Rock and Roll Never Forgets

Icky Thump came out and I could talk about it...but I'm not. I am going to talk about the White Stripes, but in a passing way. So, if you automatically tune out my Stripes rants, hold on, they're not the focus.
Music is. I had a boot of Icky way before it came out, and I didn't listen to it. I waited until midnight on the day of release and listened. Was this because Jack White so desperately wanted to surprise the world with his latest shiny silver circle of brilliance? In part. He reminded me of the good old days of music, counting the days until the latest album by my favorite band was released, waiting in line at the record store ( I loved record stores, the atmosphere, the smell, the feel... hell they were home), getting a large piece of cardboard with a large piece of vinyl in it, rushing home and hearing it for the first time. There were many good albums in there and some really bad ones, but it didn't matter.
Same thing for concerts. Now, you order your tickets online and either print them out on a stupid piece of copy paper or you wait for them to come in the mail. How nice and neat. Fucking boring! I slept outside many a night waiting in line for tickets ( Hey Riff Randell...I'm the Ramones #1 fan!!), and waited in the rain for hours for tickets. Ok, not the most unique experience on the planet, but it's still much better than what I did the other day, set the alarm, for 9:55 and staggered to the computer, bought my Stripes tickets ( at the presale, god shoot me now), and went back to bed. I wasn't even awake enough to be excited.
I've been remembering the days when we had rock stars....good ones, not Marilyn Manson on the cover of Spin with "The Last Rock Star?" plastered on his face. The real ones, the punk gods, the metal gods, the ones who actually put themselves out there for you, in the way they acted, the interviews they gave (remember the ones where you actually found out about the band in between all the stories of drunken debauchery?), the shows they put on. I miss those guys. I miss Diamond Dave, I miss Axl, I miss Motley Crue and the whole Hollywood Strip swagger. I miss the sleaze and dirt that's been sterilized away by this whole trend of everything needing to be remixed, available on iTunes, and be danceable. You couldn't dance to Master of Puppets, and I'm not sure you wanted to. But different genres are out there for everyone to be happy, but we're all being force fed with the same spoon, so it's irrelevant who you like anyway these days. When I'm out on a Friday night, it astounds me how much of what I hear on the jukebox is music from the old days. I've never heard SexyBack playing at my usual Friday night haunt. But the last Friday I was there, there was a lot of old hair metal, and Aerosmith from their good days, and Zeppelin and The Doors and this is a damn dart bar. Lots of people, lots of different ideas, but no Christina Aguliera, nothing Timbaland ever looked at, no Britney, no Beyonce, nothing even close. That's the place I wanna be.
I live above a bar, it's a neighborhood dive bar in the middle of a strip of clubbish type bars. The music from the bar drifts up through the floor and what's playing right now? Pat Benatar's Love Is A Battlefield. The 70's and 80's are big down there, and when I do hear current stuff being played down there 99% of the time it's the White Stripes.
People are always asking if rock is dead... actually Manson declared it dead 4 albums ago... on Mechanical Animals.... go check it out, I'll wait...
Back? Good. Rock isn't dead, but it's dying from apathy. All your faves from the 80's? Check and see when they released the obligatory album of covers. Ozzy did it a few years ago, Poison just released one. Guns N Roses... check. Great White... check. Slaughter.... yep. It goes on and on. Thank god for bands like Motley and Faster Pussycat, they at least release new stuff occasionally.
I just miss all the excitement associated with music. I wonder if anyone besides Jack White cares and what he intends to do about it. Manson isn't the last rock star, both he and Reznor gave up on rock a long time ago. Reznor crawled back into the shell that he hid in before PHM and now just releases the same album in different words with a different cover and a new conspiracy theory. Manson, on the other hand, may be redeemed, but as rock and roll dragging around a 20 year old blond chick is, it's creepy when you're doing a "divorced a fake burlesque queen and I'm devastated but I found true love with Lolita and she's willing to let me exploit her" album. it's a good album, but it's not rock.
Maybe music was just more fun then...or maybe no one cares anymore...but for those who do, I respect them. Chris Cornell? Listened to the boot of his new one. Manson? Him too. But The White Stripes wanted to live in the good old day, I listened to it on release day and it way the most exciting music related thing I've done in awhile. Anticipation is great sometimes.
No list....