Dec. 31, 2009
Hello, Friends and Fans of the Bluestorms. The coming of a new year and a new decade are cause for celebration as well as reflection. Besides making resolutions, I’m sure many of you are hearing, considering and devising condensed expressions and analyses of the recent past. What did it all mean? Where are we going? I heard one pundit call the decade “The Big Zero”, indicating that “nothing good happened” in the last ten years, at least on a macro level.
The Alpha of The Cherry Bluestorms’ existence occurred well into the last decade. So for us, there is much cause to celebrate the recent past. After a bit of a false start, we managed to complete our debut album, “Transit Of Venus” and garnered a few accolades. We had wonderful experiences in Monterey, San Diego, Toronto and Liverpool as well as here in L.A. We wrote and tracked nearly all of our soon-to-be-completed second album “Bad Penny Opera” and have the better part of a third album ready to record.
We are not blind (or deaf!) to the woes of the music industry and the greater economic climate, nor the discouragement they engender for aspiring pop music artists and fans. On the one hand, there is a glut of music, yet there does not seem to be the hunger for music that there once was. People do not seem to identify with or require the kind of pop avatars that were ubiquitous in the Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll. On the one hand, the greedy and corrupt record industry dug their own grave and no one bothered to send flowers. On the other hand, there are no filters or gatekeepers; there is no longer the promise of the great golden ring to reach for; in place of an antiestablishmentarian youth culture and community, there is fragmentation.
Still, I can’t help but think that there are positive aspects. If there are fewer “golden rings”, then it stands to reason that only those interested in “art for art’s sake” will stay in the game. They are the ones who likely will need no other incentive to create the best music and the best recordings they can. If there is no “Central Bank of A&R”, then people will be more likely to judge music of all stripes on its own merits and not be influenced by the artificial dividing line arbitrarily imposed by record companies. The Cherry Bluestorms’ ethos synthesizes the artistic values of a pre-Compact Disc environment with the DIY attitude of the post-punk era. The vaccum created by the demise of the record industry and the ascendancy of digital media and downloading, asks to be filled by Album-Oriented Rock and creative, conceptual and artistically rendered packaging. It asks for image expressive of and as an extension of, artistic intent, rather than as celebrity for celebrity’s sake. Idle (Idol) entertainment (pun intended) may dominate the market for the foreseeable future. But, we believe that there is still reason to hope for success swimming against the tide of corporate garbage.
We are very grateful for the appreciation you have shown us. We assure you that we are working hard to offer you the best music we can. We wish you all a happy, prosperous and fulfilling new year and new decade.