Soapbox

I remember an old bass-playing friend of mine saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "If it wasn't worth boo then, then why's it worth a house now?" He was referring to vintage instruments in "mint" conditiion and the high prices they demand now. His belief was (and I have to agree with him) that if an instrument is in "mint" condition, it probably wasn't played alot. And why wasn't it played alot? It probably wasn't that good to begin with. So why do instruments that weren't worth your sweat when they were first issued, fetch such high prices now?

I have since adapted Wayne's theory to alot of music I hear. I was listening to Pandora the other day and they played me some American garage band (who shall, in order not offend any readers, remain anonymous in this article) from the mid 60's that apparently "recorded two singles and had little success outside of their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa" And after listening to this group, I understood why. There was nothing that unique about their sound, nothing that seperated them from the scores of other Stones-Yardbirds imitators founded in parents' garages across America. However, in recent years, this little known band has gained acclaim from record collectors as purveyors of punk and garage rock. My question is, why?? Why has this group with no discenible qualities garnered enough acclaim to require me to click the "dislike" button on Pandora??

The only explanation I can come up with is that its considered "vintage". It almost seems like everyone is searching for the next "lost to time" artist or band. Alot of these groups however do not strike me as "lost to time" but rather "lost to any quality"
Of course I definitely believe there were plenty of vastly underated bands and artists from the "vintage" era (Billy Nicholls, Moby Grape, Big Star and Roy Buchanan to name a very few). But these forgotten artists do not justify giving credit to those who don't deserve it.

But what do I know.