Cringe alert: this forty-year-old musician is still finding his voice artistically. Aaliyah, Cliff Burton, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, Robert Johnson, Biggie, Jeff Buckley, John Bonham, and Kurt Cobain were all under forty when they died. It’s too late to become a real musician, so why hasn’t this fella pawned his Big Muff and lost everything on crypto like all the other elder Millennials?
We want him to be happy but also to turn his jam space into a workout room and start wearing quarter-zip sweaters and khakis already. Seriously, he’s been doing this for decades yet still has no discernable playing style or voice. The world doesn’t want or need a new “Trout Mask Replica” made by a guy that huffs glue and worships Megadeth. Put the guitar down and pick up your kids.
If this guy doesn’t get his shit together, these reverb-laden, delay-heavy noise recordings will be the only thing he leaves behind when he dies of old age in ten or eleven years. Besides, how do you not know what sounds your instrument makes already? Does anyone over thirty ever find the right combination of musical notes to authentically represent who they are as a person? Doubt it. That’s only possible in your early twenties.
I get that being an adult is harder than ever with inflation, rising childcare costs, and 16-year-old guitarists on Instagram getting tens of thousands more likes than you, but stop it already. No one suffers for their art anymore, especially if they’re old.
Aging gracefully means accepting your limitations and never trying to rediscover DADGAD. Put your telecaster in a standard tuning, play some palm mutes, and just enjoy your golden years.