Interview · moment 19 of 25
How Music and Car Scenes Used to Develop Locally
from Bill Burr | The Tim Dillon Show #321 · #321
3 min
Guest
Bill discusses how regional scenes (Southern stock car racing, city-specific music sounds, jazz per Miles Davis's autobiography) used to develop in isolation before being instantly co-opted today.
- Star car racing out of the South, moonshiners competing, builds into global phenomenon like skateboarding and rap music from New York.
- Back in the day, distinct regional sounds existed—San Francisco, Seattle, Philly, New York, Boston—each with its own scene.
- Gatekeepers decided what the new sound was, allowing scenes to develop separately without intermingling.
- Miles Davis's autobiography describes pre-TV, pre-radio era where musicians in different cities developed their styles in isolation.
- When musicians from St. Louis, New Orleans, and Chicago met in New York at Minton's jazz place, they mixed and created something new.
- Tim asks whether it's good for comedians to put out a lot of material all the time versus working longer on something before releasing it.
- Young comedians now put out a lot of stuff constantly, but back then comedians would work on something longer without putting it out.
- Whether to release frequently or not is individual—some want to be great comics, others use stand-up to launch into TV and movies.
- Tim has no problem with people doing stand-up briefly just to get into television and film, rejecting the gatekeeping mentality.
- People do stand-up for whatever reason—whether they got canceled, want success, or anything else—and that's valid.