Are you part
of the solution, or part of the problem?Are you part
of the solution, or part of the problem? he Air war
on Rock goes on. Attacks come from the left, right and center. The criticism
goes that rock as music is either; "too old", ie. "cause
were the new generation- (well the ones that didn't get aborted as not
to ruin moms 2.6 cume in a "soul searching" liberal arts 5 year
foray into "education" back in the 70s) and we have something
to say!" "Were dif,frint! The world its dif,frint!" Or well
served by the industry "I don't here a hit, I just don't think the
labels would $ign and $upport those bands if they didn't believe $omething
was there, a $pecial $omething, I trust them implicitly to help make programming
$uggestions to our $tation". Or how about the surface skimming hipsters
"well I've never heard of 'em how come if they're so great the medias
not on to 'em?" Its time to realize rock music is not a particularly
popular music any more, (like real jazz, or bluegrass are not) unless it
intersects with a snappy ditty that can be played "unplugged"
or sung in the shower. If you don't believe this how much instrumental
rock do you listen to? You gotta admire the walking corpse that figured
out, "hey we can invent our own soft rock!", we'll just have
the bands play kinda acoustic, and even use strings!"- altho you'd
think a 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged session would be redundant, so I guess
that one was just a "Don Kirschners Rock Concert" for the fans
of Cat Stevens and their spawn.
Hey, that's how Nirvana broke on modern "alternative to rock" stations. People often don't like alotta music getting in the way of the song, and generally don't want it to go on continually, check the stuff that "broke" (flat busted now) Bonnie Raitt, not a guitar in sight-except for little accents, to remind you its there if you don't have VH1 on. And this is supposed to be the blues! The continual debasement of actual rock music goes on just as its source material is dry cleaned and identified by one simple part of the music so it may be labeled and sold on that premise; "oh, Stings gone jazzy!- didn't you here the horns?". This holds the same weight as Marshall Stack pop being called rock. Don't tell me about people liking what they will, that demographic perfume doesn't make a pig a not pig. Don't tell me, to "keep an open mind". Open minds are like sewers, anything can drift through that valueless, relative take on life, and it always favors the cynical. As Robyn Hitchcock said in another time and world, "Cynicism is the pill that allows you to become what you despise". The ground war is once again being fought, as they always are, slowly, inch by inch, often the best murdered the earliest, ever hear "the first man on the beach don't get to run the military government?" Blam! |
There goes Tragic Mullato, Blam! there goes Naked Raygun, Blam! there
goes The Wipers! Blam! The U-Men, "so?" you say, "that was
the 80s bands" Really?
You watch, right now the basic rock impulse
is playing out in a new generation of bands that are recombining the base
elements where flint meets stone, as all good rock and roll bands do- pulling
the past, chewing it over, replaying the parts they like, filtering out
what they don't, adding what they feel in the here and now, not worrying
particularly if they are wrong or right or how (fill in the blank) would
have done it. Right now there is a tour traversing the good ole US of A.
comprised of some A&R guys career gamble that these Atlantic related
bands touring together can spark some sort of interest in the rock form
musically. Introducing;
Clutch, a power point hammer unit sitting between a Tad/Rollins band doing War covers and the sound of aliens coming in for a slow landing, who've helped nail down the right coast with Monster Magnet while Kyuss (mayrtered, crucified, raptured to rock heaven in '95) enveloped the left. As far as pop rock radio, that being all of "new" radio, goes each of these bands is (fatally) flawed. Art Is Not Commerce, but sometimes you need to dick with the devil-so spend a little on the show or get together with a couple of friends with $5.00 a piece and buy one of these (and the like minded) a few times a month, let the radio cover the chart action-or borrow the Allison Chains etc. stuff from yer sis to tape. Start digging in and planting some real roots, cause the cultures almost strip mined, and when its gone it'll just blow away and have to regenerate from broken twigs, spilt beer and dirt, as it had to from '76. It took 15 years that time, good chance it'll take more with Spin, Stone and MTV busy shoveling "the DJ is the modern punk rocker" postmoderism 101 brinksmanship thru whatever high concept switcheroo they wanna pull to satisfy their control over the essential musical culture for their inessential social reasons. Simply put, they don't rock so they want it to have no legitimacy, its cultural backstabbing. |
Craig Regala
range 9 MM (shit hot meeting of
Bad Brains, Zep, and heavy rollin' dopecore ala Rage/Quicksand/Method).
Fu Manchu, greasy riff rock, as if a twenty year old Camarro loaded with
hard rock 8 trax stripped it down to punk rock essentials just as it came
to life and ate a Lexus. Core, a stunned heavy psyche acid rock meets an
early metal (ole Green eyes says much pre-'77 BOC in the mix) style push
that taps some Maryland Brand (tm. pp.) doom potential shot through a youthful
streamlined physicality that spells s-e-x instead of s-a-t-a-n.