"I love music. I will be playing music until I'm dead," says Tim Logan (The Bassterds) when asked why he plays in a band. Making music for the love and fun of it is the easy part.

An interview survey was sent to musician members of SonicAwareness asking them why they play music and what it takes to make and keep a successful band. Logan's response was typical of all band members that responded. But it was not the only answer. Jeff Carter (Scream From The Sun) feels, "an inborn need to express something about life." And for what may be the best reason of all, as Brian Longway (Longway) says, "there's something about playing music that takes away the problems of the world," because, "music is the score of life," states Mr. Kuku (Mr. KUKU) in his philosophy.

Is money and fame also a reason for making music? Of course it is, and some musicians are in it for the money. Dreaming of being the next megastar is not what keeps every musician going. "Fame and money would be great but if that's why you play then chances are you will be very disappointed," states Chris Gillespie (Zeroscape). Francesco of Malfunktion believes that, "most of the superstars out there are fake," and as a result believes that, "Knowing you're not a star helps. You play for the love of the music,"

Sooner or later every band member discovers that playing for the love of playing and dreaming of stardom are not required elements for creating and maintaining a successful band. Everyone who answered the interview questions agreed - In one form or another- that the success of the band itself derived from the compatibility of the band members. This doesn’t mean the band members have to be married or feel like a family - although some do or are - but rather, compatibility must be prevalent. This includes believing in the project, being committed to making things work, and a willingness to be open and honest with each other. A band that cannot play together will not stay together. Success will only come from hard work and commitment to the band.

Hard work doesn't always mean knowing your part; however, it can also take the form of booking gigs, managing band related affairs, and even hauling the gear. If the band has any CD's then sales and promotion also come into play. None of the bands who responded to the questions had a professional manager. One band even asked for a referral. One very important point was made by one band; when a sound man is involved never ever make him angry because he can make you sound really bad with the flip of one little switch.

For many musicians making music is not a full time gig, but everyone agreed being able to play music full time is the desired goal. "Success shouldn't be confused with superstardom," says Scott Cooper (Scott Cooper).

What makes a band is a love of the music and the drive to spread it around the world. After all, as Rob Marine (Joyslam) says, 'Music is EVERYTHING!"

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While perusing the Globe one morning, that bastion of counter-culture rhetoric, I came upon a favourite weekly column, ‘Your Time is Up’. The piece regularly proclaims the death of the tired and irrelevant (Michael Jackson being an obvious example), but quite surprisingly, this week it was mainstream Pop that was being put out to pasture. Noting dwindling sales (Britney’s new album sold a mere 240,000 copies in the first week) and the resurgence of edgier, ‘rock-ier’ music, the article suggested that the heyday of bubblegum Pop was over.

What caught my eye though, was the end of the piece that suggested the same kids who were buying Britney and N’Sync just a couple of years ago had grown up and now spent their parents’ hard-earned money on records by Tool and The Strokes – in effect arguing that the shift from bubblegum Pop to the rock-revival was not a question of rebellion, cultural trend or post 9/11 unease, but simply one of demographics.

It seems logical enough on the surface. Entering their late teens, looking to define themselves against the mainstream, kids were moving away from the safety and uniformity of Pop to that which signified intelligence and maturity. But what exactly did they mean by ‘grown up? Why does one have to grow up to reject mainstream Pop? And perhaps most importantly, why must one reject Pop at all?

There is, I think, the standard intellectual reaction to this: that pop is crap; that it is product, marketed, with no sense of artistry or intellectual challenge. Thus, when you grow up - and hence become smarter - you move on to better things. There are, no doubt, elements of truth to this. Much of Pop (Britney, Christina et al) seems derivative and shallow, solely concerned with the bobbing head as a sign of musical appreciation.

But the view that all Pop is junk is also implicitly condescending, positing that the general public just doesn’t know any better. However, worse than mere elitism, there is a dangerous misanthropy to the suggestion that the music of today’s youth – or busy working parents for that matter – is crap, propagating a sense that populist music is stupid art for stupid people. To wit - claims of Pop’s rightful death are simply thinly veiled manifestations of classism. Those with the time, education and inclination to appreciate music, should. Those who ‘cannot’ – well, who cares about them?

Is that where we must leave it then, for fear of slipping all-too-easily into a Victorian view of ‘the masses’? Is the only response to the rampant elitism of those ‘in-the-know’ an all-out acceptance of bubblegum Pop as an unchangeable reality of our culture? No, I don’t think so. Even though I do indulge in Pop sometimes, and as hesitant as I am to speak of Pop in terms of that which is ‘better’, to abandon all sense of intellectual challenge and difficulty in art is as dangerous as claiming that Pop is mere nonsense. For those inclined, a diet consisting of only Pop eventually becomes stilted, boring and suffocating. I still listen to it – when there’s nothing else on in the car, when I just need something light and happy or when I’m too tired to think and just don’t want to.

But away from the comfortable sameness of the suburbs, academically engaged in the politics and ideas of the day – and thanks to my roommate’s extensive collection – I have been reintroduced to the flip-side of our maddeningly complex, alienating society: music that draws from the madness and produces tenuous, complex, subtle moments of beauty. There’s something different about modern anti-Pop staples like The Strokes, The Beta Band or Mos Def, ubiquitous classics like Hendrix or Coltrane, or clever Indie acts like Chore or Belle & Sebastian. Music that doesn’t reveal itself on the first listen, songs that stick with you for decades yet alone years, are forms of art that transcend the grind of the day-to-day and speak to something else. Yes, life is hard. But life without music that expresses the unease, bitterness and complexity of our society is harder still.

It isn’t that sophisticated music is necessarily and unequivocally better; that intellectual responses exists on a higher plane than their emotional counterparts or even that they are separate things. It’s just that, when the time is right, you feel your brain being sharpened and enlivened by its complexities. As you sit late on a weekday night and listen to Cibo Matto cavort through an array of New York influence or find yourself delirious and lost in the subtleties of Susheela Raman, it just hits you. You are left with the shocking realisation that defies all sense of political correctness, egalitarianism, populism or aesthetic subjectivity: there’s just more to this.

I return to my original question: why reject Pop at all? As with, well, everything, there is no definite answer. But there is this. As you will no doubt remember, a couple summers back, Survivor was all the rage. At the office where I worked, people could seemingly talk of little else when gathered round the proverbial water-cooler. I, usually loathe to miss out on pop-culture fads, chose to never watch. Incessantly, I was interrogated by my co-workers: “Why don’t you watch? It’s just harmless fun.” Yeah, I conceded, it is just harmless fun. But Pop, be it on TV or the radio, can only remain harmless for so long. Like a diet of junk food, Pop satisfies certain urges within you but leaves different parts of you empty. Not better parts, simply different ones. Sometimes, you need to make a small, personal stand, temporarily disconnect yourself from the rushing stream and withdraw. If you want to hold on to that dying sense of individuality within you – those last desperate shards that make you pore over every note on Aenima or reflect endlessly on the lines “Things they have changed / In such a permanent way” – well, for a short while anyway, you just have to turn it off.

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EDITIOIN OF THE SONICAWARENESS EZINE. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS ISSUE ON TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY...OR FOR THAT MATTER, ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO LIKES MUSIC!

The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of SonicAwareness.com