New Song, and how Scenesters Ruin Scenes

Hey there folks. I'm moving up in the world. I just installed NeoOffice and I'm using that to type this week's blog. I highly recommend it. It's a Mac ported variation of Open Office (the option for you *nix and Windows users out there) and an open source (read: free, donations accepted) option to the MS Office suite. Linus Torvalds said it best, “Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.” I might add, their regular software doesn't thrill me neither. I know a lot of people with brand new Macs who wonder why it's running so slowly and their programs keep crashing. Stop using MS Word, or any of the other MS Office programs. Use NeoOffice for a while and see how much better your life is.

Recently, Bubbles directed me to this video about the Portland music scene on MTVNews.com. Aside from the initial problem of it being on MTV News, i couldn't tell you how many things incredible wrong with this video. But, i will tell you a few of them. (...and you thought you'd get away with it!)

Give it a look.

First, i love Portland. It's a great place to live. There are a lot of amazing things going on here. But, it's not the best city in the world. Portlanders seem to have this bizarre notion that Portland is the end-all of anything important, and there's no need to look outside this city for anything, because it's all here. It's not all here, it's not the end-all of anything, and that provides you with a very naïve view of the world, especially if your involved in the arts. It reminds me of those people who claim the US is the best country in the world, and have never left the (continental 48) states. There's a wonderful world outside of Portland, and it should be experienced.

A lot of the things that go over huge here in Portland wouldn't survive a day in other cities i've been. People there have heard & seen it already, and are either done with it, or know there's much better to be had elsewhere. If you've got your head in the Portland's sand, you have no idea of the caliber of art going on beyond this city. Rarely do i go to a show with a local Portland act and go, “Wow, really need to step up my game as a musician.” It's only when people come from other places do i feel the challenge to step up.

“Everyone's kinda doing a mixture of everything...” Yeah, so long at it's some variation of indie-rock/art-pop/punk. This kinda goes back to the previous paragraph in that, Portlanders' view of 'everything' is pretty narrow.

They talk about Portland being an open arena for musicians to try new things; that people go out and do things that are super weird and it goes over well. Again, this stems back to Portlanders' narrow viewpoint on the world. There's not too much new things going on here. Replace the word 'new' with 'something that sounds like 1977-1983' and the word 'weird' with 'unrefined, sophomoric stuff that most musicians were doing in high school.'

Last order of business, it's Tuesday and that means you get a new song to listen to.

Sunday's Twilight.

<3 Noise!

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