There is more truth in this blind statement than there could ever be in anything I’ll ever write. Rock music is such a relative art form. Some kids love Green Day. Others enjoy Animal Collective. Your cup of tea is just that: YOUR CUP OF TEA. For this reason, I have decided to write about what I want to write about. If you have a problem with that, tear my writing apart with hyper intelligent quips regarding my lack of knowledge on the subjects I am assigned to write about. Do it. That’s what’s so hypnotically attractive about free will! You don’t have to like it. In fact, I encourage you to hate it. Your standards of excellence in rock journalism are obviously far too ambitious for you to dabble any longer with the swill I [Chris De Salvo] insist on concocting on a weekly basis!

They don’t pay us to sling our opinions in your collective direction. That’s fine. I don’t do it for the money. I enjoy it. I may be God awful, but they’ve given me a chance to put that underachievement on display. I’m grateful for this, and will continue to do this. However, if I find myself at a Grand Duchy concert and notice my eye lids are moving over my eyes like the Nazis over Poland in 1939, I’m going to write about it. I don’t care if it’s Frank Black, or Kurt Cobain’s corpse-come-back-to-life. If something entirely sucks, I’m going to use my [very] humble opinion to explain why. This is my “job.” This is why my tickets were comped. I’m not afraid to insist that aging legends are human. I love Frank Black. He seems like a decent enough guy, but not everything he touches turns to gold. In fact, his latest band is about as exciting to experience live as waiting for an amoeba to tap dance with the fervor of one Fred Astaire.

Lester Bangs once said that New Wave music was “shit,” because it was “just too good.” Not everyone reading the Village Voice in February 1981 was going to agree with what Bangs so defiantly proclaimed. Does that mean he shouldn’t have scribbled such a bold statement? Hell, no. He wrote from the heart, and though many of his works were littered with contradictions, most readers eventually fell in love with his oft-odd interpretation of what a “music review” actually consisted of.

Hunter S. Thompson often made shit up. If you’ve done any kind of research on the gonzo-bard, you’d know this. He was rumored to have been able to drink an alcoholic army of wife-beaters under the table, and later insisted most of those decadent stories were insanely embellished. Regardless, he wrote in a stream-of-consciousness manner that revealed the voice of a sensitive mad-man who hardly had a credible grasp on the way the world worked. He simply told his story, based on the loose-outlines his editors provided him. This got him into trouble more often than it filled his perpetually empty pockets, but it made him a memorable scribe in his own right.

Let me get something straight, before I plunge forth with my less-than-mediocre vocabulary, and elementary-level prose: I am not comparing myself to these two brilliant, troubled, deceased journalists. Are you kidding me? That notion makes me chuckle. Not laugh, chuckle. It’s that ridiculous.

The truth is, I’d never aspire to be either of these men because they hardly achieved anything solid. Sure, they amassed meteor-sized bodies of work, respectively. Yes, each were mentioned in songs by respected artists, depicted on the big screen by great actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Johnny Depp), spoken of more as folk-lore than actual human beings, et al… That’s all great. That’s fine, but writing isn’t something that paid off for either of them in the long run. Neither died with much of a net worth, and though money isn’t every thing, it’s certainly been on everyone’s mind since the stock market did a nose dive into a water-less deep end.

Writing is little more than a nice exercise for people (like… me?) who have a difficult time developing a full-length story to produce over a great deal of time. Or, it’s a glorified practice of escapism for relatively young men and woman looking to prolong their looming adulthood well past the college-grad deadline. “True writers” want to produce something that glorifies their voice: A screen play. A novel. A musical. These things take time, and sometimes it’s easier to just bang out a few “concert reviews” for the Hell of it. Why? They don’t mean anything. They are informative dissertations on the events of random evenings during which rock and roll bands attempt to impress those who forked over $8 to see them. That’s all.

It’s often assumed rock “critics” are merely supposed to produce an objective review of the concert in question without an ominous jolt of editorializing, or personal angst. Sorry. Can’t do that. Won’t do that. Why? I don’t write for people who adhere to the “standards” overachieving high school seniors pledge allegiance to as they strive for Valedictorian status. I write for me. That’s the one thing I have in common with the aforementioned journalism-legands. That, and that alone makes me happy. If you’re less-than-happy after reading this column, I don’t care. If you’re rolling your eyes because you think I think I’m better than you, congratulations! You’re not alone.

The trouble is, without our early exposure to such a tiny snippet of the massive assortment of early rock mastery, our progression into adulthood would be about as complete and well rounded as a book report concocted by a video-game-obsessed, American fifth grader.

Growing up is hard to do. The youths of America are bombarded by daily hardships that can border on asinine. Honestly, our transposing from infancy to childhood, and childhood to adolescence (the ‘tween years’ included) are absurdly awkward, and can have lasting negative effects on the personality of the adult they wind up creating in the process.

While many a young adult does make their way through this gawky transition with relatively seamless gusto, and unabashedly brilliant trajectory, the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves with only a gratuitous amount of collective maladroit-ness usually reserved for character actors in 1980′s teen flicks.

Our saving grace (in a graceless experience) is the holistic inclusion of music which we use to soundtrack the adversity-laden years during which we “mature” from cartoon-loving simpletons into B-movie-quoting, vintage-clothes-donning “adults” who clog the miscellaneous speakeasies, dive bars, and social circles found throughout various metropolitan areas the world over.

No matter how much we insist upon denying it, our parents are largely responsible for our early appreciation of rock ‘n roll. Unless Ned Flanders, Billy Graham, or diehard St. Louis Cardinal fans brought you up, you had some relative exposure to Classic rock.

The very definition of this art form is slightly altered from year to year as we progress from generation to generation. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin were once thought of as the “big three” amongst a slew of other noteworthy rock outfits that best represented the phenomenon. As a result of passing time, bands like R.E.M., The Smiths, and — gasp — Nirvana has meandered into the play lists middle-aged rock DJ’s conjure up to best encapsulate the “greatest hits” of the ever-receding past.

Now that we’re older (and wiser?) and at the sonically charged seas of our choosing, we are quick to dismiss any lingering ambition we have to listen to the bands we grew up adoring. Sure, there are exceptions, but who hasn’t rolled their eyes whilst sitting at a diner every time “Stairway to Heaven”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, or “Revolution” hits the airwaves on XM’s classic vinyl?

Don’t feel bad. You shouldn’t. It’s likely that you’ve heard each of these songs thousands of times, in hundreds of different situations, surrounded by dozens of different people you encountered throughout the haphazard course of your youth.

I’m with you. Though my respect for the artists that assisted the efficiency of my parent’s upbringing remains intact, it’s hardly necessary for me to remain on a station that insists upon playing only a handful of their most popular songs. This is a major reason why websites like Pandora have found so much success in this digital age. This way, those high school hippies whose “dead” heads are stuck in the past can customize play lists that would make their skull-n-roses’ donning parental units proud. The rest of us, who’ve grown out of our “Led Zeppelin only has four great songs” phase can liquidate our daily soundtracks with music we’ve grown to love based on our initial jaunts into the classic-era.

Without infancy, you cannot come into being. Without knowledge, you cannot wield power. Both truths are cheesier than a road trip through Wisconsin, but true nonetheless. It’s sort of ironic, and not in that “off the cuff Alanis Morisette sort of way.” Without the most overplayed songs from our parent’s favorite bands, our collective upbringing would have been about as fulfilling as a motion picture starring Rob Schneider. Now that our furtherance has changed us from pimple-laden youngsters into, uh, pimple laden taxpayers, we cast aside these tunes with eager abandon as we grasp onto our collection of “groundbreaking new bands” that seem to rise up everyday.

Human beings are disciples of repetitiveness and without hearing Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”, The Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music”, or The Doors’ “L.A. Woman”, a countless collection of times as children, the present legion of bands we adore and plug into everyday conversation may include the likes of The Spin Doctors, Fastball, or Semisonic, rather than The Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, or Spoon.

This is why kids can’t pilot two-wheeled bicycles without first mastering the maneuvering of big wheels, tricycles, scooters, and (eventually) bikes propped up by training wheels. The training wheels are off, and we have officially ridden off into the sunset to the beat of Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago”, Bright Eyes’ “This is the First Day of My Life”, or The Whigs’ “Technology”, depending on your personal preference of course. I personally wouldn’t be caught dead “rocking out” to Bright Eyes. I’m more of a Pelican kind of dude.

Free will, bitches.

A lil’ “retro” lesson…

But back to the Brothers Jonas. These kids are rich, famous, highly sought after, and [vexingly] grounded. They are confessed followers of Jesus Christ, sworn virgins, and well-manicured fashion-kings of the 12-18 year-old set. Brilliant. But, what do they do once they find it necessary to shave everyday? Do they have plans for the future? It’s true they wear “purity rings” to represent their willful allegiance to abstinence, but what happens when the hormones outweigh the pledge?

This will likely never happen, as each brother seems quite insistent that his plight is hardly a media ploy. These dudes aren’t three male Brittney Spears clones who we’ve been tricked into believing are the best representations of the few remaining squeaky-clean youths in America.

Are they?

This calls into the question of “What if?” What if our nation’s youth has been fooled again into believing their heroes are truly “true,” and are in fact speed-metal-loving, poon-chasing, booze-guzzling acid heads whose faith in the demonic antics of Metallica [circa 1986, before their of their respective births] outweighs their belief in Jesus Christ? I realize this is like barking up a tree that doesn’t house a feline, but it’s fun to speculate, right?

Imagine is Joe’s hair-straightener is actually his mistress whose relationship to Joe is kept secret from her pimp for fear both of them would be “offed” if their secret got out.

Could you imagine the worldwide shock that would ensue if Paul turned out to be a 37-year-old session guitarist whose lust for “younger women” drove him to fool the entire universe that he was actually a mind-mannered, barely-legal axe-wielding aficionado whose distaste for the Satanic undertones in Black Sabbath’s music was a complete lie?

Would we be able to handle a world in which Nick, the youngest Jonas brother, had a voice so unspectacular, he made Ashley Simpson look like a sonically beatific concoction of Joan Baez, Celene Dion, and the real voices behind the blasphemous scam that was Milli Vinilli?

These are the questions that circulate in the backs of the minds of Disney’s higher-ups. Rest assured. They had better cash in their chips before the real Jonas Brothers step out from the shadows their angelically marketed selves have cast upon them.

New Kids On The Block didn’t have any real staying power (despite their recent insistence to release a “come back” record), but let’s face it, we preferred their backstage party-stories to the comparatively tame tales of the Jonas’ brothers frolic in the park with former first lady Laura Bush, right?

Right?

What we’re doing by giving our children The Jonas Brothers, is we’re giving them the wrong idea. Rock n’ roll is supposed to be dangerous. Sound dangerous. Feel dangerous. Have you listened to their music? Honestly, they have decent hooks, but it’s scary how quickly you feel yourself being lured to the “good side.” It’s like a hyper-Religious Jedi-mind trick Joe, Nick, and Paul craftily sling at their listeners.

It’s almost as if you become temporarily convinced a life could be fulfilled by having a sole sexual partner. For those of you who believe this, a.) I apologize, b.) it’s likely we have little to nothing in common, and c.) you probably shouldn’t’ read on.

I grew up watching my father parade around the duplex shredding a mean, mean air guitar salute to AC/DC, Zeppelin, and The Who. My mom occasionally showcased her shockingly accurate Grace Click impersonations a they serenaded the neighborhood from our kitchen as we slung together two-dozen Christmas cookies for our like-minded, rock-n’-roll-adoring downstairs neighbors.

Had I been raised by Disney’s rendition of what a rock n’ roll band should be “about,” I would be an entirely different person. Chances are I’d already be married, and sitting across the table from my vacant-stare-donning wife as we collectively tried to avoid making any relative attempts at dry conversation.

I certainly hope we’re being fooled, and the real Jonas Brothers [please] stand up, and rock out with their c*&^s out, because it’s hardly frivolous to ask if they even have these unmentionable appendages. Why would they need them? How different are they from Ken Dolls who can shred?

Asking rhetorical questions ain’t so admirable, but it’s better than sitting through a four second of Camp Rock. May these brother’s creators careers continue to flourish? May I be forced to eat my own words by a legion of adoring Jonas fans? Stay tuned.

Could this be what we’re not seeing?

Yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole.* In other words, a living, breathing oxymoron. Speaking of which, Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx has recently gone on record expressing endearing interest in collaborating with American Idol winner/Country Music super-star Carrie Underwood.

Stop laughing. Stop rolling your eyes. This is verified, serious information.

Ever since Underwood’s unabashed cover of the Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” for American Idol, rumors have circulated regarding the authenticity of Underwood’s love of the world’s most decadent band. How could this be? This is a young woman who makes Dr. Joyce Brothers look like the lead singer of Slayer. Is she really a Crüe fan, or do publicity stunts reign supreme?

Let’s do the math: The 2004 American Idol winner is a PETA-endorsed vegetarian whose wholesome image winners her legions of new Country fans everyday. She’s recently earned Country Music’s most coveted title as “Entertainer of the Year,” an award dominated by men since it’s 1967 inception** Her incessant support of the U.S. Military, and her Baptist Faith have won over both sides of the political spectrum as she’s quickly become a young woman who’s impossible to loathe.

Motley Crüe is widely regarded as “the world’s most notorious rock band.” Its drummer has Hepatitis-C. Its bass player has been legally dead for two minutes. Its lead guitarist looks like a Tim Burton character brought to life by unearthly amounts of animated electricity. Lead singer Vince Neil is a cross between an underachieving Soprano and a spokesperson for the overuse of tanning beds the world over. He’s also gone under the knife for a VH-1-based reality show about the resurgence of a faded Rock Star. Oh, he also ran someone over with a car. That said person is now six feet under the ground.

I guess the question to be posed here is a well-thought out, bluntly delivered assertion of doubt: Really?

The winner here is obvious, and the loser is equally conspicuous. Carrie Underwood’s image is cleaner than a fully recovered junkie, and yet she insists on teaming up with a band whose greatest sonic effort was entitled, “Dr. Feelgood.” Doesn’t her staunchly religious upbringing require her to engage in activities that exclude pleasure? She’s still a bachelorette. As an unmarried young woman, aren’t her pursuits supposed to include only virginal activities? It’s difficult to image any member of Motley Crüe having ever been virgins.

What can be gained from this temporary union? For The Crüe, one whole hell of a lot. They’ll have been given a second chance by thousands (ahem, okay, millions) of fans that have likely turned their back on the 1980s like the rest of us.

Hair Metal is to Gospel… Drugs are to Holy Wine… Infected Blood is to Purity… Which of these word associations would be placed on a SAT test? More like an “STD test.”

Chances are this “attraction of opposites” will be a lucrative endeavor. Everything Carrie Underwood has touched since her Idol victory has turned to gold. She hasn’t missed yet, and her career’s a long way from cooling off, but this PR-move is rife with systematic miscalculations. But, this certainly won’t help her ascent-ion… Have you ever looked directly into Mick Mars’ lifeless eyes? I hear that if you do so for more than seven seconds, you are sent directly to Hell (and you’ll wake up with track marks, and a depleted liver), no questions asked.

Maybe Underwood should have taken advice from her most notorious Idol-judge, and merely appeared in a video with the aging MC Skat Kat. Country music superstars are far more likely to serenade animated creatures than team up with drug-addled, heavily made-up male versions of Liza Minelli.

As it should be.

—

* – thanks Wikipedia

** – The only other female award-winner were Loretta Lynn [1972], Dolly Parton [1978], Barbara Mandrell [1980, ‘81], Reba McEntire [1986], Shania Twain [1999], and The Dixie Chicks [2000]

There will be a lot of angry “authentically punk” fans who will declare that fore fathering-choosing isn’t retroactive. These people are probably Lester Bangs-impersonators whose collective pursuit of edgy-cool-hipster-decadence comes across as hyper-trite, and rehearsed nonsensical sludge is laden across underachieving music blogs the world over. In fact, many of these individuals will probably have claimed to have heard about Death before news broke of their brief existence, and even have an extensive knowledge of their menacingly relevant catalogue, which is hardly as possible as they would lead on.

The fact of the matter is, the band in question sounds like a blistering version of the Ramones if Iggy Pop had come into the studio and lead them through a slew of tunes dedicated to more than three-chord synergy. It only takes one listen to get sucked in, and I guarantee all members of The Clash (if all were still alive) would fall in love with Death, a band that rocks just as hard, and sounds equally invigorating, fresh and addictive.

Music, particular of the punk rock variety, is supposed to sound life changing. Let’s be real, it certainly isn’t as such, but there are a select few bands that have created a catalogue of music that shatter previous boundaries and broaden the sonic-horizons of their listeners. Each year we are inundated with a whole gamete of new artists who largely recycle the tried-and-true templates created by those who came before them. Though there are occasionally exceptional groundbreakers among them, so many new acts make a very good living off of mimicking their heroes.

Is this right? Does this pass as art? It doesn’t matter. This is simply the way it is.

Remember the turn of the century? The surging slew of “The” bands that collectively hounded us with a “retro sound” that brought rock “back” to the forefront of popular music? It hadn’t really gone anywhere, but this is what rock-journalists do: They concoct stories about the looming death of a particular sound, and feverishly promote rock groups that remind them of music that used to be important.

This is what’s great about Death. Their songs simply deliver the essence of all the potential a true rock composition can have. There is no hint of posing. No trite pretentiousness. No unnecessary fourth refrain. No thrift-clothes-laden Williamsburg photo sessions.

I may be hypocritical for hounding Rolling Stone, or Spin for making good bands seem exceptional just because they “revived” an art-form that was down to its last blistering guitar solo, by giving you reason after reason to give Death a try. I don’t care. I’m not that smart.. What I do know is that when you hear something that gives you goosebumps, it’s absolutely necessary to spread the word.

So, before you “rock purists” go slinging your MacBook-concocted stones at the relevance of Death, listen to … For the World to See as soon as possible. I dare you to try and slight how important their music sounds. In an era where you can buy your “punk look” at Target, Death brings life back to the genre. Deal with it.

Check Out:

-Michael Roffman, Editor-in-Chief

By now, every music news outlet has reported that Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain has left the band that made him famous. Billy Corgan remains mum on the news, but it’s more likely than not the egocentric front man played a [significant] role in the decision. This calls into question an interesting idea. The 1990s are dead, and gone. They aren’t coming back. For some reason, several bands from that era [and eras prior] insist on popping up once again, making records, and touring our cities.

Why is this necessary?

Sure, I was excited as anyone else when Zeitgeist hit record stores (Oh, wait, it’s not the ’90s anymore), er, iTunes. But the drivel the record wound up producing hardly proved its worth. It’s not just Corgan’s fault, though. Guns N’ Roses released Chinese Democracy last year to a whirlwind of anticipation. What did we get? A decent record concocted by a slew of musicians who may have been in diapers when Axl Rose first got his appetite for creation.

As we near the end of this millennium’s first decade, and look back on what we’ve already been subjected to in this infant era, it’s impossible not to notice how “hot” a trend reuniting has become. Think about it. Rage Against the Machine. Motley Crue. The f*&#ing Eagles. The list grows longer with each dismembered band’s need for cash. Or is it acclaim? Or do they actually miss each other?

When The Pixies toured in 2004/05, there were legions of fans lining up to see their aging heroes reproduce the urgently shed tunes that reinvigorated the ethos of ’80s college rock merging with the bombastic, celebratory cynicism and indifference of the ’90s. What they got were semi-decent rock shows put on by four individuals who looked like they had just dropped off their youngsters at soccer practice. Don’t get me wrong, Frank Black is a hero, but bringing his most popular band back to the forefront wasn’t the best idea.

At least the Pixies knew when to quit, though (sort of). The Smashing Pumpkins are in dangerous territory. If Corgan keeps this up, he will have thrust a half a dozen throw-together records at us by 2013, and his legacy (as well as that of the original Pumpkins—no longer intact) will be a shriveled up memory of distorted, fuzzed out empty promises.

Whichever the case, Jimmy Chamberlain is probably very excited to finally be free of Corgan’s wrath. I’ve never met the beatifically bald guitar slinger, nor do I plan to. But one thing is certain: the man gets what he wants, and if he wants to make another Pumpkins record by himself, so be it. It’s a far less necessary happening than Kittens Ablaze’s looming summer tour. Or, The Dead Weather’s ensuing album release. Or… well, several hundred musical occurrences that will happen between now and Lollapalooza.

We’ll just learn to ignore it, sort of like how we’ve omitted The Godfather III from our film collections (despite them packaging it as a “trilogy”) or anything George Lucas has touched post-1990. Although if Corgan continues to plunder the name for too long, it might be hard to pick up Gish or Siamese Dream without that funeral-like dread…although, on second thought, that’s sort of how it feels like now.

Ciao.

Check Out:

The Smashing Pumpkins’ Looming Future…