Sir Bob Geldof came across as a cranky old bastard when he gave his keynote address at SXSW this week. Basically, he said music acts today lacked relevance but also slagged off America, Hollywood, Duran Duran, Music Festivals, Facebook, Apple, Blogging and Glee. (We will let him get away with the last one.)
Great Geldof quotes of the day include how he will not allow “the Gleeisation of my songs … Fuck off”.
About the United States “America has already given up on the 21st Century” and “America seems exhausted, exhausted of being America.”
About Hollywood, “John Wayne can fuck off over the hills”.
About the Music Industry, “The industry will not survive on divas and boys with pretty mouths”
About Apple, “When I see people lining up for an iPad I despair. It’s a fucking piece of metal. Its not cool.”
About Facebook, “Facebook is a friend and a fraud. So is iTunes. Jon Bon Jovi is right.” (Bon Jovi said earlier this week that iTunes destroyed the music business.
Also on Facebook, “you cannot have 6000 friends. Its an illusion.”
About Music Festivals, “festivals with over-paid bands are as dangerous as boy scouts”.
About Duran Duran, “Duran Duran represented kids with money. I was uncomfortable in the 80s”.
About the 80s, “the music of the 80s was fairly shit but as Paul Simon said, ‘every generation sends a hero up the pop charts”.
About bloggers, “Blogs are like arse-holes. Everybody has one. Half are the mutterings of the village idiot from the pub”.
Sir Robert also proclaimed that we are currently experiencing a Music Armageddon. “Rock n Roll came at a time when the world was devastated. Rock n Roll could only have come from this country. It is your cultural gift. But it might be over. It might be a 50-year pop”.
A lot of what he did say did make sense. “Will this art form survive in a different way?,” he queried. “There are probably ‘Lennon & McCartneys’ out there. They just won’t be as big as Jesus”.
He said music creativity was at “the end of relevance”. “Where are the Sex Pistols and The Ramones of today?,” he asked. “Rock n Roll must be about the society in which its bred. Its not about your house, car or hair”.
He then categorised his old band the Boomtown Rats alongside Sex Pistols and The Ramones. “’Looking Out For Number One’ opened with “The world owes me a living. I don’t wanna be like you, I wanna be like me”. A week later Johnny Rotten said, “I am an Antichrist” and then Joe Strummer had a riot. We came along and said ‘get the fuck out of the way Bay City Rollers and Olivia Newton-John & John Travolta’”.
About the kids who want to make music today, “Can the experience of hearing Howlin’ Wolf happen again?”
Quoting George Bernard Shaw, “all change comes from the power of unreasonable people’,” he said. “Most musicians are unreasonable if they think they can make a living.”
He criticised the acts today for not having any venom. “The music I hear today is continental navel gazing … fuck a great sound. It’s only a great sound if it reflects the artist’s intent. The rest if just knobs in the studio”.
Bob Geldof also showcased his new album ‘How To Compose Popular Songs That Sell’ last night at Austin’s brand new Moody Theatre.
VIDEO: SXSW, watch the Undercover Sonicbids program featuring the bands from Australia at SXSW:
