Perry swinging from a tree, caterwauling like a Kewpie Doll with breast implants, it’s crap like what passes for “Active Rock Radio” today: a bunch of con artists and thieves “borrowing” from better songs and superior artists to create an amalgam of garbage so heinous, it’s inestimable how it’s been allowed to go on. But these thieves are smart because they know their audience. In other words, they know
you
. They know that you don’t do your research or remember the past. They know that you don’t pay for music, so why the fuck would you pay attention? They know that even if you put the original and the callous rip-off next to each other, with an expert pointing out all the similarities and places where they
blatantly
plagiarized the material, you don’t care enough to be incensed about it, therefore letting these second-rate pukes get away with it. Good for you. It’s no better than giving little kids awards for participating: how are we supposed to recognize excellence and exception when we’re so busy rewarding mediocrity so as not to hurt people’s feelings? Fuck the feelings—make me
feel something
other than disgust.

There is a rock album that came out in 2013 that is
so
derivative, it’s impossible to describe it in one book. It’s almost textbook:
every
song on that album is either a Metallica song, a Megadeth song, or an Iron Maiden song. The
real
metal fans know it and avoided the album like the plague. But the Metal by Numbers fans have no idea about the history of our genre, the great anthems that represent it, and the bands that made it vital in the first place. In other words, they don’t know a fucking thing. So that band and others like them get away with musical murder. It’s a shame, but it’s true. Before you ask, no—I’m not
going to tell you who it is. This is an example of me making you do your own legwork on the subject. Trust me when I say that when you figure it out, you’ll be as disappointed as I was. What are they going to do, sue me? That means admitting that I’m right, and that’ll never happen in this day and age. It also means giving up the anonymity I’ve allowed them here, safely tucked in these bleeding pages. So I guess we’ll just see what happens. I didn’t even mention the
other
band who does the same thing and in an even more flagrant fashion. One of their “hits” (I can’t even say that without spitting on the ground) steals the melody line from Ozzy’s song “The Ultimate Sin.” It’s right there for everyone to see. But no one sees it except, of course, for myself.

I hate it when I’m right.

On a humorous note, how fucking funny is it that Chad Kroeger married Avril Lavigne? I think that is the funniest shit I’ve heard in years, and that’s saying something: Lemmy told me a filthy joke in a smoking lounge in Germany that involved grandmothers and fists, and that is a distant second place. Kroeger and Lavigne getting married makes weird sense on so many hilarious levels that if I think about it too long, I get an ice cream headache. But here’s the issue that terrifies me: they are both made of the same matter, and if they touch each other too much they might fuck around and open a black hole here on Earth. Another thing that could happen is we could all go back in time or something. Let’s just hope they cancel each other out peacefully—the last things we need are global time travel or a violent singularity in Toronto. Hopefully by the time this comes out, they’ll have split up, saving us all from desecration. (Editor’s note: THEY HAVE—that’s a win in my book.)

One surprising by-product of the fact that so much modern music is Suck City is that I’ve gone back and discovered or rediscovered some old wonderful music I hadn’t even thought to give
a chance before. One genre in particular is jazz. Free, bebop, swing—it doesn’t matter really: I’ve begun to envelope myself in this amazing exploration. The husky melancholy of Billie Holiday, the cerebral strike of John Coltrane, the massive moves of Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and his brass acrobats, Dave Brubeck and his ocean jazz—there is
so
much to look into and enjoy that you never really know until you find it. Mind you, you need to have an ear for it to begin with. If you’re a weekend warrior who only listens to Top Forty, I apologize, but there’s a 99 percent chance you’re not going to enjoy Miles Davis. However, if you dig you some adventure in the guise of risk and innovative improv, there’s a hundred years of music to investigate. From Bix Beiderbecke to Thelonious Monk, you will not be disappointed.

I haven’t mentioned Charlie Parker.

He and Dizzy Gillespie and a handful of others are really responsible for shaping the sound of modern jazz, and they did it way back in the 1940s. You listen to a recording like “Koko,” and it has the same sense of incredible abandon that you get from early rock ’n’ roll records or seventies punk songs. It was
that
explosive. It’s insane to think it was recorded around 1945. But for all the moods and modes Parker had to offer, I have to be honest: it’s a slow jam of his that I really enjoy the most. Some people choose to concentrate on his addictions and neuroses, but this one recording can silence them all.

“Lover Man,” recorded in the late forties when Parker disappeared into the darkness of Los Angeles, might just be one of the saddest songs I’ve ever encountered. The sense of longing and regret you get from this tune makes you so pensive, I was on the verge of tears hearing it. I encourage everyone to listen to it—the live versions he did are good, but this studio session is the one you want to hear. Listen to it, then think about this when you do: it was one whole live take, recorded back before
computers, and it sounds as good today as it did when it was released. After you put it in that perspective, you’ll understand why modern music can sincerely suck my fucking dick.

Let’s talk about the phenomenon known as EDM—electronic dance music. Now, I have no beef with these people or their music. I’ve seen the shit come and go: before EDM, there was techno. Before techno, there was rave. Before rave, there was electronica. Before electronica, there were DJs. I get it—I’ve seen it. It’s nothing new and to each his own. But here’s my fucking problem: they make huge amounts of money for live performances—
huge
amounts of money for live events. That Andy Samberg skit isn’t just funny; it’s damn near accurate. These “artists” make a lot of money for concerts. However, it’s not really a concert, is it? It’s really not, because essentially they turn up, plug their computer in … and push a button. That’s what they do when they perform: they push a fucking button. That’s because all their music is preprogrammed and set to go once they hit the stage. The person doesn’t even need to turn up; they could just send their laptop along, and that would be it. They’re not
doing anything
. That’s why they wave their stupid arms around and jump and look like nuts. They don’t do
anything
. Saying they are “performing” is a fucking LIE. That’s what bothers me: real performers get onstage and bleed, giving it all they got. These DJs (I don’t care whether that’s not what they call them; that’s what they fucking are) get up onstage, push
one button
, sit back, and make millions.

Fuck you.

That’s an insult to every motherfucker who climbs on a stage and dies every night. That is an insult to all the musicians and bastards who’ve kept this industry from buckling for decades. Calling these shows “concerts” is as bad as saying George W. Bush was elected twice legally. I’m ashamed that people throw
money at these DJs. A few of them actually create live, but the majority are a fucking
sham
. If they had a soul, they’d be awash in guilt. But they don’t—they won’t even care that I’m saying this. Joke’s on them, though. Like I said, I’ve seen these trends come and go. I give them two years. Don’t let the door hit you in your other face on the way out.

It ain’t just music either, folks; it’s the shows and movies on TV as well. There are shows so offensively idiotic that I almost exclusively watch puppet shows now at shopping malls around the world. There are days I don’t even turn my TV on, and this is coming from a recovering Cable Junkie. I could sum the fucking mess that is modern garbage very simply. It’d only take two words. Drop your linen and commence to grinnin’. Here goes:

American Hoggers
.

I.

Give.

Up.

Every channel boasts of “hit” shows, then you see the commercials. They turn out to be just another fucking piece of trash in which a bunch of drunken rednecks party it up, fight and fuck, and quote bumper stickers like they’re scripture and try a little too desperately to ignore the fact that they have absolutely no fucking future, that if they didn’t have this show, they’d be digging ditches or turning tricks for those who dig ditches. They pretend that people in the world give a steamy shit about their fucking tawdry existence. They have to—the alternative is too fucking bleak to comprehend for them: that if they didn’t exist, it wouldn’t matter.

Wow, I’m bitter …

I’m so tired of “who’s the best chef, artist, apprentice, house flipper, restaurant flipper, car flipper, snobby model, bad girl, rock whore, real housewife, nerd,
other
nerd, singer, voice,
dancer, face, British talent, American talent, bachelor, bachelorette, storage locker buyer, tiny cheerleader,
fat
tiny cheerleader, survivor, celebrity survivor, big brother, big sister, rehab winner, weight loser,
different
weight loser, and amazing racer” shows that I’ve very nearly sold all of my televisions a hundred times in the last five years. I seriously thought these shows would be gone by now; instead, channels like Bravo would be out of business without them. It’s disconcerting to a fault. The only things real about reality TV are the fucking headaches I get when I try to explain to someone that there are producers on the other side of the camera telling them what to do. Some people don’t want to hear that shit. Some people are convinced that the chick with the rose and the spiky-haired dude who’s always a little too sweaty are going to live happily ever after. Some people think that Honey Boo Boo is adorable and misunderstood, not horribly irritating and gross, which she is. To be fair, it’s not just her—that whole family is a massive dose of diabetes with a GoPro. I’d rather fall asleep listening to recordings of farts from the 1920s than watch that fucking nightmare.

Maybe I wouldn’t be such a prickish old bastard if the balance of stupid to smart weren’t so out of whack. But almost everything on the telly is fucking drivel. If I have to stare at catty designers crying because their seams ripped out again, I’ll carve up my nose to spite my face. You might be saying, “You don’t
have
to watch those shows, Mr. Taylor.” First of all … thank you, nobody calls me Mr. Taylor. But you can call me “Mad Beans” Hooper. Secondly, that’s not
entirely
accurate, is it? Because it seems like every channel advertises on every
other
channel. I don’t watch Bravo or HGTV or those other channels because I don’t like those shows. But they
all
advertise on the channels I
do
watch, sticking all that silly horseshit in my face like a kid calling me a cocksucker from across the street, thinking that
the rules don’t apply because he’s not on my property. That’s fucking stacked up, pap. I don’t give a shit about the next top model or top chef or top shot. The only “top” I want to bloody watch is
Top Gear
.

Swinging back to music while my blood’s moving, I hinted earlier that modern music has the smell of used cat litter and tastes about as sweet. That’s not fair—cat litter’s just doing its job. Modern music has no excuse. People “write” this shit, record it, print it, send it out for consumption, and then proclaim enthusiastically that it’s an “instant hit.” I’d sincerely like to know how hits are made these days and who’s writing them.

First of all, no radio station
really
plays your requests anymore. I’ve seen this firsthand: the DJs already have the next song dialed up and when you call and try to request something, they assure you that they might be playing it later, then because they’re always recording the calls, they ask you whether you like “Blah-Blah-Blah.” If you say yes, I like “Blah-Blah-Blah,” they then cut that recording up so it sounds like you called and said, “Hey, can I hear ‘Blah-Blah-Blah’?” You sure can, they say, it’s actually coming up next! Meanwhile, the song you actually called for? They don’t even have it in the station. That’s what happens to the requests for new music: they get tossed in lieu of hearing fucking “Blah-Blah-Blah” for the billionth fucking time. That’s why radio is going away and satellite is taking over. People like to wait to hear what’s next commercial-free(ish) rather than feel like they’re being ignored. Shit happens, and it always happens on WSHT, playing what
we
think you
want
to hear, even if you
don’t
!