LISTENER MAGAZINE JULY/2001

THE ROCK AND ROLL MESSIAH IS HERE

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR TRIBE

YOU ARE THE ONE

POT WARNING: Before you proceed with this article let me warn you about my relationship to pot: Both my Mother and Grandmother, who are now in Heaven’s kitchen, cooked a mean-wicked positively mind altering pot roast I can still taste it, They taught me, as a young boy, that when I grew up and became a man, I would have to find moral courage, and that is why they taught me how to stir up the pot. To remind me..I keep Mr. Futterman’s pot on top of my speaker, and you can see a picture of it on the Triode Guild web site,

Dr. Gizmo needs your help. I need to recruit you into a crusade to save the aural soul of rock and roll. To do this we will have to reach out to millions of rock and rollers who have never tasted the sweet juice of rock and roll. To do this we must reject The Old Audio Testament and create The New Audio Testament. To accomplish this important national service we must resurrect an industry on the precipice of cultural irrelevance.

How will we accomplish our goal? The first step is the creation of an Internet community on the Triode Guild web site. This nexus of higher rock and roll musical consciousness will struggle to elevate the quality of rock and roll from concerts, recording studios, bars/clubs, CDs, home audio systems, and the brain.

QUESTION: Can our tribe change its course, which is hurtling towards the oblivion of cultural irrelevance, and become an inspiration to tens of millions of rock and rollers who want and deserve better? Do we have the courage and will to let go of The Old Audio Testament that is no longer relevant to the 21st century? Can our tribe stop obsessing over hardware, start speaking in a language that living humans can understand, and assume the responsibility it must assume…because no one else can? Are we ready for resurrection? Has our tribe reached the maturity needed to fulfill its responsibility to the public?

Let me ask this question in a way that businessmen can understand: Is this industry ready to expand its customer base from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands?

The reason my answer is YES is because I have seen him, heard and he emails me hundreds of times every week. The Rock and Roll Messiah is here and he is on a crusade to save the soul of rock and roll music, because the sound quality of rock and roll is in desperate need of salvation. Again now is the time for all of us grow up, be responsible men, and stir up the rock and roll pot.

FACT: 99.99% of America’s rock and rollers have never experienced the true aural soul of rock and roll, or been to the top rock and roll mountain..and don’t know it exists, or, our art exists. This is tragic, because we have failed the public, but that was then and this is now. No more high end audio whimpering, complaining, whining and coping out.

You want to know why the Guildmeister is not concerned about classical music, when its sound quality has also deteriorated? JOHN LENNON IS RIGHT. The reality is that rock and roll music has become the dominant spiritual meta-contest for the world. More than any other religion, rock and roll music is providing the essential spiritual nourishment that humans need for survival. Check: http://TriumphPC.com/standard/may01/

FACT: Everyone agrees that music is nourishment. Everyone agrees WE ARE WHAT WE EAT. It naturally follows that the quality of the rock and roll music we eat matters. Eat junk food and our soul turns to junk. I have now explained the reason why America is having so many social problems…we are starving spiritually because we are consuming junk spiritual food. The only way to save the American family, end the drug war, and create a just society is by improving the quality of the rock and roll we eat. Please someone debate me on this issue.

Who is the Rock and Roll Messiah? YOU ARE THE ONE, and you are every gifted Listener, high end audio manufacturer, musician, audio engineer, and audio artists who has the balls to rebel against aural mediocrity. You are the One, because of your passion/demand for the highest musical standards is the high ground for the audio/music industry which is under enormous pressure to produce mediocrity. This is America and MP-3 is the high ground for most. Are you ready to inspire? Are ready to express the Messiah in you? Alone we are puny, together we are the New York Yankees.

FACT: 99% of Americans don't know the difference in the taste of Texas Road Kill in August and a Texas barbecued sirloin steak when it comes to the sound of rock and roll. This is our failure and opportunity.

I warn you now. Read my lips: no neat two dimensional mealy minded mediocre dumb ass main stream audio insights into the fun-damental mysteries of existence, rock and roll consciousness, and the powerful economic pressures of the American culture that must bleach value from art.

Mr. Gifted-Listener-Audio-Artist-Jesus-Buddha-Washington-Mohammed-Mao-Gandhi-Presley asks, "How old is the messianic impulse"? (amazon.com lists 538 books on this subject).

It is over two thousand years old and older than Christ’s crusade: read The First Messiah, Investigating The Savior Before Christ, by M. Wise. This impulse emerged in response to the Roman Empire’s brutality and repression where crucifixion was as common as parking tickets in New York City. (Must reading: The Passover Plot by Hugh Schonfield) Twenty-five years ago our tribe’s first Messiah, who led our rebellion against The Evil Empire of Aural Mediocrity, was a two-headed audiomaniac named Pearson-Holt, Pontius Pilate was Len Feldman/Julian Hirsch.

Dear Editors of Rolling Stone,

What Gives? You write exposés about tobacco, fast food, pollution, political corruption, but never about the crisis in digital audio quality. What happened to your journalistic integrity?

Dr. Gizmo

This new aural rebellion is as different from the last one as a Harley-Davidson is from a Volvo Station Wagon, Who else care passionately about music quality, and rejects the Old Audio Testament and its High Priests?

Testosterone Reality Check: Do you remember your life as a teenager, or as a college student? Can you remember how essential rock and roll music was for your survival? Can you imagine how inspirational our crusade will be on these young men…when they discover your passion for climbing to the top of Mt. Rock and Roll. Don’t we have responsibility to our young bros’ so that they don’t fall into the swamp of audio hype?

WHO IS THE ROCK AND ROLL MESSIAH?

He is you; the bankers, the bakers, the plumbers, the doctors, dentists, lawyers, the cop on the beat, the car mechanic. The rock and roll messiah is the audio artist and the manufacturer who is dedicated to the highest aural standards. It is every man who, because he needs the highest quality spiritual nourishment, has wrestled, like Jacob, with the angel of Rock and Roll, for truth. In terms of America, you are a rare man, because any man who cares about quality is rare. Why did Jesus love to dance? For the same reason you dance naked in your living room. Why did Chairman Mao struggle for forty years to free his people from oppression? For the same reason you have struggled to free yourself from oppressive aural mediocrity.

Why is it our responsibility to overthrow The Old Audio Testament that intrinsically makes our art irrelevant? Who else has the right stuff?

George Bernard Shaw said it right in Man and Superman..the Devil is mediocrity.

 

MUCH MORE THAN OUR PACT WITH DIGITAL DEVIL

devil

Why does the sound of rock and roll suck?: Why is this such a taboo question, when so many are asking it? I suggest a truthful answer is: (1) very complex, and much more than our pact with the Digital Devil, (2) will upset the biggest companies who have huge investments in convincing the public that the Emperor is wearing the finest threads, when more and more are seeing…He is threadbare (2) destructive to the credibility of very expensive marketing campaigns, (3) a technical embarrassment for companies that posture technical competence, (4) an affront to recording studio orthodoxy, and (5) a creator of more chaos in an industry that is already deep in chaos. I remind you of what Chairman Mao said.."Revolutions aren’t parties". (The Messiah and The Mandarin, by D. Bloodworth).

Is it possible that MTV is corrupting the sound quality of rock and roll? Is the way rock and roll looks on TV more important than how it sounds? Has marketing hype triumphed over musical content and authenticity? Is it possible that the large media conglomerates are forced to produce music for fourteen-year-old twitching nervous systems? Would you like me to list ten thousand more questions that terrify the audio/music industry…like…"How come Sony spends so much effort R&D effort and bucks on SACD, while ignoring the bigger issue of $1 speaker magnets? Does Sony make speakers that are comparable, in quality to their SACD players?

FACT: All across the funky rock and roll horizon, from concerts, to recording studios, from radio, to CDs, sound quality has dumbed-down, and rock and roll artists no longer care. We are driving our Ferrari audio systems with junk gas in our tank. Or to put it another way: CDs are compressed, grainy, distorted, lack dynamic range, and are filled with aural pollution UNNCESSARILY.

Billboard Magazine announces: ACADEMY OF ROCK AND ROLL LIP SERVICE begins operation. The mission of this new trade organization, funded by the music industry, is to help artists and record labels communicate convincingly about their passion for music quality, while avoiding the issue. Look for their gala annual award ceremony on MTV.

 

HERITAGE: THE FIRST R&R MESSIAH TWINS APPEAR

Consider the suffering sequence of America’s twentieth century: a European war, depression, a world war, hurtling towards Cold War atomic suicide, a Korean War, a Vietnam war, and a repressive/racist culture that resisted change, How many hundreds of millions of humans were slaughtered? Consider America’s tradition of violence and civil rights oppression for minorities, black and women. Who won the Civil war? What happened to the unfilled promise of the Bill of Rights? Stop the world I went to get off.

Consider the spiritual repression that Mr. Clean was accepting. Who had the courage to rebel against this system of political and spiritual brutality?

America’s first BUMPER STICKER CIVIL WAR began which justified shooting, banning and arresting these hippy heretics, because.."Ban The Bomb", "Make Love Not War", Give Peace a Chance, Let’s All Come Together, upset Pontius Pilate’s favorite bumper stickers "Kill A Commie for Christ" "I Would Rather Be Dead Than Red", "America, Love it or Leave It".

In response the Rock and Roll Messiah with its twin brother, the Audio Messiah emerged. The result of this artistic, political and technical convergence, the first in America’s history, was creation of a completely new mind-blowing aural matrix, made possible by the invention of multi-track recording. To supply our need to fully experience this mysterious awakening a new breed of audio artisans appeared. This big noise changed America’s mind.

I hope you will consider the central role of ecstasy in this messianic convergence that saved the world. Consider how ecstasy, unity with God, is the central motivating impulse for religious zealots, and how ecstasy is the central impulse for music zealots. Consider the classic American polarity: ecstasy/freedom vs. violence/power.

FACT: The areas of the brain that are devoted to religious experience are the same as is used for music experience. Remember the music brain existed long before the religious brain.

Yet tides rise and fall, as messianic crusades rise and fall. Fidel now drives a Mercedes Benz. Some disappear. Some go underground, and some become so corrupted that they loose all of their followers. Despite our best efforts The Evil Empire of Aural Mediocrity continues to grow in strength…calling forth a new generation of braves and leaders who scream out to the music/audio business: "You must do better, because we deserve better".

The Old Audio Testament, the laws that guided the last two decades of our aural rebellion, are kaput, because it is a fundamentally a low IQ inaccurate description of the complex interaction of mind, music and technology. It once had value, but evolution happens.

FACT: When a tribe’s core ethos becomes obsolete it looses its vitality, and becomes irrelevant and erodes. It is time to create a new vision of the audio arts…one that, for the first time in the history of the audio arts, describes the complex interaction between music, mind and technology.

CREATING THE NEW AUDIO TESTAMENT

THE URGE FOR MUSIC BRAIN MERGE

This is the subject of my debate challenge to Harry Pearson that is as yet unanswered.

Here is my offering towards the creation of the New Audio Testament:

The rock and roll musician’s mind, a channel for a higher force, encodes a very mysterious multi-dimensional aural matrix on a CD. We gifted Listeners create "input decoding devices" to produce the type of noise we need to awaken our music brain to its deepest level of mystery. The purpose of this entire process is the merging of the rock and roll musician’s aural matrix with ours. Or to put this another way: the purpose of all the audio technology, from recording studio to home audio system is to create a musical brain merge.

Pass the Prozac because right now I am in Elvis Presley's brain, or is Elvis in mine?

Music is an emotion that only exists in our mind/body. Everything we hear "out there" is a projection of our inner aural matrix. Is rock and roll music the wormhole between parallel universes? Or, is rock and roll music the only space ship that can travel to the quantum music event horizon and open the door to higher dimensions of existence? Is it possible that the entire cosmos exists at the subatomic level of our brain synapses?

If you think I am smoking, instead of stirring pot, rent Hollywood’s blockbuster, THE MATRIX that gloms this fundamental quantum paradox of musical experience.

How old is the notion of the aural matrix? The first "externalized" aural matrix was created, according paleontologists/archaeologist over fifty thousands years ago in the caves of southern France near the Dordogne River, and it is the newest idea of quantum physics.

May I suggest you stop reading now, and read the following books on the potty, Music The Brain and Ecstasy, Hyperspace, The Quantum Self, Quantum Physics:Illusion or Reality?, Consilience, Astonishing Hypothesis, The Whole Shabang, Our Holographic Universe, and, The Tao of Physics? You too will discover that the audio arts are MUCH MORE than "I like the sound of this audio gizmo’s micro dynamics compared to that audio gizmo macro imaging". They are tools of a revolutionary new consciousness that members of the Shop Till We Drop Audio Matrix can never experience.

The aural matrix exists in many dimensions, but it is a musical unity: The aural matrix is, on one level, the multi-dimensional dematerial space in our listening room. It has height, width, depth, and within it lots of noise occurs which has dynamics/time/harmonics. Though it may appear to be no larger than your room, it is, because its only limits are our mind in our brain. How large is our mind’s space? As large as the cosmos. How sensitive is our hearing? It can detect the Twang before the Big Bang, which occurred at the beginning of time about eighteen billions years ago. How old is our expressive music ability? It has been evolving for at least two hundred fifty million years.

Light up an Ashton Maduro cigar and smoke what I just asserted for a few weeks, and discover if it alters your view of music, rock and roll and the audio arts.

THE JUICEMAN IMPERATIVE

Like all the great philosophers and religious leaders we accept the essential tragic nature of existence: rock and roll CDs are extremely synthetic music inventions created at recording studios which are instruments of ultimate aural discombobularity. CDs are perfect. Cigarettes are good for our health. The check is in the mail. I will love your forever. MP-3 is audiophile sound. Why does this bogusity exist? Because 99% of the population loves eating low level illusion, until they discover the taste of a higher illusion, which is why it is so important for you to share your aural ascendance.

The challenge facing every rock and roller is the tragic nature of CDs. The Hi-IQ rock and roller connoisseur asks: How can we squeeze the most juice out of a dried prune/ rock and roll CD..what can I do to make Texas Road Kill taste like barbecue steak? We must do our best to be our best…we must ask the right questions.

FACT: A new law is emerging: Sound quality is inverse to the size of the rock star.

The New Audio Testament commands us to concentrate on the music trilogy: tone/time/dynamics. You have read my sermon on tone. Time, an essential music element is now a mess, because digital recording messes up time. Audio circuits that need high feedback really mess up time. Most speakers are NOT time-aligned, or have crossovers that mess up time. It is time to take time much more seriously because time is a key element in musical mystery. It is time for America to take its most important religion more seriously.

What is rock and roll without dynamics? I predict that a new generation of higher dynamic speakers will appear because it makes sense to eliminate speaker’s inherent dynamic limitations so that whatever limited dynamics are in a CD can be enjoyed. Makes sense that the big push will be for high flux density magnets. Read my article about pentode SWEET SLAM, because slamosity is ferocity.

 

HOW MANY PATHS TO THE TOP OF MT. ROCK AND ROLL?

As many as there are passionate mountain climbers. The fulfillment of your messianic responsibility is sharing your trip with those who are not yet in the know. You are as much an authority on this subject as any audio reviewer. That is why I am asking for your contribution to this project.

 

MY ULTIMATE SACRIFICE

Intrinsic to messianic impulse is the notion of personal sacrifice/martyrdom. For most post industrial ex-yuppies disconnected from the unity of creation this is a terrifying idea so I will do my job…I will go first. I am prepared to throw myself on the sacrificial pyre of rock and roll aural piety, if you will promise me just one thing.when you eat me please use a gourmet barbecue sauce, and when you eat my liver with fava beans, be sure to drink a vintage Chianti.

We deserve better. Millions of rock and rollers deserve better.

You are the Rock and Roll Messiah…just be who you are. Remember this is just the first step in the journey, which continues on the rock and roll messiah web site.

Your devoted charcoal barbecued servant, Dr. Gizmo, Guildmeister of The Triode Guild at meta-gizmo.com


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