Do you older guys (like me) listen to new music?

[THX1138]

 

I have been saying to anyone that will listen to me (not many) that the "New Country" is where Rock and Roll went. It's like 70's Southern Rock with steel guitars and fiddles added.

 

 

And it doesn't take much ponderin to figure out where Def Leppard's old light rig went.

[McStrum]

There is new and old music that is good and that suxx. I just try to sift through it and find things I like to learn or jam on. If the younger cats are into the older stuff that is good, I was the same way about 15 years ago and I learned so much from cuttin my teeth on all the stuff I did.

 

The Allman Brothers turned me onto slide which opened up a new world to me all together, including the side work Duane worked on with various other groups he met in the studio. Muddy Waters, well enough said.

 

On the flip side there is some new groups out that have made just as much an impact on me musically like Tortoise, Attention Deficit, Buckethead and Green Day just to name a few.

 

If the group you are with is doing music you are not happy with, form your own new group that feels like you do musically. It is hard enough to get a bunch of musicians to get along let alone agree on what music to play. Jam on brother......

[martingibson70]

I teach lessons. So, like it or not, I not only hear new music but I have to learn it. I do end up liking some new stuff. The Killers, Green Day, Kelly Clarkson, Avril, Fall Out Boy, some country like Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban... One of my favs is Wolfmother. There's some actual guitar playing there

 

I feel it keeps my ear and my playing fresh. I do agree that the bar has been lowered quite a bit it terms of musicianship, with the exception of some new country. Keith Urban can play some guitar! The upside is that the new more simple stuff is more learner friendly and accessible.

[martingibson70]

You MUST HEAR Rocco Deluca. Rockin' dobro playing demon. He seems to be the love child of Jimmy Paige and Jeff Buckley.

 

 

[lonotes]

 

You MUST HEAR Rocco Deluca. Rockin' dobro playing demon. He seems to be the love child of Jimmy Paige and Jeff Buckley. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnNvxdu0YEU&mode=related&search=

 

 

Thanks for the heads up on Rocco Deluca. I watched a couple of the videos, and just downloaded the "I Trust You To Kill Me" album. I'm listening to it now. Cool stuff. And yeah, I'm an old fart. 52 today.

[uncle psychosis]

46 here. My 16 year old daughter and I have a lot the same taste in music, she's always stealing my Our Lady Peace and Tool albums.......the girl likes to rock! Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only REALLY GOOD music is stuff from the 70's:blah: ....GIVE ME A BREAK! Get your head out of your time warped arse and LISTEN. You are remembering a special time in your life and the music brings back those feelings, but that has nothing to do with entertaining an audience, or the quality of the music. As to only learning songs that you can play in 3 years, you must be a doctor and your time is worth $200 an hour or something to be THAT concerned about saving a 4 minute song forever. And bottom line, there was a lot of crap in the 70's as well. Remember Muskrat Love? I was there man, some stuff was AWFUL, and the 80's were even worse! There is a lot of great music currently on the radio. Myself, I switch between a classic rock station that plays new stuff in the rock genre, a new rock station, and another classic rock station that plays only old stuff. Plus when my lovely wife is in the car she's jumping between at least 2 and often 4 new and classic country stations. There is crap for sure, but I am constantly impressed with stuff coming out right now. Even some tunes in heavy rotation are well crafted and well recorded. Are they 'timeless"? Probably not. Are they Muskrat Love or My Sharona? No, not that either. I am also impressed with other genres, some new country, some rap, there are some true musicians there too, not just gang bangers with mics. Not my genres, but ya gotta respect the good stuff. As to old fart musicans who only want to learn the old stuff: I can't stand that. My problem is I get lumped in with other guys my age, and THEY all want to play China Grove and Give Me Two Steps and blues and old Motown classics, and I want to mix it up with some classic rock and a mess of new tunes. I am the oldest guy in my current band by 15 years, and I am usually the one suggesting new tunes. Sure, some of the new tunes will be dead in a year, but even "timeless classics" are often hits, disappear off the radar, and then come back. In the late 80's no one was playing Led Zep or Hendrix on the radio, yet those tunes are now "timeless classics" and you hear them frequently. I think any working musician has to be up for a constantly changing repetoire, that will keep them fresh and entertain an audience, unless you are original with a large back catalogue, or playing a specific sub genre, or a tribute band. Expect to have to customize your list to the area, the type of event, even the time of year! So, I'm down for LOTS of new music, and anyone that is not is just reliving lost youth, not living the NOW. Cheers!

 

Great post

[newmaxnew]

I will be 45 this year and yes I listen to current music. I don't go to as many conncerts as I used to anymore.

 

I have some friends that really stopped listening to new music somewhere in the late 80's. I have another friend that worships on the Led Zeppelin altar. I still listen to some Zeppelin now and again but to nearly worship a band is just real strange to me.

 

Max

[mickeydean]

i am 53. there is a lot of new music that is really good but it's not as easy to find as back in the day.

 

all the suck ass music used to be on AM radio and you just went to FM to hear new artists that nobody ever heard of like jimi hendrix and led zepplin.

 

then you went to head shops to buy the records because the regular record places had no idea what you were talking about when you wanted a copy of Are You Experienced?"

 

now FM sucks every bit as hard as AM does and you are lucky if you have one radio station in your area that plays great new music. IN Philly that's XPN

but otherwise commercial radio is a wasteland here.

 

i do love amy winehouse and i never want to play another Steppenwolf song as long as I live. it's not classic rock if you learned it off the 45 when it came out. it's just OLD.

[kurdy]

I think there is a lot of cool music today. Now that I've ripped nearly my entire CD collection to my computer, I've rediscovered a lot of songs I hadn't listened to much previously. And doing this has actually whetted my appetite for new music. I've been borrowing a lot of CD's from my local library, which has a good amount of current stuff, and have found some stuff I really digging. If you get past all the rap and hip-hop stuff dominating the charts (which perhaps wouldn't be so bad if there just wasn't so much of it--kinda like disco back in the '70s) I don't think there's much bad about current music. It's hard to look past what's in the top 40, but that's really only a small part of what's going on (and if you're willing to really dig into the top 40, there's some cool stuff there too).

[srspud]

I listen to a lot of new music...just not much of it from the USA.

 

Plenty of US artists are still producing great albums but they don't get airplay in the US. For instance: Glenn Hughes ("The Voice Of Rock") has put out some tremendous albums in the last few years, and some of those have been with his friends Joe Lynn Turner (Rainbow) and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers). Spock's Beard is still making great albums along with Cheap Trick and more bands than I'll name for the sake of space. So many US artists have had to leave to find an audience for their music. I blame that mainly on the radio indutry and record industry. Not on the audience.

 

I've also turned to Sweden for most of my new music. Bands like The Flower Kings, Transatlantic, Karmakanic, Thomas Bodin, Freak Kitchen, and Pain Of Salvation to name a few. There are so many good bands and great musicians in Sweden making music now. Then we have Frost & Threshold from England. All these bands are making the kind of music that I as a musician love to listen to.

 

Many of these bands are doing quite well in Europe where people still support great music.

 

Unfortunately the lame music industry in the US is doing little to give us quality and is forsaking all for a quick buck. Because of that I never listen to the radio except for NPR, and even then I'm appalled buy the crap they play on The World Cafe. Occasionally they'll play a gem but much of it is forgettable.

 

When I do listen to older music I tend to favor music that sounds timeless such as some of Skynyrd's material and the Beatles, Aerosmith etc.

[rslowr]

I'm 53.

I listen to lots of new music -- My Morning Jacket, Spoon, Kings of Leon, Wilco, Decemberists, Raconteurs, Cold War Kids, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Rilo Kiley -- and lots of old stuff: the Band, Replacements, Clash, Hendrix, T-Rex, Beatles. Then there are those that keep going and I keep listening: Dylan, Elvis Costello.

 

when the new stuff is good, it's real good. And it helps me hear the older stuff differently, and vice versa (the Raconteurs channel late Beatles; Decemberists do Pink Floyd and ELP; Mars Volta & Led Zeppelin). Good is good; throwaway is throwaway, whatever decade.

 

The two bands I've played in over the last decade have been eclectic cover bands. right now that means Hendrix & Beck (Odelay, not Jeff), and whatever else catches our ear and fits our set list. Tho we do have our classic rock/heavy rock setlists for when we need them. That said, I've never been a "pro" -- I have my day job, so I don't have to worry too much about marketing my band. Kudos to you guys who go out and earn your living at it.

 

And it's true, FM radio generally sux -- here in Hampton Roads, VA, we've got a local new music show on NPR (no kidding: "Out of the Box", and you can download podcasts), but generally I find stuff 1) online 2) Rolling Stone 3) my daughters (19, 17) and their friends. I miss being able to discover "LA Woman" on a transistor radio, but MySpace ain't bad. And the music keeps coming.

[HCarlH]

Who cares about new music now....Paris just got released from jail !!!

[rslowr]

Who cares about new music now....Paris just got released from jail !!!

 

OMG; we're saved!

[djwa]

I was shocked one day to realize that all the albums I somehow thought of as 'recent' were at least 10 years old. Though I suppose as a percentage of my lifespan 10 years was becoming a smaller chunk of it. However I didn't want to rush out and buy random CD's from the local music store, and I hated iTunes when I tried it.

 

Anyway, I have to put in a plug for Napster here, I signed up for 9.95 a month and can download and listen to anything I want on my PC.

 

It really allowed me to check out all kinds of bands and music for the one flat rate, and I found myself spending entire evenings surfing from one artist to another - often starting with old music I remembered from high school and ending up in some weird weird sub genre really digging what I was hearing.

 

It's perfect for me since I spent a lot of time at the PC, and I kinda feel like I used to in H.S. when I would discover some new band I'd never heard of that I loved.

[kyp]

I'm 48. Raised on Beatles, Stones, Allman Bros., Who, Bowie, others. I've long been into about everything, including country (although mostly Haggard and Jones) and hip hop (not a lot, but I don't hate it, even rap); although symphony kind of turns me off most of the time now (raised playing violin). Nowadays the CDs that are in heaviest rotation for me are The Black Keys and Built to Spill. Macy Gray is also a favorite. I'm all over the map.

[jonnythesaint]

 

I'm 47. I buy new stuff all the time. All the time. Mostly because I want to keep a steady stream of production ideas flooding my consiousness for my production work with other artists. But most everything I listen to gets absorbed in a week and handed off to my 10 year old. Avril All American Rejects Fall Out Boy Pink etc. Then there's the new stuff that not MTV fodder. That remains in my listening list. Shins Foutains of Wayne The Decemberists Death Cab for Cutie I'm not an old, out of touch guy. I'm completely plugged in... and I still know, "they don't make 'em like they used to." Have you heard Deep Purple's Machine Head lately? LZ IV? Tres Hombres? Any Stones or Beatles? Crowded House? Elvis Costello? Graham Parker? Squeeze? It's just better.

 

 

ha! I just turned 27 and I already think like you. Except i throw a lot of Radiohead in there. But mostly listen to Beatles, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin or odd gems that people rip on the internet. And I've been like that for the last few years, sometimes something decent makes it's way into the mainstream.....sometimes.

[jmarcus2@bellso]

 

I'm the oldest guy in my band and I'm the only one who has any idea of what is going on in current music. It's a little frustrating. I might mention a new song, or a band, i.e. The Killers, or My Morning Jacket, and the other guys have never heard of them. And every song the other guys want to learn is either an old blues song, or old classic rock, or a remake of an old song. That stuff is okay, but I think bands should at least play something from the last decade or so. What do you guys think? Am I the only one bothered by stuff like this?

 

 

I'm 51 and heavily into Buckcherry and Dumpstaphunk right now...