In your bones

It's barely yours on loan
What you think you own
The place that you call home
The ideas in your bones

A few days ago I drove in the RVA to catch a Built to Spill show at The National (great venue for music BTW) and if you're like most people east of the Mississippi you're probably asking "what is Built to Spill?" So BTS is like a cross between Neil Young and Yes with a white Jimmy Hendrix on lead guitar. Basically, it's a revolving band of musicians orbiting Doug Martsch - straight out of Boise - that plays a highly cerebral rock n' roll that, if you get it, has a devoted gang of followers (like me) who consider it to be the best thing ever.

Spin: Ira Glass has a quote where he essentially says that every creative person does terrible work in the beginning. Everybody who’s every wanted to make art is terrible at first. But as long as you create a “volume of work” — even if it continues to be terrible — it will get better. That’s kind of reassuring.
Martsch: Well, I’m going to go one further and say that it doesn’t get better. You will not get to a point where you write good things. I’m saying that even now, 99 percent of what I write is really stupid, and it didn’t get any better.

security risk?

So true. As true for the KOTCB blog as it is for rock music. And one of the many great things about BTS is the way they take their performance seriously without taking themselves too seriously. For instance, when the warm up bands wrapped up at The National there did not follow the obligatory hoard of roadies scouring the stage doing sound checks and pampering the band - nor was there some showy entrance when the band took to the stage. They just walked out, did a sound check themselves and started playing - no big deal - let the music speak for itself. Doug Martsch, for his part, looks like a mountain man come out from the wilderness with an axe strapped over his shoulder to tear it up (which he did) and though this incarnation of BTS is spartan with a three piece arraignment (drum, bass and guitar) the wall of sound was mighty. As for the audience it was entirely comprised of middle-aged white dudes with a smattering of girlfriends dragged into the theater kicking and screaming (BTS doesn't resonate with women for some reason) and these guys are, without a doubt, harmless. The people who listen to Doug Martsch's quirky melodies don't kill or even hurt others - they're almost all introverted thinkers who politely listen and clap after every song.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post - On the way into the auditorium every patron was required to show ID (even the 50 year olds) and everyone had to empty out their pockets and let a security guard wand them in search of weaponry. Like entering a court house or something - this is insane people. This is antithetical to the spirit of rock n' roll and, most certainly, antithetical to the spirit of Built to Spill. I ask you, dear reader, is this the kind of society you are willing to live in? A cavity search to go see a R n' R band? America 2016 is a security state where the police are just the first line in a multi-tiered apparatus that interrogates EVERYONE who does ANYTHING.

I don't think your message is getting through

How did we get here? It didn't happen overnight but somewhere along the journey the reality of liberty got stripped from the American skeleton - the idea is still with us, floating around in the ether but on the ground it's abused and forgotten. Prisoners in a prison we created desperately in need of a jail brake.

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