Mid-December. Snow storm in Portland. I'm listening to "Street of Dreams" off the new Guns album. And I'm crying.
It's hard and bluesy and moving. And I remember. I remember how music was everything, I remember sleeping overnight on the concrete outside Anaheim Stadium, the mad dash to the infield when the gates opened, hurdling the passed-out bodies and a disembodied shark's head. I remember the whole upper tier rocking with twenty thousand people hopping up and down, the concrete flaking from the impact.
I remember the radio. The battle between KMET and KLOS for the best rock station in Los Angeles, the Jim Ladd Inner-views.
I remember a time before MTV. I remember MusicTV, staying up all night just to get a glimpse of our hero's latest video.
I remember dedicated musicians. I remember spirit, rebellion, questioning everything. I remember the purity of the music. I remember the fever that hit the valley when a big new act got discovered by a DJ and he launched their career. I remember the nights arguing about what this or that band's lyrics really meant.
I remember this- it was ALL about the music.
Everything else just came along for the ride, the women, the record companies, the thieving managers, the booze, the drugs, the craziness. It wasn't perfect, there were bands that had no talent, the Poisons of their day were always around and will always be around. There were sell-out artists that had their tours backed by Pepsi and toned things down to reach a wider demographic.
See, this harangue of mine isn't about nostalgia. Believe me, I had little to be nostaligic about. It's about rock and roll and what it meant to grow up with it in your ears.
Today, music is a tool to sell product. Today musicans are manufactured, they are product. They are an image constructed to move Ford trucks and trucks of Pepsi. "Rock" music is no longer about the music it's only about how much money it can make you. It was always about that, but never, ever, as warped as it is today, as the first and only objective.
I see young people of today doing what the demographically targeted media of today tells them to. Music, the very thing that once caused them to question the society and the world they lived in, is now nothing more than a tunnel into loyal, unquestioning consumerism.
This is why some much of RAP has no validity to me. Rappers use music as a tool to launch their brand, their "total package", their over the top bling. The music gets lost, everything morphed into advertising.
Artists used to lose all creditiblity when they sold out, now they're congratulated.
I have a lot of sympathy for those who have to compromise their art to sell something so they can eat. It's a tough choice, it should be a tough choice. But for a guy who makes a million a year with his music, then selling out so he can make 10 million a year.... the public should react so decidely they never sell an album again.
But we, the public, don't. We're too busy. We roll over.
And the art of music, the real power of rock and roll to change lives, is gone. But at least Pepsi and Nike and Red Bull give their executives record bonuses.
