I think the mark of maturity is the ability to change.
More than that; to be able to admit your own mistakes.

I have come to hate the talk of people I know who
constantly have to refer to the Golden Age Of The 60's..
(fill in your own nightmare here) and expect me to agree
that nothing good has been recorded since the Beatles,
Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin. That last is a particular
bamboo shoot under the fingernails for me. Just listen
to her "Summertime." I have nearly barfed when having to
sit through that-- in an auto maybe.

Recently as the ability to digitize the ol' record collection
became a reality for me-- mine for instance includes no
pop records that fill the stalls of resale bins at all.
But even so I have a lot of trash in there. Some I have
because they seemed tasteful to buy at the time:
Dave Brubecks Brandenburg Gate for instance. I never recall
having played it all the way through. Another recording involving Brubeck's wife doing the lyrics was a concept albumn called
The Real Ambassadors.

The Real Ambassadors makes jazz 'afficiandos' cringe. They
cringe because it espouses an idea of American policy espoused
in the early 60's as part of the Camelot years. It was devised
as a jazz version of a broadway show. There's no dialog
but the tunes are about a diplomatic tour of musicians.
It was a real diplomatic tour taken to places like Greece and Africa.

On the tour Louis Armstrong was made King Of The Zulus and
it is recorded in picture on on the double fold album.

I always prized this record. Lambert Hendricks and Ross do
one of their great 'speed' numbers on the title tune
called The Real Ambassadors. It recounts an actual event
when the Dizzy Gillespie Band actually _stopped_ a riot
in Greece. And so the idea was that the musicians were
the real ambassadors.

20 years later I heard a bit of this album and the dj
disparaging such a concept record, the idea of it and the
fact that it actually went to press. I maintain that it
is a good expression of time and place, at least as someone
who was an early teenager at that time. But also it is
sentimental and the rhyming schemes on the lesser tracks
(written by Iola Brubeck) really make you want to gag.

That's how things become trash.

As an adult I did a radio show with the idea of using lesser
known things like punk rock to have what I expected to
be a young audience give effect of learning to pick and choose
and think for themselves. That was the danger of punk.
That was the reason (and still is) that punk is suppressed
by major labels. It still survives though.

In the time of those Beatle years and nasally Dylan tunes
and the Pure Embarrassment Of having The Rolling Stones
Anywhere Within Public View then but especially _now_
it makes me want to puke.

My view of the Golden Years is completely revisionist.
I hated that time and my place in it.

I maintain no blogs nor do I write about it anywhere but
here. Sometimes I just have to vent.

As to the summer acts, they have a full bill of fare for
this year. I have idea when I'd here if any of the
samples I made will be heard or acted upon by nect year.

This bring us full circle: the act for this Thursday is
The Guess Who. I might stick around for that after
petitioning to end the war out of politeness but I don't
think it will be as enjoyable as Los Straightjackets.