ROXTARZ:

Everything controversial about the rock star lifestyle has been the case since long before rock-and-roll. Mozart’s operas were DEEPLY controversial. Beethoven was a manic-depressive with an abusive childhood who nearly committed suicide when he started to go deaf but remained alive because he saw his musical career as a service to humanity. Bach was arrested for breeching his contract with the Church. Haydn was expelled from music school for cutting off a classmate’s ponytail, once he was too old to sing Soprano. Wagner was a proto-Fascist; Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring started a riot. It doesn’t get much tamer going back in time. Gesualdo had his wife and lover murdered, (and when I say “his wife and lover”, I am referring to TWO people,) Weelkes was a notorious drunk, luster and gambler, and Hildegard von Bingen was practically excommunicated from her Church, only to form her own female choral group IN THE MIDDLE AGES. If you are playing it safe, you are probably playing Salieri. And while I am certainly NOT equating debauchery with genius, I should remind you that genius tends to beget debauchery, so if we are to protect genius it must be from the Court of Public Opinion.

Dm.A.A.