The Jazz/Metal Double Standard

Being the music snob that I am, I've been known to scoff at so-called jazz clubs that essentially function as amusement park rides. On a given night, you can go to one of these clubs and be transported back 90 years: the bartender is old and crotchety, there's velvet on the walls, the sea-scallop booths are overly puffy. The music sounds old, but the people playing aren't. This place and these people playing this music from the past are amazing recreationists, but that's all. There is not much difference in my mind between a jazz club like this and the Hall of Presidents at Disney World--you go in and it seems real. It seems like Abraham Lincoln standing there talking to you until to you stop and think for a second that its 2009, and Lincoln's dead and bop and swing have not been revolutionary musical genres for decades. They are robots recreating a time and place, a museum piece that neglects to mention all the changes since, an amusement park ride to the past. There is no acknowledgement of the present, of change, and it makes me scoff.

That said, I was out running around my neighborhood today, and my mp3 player shuffled to Mastadon. As my pace increased and my fists started jabbing the air along to the song, I realized a double standard I have created. Mastadon is (for at least 2 albums) my favorite modern metal band. And yet, I realized, they are really just recreationists as well. They sound like the bands I grew up listening to...in essence they are a pre-Black Album Metallica band in a Reload world. In a lot of ways, Mastadon fails to recognize the changes that have taken place in their genre, they are the presidents in Disney's Hall of Metal amusement.

Does this mean I'm going to stop listening to Mastadon? Nope. Nor will I start going to "jazz" clubs. I'm just sayin.

Painted New Daily Haiku

The sky driving home--
Sunmelt oozes through clouds like
grilled cheese goop dripping.

I Can't Change What I Don't Own.

This formidable stack will only grow.