推薦大家閱讀這篇Guitar Center 對 Aerosmith 的專訪。裡面講到不少有趣的事，從一些小事如他們樂團的寫作、錄音方式，到使用的器材等，但真正有意思的是他們對於主流音樂商業運作、網路下載和其他吉他手如 Jeff Back、Vai 等人的看法。雖然是英文的 interview，但一般英文程度閱讀起來應該不困難，建議有興趣者看看或在此討論相關課題。 http://www.guitarcenter.com/interview/aerosmith/aerosmith_standard.shtml <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>........................Steven: We learned early on that if we didn't do something on the record to take it to the mainstream it wasn't going to get heard at all. Aerosmith was famous for album oriented music and there were radio stations at the time that played nothing but album oriented music. And so much got heard that was out of the mainstream. You listen to the early 70s stuff and it's brilliant. So much more so than today's music. Not just one thing, you know, blues and rap. But so much diversified other stuff. And there's just no room for it anymore because corporations took over and were looking for only the hits. When we climbed out of the ashes, we thought, "Let's try writing with some outside people because we need another 'Dream On'". So we wrote "Angel." It forced people to buy the record for "Angel" and then hear the other stuff, you know, what they call deep album cuts. That's a big hoot for us! But we've turned in our schlocky stuff and it's all subjective anyways. A lot of people hate Aerosmith. They think we're soppy and ballady, but a lot of people love it for just that. So we're not trying to please everybody - that's the kiss of death. It's just how do you get it out there? How do you turn kids on? One of the best things about the Internet is that kids can download music they would never, ever have heard because they can just get in there. They feel like they're doing something wrong. They're checking it out! They're climbing a tree, climbing different branches for different fruits! That's great. Not necessarily good for people that are like Blodwyn Pig. There's not a guy in the band that wouldn't do something really strange for a little bit of money right now, but they're not going to get it because Joe's son is downloading they're music! But maybe someone is hearing it. And if that's what it takes, then so be it! But it's unfortunate that the problems stem from the corporations wanting to make money, money, money! So Sony invents an MP3 player. Whoops! What about all your artists? That's looking out for our futures. But it was all about money. It's a corporation and money. Of course Sony had to do it because if they didn't, someone else was on to the technology. What are they going to do? Do they want to fail? So just release it now! Quick get it out now! So they released it six years ago without thinking that we were going to get downloaded and lose our back catalogs. It's not good. But it's a necessary evil in the world that we created which is called capitalism. But it's the only world we got! .................<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
我稍微看了結尾的問答,Joe Perry提到了Frank Zappa & Steve Vai,Zappa我不敢說熟悉,但我可是Vai的fan,或許他們並不是呆在Perry所謂的mainstream,但是這種小眾文化也是使這世界多采多姿的一大主因啊! 當然像我這樣的Guitar Geek有時真的會遇到一些類似的情況:"你搞吉他作啥呀?""你聽吉他演奏音樂?什麼東東?" 大部分的人只想著成功=賺大錢,而摒棄那些鑽營別項領域的人,可是就拿最近掀起競速風潮的頭文字D來說,只要不騎小綿羊亂砍人,我倒是蠻樂見常人一聽就皺眉的飆車族,好好的鑽研最速理論,能專注心力在 一件事上,都是值得讚許的 所以我才開始迷上這裡的討論空間,大家都太厲害了,我在這裡找到了不少值得崇拜的對象...
主流不主流實在太難定義了,如果單拿唱片銷售量來 比,那大概只剩下Britney Spears這類的人可以稱的 上主流,並不是說他們就不好,只能說每個人欣賞的 角度並不一樣,(in fact,I listen to her music) 所以大家各取所需,想聽Rock,聽Rock,想聽Jazz就 聽Jazz,That's why,這個世界變得多彩多姿!目前 我聽的Artist大多已是非主流中的非主流了!有的 人甚至連第一張Album都還沒發,只是在MP3.COM有 個位置發表自己的音樂,But they're really sound great,台灣的地下音樂水平要加油了!