Review: THE TROUBLE WITH MUSIC – MAT CALLAHAN

THE TROUBLE WITH MUSIC
MAT CALLAHAN

AK Press
Street: 02.01.05

Who better than a seasoned musician to give us a leftist critique of the corrupt corporate music industry? As a rallying cry to independent musicians and freethinkers everywhere, Mat Callahan, guitarist for world-beat combo The Looters, felt it due time for such a diatribe and rose to the call. This is something I think all who are interested in music should seek out. In fact, I feel that it’s more important for those only remotely interested in music to hear what Callahan has to say in order to be exposed to the seedy underbelly that is the business side of the music industry. Not only that, but it can act as a starting point to find out if what you’re buying is truly honest music, or if it’s soulless money-making fodder with which rich music industry fat-cats expand their wallets. In The Trouble With Music, the reader is urged to turn off their radios and seek out genuine, interesting music by other means (no, not MTV2). Herein we are also alerted to the subject of “anti-music” (you know, that jive-ass shit you hear when walking through the mall) which, for one thing, is determined to replace quality with celebrity. As Callahan heartily expresses, it is not the production of music that makes the music business run. It is the production of stars and hits that is done by massive and increasingly costly promotion. This book will change the way you think about music forever. The world needs more thinkers like Mat Callahan. –Jared Soper