I’m pretty sure I was blissfully unaware of the danger lurking just below the surface of rock and roll. Perhaps the strains of a 4/4 backbeat, amplified guitar and bass, and the raw energy in those first songs blasted from the 2’’ speaker of my first transistor radio at eight-years-old was enough to complete that defining experience. I’ve never lost the magic and transformative elements of rock and roll on my life.
I had a transistor radio like this one.
If you don’t think rock and roll was once a seditious form of “entertainment” or something else, Google “GG Allin,” or do some reading about Iggy Pop. There are certainly others that could be called “dangerous.” The former is someone who, even if you think his anti-authoritarian stage antics including defecation and throwing shit is a tad over-the-top, Allin believed that his total embodiment of rock and roll was “an escape from consumerism and commercialism” and “a desire to return rock and roll to it’s rebellious roots.” What were those roots? And how the hell did it go from being anti-establishment to every single fucking pansy-ass rock and roll millennial buckling under and quivering in total fear to a virus that may or may not pose any real threat to them and their picking up a goddamned guitar. If GG Allin is a turn-off, look up Iggy Pop then. Is he now pimping for the man? I’m not saying rock and roll has to be scatological to be good. Not at all. But, damn!! What the hell has happened to the genre when everything is so passive and complicit with following a narrative that enshrines our corporate overlords? Seeking an alternative to Allin? I’m fine with Johnny Rotten. I’m a fan of Neil Young and play some of his songs.
