Weasels ripped my flesh

Perhaps the best thing about the major-label meltdown is that you seldom hear people talking about how such-and-such local musician or band got signed anymore.

One doesn’t have to remember too far back to when local acts were courted and sometimes snapped up by those particular expense account-empowered major-label A&R employees that some of us used to call weasels. It was a heady time. Nevertheless, all that weasel attention did alter the tilt on the playing field. And because so many musicians naturally covet the brass ring, some were willing to tailor their art, or craft, to appeal to musteline tastes, thus bestowing upon us a legacy of stinky, forgettable music.

Then, the train jumped the track. The bottom fell out of the market. Record stores, even whole chains like Tower, closed. The concept of major-label artist development largely shifted to Mouseketeers and Simon Cowell-approved narcissistic head cases performing karaoke. The sign the pooch was completely screwed came when Paris Hilton got signed by Warner Bros., the erstwhile Cadillac of record labels.

If you’d care to watch the nadir—so far—do a search on YouTube for Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas performing the Paul McCartney song “Live and Let Die” on the CBS special Movie Rocks, which aired on Pearl Harbor Day. It’s the kind of odious star turn that compels a viewer to consider guzzling a tumbler of Liquid Drano before unscrewing a burning-hot light bulb and urinating into its vacated socket. At least, that’s what this horribly overblown perversion of a hardly sacrosanct Las Vegas show-business aesthetic did for me.

But I digress. The upside to a major-label collapse is a rebirth of music at the local level, music made by people who’d rather follow their own muses. Some musicians still try to make that perfect pop record, or at least what passes for a perfect pop record in their heads; at least what they’re coming up with isn’t getting passed though any weasel filters. Others embrace more experimental music forms.

OK, so here’s a few pages from the calendar of one of the latter, Ross Hammond: Thursday, December 13, the Home Haircut Series at CoolCat Gallery, 918 24th Street: At 8:30 p.m., Hammond on guitar and lap steel, Sameer Gupta on drums, followed at 9:30 by Deaf Dog: saxophonist Jaroba with multi-instrumentalist and inventive found-object luthier Keith Cary. Admission for the all-ages show is $7-$10.

Friday, Hammond appears with Teakyo Mission, which also includes Liza Mezzacappa, Tom Monson, Randy McKean and Joaquin McPeek at Old Ironsides. That bill also features Kai Kln offshoot the Ricky & Del Connection, along with the Tony Passarell 4tet, which includes Monson, Brian Clark and Dax Compise.

Saturday, Hammond will appear at Fifth String Music, 930 Alhambra Boulevard, at a benefit for Loaves & Fishes, with Mike Kelly, he’ll be accompanying singer Kate Gaffney. The lineup also includes John Green and Greg Townshend, Julie Meyers, Sherman Baker, Marti Jean with Byron Blackburn, Pushtonawanda (Ian McGlone and Alex Bohl), and more. The all-ages show starts at 7 p.m.; a donation of $10 will get you in, and other items—the kind of things people living on the streets can use this winter—are encouraged. See www.myspace.com/rosshammond for details.