Completely out of touch old fart irrelevant opinion - but,

DA VIN CHEEE!!!

Get turned up to death!

I honestly do not find it any more ridiculous than some of the Late 70's over-the-top live acts. Smoke machines, musicians dressed like magicians, etc.

Music is an art. Dance is an art. Sometimes they get together, get high, and grind against one another in the most ridiculous ways. Hell, look at tap dancing.... How strange was that?
 
But just think, he gets to charge half as much as a four piece band yet he personally makes twice as much as any member, and he can set up and tear down in a fraction of the time the band needs. And since the patrons are really only looking for some manner of "party noise", everyone wins!

Except the four piece band, of course.


I discovered a long time ago that some people like consuming soda and commercial prepared foodstuffs on a regular basis. It is best to just let them. I am happy to show them what real food looks and tastes like and how to prepare it if they're interested, but that's about it. Same thing here.

All things in moderation. People enjoy soda, fast food... whatever. It's not all they eat, in the same way that dance music isn't the only music these consumers listen to. (They also listen to the Black Keys *smirk*)

Well there is an assumption in this that does not always hold true. I tried country. I even took line dance lessons because my wife loves country and I thought I'd give it and the social aspect a chance. I even considered joining a country band in the area because they were good musians and it is a popular working band. But I just can't dig the music genre..

There's certainly a lot of country that isn't great. Personally, I've found the country songs I like made by people who don't make country normally- Devin Townsend and The Protomen. (and On the Road Again.) But, like anything, it takes digging to find stuff beneath the "popular" surface, and that surface of country right now is aaaaawful.

Ah yes, that's the stuff. Casual racism and stereotypes to prove your point. I stand corrected sir.

Agreed entirely. It's fine if you don't like rap, but those "reasons" are BS and extremely harmful (not even considering that this forum is overwhelmingly undiverse).
 
...

Boy, we really ARE old farts, arent we, Andy!

My kid went to Ultra, a big DJ festival this summer. I dont get it. Boomchick boom boom from 8 in the morning till 4 the next morning. The same synth patch going up going down...

BUT

millions of kids, dancing, jumping, hanging, drinking, smoking.. for a week non-stop. They love it.

SO what else is new, eh?

crazy kids doing crazy stuff, and a bunch of us gnarled old guys, muttering on the sidelines about how we have it all figured out and the kids dont know diddlysquat about life, music, taste etc.. where have we heard that tune before.......

Its the history of the world buddy, and we just got moved up in the cue.

Remember how Elvis freaked everybody out?

: ))


...
 
JoJo Mayer said it best when he said that somewhere along the line the drummer lost the lead voice in the development of new rhythms and it went to dj's.

The truth is, those shows have awesome sound, the music is hypnotic (esp when the kids are high),the lights are wild, the girls are amazing and the party atmosphere is non-stop.

It's more fun, that's why they do it. It has nothing to do with appreciating music.
 
JoJo Mayer said it best when he said that somewhere along the line the drummer lost the lead voice in the development of new rhythms and it went to dj's.

The truth is, those shows have awesome sound, the music is hypnotic (esp when the kids are high),the lights are wild, the girls are amazing and the party atmosphere is non-stop.

It's more fun, that's why they do it. It has nothing to do with appreciating music.

Another out of touch of opinion. People are hardly going to pay good money for an event with music that doesn't appeal to them. Maybe some will but many won't.

These festivals attract fans of electronic dance music and there isn't anything wrong with that.

Maybe you don't appreciate it but surely you can at least appreciate that not everyone is just there to do drugs and get laid.

A genuinely good DJ with great song selection is a real treat for fans of this type of music.
 
get off my lawn !!!!!

Picasso created with a brush

Charlie Parker created with an alto and tenor

Django Reinhardt created with 6 strings and 8 fingers

Skrillex creates with a laptop and software

so what !!!!

is it insecurity that bothers so many musicians about someone not actually playing an "instrument" and lugging tons of gear around to perform ?

is it a threat to ones livelihood ?

is it because they can fill a warehouse with 10,000 kids in any town in the world on a Tuesday night and most musicians bands can't get 30 people to the local bar on a Saturday ?

I don't know

....but we as artists need to let art be art and simply walk past the paintings in the gallery that do not catch our eye
 
is it insecurity that bothers so many musicians about someone not actually playing an "instrument" and lugging tons of gear around to perform?


is it a threat to ones livelihood ?

is it because they can fill a warehouse with 10,000 kids in any town in the world on a Tuesday night and most musicians bands can't get 30 people to the local bar on a Saturday ?

I don't know

....but we as artists need to let art be art and simply walk past the paintings in the gallery that do not catch our eye

I think it's maybe a little envy, maybe a little "they don't work as hard as I do" attitude, (whether it's true or not) but mainly it's a different generation with different mindsets. And yes it is considered competition for the audience dollar for sure by many I'm guessing. Could be a bit of sour grapes, look at the turnout for how much prep? Whatever it is, it's always been here.

Wise words in blue Ant. Let art be art. There is room for everyone. I think any sour grapes is mostly business envy.
 
.. Like any musical form, there are some DJs who are terrible and should be relegated to their parents basement. But I can say the same for most metal bands I see, so whats the difference....

In my opinion, there is no difference. I find both to be terminally boring.

And for all the shouts about "get off my lawn", being old and not "getting it", there is absolutely nothing wrong about voicing an opinion that some genre of art sucks. It's an opinion, that is all. I really dislike this notion that we can no longer critique or discriminate between items because it's all just a big happy mush and everything is just as good as everything else. No, it's not, not to me.

I happily open my ears and eyes to new forms of art to experience it, to see what it has to offer. At some point though, I make a judgement about it, and to me, it's great or good or mediocre or sucks. That's all.

It might offend some people if I say that Stravinsky and Zappa are icons in my musical pantheon but electro-pop and rap suck, but that's my opinion. I don't like everything and that doesn't mean I'm close minded. It means that I have standards and preferences that are not the same as theirs.
 
Nah! I don't get it, to me it's like dancing to a Helicopter. But times change and sadly for us in our lifetime we are witnessing the removal of hand crafting. I would much rather read the beautiful handwriting our parents and family used to write rather than typed Helvetica. But hey look on the bright side we may soon be able to digitally print our own sticks and heads while everybody dances to the Groove. Personally i like my grooves to move some air.
 
Modern acoustic drumming i.e.. drumming on a kit has only been around since about what 1910 AD. So given the rapid rate of change in most things it's actually pretty amazing that we are still going strong. Laptop produced music will last a max of about 10 years, let it pass and the drum acoustic will survive. Andy given that you are a drum maker you must appreciate the raw elemental power a well made yet simple drum has, please even when crowds flock to the digital do not underestimate this. Laptop DJs will be replaced with something else and yet again the drum will survive.

I have to say I have played a lot of gigs as a novelty "band" at night clubs in-between DJ sets and given the same sound systems and set p time the live band goes down at least as well if not better than the the DJs. To some extent many bands under value themselves, however what you can't do is turn up to these events and be under rehearsed and behave in an unprofessional manner. A band must deliver the same consistency of a Dj but with even more passion and vibe.

Know your audience give them what they want (dance music played by a band in a dance club) and you will reap the rewards.
 
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Electronic music doesn't impress me unless it's made by people actually playing instruments. I'd go see Massive Attack live because it's a group composed of musicians who've honed their craft instead of pressing play on a prerecorded track they made on their iPad.
 
a bunch of us gnarled old guys, muttering on the sidelines about how we have it all figured out and the kids dont know diddlysquat about life, music, taste etc.. where have we heard that tune before.......
This is the circle for sure Abe, & I had exactly this in my mind as I put the thread up. I also had the best part of a bottle of superb 1987 Valpolicella I've been saving up swirling around my shrinking brain because I've had a really crappy day.

Ant, Menace, et al, I hope you picked up the "tongue in cheek" intent behind this thread. My threads are usually studious, technical, cultural, etc. Typical Brit drum nerd/enthusiast stuff. This was simply entertainment for a Friday evening when the forum's usually devoid of frivolous mirth & opportunity to throw some highbrow vs. real world stuff around.

Just because stuff doesn't personally float my boat, doesn't mean it has no value. Actually, these days, if I don't "get" something, it's more likely to have value than not. I have no envy issues, nor is my livelihood threatened. I have drumming friends who get quite a bit of work from these laptop gigs (David Floegel amongst them). They not only have a lot of fun, they earn well from it too, & gain access to unlimited chick supplies ;)

All is good, all is contented, all is settled in Andyland. Irrelevant old fart out :)
 
Modern acoustic drumming i.e.. drumming on a kit has only been around since about what 1910 AD. So given the rapid rate of change in most things it's actually pretty amazing that we are still going strong.
This I tend to agree with. (although i think the exact sate is 1890, but close enough).
The drum set is a relatively new concept designed to play relatively new music. From early dixieland to modern metal, the concept of the drum kit has been based around new music that is different than the previous generation. And maybe part of pushing new music is pushing the previous generations concepts of out to create music out of the way.

Not that I like it. It's a little disheartening to spend so much learning an instrument just to find out so many just don't care anymore.

But hey, a few of my favorite albums were made with a drum machine.


Laptop produced music will last a max of about 10 years, let it pass and the drum acoustic will survive..

It's been around for much, much longer than 10 years already.
 
I used to spin 45's on two Radio Shack turn tables in a small bar. made a few bucks, drank for free. Place wasn't big enough for a band and a dance floor so just a DJ. I had fun, patrons had fun, owner loved it. Why not? And I will say in closing that I have every type of music on my iPod except for country and rap but I have tried them and they and I don't like them at all.
 
Sorry what I meant was that laptop music will probably last no more than 10 years from now. Trust me I was there with the original Akai MPC and have seen some of the variants.
Seen many laptop hard drive crashes, strangely such a cock up is followed by being ushered on by promoters to cover the mess.

We, the drummers shall survive.
 
Wow Andy, way to throw a grenade in the room and run. : )
I think one thing illustrates the old farts opinion more than anything else:
If this is a bunch of tech savvy whipper-snappers watching a "concert", shouldn't there be a sea of iPhones filming this wonderous event before them (yet there's nary a phone in sight)?
Personal music tastes aside, at the end of the day it is just a guy and his laptop up there (as far as the performance aspect goes).
 
I've seen this 'meme' on facebook, and I wouldn't swear that there's not a singer/rapper on stage as well. I'd need to know more about this particular shot.

People go to these things to dance and interact socially also, not just to watch a guy play music from his laptop.

+1

An audience is free to enjoy what they like, in its native format. If they like EDM, they shouldn't be forced to watch live musicians attempt to play it. If they like hard rock, they should be forced to watch a singer with backing tracks - there needs to be a live band making music.

I do draw the line at pop-tarts lip-synching in concert. If they can't actually sing, they shouldn't be performing live. I understand better than anyone that a performance is a show, and that a certain level of quality and accuracy is a must. But faking it or performing poorly is unacceptable. With the amount of unknown talent out there just ready to step up, there's no excuse for a supposed "star" to not deliver.

The fact that a DJ plays music for an audience that likes him doesn't bug me. I'm more concerned that the new breed of "DJ" doesn't even know how to mix and crossfade records. It's all in the laptop, basically a pre-made mix-tape. That's the equivalent of lip-synching, no?

Or, is it... LP-synching? :)

Bermuda
 
Way before EDM hit the scene DJ's ticked me off back in the 70's. Hundreds of musicians were put out of work in the DC area when disco went DJ. Suddenly. Almost without warning. AND the song lists they were working off of were not sanctioned by copywrite houses and everybody was getting ripped off except for the DJ's who were making an initial investment in a record/45/CD and then playing it publicly for profit.

I have yet to go where DJ's are "performing" in clubs etc... and I don't tolerate DJ's who are not licensed and paying subscription rates for the CDs/LPs/karaoke/electronica. That's how I roll.

Copy bands? Same deal. If they are not paying subscriptions for the tunes they're hacking away on, I will not patronize.

The bands I work with either pay subscription fees, belong to a local union, or develop their own material. Unionized bands get their "playbooks" from the union and it is not an issue at that point.

There is another point I wish to express.... people don't go and see EDM artists, half of the people at concerts or nightclubs don't show up to see the band... they are there to make the scene and scope out each other... and hook up. It's that simple.

----------------------------------

Wedding receptions? If there is a DJ spinning some discs... and, er, um there are also some Little Smokies on the buffet line... then it's a toss up. At least until the Little Smokies are gone.
 
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