Tony's Music Blog

Yes my son, I'm afraid it is. Rock 'n Roll died about ten years ago-- some say before that.

God, I love Rock 'n Roll! Rock music used to be about everything I believed in. But something happened...

Remember when Rock n' Roll was the only thing going? When the Beatniks and Be-boppers figured it out and jumped on the bandwagon; when the Beatles blew our shit away with every new album; and massive festivals promised a great new world?

But it's okay baby-- Le Mort de Rock revealed the bugs underneath. Revelations scurry out: that faith can be a little misplaced sometimes; that it's okay to be wrong when you finally see how wrong you were.

My formative years came when Rock n' Roll made that evolutionary leap from Folk to Classical form: that is to say, the Seventies. Back when Dark Side of the Moon was being used to calibrate hi-fi sets-- while pioneers passed on gruesomely, new blood was pulsing past mere amplification. Conservatory graduates were fluttering to Rock music. On came Frank Zappa, Rick Wakeman, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel; and new names were made to discriminate this new mode from three-chord tub-thumping: Progressive Rock; Art-Rock; Jazz-Rock Fusion, and (alas, ultimately) Corporate-Rock. Suddenly Rock was hyphenated. Man, it was so great!

To my teenage mind, as these new styles blossomed and cross-pollinated, possibilities became more possible. Anything could happen: if the music got too baroque, then a retrenchment re-vitalized it. While the Sex Pistols and Ramones were tearing the shit out of everything in sight, we could pontificate about it and call it a "school of thought." Dumbass kids got rich and famous overnight like never before. The survivors of Woodstock and Altamont became patrons for us to either prostrate before or repudiate after. Anything could happen: you just had to make it happen.

Then something did happen. I don't know exactly what it was because I almost had to be woken up and told the news. No one died-- kings and queens came and went before; nothing was co-opted beyond what had been co-opted before. Perhaps it was like Yeats prophesied: the center couldn't hold. No, it's just not possible-- what the fuck happened!?

In the end, I have to say that congenital racism killed Rock 'n Roll. I personally spent my adult life denying it, stodgily defending the Beatles against the death of Motown, and so I might've contributed to the quickening. The main difference, I used to assert, between Rock and Jazz was that Rock was not born out of segregation. Rock had more possibility than Jazz, I said, because there did not have to be the ubiquitous subtext of the Black Experience in every opus.

But that was the fatal flaw, children. It is revisionist history that reads prettier than the truth. The truth? Rock 'n Roll was originally a Black Thang back in the days of Jim Crow. Once the cigar-chompers heard the darkie artists clamoring for a berth on the gravy train (after white parents saw there was no way to stop their children from rockin') this new mythology was invented. Once the Brits started sounding blacker than US, it was easy to re-write history.

And the black community never forgot-- or forgave. Today black rockers are ridiculed, or worse: ignored. Children are not encouraged to express themselves through Rock-ish idioms. Segregation has been painfully obvious for more than three decades, and yet I refused to look at the suppurations.

Next thing you know, a plucky red-headed stepchild's light eclipsed the sun. What started out as a street-level Block-Rock party grew into a genre that took over the world. Oh yes, Hip-Hop used to be Rock: listen to the Beat Boys: Run-DMC and L.L. Cool J especially-- they were totally Rock-- they've even admitted to it on camera. Meanwhile in a rainy little city, Kurt tried artificial respiration, but it was rilly necrophilia. Call me a good ol' boy-- just keep passin' the whiskey and rye. Is that what really happened?

{sigh} Shit. No, something else just happened again: the mythology, the amazing potential, and then the post-partum depression. It was so great in the early days of Hip-Hop too. Nobody had any money; black and white kids danced together like there was never a reason for them not to; thugs got rich and famous overnight; saints were martyred. But one important difference: the black community was empowered enough to juice history. Now any white contribution to Hip-Hop is erased as if their skin tone matched the paper. Now Rap has its roots in an obscure pre-bellum griot in Utopian Africa instead of Blondie and Lou Reed and Nile Rogers in Gritty New Yawk Sitty. Eminem is a pretender foisted on us by corporate greed. Give me a fucking break! Fifty Cent has more in common with Pierre Dupont than Huddy Leadbetter. So now the cycle closes on Hip-Hop too.

Maybe God is trying to tell me something... listen:

I propose a revision of my own. I was listening to Pink Floyd the other day-- the first time in years-- and couldn't place them in Rock 'n Roll any more. Their music is Jazz to me now. So is Yes and King Crimson, maybe even Queen. All American popular music has roots in racism-- it is inevitable; but all American music aspires to that level called Jazz. It has to grow-- from Folk, to Pop, to Jazz.

Can't buy it kid? Okay then, try this on: rebel against your lying-ass parents. Pick up a hammer, like the Roots do, and make some fuckin' noise! I predict that black kids are gonna exhume the corpse when Corporate America finally bleeds Hip-Hop dry. They are doing it already. Here in DC, the Lucky Bastards are playing that awful Rock Music that pisses off the parents so bad. Why can't they do some nice Rap Music like that cute lil' Bow Wow? Come on kiddies--you got role models: Chuck Berry, Li[tt]l[e] Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Clarence Clemons, Living Colour, Ben Harper... Do it.