Category Archives: Film & Mass Media

Chuck Norris movies as comedy

Posted on by

Unacknowledged comedies happen because media bias becomes so influential that many viewers can’t comprehend what they are watching. You have to have intelligence to recognize the humor in an unbelievable situation that is presented & promoted as deadly serious. This is how camp & cult classics come about in film. Chuck Norris rightly belongs in this camp. The Chuck Norris movies from his classic period, 1979-1985, are his only watchable films, proving there are limits to badness which an educated viewer shouldn’t go past. I’ll stay within the era to illustrate some Chuck Norris laughs you may have missed & why.

To start at the beginning, Chuck Norris was a middle-weight kick boxing champion when few people followed the sport. Before that he was in the US Air Force, which clearly shaped his views on politics. Chuck Norris trained under Bruce Lee, and got his film break when he was a fight villain in Return of the Dragon (1972), written, directed by & starring Bruce Lee. This film, also known as The Way of the Dragon, was made in Hong Kong and has been widely dubbed into English. Not even Chuck Norris’ voice survives, as this movie deserves subtitles with no dubbing to hear Bruce Lee’s authentic voice in Chinese, along with the rest of the characters, but a dubbed version is still worthwhile because it’s really about the Bruce Lee fight scenes. If you ever wanted to see Chuck Norris get killed in a fight, as he deserves, then watch Return of the Dragon.

Enter the Dragon (1973) was produced by Warner as a US release in English and was Bruce Lee’s final completed film. After Bruce Lee tragically died in July 1973, Chuck Norris began boasting in the media that he was an equal of Bruce Lee in fighting & developing in his own system– which clearly wasn’t true. Jackie Chan, along with billions of Asians who love martial arts, have taken fierce exception to Chuck Norris for this. It’s helpful to know that when watching Chuck Norris movies.

Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do revolutionized hand-to-hand fighting, training, philosophy, etc; while Chuck Norris’ limited & brutal kick-boxing style– didn’t. He was an early world champion when no one cared, and those who did were watching Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger in body building, were the earliest true-action movie stars– meaning they could really do it. Before them it was guys like Sean Connery, who could act, but weren’t athletes.

Chuck Norris can’t act, but he can do action. Chuck Norris sorta filled the action movie void that fans were craving for before The Terminator (1984) & Rambo (1982 & 1985) took over. The first classic Chuck Norris comedy is A Force of One (1979), definitely one of my favorites from him. This is low-budget work from American Cinema, shot over the Christmas holidays, as it keeps referencing itself as a Christmas movie but by the end it hardly feels Christmassy. It feels like a raw martial arts action movie, with no acting talent except Clu Gulager. In the trailer for this movie, he is called “Clu Gallagher” which should give the viewer an idea about the attention-to-detail in A Force of One.

Other comic delights include the guy who later played Angel Fernandez who got chainsawed to death in Scarface (1983). Here he is one of the cops that gets his neck broken by the masked karate killer terrorizing Los Angeles. In his lone encounter with Chuck Norris, he says, “We’re gonna comb the west side, then meet some Colombians at the Sun Ray Motel about two keys of ya-yo. Catch you later.” I least I think he says that, and when I do I laugh.

A bad movie means you must press the riff button in your head. That means it’s now okay to speak out loud as the movie is running, because the movie isn’t holding your attention, it’s insulting it. The original MST3K (1989-99) taught us that.

In A Force of One, it’s a good thing we have Chuck Norris ready to teach these amateur LA cops how to defend themselves. Keep in mind, this is presented as hard hitting reality action on film. Another thing about Chuck Norris movies is that you don’t want to be his best friend, buddy, or police partner– because you will get killed. It happens to Chuck Norris’ step-son in A Force of One, and it’s all about revenge & vengeance from there. No sorrow or regrets as a step-father from Chuck Norris.

Jennifer O’Neill breaks that stereotype by living, but she is completely useless, unable to do the required stunts believably, and can’t act. She’s semi-pretty but clearly fading due to anorexia & the Hollywood lifestyle. At the climactic end, when Chuck Norris has unmasked the karate killer and they are having their fight-to-the-death amongst ex-US Special Forces soldiers, Norris is finally really to deliver the deathblow when Jennifer O’Neill screams, “NO!” Chuck Norris backs off and turns his back to his deadly foe, which almost gets him killed but Chuck Norris is so amazing at martial arts that he karate kicks his way out of that and then kills the bad guy. The credits roll over their awkward embrace for several minutes.

Another scene that deserves recognition is when Jennifer O’Neill is recruiting Chuck Norris, and takes him to see a 15-year old girl who has run away from home and become a prostitute. No explanation as to why she keeps running away from home, only that her parents are wealthy and therefore provide a loving home, but to their horror their daughter is now a junkie. Chuck Norris hates junkies. Before being led into the young prostitute’s room, we see her breasts being fondled by a middle-aged white man, who runs out as the lady cop busts through the door… and Chuck Norris lets him go [!]. Our hero, ladies & gentlemen. Chuck Norris then glares unsympathetically at the young girl, until her Hispanic pimp struts in and starts barking orders. There’s nothing Chuck Norris hates more than a loudmouth Hispanic pimp, so THEN he moves into action. Got that?

A Force of One has Christmas tinsel, wreaths, etc, in half its scenes, yet it somehow never feels like a Christmas movie, even when a Salvation Army brass band is playing holiday music to the public. And yet it is a Christmas movie. This movie lets you have the debate with other viewers, which is also part of the comic charm of A Force of One. I’ll leave it to you to watch & decide for yourself. FYI, I say it is a Christmas movie.

A Force of One was a minor box-office hit, so a bigger budget was allowed for The Octagon (1980). This is Chuck Norris’ best movie because there is so much talent helping him out. Never again would a studio invest in Chuck Norris like The Octagon, which features three leading ladies with whom he has dinner with, and two get killed. It’s ninjas this time, as his disgraced Japanese half-brother is the arch-villain, Seikura, who trains terrorists in the ninja style which is silent but deadly.

An echoplex effect box is used on Chuck Norris’ voice to great effect. Chuck Norris never has much to say, and has trouble when he does, so an echo effect adds weight & importance to his dull words. This will teach you the value of good production. The real star of The Octagon (as a comedy) is Art Hindle, Norris’ best friend [!] in the movie. Art Hindle’s passion & energy in The Octagon were never duplicated in any other performance by him. Art Hindle gives everything in his limited imagination & ability in The Octagon, and that’s all you can ask from an actor. I firmly believe Art Hindle’s legendary performance is the key to a true understanding of The Octagon.

One of the most ridiculously funny premises of Art Hindle’s character, AJ, is that he’s a martial artist. Not once in this movie do we see him training, or fighting. We mostly see him talking, getting drunk, and striking out with the ladies. We see him get captured easily as he reaches the perimeter of the octagon terrorist training camp. When AJ gets slaughtered at the end, The Octagon approaches great comedy. Art Hindle has no fighting skills, yet he keeps mouthing off to Chuck Norris like he’s a martial arts Jedi. Great comedy, as Art Hindle steals every scene he’s in, all the way to the bloody end. It’s this kind of vicarious pleasure that make action & comedy fans want to watch again & again.

Lee Van Cleef is in The Octagon, as a FBI anti-terrorist. Lot’s of tough talk here, pretending to understand global politics, etc. There’s a fat Jew who bankrolls Seikura’s ninja terrorist camp, a greasy boxing promoter hassling Chuck Norris to return to the ring, and finally a wealthy & beautiful heiress who is a fundraiser (& victim [!]) of this ninja terrorism due to her high political principals– or something like that. Chuck Norris movies are always vague with these details on economics & politics. The important thing is that Chuck Norris is ALWAYS ready to kick some terrorist butt, just point him in the right direction and remember– he works alone.

He says it a lot, “I work alone,” but I think it’s really the opposite– people don’t want to work with him. Just consider it. In Invasion USA (1985) Chuck Norris is now with Golan-Globus. No decent leading actresses wanted to work with Chuck Norris anymore, as that was death on-screen & for a career. Several comedy notes need to be made for Invasion USA to be watchable. Near the beginning, when Chuck Norris is wrangling a gator with his Native American buddy [!!], he doesn’t knot the rope around the alligator’s snout, so it sheds the rope and snaps at John Eagle as it is going into the cage. Not helpful, Chuck, and his soon-to-be-dead buddy lets him know.

The opening scene of Invasion USA is Golan-Globus at its worst, as Richard Lynch playing a Russian terrorist leader Rostov, disguised under a US Coast Guard flag, machine guns a crew of apparently stranded Cuban refugees. After everyone on board is dead, a hatch is opened and hundreds of kilos of cocaine are revealed inside. The poor refugees were really drug smugglers! Except, if you really had hundreds of kilos of coke on a boat manned with 30+ people there would be guns, a mechanic to fix the engine, a working radio, etc. You certainly wouldn’t be drifting helplessly in the ocean. Disgraceful Golan-Globus propaganda, so push the riff button right away on Invasion USA and make it a comedy.

Like A Force of One, Invasion USA is a Christmas movie. Maybe not as much, but it is. A little girl asks he daddy if she can place the star on top of the outside Christmas tree before Rostov blows up her home and everyone in it. There’s Christmas music in the neighborhood just before this villainy. This leads to an interesting production note on Invasion USA, as this demolition was done in an Atlanta neighborhood that had been annexed for an airport expansion, so Golan-Globus was allowed to blow up those homes for real, not some fake Hollywood explosion which you often see. It’s quite striking to watch.

Richard Lynch as Rostov, convincingly plays a Russian terrorist mastermind who is haunted by Chuck Norris and maniacally shoots his enemies in the genitalia. But even he has a few friends to help him. Chuck Norris works alone, and he makes that clear to the government agent with whom he meets in south Florida to accept the assignment of saving the United States. Chuck Norris closes the scene by walking away from the agent in mid-sentence and sticking him with his dinner bill. I think that’s supposed to be funny, but it actually reveals something else.

Apparently in Invasion USA, the entire US Navy & Coast Guard were napping when Russian terrorists landed on a Miami beach under cover of darkness, then loaded themselves into trucks and scattered across America to spread terror and destroy our way of life. A teenage couple necking on the moonlit beach are slaughtered by Russian reconnaissance, otherwise they may have notified US authorities and foiled the terrorist invasion. Often these foreign terrorists disguise themselves as police while massacring civilians, and this leads to people not trusting the police. Chuck Norris will battle these evil foreigners to restore the image of the police as benevolent & friendly civil servants.

In reality, by 1985 the Reagan/Bush administration had organized a federal response to the Cocaine Cowboy violence in Miami which had plagued the community for years. The DEA, FBI & Pentagon were now coordinated with local police in their efforts to secure the US border in Florida from well-organized Colombian drug cartels. Before that, any mass invading force trying to establish a Miami beachhead would have to take it from the Colombian & Cuban drug gangs. Do you see how ludicrous that is? All that reality makes the action & motivations in Invasion USA comically unbelievable.

When waiting in a hotel room for the US government to take him into custody, as part of his master plan to flush out Rostov and end the reign-of-terror, Chuck Norris is mindlessly watching TV in bed when he takes his finished chewing gum out of his mouth and sticks it to the picture on the wall behind him while not taking his eyes of the important television programming he is watching. If I had to choose one scene that defines Chuck Norris as an actor & unintentional comedian, that could be it.

One final point on Chuck Norris is that in every movie I’ve discussed, and those I haven’t, he’s always Chuck Norris. His character name & profession are irrelevant. Can you name another actor like that? You kinda have to go back to Buster Keaton & Charlie Chaplin for that. Chuck Norris never served in the Vietnam War, although he likes to make you believe that he did, and thus is credentialed to speak as a veteran soldier. He isn’t. As far as being an actor goes, Chuck Norris is in a category by himself when it comes to action-comedy as a genre– an unintentional-comic force of one.

…………..<><><><><><><>…………..

 

Pussy Riot reeks of provocation

Posted on by

There’s a lot of fake political art out there: sophisticated propaganda that broadcasts liberal values to a liberal audience. Pussy Riot’s performance of A Punk Prayer (2012) occupies that pole: focusing on feminist-LGBT rights, while maintaining an explicitly anti-Putin line that dovetails with an undying support for the fascists in Kiev. It’s strictly identity politics & anti-Putin propaganda for these CIA cut-outs known as Pussy Riot.

Staged in brightly-colored balaclavas to conceal their identity, while punching & kicking the air in ‘punk defiance’, these feminist, pro-war phonies have existed under the protective wing of western imperialism for over a decade.  A Punk Prayer is nothing more than a provocative publicity stunt by a bunch of imperialist-backed puppets. After such a time, what is the balance sheet on their popular influence?

First, no one knows any songs by Pussy Riot. No kids have Pussy Riot content on any of their playlists, or seriously recommends their music. No members of Pussy Riot play any musical instruments or have any songwriting chops. No one can even name all the band members, or how they met, etc. Everything about Pussy Riot is shrouded in mystery. All their songs lyrics & political statements come straight from Langley, VA & the US State Department. Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon about Pussy Riot is they are so well known in the media, without having any real fans– or content.

Pussy Riot’s western support is entirely from a wealthy political class & the fake corporate media. Since being mercilessly exposed as nothing more than anti-Russian propaganda by myself in the late 2010’s, Pussy Riot were branded “foreign agents” by the Russian government at the end of 2021, confirming my political & artistic analysis. As a musical artist, these imposters never fooled me, as I smelled a rat with Pussy Riot from the start.

At this point in history, Pussy Riot now labels itself an “activist art collective”, because they are obviously not a band or even musicians. Their “concerts” are a joke— instead of performing music, they talk about their feminism/lesbianism at length, then chant anti-Putin vulgarities while dumping water on the crowd. In 2020, Pussy Riot was online promoting a fake tour that didn’t exist, due to venue lockdowns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting Pussy Riot as ‘punk’ is no longer tenable, as all they do now is issue NFT crypto and promote US State Department propaganda through their website Mediazona. Here’s a cozy photo of Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, with Antony Blinken in 2022.

Mediazona is a US-supported media propaganda outlet focused on anti-Putin opposition, founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova & her Pussy Riot cohorts in 2014. This has become Pussy Riot’s primary vehicle for “activism”, since their musical “popularity” has waned due to inconvenient facts coming to light. Once again, can you sing (or even hum) a single Pussy Riot song? Do you know ANYONE who can?

Pussy Riot has become a world famous “act” with no recognizable content. That’s quite remarkable, and reveals much about the state of art in today’s world. The art market has become completely corrupted by big money to the point where there is no art– only dressed-up propaganda narratives packaged as ‘art’.

In 2012, Nadya Tolokonnikova was listed as Time Magazine’s ‘100 Women of the Year’, while also receiving the LennonOno Grant for Peace. In 2019, Tolokonnikova received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Rhode Island School of Design – for being a “powerful voice in the fight against tyranny,” while The Guardian ranked her #4 in Best Art of the 21st Century, for her Punk Prayer video. In 2023, Nadya Tolokonnikova was awarded the Woodie Guthrie Prize, rendering that honor meaningless while muddying the name of that great original folk singer. And so it goes, as Hillary Clinton is a big fan of Pussy Riot.

Kathleen Hanna was The Punk Singer (2013), the unmistakable voice of Bikini Kill, the last great rock band (in this artist’s opinion). What happened to Bikini Kill is what happened to the entertainment industry overall. Kathleen Hanna embraced Pussy Riot around the time her (long overdue) documentary was released on Netflix, so clearly her support for Pussy Riot helped with the movie distribution. For what it’s worth, The Punk Singer is a good documentary film and that’s what happened to Bikini Kill & rock music.

No, Pussy Riot isn’t here to save humanity from catastrophe though their fearless activism. They are instead stooges of imperialism. Pussy Riot receives complete support from the corporate media and every other capitalist institution. A February 2021 Greyzone investigative article titled ‘Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal’, confirmed this. Pussy Riot’s role in this NATO propaganda campaign is discussed in it:

New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat… As a UK FCO contractor, the Zinc Network said it was “delivering audience segmentation and targeting support” not only to Meduza, but also to Mediazona, a supposedly independent media venture founded by two members of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot. One of Mediazona’s founders, Nadya Tolokonnikova, shared a stage with former US President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Foundation’s 2015 conference. The following year, Tolokonnikova trashed now-imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, claiming, “He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.”

For the record, Julian Assange is a heroic journalist, beloved by hundreds-of-millions worldwide, who was unjustly persecuted by the imperialist governments of the US/UK for years over phony sexual assault claims, for the crime of telling people the truth about government-approved war crimes, etc. Pussy Riot attacks Julian Assange (and anyone else who speaks for the oppressed masses) for inspiring revolutionary thinking & action. As reactionary puppets of imperialism, Pussy Riot reeks of provocation.

……………..<><><><><><><><>……………

Extended Play Singles (2024)

Posted on by

This Extended Play project began in Sanford, FL before the COVID-19 pandemic, as a collection of ‘swan song’ singles. With the release of “The Electric Cat” this project is complete and has been re-named Extended Play Singles. Cover photo, artwork & production by Tom Pearce. It is now available on your favorite streaming platform.

I’m also pleased to announce that Magnified (2012) has been re-released onto the major streaming platforms. It’s very complicated how these songs are put up and then later disappear, but that’s a reality of the modern mp3 streaming market. Platforms for upload & distribution change their policies, get bought out, go out of business, etc. Independent artists are constantly being taken down, moved back, marginalized & de-platformed to make more room for Beyonce & Taylor Swift.

The current artistic situation is untenable, and talented artists in every sphere: music, film, arts & literature are being squeezed out in favor of mediocre corporate phonies. This is why popular music, film & culture are at such a low level. There is no money for real artists. The idea of Trump and his billionaire class cronies, including all the Democrats, is to silence & destroy all the artists. Everything from Trump’s anti-immigrant racism, to the #MeToo campaign’s false feminist hysteria is meant to divide oppressed workers with ignorance & false political narratives.

No serious artists are allowed to perform anymore, and the list of blacklisted talent is staggering. It began with Kevin Spacey being witch-hunted with false sexual assault allegations in November 2017, as the #MeToo campaign instantly became known to the world. Every bourgeois media news outlet was part of this reactionary feminist campaign to attack prominent artists such as Kevin Spacey, and effectively remove them from the entertainment industry. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, and countless others have been ‘cancelled’ by the #MeToo campaign, which is an identity politics prong of the CIA Democrats overall offensive on the working class.

Until there is revolutionary change in global society– meaning our economics & politics– there can be no substantial art & culture allowed into the mainstream. Only more football. All significant art taking place today is happening ‘underground’, meaning outside the corporate sphere. Thus, underground art is cut off from a mainstream breakthrough by every tentacle of monopoly capitalism & imperialism.

Those performers advocating for political reforms, while defending the Democratic Party, are lazy liberals. As proof: What impact did they have on Election 2024? The fascist Donald Trump steamrolled the imperialist flunky Kamala Harris, and now the Democrats & corporate media are looking forward to working with Trump in attacking the working class. On that, they are always united.

For real artists, the art is about the art. It’s not a vehicle to make money or a pathway to “stardom”. It’s about what you put into it and how it affects people– including yourself. It was fun to make this music, and certainly worthwhile, but when you’re all out of songs and no one in control will let you have the stage, then you move on to something else. That’s what I’ve done.

The music still lives, and that’s the point. As long as people care about music, film & art, it will live on. I had ideas I needed to express to the world in musical form and I hope it will inspire listeners & fans to do the same in their own creative way. That’s all an artist can do.

………….<><><><><><><>………..

 

“The Electric Cat” mp3 release

Posted on by

Preface: I feel this is my last original song. As a creative artist you eventually reach a point where you are out of songs, call it burnout or whatever, but it’s a natural process. You can’t be innovative as an artist forever. All are eventually overtaken by the next wave of revolutionary artistry and the new energy it creates. It’s similar to an athlete retiring, you have to accept it and move on.

In music this means if I return, it will be as a legacy act. That means no new songs, just fan favorites to make the paying audience happy. When you are a revolutionary artist, you have a chip on your shoulder and aren’t always willing to meet those fan expectations. Instead, you are challenging fans to meet YOUR expectations. That limits the fan base, but makes it more fanatical. It’s about deeply influencing those few who get you.

As a legacy act you are accepted, loved & paid, so it’s easier to return the love to the fans. Legacy acts only happen when there is money, and since that never happened for me, I’m not holding my breath. The political climate is still too reactionary for artists such as myself to be allowed venues that could connect us with a mass audience. Neo-McCarthyist witch hunting & blacklisting rule bourgeois politics & corporate mass media. MeToo, BLM, and fake ‘anti-semitism’ campaigns are CIA Democrat ‘big lies’ meant to intimidate & silence any genuine leftist opposition to capitalist imperialism.

My influence is still exerted as a blogger. Perhaps the most revolutionary thing I did in my musical artist career was creating this blog. No other artist (in any genre) has written as prolifically on so many subjects. The internet & social media made it possible, and my creative & effective use of these platforms has changed how people approach them. Blogging is now an artform. It is much easier to write an essay than it is to write a new song, so I’ll continue to express myself as an artist through blogging. Thank you to all fans for your continuing support!

Production notes & AI

After Tom recorded this song, we discussed artwork ideas, as usual. In real life the Electric Cat has died and I have no pictures, only images in my memory. I suggested a cartoon image, and that’s when Tom replied by suggesting an artificial intelligence (AI) app he had started using. There’s a learning curve which must be negotiated, but the result is this AI-generated image for “The Electric Cat”.

AI created a hyper-cartoon image for me (from no pictures) in just a few hours of email back-and-forth with my producer. Hyper-realism is a genre of art where the painter paints to exquisite detail. It takes a long time to complete a large canvas because every square inch is filled with painstaking detail. It’s extraordinary to look at, but often lacks soul or an important overall theme.

AI can produce images to a hyper-realistic level that display lifelike characteristics. AI doesn’t get offended and throw a hissy fit when I (the client) don’t like something it presented. In the hands of a learned technician, AI can do whatever you ask in a relatively short period of time. You just need to know what you want and how to communicate it.

These AI apps are much deeper & more powerful than photoshop, etc, which is how most pop art has been created for decades. This AI app took an idea (seed), and after Tom tweaked parameters & fed in descriptive details, developed it into what we wanted. In the past, I gave Tom ideas (or images) and let him run with them. He usually came back with something great and that was it. I learned not to expect anything in particular, because he’s not a graphic artist who can deliver exactly what I want from scratch. You have to be really gifted to do that, and neither of us are apt in that field.

AI apps replace (supersede) the efforts of entire marketing & art departments at major labels & studios such as Sony, Warner & Disney. Artificial intelligence has that power. AI can now take this Electric Cat image and mutate it into pop art quickly & cheaply, rendering high-quality, marketable images on demand. It’s almost too easy, and that’s the danger. Andy Warhol would smile, wryly.

If the song (or album) is a winner, artists now have the ability to create iconic artwork using AI. This solves a lot of problems for independent acts who don’t have access to major label resources. AI (in everyone’s hands) levels the playing field on that front, and opens up a world of new ones. There is a class of people who don’t want creative working people to know this.

AI is a big reason for the current entertainment industry & tech sector jobs bloodbath, for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Used in expert hands, artificial intelligence convinces you immediately. My experience happened to every Hollywood producer, director & entertainment industry bigshot upon being introduced to AI. In the future you are going to see more & more AI-generated content in music, film, TV, art, etc. It’s already started.

In music, Brian Eno has been an AI innovator, which is par for him. Ever since his first experiments in ambient music (early electronica) in the 1970’s, Eno has been a pioneer of self-generating, perpetual technology: first in music, then in images & film. Those who have led the way should be listened to the most, so no discussion of AI media use, potential, ethics & pitfalls can be closed until innovators such as Brian Eno have their say & are respected.

I’m a newbie, as this is my first foray into AI as a creative tool. I’m mostly watched, giving input to Tom as needed, and observing the results of the process while asking questions as they arose. I’m not a techie, so I don’t know the app or how it works, etc. Ask Tom about that. For me it’s all about what AI can do, and when I see these-type results, I get excited. Producers now need to add ‘AI skills’ to their technical arsenal. These are the people who will replace all those who are getting pink-slipped. Honestly, I’m in favor of eliminating this parasitic layer of entertainment industry mediocrity. All they do is siphon money & influence away from the original artists who create all the cultural interest in the first place.

This experience has instilled awareness about what the technology is, and raised practical questions about its ethics. I believe the artist is ethically bound to tell their audience about any AI-generated content. Educate fans & be 100% honest about its use– no exceptions. It’s easy to fool a naive audience into thinking that you are better than you really are by having AI-generated content in the music, etc. Only full disclosure earns respect in this field, and cheaters must be ruthlessly exposed as phonies. Fans have a right to know, and always feel betrayed when it turns out they have been duped by charlatans.

Beyond that, AI can be harnessed & used limitlessly to enrich & simplify our lives. AI is a tool for human use and has enormous potential to help solve all of our most difficult problems. The technology itself is neutral. It comes down to who controls it that determines its destiny. That will be determined by class struggle. The mission of artists is to enlighten humanity. Using AI creatively & openly for the benefit of all is now part of that.

———

The Electric Cat

Silently stalks & prowls throughout its habitat
The Electric Cat

Those crazy dogs got burs in their fur again. Drat! Why can’t they be more like that…?
Electric Cat

Silky & slinky with claws & a bite, lookout for that!

I give it food & love, it purrs by my side. I love that
Electric Cat

At its best and at rest, always respect that
Electric Cat

Felinus Electricus, a miniature Indian tiger cat
It’s all that
The Electric Cat

———

Recorded 01-12-2024 in Eustis, FL by Tom Pearce

Production & AI artwork* (see notes) also by TomP at Last Minute Productions

……….<><><><><><><><>………..

Facebook account disabled–again

Posted on by

On the morning of Friday, October 4, 2024, Facebook disabled my account. I have since been unable to access my personal page, artist page, or dentist page. Facebook has given me no reason for this. Facebook emailed me an ‘account recovery code,’ but allow me no link to use it.

This is how big tech jerks you around when they are censoring you. I’ve sent Facebook multiple messages through email and their service page, but get no response. It’s all AI bots & attack algorithms on their end.

I’ve received messages from friends who wonder why I’ve disappeared, did I de-friend them, etc? Facebook deletes me whenever they feel I’m too effective on social media. Facebook is controlled by the CIA Democrats, so I have no idea when/if I will return.

…………….<><><><><>…………..

Just a Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers (2024)

Posted on by

If you are a sports fan in Wisconsin, go see this movie.

According to Google, Marcus Theatres is the only place to see Just A Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers. There are currently no other distribution deals in place. That’s a shame because this documentary film is about something bigger than baseball. In 1982, the people of Milwaukee, and the entire state of Wisconsin, got behind the Brewers with Bob Uecker on the radio all summer and it was an unbelievable energy.

This was a blue collar team from a beer drinking city, that fans became part of. It was fan energy than propelled the True Blue Brew Crew past the California Angels in the ALCS. Every Brewers fan knows if Rollie Fingers & Pete Vuckovich weren’t injured, they would have beaten St Louis. This was when the Brewers were in the AL East and had to beat the Yankees, Orioles, Tigers, Red Sox, etc, just to make the post-season. It was perhaps the most exciting pennant race ever.

The city of Milwaukee held a parade for the Brewers the day after they lost Game 7. Compare that to Boston in 1986 and how they treated Bill Buckner, or Philadelphia in 1993 with their treatment of Mitch Williams. When you cheer for a team like Wisconsin did in 1982, you don’t quit on them if they come up short. Note that if you go see this movie, you’ll be in the minority if you aren’t wearing Brewers gear. The best sports documentaries are the ones that tell a story that is bigger than the game.

The Brewers made the post-season in 1981, the strike season where the team with the best record in MLB (Cincinnati Reds) didn’t make the playoffs. The Brewers lost to the Yankees in the divisional round, which the owners rolled out after the in-season strike was settled.

Some championships in sports really don’t count, because the game became so distorted it wasn’t even real anymore. MLB in 1981 is one. MLB (& NBA) in 2020 are another, and in the NFL & NCAAF it happens regularly. The 1981 MLB players strike isn’t mentioned in Just a Bit Outside, but it’s the reason that team isn’t nearly as remembered.

Another weakness is owner Bud Selig being too nostalgic & stale, but give him credit for going for it when they had their chance in 1982, by acquiring HoF RHP Don Sutton (1945-2021) from the Astros at the trade deadline for a young RF Kevin “Smallmouth” Bass. The problem wasn’t the one that got away, but what the Brewers traded Sutton for after 1984, and this documentary doesn’t go there either, which lets you leave the theater happy. Orson Welles once said, “If a movie has a happy ending, it finished too soon.”

Bud Selig bought the hapless Seattle Pilots after their inaugural 1969 campaign of futility, forever brought to life in Jim Boutin’s Ball Four (1970)– one of the best baseball books ever. The Brewers weren’t good until 1981, and exhausted themselves in 1982. The Brewers fell just short the the Orioles in 1983, and were never competitive thereafter in the AL. Poor payer development, bad free agent signings & trades, etc, defined the Brewers front office, as Bud Selig whined about needing a new stadium to be competitive. Still at County Stadium, the Brewers finished last in the AL East, 26 GB the Blue Jays led by DH Paul Molitor in 1993, their last year in the AL.

Bud Selig was MLB commissioner by that point, and the Selig family held the team until 2004-05 when it was sold to current Brewers owners Mark Attanasio for $223M. Under GM’s Doug Melvin, then David Stearns, the Brewers have become a low-payroll sustainable model for MLB. They probably can’t win a World Series, but they can win their division consistently. Most die-hard fans recognize this and that’s why the 1982 Brewers are so beloved. It’s the closest they ever got, and likely will ever get. They gave it their all, but bad luck & injuries got them in the end.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but being in the same state as the Green Bay Packers provides a different perspective to sports fans in Wisconsin. Cheeseheads have experienced NFL titles & Super Bowls to the extent that Vince Lombardi is on the trophy. Baby boomers & generation-X Packers fans also remember the down years of the 1970’s & 1980’s. They weren’t good, as WR James Lofton was their only great player in a long era of losing & mediocrity for the Packers. Fans still sold out every game at Lambeau, and regional TV revenue has always been strong. This was the grassroots support the Milwaukee Brewers finally tapped into in 1982.

……………..<><><><><>……………

Banned from Fakebook (again): Super Tuesday edition

Posted on by

Preface: Before I had a chance to post this paragraph below, I was locked out of my Facebook account ~9:30 AM CST on Super Tuesday.

Super Tuesday notes– the “Uncommitted” campaign is a DSA strategy to save Joe Biden. It is meant to corral leftist-leaning voters (ie- young kids) back into the Democratic Party. Since Trump isn’t an option for this massive voter constituency, it can’t be allowed to find a 3rd party. Understand that the DSA, Greens, etc, orbit the Democrats; and the Libertarians, Teabaggers, etc, orbit the Republicans. That is the two-party strait-jacket of modern bourgeois politics which always shifts to the right.

Here’s the text from the three (3) emails I sent to Facebook tech support:

What’s the deal with FB locking me out? I entered the code you people emailed (multiple times before it was accepted as valid), but then wasn’t allowed to reset my PW.

I keep entering a new PW and it’s strong, but your system fails to register it every time. Remarkable

It’s Super Tuesday, and I’m blacklisted (again) on Facebook because Mark Zuckerberg is a fascist tool. This is why people call it Fakebook. To Zuckerberg: Make your peace with Trump, he’s your daddy now.

————-

  • BTW, I’m an “antisemite” for calling Mark Zuckerberg a fascist. I’ll update here when/if my unexplained Facebook ban is lifted. Thank you to all who love & support what I do!!

Wed 06 Mar 2024 07:47 AM CST

Tried to log in again, but the still locked out. Here’s my email message to FB in response:

Your code never works. Why can’t you people just admit you’re blacklisting me? Weak

Mon 11 Mar 2024 12:25 PM CDT

I’ve been banned before and have learned to deal with it. Facebook always allows me back because THEY NEED ME. It is exactly the same as a capitalist’s need for a worker to exploit. My posts create interest & provoke thought, and you don’t get that with most people on social media. From personal friends I get mostly family pics, pets & vacations, which is fine, but it’s usually nothing enlightening or thought provoking. For most users, social media is telling your group what your life is like. For celebrities (& wannabes) it’s about shaping an image & brand which they can sell. Celebrities sell to corporate as that is the BIG money which can satisfy them.

I have changed the dynamic of social media by being who I am and connecting with my preferred celebrities though comments & the ‘like’ button. It’s how I talk to my friends, except these people are more worldly & experienced. Always be respectful, since there is a level of admiration, but don’t worship them as idols, which only patronizes & cheapens them. Artists seek to be understood above all else. If you can respectfully understand an artist they will always approve it.

This is how I converse with artists and others on social media. I respect talent and what it does, with the understanding that I’m also at that level, perhaps even beyond. The blacklisting issue is what sets me apart. I was never allowed to break through commercially as a musical artist in any way. No record or distribution deal, no venues available for me. Therefore no tours or merch for the fans. I don’t apologize for it, I just explain it. I publish myself here, so when I’m cut off from social media, I still have an independent online organ.

This always allows me a voice, so fans can understand what’s going on. Being banned from Facebook is a blessing in many ways. Social media can be addictive, and action in the real world is what counts most. Social media is a tool to describe those activities to the world without having to tour & travel. It allows an alternative explanation of events. Without corporate backing, social media is a critical tool for connecting with fans. The contradiction of course is that Facebook (and all the rest) are corporate entities tied into US intelligence, police & the military– and these institutions are the enemy of peace & freedom.

A long time ago I tried Twitter and quickly abandoned it. I should have cancelled my account before Elon Musk bought it, but whatever. Twitter was 120 characters-a-post back then and far too limiting as compared to Facebook. It is mostly gossip and too much white noise, with little depth of thought. It’s like everyone on Twitter is trying to be superficially clever, or make a witty joke. Twitter is for people who don’t want to read too much, and all this is why it didn’t appeal to me.

YouTube has turned me down (sonically) and attacked my videos with algorithms since I started in 2011. Obama/Biden had their Intelligence fingers on me instantly, it was unmistakable. If YouTube is going to turn you down, de-list, and shadow-ban you, then just post thumbnail videos for each song and forget about it. That’s all you can do until things seriously change with YouTube. I have videos for every song I’ve released, a film, interviews, etc, but they are extremely difficult-to-find in searches, and all my ‘likes’ and ‘views’ get deleted. My YouTube page looks abandoned because I had to.

The reason I’m so viciously attacked by corporate is because I’m too good. I’m better than all that corporate fake rock they’ve been jamming down your throat (and up your ass) for the past 20+ years. I kick ass over all that and for the correct reasons. Nothing in modern popular music can beat me– and they know it. That’s why I’m at the top of the blacklist.

To continue with my social media history, I used Disqus for awhile because it was the best option for posting on the WSWS when they started allowing reader’s comments. After becoming a prolific commenter in that forum for years, I was shadow-banned by Disqus on the WSWS, just as the MeToo campaign was coming into being. My comments on Russia Today were also through Disqus, but they weren’t shadow banned. They were selectively deleted at times by RT, but not shadow-banned.

Shadow-banning is when you post and it shows up on your computer/device, but not on anyone else’s. You know you’re shadow-banned when you no longer get any responses or likes to what you post. Disqus clearly didn’t want me posting as Ric Size on WSWS articles. Too influential in the wrong direction. Today, all my WSWS comments have been scrubbed away by Disqus. I have many screenshots to prove their existence. I also dominated the ESPN.com & MLB.com forums, until comments were abruptly ended around the same time period- largely due to my activity in both cases.

This is what you face for being critical of authority. Julian Assange is in prison on trumped-up charges for exposing the criminality of the ruling elite. Facebook is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, and he is owned by Uncle Sam, which is the unaccountable & hidden power behind this blacklist. Expose a blacklist and its authors to the light, and they will shrivel-up in their own ugliness.

All I can do is ask my fans to unite and take action against this evil force known as capitalist imperialism. It is ruthless, unapologetic & stupid. Its arrogance knows no bounds with this class of parasitic billionaires that has been created in the past 30 years. They only answer to their own greed & avarice, and must be beaten down by the masses to be made to yield. Until then, the blacklist & all this suckitude will continue…

Tue 12 Mar 2024 09:15 AM CDT

Logged into FB this morning for the first time in about a week, and PRESTO I’m back. No explanation given to me for being banned. Told you.

…………….<><><><><><><>………….

The NCAA & NIL $$

Posted on by

Ed O’Bannon, a former UCLA Bruins basketball player who led his team to a national championship in 1995, saw his college-era image on the cover of a video game, and got upset. Then he got a lawyer, eventually bringing an antitrust class action lawsuit against the NCAA which would change college sports forever. The suit was first brought to court in 2009, finally tried in 2014 as Ed O’Bannon v NCAA, with a verdict declaring that college players are entitled to own & sell their Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) rights for money. The NCAA appealed, and as this case bounced around higher courts, its ruling was amended in the process until it finally was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which denied to hear the case in October 2016.

It was a slow rollout for NIL rights in their inception. No one in the NCAA knew how to do this under these new legal guidelines. Finally, in July 2021, NIL rights became codified into NCAA bylaws, and universities could now allow their student athletes to be paid. NIL rights means endorsement money. Micheal Jordan was the first modern athlete who was highly charismatic & marketable in this sense. NIL deals go to players who can win, but also those who are marketable. Winning makes you marketable in sports. Having a famous father who was/is a great athlete helps even more.

Bronny James is the eldest son of NBA superstar LeBron James. Bronny James is a freshman at USC, averaging 5.0 pts, 2.8 rebs, 2.4 asst coming off the bench for the 6-12 Trojans. Yet, Bronny James NIL valuation is $6.1M, the highest in college athletics. “Will he go to the NBA?”, the pundits ask. My reply, “Why should he? He’s the six million dollar kid, paid though a corrupt system of glorified paternalism. As far as making money goes, it doesn’t get much easier than that. Stay in school, son.”

Of course this NIL money doesn’t disappear once the athlete goes pro. But in turn, it’s harder to win in the NFL & NBA, the competition is tougher & more skilled. It’s easier to win and be a star in the NCAA, so staying makes sense with the money involved. Case in point is Angel Reese, the LSU women’s basketball star in her junior year.

Angel Reese’s NIL valuation is $1.7M. She has at least 15-20 deals where she sells her NIL rights to a business that uses her for their commercials, advertising & marketing campaigns. This allows any university booster to directly pay an athlete through legal channels. It’s an advertising expense for the booster’s business, and it’s NIL money for the athlete. Slush funds for top recruits are no longer necessary.

The rookie salary for top WNBA draft picks is ~$70K/year. Angel Reese is considered a top WNBA draft pick, but why come out early after her junior year, when she’s winning at LSU and making NIL money that dwarfs her expected WNBA salary? Obviously there will be endorsements for her as a pro, but it’s easier guaranteed money if she stays.

NIL money incentivizes athletes to stay in college, so now we have 5th-year & even 6th-year seniors with NCAA eligibility. Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark just announced she will forgo her 5th year of eligibility and declare for the WNBA draft. It wasn’t an easy choice for her.

A lot of the men’s athletes aren’t good enough for the NFL or NBA, but they can help their college team win, and that means NIL money for them. This is what the transfer portal is all about. Free agent college athletes looking for the best deals for themselves, at the expense of team & university. This has hurt college football & men’s basketball irreparably. There are very few college football & basketball programs anymore.

Here’s Tom Brady in The Athletic last November: “I actually think college players were better prepared when I came out than they are now. Just because so many coaches are changing programs, and I would say there’s not even a lot of college programs anymore. There’s a lot of college teams, but not programs that are developing players. So as they get delivered to the NFL, they may be athletic, but they don’t have much of the skills developed to be a professional. When I played at Michigan, I essentially played at a college program that was very similar to a pro environment. When I see these different players come in, they’re not quite as prepared as they were, and I think the game has shown that over the last 12 to 13 years. I think things have slipped a little bit.”

The blueblood, win-at-all-cost universities are all-in on paying athletes NIL money. Take a look at this list below, published less than 6 months ago, which gives the reader a good indication of which college teams are going to be good this year. These are the going rates for top players, and if your school isn’t paying, it likely isn’t winning.

Top 20 College Athletes With The Highest NIL Valuations
Published on September 15, 2023

Bronny James – $6.1M (LeBron’s eldest son) USC hoops freshman
Shedeur Sanders – $4.1M (Deion’s son) QB junior Colorado
Livvy Dunne – $3.2M gymnastics LSU junior
Arch Manning – $2.9M (Peyton’s son) Texas QB freshman
Caleb Williams – $2.6M junior USC QB
Travis Hunter – $1.8M soph Colorado CB
Evan Stewart – $1.7M Texas A&M soph WR
Angel Reese – $1.7M LSU junior hoops
Drake Maye – $1.5M QB UNC, redshirt soph
Bo Nix – $1.4M QB Oregon, QB senior
Marvin Harrison Jr. – $1.4M WR Ohio State junior
Michael Penix Jr. – $1.3M QB Washington senior
Bryce James – $1.2M (LeBron’s 2nd-eldest son) Committed to Duquesne University
Quinn Ewers – $1.2M QB Texas, redshirt soph
Hansel Emmanuel – $1.2M Austin Peay freshman hoops
Jordan Travis – $1.2M QB FSU redshirt senior
Nico Iamaleava – $1.1M QB Tennessee freshman
Jared McCain – $1.1M V Duke freshman hoops
Flau’jae Johnson – $1.1M LSU women’s hoops freshman
Blake Corum – $1.1M Michigan RB senior

NCAA cheating used to consist of boosters creating a slush fund to entice top recruits to attend their university. Suitcases of cash, money secretly wired into accounts, expensive cars, and other perks were funneled to players through the boosters using hidden means to evade NCAA enforcement & sanctions. Bluebloods are allowed to get away with an acceptable level of this because their programs have great traditions of winning which makes money for everyone involved. Pony Exce$$  (2010) is the ESPN ’30 for 30′ film that best examines this style of “old school” cheating in NCAA football.

ESPN’s ’30 for 30′ film series was perhaps the best thing that network has done in the 21st century. For those too young to remember, ESPN used to show regular sports, new sports (X-games, monster trucks, Asian kickboxing, etc), PLUS the highlights of all the MLB, NBA & NHL games. That was ESPN’s staple programming from its 1979 inception through 2000.

When ESPN started broadcasting Texas Hold Em poker in the early 2000’s, the network changed forever. Gambling & fantasy sports became mainstream, and thus football boomed, because the NFL is by far the highest-wagered sports book, with NCAA football second. This is when Stephen A Smith, Michael Wilbon, Chris Russo, etc, rose to prominence by screaming about sports on ESPN.

Classic ESPN at least had Bob Lea going Outside the Lines once in awhile, in an effort to educate sports fans. But when ESPN became Skip Bayless & Pat McAfee yacking everyday, all day, sports journalism became so degraded that it wasn’t taken seriously anymore by most sports fans. ESPN’s decline is a large reason why so many Americans have cut the cord. ESPN is a large part of your cable/satellite TV bill, whether you want it or not.

Sports are expensive. It costs a lot to broadcast & televise these games (NCAA & professional league), and that is reflected in the number of commercials you see during a game on TV. It is reflected in the salaries of the players in the professional leagues, the high cost of team merchandise, and now in the Name, Image & Likeness money available to college athletes.

Epilogue: What we have in college sports now is a few great individual performers and then a bunch of crap. Not only are coaches & players coming & going at will, but major conferences are falling apart. USC & UCLA are abandoning the Pac-12 to join the Big 10 in 2024, which will then have close to twenty teams from coast to coast. The travel & logistics of all this scream “DON’T DO IT”, but it’s about to happen and it’s all about money. The SEC is the power conference everyone else in the NCAA is chasing. The SEC is absorbing Texas & Oklahoma from the Big 12. Gee, I remember when Texas was in the Southwest Conference and Oklahoma was a Big 8 football powerhouse under Barry Switzer. Back then, coaches stayed at their schools forever and their teams were arguably better and certainly more entertaining to watch. It’s the big money that turns everything to crap.

……………<><><><><><><>…………..

Bluebloods

Posted on by

Bluebloods means privileged status. Until the very end of the 20th-century AP sports-writers were the pollsters who decided the NCAA football champion. Then came the BCS (one letter too many), and now CFP.

This writer has been advocating for a 16-team playoff format since the days of the AP writers picking the winner. Next year the CFP goes from 4 to 12 teams, which will make a lot of this Michigan shit easier for others to swallow.

Conor Stalions was a “low level” Michigan football staffer who advanced scouted opposing teams in clear violation of NCAA rules. He’s been fired by Michigan in the wake of revelations of grainy images (fan screenshots) of Conor Stalions disguised in Central Michigan University coaching garb, standing on the sidelines wearing sunglasses at night to advance-scout Michigan State.

Apparently, no one has been able to contact Conor Stalions since his firing, and here we have this game of cat-and-mouse Michigan gets to play with the NCAA.  The University of Michigan is intentionally not cooperating with an open investigation by making Conor Stalions unavailable for questioning by independent media writers, legal experts, etc. Michigan gets the NCAA nod because they are the bluest of the bluebloods. Plenty of  Wolverine alumni running the NCAA.

Bluebloods rake in BIG buck$ and alumni elites are INTENSELY interested. Football bluebloods are Michigan & Notre Dame, distantly followed by USC, Texas, Oklahoma, FSU. Bluebloods always get favorable treatment because they have prestigious journalism & law schools with alumni who will do anything to support winning in football & basketball.

Basketball bluebloods come from traditions of winning and include Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA & North Carolina. These programs always get the legal wink & nod from the NCAA & conference commissioners. Big 10 commissioner Tony Petitti is in an impossible situation, where all the other football coaches are pointing to evidence of egregious misconduct in sportsmanship, but bluebloods rule.

What Michigan did was clearly against NCAA rules and everyone has seen some of it. There’s a lot more that isn’t being shared because the rule is you don’t punish bluebloods, especially during a championship run even when they’ve been caught cheating to their advantage. It’s Alabama, Oregon, Texas, Washington (in alphabetical order) that are hurt most by Michigan cheating. What it’s really about is who makes the final Football Final Four.

Tomorrow (Friday) is apparently a court holiday and I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know how that precisely impacts a potential University of Michigan legal challenge to an unfavorable Big 10 ruling. Everyone is expecting a ruling by tomorrow, with Michigan @ Penn State on Saturday. A ruling on punishment has been delayed as long as possible in this matter, all to the advantage of Michigan football.

The Pac 10 is dust with UCLA & USC joining the Big 10 next year, so Oregon & Washington are expendable in the Michigan advanced scouting scandal. Texas is a blueblood, but they don’t trump Michigan. Alabama is SEC so forget about it. My prediction of punishment is that Michigan gets a slap on the wrist fine, and Jim Harbaugh stays on the sidelines & at practices. You can’t take away a potential championship season that Michigan cheated so hard for, they’re bluebloods.

………………<><><><><><><>………………….

What is a guitar player?

Posted on by

It’s not such a simple question because so much more is involved besides just how well you play. There are so many styles around the world that are respected & influential that much must be considered on the subject. I’m going to speak from a rock perspective, which is somewhat limited, but necessary since there are so many rock guitar players as it’s the dominant modern style. Classical & flamenco styles are certainly just as valid.

As I written before, rock music needs more bass players. If you are enthusiastic, yet average at guitar, seriously consider a switch to bass. By becoming merely competent on bass, your bandmate options will increase exponentially– I can assure you. If you are more creatively inclined as a songwriter, yet have difficulty singing & playing guitar at the same time, then bass is the place.

With that said, if you are committed to the six-string guitar, then learn how to play your instrument well. There are different roles & expectations for pure guitar players, as compared to singer/guitar players. Since I’m the latter, I’ll be discussing from that perspective.

Pure guitar players like Tony Iommi, Angus Young, Alex Lifeson, Eddie Van Halen, Dave Murray, Brad Gillis, Joe Satraini, etc, can do EVERYTHING. They can play lightning fast & change tempos fluidly with overwhelming technique. If you’re in a serious rock band, THAT’S what you want on guitar. It REALLY helps if they are part of the songwriting process.

Pure players who lack songwriting creativity are severely limited because as a band you NEED great riff ideas from your guitar player. These impressive technical (yet creatively impoverished) guitar players often become session aces or tour replacements for major acts in need. They get a lot of corporate work.

For singer/guitar players such as myself, the expectations & responsibilities are different. You’re more of a rhythm player as a singer, so you have to be solid yet make it look easy because everyone is watching you, but most are concentrating on your vocals & overall stage presence. But every pure guitar player (and other serious musician) in the audience will also be rating your technical playing, showmanship & charisma, song content, stage awareness, equipment, set-up, etc. Every fan wants to see a star, and every musician wants to work with a star because they all believe THEY are stars.

Depending on whether there is a lead guitarist or not, a singer/guitarist may also have to be proficient at soloing. That’s the part which most singer/guitarists struggle, the point in the song where they aren’t singing and they have to perform at a higher level on guitar. They won’t be able to play like the guys I’ve listed above, so what can be done?

I started using a slide on my pinky finger when I realized that I was going to have to be a solo artist. That means you have to do everything well at all times, otherwise you will suck & the crowd will know it instantly. A slide gives your guitar playing an entirely different dimension and allows lots of creative uses without having to be fast & flashy. It’s not an overused crutch, like the capo (both pictured below).

I don’t try to play like Duane Allman or any of those other classic bluesmen. They’re too good. Mississippi Delta bottleneck blues is where slide guitar started, and if you listen to these early recordings from the early masters, they were very creative & free in their use of a slide. This slide style reverberated through post-war electric blues. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band’s used multiple slide guitars with all kinds of crazy patterns. George Thorogood is a great modern rock slide guitar player. If you absorb all that on record, you can figure out something new on slide. My approach is to use the slide as a scrape for punk effect, verses the glistening leads of Mick Taylor, etc.

Jimi Hendrix is the standard for the singer/guitar player style. NOBODY could play like that, while writing & singing such amazing songs. Jimi Hendrix could do it live, and in the studio. He could be a show all by himself or in a great band. He was a natural in an era that exploded him into popular consciousness, but of course, it was the excess of this era that killed him. Jimi Hendrix was a prodigy, perhaps the best ever while he lasted, but he’s not a model to follow because his excessive hippie lifestyle will kill you at a young age like it did him.

Same with Kurt Cobain, no matter how you feel about the circumstances around his death in 1994. If you can’t survive, then you don’t leave much of a blueprint for young fans to follow. Maybe that’s their idea, they DON’T want to be followed, but then why become a performer in the first place? These are the tough responsibilities that Frank Black, J Mascis, Thurston Moore, Billy Corgan take on as the LEADERS of their respective bands. You have to be be an effective & easy player, while singing the great songs you wrote. You have to be able to lead everyone during the formative creative process, in the studio, and then on stage.

This gets to the inexact science & sticky question of who is replaceable in a band? Example: everyone knows Aerosmith because of Steven Tyler & Joe Perry, so they are irreplaceable. The rest are integral, but replaceable in the band’s legacy stage which is about being able to get through lucrative tours, not making new music.

Devo, Cheap Trick, the Meat Puppets, etc, are serious bands who still tour successfully (young energetic capacity audiences) with replacement drummers. Their original drummers were essential band members during their prime, but replaceable as they evolved into legacy acts. It’s usually the lead singer and the songwriter(s) who are indispensable throughout a band’s existence. Rush couldn’t continue after drummer/songwriter Neil Peart retired from music & subsequently passed away. The Rolling Stones probably won’t tour again after the death of Charlie Watts. They were indispensable.

I’m making broad generalities for illustrative purposes. The original band member is ALWAYS better than replacements, as they were part of the original creative process & cool vibe that fans identify with. Unfortunately, industry machinery takes its toll on musicians… As mentioned above, replacements are mostly session musicians by trade, industry veterans who never had much creativity in their prime.

Replacements are sometimes now a son (or other family member) of the band leader, etc. It takes a lot of chops & dedication to fill in for any major act, on any instrument. You’re expected to be solid, while in the background, unassumingly carrying the headliners everyone paid to see. That’s a tough gig for little bread, and only a limited number of musicians are good enough (and have their head on straight enough) to do it. There is some audience respect due for that, but the bigger point is too many replacements will diminish any band into an empty shell of itself.

How much would a young kid pay to see Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison & KISS at a festival? No more than $10-20 in 2023, and that’s being generous. Too many replacement members, etc. How much would a young kid pay to see Jane’s Addiction, the Pixies, the Smashing Pumpkins & Dinosaur Jr at a festival? Anywhere from $200-300+. Why is that?

It’s because hair metal was all about good times & partying, which never last. That’s why hair metal acts fare so poorly in this 21-century era of climate change, COVID & fascist politics. Alternative bands of the 1980’s & 1990’s brought real energy & taught kids about life, and that’s what holds up with every generation of kids. That’s why the Pixies shows sell out, with parents taking their EXCITED teenage kids, while hair metal draws only old folks.

The grunge movement happened when I was in dental school and as a fan of the music who had a year-and-a-half of guitar lessons I would think about these things in between my academic schedule and wonder what I was going to do with my life…

You get through difficult life situations with hard word & intelligent thinking. You have to stick to the process especially when difficulties & failures arise. That’s the ‘hard part’ many people don’t want to face. But if you have a good plan that is adaptable as needed, and you stick with the process, your situation will improve and then you can turn your ambitions into reality. That’s how grunge guitar broke through and why it remains relevant.

…………….<><><><><><><><><>…………….