Demarcation

I don't do "classic rock." That sort of American, mid 70's early 80's midtempo melodic banality is of little interest to me. Yet the radio format refuses to die, an insidious catchall whereby the most titanic of hard rock purveyors (Jimi, Sabs, Zep) and most out-there practitioners of mind-entrancing psychedelia (Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, the 'Dead) or even the most complex and ambitious prog professors (Yes, ELP, Rush) are forced to share airspace with 70's AM radio hits. Remember Doucet? he played some lame song about rock n' roll in like 1982. YEAH! Let's throw in a BTO song for our Canadian content and 'Smoke On The Water' too, because that's the only song by Deep Purple that our audience knows. That'll be way better than 'Echoes' because our audience are morons and only like what we tell them to like by drilling the same songs into their heads over and over as 'classics!' FUCKIN' ROCK MAN!

An albums-oriented band like Pink Floyd (Or The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, Yes, Crimson, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple or any other great band recording between 1963 and 1975) is seriously misrepresented by any format which selects single songs from an artist's oeuvre. And who decides which songs to play anyways? Haven't you heard enough of "Money" or "Stairway To Heaven?" Those songs were great because the formed parts of a coherent whole, a single work of art intended to be digested in its entirety. And the artists seem to be arbitrarily chosen, rather than according to style. Who decides to play Genesis but not King Crimson? If we can play a doomy dirge like "War Pigs" every day, why not throw in a Pentagram or Sir Lord Baltimore song? And when anything 'new' (like, since 1989) gets played, it's invariably something more recently by an artist who's main body of work still falls within the "classic rock" station's narrow definition of what makes something classic. Bruce Springsteen has a new song out? Fuck off, why should I care? I never liked him anyways. Otherwise, its like, generic modern rock like 54-40 or the Tragically Hip, who are Canadian, so you know, they have to play those welfare cases. I mean, if all your looking for is bands that do not stray too far from the confines of 70's style rock n' roll (instead of straying too far into any 'experimental' nonsense) you could do worse than to look for bands aping that style now. Hell, slip some My Morning Jacket or Sleepy Sun or Brian Jonestown Massacre into a rotation and your 40+ demographic won't even bat an eye. There's tons of bands from the 70's which have still yet to be unearthed on a wide scale who could fit in perfectly in such a format if given the chance. They just need to be heard. I played the Stooges "Search and Destroy" for my Stones-loving dad and he freaked on it! Get that stuff out there! So what if Bloodrock and Budgie and Captain Beyond never had any hits, they all still kick Foreigers' dicks in the dirt. And if Canadian rock with a 'classic' sound is what your looking for, Vancouver's very own Black Mountain does it better than anyone.

The simple fact is that we (we being broadcasters, bloggers, sonic travellers, myself and you, herr music fan) have a responsibility to ensure that great rock n' roll in all of its forms survives and thrives at a time when the internet and ipods have reduced everyone's attention spans to a point where they can no longer sit through a single song, let alone a 45-minute album even once. It's no longer enough for an album to be a grower. It's impact has to be immediate, and for that to be so, it cannot be challenging. Anything which challenges the listener requires work, and immediacy by definition cannot require effort on the listener's part.

I suppose it's really just a matter of what most people (the norms) want. While I don't have any statistics handy, my guess is that the majority of the audience of classic rock radio stations is comprised of white men between the ages of 30 and 55. These people don't want to hear anything they haven't heard before. That's why they listen to these stations which never play anything new. That doesn't make it any less frustrating to your truly. I've spent half my life unearthing buried rock treasure, new and old. The rock of antiquity has slowly seeped back into the public consciousness via its availability on the internet and the tireless editorializing of rock historians such as myself. The fact of the matter is, no matter how unfuckinbelievable some Taj Mahal Travellers bootleg from Japan in 1973 is, its appeal will always be limited here in North America. I can accept that. The obscurity of some of these lost relics is half of what makes them special, and I'll never trade the thrill of the chase for just being able to turn on the radio and hear what I want. I don't listen to the radio anyways, I hate commericals, and only a few DJ's whom I've listened to (Alan Cross comes to mind) have earned my respect as knowledgeable and authentic fans of worthwhile rock in a rigidly formatted corporate industry like radio. That doesn't mean I won't continually rail against the complacency of your average music fan in this here blog. Hey, if I can get you to get off your ass and go to a show or buy a record, it's worthwhile, and if not, well I can deal with pissing in the wind too. But you can bet my soundtrack will still be better than what's on Rock 101 right now.