The Logic Off Topic list

At 7:21 PM -0700 6/24/01, Wilson Zorn wrote:
>I know by now someone's said this but I can't restrain - what does making it
>big have to do with how "rocking" something is?

It has quite a lot to do with it actually and BTW it's the other way 
around, what rocks becomes popular.  But even if you don't agree with 
public opinion since there is no other objective measure it has to 
serve as a basis to make the observation.

>As to guitar being more intrinsically rocking than keyboards - I think that
>depends on your definiton of what rocking means.  In the more conventional
>rock genre definition, I think by that very definition it will be.  But on
>the other hand I would personally find something like a Chemical Brothers
>piece or specifically Schooly D's "PSK - What Does it Mean?" or many Public
>Enemy songs as rocking as anything by the Who or Kinks or Sex Pistols.

I suppose it also depends on what your definition of "live 
performance" is. Part of what made guitar the perfect rocking weapon 
for so long is that it was so easy to learn play a creditable 
danceable tune on it.  It just is not as easy to do that on 
traditional, non-sampling, non-sequenced keyboards.  The times they 
are a changing.  Now people like Public Enemy can do it even more 
easily and sell millions just by  pushing one key on a keyboard and 
playing... uh, guess what, a sample of a Joe Perry Guitar riff.

>Hmmm, I think that the whole virtuoso machismo "I'm-better-than-you"
>mentality is what has turned me off to a lot of mainstream guitarists,
>particularly the flashy ones.

Everyone is competing in some way however subtle.  I always laugh 
when artists or media people deny that.  Did you ever see John 
Lennon's interview with the great unintentional comic Tom Snyder?  It 
was hilarious.  Lennon having nothing left to prove laid it out it in 
a very simple self effacing manner "we all get in it for the girls" 
which was followed by about 3 minutes of indignant sanctimonious 
denials and declarations of high motives from Tom Snyder.

>Since I don't intend to reproduce, maybe
>that's why given this line of thought...

What we're talking about here is getting laid.  Do you actually think 
of making babies when you have sex?  I know *I* don't.


>How about Johnny Ramone!?

Aren't you thinking of Joey?
-- 


                                 Dennis Gunn
                                 Mightyjohn@...

                  check out  MIGHTY JOHN HENRY's album "hot air head"
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