Definitions of Opinions

Well I haven't posted a reply to a readers request for quite a while, but this one came in last week from a good friend and I thought I'd share.

Dear Slackjaw,

I'd like to hear your opinion on something. What is folk music? What is acoustic music? What is country music? What is Americana music? What is bluegrass music? What is old timey music? I'm trying to find interesting ways to explain to people what the differences are between these genre's that people often lump together. Thought you might want to weigh in on the subject.

Thanks,~Angie

Well now...thanks for asking, I guess. If I were to break em down I'd probebly do it like this.

What is folk music? Folk is to music, what folk is to art. It’s less schooled than its counterpart, and because of this more people are able to participate. Its power comes from the masses, instead of from the elite. It became a powerful political weapon because it gave the poor and disenfranchised a voice. Unions were formed because of this music and because of it, formed the middle class. Rock and Roll gained an edge from this music and changed the face of America.

What is acoustic music? While the more mellow sect would like to claim it for their own, I’d just classify it as being any type of music you can take outside and still play along with.

What is country music? Country music is the white mans blues. Like the blues it comes from internal rather than external, it can be political, but its power comes from the human condition—from the heart. It should be simple...with few chords. Which leads to the old standard joke; What do you get when you play a country album backwards? You get your wife back, your car back, your house back…

What is Americana music? It’s retro moving forward music—an attempt to recreate American music at its roots, from a time before the transistor, when amps had tubes, and pianos still had strings and then take that music it to places it's never been.

What is bluegrass music? Bluegrass is country that took a left into Kentucky and festered in the hills. It took the uplifting foot stomping hand clapping of Gospel, combined it with square dancing, some hard drinking and distilled it all through the mandolin of Bill Monroe.

What is old timey music? Bob Seeger, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Journey and Jefferson Starship, and of course by that partial list I mean all fossilized dinosaur music. It’s important that its white, and even when new, it should immediately sound dated. Weather it’s “Bicycle Built for Two” or “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” it’s only value is in mocking sing-alongs after closing down the bars in Hoquiam on mid-week road trips to Westport and Ocean Shores. Oh...and as the soundtrack to every trip I've ever taken to the Puyallup Fair.

Love,

Slackjaw

Live at the Firehouse

I’ll be appearing at the Firehouse Coffee Company next Saturday June 16th at 8 pm. Thought I’d play a few songs of my own and a couple covers that I think I know all the words too…you know, try and make a big deal out of not all that much.

They’ve put in a little riser, so if I look taller it’s not the shoes, trust me.

Doesn’t cost anything to come and hang out…well maybe a little for a cup of coffee or a treat, but not for the music part. Well there might be a small charge for getting me to play Beso Me Mucho, but not anything you couldn't afford.

Hello again

I should have made it my resolve, but I knew better than that—knew that I could never keep it up like I should, so I didn’t. Instead it just pops into my head now and again and I think about it and how to avoid it, or embrace it, or get lost in the stories that should be stories, but instead are now just fading memories.

I’ve finally got up and running at Myspace.com where I’ve been posting my shows and pictures and putting songs up and that sort of thing. I don’t care for it as much as I do this page, but strangely it’s asked for all the time and already I’ve gotten two gigs in Portland that I would never have gotten with out it.

Tomorrow night is my CD release party which I am holding at Northern Pacific Coffee Company out near Pacific Lutheran University. It’s a nice place, with pretty decent food and some nice beers and really, there just aren’t that many places to play in this town, ifyouknowwhatimean.

Come by and say hello at Myspace, I will do my best, as always, to keep updating this site, but as you can see I’m having trouble keeping up that end of the bargain.