Genre snobbery? rant warning lol

Cainer

Cainer

Experienced
Just wondering if it's the same in other genres too - seems to be the less popular a genre is, the more exclusionary the zealots are - cause or effect?

I play a style that I kind of describe as 'one foot in the blues, one foot in everything else' and man, the difficulty in getting traction with the old guard blues DJs, festival bookers, and other assorted gate-keepers is crazy. There are guys saying things like "there were no stratocasters in the cotton fields!" (I assume then that electric players like Albert King and BB King aren't TRUE blues??!?!). Literally guys complaining that modern blues players don't sound like Charley Patton lmao - this is like an F1 fan complaining that the cars aren't horse-drawn. Of course they're not fans of amp modelers that goes without saying lol

It sucks because I generally go over well with blues audiences, but my access to them is hampered by all these old fogeys (99 percent of who can't play an instrument of course, yet somehow claim a deeper understanding of the music than anyone else). Meanwhile they're also complaining endlessly about how the genre is declining in popularity - hmm, why could that be?!

Anybody else trying to make a go of it in other genres having a similar experience?

/rant :p
 
The older I get, the less I care what others think 🧐

I have my own styles; they are for me.

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Just remember that Stevie Ray Vaughn was booed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 82 until people got it. I'm sure that people who snubbed him back on his first appearance now say that he was the new messiah when they saw him. Just keep doing you and people will come around.

P.S. Personally, I love what you do.
 
One foot in the blues, one in everything else describes me perfectly as well. Fortunately for me, I've never been a gigging musician so I don't have those problems.
 
Hahahahaha dude, I have ZERO doubt that when you let it rip, every guitarist in earshot gets a bit of a complex! :tearsofjoy:

The most of it I experienced was in my late teens and I got some shows under my belt filling in for adults when they couldn’t make a gig; I’d show up with an Ibanez JEM and get shit right away for being a shredder, before I even played a note. It was a small town and there’s a lot of curmudgeons in that area.
 
Personally, I believe that the best and most innovative music always pushes outward from the boundaries of genre, while most of the stuff that colors exclusively inside the lines ends up discarded and forgotten.

....and after scanning a few vids, I'm wishing I could play even a tiny fraction as well as you do!
 
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" sums up this situation! The way the music biz is set up, for both live stuff and recordings/releases, has been a gate keepers game for many decades and it truly disgusts me!! I specifically chose to not try and make a living with music because of this perception I have had for decades. From day one of my musical journey to this day, I am committed to making the music I want and only that. All others be damned. If people like what I do, that is icing on the cake, but the cake for me is doing my own thing and it tastes great ;~)) If I had it all to do over again, I would probably opt for the starving artist life that I chose to avoid!

I wish you the best in penetrating the barriers that so many artists (not just musicians) encounter! It is a battle that has no place in artistic development IMO yet it exists at every turn!!
 
I don’t know if it’s social media, or just the sucky attitude prevalent in social interaction these days, but I’ve never seen a more divisive, exclusionary, and polarized society than we have today. Six plus decades of watching the country, and we are decidedly at the shallowest, most intolerant level we’ve ever been. It’s almost as if humans need something to hate to give what they love validity.

I could do a lot of hypothesizing, but I’ll just say that the whole “co-exist” mindset so many espouse, well… we, as a society, ain’t walking the walk.
 
Cainer said:
Just wondering if it's the same in other genres too - seems to be the less popular a genre is, the more exclusionary the zealots are - cause or effect?

I play a style that I kind of describe as 'one foot in the blues, one foot in everything else' and man, the difficulty in getting traction with the old guard blues DJs, festival bookers, and other assorted gate-keepers is crazy. There are guys saying things like "there were no stratocasters in the cotton fields!" (I assume then that electric players like Albert King and BB King aren't TRUE blues??!?!). Literally guys complaining that modern blues players don't sound like Charley Patton lmao - this is like an F1 fan complaining that the cars aren't horse-drawn. Of course they're not fans of amp modelers that goes without saying lol

It sucks because I generally go over well with blues audiences, but my access to them is hampered by all these old fogeys (99 percent of who can't play an instrument of course, yet somehow claim a deeper understanding of the music than anyone else). Meanwhile they're also complaining endlessly about how the genre is declining in popularity - hmm, why could that be?!

Anybody else trying to make a go of it in other genres having a similar experience?

/rant :p
Click to expand...
Have you even paid your dues, yet? ;)
 
Funny sorry, kind of reverse of this:

Back in the early '90s, my bassist's dad was the drummer in a country band.

They had a backyard BBQ and played some tunes and asked me and the bassist to jam.

We were in a hair metal type of band and I was waiting to get "comments" later.

However, after we finished, their guitar player (who was quite good) was very complimentary to me and said, "I'd love for you to show me how you do some of that tapping stuff"...
 
unix-guy said:
However, after we finished, their guitar player (who was quite good) was very complimentary to me and said, "I'd love for you to show me how you do some of that tapping stuff"...
Click to expand...
"Sure, if you can show me how to do some those chicken-pickin' double-stops!"
 
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