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Fake Bluesers...
"Posers" really piss me off!!

This is my first article for Blues 101, so please forgive me for the occasional rant and rave run-on. No, never mind, I could really care less. If you don't like it, you could close your  browser. But then again, you're still reading - so either you're a glutton for punishment, or you want to know the real deal as i see it.

I'm going to address some things i have had the misfortune to personally witness in my short time involved in the n.e.p.a blues scene. Now i know I'm going to piss a lot of people off, but yanno where i come from we tell it like it is. The issue of the "posers". What is a poser, and do you qualify? You know who you are. A poser is a person or persons who try to make people believe they are who they aren't. A poser is somebody or somebodies who pretend to be what they are not. GET IT?!! Promoting the blues in n.e.pa. - everybody says they want to but do they really?

I have personally overheard a conversation between a member of a band (the band leader) and a person who belongs to a particular group, and heard the band guy say, and I quote "we play an eclectic selection of blues- based music and other odd stuff as well, because I don't think an audience can really tolerate a whole night of nothing but blues". WELL ****ING EXCUSE ME, BUDDY! . And you're a member of a blues society? You say you want to promote blues music in the area? Or do you say that at the meetings so that maybe you will get picked to play at the next festival? But when you are asked to play and donate your time, like everybody else trying to get this music out there, you say, " umm excuse me uhh? umm? maybe next year when you can pay me and my blues band." Well f**** ***!! 

I've seen your band, and you are by no means a blues band in my eyes. I've also seen other bands out there who bill themselves as a blues band and spend half the night playing classic rock s***. Not that classic rock itself is s***  - but if you call yourselves a blues band then BE A BLUES BAND  - not a poser. You know what? when my band is out there doing what we do, we do it all night long. That's blues all night long and whoever doesn't like it can leave. period!  If the club owner doesn't like it, he can not have us back again, although it does seem that blues bands who play real blues play a lot more gigs than you posers out there who play your pansy-assed, eclectic selection of pigeon puke calling it the blues, now doesn't it? hmm?? 

This is part of the reason we don't have a blues scene out here. Because everybody is scared to death of staying true to the music. Everybody is worried about the money and how much the job is paying, and "We should do Mustang Sally because everybody expects to hear it, and if we do it, we'll get the crowd going" I think that maybe if you put the effort into giving the people the blues, that some of you guys put into trying to trick people into listening to your group by playing a bunch of crap that has nothing whatsoever to do with the blues, you might just start promoting it like you said you were trying to do in the first place. hmmm?? A novel idea now isn't it? 

You know what it seems like to me? Seems like you're too old and maybe too fat and possibly too bald to play rock n roll. So you learn a couple of S.R.V licks and pride n joy and call yourself a blues band so's you can fit in somewhere and keep bangin' away in remembrance of what you once were. Go do it with someone else's music pal. DON'T DEGRADE MINE!! BLUES IS A LIFESTYLE BUDDY PAL. YOU DON'T CHOOSE IT, IT CHOOSES YOU. AND WHEN IT DOES, YOU HAD BETTER NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON IT AND WATER IT DOWN. YOU BETTER STAY TRUE OR THE BLUES WILL TURN AROUND AND BITE YOU ON THE BALLS AND SHOW YOU WHAT IT'S REALLY ALL ABOUT.

Now, there are about three or four blues bands out here in Northeast Pa. that do blues all night, and i respect them for what they do. But the rest of them??? hmmm?? This isn't a personal attack, rather a wake up call, people. A wake up call not to SELL OUT ANYMORE!! Its not that i dislike you or think I'm better than you are. That isn't the issue. The point is, do what you have chosen to do and play what you say you play, no matter who likes it or doesn't. Don't worry 'bout the club owner saying "don't you guys do any tom petty?". Don't worry 'bout nothing but the music. 

IF YOU CAN TURN ONE PERSON ON TO THE BLUES AT A GIG, AND HE OR SHE LEAVES WITH A SMILE, YOU DID SOMETHING. IT WAS WORTH IT!. SEE WHAT IM SAYING? IM SICK TO DEATH OF HEARING "YEAH, WE PLAY THE BLUES ,BUT WE PLAY A LOT OF CLASSIC ROCK TOO!! WILL YOU HIRE US?" 

And another thing...

NAHH, THAT'LL WAIT TIL THE NEXT ARTICLE, ASSUMING THIS ARTICLE GETS PRINTED. BUT IF IT DOESN'T, I'VE SAID MY PIECE AND GOT SOMETHING OFF MY CHEST.

Sincerely,
a real nepa blues musician and supporter of the blues in Northeast Pa.

 

In response  to  Fake Bluesers..."Posers" really piss me off!! submission to your web page.

I am writing to inform you that what you think are posers may not be at all.  There is indeed such a thing, but as a person who knows a few people involved in the local music scene I can't think of any.  I, as well as all of the musicians I know, am doing exactly the music I want to do.  I don't pretend to do something I don't.  I don't call myself a bluesman.  I call myself a musician.  I do love the blues and it has a thread through all of the music I play but to ignore the other music I love would be ridiculous.  The fact is we are all copying what others have done before us.  We add our own twist to it and make it our own.   So in reality are we are all posers?  Is Taj Mahal a poser because he performs other music besides the blues?  Was luther Allison?  Was Robert Johnson any less true to his music because he played the popular music of the day mixed in with his own material?  I don't think so.

I feel no need to justify the music I play.   I play it because it is what I like and when it is requested I do throw in a little Mustang Sally!  

Joe Kopicki
Guitar - Vocal   (Not a Bluesman) ...never said I was.
The Fat Cats Band

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