Your musician pet peeves

I'm a bit stumped on these. What's your beef against active pickups and guitars after 1990?

Neither have a soul.

It's mostly bileful prejudice.

I used to think active pickups on guitars (not bass guitars) were weird and tacky. Don't know why, perhaps the advertisements in Guitar Player magazine and the endorsing artists just weren't my cup of tea so I got bias against the technology ... really can't say. But I could care less now. They are just magnets dude. The soul comes from your hands.

I use to not really care between active/passive. I am now addimantly against passive. If it's a feature I can switch on and off, great. If it's only passive I wont buy it.

My Ibanez 305DX made this decision for me. It was my first active bass and the pickups allowed me to get so much richer and brighter tones than my other basses. It's enough to make me not buy a bass.

I really want a Warick $$ because of all the licensed features (the 3D bridge, the Adjust-a-nut, etc) but only the high end German made ones use Active Electronics and pups. I don't want to spend thousands on an instrument unless I am well familiar with the feel of the company's product and feel. I've not ever played a Warwick before so it's a RockBass or bust.

I tend to agree with the instruments made after the 90's. I also prefer the older woods, better materials, and hand made qualities of the older stuff. Once a product because a factory squirting out clone after clone with machines, the quality drops. 80's Ibanez guitars are sought after, 90's+ are not.

I used to think active pickups on guitars (not bass guitars) were weird and tacky. Don't know why, perhaps the advertisements in Guitar Player magazine and the endorsing artists just weren't my cup of tea so I got bias against the technology ... really can't say. But I could care less now. They are just magnets dude. The soul comes from your hands.

Well, that's not my case. I can say. They're too hot, the signal comes out of the instrument already way too compressed. You can kill the dynamic range with a pedal if you want to, but you can't get it back. What comes from your hands gets invariably squished. The guitar becomes a one trick pony. The only active guitar I ever owned went back to the store after a week, it was driving me crazy. Of course that's just me. I'm not saying nobody else should use them. Different strokes. They do have the big plus of being absolutely silent, and they're very appropriate for some specific things. I even concede that there may be colder active pups out there that I may like, but that I just didn't happen to try out yet. Oh and active bass guitars are absolutely glorious. But pups are just magnets? Come on dude. They're magnets with very distinctive characteristics. A pickup makes or breaks an instrument.

Although I fully agree with that too, I meant modern designs. Tongue in cheek, like the rest of the post. And I'm with you on active bass pups, although nothing can replace a classic P in my book.

Fu&* that Taylor Momsen for me needing to revisit this thread.

1. Taylor Momsen

2. Radio stations that call themselves ROCK stations and sneak in Metal occasionally. They'll have a commercial spot for the station in between songs that's misleading.

"Other stations talk... DUN DUN DUDUN DUN (Metal riff), Weeeee ROOOOOOOCK... DUN DUN DUN DUN DUDUN DUN... Rock 12.4 FM..."

Then the next song they play is fuggin Nirvana Unplugged. WHAT?! There's a station here in Lubbock that plays Omerta - Lamb of God behind the DJ's while they talk. I requested they play some Lamb of God one night. "Oh, we can't play that." YOU JUST DID! Tease. Trying to sail on the a fan-base that really shouldn't be listening to your station in the first place.

1. Beat'em Up Metal

More like Beat'em off Rock. Bands that try to have the image of some natural disaster of humanity. They're so tough and violent. You can tell because they sing songs with growling and screaming verses that go on about how they will punch you in the face, shoot you with a gun, drink whiskey, and not like you very much. They're mascots are skeletons of animals, demons, and people they killed.... by punching them in the face or shot with a small caliber firearm?

I would love to see a band like Diecide, Cannibal Corpse, or Dying Fetus rush on stage and pound these new age tough guy bands onto the floor in front of their fans. Maybe break all their fingers so they can't bug us with their childish ideas of violence any further.

After a verse or two of growling and scream, the chorus kicks in with the singer trying to sing like a pop singer. Huh? That goes against the tough guy image doesn't it? The US Military LOVES these bands. Get's them pumped somehow. If I were going into a life or death situation and knew I needed inspiration to gut, gore, and defile other human beings, I'm going to listen to lyrics on digging up the miscarriaged first child of the enemy and force-feeding the dry, jerkied corpse to the parent... not punching a dude in the face.

know what's funny? is I have always been more a poppy kidna player and singer songwriter type, I went to art school and am pretty intellectual, but when I was younger I was way more likely to get in a bar brawl while loaded on cheap bourbon and Xanax then most bands with the aggressive, hells-angels-meet-Kerry-king image... I calmed down a lot in my mid-20s though. But you get my point... you just never know if Gordon Lightfoot will kick your ass between hour long sets of hippy BS, but you can be sure the band fulla biker-jacketed poseurs will back right down if you confront them at the bar after they make a snotty comment...

know what's funny? is I have always been more a poppy kidna player and singer songwriter type, I went to art school and am pretty intellectual, but when I was younger I was way more likely to get in a bar brawl while loaded on cheap bourbon and Xanax then most bands with the aggressive, hells-angels-meet-Kerry-king image... I calmed down a lot in my mid-20s though. But you get my point... you just never know if Gordon Lightfoot will kick your ass between hour long sets of hippy BS, but you can be sure the band fulla biker-jacketed poseurs will back right down if you confront them at the bar after they make a snotty comment...

I've seen ... we'll call them kitty cat's here, in all genres. I turned into a bully around middle school and got a good taste of who backs down and who doesn't. I didn't like going after nerdy kids or the ones with low self esteem. I wanted the high self esteem, confidant ones. Still do. Athletes, Marines, Frat guys. I love taking that confidence away and making them feel like losers in front of their women. There's only been 3 people that ever really rocked me real well. My friend Miguel after I called his cousin a wetback (Dude was a mountain with bird hips), an amateur boxer who got the drop on me while I was talking to her girlfriend, and a drug dealer in San Antonio. The drug dealer was a pretty scary guy. Like Tuco from Breaking Bad but more calm and no metal teeth.

Regardless of the actual fight or flight of the band members though, they are portraying themselves as violent, tough guys and treat their music as such. It just doesn't hold up to other genres. If we could personify the genres themselves, Beat'em up rock would be raped for days until it died of dehydration. The genre's fans drive me nuts as well. I've walked away from a lot of conversations because a guy at a show ends up saying, "I like hard metal. You know, Disturbed, Slipknot, Godsmack, Metallica". Ugghg. I walk away and don't look at them anymore. They are usually people who aren't musicians as well. Metal musicians tend to enjoy complex music. Dream Theater and such. Animals as Leaders and BTBAM are in a genre that is a bit effeminate for my taste, but they still have some cool pieces in their catalog. These bands go unknown by the Beat'em up rockers. If a censored radio station didn't play feed it to them while they were drinking cheap beer on their back porch, they won't know who it is.

the bands you referenced, wow, kids music... do adults listen to that stuff in Texas?

Who? Disturbed, Slipknot, Godsmack, and Metallica? Unfortunately yes. We will have about 60 stations in any city. 5 new age light Christian music, NPR if you're lucky, Foxnews channels, 40 Country stations, 2 modern rock stations, 1 classic rock station, and the rest are all Tejano and Pop/Hip Hop stuff. Radio is pointless here in Texas. San Antonio had a college station that twice a week at like 11:00pm would play 3 hours of Metal and it was good and varied. Everything from Maiden to Brain Drill.

Sounds a lot better than the radio station here. We have ONE classic rock station.

ONE

AND IT DOESN'T EVEN PLAY CLASSIC ROCK, IT PLAYS 70'S AND 80'S POP.

We have two classical stations, actually quite nice at times, and the rest is pop, hip-hop, and rap AKA Top 40 bullshit. We have an alternative rock station, but it's a damn lottery. Once a blue moon, they will play a good song. Like Coldplay. From their new album...

By the way, if you hear Fox, aren't you on AM? That's where all the political yammer is in my area.

In different areas of Texas, we'll have 1 FM Fox WOAI and like 3 or 4 on AM.

yes godsmack et al.... radio is pointless everywhere ever since stations corporatized and FM radio became formatted and controlled by regional program directors who don't really like music and just enjoy getting free gifts from major label radio pluggers (as if plugging albums still leads to sales, LOL)

When people don't know the name of the song they like singing so they just say half the chorus and hope the name is in there somewhere.

What's worse is when people hear the words wrong. "I've always liked that Metallica song, "Sand Patrol".

Totally agree for this. It makes me "meh" everytime people said something like "yeah I like Zeppelin's and she's buying a stairway to heaven"

Mine are:

When people said a singer/band great fan but couldn't named 5 songs that doesn't on their top list, or even worse couldn't named more than 10 songs overall

When people said they worship a band but don't know the member (I know a person who claimed beatle die hard fan but don't have any idea who is George Harrison)

When member of a band came late for a jam, or even worse, a rehearsal, or more even worse, a gig

When people say "doesn't matter if your guitar are $50 local brand with low quality or a $1000 with great quality, the matter are your technique" I'm agree if technique is the most important, but c'mon good guitar could produce more good sound, right?

When people called a bunch of boys/girls or a boy/girl with goodlooking face and almost zero talent a legend

Kanye west. I hate him. So much.

Anyone who knows absolutely nothing of how a guitar functions will give me this crap. Hell, my dad who loves classic rock and metal and worked at a Roland factory AND did sound tests and such doesn't understand the difference. However, he knows now.

As for Kanye, his ego may be disgustingly large, but no one can deny hos talent. It's pretty much a Bieber Effect. Pretty good at making music, but an ass when he's not on stage.

I have a pet peeve for sound engineers. We have one who, unfortunately, can be very lazy, or normal. On his lazy days, my acoustic is so low that I can't even hear it in the ear monitors with the volume maxed out. He actually used to just outright mute me, and I'd just stand there on stage pretending I'm actually contributing.

I was going to come out and say its all about technique, but while the average affordable student guitar is hella cheap and hella decent now, those starter guitars, even fender's affinity and bullet squire strats are just not as useable as the MIJ squire I had in the early 90s (which was a popular 1st guitar when I was learning, priced about the same as a modern Chinese squire bullet strat or vintage vibe). I can still make a 2 or 3 hundred dollar student axe sound pretty damned good off the shelf at GC or sam ash if I am so inclined though. By the same token I have known some podiatrists who make their vintage and custom shop and vintage axes sound like trash because they spent more time studying corns and calluses in med school than they did learning the guitar. Then again, they are better off than me financially and can afford the fancy stuff whether they can play it or not, so who is the wiser?

anyway, the assertion that a cheap guitar is fine will offend you guys less as your collection grows and you realize some of your low end axes are just as fun to play as your fancy gibsons.

Kanye West claimed David Bowie was influence on him. I laughed so hard I nearly chucked milk on the TV

nah, I get it.... Bowie influenced everybody, even if its just in the sense that an artist says, "ugh, I hate Fame and I am never going to turn my back on rock fordisco masquerading as white funk!!!" LOL

Look at Lady Gaga. She's super Bowie influenced in presentation with some Madonna thrown in too...

Kanye West claimed David Bowie was influence on him. I laughed so hard I nearly chucked milk on the TV

http://i.imgur.com/NVCNrAu.jpg