thebreakfast.info
General Discussions => Tribal Funk Affliction => Topic started by: Marcial on April 20, 2005, 12:54:54 pm
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^^^ words of wookdom. ;)
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To say that SCI is the only band that fosters a "community", "family" whatever onthe road is absurd. Unless you tour endlessly with every band out there(which I know is impossible, but humor me), you have no way of making a statement. That is just falling back on either stereotypes you hear of a band\'s crowd or from a one-off bad experience that one might have at the random show he/she attended of said band. Trust me I feel this unwarranted "hating" alot due to my love of a certain band or 2.
Go for the music. If you can\'t afford "tour", don\'t do it. Go home for a month or 3 and get a f\'in job. Then hit it upo if that is all you want to do.
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No not BS as can be seen by some posting in this very thread. There is antagonism towards those that see shows as part of a larger whole and are more than abt just the music. It\'s there. Hippiebacklash whatever you wanta call it. It is there. He just pointed it out.
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this right here: \'Fast forward to 2005. While there are many wonderful people seeing the shows, outside of SCI and some of the festivals, there is active antagonism towards the idea of shows being about more that music.\' bullshit.
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straight from the horses mouth:
"Sure the music was the centerpiece - as many people were forcibly reminded after Jerry\'s death - but that isn\'t the only thing that was there. There was a culture present. There was an assumption that people would help out complete strangers; more frequently than not that would actually happen. When I first started seeing them, the feeling of being accepted was a large part of the attraction. As great as the music was - and it was indeed great - there was also a feeling that there was something going on beyond just that, a gathering of like minded souls who spent the rest of their time hiding that side of themselves from the world. It was powerful."
and then he goes on to say some **** about it only occuring at String Cheese shows and some festivals, and that right there is bullshit.
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yeah, I hear ya. but what I\'m saying is why does there have to be XX,XXX amount of people to acheive that. You can have that many people, but if its diluted by people there \'just to score drugs\' or \'just to make money\' etc., then its not gonna be the same anyways. I guess that is what he is saying, but for now, I\'d rather go to a 5,000 people moe. show or a 100 person breakfast show and achieve more or less the same thing.
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What you seem to not get from the article is one of the facts that he mentioned . Moe.rons are a small circle of people as are Breakfast fans as are Um fans etc. All he was lamenting in the article is that he noticed a huge difference in the scene of years past to now. He then mentioned the reasons he believed were the cause of it. Why is that BS? I do not see a single thing in the article that deserves to be belittled. He is right in all of his observations as some posting on this thread have proved. It was merely an observation on his part that I happen to concur w/ whole heartedly. As I said b4 until a group achieves the stature of bands past the "community" will continue to evolve in smaller local circles which is not reallly a bad thing but I as the writer miss having 10\'s of thousands all singing the same song, dancing, partying. I mean COME ON there is a huge difference in having a few hundred people maybe a thousand or 2 all on the same wavelength and 20,000 or more . THAT is what I really miss.
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I had a hard time reading that, and well, skipped around to get the full effect w/o wasting my time reading that bullshit. You don\'t have to look as far as the \'Family Appreciation\' thread started by Jim Cobb the other day to realize that everywhere lies a \'community\' so to speak. Current formations of which may not be as huge and grandeose(sp?) as the Dead or Phish scenes were, but it still lives on in the smallest of atmospheres. I\'ve talked to countless people who say that they get the same feelings they used to get at Dead shows nowadays at Disco Biscuits, moe., Breakfast, fill in your favorite band here shows, etc.
I can only discuss what I have experience w/, but I know that my life is way different and better off right now thanks to my \'family\' I\'ve met through going to so many moe. shows. I can name hundreds of amazingly great people from all across the country who bend over backwards for eachother and do all they can to make sure no one is left out. Hell, sometimes telling them that I can\'t go to certain shows is like pulling teeth, they just won\'t take no for an answer. And it isn\'t just **** like that, hell I got a job because a moe.ron friend of mine knew I was in a bad situation and they went out of their way to help me out.
Really, if he feels that way, its his loss. Maybe he\'s just bitter because he no longer has Phish stats to fuss over, but whatever he thinks, its all a bunch of bullshit as far as I\'m concerned.
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I would just like to add. Great Discussion !
This thread has not turned to name calling or threats of violence, and I would just like to point that out because it is a rare thing onthe intenet when folks disagree
:)
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it all depends on what you are looking to get out of a show... I go for the following reasons:
1) enjoy music
2) hang with friends
I don\'t feel a need to be a part of any "community". As has been stated before, GD was spawned in the 60\'s... when people our age were revolting / protesting / and being activists... people felt the need to be a part of something... not anymore. These days, things are much more about the individual as opposed to the community.
Some bleeding hearts out there think they are doing good by kicking down miracle tickets or chipping in to some wookie family\'s gas fund so they can make it to the next show... personally, I ain\'t lifting a finger to help this guy get to the next show, when he\'s been a tour rat for the last six months and I\'ve been at work! Here\'s a tip more of these guys should take to heart...if you can\'t afford a ticket & gas, stay the **** at home! The guy who wrote this article made it sound like these people reducing their number of shows is not an option, so we should all be "brothers" and help them out... GO **** YOURSELF AND THE "COMMUNITY".
Marcial you are part of a community. This community. Kicking down free tickets is fun for the person doing the giving. I have done that many times. It is all about Karma. I believe that the goodness that I do might actually come back to me some day (as I believe the bad might as well and thats scarey :) )
Also if i have spare change at a show I will sometimes give it away. I have done the same to homeless people in DC and all over. I dont usually launch in to a diatribe of why they should get a job and blah blah blah. Where would we be without the kindness of others.
There have been times in this community where i forgot something at home or whatevr and folks have helped me out, made my night and even made new friends. It is about give and take. I give sometimes I take sometimes it all works out.
I completely agree with the BIG F-YOU when it is the same people begging at shows though. they can get a job and work like we do
Exactly.
As for Marcial\'s question \'Leith, do you think people who cannot afford tickets & gas money should be at every show? Yes or no?\'
I think it\'s none of my business and when someone asks me for spare change I do one of 2 things give or say sorry man and move on. I do not know that person\'s situation and how they came to be in that position. If I see the SAME person over and over I may say something to the effect of \'dude come on\' or if they have some story down pat and I know it to be false I will call BS on them. Sell tapes in the lot and I will protest and offer people the same product for free . I am all about participation w/o altercation if possible. That just comes from my hippie upbringing.
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"Just because you do not want to accept that the scene is more full of **** there for the party than the music does not mean it is not so."
I accept it man. I saw about 15 phish shows a year from 1995 to 2004 and in that time I obviously saw the scene go down hill. In that time I also met hundreds of phish fans who for the most part all knew and loved eachother and continued to dance side by side show after show, year after year. So I refuse to believe that scene has gone to hell in a hand basket. The real problem in the scene is not the nooby, custi, clean cut looking college kids who go to shows on weekends and have a good time. It\'s the losers who devote thier entire life to the music and scene and get caught up it to the point where they become, druggies, homeless, scumbags, thiefs, and jobless, wooks and then take a negative attitude toward new fans claiming they **** up the community they are clinging to when the community is actually deteriorating mainly because all the old school heads either grew up and got a job... or they lingered on tour and became lot trash losers.
You just proved my point man. Those phish fans you mentioned that continued to go to shows etc. What do they do now? There is NO band to consistently follow and look forward to on the larger scale. That\'s all I\'m saying. This man was just putting in words what WE have witnessed over the years. How was it sooo crappy ? Just because you think the writer is a nutjob it automatically disqualifies the truth in his writing?
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Some bleeding hearts out there think they are doing good by kicking down miracle tickets or chipping in to some wookie family\'s gas fund so they can make it to the next show... personally, I ain\'t lifting a finger to help this guy get to the next show, when he\'s been a tour rat for the last six months and I\'ve been at work! Here\'s a tip more of these guys should take to heart...if you can\'t afford a ticket & gas, stay the **** at home! The guy who wrote this article made it sound like these people reducing their number of shows is not an option, so we should all be "brothers" and help them out... GO **** YOURSELF AND THE "COMMUNITY".
I would like to make a donation to the church of Mendez....
Right on Marcial....
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Leith, do you think people who cannot afford tickets & gas money should be at every show? Yes or no?
You think I wouldn\'t rather be on tour than working?? Everyone would! See, the thing about it is this word called "responsibility"... I\'m not going to put myself in a sitaution where I have to rely on other people... wooks should heed that advice.
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"Just because you do not want to accept that the scene is more full of **** there for the party than the music does not mean it is not so."
I accept it man. I saw about 15 phish shows a year from 1995 to 2004 and in that time I obviously saw the scene go down hill. In that time I also met hundreds of phish fans who for the most part all knew and loved eachother and continued to dance side by side show after show, year after year. So I refuse to believe that scene has gone to hell in a hand basket. The real problem in the scene is not the nooby, custi, clean cut looking college kids who go to shows on weekends and have a good time. It\'s the losers who devote thier entire life to the music and scene and get caught up it to the point where they become, druggies, homeless, scumbags, thiefs, and jobless, wooks and then take a negative attitude toward new fans claiming they **** up the community they are clinging to when the community is actually deteriorating mainly because all the old school heads either grew up and got a job... or they lingered on tour and became lot trash losers.
Sorry but **** come in every shape and size. I know many folks who have devoted their lives to music and they do not have any of the qualities you list above. The whole problem is people judging others by the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the length of their hair, the way they talk etc.
"Oh Great spirit,
grant that I may never find fault
with my neighbor until I have walked
the trail of life in his moccasins."
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it all depends on what you are looking to get out of a show... I go for the following reasons:
1) enjoy music
2) hang with friends
I don\'t feel a need to be a part of any "community". As has been stated before, GD was spawned in the 60\'s... when people our age were revolting / protesting / and being activists... people felt the need to be a part of something... not anymore. These days, things are much more about the individual as opposed to the community.
Some bleeding hearts out there think they are doing good by kicking down miracle tickets or chipping in to some wookie family\'s gas fund so they can make it to the next show... personally, I ain\'t lifting a finger to help this guy get to the next show, when he\'s been a tour rat for the last six months and I\'ve been at work! Here\'s a tip more of these guys should take to heart...if you can\'t afford a ticket & gas, stay the **** at home! The guy who wrote this article made it sound like these people reducing their number of shows is not an option, so we should all be "brothers" and help them out... GO **** YOURSELF AND THE "COMMUNITY".
Marcial you are part of a community. This community. Kicking down free tickets is fun for the person doing the giving. I have done that many times. It is all about Karma. I believe that the goodness that I do might actually come back to me some day (as I believe the bad might as well and thats scarey :) )
Also if i have spare change at a show I will sometimes give it away. I have done the same to homeless people in DC and all over. I dont usually launch in to a diatribe of why they should get a job and blah blah blah. Where would we be without the kindness of others.
There have been times in this community where i forgot something at home or whatevr and folks have helped me out, made my night and even made new friends. It is about give and take. I give sometimes I take sometimes it all works out.
I completely agree with the BIG F-YOU when it is the same people begging at shows though. they can get a job and work like we do
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"Just because you do not want to accept that the scene is more full of **** there for the party than the music does not mean it is not so."
I accept it man. I saw about 15 phish shows a year from 1995 to 2004 and in that time I obviously saw the scene go down hill. In that time I also met hundreds of phish fans who for the most part all knew and loved eachother and continued to dance side by side show after show, year after year. So I refuse to believe that scene has gone to hell in a hand basket. The real problem in the scene is not the nooby, custi, clean cut looking college kids who go to shows on weekends and have a good time. It\'s the losers who devote thier entire life to the music and scene and get caught up it to the point where they become, druggies, homeless, scumbags, thiefs, and jobless, wooks and then take a negative attitude toward new fans claiming they **** up the community they are clinging to when the community is actually deteriorating mainly because all the old school heads either grew up and got a job... or they lingered on tour and became lot trash losers.
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The respect thing is a society thing. for some reason People feel they are entitled to everything.
Yeah, way too many "important" people out there that don\'t identify their place in the context of billions of others.
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Yep that is the attitude this guy was referring to. Marcial comes through again. Your attitude permeates the scene and is only indicitive of Society in general. Well that person that is ignored by you will be glad of someone like me that actually cares abt more than just my needs. It is this me attitude that breeds contempt and hate as you prove alot. Peace
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it all depends on what you are looking to get out of a show... I go for the following reasons:
1) enjoy music
2) hang with friends
I don\'t feel a need to be a part of any "community". As has been stated before, GD was spawned in the 60\'s... when people our age were revolting / protesting / and being activists... people felt the need to be a part of something... not anymore. These days, things are much more about the individual as opposed to the community.
Some bleeding hearts out there think they are doing good by kicking down miracle tickets or chipping in to some wookie family\'s gas fund so they can make it to the next show... personally, I ain\'t lifting a finger to help this guy get to the next show, when he\'s been a tour rat for the last six months and I\'ve been at work! Here\'s a tip more of these guys should take to heart...if you can\'t afford a ticket & gas, stay the **** at home! The guy who wrote this article made it sound like these people reducing their number of shows is not an option, so we should all be "brothers" and help them out... GO **** YOURSELF AND THE "COMMUNITY".
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Have you been on tour? If so when and for how long? I can tell you from personal experience the scene has changed. It has gotten younger and more splintered because there is no ONE BIG band that can sustain a community. It\'s fact man. Just because you do not want to accept that the scene is more full of **** there for the party than the music does not mean it is not so. The only band that actually sustains a community on the road is SCI and they get more crap than anyone. It is sad but true until a band makes it to the level of GD or Phish the scene will revolve around festivals and local shows making the community more fractured w/ no sense of history exactly as was written in this article.
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"What just because one is old they can\'t have fun anymore? "
Thats not what i am saying at all. All i am saying is I think ZZ\'s view on the scene is slanted because he does not accept the fact that things are not like they were 30 years ago. 30 years ago being a spun out weirdo and was thing to do. Most old school heads, my parents being two of them, these lawyers and doctors you speak of are not running around on cheese tour today with long hair, a long beard and a cape on wondering why they dont fit into the scene anymore and why the scene is full of a bunch of jerks these days because its really not that relevant or even that true for that matter.
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"I don\'t see any way in the immediate future that a friendly community could exist again outside of very small circles"
thats total crap. completely cynical and negative. The entire article is ZZ trying to rationalize why people look at him strangely at shows and dont accept him anymore. Uhm maybe because your a 50 year old stuck still stuck in your teens dressing up like a super hero at concerts? Obviously the scene is not all peace and love and good vibes like it was 30 years ago but its not some gross machine where no one can relate to each other or have any sense of community and everyone is out to hurt and put down everyone else like zz seems to think. that is horse ****.
Are you SER? Dude take a surf around. It seems to me there are MORE people closeminded to other bands than openminded. Every band has a majority of fans that are this band is tops no room for others. These fans are very vocal and many times unconcerned abt the legitimacy of other fans claims that THEIR band is tops.
How many this band rules that band sux posts are there? Tons. I have been guilty of it myself until I realize what an ass i am for it and give said band a chance.
There is a difference in disliking a band and their fans and talking **** every chance you get abt the same. This attitude translates to the lots of larger shows and is only exacerbated even more post show on the \'net. He mentioned a group the Rakefighter\'s who only recently changed their logo to reflect the difference in wook and hippie which only goes to prove his point even more that these folk even saw a reason to form Rakefighter\'s.
Why can\'t he dress up as a superhero and act his age wtf? That\'s BS. I know people who only dance @ shows because that is the ONLY place they feel they can dance w/o being laughed at. These same people are Dr.\'s and Lawyers and totally NOT weirdos. What just because one is old they can\'t have fun anymore? Dude that\'s is BS and you know it.
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I think it is more a relfection of society as a whole. People always tend to look at things with rose colored glasses when remembering the past.
IMHO the biggest downfall of the "scene" whatever that is was a major influx of much harder chemicals. The harder chemicals aren\'t usually peddled by "hippies" but dealers. Dealers bring a much differnt vibe to the party. Depending on what they are up to also means weapons. They also bring a certain crowd looking for these things. Crime tends to follow hard drugs as well.
I remember vividly seeing crack being smoked, coke being done in the open, needles lying around, prostitutes (WTF is that), all sorts of stuff. It is really sad. Sure these things were on dead tour and phish tour but they EXPLODED on the scene in the past 10 - 15 years.
The respect thing is a society thing. for some reason People feel they are entitled to everything.
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"I don\'t see any way in the immediate future that a friendly community could exist again outside of very small circles"
thats total crap. completely cynical and negative. The entire article is ZZ trying to rationalize why people look at him strangely at shows and dont accept him anymore. Uhm maybe because your a 50 year old stuck still stuck in your teens dressing up like a super hero at concerts? Obviously the scene is not all peace and love and good vibes like it was 30 years ago but its not some gross machine where no one can relate to each other or have any sense of community and everyone is out to hurt and put down everyone else like zz seems to think. that is horse ****.
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He may be a spun out weirdo but he wrote a very coherent and well thought out article that describes the dissolution of a once very friendly scene of like minded music lovers very accurately.
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zzyzyx is a total spun out wierdo . People may be less accepting of others at shows these days but society as a whole has changed a lot in the last 30 years. I think zzyzx is just bitter and angry at the \'scene\' because no one pats him on the back anymore for being a freak. It makes sense he likes cheese tour though. He fits right in with the attention seeking fashion obsessed hoola hooping corn balls you find at those shows.
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blah blah blah....sounds like a washed up old dead head stuck in the past who doesnt fit into any scene today so to him this means there is no scene worth fitting into anymore....with exception of cheese tour of course! gimmie a break.
Nope just an older Deadhead like myself that has watched the scene dissolve into exactly what he described now. If you were there you know. It\'s not abt fitting in it\'s abt accepting in. He was spot on from my view.
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why is everyone banned from jambands.com?
http://www.thebreakfast.info/forum/showthread.php?t=3636
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because they f\'ed up and we took it upon ourselves to show them
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totally agree with the RESPECT.
our generation as a whole has very little respect for things, we are very one tracked minded.
sorry about your feet and blanket, i tried to get it into the can but i couldn\'t
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why is everyone banned from jambands.com?
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Yah, thanx for the post, I\'m still banned and I even pay for Rhapsody. The article...... I think it all comes down to respect. to many people feel the only way to get ahead is to cheat and lie and people are afraid to do a little hard work sometimes. But I think it mainly comes down to respect. One event that pops into my head was at a bigger show and the idiot next to me feels like he can take a leek on the hill in the middle of the show because the bathroom is to far, not giving a **** for the peoples feet and blankets he\'s pissing on. Since then I have never been to a big show.
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meet the dude at some show, can\'t remember exactly which, but he had a stop watch and clip board and was timing every song
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have u ever seen zzyzx? he wears a sparkly cape and a magic wand to shows.
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thanks Dave for the post. As a historian(atleast thats what my degree says), I find this article very interesting. I believe that the Dead generation and the Phish generation are 2 completely different eras. But the Dead came out of turbulent times and the jamband scene came out of that. Sure the scene has changed but so has the music, for better or worse? no so sure, but, I am living and loving it.
I am also BANNED from jamlameass.com
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oh **** that was zzyzx? what a wacko
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blah blah blah....sounds like a washed up old dead head stuck in the past who doesnt fit into any scene today so to him this means there is no scene worth fitting into anymore....with exception of cheese tour of course! gimmie a break.
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Thank you so much from one of the Banned Dave. Thanx Marcial for posting it.
Great article. Nailed it on the head. I could not agree more if I had wrote it myself.
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for those who are banned...
Featured Column:
What Happened to the Jambands Community?
David Steinberg
2005-04-05
Long before there was even the word "jamband" for bands to distance themselves from, The Grateful Dead played. As those who saw them know, there was more to seeing a Dead show than just the music. Sure the music was the centerpiece - as many people were forcibly reminded after Jerry\'s death - but that isn\'t the only thing that was there. There was a culture present. There was an assumption that people would help out complete strangers; more frequently than not that would actually happen. When I first started seeing them, the feeling of being accepted was a large part of the attraction. As great as the music was - and it was indeed great - there was also a feeling that there was something going on beyond just that, a gathering of like minded souls who spent the rest of their time hiding that side of themselves from the world. It was powerful.
Fast forward to 2005. While there are many wonderful people seeing the shows, outside of SCI and some of the festivals, there is active antagonism towards the idea of shows being about more that music. Instead of thinking of the crowd as a whole, many people now join "teams." The stigma on scalping tickets faded in post-hiatus Phish and the poster scene actively encourages financial speculation. This is not to say that things were perfect back then - the Grateful Dead sure handed out a lot of flyers talking about problems - or that they\'re horrible now, but I did prefer the kinder lot, the one where at least lip service was paid to the idea of acceptance and eccentricity was encouraged, not an excuse to take pictures to post on mocking websites. How did we get from there to here? I don\'t think it was just one issue. It was a long process that has many factors.
Scene telephone
There is one thing about the Grateful Dead experience that is literally impossible for any new band to create. The Dead were an actual creation of late 1960s San Francisco. That being a time in which there is incredible interest, the older fans of the band were always a source of fascination. What Deadhead wouldn\'t want to hear stories about seeing the band in the Haight during a time where it seemed like anything was possible? Outsiders viewed seeing The Grateful Dead as much as a cultural statement and a time machine as being exposed to 2.5 hours of music. It\'s hard for that not to affect the people attending the concerts to some degree.
Phish didn\'t come out of a culture of resistance - ranging from the violent to the surrealistic - to a military draft for an inscrutable war. Few people ever asked anyone, "Wow, what was it like to be a college student in the mid 1980?" However, some trappings of the Grateful Dead remained. The band itself was fans of the Dead; they were an obvious influence for Phish in terms of how they ran their organization. While older Phish fans couldn\'t say that they were witnesses to San Francisco before it was overrun with heroin addicts, they could say that they saw the Grateful Dead when Jerry was a force and the scene still was interesting. Phish grew as the Dead were dying, so some of the energy and culture of the Grateful Dead\'s world got transferred to Phish\'s. It was a translation obviously. Most of the people who made the jump were the younger fans, so instead of being a culture that grew organically out of a turbulent time, it was a reflection of that culture. Some things are going to get lost.
Current bands - with the exception again of SCI which has a disproportionate number of older Deadhead in their scene - end up with a reflection of the Phish scene. We\'re now two full generations removed from the Grateful Dead world. Some changes in the nature of the fanbase is to be expected.
Vocabulary shift
It has been argued - perhaps most famously in Orwell\'s 1984 - that how we think about a subject is colored by the words we use to talk about it. There has been an obvious word change in the last decade and it does affect how we think about people. If you saw someone wandering around a concert parking lot in the early 90s with a beard and somewhat ragged clothes, you\'d be tempted to use the word "hippie" to describe him. Now the word of choice is "wookie."
The change in connotation is obvious. Even when South Park devotes an episode to mocking hippies, they do so out of a sense that the people have ideals, that they should spend more energy living up to. Hippies are well meaning - if sometimes naive - people who value others - sometimes to a nauseating degree. Wookies are selfish jerks who think only about gatecrashing, scamming people, and breaking into cars during the show. When you think of the person next to you as a potential thief instead of an interesting person who might have some cool stories, it\'s not surprising that your attitude towards them changes.
As much as I\'d like to blame this change on people being prejudiced, there\'s no question that it was forced upon the scene. It was the acceptance of the Grateful Dead scene that lead to people learning that there were many soft touches there. Any culture that preaches the joys of individualism and has an instinctive dislike for authority is going to be vulnerable to people who think that means you can take whatever you want and no one will care. The people who followed the Dead around got more and more demanding and things went downhill rather quickly. (Personally I suspect that this was an unintended consequence of the camping and vending ban, as that lead to the more responsible Deadheads staying home leaving touring for those already a little predisposed to disobeying rules.) Once a scene gets invaded by that sort of leech, it\'s hard to remember sometimes that most of the people who look like that are incredibly nice.
Avarice and Greed
In the summer of 1993, I saw the Grateful Dead 13 times and Phish 10 times. The following year I made it to 26 Phish shows. I managed to do this despite living off of $7200 a year. How? Selling sodas after the show. Phish tickets were $20, gas was 70 cents a gallon in places, and you could frequently get cases of soda for $4 (at least in Las Cruces). At those prices selling 30 sodas a night at Phish (and frequently 50-70 at the bigger Dead shows) didn\'t quite let me break even, but made it possible to do an entire tour for what it would cost for me to just sit around at home.
While the general rate of inflation has been low these last 12 years, prices related to seeing concerts have skyrocketed. Ticket prices have doubled and gas has tripled. Meanwhile the profit margin for my old product is disappearing as soda prices at grocery stores go up but lot prices stay the same; that $1 price is hard to move from because dealing with change is more trouble than its worth and no one would accept a jump to $2.
"I can see that\'s a problem for the soda vendors," you ask, "but how does that affect the scene at large?" When people find it harder to support themselves by selling benign products, they\'re forced into a couple of choices. Assuming that not seeing as many shows isn\'t an option - sure that\'s the practical approach but how much self control have you mustered over the years?- people have to either make more money or spend less money. Both of those lead to problems.
To make more money, you have to climb the ladder of sketchiness. Beer is more profitable than soda. Pot is more profitable than beer. Pharmies and hard drugs make more money still. Nothing good results from large scale drug dealing in the lot; those who realize that stay on the spend less track. That causes other issues. When I was doing my tours, I was able to pay face (or on occasion slightly less) every night. As the economic divide grows, there are more people asking for tickets well below face. That causes frustration among the people who bought the tickets. They feel like people are taking advantage of them. In order for a college student to see a tour without parental help, they have to delve into some morally questionable behavior one way or another. Once again the responsible people remove themselves from the scene, those who don\'t care stick around, and what was a community becomes a little bit less so.
On line cd "trading"
Don\'t get me wrong. I still love the rise of archive.org and bit torrent and other ways where people can get music without having to jump through hoops. My past praise for these new technologies was not a lie. I will always love them. However, there is a flip side to asocial trading. Downloading a zip file from a website does absolutely nothing to build a community.
Sure it was a real pain to get more music in the 80s and 90s. However, one thing the old system did was to force the community to be tighter. When you saw a car with stickers on it, or a person with a t shirt on, there was an additional reason to strike up a conversation. Maybe they have that tape that you\'ve been looking for (or the one that you didn\'t even know that you should have been looking for). While the early rise of the Internet made it easier to make new connections, tape trading was still a stick used to enforce social norms. If you were a big enough jerk, who would let you into a B&P pool? Develop a reputation as a bad trader and you\'d be lucky to ever get another tape. Elitism isn\'t always a bad thing.
The coarsening of society
I saved this one for last, because I\'m liable to come across as an old man ranting, "Kids these days with their baggie pants and their Disco Biscuits," [1] but I think there has been a shift in culture here. It all comes back to the political correctness movement.
For about 15 minutes on some college campuses, there was an overreaction from the left in an attempt to get people to be more polite. While that attempt was fruitless and quickly died out, the backlash from it has been around for decades. In the name of not giving into political correctness, people think its their moral obligation to be as big of a jerk as possible as much as possible to anyone who does anything even slightly outside the norm. Mention in passing that you\'re a vegetarian? Expect to have people go on and on and on about the joys of eating meat. Get a lot of pleasure out of a science fiction movie? Expect "Triumph the Insult Dog" - or more likely a drunk jerk who thinks that he\'s as funny - to come to the showing to mock you for having the nerve to have non-mainstream interests. Have long hair or dredlocks? Expect your picture to be on w00ks.org so people can endlessly mock you. Sure some of it is just friendly ribbing, but there\'s a rather mean undertone to it.
Maybe the "Rakefighters of America" see themselves as fighting the people who are fond of gatecrashing, and I do have to give credit for the slogan of "Hate wooks not hippies" but their logos judge based on appearance, not actions. It\'s hard to build any sort of community when you have people making jokes about being violent on other fans because of how they look. Yes, I know, it\'s only a joke. Lighten up. After all, it\'s completely impossible for that sort of joke to have any sort of consequence at all, right?
Can a scene be recreated?
The Grateful Dead scene was something that was very important to me. The friends I met through it were some of the best people I ever met in my entire life. The same is true for people I met on Phish tour and even recently on SCI tour. I would love for people in college now to have similar experiences. That\'s why I hate to say this, but I don\'t see any way in the immediate future that a friendly community could exist again outside of very small circles.
For a while the outside world seemed ready to leave us alone to create our own little world, but those days are gone; in addition to all of the internal problems addressed above, both the most recent Bonnaroo and Phish Deer Creek run had outsiders come in to attempt to rip us off with three card monte players.
If this is important to you, the best advice I can give is to go to smaller festivals well outside of major cities. The more work that it takes to get into a show, the more likely that there will be some sort of community affiliated with those who attend. Try to sneak below the radar, invite people who will bring more good than bad to the event, and maybe you can keep it for a while. Who knows, maybe you can prove me wrong. I dare you!
[1] The trap of assuming that things were better when you were young is why I avoided potential reasons involving styles of music (e.g. techno brings in sketchier kids, metal brings in angrier people) or chemicals consumed. It might be true, but there\'s an extremely high chance that it\'s an illusion.
David Steinberg got his Masters Degree in mathematics from New Mexico State University in 1994. He first discovered the power of live music at the Capitol Centre in 1988 and never has been the same. His Phish stats website is at http://www.ihoz.com/PhishStats.html
He is the stats section editor for
The Phish Companion and is on the board of directors for the Netspace Foundation. You can read more of his thoughts at http://www.livejournal.com/users/thezzyzx.
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I couldn\'t agree less, but interesting....
http://www.jambands.com/Features/content_2005_04_05.08.phtml