Jon Sheperd Presents...

Before The Music Dies

30 Mar 2007 11:00 PM
The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center
1028 Scott Blvd
Covington, KY 41011 United States
Tickets: 859.957.1940 or on the website.
Second Story Concerts and Management



So...part of today's posts are a love-in, but that's okay, because I am lucky enough to hang with such busy and creative people...

Mediocrity is the rule of the day in the music industry: Fall Out Boy and their ilk, all attitude and no substance, poseurs in the truest sense, rule the day. I'm not, of course, only referring to these pop punk pussies, or pop punk pussies in general (though I would ask them if they have ever heard of the Buzzcocks, but whatever), but the whole thing.

HipHop is in similarly bad shape, and for all the same reasons: All style, no substance. How long can you keep it real in 300 grand worth of bling. Like the late, great James Brown might say, it's all "talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'". The two great hopes for the true heart and soul of rock n roll, the bearers of the flame of discontent and rebellion, all the DYI attitude, all the fuck the man sentiment, all the artistic risk taking and ground breaking sounds, reduced to another commodity, more consumption. It is the soundtrack for overbored youth playing "the ignore it and it will go away" game with their real material existence. This shit is the contemporary version of Disco Kiss: jizz-less posturing, a celebration of opulence, decadence and the American Dream as constituted by the whores in Washington. How authentic and real is that?

Jon Shepard, local impresario and man who feels music, is the guy who keeps it real. A long time supporter of local art and music who has labored tirelessly against the corporate music juggernauts (his Free The Music project took on the radio and concert monopoly Clear Channel), I have been lucky to call Jon my friend for nearly 20 years, meeting him in a 7th Grade Math class. In all those years, I have never known Jon to be anything other than straight up and brutally honest, and more than anything, a fearless bully baiter. This presentation, which speaks to lame mediocrity that passes for the "soundtrack of our lives", is a powerful extension of that. We should really thank him for snapping our heads back to this, because if you really feel music, really feel it and make it a part of your life, you need to see this film.

Update: City Beat and CinWeekly both have great features on the film.