exploremusic

The biggest news this week has been the possibility that Steven Tyler will leave Aerosmith. I’m taking this opportunity to say that I’m over it (if I was ever even under it). There’s been some conflicting info coming from the band members, which I understand has a lot to do with Tyler not communicating with the rest of the band, but the relevant facts seem to be that they’re meeting sometime to discuss their future and we probably won’t get more facts until after that happens…okay, I’m done about that. Thank you for listening.

It just occured to me, one rumour is that Tyler is working on a solo album. I wonder what that would consist of. Lots of harmonica solos, I hope. Alright, seriously, I’m done talking about Aerosmith now.

So, last Thursday (November 7th) at Morrissey’s show in Liverpool, someone continued the tradition handed down from moron to moron by throwing a glass at the musician. What did Morrissey do to provoke this guy (I’m just assuming it’s a guy)? He performed two songs to start the set, as presumably was always the plan, and then he started shaking hands with members of the audience.

Let’s try to imagine the non-thought process that leads to incidents like this one.

1. Buy tickets to attend a concert of an artist you like. Ticket prices aren’t cheap, but the experience and the tradition of live music is worth the money.

2. See the performer you came to see when he/she walks onstage.

3. Wait a bit. Enjoy the show! You and everyone else in attendance paid good money to go and the performer performing is why you’re there.

4. Throw something at the performer. You’ll get a reaction!

I think one fact that eludes morons who do this is that the reaction is exactly what you’d expect it to be. How would you react if someone threw something at you while you were doing your job? There’s no benefit to throwing stuff at musicians and I bet no one would do it if they had to confront the musician afterwards. It’s not cool. Don’t do it.

I remember hearing years ago about Les Claypool getting hit with a plastic bottle at a Primus show, and I think his alleged response is classic (I might be paraphrasing): "I don’t go to McDonald’s and throw s**t at you."

If you’ve ever thrown something at a musician onstage (in public is different), confess it here and now. I’ll lighten your sentence if you can help me understand why you did it.

For this next story, we take a break from my anger and we turn to the overlapping worlds of Egyptology and R&B/pop. This report from JAM! has to be the most random thing…you see, Beyoncé apparently went on a tour of the Giza pyramids near Cairo and her tour guide was none other than revered historian Zahi Hawass, who claims to be the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character. Reportedly, Hawass later said the following in anger to a journalist regarding Beyoncé: "She’s a stupid person and she doesn’t understand a thing and she doesn’t want to understand… She’s coming here to take pictures and that’s it."

I don’t agree or disagree with that alleged statement, but I do wonder what made revered historian Zahi Hawass think that Beyoncé had a deep interest in learning about Egyptology. Wouldn’t that be like Beyoncé assuming that revered historian Zahi Hawass lived and breathed Beyoncé’s music if she found out he wanted to go to her concert? Why am I even thinking about this? Thanks, JAM!