Filters

Most jambands aren't worth the time. Some of them are fantastic. The problem with the "genre" is it really isn't a genre. The only common characteristic shared by all jam bands is jamming and the word jamming isn't very descriptive or even close to adequate. The only thing implied by a "jam" is a prolonged period of instrumentation and the absence of lyrics. Right? (Perhaps it also supposes the presence of some of the elements of the blues and/or jazz but that's another blog altogether.)

Unfortunately, because of time, everyone has to espouse some sort of approach to what could be called the "musical admissions" process. You just can't listen to everything. There isn't enough time. Idiots/most people take the easy way out and use popularity and marketing volume to differentiate between music worth and not worth listening to. Others use varying degrees of reviews, the recommendations of friends with similar tastes and chance encounters. The challenge becomes, or at least it has for me, the resulting balancing act. You don't want to grant too much blacklisting stock in any one source of musical information because in doing so, your taste is no longer yours, but simply the echo of some magazine, website or friend.

I decided to self-indulge and write about this after having had a brief debate with a friend who had indirectly accused me of being an closed-minded elitist. The fact is; he's not too far off. And he wasn't the first person to make this accusation. I'm not refuting his claim so much as I'm attempting to rationalize it. In the abstract, I am willing to listen to anything. I take pride in the range of my musical pallete. In practice, however, there is actually a relatively small number of sources I hold in any sort of esteem. I'm just not going to listen to Arctic Monkeys or Panic! At the Disco. I'm sorry. They're terrible. I'm also not going to go to a Buffet concert just because they're "fun." That guy can go fuck himself. In much the same manner, said friend will continue to chastize any and all "hippy jamband shit" althewhile overlooking his own hypocracy. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree....and I'll continue to have good taste while he, bad.