Let there be Rock
My first post-introduction posting is about rock music? How shallow, sad and predictable. I claim the excuse that I am easing into the blogging thing and talking about rock music is easy, but I will understand if you groan and roll your eyes. I should also point out that the grouchy old man tone of the post is unavoidable.
I am extremely disappointed by the state of indie rock today. It seems like most bands out now owe more to James Taylor than they do to the Ramones. I need the ROCK and no one's bringing it. It's as if we're in the movie Animal House and Otis Day and the Knights have gone home and we're left with guy with the guitar on the stairs playing "I Gave My Love a Cherry". Where are the Butthole Surfers of today? Where is the Big Black of today? Where is the Wire of today?
Of course the problem may be that my sources of current music information are the local college radio station and the staff at the Alley Cat Restaurant and Lounge. If I had depended solely on college radio to find out what was going on with independent music in the mid 1980's, I might have ended up thinking that all indie rock bands of the time sounded like REM and the Replacements.
I went through a similar "crisis" in mid 1990's when Drag City Records and Pavement were reaching the peak of their popularity and it seemed like every band was out of tune and off kilter. At least the bands currently played on the college radio station can play their instruments.
I should equivocate further by saying that I like a lot of the bands out now. I continue to listen to college radio (or rather, I've started listening to it again) because there is a lot of good music out there, wispy as it is. It's just that the absence of rock is deafening.
I am extremely disappointed by the state of indie rock today. It seems like most bands out now owe more to James Taylor than they do to the Ramones. I need the ROCK and no one's bringing it. It's as if we're in the movie Animal House and Otis Day and the Knights have gone home and we're left with guy with the guitar on the stairs playing "I Gave My Love a Cherry". Where are the Butthole Surfers of today? Where is the Big Black of today? Where is the Wire of today?
Of course the problem may be that my sources of current music information are the local college radio station and the staff at the Alley Cat Restaurant and Lounge. If I had depended solely on college radio to find out what was going on with independent music in the mid 1980's, I might have ended up thinking that all indie rock bands of the time sounded like REM and the Replacements.
I went through a similar "crisis" in mid 1990's when Drag City Records and Pavement were reaching the peak of their popularity and it seemed like every band was out of tune and off kilter. At least the bands currently played on the college radio station can play their instruments.
I should equivocate further by saying that I like a lot of the bands out now. I continue to listen to college radio (or rather, I've started listening to it again) because there is a lot of good music out there, wispy as it is. It's just that the absence of rock is deafening.
posted by Grasshopper at 4:19 PM
3 Comments:
I'm too lazy to do it myself, but I've heard that you can really get a handle on the good music available today by visiting all the right blogs. Wherever they are.
oh, yeah! this is what i was going to say, lurker . . . have you read steve albini's "the problem with music?"
you can read it at the link below:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
now, i'm no longer a rabid albini-head, willing to turn a blind eye to his little games with kiddie porn, but still, that pucking frick has really nailed it up there.
but of course, that's hardly what you were talking about, now wasn't it? i mean, i get my music news from npr, from MeFi, and from splat. so whaddoo-eyeknow?
dkp
Have you tried internet radio?
There is some pretty cool stuff out there if you have the time and ambition to seek it out.
I'm a fan of killedbydeath.org for a retro punk fix, but they mix in some newish stuff also.
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