Can you be too old for music?

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I have a feeling im gonna cane all 93 sets in existence and every single autechre liveset/album, every single gerald donald side project, all of sun ra's synth/alien work, that when im 40 I'm going to say dj premier was a genius and corpsey is going to stab me.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Sometimes your ears give out.

My Dad’s still going strong though. We’re off to see Philip Glass later this year.

Probably quite weird if he was really into The Pussycat Dolls at his age.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
That's cool. Does he regularly go to gigs and stuff?

Yeah he’s mid 70s and probably goes to a classical gig with my Mum once a month or so. But he gets tickets for stuff like Philip Glass which he KNOWS my Mum hates and rings me up and says “do you fancy coming to this, your Mum’s not into it” and obviously I say yes and it is the most Dad thing ever.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Yeah he’s mid 70s and probably goes to a classical gig with my Mum once a month or so. But he gets tickets for stuff like Philip Glass which he KNOWS my Mum hates and rings me up and says “do you fancy coming to this, your Mum’s not into it” and obviously I say yes and it is the most Dad thing ever.
unsurprised that Dad Eden is into cool stuff
 

martin

----
Old age suits some genres. I'd expect any Nyabingi reggae group worth its salt to be a bunch of old geezers with dreads like frayed boat rope and weather-battered faces. Similarly, you can get away with being grizzled in Irish rebel folk - people don't want to listen to songs about busting out of the Maze from some spotty 18-year old.

I don't think people should play Oi! after 27. Something about XXL Ben Shermans and paunch-concealing baggy jeans doesn't scream 'human hand grenades' to me. The exception to this rule is Millwall Roi Pearce, who looks like he's on the run from some St Clabbert's-style OAP home. I was going to say punk but Crass, Poison Girls and UK Subs all had old gits in them at the time, so I guess that's OK after all. I also kind of admire geriatric crust punks who've managed to hang on to their facial tattoos, ratty dreads and rotting sleeveless Disorder-patch jackets and still live on Merrydown and Evofix (on a park bench in Folkestone).

Obviously, avant-garde/experimental performances attract loads of boring bast...er, academics, so being a decrepit, unfanciable fossil is def. an advantage in this field. Not so for power electronics, unless you're Japanese and have an impressive beard. Last time I saw Ramleh, Gary Mundy was looking very frail, which added some unnecessary melancholia to the proceedings.

I feel sad whenever I see Adam Ant wearing two hats. Makes it more obvious he's a crazy baldhead than if he just left it alone.


Iggy Pop's looking rough these days, but I can't imagine him doing anything else, and wouldn't really want him to.

Really? I'd love him to do some gardening, or sell some more car insurance, or anything but make another record. It's not even his physical state or age - it's the depressing, inevitable canonisation, bestowing of respectability and reverence, etc (see also Nick Cave) that turns me off. Preferred it when he was the mad cunt bouncing around a fridge singing 'Dog Food' - but everyone considered him ancient even then...
 

firefinga

Well-known member
I am in my late 30s and definitely too old for Live Music let alone going to a club. It's been ages since I went to former or latter. I have given up making musik a long time ago as well, I play the drums and a trumpet though just for fun occasionally.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
He was at the bar in front of me last time I was there and ordered an expensive Trappist ale. I can accept that might make you want to burn it down.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller

francis dhomont (who literally started experimenting with musique concrete BEFORE pierre schaeffer) performing one of his most recent works a few months ago at age 93
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
its really good too. idk if any elements are reused from previous efforts. but listen to the gradually descending quasi-vocal sound around 2 minutes in! beautiful.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'd love an honest account by one of these ageing DJs (particularly thinking of drum n bass DJs) of how they feel about playing to crowds of 18 year olds.

Some of them must either hate it or feel totally numb to it by now, surely? Especially thinking of drum n bass DJs cos the music is so different to what some of them were making/playing when they started out, and besides which is massively geared towards 18 year olds who are battered on pills.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I'd love an honest account by one of these ageing DJs (particularly thinking of drum n bass DJs) of how they feel about playing to crowds of 18 year olds.

Some of them must either hate it or feel totally numb to it by now, surely? Especially thinking of drum n bass DJs cos the music is so different to what some of them were making/playing when they started out, and besides which is massively geared towards 18 year olds who are battered on pills.

There was an incredibly confessional piece by Doc Scott a few years back where he fessed up to being cynical and wankered on drugs and playing terrible music - but had then been rescued by mates.

It probably depends on the setting and how much of a one trick pony you are. Like if you are a one hit wonder, performing that night after night and nobody giving a shit about anything you have written for the last 20 years must really suck.
 

luka

Well-known member
The vast majority of working musicians are recapitulating a particular moment of their youth, their own personal youth, but also the period of history in which they were a youth. It's actually obscene
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Also from my perspective I like different music - and more variety - now than I did when I was in my 20s. So it would be quite shit if I was having a Derek Bailey phase but had to go out and earn a wage playing ragga or whatever.

I did do some warm up slots in the noughties at Heatwave nights and it was a bit odd really with people being about half my age. But I was playing tunes that were made before they were born so it was just about do-able. And I didn't try and chat anybody up, obviously.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
The vast majority of working musicians are recapitulating a particular moment of their youth, their own personal youth, but also the period of history in which they were a youth. It's actually obscene

This is the disease of rock n roll isn't it - far more toxic than pop really. That specific old man who feels like they are still an adolescent vibe.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I remember reading an interview with luka's favourite Dillinja in which he said that kids weren't interested in hearing breakbeats anymore, even though that was what he was really into.

I don't think he actually said that everything he was now making was cynically constructed to fit the modern taste for moronic jump up, but that was the implication. (Disclaimer: I like some moronic jump up.)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't blame musicians for doing that, though, a lot of them aren't really qualified to do anything else are they?

Being a (successful) DJ seems like a dream job when you're in your 20s but I've always wondered what happens when you hit that age where you're either not really into it anymore and you haven't got any work experience whatsoever.

OTOH, let's face it, having an "actual" job is fucking boring and stressful and shit too.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Also it's definitely true that the old DJs should make room for the new, otherwise it just becomes stagnant.
 
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