Friday Fives
1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why?
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. There is a spirit and an energy of the common man and a thread that is woven through his music. As he matured from his first album in 1973 through to his most recent album in 2003, I feel as a listener that I too have matured, I too have conquered my fears and faced my dreams. And I don’t care what naysaying roommates and friends have said in the past – he is a good singer – expressing the drama and agnst in his songs as no other. Plus the man can play a wicked electric guitar. He is Rock and Roll. A review a few years back said once that Bruce never wanted to be the biggest star in the world, he just wanted to win the battle of the bands contest, night after night after night – and that about sums it up best.
2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why?I think at present anyway it would be Jim Morrison and the Doors. They are so overplayed and I just don’t get it. Sure it is kinda cool that they didn’t have a bass guitar, but really, there isn’t much there when you give them a listen. Maybe it is the imbalance between the deep over poetic lyrics of Morrison against the pop beat organ sound of Mazerak, but it just rarely works for me.
I am not a big ColdPlay fan, but in all honesty, I only know two of their songs and haven’t given them much of a critical ear. I just know that when the latest Coldplay hit song hits, I tend to change the radio station.
3. If your favorite singer wasn’t in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
Yeah. In fact, to quote from an other VH1 source, during the Warren Zevon documentary made to accompany his last album he described Springsteen as being exactly the kind of person that you would have wanted him to be. That is pretty high praise and perhaps a lofty goal for all of us to aspire to – to be the kind of person that people would want us to be.
4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show?
And yes, you all expect me to give yet another accolade to Bruce (seven days until he plays Invesco!!) but I will instead give this honor to Slim Cessna and his Auto Club, a local Denver Cowboy Punk band that for many years has set Denver audiences on fire with a rocking, idosyncratic stage act the ignites the passions and majesty of rock and roll – plus a few songs about the Devil and redemption thrown in for good measure.
5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from dowloading free music?
I have downloaded a ton of music in the past and from time to time still dig around on the P2P networks to find a live acoustic version of a song that I may not have heard before. And that is the major plus to the downloading P2P movement – giving listeners a quick and easy access to little heard before acts and songs. The RIAA and the music industry missed the boat on digital music and the power and presence of the internet. And instead of reacting to the new demands of music consumers, they remain hell bent on legislating their business model into law rather than reacting to naturally progressing market changes.