Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A Little About Myself

About the Golden Age of Rock Music:

The first real thing I learned in high school was that the credible source is the best source.  So, in order to provide you my “credentials,” I present below:


 The Best Bands Around:

1.      The Beatles

2.      Bob Dylan

3.      The Band

4.      The Clash

5.      The Beach Boys

 

The Best Albums Around:

1.      Highway 61 Revisited

2.      Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

3.      Music From Big Pink

4.      London Calling

5.      Pet Sounds

 

Rock and Roll Credentials:

1.      Played some live shows in bands

2.      Economics Major in Undergraduate

a.       The major of choice for the frontmen of great bands, i.e. Mick Jagger

3.      Avid music listener

4.      I love live shows, and thus bootlegs.

 

and so on and so forth.  Now that you know who I am, your first question likely regards the “Golden Age” of rock.  When was it?  I consider it to be the 1960s and the 1970s, primarily.  While the 1950s did serve great importance with regards to the genesis of rock, the real Garden of Eden (to use the image kindly) did not really burst forth until the 1960s with the rise of so many great artists.  While beginning primarily as a sort of rockabilly or blues-based movement, it quickly outgrew its roots and moved into entirely unseen territory, yielding what we now know as the Golden Age of rock.  This lasted for over a decade, into the mid-to-late 1970s.  Why do I stop there?

I only need to present one word: synthesizer.  While synonymous with the 1980s, the synthesizer began to take hold in the 1970s, endangering the electric guitar and driving it to the brink of extinction.  This isn’t to say that the electric guitar is the only thing that separates a band from being rock and something else; it simply means that, for better or for worse, the electric guitar became more or less the everlasting icon of rock music.  Nor does it mean that the synthesizer is the antithesis of rock music.  The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” is probably the most well known example of great synthesizer use.  The decline of the electric guitar in rock music meant that its golden age would soon follow.  Thus, the Golden Age was over in the late 1970s.

So throughout the forthcoming blog series (is that the technical term?) I'll be addressing, or rather tire-ading (tirade, but I'll get tired of it, hence tire-ade...gotta love Ringo-isms) through a whole slew, nay, a plethora, of utterly meaningless quandaries relating to rock music.  Will there ever be another Beatles (probably not)?  Is there someone as self-referential and therefore awesome as John Lennon (surprisingly, yes)?  Who best represents "America" in the world of rock music (not an American group, I'll tell you that).  As these things come to me, I'll address them in some fashion.

If I don't feel like discussing them, you'll either get an "Influential Record" segment or some tire-ade on some actually current and therefore much more important events.  For example, records that have come out more recently than, say, 1990.  Or, I might even talk about something a normal blogger might, like the current political clime, or even just the clime of the earth and how everyone thinks the world will self-destruct soon (...something like that).

To address some basic blog things, I did steal a Talking Heads thing with the title.  Yes, the Talking Heads are awesome.  Currently, "The Name of This Week Is Talking Heads," but that's neither here nor there.  I'm trying to keep this from becoming Tweet-esque (or whatever that new-fangled technology is), so the entries will actually be A. fairly long and thus B. require you to actually sit down and read it, rather than let you walk willy-nilly staring into your Blackberry and thus either A. trip, B. fall, C. spill your coffee on yourself or D. negligently cause grievous harm to yourself.  See, I'm only looking out for ya.

May you always find gumption in all your daily activities,
-e.

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