The Friday Informer: Low Rent Drama

Maybe Client 9 had the right idea—music is useful for setting the mood in all sorts of situations. It will calm your dog and rid you of unwanted houseguests. You may even be able to cheer up a neighborhood or shut down an airport with the right performance approach.

The nightly news was reporting some devious solfege abuse, and those of us still reading the NYT arts section were treated to a gossipy snafu of our own. Maybe not all art has to be great, but if critics are going to insist on promoting music no one likes and living like rock stars, maybe it’s time to meet them half way. Yeah, that’s the ticket: If you don’t like it, make your own.

If things seem a little quiet on your street, it might be because all the kids are banging their drums in Texas this week. If you’d like, you can pretend you went, too. But I’m not sure this great hunt for the tween audiences and our infatuation with indie rock bands is really going to pay off. They’re not selling any records either, and they move so quickly.

Seriously, why can’t we all just sit still and think quietly about music for a little while, read the thoughts of our elders and find inspiration? Alex did that for ten years and now he’s winning shiny awards. True, the man has his critics; Moe suspects a “cat bias.” I’m not sure what happens if you read the book backwards, but I think I like this tune better in reverse. Must be the drugs.