Amanda Mc Boom Boom again?

After reading yesterday's post about the art of the demo, my friend Jim McCullough of Cello reminded me that the third side of the demo coin was the endless playing of the same Audiophile pap to demo equipment at shows. I can remember thinking if I hear Amanda McBroom one more time I am going to kill myself. Indeed, as an industry we must be mindful of new music and demonstrating not just the tired old standards but get exciting and new and innovative with some of the great work out there. Jim sent me this pleasant note I would like to share with you. "There are current bands, The Black Keys, Jack White, Wilco, Radiohead, The Shins, The Decemberists, Broken Bells, Minus the Bear, Nada Surf, Kings of Leon, Broken Social Scene, and on and on, who are making important music today, and are concerned about the way their recordings sound. As long as we (as in the industry in general) keep playing Holly Cole (not to denigrate, I could have just as easily said Patricia Barber, or Ana Caram, or whomever), Aqualung (Rumours, or whatever from the 70s) and Le Mer (which I saw The NY Phil play two weeks ago at Avery Fisher; what a good band, what a bad hall), we will not be taking advantage of what iTunes, and free music everywhere all the time, have provided us with: more people listening to more music which, if they knew how good it sounded, because the artists and their record companies have allowed their recordings to sound so, some number of them would be interested in listening to those recordings in their home at a higher degree of fidelity. It was The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Bowie, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Steely Dan, and yes, Jethro Tull and Fleetwood Mac, among many others, who made the important music of that time with some consideration regarding the sound. And the music of that era, I think, has driven the entirety of the growth of high end audio. If we want it to grow more quickly, finding the way to associate it more with the current music that would show its advantages, would be a help."