Recapturing The Sweet Bird of Anthem

On Monday, it was ripping sounds and lyrics:

They're piling in the back seat.  They're generating steam heat.  Pulsating to the back beat. The blitzkrieg bop

By Sunday it was a group from Ireland reflecting civil war:

And the battle's just begun.There's many lost, but tell me who has won? The trench is dug within our hearts. And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart 

The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop. U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. The Cure's Head on the Door. Echo and the Bunnymen's Killing Moon, and many more. These were the Sweet Birds of Gen X youth anthems that moved and made sense to me. They were the angst. They were the songs that echo rebellion. They were the songs that defined, designed and defied in my youthful mind. 

By the time the "Jesus Years" rolled around (the Jesus Years is the time from age 30 to 39 in which a young adult professes who they are and what their calling is, or have a good sense of it), these anthems were forgotten, or, worse, the idea of having anthems to reflect time and space wasn't adulting now. If one had anthems during these times, they were generally background noise, heard over the radio, or retro-fixes with now-warped mix-tapes of the"good ol' shit" found at the bottom of moving boxes played over the now-out-of-date cassette player. 

But these were now serious times. Some of us got married and had children. Some of us took well-paying jobs that retired our rock 'n' roll dreams. Some of us moved away and started a new identity elsewhere. All of us became adults, and, by doing so, we began to discover ourselves through these professions. These testimonials now became who and what we are: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:11). So our Sweet Bird of Anthems we paraded around to in our youth, were now put away in the discovery of our adult selves. 

As Gen Xers started moving closer to the Jesus Years exit signs, our lives began to show a different direction we were heading towards. Those married were now divorced and single parents struggling to make ends meet. Those who took well-paying jobs burned out and ended up opening up small businesses. Those who moved away came back home,  but nobody remember who they were, so they had to restart another new identity.  Our confessed professions were just that. Professions. We professed, but it was not who we thought we were. Those childish ways: disillusioned, angst-filled, rejecting of status quo, mistrusting, cynical of establishments, and dystopian, weren't thrown out but laying at the bottom of the moving boxes with the mixed-tapes. 

But did our old anthems to get us through it? We loaded our iPods with them, but, unlike the Boomers who live in denial and nostalgia, the music didn't resonate anymore.  Sure the music reflected the childish ways, but the feelings were now seasoned with adulthood. It wasn't hard to figure it out. The music of our Gen X youth wasn't relevant to us anymore. 

Sad ending? Oh hell no. The Blank Generation is a resourceful and creative lot. We started finding new anthems that reflected our lives. We expanded our tastes in music and found different artists that were writing songs and lyrics relatable to our current situations. With songs like Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell's Outfit: 

You want to grow up to paint houses like me.  A trailer in my yard till you're twenty three.  You want to be old after forty two years. Keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears

Green Day's X-Kid: 

I once was old enough to know better, man, but I was too young to care. Many cares, probably would, but Hollywood is dead and gone.

We were reunited with the love of making soundtracking to our lives. Like those days with SONY Walkmans with cassette mix tapes, we once again walk around with our indestructible iPods jacked in with non-wireless ear plugs listening to the music we understand in our now middle-age lives. And understand with conviction because we sought it out on our own. 

Gen Xers aren't those dweebs driving around in a convertibles blasting Bob Seger, or the tuned-out texting hipster poser with wireless earplugs. Gen Xers are spottable because we are the ones in deep-thought, walking at a slacker with purpose pace, creating our own real-time private videos through the music blasting in our headphones. 

Yes, we've digitalized our mix tapes and listen to the "oldies" as well. I mean there's nothing like a cut from the Ramones' Pleasant Dreams or Clash's Sandinista! to start the day off. But we've learned to not live in the music through nostalgia but by appreciation of these musicians and their contribution to not only the music world but to our own lives. They did help shape us. They did give meaning in a world that didn't give a rat's ass about us (and still doesn't). They were an anthem for our youths, and we were proud of that sound. 

But here we are, 21st Century, and, ironically, the institutions have still let us down. Social establishments have still failed us. The world has gotten more cynical and more dystopian since we were 21. We may have had to put aside some of those childish ways due to adulting, but what we didn't give up on was the love of music and how it plays an important part of our lives. Because, as children and now adults, music is all we have to help us understand the world around us no matter if it was 1984 or 2020. 

And that is how Gen X recaptured the Sweet Bird of Anthems. 

THE HALL OF MINOR ROCK GODS

What I need is a booming, echoey sound effect with that title. Hell, a laser show with a fog-machine would be the perfect cherry topping to that sundae.

I digress. 

This past summer the Rolling Stones made a return trip to Buffalo, New York after a near 20 year absence to the region. With ticket ranging upwards  to $400 getting an opportunity to catch what may be their final tour (although they've been saying this about these geezers for the past 20 years),  the price was a huge deterrent in catching the show. Truthfully, I respect their music and will enjoy listening to it but wouldn't consider myself a fan of the band, so the decision was relatively easy to make. 

$50 on a Social Distortion show? I am all in. 

On the day of the show I got a text from a friend who simply asked, "Would you like to go to the Rolling Stones"? Of course my first reaction was to think not for $100, but replied "how much?"

Then perhaps one of the greatest words in the English language, popped up on my text screen.

"Free". 

$0 to see the Rolling Stones? I am all in. 

So, that evening I went to a sold-out stadium rock concert. 

The ROCK GODS at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo NY

Again, I am not a fan but from that evening, The Rolling Stones are ROCK GODS, and am honored to see them live in concert. The performance was absolutely amazing and everything one could imagine what a stadium rock concert should sound and be like. 

This set me thinking about what truly makes a Rock God. Oh sure, the corporate music industry can define them as those who had hits, sold-out shows and sold a ton of albums, and popular culture and one-direction media sources create icons out of both the band's music and members that elevate them to deities. 

But there has to be more to the definition. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans in their polytheistic worshipping had a god for almost everything. Understandably there was a main head god with his "queen" but there were several other gods with various purposes and functions that were equally important in the universe and, specifically the daily lives of humans. If this approach is applied to how one can consider a band Rock Gods, then there plenty of room for the God of Dead Flowers and the God of Rockville. 

Because with this way of defining what constitutes a Rock God then we identify who are the Zeus(s) and who are the Asclepius (s) of Rock and Roll.

So with an acknowledgement that bands like the Rolling Stones, The Who, and performers like David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen are major "gods", let us take a look at the HALL OF MINOR ROCK GODS (echo, echo). 

REM

Am borderline with declaring REM as "minor" because of their influence and success first as a alt-indy band on college radio then to the international recognition of their music. Why am entering them into the HALL OF MINOR ROCK GODS is that even though their influence on college radio in the 80's which eventually lead to the internet diversity found in podcasts and a creation of a genre of music many tried to emulate, discussion about who influence the alt-music sound steers away from REM. Why? Perhaps as is the case with The Beatles, REM was listened to on a daily basis and became so ingrained in a generation's music library that now they're shelved and only occasionally pulled down for an off-pitched, mumbled singing by Michael Stipe and Peter Buck's Byrds inspired chord structured jangling song or two. 

The Misfits

From their experimental album reconstruction of classic 50's songs (Project 50's) to the sci-fi/horror themed 12 Hits from Hell, Glenn Danzig and his merry band from Lodi, New Jersey have been influential in shaping the music industry to this day and can be considered creators of the genre "Horror Punk". Formed in 1977, The Misfits under Danzig's tutelage until 1983, recorded several singles, EP and albums including the original member album Walk Among Us as well as the recorded by later release Static Age. Later incarnations of The Misfits would see a shift from punk to a hardcore sound and several albums released featuring original member Jerry Only with later addition of his brother Peter aka Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein. Regardless of the lineup, The Misfits are an underground to the surface cult-classic band that still remains relevant in Rock mythology.

The Cramps

What The Misfits are to the past and present Horror Punk movement, The Cramps are to the Psycho-'Billy music movement; they are the gods of that domaine. From the highly charged live-performances to the 8 studio-recorded albums spanning over two decades, Erick Lee Purkhiser aka Lux Interior, Kristy Wallace aka Poison Ivy and drummer Harry Drumdini (lineups also included Gun Club guitarist Kid Congo Power) brought their unique twist on an Americana sound that influenced numerous bands (Flat Duo Jets, The Reverend Horton Heat and modern day Saint Paul and the Broken Bones) that still, to this day, hasn't been duplicated (Sorry Southern Culture on the Skids). With Lux's unpredictable stage presences that made past and present Mick Jagger look like a geriatric marionette puppet, and the pelvic grinding guitar riffs by Ivy, The Cramps were one of the best post-punk bands worthy of deification. 

The White Stripes

Yes, this may come as a surprise. In the same context that Rock Gods Nirvana legitimized Punk Rock with their sound (and some say killed it) and launched a genre of Power Pop/Punk Pop or The Talking Heads and the avant-garde/art music sound that remains classic, this duo of Megan White and Jack Gillis (later taking his wife's surname) redirected a floundering underground music industry and refreshed interest in music influenced by early Blues, Americana and Punk. Soon after their self-titled first album The White Stripes was heard, a slight pulse was felt, and by White Blood Cells their music was beginning to salvage underground Rock and Roll. The Black Keys, Millennial's fav Mumford and Sons and other garage-rock/blues/Americana band owe their rise to success to the breakthrough albums crafted by The White Stripes. 

GG Allin
What Rock God Elvis Presley did to create the iconoclastic showmanship of  Rock, GG Allin did everything to bring the myth down. With unprecedented live performances including shitting himself, self-mutilation and beating up audiences, GG Allin was shot out of Mount Mainstream Olympus and, like Hades, thrown into the unseen depths of counter-culture Hell. His music was poorly recorded and, honestly, hard to sit down and tap your feet to, but with GG Allin the music was secondary to his concept of "making Rock dangerous again". If you were one of the fortunate to make it out of one his live performances unscathed and not traumatized, the experience would ever change the perception of how far a Rock show performance could go and forever influence your views of Rock showmanship. GG Allin never inspired to be part of Mount Mainstream Olympus (often making claims of committing suicide during one of his performances) and this rebellious attitude to all things safe and sane about Rock and Roll is exactly the spirit behind the music and a major reason why GG Allin can be considered a Minor Rock God.

GG Allin Making Friends

The Ramones

Why is this legendary group from Queens not considered as Rock Gods? Simple. Because nobody has placed this title on them. The Ramones are one of the most influential post-punk bands to rise out of late 70's and continued to shape music until the death of Joey Ramone in 2001.  What makes them one of the lead deities in this HALL OF MINOR ROCK GODS is that they are considered the Uber-God in the counterculture music mythology, and this works against their placement in mainstream Rock history. Why they are not considered "classic rock" and featured on radio stations playing this genre is beyond me. What The Ramones did for America music is salvage the dying sounds of early Rock and muffled genre of Surf Music (thank you Beatles) and, through the angst ingredient of Punk, created a music style that is the child of these genres pushed aside by the British Invasion. The fact that the Rock and Roll HOF finally inducted The Ramones in 2001 speaks to the oversight by Mount Mainstream Olympus. 

The Clash

Okay, so there is some irony after slamming the British Invasion that am placing a British band as one of the most highly ranked Minor God of Rock.  Honestly, one could flip The Ramones and The Clash based on both band's being overlooked in significance byMount Mainstream Olympus yet both have been historically noted in influencing numerous bands and individuals. The glaring difference is that The Clash was not inducted into the Rock and Roll HOF until 2003. That's is not the reason why this band is the head honcho. 

In an alternative universe that sees several rerouted American music history moments, as on route to the USA, the Beatles' plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 1964, this tragedy prevents decades of an America that's exposed to bubble-gum Rock and the birth of boy-bands. As a result, Surf Music continues to dominate radio giving an early birth to genres inspired by the sounds as mainstream openly accepts these alternative bands. A group of hooligans comes to America, and overhauls everything we've been exposed to thus far at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. This group with Marshall stacks and an unprecedented stage show dominates American radio, and records charts, to becomes the British Invasion that the mainstream openly accepts.  This opens the minds and musical tastes of America for the appearance of "The Only Band That Matters" in the early 80's that sets the tone for the mainstream music industry and brings genres like Ska and Rocksteady to a wider listenership. 

Like I said, this is an alternative universe as the Beatles safely landed in the USA and made history. 

This also sealed fate of The Clash being consigned to the counter-culture as The Who, although Rock Gods, didn't become the defining sound in American Rock Music history which would have opened the door for alternative variations in the following decades. The Clash, "The Only Band That Matters", is a footnote in mainstream Rock history. What will not be recognized by the Mount Mainstream Olympus is that The Clash can be considered one generation's version of The Beatles with the diversity of sounds created over the short span of five years that inspired numerous bands throughout the 80's, 90's and the 21st Century. 

The Clash will be known as the post-punk band that had a few top-40 hits with one song Rock the Casbah being used by troops in Iraq (and reportedly making Joe Strummer cry upon hearing the news), but their music and legend is worthy of Rock God status. Yet, turn-on classic rock stations and is this music played? No. The Clash has gone back to the underground and on the throne in the Hall of Minor Rock Gods.