Rock 4 Rookies

Every band has something to say. That is nothing new. Part of our connection to the artists we love is based on their ability to make us feel, to make us nod along in awed assent as we allow our emotions to be manipulated by people we will never meet. This relationship works best when the feelings are shared or at least familiar. Take the song “Better Man” by Pearl Jam in which Eddie Vedder sings about a woman who is in an abusive marriage but is too afraid to leave. Sadly these are ideas that while we may not all know on a deep personal level, anyone who has read a newspaper has heard something to this effect at one time or another. What is truly indicative of the gift that musicians possess is the ability to transmit emotions upon the listener even when the experience is not shared. Much of Alice in Chains’ catalogue is filled with heroin imagery, and the pain of being a junkie. I have never partaken in such an experience however I find myself moved very deeply by the music. On the other hand you could say it is the knowledge of Layne Staley’s untimely death from an overdose that focuses my hindsight into 20/20. The true judge of a band’s capacity for moving an audience is that audience itself. If a band sings deep and heartfelt songs from an implausible perspective they will not last, if they last at all. To stretch an earlier example, who would be a fan of Alice in Chains if after every show Layne Staley went back to the tour bus, drank tea while reading Robert Frost, then went to bed at ten pm?
Is not enough to have emotions to draw from, songwriters need a greater depth of experience in order to better captivate their audiences. I have been a fan of Sevendust for quite some time. (I have a lot to say about them but Michael says when I start to ramble scale it back, so know for the future that there is more where this came from.) From their debut album much of Sevendust’s lyrics came from the pain of crumbling relationships. This theme continues to be so prevalent in their newer music that while the compositions continue to be tight and well produced, Lajon Witherspoon’s one trick lyrics have gotten boring. On the other hand, sometimes the music speaks for itself. In the case of bands like 311 and Duran Duran, (never thought I’d mention those two names in the same sentence,) each band’s music is interesting enough to see past their repetitive lyrics of feel good times and love stories.
The real test of a band’s mettle is when their statement is not emotional but rather political or social. Bono of U2 (I knew I had to tie this in somewhere) once said something to the effect of “We had to have something to say before we could say anything at all.” This was a reference to U2’s early days touring Ireland as a cover band in the early 1980s. Their debut album “Boy,” touched on the political and religious messages to follow in their later music, but they seemed to focus on the sound and melody more so. They faltered on their second release “October” when they tried too hard to push forward creatively and emotionally, and sometimes came across as pompous. Their career was marked by similar successes and failures until the release of “The Joshua Tree” in 1987. It was in this album that they found their true voice. From the sweeping epic “Where the Streets have no Name” U2 finally seemed to understand how to marry their message with the music. Helping their believability was the fact that hailing from war torn Ireland, they experienced significant tragedies that to this day is an obvious influence on their music and their lives in general.
The opposite can also be true. When a band comes to their social commentary from an unauthentic approach their believability comes into question. Take Green Day’s modern classic “American Idiot.” Oh yes, I am going there. From the start of Green Day’s career they slipped into the punk scene on a tirade of snotty lyrics and unabashed arrogance. The music was tight and full of great hooks that appealed to the Grunge scene even more than the actual punk predecessors they were trying to imitate. By the time they released the single “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life,) they were moving away from Punk and their sound was trying to achieve a certain degree of adult respectability (not that there is anything wrong with that.) Once it seemed they realized that Punk was popular again, they decided to get back to their roots and there you have “American Idiot.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. The problem is the irresponsible way in which they pushed their ideas about post 911 America on the listeners. Here is a band that while musically talented has ridden in on the coattails of every wave of Punk Rock that they were a part of. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols has said: “It pisses me off that years later a wank outfit like Green Day hop in and nick all that [Punk] and attach it to themselves. They didn’t earn their wings to do that and if they were true punk they wouldn’t look anything like they do.” There is something seemingly unwholesome and irresponsible about 50,000 British kids singing along to “American Idiot” on Green Day’s recent DVD “Bullet in a Bible.” It was not as though they were telling a cautionary tale, like Elvis Costello’s anti Thatcher anthem “Shipbuilding.” They were not rallying people to action either like “Ohio” by CSNY. Green Day seems to be making money off of the fact that they are airing the United State’s dirty laundry to anyone that will listen. That ought to get some hate mail. But maybe I think more people read this than actually do.
When a band creates a statement for the listener, it is usually a challenge. How do we all share this communal experience in terms of our own beliefs and culture? Popular music today has deteriorated to the point where much of the youth of America listens to what MTV tells them to. It is through that we must find our own way our own message and our own Rock experience. It is not up to bands to tell us how to feel like it seemed the Dixie Chicks did when they came out so publicly and recklessly against the war in Iraq. The reason we love these artists so much is that they show us something about ourselves that we might not have noticed or been able to articulate before. Rock is the artist’s outlet, to be sure, but they are making it for us. It is sad when sometimes it seems they forget.

-=Jonny=-

I remember the first CD I ever bought. “Purple” by Stone Temple Pilots. In those days (1995) STP was hated by the media and critics for pinching themes from the “real” Grunge acts like Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. As a thirteen year old I was unaware of all that. All I knew was that the album kicked ass. It’s funny, as my taste has grown and my scope of musical understanding broadened, I can still come back to the album, and appreciate it as much as I did as a teenager. Not for nostalgic reasons, but for the simple reason that the album rocked.
Isn’t that why we are here? To rock? As much as big crunchy guitar riffs and screaming vocalists are the stereotype of rocking, there is so much more. Sure Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden rock. But you know who else rocks? Paul McCartney. Seriously. Listen to “Live and Let Die.” Granted the movie it was attached to is probably the worst James Bond movie of all time, but that song. The deep ominous tones, of the verse, when paired with the jovial Reggae themed chorus, seemed so urgent. Much of Rock is based on that urgency, The need to transmit ideas and feelings in the most efficient way possible. The Beatles were experts at that, writing economic songs that perfectly transmitted their feelings to the listener in two minutes or less.

I have joined the Rock 4 Rookies team to bring you what I hope can be a more practical understanding of the Rock music and its endless subgenres. There is so much music, so many predecessors and antecedents. They say that no one is truly original. With this column I aim to show you that while that may be correct, it is the marriage of ideas into an artist’s music that sets him apart from the rest. To stay with the Grunge model, the similarities between Nirvana’s “About a Girl” and The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” are quite easy to pick out. What sets the two apart is what lies behind the similar structure and chord progressions. “About a Girl” sounds dark and cynical, even though it is one of the lighter tracks in the Nirvana catalogue. The guitar buzzes throughout giving a sense of raw basement tape quality to the music which in some ways recalls early Beatles recordings, like “I Feel Fine.” Curt Cobain may have been fascinated with Punk Rock, but his love of sixties Pop is apparent.
Part of this week’s playlist is a tribute to Dream Theater, a band that has achieved a wide following and successful career with little or no radio support. Aside from obvious Heavy Metal influences Dream Theater represents another field of music known as Progressive Rock. Created mainly in England at the end of the sixties, Progressive Rock was a movement to forgo the Blues and Country inflection inherent to Rock for an approach more firmly influenced by Classical and Jazz. The Genre was quite popular early on with bands like King Crimson and Yes, but fell when Punk Rock began to dominate the industry in the late seventies. Oddly enough those two types of music which are diametrically opposed to one another are coming together now with bands that seem to straddle the gaping chasm between the two. Avenged Sevenfold, the Mars Volta, even the RX Bandits are examples of bands fusing the two (to varying degrees of course.)
That first CD still works. Its scratched to hell but it will still play. Even the Johnny Mathis inspired hidden track hums with the warmth of plastic. I remember when the disk was too scratched to work for a while my friend Zev lent me his CD Repair Kit. It polished the life right back into my disk.
You know to our kids a story like that will be like hearing about records and eight tracks from our parents. Imagine explaining a cassette tape to them. What is gratifying is that as the technology changes there are still some constant. There is music out there that rocks. I guess it’s up to Mike and I to help you find it.

-=Jonny=-

I feel like I should start this off with a quote. Something iconic that Mick Jagger once said to Pat Benetar over beers at CBGBs. Maybe a line from an acceptance speech, or an appropriate bit of lyrics. The truth is that this is not about them, the Rockers and the Singers. Well it is about them, but it is more about us and how we feel when we rock. This is about you and me, the everyman fan and our attachment to the ones who live life as we can only dream it. For every Robert Plant or Steven Tyler there are millions of us who grew up singing with reckless abandon as we became bedroom frontmen shrieking away as we emulated the jockish posturing of David Lee Roth or the ethereal angst of Jim Morrison.
What is it that makes us rock? I will forgo the history lessons. For that you will have to listen to our radio show. The way I see it the emotions are all that matters. That is why a song like “Copperline” by James Taylor, can rock just as hard as Thunderstruck by AC/DC. The artist tells a story with their music, and if we are moved it rocks. It is that simple. I don’t think I am the only person who wants to get in a street fight every time I hear “Another one Bites the Dust” by Queen. I am sure I am not alone in my desire to rocket down a highway at 1,000 miles an hour when I hear “Running Down a Dream” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
What is unique about Rock music is that it is totally subjective while creating a sense of community across generations and social stratum. One of my first concert experiences was going to see Yes with my dad. It was a pretty good show, and for a bunch of old guys they could still play. What caught my attention was the fact that there were quite a few kids my age (about 14 at the time) out for some male bonding with their dads. The most prevalent community feeling is found in the festival going Jam Band crowd. They are a nomadic tribe of folks who travel following their favorite bands from city to city making friends along the way and trading stories. Within that culture however are some of the most rabid defenders of their own musical theories and opinions. It is awesome that music can be so contradictory, while being so unifying.
My father once said a band could sing about their grocery list and he wouldn’t care as long as it sounded good. I find this believable to a point. If a song has a killer riff, and a strong beat the listener might not get bogged down by the semantics of their lyrics. (scuse me while I kiss this guy) But what if the song “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton was called Orange Juice and was nothing more than an ode to his favorite breakfast drink? There is a style of poetry where you cut up an article and pull words at random out of a hat. I think that the success of that in creating words for a song would be inversely proportioned to the power inherent in the track. For example Metallica might have been able to get away with singing about bubblegum and fireflies given the power and complexity of their music. Joni Mitchell, on he other hand would probably have a hard time with songs about the death of the firstborn.
Rock music is a unifying, and dividing force. It is a window into our souls shown by the words of men and women who we worship for helping us understand ourselves better. I can only hope to impart some of this on my loyal readers every week as Mike and I, bring you along on our journey.

Welcome. I hope you stay a while.

-=JoNnY=-