Society in decay. No. 1: Classical music.

I met a 'classical' musician yesterday; nice enough guy, a bit overweight. At first I thought it was too much rich food but no; he was just full of himself!

We were talking about promoting events, funding and the like. He agreed that there was no money to be made from poetry or spoken word, nor was there any likelihood of corporate sponsorship as it was just not 'sexy' enough.

He then went on to suggest that I got a gimmick... Perhaps I should dress in a nappy in order to generate some kind of attention and therefore become commercial. Later I mentioned the steel band practice going on elsewhere to which he replied: 'Oh, that is of no interest to me...It is not high Art!

Which allows me to suppose that he thinks that what he does IS 'high art'. Bollocks; A load of over-sponsored middle class idiots scraping things with horse hair bows in front of a bunch of overpaid, overweight corporate free-loaders necking Roederer Crystal while groping their secretaries/mistresses whilst listening to Garry Glitter on their ipods to drown out the caterwauling is not high art.

Now don't get me wrong, I like a bit of fiddle music (especially at Balkan weddings and Irish lock ins) and the Classical 'composers' borrowed some very pleasant peasant tunes back in the old days or just plain stole them from costermongers and fishwives But music is music. Just because something costs the tax payer loads of money does not make it high art nor does it make it any more important... Let's not get our own self importance confused with the things that amuse us.

A noise is a noise is a noise is a noise.

I asked the fiddle player what he did for a day job. He told me he played on the backing tracks for something called the X factor.... HA! The air was suddenly filled with the sound of a hundred barrels being scraped (albeit with virgin Pomeranian stallion hair bows)... He also went on to cite LLoyd Webber as an exponent of Classical Music.

High Art my arse.

What is called 'Classical Music' is in fact the noise made to drown out the sounds of a society in decay; lying around on metaphorical chaise-longues eating third world grapes and buggering small boys.

Give me a steel band any day and save me from being surrounded by the braying whordes of social and cultural mountaineers.

Whordes by the way is intentional... the people who would sell their children's souls for the price of a ticket to see the LSO perform the Telly Tubbies theme.