ROBERT JACKSON

I write, perform and record the kind of music I want to and believe in. I like to tell a story in my music, and often give it social and political relevance. I look at it like I'm a modern day folk singer and the folk of yesteryear is now rock and pop. If some people at record labels, management companies, etc, don't like it, or think it does not conform to current music industry fads and trends, then they can all go jump in a lake. Music is an art form and art is total creativity, not someone's narrow-minded concept of what should be marketed. Most of the music business is full of greedy and exploitive leeches and vultures, egotistical maniacs, or idiots anyway, so who cares what they think. The same goes for critics. Once, I got six different reviews for the same CD: two thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, two were in the middle and two were unfavorable. It's just people's musical tastes and opinions being reflected, that's all. The music business has gotten so picky, to the point that every single piece of music has to be pre-screened, test marketed, labeled as a particular genre or format; what was supposed to be spontaneous creative art is turned into commercial product to appease stockholders. Somewhere in that process, art loses its creativity and spontaneity. Spontaneity was once the necessary ingredient in rock and roll.The music is now secondary to mass marketing of the product. Musicians are chewed up, spit out and eaten up alive. What once sparked rock and roll was a non conformist counterculture and rebellious attitude. Now what rules popular music is nothing but the opposite - conformity - record labels packaging groups to be 18-22 years old, have blue hair, nose rings, and mohawks. Rock and roll being very much part of today's culture with shrewdly calculated Madison Ave. marketing. Hendrix is now heard on TV car ads, music that was once feared by mainstream America. In the business of rock where everyone thinks he is such a non-conformist, I find nothing but conformity. Create that fantasy image, so the consumer can dream of what it would be like to be in the pop star's shoes. That's not life, or reality. The thirst for the almighty dollar has even affected club and bar owners. All original music acts have problems finding bookings with decent pay. It's getting harder to find club owners that have the guts to stand up and book creative, talented,interesting original music. No, they take the easy way out with dollar signs always in their heads and keep booking the same tired old cover bands, DJs and karaoke nights. They are the brain-dead gatekeepers of night life entertainment. How are bands supposed to get the following the club bookers ask about, if hardly anyone will book them and give them a chance to get a following and grow in the first place?These gold digging club owners want to pack the place on band nights, yet most of their own industry won't even support or book the bands without a following,thus limiting their attempts at packed houses even more. Catch-22. And a lot of the bookers are too stupid or lazy to even realize that. If bands were consistently packing bars and clubs then they wouldn't have to perform at these dives anyway.