Fireworks

Last night, while Kelly and I were hanging out at my house, I started to hear loud booms - a lot of them. My first thought was somewhere between fireworks and gun fight. Afterall, I do live above Reading, which isn't always a friendly place. And what the heck is there to celebrate on a Wednesday night in June? Usually if you're going to set off fireworks near a populate area, you need the cover of a holiday like the 4th of July, where everybody's doing it.

Regardless of what it was, I was intrigued. I started to pay attention more and decided that it was fireworks. Had it been a gun fight, by the sounds of it, they would have taken the whole city.

But where were the fireworks coming from? I'm kind of a pyro - I've played with tons of fireworks, built some stuff, etc. Not so much in the 'let's blow up this building' kinda way, but more along the lines of 'let's see how close to us we can get the mortors to blow up'. So small home arsenals of fireworks intrigue me.

Kelly and I decided to investigate. If these people blew up things on a weeknight in June for no reason, I wanted to be their friend.

So we get outside and hear the rest of the story. And I'm wondering who even has access to stuff this big?! These aren't just any fireworks - these are the kinds that they set off at professional displays for things like the 4th of July and at sporting events  ...like baseball. Lame.

The idea of discovering some underground hush-hush supply of pyros with their explosives is way more interesting than a generic display put on at a baseball game.

And that's the difference between the indie/unsigned and the major lables.

Major lables are all about money. They take an explosive act and pile on the mainstream expectations and use them for show. It's no longer about the music, just the glam and fortune. Everyone who's not seeking that can focus on the music and the fan experience.

Fireworks are so much about the experience. The mainstream is thinking how cool it is to see something explode from 150 yards away. They're blinded by the idea that that's what fireworks are. But they're wrong.

I've seen mortors explode from 10 feet away. Arguably poor decisions, but decisions that gave a more true experience of what fireworks are. They're violent explosions, so a hint of fear seems apropriate? Understanding it allows you to play with fire and not regret it.

Big stadiums and pop radio are just a mask of what music can be. It's the difference between having seats 100 yards away in a stadium to see Nickelback or going to B-Sides and seeing Margot and the Nuclear So and So's play 10 feet away from you. Granted, I have not seen Nickelback, but everything about them sucks and embodies mainstream, so the picture is probably pretty accurate...