If I were an older man, and I’m starting to get there, I might look at the state of modern music and muse about the loss of the good old days.  The quality of the music, the use of new methods of recording and songwriting, can be debated.  Most music is made for the young, so if I like the music teens like, something may be quite wrong.  There is something else lacking in the business today that makes it less appealing, and from genre to genre and artist to artist, downloads and Grammys can’t hide it.

Music is missing mythology.

Paul is dead.  Led Zepplin channeled the dead, and maybe the devil, by living in Aleister Crowley’s house.  Everyone sells their soul to the Devil and dies at 27.  Lyrics are written in blood or spoken into the ear from beyond the grave.  Axl wants to meet Brett behind the state for a fight right after Jimi Hendricks creates a superband to play metal-jazz.  Seal’s scar appear overnight on his face like stigmata.  Ace Frehley.

Not that there is no band rivalry and rumor today.  We get the information quicker today, but that might be the problem.  The spotlight is hotter and the economic stakes are higher, which translates to no rebels in rock, which has effectively killed the “rock and roll spirit.”  Social media is quick to whitewash and kill the mythology.  That glacier-like movement of media helped to mold those old legends, and before anyone could respond, the rumors were solidified in our consciousnesses.

The paranormal has always fueled those rumors.  Dancing with the occult, holding hands with Satan, and ghostly visitations are as common as the power chord and pyrotechnics.  Like biblical scholars or Homer, there have been a chosen few who have taken these tales and raised them to level of religion for lovers of music.  Not content to allow word of mouth to do them justice, they have pressed these stories  into words like pressing vinyl.

We’ve been lucky at Spooky Southcoast to tap into some of these musical myths.  Over the years, we’ve brought in experts and observers to this odd connection between music and the supernatural.  We had R. Gary Patterson on twice, once the night after Amy Winehouse was discovered dead, and he talked to us up until he had to get off because Coast to Coast was on the other line.  We’ve brought in Carl “Chops” Woods to talk about the curses of the blues, only to see EVP form before our eyes.

Enjoy them while you’re waiting in the crossroads.

Listen to the interview with Joe Niezgoda from 2-6-1.
Listen to Carl “Chops” Woods and the paranormal history of blues from 2-28-09
Listen to the interview with Aaron Hanson about remote viewing Michael Jackson’s death from 7-4-09
Listen to the interview with R. Gary Patterson from 1-20-07
Listen to the interview with R. Gary Patterson hot on the heels of Amy Weinhouse’s death from 7-23-1