Music was more alive before the 'invention' of super stars. Venues were small, 500 was a big one, the fans could be close to the act and feel the energy. Some 15 years ago I saw Pink Floyd in a football stadium and was bored to tears, came away with an over-priced tee-shirt. I had seen them many times in the past and they were always energetic. Sure population has grown since then but that still does not justify in my opinion. As a teenager in London there were at least 50 live gigs in pubs, church halls and clubs at weekends and many during the week. I saw all of the Pop groups and later Rock groups at close quarters that today you can only get close to via TV. There was a distinct change when major video first appeared on the scene, although there were early video juke-boxes they were few and far between. Queen were probably the first to develop 'designer' music and they were not lacking in talent.

McClaren arrived in an already changed scene and saw the disaffection in young bands denied an opportunity through the by then limited venues and he steered a path through that state of affairs by excellent marketing. Yet while punk bands were often chaotic that was surely more a reflection of the times? Johnny Rotten was without a doubt an excellent musician/composer but was not represented as such - there was a good reason for the disaffection but it all got papered over in the end.

But then I was a Zappa fan - Lumpy Gravy rules!!!

But look at the acts that virtually died out by record company tactics, for example Lena Lovich, although she has continued to work on the fringes of the art music scene. Lydia Lunch?

I feel what you're saying FnC2 (if that doesn't sound too hippy!)

Am I just getting old or has the music scene changed? My dad said the same thing (sort of) when I was a kid so I guess it's just me getting old. But I do feel things have changed. There does seem to be more commercialisation. Success and stardom are aims in themselves, music is just the vehicle. Perhaps it was ever so and just more so now? Who knows.

I was in NZ for the first throbs of punk and (after having heard my older brother's Genesis, ELP, Led Zep, Supertramp, etc etc etc albums) it was a gale force wind of fresh air! Tbh, punk was not exactly my thing (though, to this day, XRay Spec's 'On bondage, up yours' remains perhaps one of my favourite ever songs - and, for me, perhaps typified all that was good about the punk movement). I never got into the 'Oi' scene, preferred the Ska revival but my personal love was the pop New Wave scene. I could live in the lyrics of many a Buzzcock's song, the Only Ones 'Another Girl, Another Planet' and, of course, The Undertones. I know the late John Peel would rate 'Teenage Kicks' as his favourite... and I'm not jumping his train when I agree. 'You Got My Number' is a close contender for me though.

New Wave had long gone by the time I got to UK, and New Romantic was mercifully dying, but the music scene was still alive in London and I used to go to pubs etc to see bands. That was pretty much all through the 80s. After that, and I don't know exactly when, things changed. There seemed to be fewer bands at pubs, the big venues seemed to be the only places to see bands. And, in my last visit to London, I saw that even the Astoria was now gone - pretty much central London's only big live venue. I'm sure bands do still play in Camden pubs etc but just scanning the 'whats on' in Time Out seemed a pale of it's former self... or maybe it was just my perception. Maybe the scene's just changed. I suspect that's it. I mean, the jazz clubs of Soho and the West End have long since gone.

Now you're talking, Frank!

This is definitely thread drift, but I don't care. I've never been to a stadium gig, and never want to. By the time a band has got "that big" then it's too late to see them properly. The biggest arena I've been to is GMex, and that was to see The Pixies for about the 5th time. It was fantastic, but not as fantastic as when I saw them first of all in the smaller Manchester clubs. When the "Madchester" thing was happening, the most hyped bands were getting all the publicity and the bigger stages. I used to go to the smaller venues where there were, perhaps, up to 200 people packed into dark places, usually painted matt black, with sweat running down the walls.

As well as seeing the more obscure Manchester bands of that period - Dub Sex, King Of The Slums, What? noise, New Fast Automatic Daffodils etc - I also saw ones which made it bigger - Joy Division, New Order, James, Inspiral Carpets etc - as well as brilliant imports like Throwing Muses, Belly, Telescopes, Wolfgang Press and more and more. I must admit one of the highlights was standing at the front of the stage just 2 feet from Tanya Donnelly's navel!

Ah, those were the days..............I remember them well (I think).......

Edit...just seen your post, jaune. Another Girl, Another Planet? Fantastic.

I think that's been one of the problems for the last decade or so. Sure there are still bands gigging out there - but it's not the incredible hothouse it once was in the 60s and 70s. If you look at the most exciting explosions of popular music in the last century, the root of it was always an incredible live scene - pre-war jazz, 50s R'n'B, 60s UK beat groups, even 70s pub rock and punk. And now.... ? I saw Oasis "live" on TV a year ago - it was laughable, the audience stood around with their arms crossed, most either looking bored out of their minds or just plain wondering why they'd bothered. I found myself laughing at such a pathetic spectacle.

Rock music has now reached a point where every riff and trick has been heard a thousand times before - it's no longer secondhand black music, it's fifth-hand crud borrowed from fourth-hand crud. It seems many bands now rely on audiences to partake with them in the contrick that by somehow just standing on a stage playing a guitar it must mean there's something significant going on. There isn't - it's just crud.

Oh you are a reactionary old bear!

I'm not sure that an Oasis concert is the best barometer of live music today any more than a Des O'Connor gig would have been in the late 1960s.

There are still people out there making (and listening to) music as if their lives depended on it. They are lucky enough to have been exposed to a massive variety of influences and in some cases it inspires great work and in many more cases it's not that great, but it's all out there in all it's exciting and wonderful variety same as it ever was.

I can guarantee that someone somewhere is making an exciting piece of music as I write and I'm going to enjoy looking for it!

Rupert le Bear wrote:

I think that's been one of the problems for the last decade or so. Sure there are still bands gigging out there - but it's not the incredible hothouse it once was in the 60s and 70s. If you look at the most exciting explosions of popular music in the last century, the root of it was always an incredible live scene - pre-war jazz, 50s R'n'B, 60s UK beat groups, even 70s pub rock and punk. And now.... ? I saw Oasis "live" on TV a year ago - it was laughable, the audience stood around with their arms crossed, most either looking bored out of their minds or just plain wondering why they'd bothered. I found myself laughing at such a pathetic spectacle. Rock music has now reached a point where every riff and trick has been heard a thousand times before - it's no longer secondhand black music, it's fifth-hand crud borrowed from fourth-hand crud. It seems many bands now rely on audiences to partake with them in the contrick that by somehow just standing on a stage playing a guitar it must mean there's something significant going on. There isn't - it's just crud.

I think you're spot on.. As each art form is created, someone eventually lays down the definitive work that everyone else aspires to but can't reach, let alone surpass. At that point, everyone should walk away and say let's try something else then. (which is where Punk came in)
I think painting as an art form was forced to develop and stretch itself in the 50 or so years following the advent of the camera (c 1840) away from realism (because the camera could do that perfectly) and reached its apogee with Van Gogh, the Impressionists and some post-Impressionists.. After that, what's left..? So now 'Art' has moved on the installations.. which is where we'll leave it.
In pop music, the Beatles did it all and set the bar way out of sight. After them came the flood of wannabees.. those who should have worked harder at learning how to master their chosen intrument but didn't..
There is a finite limit to what can be achieved with guitars and drums and that limit was reached 40 years ago. Now before raoh reaches for the vitriol and damns me for all time as a reactionary old "Daily Mail" reading fool, just think about it.. I know each generation has to have its own music and I don't blame each successive generation of kids for wanting to make music but it seems to me that they want the rewards without putting in the effort. There are always going to be those who break the mould occasionally but I think in general that the pop scene has been devoid of inspiration (& talent) for too long.
P

I'm only teasing really raoh - I often think I must be missing out on a lot of exciting music, mostly out of ignorance. I got hooked on other grooves such a long time ago, and there's now so much music out there I wonder if any of us get to listen to half what we might really like. As you say, exploring is half the fun - but for me that has mostly meant turning off that media tap, and tryng to find something else to float my boat.

Raindog wil tell you I have one of my ex-gfs working for me, she's a bit of character - loves dancing, used to run salsa classes, (now taking burlesque lessons ). She bought a Paolo Nutini CD recently and was really disappointed with it - on the other hand, she's gone potty on the 2 soukous compilations I made for her.

You're right, you do have to turn off that media tap (although I did pick up a track from 6 music last night). I think we're lucky to have exploring made so much easier for us with the web.

In the old days I wasted a fortune on mail order records I'd read about which ended up sounding nothing like what I expected. The ability to try before you buy these days has opened up some rich seams (by allowing me to listen to stuff I think I might not like) and closed other, less rich seams which may appear good on paper but don't work so well in sound.

My other half is interested in burlesque - it's an intriguing scene at the moment. Her recent moment sharing a bill with Glenn Matlock recently was in her burlesque guise, neatly returning the thread into Malcolm McLaren territory!

Exactly. That's more or less what I tried to say a couple of posts back. And there's still good live music to watch in bars, pubs and clubs too - don't have to go and see stadium bands if that's not your bag.

Yes that's spot on raoh - the internet is a mirace worker if you want to explore music. I used to buy quite a lot of cheap "set sale" LPs from Sailor Vernon and Red Lick when I was really potty about the blues, that was mostly rewarding. But as I veered off into World and Latin music, things got more tricky. When I think back how I used to go up to London and spend a small fortune at Sterns and Ray's Jazz - there was always a proportion of stuff that turned out to be disappointing. But then I discovered Ebay, and though you don't see as many esoteric CDs on there as you used to, it's still worth occasionally surfing through the categories. It's now been more than compensated for by the growth of online music blogs. I can't believe how generous some collectors are to post so many 100s of rare old African and Latin LPs - well everything really, even opera.

The trouble now is finding time to listen to everything!

Tell me about it..... I spent some time earlier this week wondering whether I should make a conscious decision about where my real interest in music lies - some folks definitely do this after all. But it's easier said than done, and if that's why I eased off listening to "modern" bands all those years ago, I'm conscious that I've probably missed out on all sorts of goodies. I think my reactionary rant above was mostly trying to convince myself that I did the right thing!

I've had the same dilemma.

The friend who introduced me to folk about 15 years ago has felt my wrath on several occasions. It was hard enough keeping up with everything while ignoring the section labelled 'folk'. I live in fear of someone convincing me that some other genre that I am happily ignoring is actually worth investigating (post 1970 jazz? opera? Modern R & B? Ignorance is bliss)

Blimey. Leave you for a minute?

It's been interesting going through the posts. I'm in the position where I've decided what sort of music I want to listen to, and have ruled out many genres. There's a simple reason for that. I love my own taste, built up over many years. There is so much of the type of music I like around and I can find that going into other genres wher I may find a rare example of something i like just isn't worth the time. I'll never be able to get through stuff as it is.

And the good thing is, although I love much stuff from the 60's onwards, new music I love is being made now, and I can find it on t'Internet from my own searches and from recommendations from others, and that counts people on this forum ( ).

I don't agree that there is no new talent around. It's there. in fact, I'm finding new bands all the time, mainly on the web. That's because I'm in the middle of nowhere with no other option.

I do miss the gigs in small venues. That was absolutely fantastic. But I gave that up at the age of 43. Most people there were half my age by then. or depending on your viewpoint. But I'm very looking around for new music to satisfy my never ending wish for new things.