The neurosis of crowds differ from those of individuals, naturally. I remember reading something a while ago now concerned with the regulation and manipulation of such neurosis in order to produce a certain effect. Adolf Hitler springs to mind, undeniably one of the last centuries great Orators. One begins with economic decline, resentment over past defeats, point a finger at a specific (and expendable) group of people and voila! Instant fascism. Of course it was a little more complex than that but at the same time - it really wasn’t.
What this little example indicates to me is that there need to be pre-existing conditions embedded in an individuals consciousness, these conditions if they exist in a sufficient number of individuals…here is where crowd control becomes a viable possibility. Mob mentality. Should the crowd be too divided, too disparate in their psychological make-up then clearly such manipulation would be made less effective on the whole. In my opinion one of the great barriers between the modern man and a return of fascism is not so much the inestimable values of Tolerance, Compassion and Understanding - although naturally these are inherently worthwhile, but rather the painstaking cultivation of individuals in this troubled time.
And it is upon thinking about such things on this Glorious morning, that my, as yet, sleepless mind turns to my fast approaching encounter with the Mars Volta. What artist or group of artists does not hope to produce some small effect in their audience - even if, as the Mars Volta claim, said artists are their own chosen demographic.
The Mars Volta will, in a few short hours, be conducting their own particular brand of crowd control, but how? There are few things that bind an audience at a rock concert together, save perhaps a small amount of disposable income and nothing else with which to occupy themselves at the time.
Then it struck me that, given their history and philosophical approach to performing their material, the Mars Volta are themselves a group of individuals in that most precious and truly rare sense of the word. Not one member is like unto any other, either in performance style or ideology, and as a result of that it is music tailor-made to ensnare the imagination of the individual as opposed to the masses.
It’s the collaboration and resultant compromises of the band which produce their unique sound. Should the Mars Volta be a rock group in the traditional sense there would be little need for compromise as all of the members would see things identically anyway. The vast majority of the time it is the things people have in common which brings them together but, in my opinion it is the myriad differences in people which make us interesting as a species. A train of thought for another track perhaps.

It is no less a fascism, really, this power which certain artists possess, but rather than, as has always been the case in other arenas of human experience, a fascism of the mind - Art holds the ability to control the soul. If there is such a thing. Art - Music is interpretational and as such can be more readily applied to an infinitely wider cross-section of people because of it’s near total lack of restrictions in dogma, or medium, or contexts. The Hitler of the future will not be a politician, I think. He or she will be an artist.