Dad Rock

In the waning days of the Virgin Megastore Hollywood, just days before we shut our doors for good, I was given a promo by one of our managers. It was one of those UK import compilations, always chock full of hits and usually centered around some sort of loose theme. This particular collection was called, "Heroes: The Anthems" and featured 36 tracks of UK rock from the 60's to the 90's. One might say it is a UK approximation of what in the U.S. we call "classic rock". This set includes a lineage of acts that might fall under the umbrella of punk/alternative/indie (UK definition, meaning punk inspired and guitar based) or at least progenitors of such: The Kinks, The Specials, The Jam, The Undertones, David Bowie, Oasis, Primal Scream, The Buzzcocks, The Clash, The Small Faces, The Stones Roses and even Underworld were all featured.

Now I had all of these tracks, but was thrilled to have them all packaged together. It was very thoughtful of said manager to think of me and to know that this music suited me best. But then it occurred to me that perhaps what I thought was so hip was no longer considered such to my predominantly twenty-something fellow employees. What I thought of as the epitome of cool was in fact now considered old guy music or what is referred to in England, usually perjoratively, as "Dad Rock". Had I now slipped into unhip and out of touch status? I am...Dad Rock? How can I be Dad Rock when I'm not even a dad?

All of the artists on this compilation were once considered quite modern and cutting edge. The punk bands were once considered a threat to the very status quo of the music industry itself. Of course that was a long time ago and now punk acts are used to sell consumer products,played at sporting events or used to soundtrack Hollywood movies. What was once considered outside the mainstream (though it must be said it always had commercial potential) was now accepted as part of the mainstream. This reminds me of my last trip to London back in 2006. I was in a tube station (not at midnight) when I spied a billboard for a greatest hits cd by the punk-ish band from the 70's and 80's, The Stranglers. The tag line of the ad said "Perfect for Father's Day!" Huh? Unless that was a deliberately sarcastic line (which I don't believe it was) then I couldn't imagine a more inappropriate selling point for this record. I mean The Stranglers were notorious for their sleazy and downright misogynistic lyrics. I mean, had the marketing department for The Stranglers cd actually heard the likes of "Peaches"? Sample lyric:

"strolling along minding my own business
well there goes a girl and a half
she's got me going up and down
she's got me going up and down

will you just take a look over there (where?) there
is she tryin' to get outta that clitares?
liberation for women
thats what i preach
preacher man"

In a side note, the line about "is she trying to get outta that clitares" has often been mis-heard as clitoris. Clitares is French for bathing suit apparently. Though the word clitoris would make no sense in this context, no doubt the band took delight in this double entendre. A re-recorded version of the song for UK radio substituted "bikini" for "clitares".

Anyway, with songs like this and "Bring On the Nubiles" and "Nice and Sleazy" it somehow doesn't seem such an appropriate gift for dear old dad. However, this reinforces my point that what was once considered so outre is now boring music your weird old dad listens to. After all, no teen wants to have the same tastes as their parents. They are trying to rebel and gain their own independence from their folks. They want their music to be as annoying and alienating as possible. Now it seems that you have to try harder to make music that is more extreme than what your parents listened to. Unless you go the other way and you take up classical music or Broadway show tunes.

I love the Stranglers, as I love all of the bands on this compilation. Some of the acts were contemporaneous to my teenage years, others were not,but were discovered during those formative years. My musical tastes have moved on with the times. I am not perpetually stuck in the 80's. Yet one thing these acts have in common is that their music has endured and they have that elusive quality that all the best music has--songs. They are memorable songs, with choruses,bridges, hooks. Not all music then or now can claim this. They also are durable enough that they do not sound dated and "of their time" due to whatever the prevailing trend or technology was. They have achieved a certain classic status that can be an anathema to people who are forward looking when it comes to art, even if that art is pop music.

Who remembers the hipster bands of the 80's and 90's? I could list a thousand bands from the 80's who were underground-alternative-college bands who are now nothing but a footnote, all but forgotten. That is not to say they were bad or insignificant. I have tons of records and memories of acts from that time: Christmas? Wild Seeds? Naked Prey? Let's Active? Dumptruck? The Long Ryders? Translator? Once again let me say that I like all these bands,but how many of them left behind great songs? How many left behind songs that are well known and are influential on succeeding generations of musicians? Perhaps many of them did not have the luck or record company promotional budget that would allow for their work to seep into our collective consciousness. I guess what I am trying to say is that they were once considered the hip up-and -comers, the darlings of the underground, but within a few years they had been super-ceded by the next hip and happening band. Now, it is worth noting that some college-indie type acts influence and popularity has endured: The Pixies, Pavement and Sonic Youth certainly fall into that category.

I suppose it comes down to what you might call Shiny New Toy Syndrome. A band is only new for a limited time. Its sound only fresh for a short while. These days (and here is where I really start to show my Dad Rock-ness) there are so many people making music. Not only making music, but via the Internet there is now an outlet for this music, a chance for the whole world to hear it. That is, if you can somehow be noticed from amongst the onslaught of music vying for the World Wide Web's attention. The Internet now provides the kind of word of mouth, the kind of dissemination of music and information about said music that was unheard of back in my day (thank you, Dad Rock, or maybe Grand-Dad Rock!). Word of mouth was always critical. Friends were influential. Some could even be construed as taste makers, people whose opinions you valued above all others.

This still exists today, but now it is on a massive global scale. Everyone has an opinion and many of them want to share that opinion in blogs like this one.The cycle of hype and its inevitable backlash is now faster and faster. Careers that once lasted a few years can now be made and unmade in a matter of months, maybe even weeks. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of music and unsure of where to start or which filters (information sources) to trust. There are times I feel my Dad Rock-ness and begin to feel out of touch. And there are those who would say that I certainly should, that it is the natural process of growing up. Some of my friends still listen to new music and can still be influential. Others gave up on new music years ago and now their valuable word of mouth may be parenting advice, like how much to pay babysitters these days, that kind of thing.

One thing I know after all of these years is that the pop music (and I use this as a catch all term for the music that most young people listen to) is incredibly ephemeral. Ephemeral literally means "lasting only one day". Sometimes it seems that is how long careers last these days. So much of what I hear, especially from indie music, does not do too much for me (Dad Rock!) As you get older and especially if you have spent many, many hours listening to music, it gets harder to be impressed by something new. Often it does not sound truly new to you, but derivative of something older that you like better.

And these kids today (Dad Rock) often do not have an historical context of where this new music comes from; nor do they care. Why should they? They are interested in what is happening NOW, something they can call their own and relate to their youth. They don't want to hear some boring old fart go on about "Yeah, well if only you could have seen The Replacements. Now that was a band!" In fact, as much as I still love that particular group, they now seem like the epitome of Dad Rock (lots of 70's rock influence, some punk, and a whole lot of sensitive singer-songwriter vibe) and hardly the type of group that today's youth would consider in the least bit radical or cutting edge. In fact it is hard to keep up with "these kids" in many ways. They have the passion for the music that I had at their age but can't possibly maintain now. They devour music ravenously and are not a jaded middle-aged guy who has heard it all before. They also have the social networks in which they are sharing music like never before. We used to borrow albums or make our friends compilation tapes (Dad Rock again). We used to hang around in records stores and spend hours trying to track down elusive imports or rare releases by artists whom we only knew of their reputations. You used to have to really work at it. Now files are shared and the entire output of recorded music is available at a few clicks of a mouse, often not paid for at all.

As far as keeping up what is going on in new music, I often feel that if I am not tuned in for a couple of weeks that I am hopelessly out of touch. However, as a dj friend of mine stated, you can be away for a long time and then hop back into the scene and be up to speed pretty quickly. After all, many of the bands you were unaware of for the last couple of years are probably totally irrelevant now anyway.

I suppose I have come to terms with my Dad Rock status. If legendary acts like David Bowie,The Jam and The Clash are considered Dad Rock, then I am more than ok with it. In fact, I have to believe that eventually many youngsters will discover these acts and appreciate them one day. But then maybe that is what our parents or grandparents said about Elvis or Sinatra or The Beatles or...Perry Como?

To conclude this piece in a way that puts some perspective on things, I recall seeing a Billy Bragg show in London a few years back. Billy had this monologue bit between songs (no doubt repeated at all of his shows around this period) in which he acknowledged that himself (an old lefty punker) was getting older, as was his audience. This crowd was definitely a 35 and up group of people with only a few youngsters in attendance; in fact, some of them were the children of some of the attendees. Anyway, Mr. Bragg made the telling comment that it was going to be amusing in the future when our grand kids would gather round conspiratorially and say, "Watch what happens to grandpa when I put on this old ska record!" Inevitably time makes fools of us all.