Kirk Hiner's

"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

The Spirit of Rock and Roll

By Kirk Hiner

In early April, my brother Matt and I drove down to the Flats in Cleveland, Ohio to see Stan Ridgway at Peabody's Down Under. Surely you all know Stan, the gentleman who graced us with songs such as "Drive, She Said," "I Wanna Be A Boss" and "Luther Played Guitar."

Exactly. Apparently not even Ticketmaster know who Stan is, as they spelled his name improperly in their online ticketing system. They also got the start time wrong, but then what do you expect from Ticketmaster? When is the DOJ going to come in and break up their little monopoly?

Anyway, when I told my fiancee I was going to see Stan, she asked condescendingly, "With who?" You see, a few days before I learned about Stan's Cleveland show, Tieraney agreed to accompany her sister down to Cincinnati in July to see N'Sync. Now in her defense, she was wary of my announcing that here for fear that my friends would read it and make fun of her. To her credit, she's not so much a fan of N'Sync as she is of that J.C. guy, who as far as I can tell is the only member of N'Sync who didn't get his butt kicked up and down the halls of his high school for being such a Brownie.

No offense to the Brownies, of course. As an organization dedicated to molding confident, intelligent women, they're much more successful at what they do than N'Sync are at making decent music.

No offense to N'Sync, of course. As a band dedicated to getting rich off the parents of pre-pubescent girls, they're much more successful at what they do than are the Back Street Boys.

Offense to the Back Street Boys intended.

So anyway, Tieraney is mainly going to the show to keep her sister company and because she's never seen a show of that scale. Which brings me to my point.

People have asked how many attended the Stan Ridgway concert, and they laugh when I report about 100. Why? Are those funny numbers? Lets put them in another context;

Q: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
A: 100.

Nope, not so funny, and maybe fairly accurate. How about this?

Q: How many Ticketmaster employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 100.

Well, kind of funny, and maybe fairly accurate.

I guess there was a time when I was like these people, when I felt that the larger the show, the greater the spectacle, the more fulfilling the event. But not so much anymore. You see, Tieraney and her sister are paying $50 each before the Ticketmasterofyoursoul surchargers to sit seventy-five yards away from their beloved Kids, Inc. I was able to forgo Ticketmaster and buy tickets for $10 bucks from the bass player of the opening act for a show where I could stand two feet from the stage. Stan went on at 10:20 p.m. and stayed on until 12:40 a.m. If N'Sync is on stage for even two hours I'll say, "Bye, Bye, Bye," to my Stan CDs forever.

What's the point to all of this? It's that sometimes it's better to be a fan of the guy whose name Ticketmaster can't spell. It's that sometimes it pays to cheer for the underdog. It's that sometimes you know you're right when you're working on a Macintosh.

We all know that the days of the "Apple's doomed" reports are over. Fall of an icon? I think quite a few editors for quite a few magazines and newspapers still have the distinct taste of hat in their mouth. Apple has once again proven itself as a company, and Mac users have once again proven their loyalty. Apple stock is up, Microsoft stock is down, and Apple has yet again redefined industrial design. Portable CD players, telephones, beepers...heck, I won't be surprised the day I walk into Target and see translucent blue toasters sitting on the shelves. So my only question is...where does it stop?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want Apple to stop making money. I'm not saying that Mac market share can't rise higher. But what'll we do when we're forced to see Apple at football stadiums instead of night clubs? What'll happen when Apple starts cutting an hour off their show because, hey, they sold 70,000 tickets. They can afford to lose a few fans who feel gypped. And don't think they wouldn't. We've seen the decisions Apple makes when they start to feel confident.

I doubt I'm alone when I say that I like rooting for the underdog. I like feeling superior because I'm one of the few who knows what's the better product. I enjoy the expressions I see on the face of those I tell about the Stan Ridgway, Shonen Knife and They Might Be Giants shows I attend, just as I enjoy unnecessarily pointing out that I use a Macintosh.

That's not to say I only support that which is unpopular. Within the past couple years I've seen Collective Soul, Matchbox 20 and Alanis Morisette as well. But where's the fun in telling people that? It's like going to a plumbing convention and claiming, "Hey, everyone, look at me, I'm a plumber!"

Ho hum.

When I bought my first Macintosh, I unwittingly joined a young band of rebels who would forever become a thorn in the side of PC weenies everywhere; never strong enough to send them screaming for the shelter of the barricade, but never weak enough for them to comfortably lower their rifles. We win some battles, we lose some battles, but at night we rest well knowing that we're right.

And we are right. We're right because Apple continues to innovate. Because they continue to shake up both the technology and industrial design industries and prove the nay-sayers wrong. Quickly, count the number of times in the past two years alone we've been able to proudly and annoyingly taunt, "I told you so!"

But shhhh. Maybe we shouldn't be quite so vocal about Apple's string of successes. Indeed, many journalists waste a lot of paper criticizing Apple's inability to toot their own horn. Apple tends to be more subtle; quiet stills of innovators thinking different and computers gently spinning on blank white backgrounds as opposed to aliens in Jiffy-Pop bags dancing around the set of the Matrix or cameras zipping in and out of the offices of small business actors...I mean owners...who couldn't make a sale until they got their hands on Microsoft Access.

Perhaps Apple does this for a reason. Is it possible they realize that as long as they're not number one they'll never acquire the woeful and embarrassing overconfidence of, oh, say Steve Ballamer? Real innovation happens down in the trenches, and it's when they're firmly dug in there that Apple creates their best products.

If I may once more return to rock and roll, take a look at the bands that play stadium dates. Are N'Sync carrying rock music into the next century? Is Britney Spears? Have KISS or even the Rolling Stones wowed us with anything in the last fifteen years? No. To find the music that matters, you have to dig much deeper than MTV is willing to go. You have to drive far, far past the Rock and Roll Hall of Lame to return to the bars, the nightclubs and garages. Don't believe me? Ask David Bowie.

The same goes for the computer industry. You can't find innovation in offices on Wall Street. You can't find it on laps in jets skipping across the planet. You can't even find it in Silicon Valley. Where you can find innovation is behind smoked-out windows of buildings in Soho, or in the basements of teenagers around the world.

You can find it in the garage.

Apple seems to understand this--as much as a major corporation can, anyway. Rather than drone the same old hits for the screaming thousands at Gund Arena, they continuously amaze their fans something new at Peabody's Down Under. Would I still use the Mac if Apple were playing to stadium crowds? Of course I would, just as I'd keep listening to Stan Ridgway if he were to duet with Rob Thomas and suddenly get twenty-eight Grammy Awards and a weekend dedicated to him on VH1. But do you know what? It wouldn't be nearly as satisfying.

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Friday, 10-Feb-2012 10:39:05 EST