Art and Business.

Driving home from my inteview today I heard that new Death Cab for Cutie song, Soul and Body, and I didn't like it.

I love DCfC. I have adored them ever since I first heard "Passenger Seat" over a year ago at EKG's recommendation (completely unrelated: it seems she hates me now, again) when I listened to Tiny Vessels my heart nearly broke because they sang my story, and when later I became entwined between the lines of Title and Registration it seemed natural and whole. Their songs were my songs and they told my stories. And they sounded great while doing it.

But this new one sounds kindof catchy and heartless and empty and vapid are reminds me of "Ocean Breathes Salty" and it doesn't feel like someone has jammed a fishhook in my ear and snatched my head towards the speaker and shouted "THIS IS YOUR LIFE" which is how it felt when I first heard Tiny Vessels.

And so I came home a little dissapointed and a little concerned and I sat down and checked my customized google page, and there I noticed that Violet Blue (NSFW) had updated. So I went and read the post and she told a tale about a concert that sucked, and how one of her favorite bands (Modest Mouse) was there and the whole music scene at the show was entirely corporate and the bands got fucked and the media got herded like cattle and the music was lost beneath a veneer of money and lies and bigotry and hate and uptight assholes with their eyes on the cash flow and their ears turned off.

And it made me think about business and music and money and art and the fact that I am passionate about what I do and I plan to continue to be passionate about it, and the first time any business for which I work gets between me and my passion for my profession I will put two fingers in the air, give a shout out to my fellow alumni at Fuck U., and move on to somewhere that my passion can be channeled and used.

I hope that some people at that Modest Mouse show had a better time than Violet did, and that it wasn't a total loss for the fans that really did come to see the music.

And to the "music business" assholes who think this is the way to make money and sell records: I hope you get something like this shoved somewhere uncomfortable. Use your imaginations to equate the level of displeasure to the shit you put your 'stable of bands' through every time they cut an album or try and play a show.