Practical MIDI

It’s funny how a person perceives fame throughout their lifetime. When I started in the music business in the mid 60s I thought fame was the be-all-to-end-all. I wanted fame more than I wanted money. I wanted my name to be a household word. I wanted people to know me on sight and to whisper as I passed them on the street, not sure if they dare ask for an autograph.

These days I’ll take the money any day over the fame. From what I see in the media, the famous are mercilessly hounded by the press and the public, not to mention their agents, managers, record and movie companies and family members they never knew they had. Suddenly everyone wants to be their close, personal friend. I couldn’t live like that.

The whole fame thing got me to thinking in relative terms. Since this is a music site, let’s use the recording industry as an example. There are several ways that fame is relative. First of all there’s the area factor. Let’s say you got your band together and you’ve been blanketing your county for two years and everyone in your hometown knows the band and its members by sight. In your own little circle of friends your name may very well be a household word. You may get special treatment in public.

So now your band gets too big for their britches and decides to expand your reach and let the rest of the state see what they’ve been missing these last two years. As part of your Midwest tour, you and your entourage pull into Bumblebug, Iowa for a job your agent booked at the town hall. Your truck and van pull into the parking lot and you see posters of your band plastered on the side of the building and on several phone poles. You think you have finally arrived at fame’s door. Back home you’d have to create a diversion just to get into the hall. Here, what few bystanders there are mistake you for the roadies. So much for your inflated egos.

Another relative area of fame is time itself. You may have been hot snot when your 45 hit the airwaves in the summer of 1967. Thirty-five years later you find that you are now the opening act for a new band of teenagers, none of whom have ever heard of you. The crowd outside is here to see their heroes, The Flaming Herd of Seagulls. And you only got that gig because the sound techs needed a Guinea pig to check the system first. Maybe you could get a job as their roadie. Try stopping a hundred teens on the street and ask them how many members there were in The Dave Clark Five. Most of them will answer, “who?” Ask a hundred baby boomers and 99 of them will say “five?” The last one will be a leftover hippie who won’t even know his own last name, let alone information about The Beatles’ rivals.

Different styles of music can be a fame barrier even within the same area and time frame. While there are many people who can fill in details about Paul McCartney’s birthday or when Bob Dylan had his motorcycle accident, there are just as many who can rattle on ad infinitum about Dick Rogers and Frankie Yankovic’s best polka albums. Neither group could intelligently discuss the others’ music. While there may be people who can tell about every song in the Broadway musical, “Cats,” those same people wouldn’t have a clue about Ricky Martin’s latest album (pardon me, CD)

Lastly, you can be contemporarily famous and adored by millions, but if someone doesn’t listen to your music or watch your videos, you may as well be a high school janitor. For example, ‘n Sync is a popular group these days. On the other hand, I wouldn’t know any of them if they walked up to me on the street and bit my nose off. I’d make it a point to remember them at the trial, though. Any of those band members could sit next to me at the lunch counter looking just the way they do when they perform on stage and they’d be able to finish their meal unmolested. However, Ringo Starr could shave his head, wear a false beard and dark glasses, slip a gold cap on his front tooth and walk with a limp and I could pick him out of a crowd of fifty others dressed the same way.

I’m starting to understand now why, when I scour the web looking for a particular midi song from my Wonder Years, that all I find are seven hundred versions of Britney Spears and maybe one crappy version of Kenny O’Dell’s “Beautiful People.”

See, you’re already scratching your head saying, “who?”

©2005 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications