I always get excited about live music at a bar I’m walking into that I didn’t know had live music to be offered. “Live music? Excellent. I didn’t know they were going to have live music. No cover either. Nice.”
But unless R & B legends The Whispers just happened to file on stage or this bar in downtown Kalamazoo is actually the next birth of whatever will come after hip-hop, you’re going to be disappointed.
If the music is quiet, you might get lucky enough to be unoffended or bemused. I really wanted to use the word “nonplussed” right then even though I found out a while ago that “nonplussed” doesn’t mean what I thought it means. It means “utterly perplexed” and I thought it meant “unphased.”
Anyway, a band called Walkin’ Papers was playing tonight at a bar in Indiana. I felt good that they had this thing in their lives where they could get away from their wives and kids and play Buffalo Springfield and think back to a time when they were young and people used the word “funky” to describe them.
Walkin’ Papers trapped my ass, though, because it was me, a friend, Walkin’ Papers and a room full of people not at all rocking to Walkin’ Papers. Still, Walkin’ Papers played loud. Not loud enough so you couldn’t think, but loud enough to where you didn’t want to talk to anyone after an initial attempt to talk to them:
Me: Hey.
You: What?
Me: Hey.
You: I can’t hear you.
Me: What?
You: I can’t hear you.
Me: (looking at you)
You: (yelling in my ear) I can’t hear you!
Me: Ah!
You: Sorry.
Me. It’s cool.
You: What?
Also, Walkin’ Papers reminded me that the nature of musical preference is devastatingly depressing. For instance, while most people don’t like living musicians who are far older than them (and DON’T say “hey, I like the Beatles” or “hey, I like this indie artist” because both of those don’t count for different reasons), it is possible to like musicians older than yourself.
It is not possible, however, to like musicians far younger than yourself. This means that very soon the best you can do is like old good music. Even if you did like new good music — and I’m speaking of you at an age when you’re old, let’s say 34 — that would be worse.
Older people can’t even mention liking music that is re-recorded old music (like John Legend or The White Stripes) without making younger people who like that music feel disgusted.
“Hey, these guys sound a lot like the Four Tops!”
“No way, Dad, get out of my room! Ugh!”
I’m not saying this is how preferences should be treated, I’m just saying one day society will turn its back on you and view anything you do outside of the office as perverted or suspicious.
I’ll go ahead and blame reunion tours for this because those should make everyone uncomfortable. “Sweet! Did you hear Cream is going to tour this summer?” Oh great, a 60-year-old man singing about a 17-year-old girl. But at least when REO Speedwagon plays at your county casino it’s not as bad as the reunion tours where promoters get a bunch of groups together that each had one hit and put on a nostalgia show filled with “remember when?” moments.
OK, yes. I am just pissed because it puts pressure on me to do something significant with the rest of my 20’s.
