Sounds from Colorado: The Centennial State is a Hole

After the death of Ron Miles in 2022, Colorado has little to offer. Local networks are deficient, show spaces generally relegated to Denver, with the state as a whole treated as an after-thought on bloated touring schedules needing to check-off the western market.

Trying to get to the heart of any local scene since I first arrived in Colorado has been fruitless. My long time go-to’s for finding local acts is through mom’n’pop record stores. Whether I’m on tour or visiting family, if you’re looking for ‘the good stuff’ in a local music scene there is no better place to turn than the town’s record shops. Yet, here ‘local’ sections in record stores are usually limited to 5 lackluster CD-rs and/or include bands from a fair share of any non-coastal, non-southern states (Illinois in one instance).

There is nearly no-point in talking about music outside the sprawl that is Denver because the state itself seemingly refuses to acknowledge it- exceptions for legacy acts playing at Red Rocks and the occasional rumblings of a house-show once had in Fort Collins, of course.

Talk is guarded in Boulder county, fair. The Boulder PD have raided shows before. Yet there is a heightened culture of individualism which is conducive to scene-killing. Is it pretension? Is it cool detachment?

Atop this is the transient nature of Colorado residency (eg. college students, tech industry diaspora). A vicious cycle to cultural growth efforts, few people ever seem to live in the state longer than 5 years. How can local scenes and sounds grow organically in such a high turnaround environment?

Detached from significant touring networks, Colorado isn’t a feasible touring option for smaller acts from outside the immediate region. Those who can make it are more significantly backed, big enough to draw festival spots and bigger guarantees.

So it’s been everywhere in all facets of music that instagramable moment-making approaches to showmanship triumphs over solid musical performances or artistic ingenuity. Cost of living in Colorado has been and continues to be incredibly high, making the travel to shows even more costly. All of this discourages new and old residents alike from going to smaller shows in neighboring towns with bands they haven’t heard of before.

Given Colorado’s general inaccessibility and the internet age’s low bar for content, jam music- whose devotees are seemingly always willing to have an excuse to drop out for a few hours- and legacy acts have conquered the public sphere of music in Colorado. This proliferation of established acts only contributes to the nagging feeling that Colorado is culturally 10 years behind the rest of the country in many, many ways.

Colorado is a destination for musicians no more. The 1970s are over, yet it still clings to the past. Unless the guards of local scenes adopt a militant ‘high tide raises all ships’ approach to growing Colorado’s internal and regional music networks, The Centennial State’s music scenes will remain under a doomspell.

The Centennial State is a hole.

November 19, 2022 0

The Crumb Pile + Brief Thoughts on Adding Value as a Music Commentator

Is this all I am to you? Words on a screen? Consumable content? If so I’m delighted you’re reading this, for one. And two, I would be achieving the basic goal for contemporary music media.

Contemporary ‘music media’ is an extension of the music-based lifestyles we buy into. Much of the time it’s forced positivity in the age of hype; a digital onslaught of quick consumable media reassuring our tastes, opinions, and associations to the point of borderline enforcement.

Hype-content, alongside its contrasting partner hate-reviews, is vapid. And this vapid content flows through our social channels at a torrential rate.

We’re consuming crumbs out of couch cushions to sustain ourselves culturally. While my love for the obscure and irrelevant has allowed Resident Sound to stand apart from other outlets, it only adds different crumbs to the pile.

How we reject our crumb pile outputs as music commentators is up to personal direction, but relies on one core element: providing value.

I know, I know. The bar is incredibly low here. You could say that’s the basis to almost all writing. But how to provide value as a music commentator in the most effective way possible still alludes me. I turn to critics, thinkers, and just about anyone who is smarter than me. Who brings value to my life? How do they do it?

Of all music commentators, a favorite of mine (and many, I hope) is music thinker and taste-maker Oliver ‘Oli’ Kemp, better known as Deep Cuts on YouTube. Kemp has slowly built a catalog of artist discography guides, genre introductions, reviews and discussion topics among other work. His passion and intellect surrounding his choices are both thrilling and insightful while remaining accessible for nearly any viewer.

DeepCuts is “a channel dedicated to music, for lovers of music” and is essential viewing for any would-be music commentator. Whatever lesson is to be learned here I’ve yet to fully embrace it to my own liking, but I hope to get there soon.

But like DeepCuts, the output at Resident Sound has dropped significantly, in part due to the jobs that pay the bills (or pay anything). It is more or less a 1-being team at the end of the day. But with this time I hope to discover what brings value to my life as a consumer and what I can in turn offer to you, the reader.

If you enjoyed this, consider checking out more +Brief Thoughts pieces on the Resident Sound blog.

Looking for a music recommendation? We highly recommend these:

REVIEW: Kaputt – Carnage Hall (2019)

REVIEW: Susumu Yokota – Symbol (2005)

REVIEW: Oxbow – Serenade in Red (1996)

July 15, 2021 0

Fun Factory: or How We Learned To Stop Innovating and Love The Industry

In yesterday’s review of Wun Two – The Fat EP (2012), I bemoaned the proliferation and stagnation of the synthetic lofi “hip-hop meets ambient” genre of Chillhop. I only ever referred to it as ‘lofi beat’ style as I didn’t fully grasp the degree of interchangeability of the two terms. They’re ultimately synonymous, with chillhop only acting as a more popular genre title.

In a recent post to the r/letstalkaboutmusic subreddit, u/zinko101 brought up the topic of stagnation within hip-hop. While I hadn’t mentioned it in the review, I had contemplated how music hobbyists fit within the playing field in our current age of music. After leaving a rambling comment I decided to take what I had written and bring it home to Resident Sound.

It’s Loud in Here

There’s countless reasons why music democratization is great. Nearly anyone can acquire a cheap computer and start making art. But that puts a lot of pressure on people. Hobbyists of any field are now tempted to ‘make it’ while artistic or career aspiring musicians have to fight tooth and nail to be noticed, baited to use unnecessary promotional services.

Meanwhile, the music industry has long been just that, an industry. Gatekeeping, bigotry, and artistic stagnation have been common place since before day 1. We live in the most democratized era of music and reap many of those benefits, yet our culture still remains victim to artistic stagnation.

What gives? No, I understand it’s easy to point at the now and say ‘it used to be better.’ It has never been better. Every era of audibly recorded music exists right now. Thanks to the internet, we live in an era of 80s hardcore, 90s tv, and 1910s Turkish ballads.

But on the other hand, the proliferation of cheap music tech and the cultural takeover of acousmatic music has created a mass wave of hobbyists flooding the recorded music market. Anywhere you can stream music, talk about music, promote music, is now the shared floor of every single person to make a sound.

In The Lab? Play-Doh Fun Factory effect

The demographic of music hobbyists has always existed, but only recently has it gone from playing the family piano or making a private pressing to being solely about the recording. Truly, we live in an age of acousmatic music.

These people have never had intentions of pushing artistic boundaries, and that’s okay. We see this in all genres, ironically so in ‘experimental’ music in which so-called ‘experimenting’ is about as experimental as those slime and magnet kits one would get as a kid. Much like a Play-Doh Fun Factory, we get the same sonic shapes and colors over and over again (great for Play-Doh, not music).

People (rightfully so) imitate or try to full on replicate the things they like. All musicians do this. While many career-aspiring artists don’t aim high for artistic innovation, the few artists who do break free from the mold.

On the other hand, hobbyists have no reason to give themselves a high bar of artistic innovation. It’s a hobby, the thinking being; ‘hey, maybe I’ll get some likes, some up-votes, and maybe get shared on a playlist.’ Even for the hobbyist, there’s social capital to be gained in being a musician. Not only is it an identity, but it’s a content generating one as well.

A Sucker Born Every Minute

So why not separate the 2 groups when discussing music? Well, we all know dichotomies within music are a mess. Considering a musician’s artistic merit, genuine intentions, and commercial drive would only make such a dichotomy impossible to approach. The inaccuracy of dichotomies makes it impossible to definitively state they’re not artists.

Hobbyists aren’t malicious, they’re not even that different. Just like every small time musician looking to ‘make it,’ hobbyists are the target of an entire vulture industry that preys on hopes of financial independence and life achievement.

Why enjoy life when you can capitalize off of it? We’ve all been sold this story. It was just some kid making Youtube videos or streaming a video game. The next thing you know they’ve achieved the modern American dream: being a ‘winner.’

When major labels market the authenticity of their new star, it leaves success feeling just out of reach. We pressure anyone with a laptop to be the next star in digital music. There’s software to be sold, promotional services to serve all our egos, and the ad space on a million ‘how to’ videos to make your tracks sound just like everyone else’s.

May 28, 2021 0