My friend Brad and I sat down a few nights ago to annihilate some delicious beers, listen to records, and talk about a bunch of various subjects. Eventually, we got on the subject of music, and then rock and roll interviews that were either insightful or a total biff of publicity. Brad recalled this gem of the latter: an interview with Alex and Jade of the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. (Don’t feel like you have to watch the entire thing, just start at the 3:57 mark).
Right at the aforementioned 3:57 mark, Alex spills the flowery hippie nonsense about his artistic bon mot being ’like special little blue pill, and its like, like “Be like a child.”’ I will admit, I like what I’ve heard from this band, but comparatively no more so, than say, Phil Collins, or The Go Team. A more appropriate little pill in this case would be Immodium. I’d rather be moved more by sincerity than constant attention to poetic responses in an insignificant interview that would never amount to any sort of half-baked life philosophy. Speaking of baked, these members of this band are most definitely tuning into some sort of psychotropic wavelengths during this Q&A, which I won’t fault them for; but I won’t buy into this neo-hippie posturing of positivity and the promise of the transformative powers of their music no matter how wide their pupils or fidgety a grown woman can be with a skateboard as seen in this interview.
I went to art school for nearly 6 years combined, and I won’t be the first to try to ‘out-art’ somebody else, but in those nearly 6 years I heard enough firsthand bullshit about vision, passion, positivity, and conquering beauty via any art form. It’s this level of ridiculousness that deters the public at large from investigating and discovering art. I recall a conversation about art with a roommate when she suddenly exclaimed that “Art would be the only thing change the world.” Truth be told, the world will more likely change with conflict, famine, or global climate calamity. Possibly, the three could merge to make the shittiest neopolitan ice cream pint of hell humanity has had to endure. Neo-hippies would be there too.
A really wonderful professor of mine once quoted someone else, saying that society is hindered by it’s inability to discuss race, gender, class, and art. Which I agree with. Try running a symposium on these topics on the bus tomorrow morning and see where it gets you: knifed in Hilltop, MN.
While a bit of a setback for my own potential fan-status of the band, it is really no more of another dalliance in the pantheon of musicians caught on camera saying something ridiculous while intoxicated. I feel some shame though, wishing that it were possible for some individual to be accepted and succeed as the spokesperson of our generation or better yet, state of being: almost like what people thought of pre-electric Bob Dylan. Though that’s every bit as ridiculous as explaining your artistic horizon as ’like special little blue pill, and its like, like “Be like a child.”’
