Walking the Cow

wednesday night i saw one of my favorite artists of all time, Daniel Johnston and it was amazing. in my opinion, his music transcends reason. he has written more songs than the Beatles, his idols, and has done so virtually alone (Jad Fair probably the only person who worked with him way back). seeing him live almost made me cry. he was just so happy to be performing and that people loved him. he joked about his illness coming on stage for an encore holding a Mountain Dew being a highlight. he was so nervous, but just had such presence.

i was lucky enough to chat with Daniel before the show. i was there an hour early and he was just standing outside the Roxy smoking a butt. he was incredibly friendly and open. he was speaking about how he couldn't remember his ABC's let alone his songs (he performs with two white binders with his lyrics and arrangements). just such amazing person.

although the evening was all around wonderful, one thing really bugged me. i've been following Daniel since i was young, probably since Kurt Cobain wore the Hi, How Are You shirt in Rolling Stone. i will admit that at first i couldn't fully appreciate Daniel's music, but as i grew it grew on me more and more. i know i come across as an arrogant bastard, it's just an act i'm very self-loathing, but i was really angered by at least two-thirds of the crowd. most of them were too young to even have even like Nirvana when they were first around let alone know Daniel Johnston way back. not that there is anything wrong with finding a new artist, but these people were faux-artistas who probably found out about Daniel from the recent documentary about him. i felt that the majority of the crowd was there not to see a musical genius, but to see a train wreck or because it's cool to like outsider music. i personally feel we live in such a disposable immediate gratifying society that people are mindless automatons being fed what is cool and it makes me sick.

i am sorry to rant, but this is something that has really been getting me down lately. people really don't care about anything anymore. no one has beliefs. no one is concrete anymore.
i know tastes change, mine certainly have, and people change with age, but i feel like an disturbing amount of people don't even have core values anymore. no one cares about world politics. look at the Obama-craze. i support Obama, but it's not because he is the cool candidate beloved by the hipster community. i'm going completely off topic, and i apologize. i am just really upset with the state of the world, especially the US where more people watch TMZ than the news and even if they watched the news it's all "if it bleeds it leads" bullshit. we live in a country where dake0news shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are actually better than the nightly news on NBC ect. i could go on forever but this is not my blog. i just want to say one last thing. it really upsets me that we live in Boston, the epitome of a college city, and people are so narrow minded and lazy that they can't come out to shows and look for new music. they'll listen to Pandora instead of reading a magazine or go out to a show that they know nothing about just on a whim. i'm sorry to bitch so much but like i said, this is really been bugging me lately.

on a lighter note, Helms played some new stuff and it's incredible. it even highlights Tina as the amazing bassist she is. Sean doesn't come in for like a minute and a half. i'm so incredibly excited to be back and be in closer touch with them. Leo's new album is incredible, we just need to get Jerry to listen to it. Shortrock's in the Herald and his cuts on UkillU are incredible. the people we are playing with are incredible and BOS/HMR are going to redefine hip hop. we just hope Boston will stop being lame and come out and see a significant movement.