Response to Rusty

I never questioned your intent on recording music. I think I could make an entire covers album, and might like to do so. I think it's magic that you rerecorded an entire album and I love you for it. I don't have the patience to do that. I like your 69 Love Songs. I like them better than Merritt's. And I said that I understood the feeling behind destroying an intsrument. It's all about the emotion. One of the differences between me and you, Rusty, is that you somehow remove the raw emotion behind music and there's something far deeper (or spiritual) motivating your tastes. Or maybe it simply strikes different nerves in each of us. This is why I can listen to Pet Sounds and weep while you simply may think that it's very nice, but "not all that." Again, we have common occurences, such as Neutral Milk Hotel. I think that album moves us for the same reasons. Same with Weezer's Pinkerton. But I do know that it totally tees you off when guys like Stevie Ray Vaughn are making faces or whatever while playing ("Does that help them play better?"). It's emotion. I don't jump around and act like an idiot because I think it's fun (it is), but because that's simply what the music does to me. And if I whack the shit out of my bass or throw it on the ground, I do it because sometimes because simply playing it isn't enough for me. Rock music goes that deep for me, I guess. And that's the fundamental difference between me and you, Rusty. You simply do not like Rock Music. You never have. You like some music that may rock, but not Rock Music on the whole. You don't like the new Weezer record as much because it a rock and roll album. But you do like pop music (I do too).


Pop Versus Rock
Pop music is wonderful, it's essential, it makes the day go by, it makes us happy, it makes us sad, it's good stuff. There's never been anything wrong with it...But Rock always set itself a slightly higher target which was to try to share big ideas, big problems, deep stuff. Particularly the problems that you tend to carry with you from your teenage years. I think we carry alot of teenage stuff with us to our deathbed. I don't think we let it go and I think we're formed in our teenage years to some extent. The person that leaves home is the person that becomes an adult whether they're ready for it or not.

And then there's the other difference. You've got God and I've got music. Maybe music really is my God. You don't need it because you've that the real deal. I've just got these loud guitars and broken instruments.

Tommy Entwistle