I Absolutley Love You... Except For Your Ridiculous Fan Base and Now I Can Never See Yo...

White people with dreads. Highly aromatic nag champa and marijuana smoke. Little kids running around far past their bed time. Vegan Food, only. Sounds familiar? Obviously you have gone to a reggae concert... and honestly this is the kinda shit that turned off my 20 year love affair with seeing this genre live, dont get me wrong ... I still have Catch A Fire in my rotation, daily.

It drives me nuts when this happens; something about the "scene" of a music genre will turn me off. Case in point; I went to a "A Band Called Pain" show not too long ago to check out the bassist and guitar player because we might possibly work together. Their music is really, really great.

I am not the biggest punk fan, but I think all of us moggers can attest that if the music is good, its good. Period. And this is an AMAZING Bay Area punk band... and I really do want to play with them... but the scene man, oh dear God the scene was bad. I have never felt so "lilly white- cheez-easily confused with a preppy ivy- league school girl" in my entire freakin life. Its as if they didnt know that I have a tattoo and multiple piercings. My vibrant (and 100% natural) blond locks felt like they were a glowing target amoungst poorly executed mohawks, pleather and too much eyeliner. And I felt this way a little more recently, at of all places; SF BLUES FESTIVAL.

It was semi cold, windy and the fog threatened as the day went on. Fort Mason of San Francisco put on its 36th Blues Festival and I went on the last day which featured Johhny Winter, Buckwheat Zydeco, Denise Lasalle and Curtis Salgado Big Band. The music was great... Buckwheat and Salgado being my two favorties to watch... Johnny is hysterical, dude was just kickin it in a chair the whole time, stoically looking at the old washed up "festival chasers" effortlessly moving his fingers up and down the neck of his guitar ( which I would argue weighed more then him).

The usual festival irritants, $30 small pitchers of Budlight, $50 dollar tickets and smelly people, only because this was Blues Festival there was amazing Creol and Soul food.... but the attendees were fucking hysterical..... imagine tons of ex-Hells Angles wannabes, old white people wearing tye-dyed bandanas, cut off shorts, flip flops.... lots of older men with gray hair knotted behind their necks with turqoise and silver buckles.. scattered prim and propper women just coming from Church... and me and my two friends from NYC who were rocking Prada sunglasses and a stylish knitt sweater from somewhere fabulous in the West Village.... **JOHNNY WINTER AND THE HYSTERICAL ATTENDEES TAKE A LOOK!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_TpXd04Nuw

So basically Im kinda over the festival scene... it was fun, but I spent more time laughing at people then actually enjoying the music... which is never a good sign.. has this ever happened to you? The fans, the lack of studio hands... whatever? ruined your love for a band and or genre???

GREAT SONG BY BUCKWHEAT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5TQCNZonyc