Escapist Culture: Fool's Paradise

Don't wear a shirt if you don't want to or better yet show us your chest hair...
Nothing says relaxation than long hair and air flowing through your flare...

Johnny Rotten once said that everyone looked like teddy bears in the 1970's...must have been referring to those ugly knits:

:P Blech!

Aside from all that wretched taste in fashion, there was a top 40 music and radio industry which dominated the air waves. It thrived off pop music and very long rock songs. By long songs I mean the tireless sound-waves of soft rock, country rock, southern rock, art rock, prog rock, glam rock, hell even metal. Although disco wasn't Rock, that too was weak, that and the 1970's Pop was highly wretched with empty messages. Not all of it was bad, but it was overwhelming awful. The point is that mostly mainstream sounds sucked. FM Radio was supposed to be a blessing! Not a dreaded curse!

Rock music had long solos that went on and on and on. It became excessive due to the use of the stadium; reaping the heavy rewards of an arena. How big do you need a stage to perform? So unnecessary because it's just another way to make even more cash.

Rock 'N' Roll is not about selling out a venue. It should NEVER be an opera. This excessive culture would extend itself to its height in even higher in the 1980's.

Not an expert on the 1970's, but just look at the pictures and they practically give it all away. The idea of the 1970's was to relax. Relax to forget your problems because it feels so damn good. Why bother working so hard to change the world when its easier to join in, conform, or not do anything at all. It was a hedonistic society. This mentality simply made society full of lazy, sluggish, and temporarily happy citizens.

For ten long years, a generation was being denied the innovative music that it deserved. Hence Punk became the new innovative form of Rock, that was intended to fight the record companies and destroy the pop crap once and for all. Punk Rock was the atomic bomb to be dropped on mainstream culture and social issues. Enough was enough. No more corruption from the government and no more superficial/shallow pop culture designed by the corporate oligarchies of the world. Punk was to re-instill in the energy lost in Rock music because it became so damn LAZY and overbloated.

How Actually Bad Were the 1970's?

Perhaps for being the first post I was a bit brash and mostly ranting. I am truly infuriated, but I wish to find a solution to our problems. The last time that Rock music was in deep trouble, was during the 1970's, a time of escapist attitudes towards problems of any kind.

The hippies had failed to cause effective action to create significant change. If anything they should be credited with inspiring alternate lifestyle in the generations to come, but they did not change the world. They simply brought awareness to the problem that existed in the world around us.

Even escapist attitudes seeped into Rock music and culture by establishing the only thing that mattered to mainstream Rock: Sex, Drugs, & Rock 'N' Roll (add Cash in there too ;-). Instant hedonistic pleasure became the focus of generation fully capable of bringing about significant change.

Punk Rock challenged these escapist attitudes by attempting to innovate Rock music by pushing it into the future in an unknowingly important direction. What people don't know is that Punk Rock was necessary in a time of cultural crisis when music sterility lingered in the sound-waves of the times. Whether it be the television, radio, or the record store...the music stunk...just like everything else in the 1970's. There is a reason that there were no "Beatles" in the 1970's. Simply because no one was starting up any bands. Everyone was too distracted amongst their many distractions which fueled the escapist attitude. For example, escape the urban cities to the suburbs, take drugs to forget about your problems, if drugs won't do it get yourself a partner have cheap sex. All this reminds me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Pardon my ramblings, but I just hope you get the idea of how bad the 1970's were and that they wreaked of hedonistic beliefs. The 1970's mainstream caused strenuous problems on Rock music by causing the world to think that a person had to make it "big" to succeed. Thanks to Punk Rock this mentality has been challenged and thrown out the window many times.

Take a look at this interview of Lester Bangs, it is everything you need to know about the 1970's, before Punk. Bangs was a great antithesis against the Rock music sterility at the time:

Declaration and Reclamation

There is something which has worried me for a great deal of time. I just can't take it anymore...this lack of accomplishment and I feel a sentiment of failure. Perhaps the greatest way to sum up this feeling of madness, confusion, and conviction is a scene from one of my favorite films. I present to you "Network" (1976):

That's just it "I'm Mad as Hell." But what does any of this have to do with Rock 'N' Roll. These are my feelings to being a part of a generation known as the "Millenials" and also my reaction to the saturated/over-bloated mainstream American culture which has resurfaced yet again and it's all our fault. We the people are the power which has neglected it and therefore it has manifested itself. Where is Rock music now? I have no damn idea, but in some ways this is my call out to it because I want it so badly. I don't know where to look anymore. I need help and suspect that I'm not the only one.

Why am I doing this? Mostly it is because I have nothing better to do and I despise the mainstream corporate oligarchy that we are behaviorally conditioned to call the music industry. Better yet one of my favorite terms is the corrupt/broken Indie machine.

Look around you. Is there any aspiration or indication to Rock music even remotely having any impact in the world? Most certainly not in my immediate eyesight or earshot, therefore I demand to know where it is, or else we will need to create it ourselves.

What do I hope to accomplish with this blog? I want begin again. Clear the slate, clean it blank. We and I must establish a blank slate for Rock music. It's not the first time that Rock music has been in trouble nor the first time that the slate has been cleared. It is up to every last one of us to demonstrate how much we care about it. I say it's damn time to do something about it. I will continue to post my ideas, thoughts, and parts of my life on this blog, just to see how far it will go.