Our Modern Holocaust

I want to get this out of my system, because I don't like to complain.  I have been cast a complainer before, and you know what?  Twenty-five years ago in Cowtown it was for the exact same thing I have to complain about now.  First let me clarify my point of view.  I am a musician.  Musicians are different from everyone else, and America understood this once.  The main difference between a musician and an average person is, a musician is an artist.  What is an artist?  An artist is someone who chooses to study, reflect upon, and comment on the human condition.  They choose to express their own personal point-of-view through their chosen medium.  Most often this personal perspective also is an expression of emotion resultant from reaction to world stimulus.  Artists are compelled to express themselves with emotion through an aesthetic they have chosen.  Mine is music, and when and if I am lucky I get to purge my emotions through it.  Through the years I have developed my musical expression, and it encompasses different instruments and composition and arrangement.  I don't do much composing anymore, but I am compelled to keep playing.  I play our Hammond A-100 console organ in our den from time to time.  Organ has different aesthetics, and because my first love was jazz I play from that perspective.  I pay attention to black gospel organ, and whether it is jazz or church my organ playing happens at a deep cathartic level.  I am able to express my inner feelings on the Hammond organ.  I am a good improviser on trumpet, and I can play a funky groove on electric bass.  Jazz piano probably is my most accomplished field, but rarely do I have a chance to indulge in its mysteries.  Jazz is dead, and in the second most populated military city in America there are few venues for this mostly black music.  Music necessarily relies upon sound, and therefore audible sound is important to musicians.  Herein lies the first huge lie of Rock 'n' Roll.  "The check is in the mail."  Music while possible on an Sony Walkman, iPod, or in earbuds is most efficient, expressive, and successful at its mission when it is live.  That means live sound.  Live music.  That means instruments, amplifiers, and a P.A. system to broadcast sung vocals.  With the Covid lockdown many things changed.  Things all ready were changed in America's music industry.  The advent of the personal computer as a recording studio has had the most impact on the music industry.  Add Covid to the mix and musicians are recording in their closets and piping it to their band mates.  This is not the traditional path of music for most of the history of America.  In our history music was performed on street corners, on wharves, on sidewalks, in clubs, in churches, and eventually in theaters and stadiums.  The prevalence of live music in America has waned, and there are reasons.  There is an interesting dichotomy which exists that most people don't know about.  If told about it, most people choose not to listen.  When I was branded a complainer in Cowtown, people did not want to listen.  They did not understand the complexity of the issue I am about to describe.  America was built by the "Iron Horse," and the railroads were responsible for westward expansion across the Rocky Mountains eventually connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  It was an important accomplishment laying this rail, blasting tunnels, building trestles and creating infrastructure for America.  No one could or would discount the importance of the rail industry in America's vital history.  Consequently the sound of early steam locomotives shaped American history in many ways as did the sound of horses hooves.  The "chug-chug-chug" and "clop-clop-clop" created the rhythm upon which was based much early American popular music.  Both the tempo and kernel of rhythm were found in these defining ambient atmospheric sounds.  Without consciously thinking about it musicians began to emulate this feeling or aesthetic of newly emerging American life.  It helped create blues, ragtime, and jazz.  The steam train is ingrained in American consciousness as it should be.  For many decades the sentimentality of these trains remained.  Like all good things usually they come to an end.  The rail industry's transition to diesel was not so organic, but rest assured in musical circles this change was felt and mitigated.  This change from steam to diesel is a major marker in American history, and enough has not been said about it.  Imagine this long-standing, sentimental, and nostalgic backbone of America, then imagine its extinction and replacement with something much more volatile.  This transition all ready was represented by the compositional style of "Expressionism."  Composers needed a new way to express the changing life of the world, and so they chose the cacophonous sounds of modern cities.  They emulated these sounds in their newly developed compositional style.  The trouble is most people never have transitioned to such an abstract notion of music.  They prefer the familiar and melodious strains of popular tunes to the challenging polyrhythms and dissonance of modern American music.  For me it was a logical transition in my field of study.  American jazz music would have had a tough time competing with the sheer power of diesel.  Thus amplification came into vogue and Rock was born.  The sheer ability to amplify one's musical sounds above the noise of the city was indispensable.  Like the "chug-chug-chug" and "clop-clop-clop" that came before it, American found new patterns upon which to base its expression.  Music necessarily had to grow balls to have a chance of survival.  This gave rise to several decades of intense, prolific, rewarding popular music in America.  Music at this time truly was a reflection of society and its successes and failures.  The music industry became the moral conscience of America.  That no longer is the case, and we have lost this trusted companion.  We have lost this companion, because we no longer have this symbiotic relationship of sound.  We have lost track of sound, and we have been raped with sound.  America today conversely is is a sea of non discriminant noise with no viable or logical definition.  No wonder people are crazy and on drugs.  There is no sound in our environment that represents humanity or spirituality.  Instead we hear noise, and often we don't "hear" it at all.  Most often today in modern America, the biggest detriment we face is inaudible sound, infrasound created by huge, hulking, diesel prime movers.  This onslaught has occurred on the down low the same way the emergent, far-right, extremist Republican party has tried to introduce communism in America.  They are sneaky these Republicans, and so far we have not learned the lesson.   I began complaining about this radiation as soon as I realized its source.  It took a while to arrive at this conclusion, about the same amount of time it took to locate the source of the Taos Hum.  Interestingly they are the same thing.  The Taos Hum continues all over the world, although the moly mine eventually went bankrupt in New Mexico.  About what residents complained in Taos, New Mexico is what is plaguing the world today.  It is intense, never-ending, ruthless, mind-numbing radiation of the third kind.  If you only choose to remember Thomas the Train, that is understandable.  Most things the Republicans have implemented are so egregious and heinous, we would have a difficult time accepting, like the Holocaust.