Okay, I'm old now.
In some ways I have always been rather old.
In college I did listen to the popular folk music, but when my friends were also doing the Grateful Dead, I was playing old 78 records, listening to Al Jolson sing "Red, Red, Robin" and Dean Martin sing, "Walkin. my Baby Back Home" and singing them in the car later. I still know the words.
For a while in my days of focused video poker play there were places I found in Vegas that relaxed me to rat pack era sounds. Fiesta Rancho was one. They would play Sinatra, but not just "I Did It My Way;" they included songs that were obscure and yet wonderful along with other soft popular jazz and other music of that era.
I played a bit of video poker this past trip. I hardly recognized a background musical number. The music was all modern, fairly full of rock with complex indecipherable lyrics delivered in sort of a modern whine, which seems to be the tone of a good deal of the more modern music I hear as background in supermarkets as well.
And there is nothing the matter with that. If most of the players, and probably all the high rollers, around me are young enough to be my children or grandchildren, I suppose the music of choice in the casino background has to meet their needs.
Still, I can't help thinking that there are plenty of folks out there who would be attracted to some casino that backed up the slot play with the kind of music that is played on Radio Delux
Not all of the performers are that old. Just the style of music.
And isn't Vegas the place where folks just cream over Rat Pack lookalikes in concerts that compete with each other as to which is the most authentic?
Or go nuts over Motown with Human Nature.
Surely the folks who support these shows would support the music as background to slot play as well.
Recently across the street from the El Cortez an interesting Coffee House and Record store opened where they attract business with fee wifi and a turntable playing, "high fidelity in stereo."
So there must be folks who are attracted to older styles of music.
Probably the most intrusive musical experience we had this trip was experienced in eating at Hash-A-Go-Go and KGB (invert a letter) and finding that we could not talk above the intrusive , hard, whiney music. At the second place I smartened up and brought ear plugs so I could eat my hamburger in comfort.
Well, I hear myself in a bit of a funky rant like most old guys. A new generation cannot really define a musical identity if the older generation might enjoy their music. I remember my grandmother cringing when Elvis swiveled his hips on Ed Sullivan, the first time any of us had seen him or his wild audiences on television.
My mother was more tolerant and reminded my grandmother of how the girls would scream and swoon for Sinatra.
So I get it.
I just don't like it.
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