Why I Hate Music
by Jaded Bitterman
My love-hate relationship with music was well chronicled in the never-before-seen documentary The Fall of the Roman Empire Part II. Ok, well, that's not really a documentary or even a real movie, but it's another idea on my long list of ideas that will never see the light of day. My mom didn't name me Jaded for nothing.
When we are young, music is the spice of our lives. You buy concert tickets to shows four months before the gig, mark it on your mental calendar, and each day that passes brings you one step closer to seeing your Rock God Idols (or Rob Halfrod, Glen Tipton, and K.K. Downing in my particular youth). That first concert is like entering Yankee Stadium (or your second-rate franchises stadium—yea, I'm talking to you Red Sox Nation) for the first time: You are blown away by the enormity of its architecture and a little nervous being around tens of thousands of people for the first time. The Rock Gods take the stage and seem larger-than-life. "I swear Halford is 7 feet tall!" The sound is enormous and the sheer energy of the crowd can be more overwhelming than what suicide bombers must feel once they realize there are no virgins waiting for them in heaven as reward, but scolding hot pitchforks being rammed up their ass for eternity by a pissed off, grudge-holding angel named Lucifer. But that is a whole other essay in itself. (See: Why I Love Satan).
Once we get a little older, undoubtedly our musical tastes will grow and expand. Or maybe not. Perhaps you start going to local clubs (after all, you are 21 now) and tuning in to the "local scene." If you are a musician, this is undoubtedly also when you realize how fucked up the music industry is: Nickelback makes it but no one has ever heard of that great local band that draws hundreds every time they play? Face it folks, the music industry isn't about the best bands, it's about the most marketable bands.
Bitterman. Now you know why my dad gave me that last name.
Music is entertainment after all, and we musicians tend to over-philosophize it sometimes. If my girlfriend likes Ashley Simpson and I am in the next room rocking Fugazi (can you think of two artists more apart on the spectrum of music?) then so be it. Why am I right for listening to them and her wrong for liking pop? Let's face it, its ALL pop music. And I hate it all. Why you ask? Cause I love it so much. (See: contradiction).
Nothing in life has more affect on my soul than listening to good music. When you discover that new band with that new sound you never heard before, well, it's like discovering that a girl has a g-spot for the first time. Things will never be the same for you. When someone put on John Coltrane's Ole for the first time for me a while back, I was instantly put in a trance and can say that I can't recall a more important musical moment in my life. I am sorry, but music simply does that to me. And I am not alone.
Back in the day (before I had status and before I had a pager), I was hosting a gathering of what you might call "punk rock, hard core, skater-surfer kids" who's love of the Butthole Surfers and Black Sabbath only rivaled their love of using the word "rad." I knew that these dudes listened to hard core and that was about it. I decided to throw them for a little loop. I put on Coltrane's Ole. The room fell silent. This was the exchange from what I can remember:
Punk Kid #1 (exhaling): Dude. What is this?
Me: John Coltrane.
Punk Kid # 2 (inhaling): Dude. This is fuckin wild. I mean what the fuck?
Me: Pretty cool stuff huh?
Punk Kid #3 (passing): How have I never heard this before? It's like some Middle Eastern shit.
Me: Cause I don't think Coltrane ever played on a Dead Kennedy's album.
Punk Kid #1: Man, if all jazz was like this I'd be all over it!
Punk Kid #2: Shut up man, I want to listen.
Eighteen minutes, a Wayne Shorter trumpet solo, and two bass solos later, they started talking again. I had single handedly changed their musical landscape forever. Punk kids listening to John Coltrane…and liking it!
So why did I entitle this article "Why I Hate Music"? What is the meaning of this piece? I don't freaking know, I just start writing and whatever comes out comes out. Just kidding...sort of. I write this because as much as I love turning people on to good music—and being turned on to good music—I hate the idea of knowing that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of bands out there that I would probably fall in love with if I ever had the chance to hear them. But I won't, because the labels—who pretty much control what is mass distributed—don't sign the good bands; they sign the Nickelbacks and Ashley Simpson's of the world. There is only so much you can discover on your own, through friends, or the interweb. I also hate music because it has such a grip on my life that it can consume me sometimes. How many times have I jammed Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock" in the past few months? Ask my neighbors, they will be glad to tell you.
I also fear that there is this Holy Grail of music out there somewhere; that band or CD that is going to make my Ole event seem like a bris. I want to know it all, I want to own it all, and I want to be able to play it all. You know that feeling you get when you think you got this banging collection of music and all of your friends look to you as the authority of all things music, but then you walk into someone's house and their record collection just blows yours away? You might feel like, well, a fugazi. There is even more out there than I know about?
A friend once told me about why you should stay married or with your girlfriend (or boyfriend): there comes a time in your life when you have to realize that you can't have them all. Perhaps I will start loving music again once I realize that.
Jaded Bitterman is founder and CEO of the Holy Shit It's The Fucking Feds Foundation which helps innocent victims of police brutality and wrongful arrest. He currently resides in Montana and is writing his memoirs about survival and the coming technology age.
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