Ageism

[slobake]

When I was young there where certain people who wrote off anyone or anything done by someone over a certain age. Classic 50's rock and roll? Forget it. Bunch of insignificant old farts etc, etc, etc, you get the picture. Now, those same people are bitter old men who rant about all these young punks and won't listen to anything recorded after 1980. Let it go dude there is some awesome stuff being played by those young punks. Oh and you young punks there is a lot of great music made by us old farts. Stuff that hasn't been played a bazillion times until you want to puke. I'm thinking things like Zappa, Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac when they were blues bands. Yes and I still love the old rock-a-billy stuff. And the R&B classics recorded at Watts Stax in Memphis are awesome. I remember people my age I knew starting strange bands like the Avengers and the Contractions, can you say Punk Rock boys and girls.

[Bloodhammer]

I'm looking forward to being a cantankerous old fart.

[slobake]

Originally Posted by Bloodhammer

I'm looking forward to being a cantankerous old fart.

I'll do me best to be a role model for you.

[bassistjoe93]

[slobake]

^ This is what a life of watching daytime talk shows will do to you. It happens fast and it's not pretty.

[hdracer]

I hear ya bro
I don't want to play the rock music people my age want to play and the people that play the rock music I want to play don't want a geezer in their band.

Blues and R&B is all that's left.

[Relic]

Originally Posted by slobake

When I was young there where certain people who wrote off anyone or anything done by someone over a certain age. Classic 50's rock and roll? Forget it. Bunch of insignificant old farts etc, etc, etc, you get the picture. Now, those same people are bitter old men who rant about all these young punks and won't listen to anything recorded after 1980. Let it go dude there is some awesome stuff being played by those young punks. Oh and you young punks there is a lot of great music made by us old farts. Stuff that hasn't been played a bazillion times until you want to puke. I'm thinking things like Zappa, Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac when they were blues bands. Yes and I still love the old rock-a-billy stuff. And the R&B classics recorded at Watts Stax in Memphis are awesome. I remember people my age I knew starting strange bands like the Avengers and the Contractions, can you say Punk Rock boys and girls.

I have nothing to add at the moment, except that I read the first few lines of your post exactly as though it was the first few lines to "Happiest Days of Our Lives/Another Brick in the Wall" and it kinda worked. I just thought you should know that.

[slobake]

I get the feeling I sound like a fusty old curmudgeon here. Oh well if the Depends fit ... Gotta go time to put another tape in the 8-track.

[IPA]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

-Socrates(maybe?), from a long-ass time ago

To be true, from way back when until forever.

[slobake]

Originally Posted by Relic

I have nothing to add at the moment, except that I read the first few lines of your post exactly as though it was the first few lines to "Happiest Days of Our Lives/Another Brick in the Wall" and it kinda worked. I just thought you should know that.

HOW CAN YOU EXPECT TO HAVE PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR BEETS !

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by IPA

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

-Socrates(maybe?), from a long-ass time ago

To be true, from way back when until forever.

Kind of makes you think, was there ever really a time when children had manners, respected authority, respected their elders, and preferred exercise to chatter? Did they ever truly serve the household or rise when elders entered the room? Did they not contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers? Methinks kids have always been this way, at least until their parents taught them not to.

[Ziltoid]

The only times I tend to be ageist is on the road when I'm with old people that should have their licensed revoked. It just pisses me off, some are very dangerous. Other than those times, I love you old farts!

[pocketgroove]

I'm sort of in the opposite situation...I'm 19, and I want to play classic rock, and blues, and all that good stuff instead of the grindcore and whiny alternative music that is popular around here. But the only people who are playing that stuff are older, and they don't want a young bassist coming in and hanging around.

[Oneirogenic]

I'm down with the old guys. Both of my band members are old enough to be my dad. In fact my dad is only a couple years older than them....

I feel old when I think " what the **** are those kids wearing!?" "Stupid disrespectful teenagers!" "Ughh what is that garbage they are listening to? At least when we were kids we had good taste in music!" "Get off my lawn!" All things I've actually said and I'm only 26. I'm getting old.

[Kwesi]

I side-eye everyone's musical suggestions equally. Whether you think One Direction or The Beatles are great music, I want no part of it .

[slobake]

Any questions, take a look at my profile picture. I'll let you guess the ages of the other band members. Our keyboard player is the youngest and she is not in the picture. Oh, and I have a lot better bass now.

[Bloodhammer]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

Kind of makes you think, was there ever really a time when children had manners, respected authority, respected their elders, and preferred exercise to chatter? Did they ever truly serve the household or rise when elders entered the room? Did they not contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers? Methinks kids have always been this way, at least until their parents taught them not to.

"We were all put on this earth to suffer,
We each have our own private pain.
We must pass this pain onto our brother,
A never ending cycle starts again."

~GWAR

[bassinplace]

Originally Posted by slobake

HOW CAN YOU EXPECT TO HAVE PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR BEETS !

I thought it was "meat", not beets. I bought this album when it first came out so that would add up to a lot of years I've been getting that one wrong.

The lyrics to this song could be interpreted in a number of ways I suppose, but I always took it to be about the fear of getting old:

"The Blue Light" by Frank Zappa

Your Ethos
Your Pathos
Your Porthos
Your Aramis
Your Brut Cologne
You're writing home
You are hopeless
Your hopelessness
Is rising around you, rising around you
You like it
It gives you something to do
In the day time
Hey buddy, you need a hobby
You are tired of moving forward
You think of the future
And secretly you piddle your pants
The puddle of piddle
Which used to be little
Is rising around you, rising around you
You like it
It gives you something to do
In the night time
Well, you travel to bars
You also go to Winchell's Doughnuts
And hang out with the Highway Patrol
Sometimes you'll go to a pizza place
You go toSharkey's to get that
American kind of pizza
That has the ugly, waxey, fake yellow kind
Of yellow Cheese on the top...
Then you go to Straw Hat Pizza,
To get all of those artificial ingredients
That never belonged on a pizza in the first place
(But the white people really like it...)
Oh well, you'll go anyplace, you'll do anything
Oh you'll give me your underpants
I hope these aren't yours, buddy...
They're very nice, though
You'll go to Santa Monica Boulevard,
You'll go to the Blue Parrot
No problem, you'll go anyplace
You'll do anything
Just so you can hang out with the others
The others just like you
Afraid of the future
(Death Valley Days, straight ahead)
The future is scary
Yes, it sure is
Well, the puddle is rising
It smells like the ocean
A body of water to isolate England
And also Reseda
The oil, in patches
All over Atlantis, Atlantis
You remember Atlantis
Donovan, the guy with the brocade coat,
Used to sing to you about Atlantis
You loved it, you were so involved then
That was back in the days when you used to
Smoke a banana
You would scrape the stuff off the middle
You would smoke it
You even thought you was getting ripped from it
No problem
Ah Atlantis, they could really get down there
The plankton, the krill
The giant underwater pyramid, the squid decor
Excuse me. Todd
The big ol' giant underwater door
The dome, the bubbles, the blue light
Light, light, light, light
Blue light blue light
The seepage, the sewage, the rubbers, the napkins
Your ethos, your pathos
Your flag hole, your port-hole
Your language
You're frightened
Your future
You can't even speak your own ****ing language
You can't read it anymore
You can't write it anymore
Your language
The future of your language
Your meat loaf
Don't let your meat loaf
Heh, Heh, Heh
Your Micro-Nanette
Your Brut
Cologne

[Jim Nazium]

Originally Posted by slobake

When I was young there where certain people who wrote off anyone or anything done by someone over a certain age. Classic 50's rock and roll? Forget it. Bunch of insignificant old farts etc, etc, etc, you get the picture. Now, those same people are bitter old men who rant about all these young punks and won't listen to anything recorded after 1980.

Very true. But to me, the issue is not so much age as open mindedness. The people you describe think the only good music ever written was the popular music of their youth. They thought so when they were young, and they still think so now they're old.

But there are open minded oldsters. I played a gig last night with a guitarist in his 60s, and we did stuff by Beyonce and Elle Varner, as well as stuff by Bootsy Collins and P-Funk.

And I know that somewhere, right now, a teenage kid is listening to a Coltrane record and digging it.

[fraublugher]

Don't give me that dirty diaper look.