is the Blues a doomed genre?

The Blues first off, I think it is incredible that an entire genre of music, one which the majority of musicians respect, is based on a single chord progression: I, I, I, I, IV, IV, I, I, V, IV, I, and then take it around town. That's all there is to it. We all know this progression, even if you can't discretely spell it out. When you listen to the blues, I'll bet you can hum the next chord regardless if you know anything about chord progressions. As a side note, the most common keys played in are E, A, G, and D roughly in that order of popularity. Clapton and Page love the key of A, and Jack White is hooked on E.

There's a universal relation to the blues. People from all walks of life feel it; it unites Caucasians and Negroes. Metaphorically speaking, it reaches deep into your soul, massaging your spirit. When you're lonely and depressed, it sooths you. The whine of the harmonica or the weep of the guitar carries away your emotional baggage. This cosmic relation to the blues includes two basic needs of music: rhythm and improvisation. If we reverse music evolution, the blues would be a combination of hip-hop and free-formed jazz.

Like alcohol, it's adaptable to a variety of environments; varying degrees of intensity, tempo, and instrumentation. A mid-to-high tempo makes for an excellent driving soundtrack. There's also a what I'll call marching band John Philip Souza- blues: heavily syncopated at a walking pace.

Basic blues starts with a single voice and either an acoustic guitar or a harmonica. Every thoroughbred blues musician appreciates this style from Son House to George Thorogood. This is your mellow and relaxing blues. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got groups that almost feel like funk. I think the premise behind funk is to make the performance feel like an onstage party. Get as many people on stage at once: vocalists, backing vocalists, axe grinders, pianists, percussionists, and the wind-based players (typically trumpets, saxophones, and trombones). This accumulates about two hundred people performing on stage. This is the style of big BB King shows; they sound like the Rat Pack hooked up with Blood, Sweat, and Tears, except they're all black and they grew up together in Chicago.

Now let's turn this one-dimensional tonal spectrum into a triangle. On the third leg of the triangle sits nasty filthy electric blues, full of fuzz and feedback. The instrumentational need sits in the middle; you need drums, guitars, and buttloads of effects pedals. This third leg is the apex of intensity. I once read a magazine review that described Jack White's soloing as analogous to a blowtorch'. Yes, this is blowtorch blues. This is delinquent angst-ridden blues, the kind Curt Cobain would play had he taken an interest in this genre. This is the style where guitar novices, much like myself, put themselves on a quest to sound like their elitist guitar idols. However, they lack the raw skill, and in their frustration end up cranking the gain and stomping down a cascade of distortion pedals to the point where your output is a pure square-wave with absolutely no tone; it's a pissed-off Hungarian Horntail screaming out your amp. That's another trick of the trade, more distortion covers the guitarists' mistakes, but I digress. Point being, blowtorch blues is the kind you'll crank up in your car to the point where the subwoofer cracks your windshield and you don't give a shit if "some hearing loss may occur".

Is the Thrill gone, or is It due for a comeback? As of today, I'm afraid those of Generations X and Y don't appreciate the blues. I frequent blues bars, lounges, and festivals; I'm the youngest guy in the shack. I'm afraid this genre is eligible for retirement. Or, as hope jumps in the way, my peers will inevitably develop an appreciation for this mature genre. Those of us who presently listen to pop will fly the way of adult contemporary. But you musicians out there will, with a bit of luck, accept the blues as you reach middle-age by making an emotional connection with it. I see four options:

1. The blues continues to lose momentum and is eventually snuffed along with the Baby Boomers.

2. Our generation develops an appreciation of the blues as we age. It remains a sideshow within local bars but never takes off to the status of pop.

3. The record companies draw it back to mainstream pop culture. In 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughn successfully initiated a blues revival. His singles were all over pop radio, and still get plenty of airplay today on terrestrial classic rock stations. We, the laypeople, have no say in this decision; we are but pawns of Corporate America. The decision-making authority lies with Columbia, Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, etcetera. I can only hope that some cigar-smoking executive enters a nostalgic mood thereby inspiring him to bring the blues back to the mainstream. He would then pick off the street a youthful, relatively attractive blues musician. Then the record company would promote the shit out of his music by paying off Clear Channel and Fuse to relentlessly play his single over and over until the song gets stuck in your head. Entertainment media successfully brainwashes you, and you call your local radio to request more.

4. A pre-established band whom already has their foot into the pop limelight (dare I say John Mayer?) turns into a thoroughbred blues band. All the young ladies would show up to a Mayer concert, expecting to hear that sappy acoustic pantymelter melodrama, and the band proceeds to play a streak of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters covers. This would turn heads.


Even if the blues fizzles out over the next two decades, we still have rock, and the blues is a cornerstone of rock. Without the blues, we wouldn't have the pentatonic scale. This scale is used in 99% of all rock songs. The exception being those art rock' groups who pave their own paths like Tool and the Mars Volta. Since rock was built on a blues foundation, there will always be a whisper of The Man Who Sold His Soul at the Crossroads in every song you hear on HFS, DC101, 98-Rock, or The End.

if anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right

Now let me finish, Lizzo Rizzo.
I don't believe a true loner and a social butterfly can coexist in a fulfilling relationship, for this gives us the following expository scenario: Let's say for some dubious reason an introverted loner and extroverted socialite find themselves attempting to exist as a serious couple. The loner is content with a monogamous vicissitude, and thrives in this exclusivity shared only between the two of them; he or she focuses on deepening the romance and strengthening the bond. However, at some point the socialite is overcome with the magnanimous urge to, naturally, socialize. He or she eventually feels the loner's prized intimacy disenfranchises the socialite's lifestyle. So the extrovert goes out, parties, mingles, and zealously acquaints his or herself with as many people as possible. Meanwhile the loner does what the loner does best: writing, reading, surfing the web, cruising down the interstate, smoking on the balcony, walking the streets in the dead of night, etcetera. Up springs the quagmire where the socialite has suddenly sampled dozens of new faces while the introvert has met no one. Statistically speaking, the extrovert is due to meet someone he or she finds more attractive (physically, intellectually, emotionally, comically, romantically, or what have you) than the now-seemingly creepy loner. Ergo, the socialite who now rationalizes that this freakish couple was lacking loyalty to begin with ceases the relationship and resumes his or her life of flirt and spontaneity with the other extroverts.

The butterfly flutters away with the other butterflies. The loner is left alone, which may be serendipity seeing solidarity is what the recluse craves.

Bottom line: the socialite is destined to find someone else because extroverts involuntarily market themselves while loners don't.

So there.

Facebook versus MySpace

Facebook focuses on your network; Myspace focuses on the individual. Their respective domain names accurately reflect their underlying themes: Facebook is indeed nothing but a book of faces. You don't bother to read your new friend's profile. Your eyes are immediately drawn to Who They Know, the network. This is my deck of cards, deck of faces, does it hold more hit points than yours?

Facebook only scratches the surface of your personality; MySpace dives into a deeper level of disposition if the user chooses so. If a MySpace user pours some effort into personalizing their page, you can get a feel for their individual persona after thirty seconds of skimming their profile. The other side of the blade being some folks excessively customize to the point where the page is unreadable. Some of you people have the fugliest backgrounds. Anyways, MySpace encourages you to reveal your true self; go buck wild since you have the option of keeping your profile as intimate or anonymous as a user desires.

Facebook continues to pressure socializing by remaining a closed network. There's been scruff lately about Facebook not remaining closed to college communities. BUT, spectators remain locked out. You have to play the game; you must instigate requests to access your distant acquaintances' profiles. Note this level of privacy is also another customizable feature available on MySpace.

Is anyone else uncomfortable using our birth names on Facebook? Facebook breeds a hidden paranoia. My girlfriend warns me, you never know. You could cross paths with your own faculty, co-workers, or potential employees.' If that's the case, we are forced to project the most conservative identity to prevent scaring off our conservative colleagues. How else am I supposed to integrate social groups from high school, college, and the office without exposing bygone closeted skeletons?

As for the page layout, MySpace slams you with the basic facts upfront. From left to right, MySpace provides us your alias, profile picture, last logon date (Facebook lacks this useful factoid), geographic location, and the blogs. No scrolling required! You have to extrapolate a Facebooker's online activity based on the user's recent shenanigans.

Where are Facebook's blogs? Granted, Facebook has buttloads of photos, but I want a glimpse inside the minds of my peers. Pictures document the posterior, and blogs document the interior. What's going on behind those shaded eyes? The public blog is a literary weapon of mass destruction. None of us need a degree in journalism to blog, no experience necessary. If something is perturbing you, post an angry blog. Tell the world to F-Off and Die. Facebook lacks this feature due to its closed network.

Granted, MySpace is overly commercialized while Facebook remains as clean as Google's opening page. But after X years of surfing the Net, most of us intuitively weave through the hailstorm of pop-ups and flashy sirens determined to waste our time. Facebook will eventually welcome advertisers in order to generate revenue to climb the cyber-ladder as a worthy competitor against MySpace.

Look at the class partition! The bourgeoisie dwell on Facebook; the proletariat thrive on Myspace. Facebook is all ivy-league college-educated cigar-smoking yacht-driving golf-club-swinging Abercrombie-wearing Beltway-jamming white-collared yuppie snobs. Granted, Facebook is presently in a transitional period of opening up to the public from a legacy state of collegiate exclusivity. However, I suspect it may rival MySpace in popularity in a couple of years. Anyways, Myspace hosts the working class; these people vacuum your cubicles, change your tires, tear your movie tickets, and serve your drinks. Myspace is jam-packed with self-promoting models, exotic dancers, struggling artists, and unsigned bands.


Again I rub against the grain since nine out of ten posted comparisons favor Facebook. This is due to my craving of intellectual depth over broad acquaintance. While Facebook feels like a resumae, Myspace feels like a playground.
If I had to choose, I choose Myspace (as long as Rupert Murdoch doesn't charge me a subscription).

the message was actually from Thompson, not to him

Once again my anal retentiveness may have tainted the satisfaction of a couple good books...

A particular gangbang scene stuck in my head due to its graphic nature, and then I came across it again in another book by another author. Is this a case of disdainful Tom Wolfe plagiarizing the vanguard Hunter Thompson?

Let us assume Thompson's version is the original seeing he was there in person, and his account is more detailed. Wolfe had to piece his book together from interviews, recordings, and other media. In his epilogue, Wolfe throws in a long-winded disclaimer stating, "All the events, details and dialogue I have recorded are either what I saw and heard myself or were told to me by people who were there themselves or were recorded on tapes or film or in writing." Then three paragraphs later, "Hunter Thompson made available to me several tapes he had made while working on his book, Hell's Angels, and parts of the book itself dealing with the Pranksters and the Angels were also helpful." Let's assume Wolfe read the gangbang scene from Thompson's manuscript, and it thrilled Wolfe to the point where he decided he must absolutely adapt it for additional exposure of the Angels' animosity to the intellectually liberal slice of America (his audience).

This is a controversy of novelty… the novelty of nonfiction novels. Even if the stories are not verbatim, not direct plagiarism, and this is legal in all matters of copyright, Wolfe loses some credibility by snatching Thompson's anecdote and claiming it as his own. Granted, both writers were journalists, and we know journalists simply report the facts (usually second-hand accounts or facts from other media sources desperate for expeditious reporting), so perhaps Wolfe or both authors were drawing from their primitive instincts.

"You sneaky motherfuckers! What the fuck's wrong with you? Come on over here and see what you get … goddamn your shit-filled souls anyway! Don't fuck with me, you sons of shitlovers. Come on over. You'll get every fucking thing you deserve."
As journalists, Neal Cassady's trenchant screaming at the cops across the street is explicitly reported word-for-word in both books: Thompson's Hell's Angels on page 232 and Wolf's Acid Test on page 174. The only nuance being Thompson withholds Cassady's name, referring to him as "the worldly inspiration for the protagonist of several recent novels". That's a damn strong hint.

But back to the gangbang scene, it's presented in both books as an original first-hand account. It's told through the artistic filters of our case writers, but the details and storyboard don't vary. Thompson doesn't admit the exact location of the party, but determinedly separates the setting from any typical motorcycle gang turf. Wolfe places the scene directly in Ken Kesey's backyard. Wolfe doesn't recognize this sketch's source, for he puts no quotes around it. The reader is mislead to believe this is Wolfe-originado.

This would be like stealing an anecdote from a friend, claiming it was you who turned into a misanthropic soccer-hooligan gorilla and destroyed a saloon by chucking garbage cans until every glass, mug, and tumbler was shattered. And when you heard that story from its originator, would you not feel cheated?

After this realization, Wolfe's book loses its flavor. This explains the changes in tone throughout Wolf's work. How many authentic accomplishments of psychedelic originality did he steal from how many hippies?

So without further ado and my dry whining, here's the gangbang scene quoted from both books:

Hunter S Thompson's Hell's Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga (first copyrighted in 1966), Ballantine Books 1996 paperback edition, starting on page 191:

It was not an Angel party, but they had been invited, and twenty or so showed up for what turned into a two-day bash. Almost immediately several of the outlaws located a girl, the ex-wife of another guest, who agreed to make the beast with two backs in a small building set apart form the main house. Which she did, and happily so, with the chosen trio. But word quickly spread of the "new mamma" and soon she was surrounded by a large group of onlookers … drinking, laughing, and taking a quick turn whenever some vacancy occurred.

I keep a crumpled yellow note from that night; not all of the writing is decipherable, but some of it reads like this: "Pretty girl about twenty-five lying on wooden floor, two or three on her all the time, one kneeling between her legs, one sitting on her face and somebody else holding her feet … teeth and tongues and pubic hair, dim light in a wooden shack, sweat and semen gleaming on her thighs and stomach, red and white dress pushed up around her chest … people standing around yelling, wearing no pants, waiting first, second or third turns … girl jerking and moaning, not fighting, clinging, seems drunk, incoherent, not knowing, drowning …"

It was not a particularly sexual scene. The impression I had at the time was one of vengeance. The atmosphere in the room was harsh and brittle, almost hysterical. Most people took a single turn, then either watched or wandered back to the party. But a hard core of eight or ten kept at her for several hours. In all, she was penetrated in various ways no less than fifty times, and probably more. At one point, when the action slowed down, some of the Angels went out and got the girl's ex-husband, who was stumbling drunk. They led him into the shack and insisted he take his own turn. The room got nervous, for only a few of the outlaws were anxious to carry things that far. But the sight of her former old man brought the girl out of her daze just enough to break the silent tension. She leaned forward, resting on her elbows, and asked him to kiss her. He did, and then groggily took his turn while the others cheered.

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (first copyrighted in 1968), Bantam Books 1999 paperback edition, page 176:

Go with the flow - and what a flow – these cats, these Pranksters – at big routs like this the Angels often had a second feature going entitled Who Gets Fucked? – and it hadn't even gotten to that when before some blonde from out of town, one of the guests from way out there, just one nice soft honey hormone squash, she made it clear to three Angels that she was ready to go, so they all trooped out to the back house and had a happy round out there. Pretty soon all the Angels knew about the "new momma" out in the backhouse and a lot of them piled in there, hooking down beers, laughing, taking their turns, making various critiques. The girl had her red and white dress pushed up around her chest, and two or three would be on her at once, between her legs, sitting on her face in the sick ochre light of the shack with much lapping and leering and bubbling and gulping through furzes of pubic hair while sweat and semen glistened on the highlights of her belly and thighs and she twitched and moaned, not in protest, however, in a kind of drunken bout of God knew what and men with no pants on were standing around, cheering, chiding, waiting for their turn, or their second turn, or the third until she had been fenestrated in various places at least fifty times. Some of the Angels went out and got her ex-husband. He was weaving and veering around, bombed, they led him in there under glare and leer and lust musk suffocate the rut hut they told him to go to it. All silent – shit, this is going too far – but the girl rises up in a blear and asks him to kiss her, which he does, glistening secretions, then he lurches and mounts her and slides it in, and the Angels cheer Haw Haw –"

We may also question if the adverse girl is from out of town, how does her divorcee happen to be partying in the same remote beatnik backwoods town of La Honda, California? Perhaps they agreed to remain 'friends'.