New Direction

I've let this thing go to waste too much in the past, wow, year and a half.

Well, after spending a lot of time with magazines like Ugly Things and Shindig! I think I need to contribute my generations voice to that sort of thing. What a damaged bunch we are. We came from a different time where our introduction to rock music came from megahits of the early 90s about school shootings and torture and the next trend hit a climax with Woodstock 99. Popular music hit, perhaps it's all-time nadir in the dawn of the new millennium (in terms of popularity over quality) before the internet shattered it all to bits. In which case many of us were too willing to build an allegiance to Pitchfork Media. That much-maligned source is no more guilty of damaging popular taste than past troublemakers like Rolling Stone had almost forty years prior.

And they weren't done with their awful tricks either. Many of us ran away into the past when music was better. Better music, of course, as according to such authoritative resources as classic rock radio, old-fashioned VH-1 programming, and the history rewriting magazines of yore. Needless to say the effects were not much better.

The best thing we got were the Strokes, and they stand as a testament to the sad state of rock music as it was in much better shape ten whole years ago. "Last Nite," perhaps the most popular rock song of the last decade plus still only made it to 108 on the singles chart (14 in the hyped-up UK market), a position bested by many of the obscure artist I have read about in the aforementioned publications. Even worse, that took their famously well-connected parents, remarkable looks, and unparalleled talent. It sure is fun to listen to you, but just can't give you the same kind of hope a sixties hit like "Psychotic Reaction" could.

Worst of all many of us are still impressed by hip-hop. It's a sad state.

So, rather than continue to take the risk of giving away free music I'll just write about rock music. The real stuff, the way I see it just like the greats before me like Mike Stax, Lester Bangs, Laurent Bigot, etc. I come from a time where rock wasn't for dancing, it was for sulking, and being in a band would never, ever, ever, get you girls, it would get you arrested and not even with a fun story leading up to it. That's my life and times and it's the only thing I love.

Coming soon, I talk about how my generation actually understands the Stooges better than the older guys, if you can believe that.