metal spike, meet my eye

My plans to go out tonight were thwarted when I got sucked into watching the Minutemen documentary with Brian.

D. Boon (R.I.P.) leaping across the stage with his impressive body mass, screaming his heart out, mesmerized me and inspired me. (Fugazi’s Instrument has the similar effect on me.) It made me wonder, “What the hell am I doing listening to weak-posturing, style-conscious shit lately?” What happened to music that made me tremble with awe, to music that made me not a little frightened by the possibilities it presented? Because dammit, I miss the urgency, the honesty, the rawness. It seems like most of what I listen to or play these days is too washed out; sure it’s great to dance to and it serves as a nice soundtrack to the business of modern life, but it lacks the abandon of uninhibited expression I so value.
I want music to be dangerous again. Dangerous sounds, dangerous ideas, dangerous movement. I need to be reminded that music, art, any creative endeavor should be volatile. And I don’t mean volatile in the obvious and facile ways. Some of the most thought-provoking things are the ones that are deceptively subversive.

Yet this is difficult to keep sight of now when it seems like everything is prepackaged in hip uniform rebelliousness, when indie is so dependent on image and not content, when anything risky or new is accepted only if presented by eye-candy messengers.

But enough talk. Perhaps this will be some kind of new year’s resolution for me.  Now that I’m 30, it’s about time I say farewell to all the bullshit, yeah?