We Have Lost Our Way

It seems as though, brothers and sisters, we may have lost our way. Our intentions have certainly remained true and our passions have never less than steadfast, yet in the rush to seek higher meaning, in the hurry-scurry to proclaim greatness, and in the mad, reckless dash for a certain kind of sonic Valhalla that we have callously forgotten the very cornerstone of our faith - Song. And although we may wander the dark valley of fashion’s deceit, and whoa we may stumble along the self-righteous path of analytical dissection, it is we who pour greater and greater meaning into things essentially meaningless. When we do this we find ourselves settling for the hollow satisfaction of assessing the ‘value’ of art and we all become the victims of self-perpetuated crimes against the one thing that matters most - song itself.

- Me, September 2001

Whew! A part of me can’t believe I tried to leadoff some bit or another with that blowhard shit! Christamighty, what on God’s green planet was I thinking? But another part of me believes every last meter in that discourse. That’s the funny thing about this writerly gig: you can force and force and force things ‘til you finally twist your brain and fool yourself into thinking that maybe ya’ finally stumbled onto somethin’ that people would actually give two shits about reading. It’s like me trying to hard sell you cats out there on how much I like a band like, say, ohh, the Verve or something. Ya’ll are just too savvy by now for that sort of wool-pulling stunt on my part. It wouldn’t take a Tokyo second before one of you’s who may be hip to my bent would stand up and say, “Hey! Wait one second! What the hell are you trying to pull buddy? You don’t like English bands. You’ve said as much so yourself in the past pal. Fact, seems to me that you pretty much openly rip at nearly every band that comes down the goddamn English Channel you phony bastard.”

And you know what? You’d be right as rice. In the past at various times, for various unknown and unfounded reasons, I’ve despised Primal Scream, was indifferent about Oasis, thought Coldplay, Travis, and Radiohead boring, and couldn’t give to much mind to anyone else from that little island rock out in the Atlantic save for maybe the Kinks, some Beatles, Mott, Bowie, bits of the Who, the Stones, T. Rex, the Jam…ok, ok, ok, so I’m not as twisted against the limeys as even I thought. But I’ve stood steadfast in recent years while asserting that the newer Brit shit sucks (I, as always, reserve my right to forever and inconsistently change my mind -as one fine Brit himself once quipped, it’s only rock and roll!). So, I do realize that I probably have no credibility when I say now that I really, really, really fucking dig the Verve, especially Urban Hymns (I’ve even grooved out Richard Ashcroft’s solo platter since discovering my taste for his former band). I recommend Urban Hymns WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Get it and just spin the damn thing; if you don’t like the Verve too, I’ll buy the disc back from you (for a dollar minimum). Such is rock and roll living.

But wait! This brings us back around to my point. Yes, back to THE POINT: writing. In particular, rockwriting - which, of course, is the appellation I prefer to give it because rock writing is what I do. Oh, certainly there are those who are rock journalists, and there are the more proper and erudite music journalists (“music” implying intellect), and then there is the heinous beast that can only be called the celebrity monger, the Star-fucker (who generally think of themselves quite simply as journalists), an image conscious gossip columnist who is far more interested in the people who make the music than the music itself, which has unfortunately pretty much become the standard in rockroll coverage today. Although on some days I can clearly understand the lack of interest in trying to convey how music makes you feel anymore, writing about the vapid and soulless noise that floods the mainstream has got to be as joyless a trip as a twenty-hour ride in the ass end of a Greyhound bus. But I do rock writing, which, when dealing with all things rock, or things that run circles around the gravitational center of rock, means that it should feel like rockroll when you read it. It means that when I go off on some fanciful flight about how much I now love the fucking Verve, years after the band has quite likely made its mark with the rest of you and now inevitably faded from meaning (which is another subject altogether - rock knows no timelines, or does it? It’s your turn here, pick up a pen and write me something about that!), no matter how inconsistent said harangue is with things I’ve preached past, you’ll have to recognize that this is rock and friggin’ roll people! Thus, I am inherently granted permission to play it free and loose, shoot from the hip, go on the fly, cut to the chase, dance with Mrs. Noggins…

Lester Bangs (oh God, he’s one of them!) once wrote in reference to rock writing and rock writers - distilled and paraphrased - “There ain’t nothing we got that you haven’t got” and it seemed, as far as I can tell, that he truly believed that (the gen-u-wine quote was this, "Nobody who writes for this rag's got anything you ain't got, at least in the way of credentials." - see, I wasn't shittin' you!)

And I’d like to think that what I believe is what Lester also believed: rockroll is people, it is community, it knows no hierarchy; it’s family byGod! This whole thing is about nothing other than being one of a strange, fucked-up, twisted, and distant kin whose reunions are held nightly in clubs, arenas, amphitheatres, garages, basements, cars, houses, apartments, or wherever rock and roll losers gather to listen to or play the stuff. I ain’t no better than you, he, or she at ringing the bell for this religion. I may crossover and connect to more people from time to time because of my writing malady, and I try and deal with that, but you might write the best songs no one has ever heard yet, or you may design the best flyers for gigs, or maybe you are just the best word-o-mouth rockroll fiend on the planet, perhaps you plain listen to and like more stuff than the rest of us, or possibly you are just the type to support the art by giving bands and artists a floor to crash on when the roll through town. Whatever it is that you do, if you really dig doing it, keep on doing it, because in this half-cocked world filled with flaccid pretenders, if you revel in doing something for reasons mostly bigger than yourself, I am sure you do it better than most.

Which brings me back around to, ahem, my POINT (yeah, whatsit? you ask). The POINT being: rock writing’s de-evolution into simple, dull journalism (which, I admit guilt to having partook in at some juncture or another - all in the name of EGO, a truly evil affliction, second only to HUNGER) has hurt not only the TRADE, but has damaged the music itself. When the highest of falutin’ rockwrite outlets have succumbed to the temptation to stop spewing honest about the music in the name of profitable advertising they have nowhere left to turn but the celeb ass-kiss profile; when the supposed “thinkers” of the trade are smoldering mid-50’s-to-near-death self-important Babe Booms who have kept a mortal grip on the very idea of rock criticism/writing that has not only squeezed the life outta the form, but smothered any new voices under the guise of “editing” (unless they can find some new young schmuck to claim that the latest Dylan record is, yet again, another masterpiece); when the entire FIELD of music writing lemmings rush to proclaim a certain sort of greatness for a catchy-but-water-headed pop-hit schmo like Marshall "Eminem" Mathers (the real Slim Shady was standing up kid, he was the guy behind your fucking production boards when your record was being concocted, only his name isn’t Slim, it’s Dre), well that’s when we have to say enough! Enough already. Fin. It’s over. Your platitudes of adoration for the cash flow cows that dominate the fifteen-second attention span just won’t do any-fucking-more.
Any old punk knows that this is the war that has always been waged in some form or another. And when I say “punk” I don’t use the term in any sort of cliché or confined colloquial sense, if you’re reading this you ARE a punk. At least to the mainstream you are. If you’ve gone so far as to dig down this deep, to my sewer level - the bottom rung of rock’s ladder (He’s one of those ‘zine type writers, and worse yet, he does most of it on the internet! Honey, you and the kids get in the basement), then you probably haven’t bought into their GAME, and therefore, those honchos who run the Big Ranch don’t have much use for your kind. You PUNK! That’s what a punk is (yet another smart-ass trying to define a term that never seemed definitive in any way, shape, or form).

THE POINT: I’ll be damned, it keeps coming back to kick me in the arse, doesn’t it? El pointeroo. As well it should, because we strive not to be pointless in life. Who would want to be pointless? Unless, gulp, you are starting to get the sense that the prevalent and wider culture we now endure is nothing but POINTLESS. Ah-ha! So that’s his point!

It isn’t a pleasant thought, but our only saving grace is that there still seem to be enough folks around doing their thing, doing the things that, in spite of our ever popular consume-and-dispose ethos, are grounded in the shared experience that art has always shot for. Writing about such things, regardless the breadth of audience, is an imperative part of owning an alternative cultural landscape. Someone has to document the here and now. And when the old rebels have grown weary, or have given up on the rebellion entirely, someone has to carry the flag of ill-repute forward. This is not an effort to nominate myself (I could hardly expect anyone to sensibly follow my messy lead), but I will certainly remain forever a voice in the movement. I ain’t going nowhere my friends. Who else is going to give to words what so many others are giving to art?

____________________________________________________

Addendum: September 15, 2001
A memo from the Days of Fear Desk
Four days after: Why write anymore?

Aftermath (an ill-advised poetic stab at reconstructing a mind blown)

Words no longer matter
Not as we speak them
Sing them
Or sigh
Of what?
Not now
No longer to sell magic, allure, mystery
The beauty of which once danced
and lived
formed on the tongues of men
sprang across the air between peoples
rested on the pages of time
for time holds nothing
crumbled
reduced to primitive tools
utilities of need
not beauty, song, prose, nor pain
there is only silence
Whispering amongst clouds
High above
far beyond
what use words now?

back