shine

bright eyed and bushy tailed, let us brave the day. let us stay this way, forever, while they all age into dust and dirt and maggots and pestilence and judgement and…and…and…and…rotten bones and…fucking nothing, reminders that we are nothing and always and will forever feel that way. nothings.

not that you will.

i know i won’t.

of course, they will.

breathlessly let us climb to the highest of heights. escape comes in many forms.  there must be some way out of this place. we will fly. the city shall shrink below us and become toys and become ants and become small pins and needles and…and…and…and…become memories and…we will see how nothing everything is when one has escaped. tiny shards of light vanish into depths of imaginary lightlessness. close your eyes.

that i will do.

you should come with me.

they cannot follow.
sleep is dull. days are bright but days are days and let us be tonight. shadows hide imperfections, they hide our truth. light hides our imagination. imagine everyone is gone but us. we have helped them all. violet exit. we helped them and assisted them and pushed them into the void and…and…and..and…provided them and…showed them the truth.

we didn’t.

you didn’t.

oh, how i wish they would.

the brightest is the truth. we can hunt it. kill it. if we kill the beast, we live in bliss. how many heads does the beast, does the truth, does our obstacle posses?  bliss is but a narrow flight away. we should bring more arrows. shower them randomly in hopes of hitting the source of illumination and shoot blindly and fire chaotically and…and…and…and always reach for the stars and…we can live in darkness forever.

i will.

you will.

fuck. everyone will.

bliss is dark. dark is eyes closed. bliss is death. death is ignorance. bliss is light. bliss is blinding flares. bliss is sex. sex is a bright star. implode, up there. explode, out there. let us fly to it. below us is nothing. above us is nothing.

i am.

you are.

there is no one else but death and dark and light and sex and…and…and…and…us and…nothing.

symbiotic

sun. harsh. painfully so. i guess we need to live.

but why can’t the rest of the world operate during abnormal business hours? the better question comes later, wait for it or stop reading.

find a shadow. find a shelter. but don’t stay long. the sun and the city move with haste and they will find you.

it sure as hell isn’t a normal city. this ones the beast of the abyss and it feeds itself. churning,  squeezing and rending light from stars, creations from creative fucking flowers and giving even the most virtuous a reason to look hungry.

hungry for what? the better question comes later. do you wait for it or stop reading?

and don’t you dare, not fucking once, stand still.

you have seen those that stand still. the statues. the litter of the city, the coat of dirt you aren’t sure is smog, dust, dead dreams or carbon emmissions that cling to everything.

and cling they do, like parasites. sanitize your hands as often as you’d like, shower daily to get that ancient grime off.

is that dirt that clings to eveything and that smog that obscures the skys is it the dying dreams of hopefuls who started stars in their eyes? the better question comes later. there is no better question just stop reading.

old movies. old shows. name drop the dead.  name drop the dying.

the city eats you at night, every night, the streetsweepers suck up the handbills, the empty liquor bottles and the  bloody refuse of the evenings orgy while the wheatpasters slather new art advertising art advertising separating you from your money and  integrity from the artists that made it all possible.

the slaughterhouse prepares for the next evening.

isn’t that good business? the better question comes later.  it never gets answered, so stop reading.

why don’t we worship the sun instead of money anymore? all the money in this town won’t stop the sun from shining or reset it when it flares out. i guess we need the sun to live, to sustain life on this planet, let alone this city.  so why do we need money?

no answer. stop reading.

food

money.

pay them, they’ll continue making art.

fuck you, pay me.

when artists realize money is to be made they find themselves influenced by something else other than original muse, emotion and ego.

I can’t eat art.

their art now has one of the worlds most common muses.

money.

no longer love or beauty or hate or epiphany or tragedy or romance or .

fuck you, pay me.

soon artists will incorporate money into their art.

I can’t eat art.

singing about it. then it is only a matter of time before performance artists start using money as outfits and stage props. gangsters.

it will show up in movies, books, pop culture.

money.

soon fans will become just as obsessed with money as the artist they fan over.

fresh artists, once open souled, doe-eyed, innocent youths with a mind for creation, will feel the hunger for money and realize that creation is work and worth money, losing that cherub glow and singing of splendors of the heart, no more, forever.

fuck you, pay me. 

starving artist.

I can’t eat art.

jealous

I enjoy both the disclaimer and the fact that some of the largest wanna be corporate rock semi-self-funded bands of today are mentioned directly below my rant. Ironic? No. If you accept you want to be a whore, than by all means ma’m, by all means.

Go add muen on myspace where this was originally published, it always has great interviews with amazing bands and is always way ahead of the fraying knot that is the shit most people call music.

www.muenmagazine.net

MUENTALK:
Not necessarily the views of MUEN as a whole.
10/25 ….

throw stones(hard)

By Sheldon James

throwstoneshard.wordpress.com

Rage against that machine. It will be hard. You have integrity. You will overcome.

You will not become a corporate rock whore.

You will not sell out. You will not make music that can be listened to and accepted by the general public.

You will not allow yourself to be perverted and touched by the greedy hands of a corporate record label.

You will write and practice. You will Self-promote and Self-fund Your tour and sell merch. You will take money from young people and their parents and apply it to that fund. How else do You pay for merch and recording? Of course You Self-record. Self-mix. Self-master. That saves money. You can buy more merch to sell. Design the merch Yourself. Design Your whole cd and do limited edition short run pressings of them. Yourself. Sell those. Put Your music on the internet.

Sell it. Sell Your music. Sell Yourself.

Sell!! Sell!!

But by all means, rage against that corporation. You are better than them. You have feelings. You actually care about Your fans. You know them by name and talk to them on the internet or even the phone. When You tour their town, You talk to them, not because their money funded Your instruments or Your tour van and bought the merch and cd You are about to sell them. If they buy enough of Your creation then You can finally afford to buy a new tour van. Or a new guitar. Or even new shoes since You’ve been on tour with those for a while and they are pretty gross. Maybe buy a new home recording outfit so You can make more recordings to sell.

Buy!! Buy!! Sell!! Sell!!

Rage against that machine. You might not be a corporate rock whore, but you’re still a whore.

- Sheldon James

GUITAR CENTER / ON STAGE FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

Please join us in congratulating the six finalists in Guitar Center On-Stage: Your Chance To Make Rock History. Guitar Center and Mötley Crüe announced the bands today – check ‘em out below!

These bands were chosen from a pool of 30 semi-finalists, who performed Monday and Tuesday in front of a panel of industry experts at Guitar Center’s legendary Sunset Boulevard location. The panelists were: Eric Sherman, President of FUSE TV; James Michael, Producer and Front man of Sixx: A.M.; Julie Pilat, Music Director of Los Angeles radio station 98.7; Chris Nilsson, Tenth St. Entertainment and Frank Woodworth, General Manager of Eleven Seven Music.

The final six bands will continue onto the finals to perform live for Mötley Crüe at the world famous Whisky A Go-Go on November 10 in Hollywood. The winning band gets the opening slot on Mötley Crüe’s U.S. Tour, $25,000 cash, $20,000 in exclusive new gear from Gibson Guitar, management from Tenth St. Entertainment, and a recording deal from Eleven Seven Music, Mötley’s management and record label.

And the Finalists are…

The Spittin’ Cobras
Seattle, WA

Lorene Drive
Victorville, CA

The Dirty Pearls
New York, NY

Waterstreet
Peoria, IL

Something to Burn
Los Angeles, CA

The Heroine
San Antonio, T

misogyny

Evil and synthetic, lust after pornstars. Who cares if shes faking it, look how a professional makes it look real.

But the chopping and the edits and those plug-ins shape the landscape into mold and conformity.

So rather than go all out, just get the girl next door version. Easy to obtain and you can have an entire studio in your house. A real studio. For cheap. Think of the time and money you will save.

Roll out of bed and record a song, like living with your girlfriend sometimes that sex grows boring even if she is a pro under the sheets. And on the floor. And against the wall. And on the counter. And in the shower. You sure accomplished a lot at first, to say the least.

Still you occasionally wonder why you ever gave up using that basic understandable program with a nice user interface. Don’t look her up, she was hotter in highschool and hasn’t aged well.

Besides, think harder. So limited in what she could do. She had no future. You learned her ins and outs quickly and grew tired. Don’t dwell on the fun, remember the repetitive sounds she’d make? Besides that, think of all the other people who have had her and used her in the same ways you did. A million babies.

Look else where. Dark corners. Think more exotic. Find some flavors you haven’t tried. Maybe dabble in some foreign ladies? You can’t speak the language but the mechanism of action will always remain the same. Hell, you can’t even say her name let alone remember what it is. You’ll learn. Exciting isn’t it?

Just don’t tell your girlfriend. Or better yet, invite her to meet one of them. Nothing spices up your love of music like involving creative collaboration.

aural

Hear that?

That is the sound of the internet. A cacophony of lefts and rights. A boxing match of bands all vying for your attention. A plethora of websites offering free downloads/listens/streams/clips/videos of music you’ve never heard of that might or might not change your life. Made by real people, somewhere, with real aspirations of letting you hear it. It is their finalized public ego, ready to enter your ear canal, wiggle past those little hairs and bones to resonate in your brain. Are these artists professionals? Students of music? Highly talented youngsters? Amazing, face melting guitar gods? Perhaps the only thing they are is wanting your attention? The want of fans is a powerful urge of musicians, it seems. The internet is a wonderful tool used for good and evil and crying out for a tit of praise to slurp on.

Personally, I enjoy the taste of others milk a lot, but don’t care to offer my own to suckle.

Hear that?

That is the millions of radios being pumped through speakers in cars on the freeway as commuters oblivious of you swerve to either hit you or change lanes into your car at least. Are they engaged in the music? The drivel that the radio plays on repeat? The new shit, the old shit and the shit you don’t even think should be a single? They are trying to find an escape. They want out of their cars and away from the waves that their antennas pull in. They hate the radio so bad they drive 35mph over the seemingly suggested speed limit toward their final destination, which is death.

I hope you can’t hear the radio when you are dead.

Hear that?

That is you questioning why you work at a job that makes you work too hard for not enough money to pay the bill of something you don’t even want to own any more. Above that ocean’s roar of working class rage you can barely hear the music playing. Maybe you are in line at the bank. Some of them are gracious enough to be silent, but don’t call their customer service, then its being force fed into you. Maybe you are eating dinner? Fast food, restaurants are still much too expensive, shit job, remember? Maybe you are shopping for clothes. Maybe you are at a convenience store buying alcohol to drown out both the sound of the sea and the battle for melody in your head.

Hang overs are like amplifiers.

Hear that?

That is your favorite song. Listen to it. A few times. It feels good, yes? Memories flood you. Nostalgia is a song. Be careful though, nostalgia has a dark side. Regret is as easy as fond remembrance. Don’t listen too many times though, as repetition seems to cheapen the irony of music. Emotions run dry eventually. Rocks don’t seem to listen to music.

Unless we just can’t hear that?