Hope I die before I get old

June 17, 2007 6:36 AM

You're never too old to rock 'n' rollThe classic American midlife crisis has found a new outlet: garage-band rock ’n’ roll. Baby boomers across the country — mostly middle-aged dads who never quite outgrew an obsession with the music of their youth — are cranking up their amps and living their rock ’n’ roll fantasies.
posted by Flem Snopes (119 comments total)

NY Times link actually contains samples of some of the performances of the "bands" featured.

May God have mercy on their souls.
posted by Flem Snopes at 6:39 AM on June 17, 2007

“It’s a great thing when your chief executive is singing an AC/DC song,” Mr. Stapp said.

Shoot me now.
posted by psmealey at 6:41 AM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

At least we won't run out of wedding bands any time soon.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:54 AM on June 17, 2007

When I am 35-40 and married, living in the suburbs of some city somewhere, I will definitely be rocking the fuck out with my suburban dad buddies on the weekends.

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n roll, after all.
posted by Mikey-San at 7:06 AM on June 17, 2007

thirty odd foot of meh
posted by flabdablet at 7:07 AM on June 17, 2007

“What do other people do?” he asked, as if only vaguely aware of his other options, none of which appeal to him in the least. “A fancy car? An affair?”

“Credit cards and old stock options help make up for all the cool toys we did without when we were young,” Mr. Lynd said. “Tuners, effects pedals, multiple axes, stands that cost more than my first car.”

“It’s great when your kid’s friends know you as the dad who can play all the licks to ‘Black Dog,’ ” Mr. O’Connell said.

I'm trying to figure out which quote would best serve as a one-line summation of that extraordinary mix of preening self-importance and total self-absorption that may well be the Baby Boom's ultimate legacy.

All of these bands should be called Fiddling While Rome Burns.
posted by gompa at 7:12 AM on June 17, 2007 [6 favorites]

It's like Tony Snow and the Wandering Huckabees.

“It’s a great thing when your chief executive is singing an AC/DC song,” Mr. Stapp said.

You just know their favorite album is Back in Black and they've never even heard of Bon Scott.
posted by The Straightener at 7:13 AM on June 17, 2007

Hmm. I've finally figured out what I'm doing wrong as a parent. My kids whine like the devil about the relentless thump, thump, thump of their old man's home made Drum and Bass. If I can only pick up a guitar, and start cranking out the AOR hits of the seventies, I'll finally get the respect that I so obviously deserve.

And will you kids get off my MPC 2000!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:14 AM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

My favourite AC/DC record is Back in Black, and I have heard of Bon Scott. But I know what you're sayin'.
posted by Mikey-San at 7:15 AM on June 17, 2007

You're never too old to rock 'n' roll

Yes. You are.
posted by RavinDave at 7:15 AM on June 17, 2007

[NOT BLACK AND BLACKIST]
posted by The Straightener at 7:19 AM on June 17, 2007

You're never too old to rock 'n' roll.
posted by basicchannel at 7:25 AM on June 17, 2007

just fuck you all.

*plugs in, cranks knob to 10, wails*
posted by quonsar at 7:26 AM on June 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

and coldplay or mc hammer ain't rock, you sneering little wet behind the ears geeks.
posted by quonsar at 7:30 AM on June 17, 2007

*throws the goat to quonsar*
posted by Mikey-San at 7:31 AM on June 17, 2007

Better?
posted by basicchannel at 7:33 AM on June 17, 2007

those people are all 30 years too old to be baby boomers. the trouble with you kids is you'll buy anything. i guaran-fucking-tee you the whole "young@heart" gimmick was perpetrated by the addled mind of some gen-xer.
posted by quonsar at 7:40 AM on June 17, 2007

In bands with older people, says singer Carol Cheney, “There’s no drama.”

Please send this to my drummer and bassist.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:44 AM on June 17, 2007

those people are all 30 years too old to be baby boomers.

Q. What do Pete Townshend and the Zimmers have in common?

A. I don't know, but I'm not leaving my kids with *any* of them.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:52 AM on June 17, 2007

*sigh*
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:06 AM on June 17, 2007

I don't care what anyone says the Breadwinnerz rock!
posted by any major dude at 8:15 AM on June 17, 2007

My favourite AC/DC record is Back in Black, and I have heard of Bon Scott.

Bon Scott was an incredible performer and had a once in a lifetime voice and stage presence. He gave AC/DC a haughty, snotty punk-ish edge to what was pretty much a straight ahead blues rock band, and it was an unbelieveable tragedy that he died before they broke through.
... but Back in Black is my favorite AC/DC album as well.
posted by psmealey at 8:19 AM on June 17, 2007

I'm trying to figure out which quote would best serve as a one-line summation of that extraordinary mix of preening self-importance and total self-absorption that may well be the Baby Boom's ultimate legacy.

In contrast to the explosive altruism and expansive mindfulness of the subsequent and current generations.

Yeah, these twits need real hobbies, like watching sports and endless vigils on the sidelines of their grandkid's soccer games.
posted by docpops at 8:25 AM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

I have a hard time seeing what on earth is wrong with people getting together and making music rather than spending their weekends watching television and going to the mall. Sheesh.
posted by jokeefe at 8:28 AM on June 17, 2007

"Mothers to the left of me! And children to the right!"

Nah.
posted by jimmythefish at 8:32 AM on June 17, 2007

I have a hard time seeing what on earth is wrong with people getting together and making music rather than spending their weekends watching television and going to the mall.

Just for the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. As an old rocker approaching... well in, middle age myself, I'll no doubt be playing music for the rest of my life, and as such, I'll probably take as much flack for it. I don't care.

What does seem lame to me however, is the idea of playing classic rock covers. The idea of doing that now seems even more boring to me than it did when I was a kid in the 80's. But that's more a matter of taste than of execution (de gustibus).
posted by psmealey at 8:49 AM on June 17, 2007

I'm trying to figure out which quote would best serve as a one-line summation of that extraordinary mix of preening self-importance and total self-absorption that may well be the Baby Boom's ultimate legacy.

The "extraordinary mix of preening self-importance and total self-absorption" tends to dissipate as you get older, at least in my experience.

thirty odd foot of meh.

At least 80% of everything is crap, and I'm sure the level of musicianship involved here is no exception. On the other hand, you pick up a few things if you've been playing for 47 years like I have.

Playing music live is like having sex... doing beats watching. At least these guys are playing music, not sitting at a computer stealing somebody else's.

just fuck you all.

*plugs in, cranks knob to 10, wails*

Can I get an amen for brother quonsar?

AMEN!!!

My kids signed me up for the Weekend Warriors thing a few years ago and it was a hoot. Out of around 25 participants, our group consisted of the three oldest, put together because nobody else wanted us. We were also the only ones who stuck it out for the final performance.

The guy that was our designated drummer was a black choir director for an Baptist church who always wanted to play in a band. It was worth all the practice to see his kid's reaction to the old man singing "Born Under a Bad Sign" a la Albert King and doing some smokin' Otis Redding.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 8:52 AM on June 17, 2007

Seriously, instead of playing Joe Jackson tunes they should tune down to A flat, use some of their hoarded capital to amass an army of Sunn stacks and kilos of heroin and craft heinous blackened sludgecore in the name of Satan.

EYEHATEDAD.
posted by The Straightener at 8:55 AM on June 17, 2007

Speaking as a long-time fan of indie and garage bands, over the years many bands I've enjoyed included on their roster adult males who were family men and happily got their agressions out on the axe every weekend. From the ages of 25 to 65 I've seen them, and they all knew how to rock.

So you youngsters who thumb your noses at anyone older than you who picks up an instrument and enjoys the music? Heck with ya. AND GIT OFF MY LAWN!!!

"My favourite AC/DC record is Back in Black, and I have heard of Bon Scott."

My favorite AC/DC band is Back In Black. I think they do Bon Scott's stuff better than he did.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:02 AM on June 17, 2007

“Bon Scott was an incredible performer and had a once in a lifetime voice and stage presence. He gave AC/DC a haughty, snotty punk-ish edge to what was pretty much a straight ahead blues rock band, and it was an unbelieveable tragedy that he died before they broke through.
... but Back in Black is my favorite AC/DC album as well.”

Yeah. I wouldn't say that Back in Black is my favorite album from AC/DC, but I like it as much as I like the others. I admit that I want to dislike it, because Bon Scott, apparently, did for AC/DC what you describe above and, in my opinion, made them authentic. Back in Black is a damn good album, but it feels a lot less authentic, a lot more like a polished record-company product. Which is okay, in the case of that one album, because it still manages to be really good, as in the case of a few other polished record-company products. I don't like any of the post-Back in Black albums, though, because whatever made Back in Black tolerable was diminished enough after it that the rest just sound like product to me. Not unlike all ZZ Top after Eliminator. I sort of think of the two bands and those two albums similarly—in both cases, the bands produced greatly more interesting and authentic stuff prior to these two albums, both these two albums were a break from the past and much more slick and produced but were good anyway, and then what came after was just slick and produced and not good. Which, if you were a fan at the time, was really depressing. Don't even get me started on Van Halen or Rush, which also went around the bend into bland forgettableness.

“I have a hard time seeing what on earth is wrong with people getting together and making music rather than spending their weekends watching television and going to the mall. Sheesh.”

And what docpops said. What's wrong with people wanting to play music? I don't begrudge someone picking up an instrument in middle-age and learning it and playing the music of their youth. It's not the most interesting thing they could do, but it's a lot better than watching TV, as jokeefe says.

And them some of us have been musicians all our lives, since childhood. What's wrong with us continuing to play?

Granted, I'm not playing with anyone these days. But I've been thinking about it. And, granted, when I do play with people I'm a lot more interested in writing new music and doing new and interesting things than wallowing in the music of my childhood. That came out more negative than I intended—it's not really for me, but I don't want to begrudge other people doing it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:12 AM on June 17, 2007

*plugs in, cranks knob to 10, wails*

Whatever you do, just keep that knob away from 11.
posted by three blind mice at 9:14 AM on June 17, 2007

I'm 63.... and still playing music, 12-string guitar, bodhran, doing celtic, covering Beatles, Springsteen, the Kingston Trio, Dylan, the Band, the Dead, Solas, John Mayer.... if it's good, we'll do it and play the he** out of it.

Democratic fundraisers, gatherings of other old hippies (the two often go together...) it keeps me feelin' good.
posted by drhydro at 9:16 AM on June 17, 2007

*plugs in, cranks knob to 10, wails*

quonsar must be getting old. Real rockers set their amps to "11".
posted by RavinDave at 9:17 AM on June 17, 2007

AND THEN TEAR THE FUCKING KNOB OFF.
posted by loquacious at 9:27 AM on June 17, 2007

More seriously: My dad has a band. They started years ago. They're pretty damn good, actually, with a wildly diverse range of covers - not just the music of their youth.

I'd thought I'd seen it all until I heard them cover Sublime's "40 ounces to freedom" in a sort of reggae-skiffle mashup.
posted by loquacious at 9:31 AM on June 17, 2007

Old rockers never die, they just....
posted by gomichild at 9:32 AM on June 17, 2007

So rock and roll is now a fantastical refuge for the privileged and aging middle class, where they can act out fantasies of youth, rebellion, and sexual liberation, before they return to their McMansions, their desks, their computers, their salary, their SUVs, their kids, their long marriages, and their aging bodies.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with it, per se, any more than there is anything wrong with making the Renaissance or the Civil War an entertaining retreat from reality for people who want to wear codpieces and swordfight, or want to wear Union grays and fire a cannon. But it's interesting that rock's great mythology of authenticity -- that it is created by people who authentically live the rock and roll lifestyle -- has been so thoroughly rejected by these hobby musicians.

It used to be that rock and roll was a young man's art, and when you aged past it, you moved into musical forms that better reflected your adult experiences, such as Elvis recording gospel and Jerry Lee Lewis playing country. I don't think it is impossible for rock and roll to actually reflect the experiences of the middle-aged middle-class -- it's grown sophisticated enough to encompass far more experiences than simply slipping on blue suede shoes and driving fast cars. But it doesn't sound like that's what these musicians are doing.

Instead, they're forming an endless number of cover bands, covering music that they wish they were young enough to play, singing of experiences that they wish they had when they were young enough to get away with it, but didn't because they were on a career track. I'm all for people expressing themselves artistically at any age, but this seems about as inauthentic an expression of the spirit of rock and roll as I can imagine, and I am not surprising that people are rolling their eyes at it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:38 AM on June 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

lol, 75 year old guy with a guitar

yeah, YOU try being this badass when you're 75, kids
posted by pyramid termite at 9:38 AM on June 17, 2007

I'm 43, I play music with same guys I've been playing music with for 17 or so. It's not a middle age thing, it's a life thing.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:38 AM on June 17, 2007

Oops, 17 years, that is
posted by doctor_negative at 9:40 AM on June 17, 2007

I have a hard time seeing what on earth is wrong with people getting together and making music rather than spending their weekends watching television and going to the mall.

s/playing music/pretending that they're van halen and making extra-hideous guitar-face/

Frankly, getting together to watch and talk about some interesting new drama every week seems less lame than wallowing around in fantasies from adolescence.

(and yes, it would be very different if they were writing their own music, or even covering music other than or in addition to that of their own youth)
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:42 AM on June 17, 2007

My favourite AC/DC record is Back in Black, and I have heard of Bon Scott.

My favorite AC/DC record is Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. Songs like Rocker, Love at First Feel, Squealer, Gonna be some Rockin' are all great . But the best has to be Ride On:

It's another lonely evening
And another lonely town
But I ain't too young to worry
And I ain't too old to cry
When a woman gets me down.

Got another empty bottle
And another empty bed
Ain't too young to admit it
And I'm not too old to lie
I'm just another empty head.

That's why I'm lonely
I'm so lonely
But I know what I'm gonna do -

I get together with some friends a couple of times a month and jam. At 38, I'm the youngest. We have fun. We have no intention of playing out anywhere, we just like to get together and play music. We do some covers but we have several originals that we're always working on.
posted by Sailormom at 9:44 AM on June 17, 2007

Wow, Monkees and Doobie Brothers songs, that's so lame.

My kids are gonna think I am the coolest dad in the world when my band covers the Pixies and Smiths.

I do have to admit, the gear is getting a lot nicer as I get older.

And also, the best ACDC record is High Voltage.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:46 AM on June 17, 2007

No love for Let There Be Rock up in here?
posted by The Straightener at 9:47 AM on June 17, 2007

Wow, Monkees and Doobie Brothers songs, that's so lame....when my band covers the Pixies and Smiths.

Hey, the Monkees made great singles. The Doobies had their moments. The Pixies rocked. The Smiths still suck.

As for these guys,...well, everybody needs a hobby.
posted by jonmc at 9:50 AM on June 17, 2007

and the best AC/DC record would be a homemade compilation consisting of "Highway To Hell" "Ride On" "That's The Way I Like My Rock And Roll" "You Shook Me All Night Long" "Jailbreak" "Big Balls" "Have A Drink On me" "She's Got The Jack" "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and "Welfare Boogie" (Bon's old band Fratenity, but still a nice stomper).
posted by jonmc at 9:54 AM on June 17, 2007

I forgot "For Those About To Rock"
posted by jonmc at 9:54 AM on June 17, 2007

*garrottes some fuckers in this thread with the A string*

I'm pretty sure that'll be playing until my arthritis gets too bad. Hopefully my kids will want to jam with their old man when they get older. The 2 year old is getting kitted out on drums in the next couple of years for sure.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 10:04 AM on June 17, 2007

Do you mean actually jam, or by "jam" do you mean "slavishly imitate bands from 30 years ago"?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:29 AM on June 17, 2007

a) If you're arguing about what AC/DC album is the best, you're too old to rock.

b) I sort of struggle with the question of when it will become lame that I'm still in a band. My dad is a baby boomer. I am younger than Gen X. But I read an article the other day that suggested that anything over 35 is "middle age." At what age does one become too old to rock? I don't think that age ever comes.

Why should actual rock stars not be considered old and lame at 35 or 40 if I, who am at least as talented as most of them, but just happen not to have chosen rock stardom as my career, should be considered foolish for pursuing my craft past a certain age?

All of your rock heroes will one day be old. They will not stop rocking, and you will not stop thinking they're cool. So don't knock non-rock-stars who are doing the same thing as your heroes.

(And yes, my gear gets better and better as I get older. It's awesome.)

Oh, and Brian Johnson was 32 when Back in Black came out. Bon Scott would have been 34.
posted by The World Famous at 10:41 AM on June 17, 2007

Astro Zombie: "It used to be that rock and roll was a young man's art, and when you aged past it, you moved into musical forms that better reflected your adult experiences, such as Elvis recording gospel and Jerry Lee Lewis playing country."

Presley & Lewis didn't leave rock to persue other genres due to age. Presley's roots were in gospel and when he felt he'd gone astray, that's the direction his heart would take him. However, he'd always come back. Rock's roots are gospel and blues. In fact many historians take that as a given - rock is the illegitimate rebellious child of gospel & blues. Presley just kept going back to mama.

Lewis is a different story. Essentially the rock n roll audience of the time deserted him, because of his questionable lifestyle choices. He was a rebel in many ways and ironically the hypocritical audience of fifties rock told him to take a hike. Rather than abandon music entirely, Lewis discovered that while the rock audience was fickle, the country audience embraced him, because Jerry Lee Lewis had essentially become the living embodiment of a classic country and western song. He not only sang that style of music - he had lived through it, so the country audience adopted him like a prodigal son.

Elvis was able to cross into country charts for much the same reason. Both men were loved by country music because they exemplified the genre as much so if not moreso in some ways than rock music. Both Presley & Lewis are at their heart rock n roll, but they also celebrated other genres of music. This didn't lessen their ability to rock.

What killed Presley wasn't old age so much as an excessive embrace of what some might argue is the stereotypical rock lifestyle, whereas last I checked, Lewis was still with us and even performed alongside Tom Petty on late night television not too long ago. And yes. He can still rock.

Live fast and die young may be what some consider rock n roll, but true rock is immortal as fire, and every now and then human beings manage to be illuminated (and sometimes burned) by it.

Rock does not discriminate. Whether you are the Beatles or the Monkees, you can still rock.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:44 AM on June 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

"...even performed alongside Tom Petty on late night..."

I correct myself. Not Tom Petty. I believe it was Neil Young. Sorry. Dunno why I typed Petty when I was thinking Young. I blame old age.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:47 AM on June 17, 2007

if it's good, we'll do it and play the he** out of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the funniest moment in this thread: the rock n roller afraid to type out 'hell'.
posted by Item at 11:25 AM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

ZachsMind writes 'Rock does not discriminate.'

So can you think of a single classic rock song written and originally performed by middle-aged men?

I've been scouring my brain, and I can't think of any.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:26 AM on June 17, 2007

The World Famous writes 'They will not stop rocking, and you will not stop thinking they're cool.'

Uh, sorry, but they did and I do.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:29 AM on June 17, 2007

They did stop rocking, and you do think they're cool?

Ok, well, some people stop rocking, and to those people I say this: You were probably never really so great anyway.

The true test of rock is to see whether someone rocks as they age. Some pass the test (see, e.g., Mike Watt). Others, not so much (see, e.g., your rock heroes).
posted by The World Famous at 11:33 AM on June 17, 2007

Not to incite too much indignation, but really, Astro Zombie makes a good point. Rock music has been as much about cultural identity and values as it has been about the music itself. As such, I don't think much of rock music will outlast its time and place. (Some will, the best of the style.)

I think "older" guys playing in a garage band is great--I think anybody getting together to make any kind of music together, anywhere, is very cool--but you must realize that rock's cultural sun has been eclipsed, yes? All of the rebellion and assorted cultural values embodied in the genre are now anachronistic to a great degree, and the musical style has certainly been supplanted in the popular sphere (which is now primarily hip hop influenced).

So, guys getting together to make music: awesome. Guys thinking that playing rock in any way makes them more cool: sadly mistaken, and it belies one's age. Playing rock makes you seem older, dude. If you want to feel hip, make some beats. If you just want to get together and jam with friends, and don't care what people think, rock on.

Also, I take issue with the article: the NYT loooves to have these cool Sunday articles on the Latest Big Trends--they're the Center of Hipness! Metrosexuals! 30 is the new 21! Now, what? Dads can be cool, they play rock! Ugh. People like to get together and make music, and find it valuable in their lives: that news is as old as people. Aging baby boomers like to play rock music in their garages when they get together?? Shocking! I never would have thought that people would want to play the music they love.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:34 AM on June 17, 2007

I think at the very least we can all agree that rock and roll is not about age, it's about angel dust and STDs.
posted by The Straightener at 11:41 AM on June 17, 2007

And black tar heroin, Straightener.
posted by psmealey at 11:42 AM on June 17, 2007

A friend I work with is lead guitar in a dad band. Every word the NYT wrote is true. Except they missed the bit that the Thursday night 'band practice' is mostly an excuse for all the 40- and 50- something successful business blokes in the band to get together in a large shed, plug in all their expensive equipment, play one piece... and then deploy the skunk and spend the next two hours getting righteously baked.

He is very happy.
posted by Devonian at 11:46 AM on June 17, 2007

Don't forget trashing hotel rooms.
posted by Item at 11:47 AM on June 17, 2007

rock's cultural sun has been eclipsed, yes? All of the rebellion and assorted cultural values embodied in the genre

see, that's why yer a dick and yer music today sucks. you think rock has something to do with cultural values and rebellion and dipshit rolling stone journalism and politics and some slice out of time. you poor ninny. rock is about roaring and shaking your ass. rock is about melting your face off with blistering tones and howling riffs. rock is joy.
posted by quonsar at 11:47 AM on June 17, 2007 [8 favorites]

you moved into musical forms that better reflected your adult experiences, such as Elvis recording gospel and Jerry Lee Lewis playing country

Gospel always influenced Elvis. He recorded two gospel albums in the '60s; How Great Thou Art won the Grammy for Best Engineered Album of 1967, beating Sgt. Pepper. Jerry Lee Lewis mostly switched to country in the late '60s, but "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" went to number one on the country chart.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:50 AM on June 17, 2007

rock is joy.

For you. Musical experience is entirely subjective. Speaking objectively about rock as a cultural/musical phenomenon, however, I stand by my assertions.

(Also: yer music today sucks. Don't assume anything about my age by my comments.)
posted by LooseFilter at 11:57 AM on June 17, 2007

quonsar writes 'see, that's why yer a dick and yer music today sucks.'

When someone goes around deliberately writing the word 'yer', then they're on very shaky ground making dick accusations.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:19 PM on June 17, 2007

I, for one, am happy for these old guys. Music is something that can bring joy into anyone's life. Why should anybody be deprived?

Hell, when I'm old and lame, I hope I'm still playing music.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:29 PM on June 17, 2007

So can you think of a single classic rock song written and originally performed by middle-aged men?

"rockin' in the free world" by neil young ... he was 44 at the time ... and it's a staple on classic rock stations

big joe turner was 42 when he recorded "shake rattle and roll"

jerry garcia was 44 when "touch of gray" came out
posted by pyramid termite at 12:31 PM on June 17, 2007

But it's interesting that rock's great mythology of authenticity -- that it is created by people who authentically live the rock and roll lifestyle -- has been so thoroughly rejected by these hobby musicians.

Oh please. The "mythology of authenticity" is just that - a myth. The "rock and roll lifestyle" was something invented to sell you a bunch of crap that you don't need. Maybe the guys in these bands understand that, and see that you can enjoy music for music's sake regardless of myth and circumstance.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:45 PM on June 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

I'm not a fan of crappy covers, but I'm never going to complain about anyone playing amateur DIY music... It's better than people sitting around watching American Idol.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:01 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I can't recall the thread now, but awhile back here in the Blue I recall facing a similar dilemma when people were using the phrase "rock" to mean different things. We're arguing semantics at this point. What some people call 'rock' I refer to as 'rock n roll'.

True rock n roll is arguably dead, and has been perhaps since the 1980s, or before. Rock n roll is Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Ray Charles,

"Rock" is very much alive in anyone who chooses to rock. Whether or not you think Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones are cool today, the fact is, they still rock. You may call it geriatric rock but it's still rock all the same.

Rock n roll may be dead. Rock is eternal. Rock keeps evolving. Rock n roll was a fever. It came and went. Rock is a virus, and there is no cure.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:07 PM on June 17, 2007

These old dudes have made me finally get off my ass, get back into playing music, and go learn how to play guitar, and when I'm playing "House of the Rising Sun" and then "Ace of Spades" I'll be feeling the energy and happiness that it brought the Animals and Motorhead and that it brought me when I first heard them and when I hear them now. If I'm not living some "authentic" lifestyle or making the scene in the proper manner as described by a bunch of hipsters, then great, rock is not about living up to someone else's expectations, it's about kick-ass music to make you feel good, or, what quonsar said.
posted by Snyder at 1:09 PM on June 17, 2007

I solved this problem by doing garage band electronica, not garage band rock and roll (and I didn't use Garageband, I used Acid Pro). You're never too old to bleep and bloop, man.
posted by jscalzi at 1:17 PM on June 17, 2007

Ugh. This thread is Generalization Central. It's very annoying.

Certainly there are personality and cultural experiences that correlate to age. But those are loose correlations that shouldn't be used to make claims that there's something false about individual examples which don't fit.

And I don't know what "rock and roll lifestyle" is. It seems like an obnoxious conceit to me. It's not necessarily rebellion because a number of great rock'n'rollers were only pseudo-rebellious. It's not necessarily dissolution, either, for the same reason. Any particular characteristic I can think of has the same problems. And any particular characteristic I can think of, with one exception, can be found in people of all ages (though not necessarily equally as likely).

The exception is music that is expressing something that is essentially youthful. Many of the characteristics we associate with rock music are associated with youth, but we shouldn't make the mistake of then concluding that youth is a necessary characteristic of rock music.

The bottom line here is that rock music is and was no more and no less the/a dominant form of popular music. Even today, there isn't a huge variety in popular music relative to other art forms. What this means is that what people like and listen to and want to play can't be truly pared down into microdemographics that exclusively fit a microgenre with a group of people.

Boomers and post-boomers want to play classic rock because that's the music they have always listened to. For some of them, yes, it's an attempt to recreate their youth and one might argue, uncharitably, that for them this is an activity filled with pathos. But this is not unlike adults playing weekend sports. For some of them, it's about some fantasy of being young and emulating their sport heroes. But for many more, it's just having fun in an activity they've participated in for most of their lives.

There may be a few sport activities that are naturally age-restrictive. But is anyone going to argue that most of them are deeply age-dependent and that someone who wants to be physically active in sports their entire adult life should constantly changing the activities they engage in to ensure that it's always culturally appropriate?

If some guys in a dad band play a Van Halen song and make faces while doing an Eddie Van Halen solo, it's not necessarily the case that they're pretending to be a twenty-two year old rock star waving their phallic guitar on a stage before thousands of teen girls. It might just be that they enjoy the solo and they enjoy playing it.

One thing that makes me bristle in this thread because it relates to me personally is that anger has always been associated with rock music to some degree, and I'm just as angry now as I was when I was younger. I guarantee that I can write and play as authentically angry music as anyone half my age. In some ways, I bet, my middle-age anger is probably deeper in an experienced sense, rather than the disillusioned youth sense. So it would be different, yes, but no less authentic. Sitting here writing this, I can hear the outlines in my head of a hardcore Abu Ghraib protest song. What would be the age-appropriate musically genre I should more "properly" and "authentically" express that in? Folk? Well, folk is a good genre for that, but it doesn't resonate as well as my sense of the anger as something metal and industrial influenced.

Finally, given the fact that today's teens are very commonly listening to music that is twenty and thirty and forty years old—something that would have been unthinkable to my generation when we were teens—these ideas of a particular style of music being deeply intertwined with one's adolescence just isn't as valid or useful as it used to be.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:18 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

What some people call 'rock' I refer to as 'rock n roll'.

There is a consensus among musicologists, actually*: 'rock and roll' is a specific genre that rose in the late 1940s and lasted through the early 1960s (and includes 'rockabilly'). 'Rock' is a more generic stylistic term, and typically refers to the broad musical style that grew out of rock and roll music.

(*-as explained to me personally by one of the foremost American music specialists in the world. He wrote this great book.)

rock is not about living up to someone else's expectations, it's about kick-ass music to make you feel good

Rock does not have exclusive license on this.
posted by LooseFilter at 1:22 PM on June 17, 2007

Who cares if it's "authentic" or not? They're having their fun, not hurting anyone, minding their own business and occasionally getting "righteously baked" in the privacy of their own houses garages.

It's like putting down a guy performing a karaoke of a rap song for not being "street" enough for the "ill rhymes" he's "spittin'".

If this vaguely defined concept of authenticity determines what is and what isn't rock, the only true rocker alive today is Pete Doherty (and he's a self destructive madman).

People are staying young for longer. Let them.
posted by flippant at 1:24 PM on June 17, 2007

rock is not about living up to someone else's expectations, it's about kick-ass music to make you feel good

Rock does not have exclusive license on this.

Oh, no, not at all, and I didn't mean to imply that. I'd say most, if not all, music is about that. I'm just saying that rock isn't about some bullshit extra-musical lifestyle, anymore than, say, polka. If I want to play harpsichord, do I need to speak German and get a bunch of powdered wigs?
posted by Snyder at 1:28 PM on June 17, 2007

What's wrong with people wanting to play music? I don't begrudge someone picking up an instrument in middle-age and learning it and playing the music of their youth.

Well, I wrote one of the early snarks, so I'll back it up.

Nothing wrong with playing music of any kind. I wasn't responding to the act of playing music so much as the fancy equipment and the wanting-to-still-seem-cool aspects as signals of a broader trend.

To wit: a massively self-indulgent generation reaches late middle-age, having spent its first half century consuming the largest share of the planet's nonrenewable resources of any single generation in human history. Its members consider how best to invest their time and money, having reached levels of material and social comfort that allow them to do more or less anything their hearts desire.

In general - at least at the NYT trend-mongering level - they decide to discount such factors as the very real possibilities of leaving their kids a gutted economy and an ecological crisis of apocalyptic proportions (just for starters). Instead, they buy second homes and third cars, Pro-grade kitchen equipment and Professional Series Fender guitars, and they continue to act like pampered children without any serious reason to rethink their priorities.

That 17-year-old kid in the lede asking his "cool" parents to keep it down - you think he'll have time for this kind of idle hobbymaking in 2040, when he's taking out a second mortgage to keep his parents in comfortably hip digs at the Hard Rock Resthome while socking away enough to maybe retire at 70 with no pension of any sort, just maybe manage an overnight stay that summer on the Jersey Shore presuming the spring rains don't wash it away entirely this time?

To cite a recent example here on MeFi, here is another way to spend these years.

On preview: People are staying young for longer. Let them.

Well, my executive powers are limited, so I'm not preventing anyone from anything. But let them feel like it's alright when the bill for their 50 years of having fun has come due, and it's falling to me and my daughter to pay for it? Nope.

Sorry, Boomers. Time to grow the fuck up.
posted by gompa at 1:31 PM on June 17, 2007 [5 favorites]

I think you can see that chip on your shoulder from space. Lighten up dude, your generalizations about boomers is massive and self-serving.
posted by Snyder at 1:42 PM on June 17, 2007

Peter McDermott, that is YOU discriminating. Not rock. Rock does not discriminate. Pyramid Thermite came through with some notable examples, but even if there were none, it wouldn't matter. Rock doesn't care how old you are any more than it cares about your heredity or your lifestyle choices. Rock is simply concerned about whether or not you do in fact rock.

What actually determines whether or not you rock? I don't think anyone knows. You don't. I don't. No one individual or group determines whether or not something rocks.

For example, I do not believe Bob Dylan rocks. Bob Dylan certainly has never rocked me. I am obviously in the minority. My definition of rock suits me but not others. Rock defies definition, and if you try to pigeonhole it, you have to preface it with a prefix.

You may care whether or not middle aged men have ever written and or performed a truly legitimate rock song as middle aged men, but don't confuse your opinion of what rock should be to what it actually is. If you want rock to be anything in particular, you have to give it a prefix. "McDermottian rock" is any kinda rock you personally accept as rock. If others agree with you, the phrase will catch on. If not, that's how memes live and die.

As for use of the phrase "dad band," one of my new favorite bands, GlitterHorn, is three mamas and a papa. They do much more than just covers. Decades of experience between the four of them, they're singer/songwriters who gig regularly and have an album coming out. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as anyone who's listened to and enjoyed them at their performances is concerned, they rock.

Where might they fit, in your definition of rock? Are MILFs with guitars not cool enough to rock? If that is so, what alternate reality did you come from?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:44 PM on June 17, 2007

I find this thread so agitating in its broad generalizations and finger wagging that I'm going to have to put down my copy of Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict and go to the garage with the boys for an extended Louie, Louie jam.
posted by The Straightener at 1:49 PM on June 17, 2007

"I find this thread so agitating in its broad generalizations and finger wagging..."

Agitation is what makes pearls in oysters. =)

But you can only talk about rock in broad generalizations. That's the point. If you start trying to define it, you end up defining only certain kinds of rock, like psychedelic rock, or hard rock, or soft, progressive, punk and post-punk, goth, pop, folk, glam, grunge, alternative, surf, jazz, synthesized or 'techno' rock, industrial, blue-collar, 'indie', christian, new wave, garage, and yes even geriatric rock. Worldwide, there's hundreds if not thousands of different types of subgenres underneath rock itself. British rock differs from American rock. The rock of the fifties is dramatically different from the rock of today. Rock that evolved out of Germany or Italy in the seventies and eighties. Where do they fit in your view of the term?

How can all these different kinds of music be rock, unless rock itself is an all-encompassing, and therefore very general, descriptor?
posted by ZachsMind at 2:04 PM on June 17, 2007

Are you going to pass that joint or what? It's not a microphone, high dog.
posted by The Straightener at 2:17 PM on June 17, 2007

Sorry, Boomers. Time to grow the fuck up.

without defending my generation, who aren't really all that defensible, the kind of humorless puritanism you're offering as an alternative sucks even more ... how dare people play rock at 50 when they should be wracked with guilt over what they've done to the world?

(i also might remind you that millions of my generation haven't gotten, don't have and aren't going to get all the perks that make you green-eyed with envy ... and aside from whining a lot the x'ers haven't done much for the world, either)

the millenials, however, will be a different story
posted by pyramid termite at 2:21 PM on June 17, 2007

Well, my executive powers are limited, so I'm not preventing anyone from anything. But let them feel like it's alright when the bill for their 50 years of having fun has come due, and it's falling to me and my daughter to pay for it?

Lighten up. These are just bands. Don't you have some real problem in your own life to deal with, rather than shit on some fake category you made up in your head because you read an article in the New York Times? I assure you, your attitude is more about some pose you are taking against some idea in your own head than anything else.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:23 PM on June 17, 2007

"..and aside from whining a lot the x'ers haven't done much for the world, either.."

We didn't make the mess. We're not cleaning it up. We are of course contributing to it, but we didn't start the fire.

We GenXers were unhappy when our parents told us to turn it down, and we're equally displeased with our children who do the same thing. Before we hit forty, we never trusted anyone over forty, and now that we're pushing forty, we don't trust anyone under forty.

We're the thirteenth generation. That is our claim to fame. So what? Big deal. Git off my lawn!
posted by ZachsMind at 2:29 PM on June 17, 2007

We didn't make the mess.

neither did we

We're not cleaning it up.

so you're no better than us, are you?
posted by pyramid termite at 2:32 PM on June 17, 2007

People of whatever age getting together and playing music on the weekends = ace

Current legitimacy of the rock'n'roll lifestyle as a cultural enterprise even without this development = psh

NYT lifestyle articles = aaaugh

Gen-Xers going on about the boomers again = brap.
posted by furiousthought at 2:41 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

ZachsMind writes 'Peter McDermott, that is YOU discriminating. Not rock. Rock does not discriminate. Pyramid Thermite came through with some notable examples, but even if there were none, it wouldn't matter.

Yes, it *is* me that's discriminating here. Who else could it be? And I'll have that Big Joe Turner's is a classic record, but I won't have that it's rock, despite it's virtually siring the genre. It belongs to an older tradition of jazz, r&b and blues where people *do* successfully produce relevant material with integrity that isn't sad and embarrassing until a very late stage in life.

Rock doesn't care how old you are any more than it cares about your heredity or your lifestyle choices. Rock is simply concerned about whether or not you do in fact rock.

If you're going to attribute anthropomorphic qualities to it, try this one: rock doesn't care about anything beyond where the next dollar is coming from -- and these days, it's just a sad old panhandler, whining over days that have long gone by.

You may care whether or not middle aged men have ever written and or performed a truly legitimate rock song as middle aged men, but don't confuse your opinion of what rock should be to what it actually is.

You *say* it's my opinion, but I don't believe that it is. There are zillions of polls out there listing the 100 greatest rock songs, greatest rock albums, etc, etc. and many of the same records show up time after time after time. And even when they aren't the same records. They're the records that these old men cover, or that they emulate when they write their own songs. And the thing that they mostly have in common isn't technical skill, or insight -- many are musically incompetent and/or lyrically banal. What they have in common is that they're young, dumb and full of cum. That they evoke that very sense of how it is to be young and alive when the world offers inestimable promise and potential.

As for use of the phrase "dad band," one of my new favorite bands, GlitterHorn, is three mamas and a papa. They do much more than just covers. Decades of experience between the four of them, they're singer/songwriters who gig regularly and have an album coming out. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as anyone who's listened to and enjoyed them at their performances is concerned, they rock.

Your favourite band sucks.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:02 PM on June 17, 2007

And I'll have that Big Joe Turner's is a classic record, but I won't have that it's rock, despite it's virtually siring the genre.

the twisting you're having to do to justify your statement is pretty funny ... and what about those other two songs i mentioned?

hell, what about dylan's last album? ... was that "sad and embarrassing"?

what about "rough justice" by the stones?
posted by pyramid termite at 3:15 PM on June 17, 2007

It might just be that they enjoy the solo and they enjoy playing it.

It might be, but given the well-noted propensity for middle-aged men to mourn for their lost youth by indulging in all manner of fake-youth activities, and given that this seems to be, if anything, stronger in the boomers than it was in their parents (viz, those godawful commercials with Dennis Hopper about how they're going to redefine retirement, maaaan), that just ain't the smart way to bet.

In some ways, I bet, my middle-age anger is probably deeper in an experienced sense, rather than the disillusioned youth sense.

And I bet you could write a song that was really put that anger forward, capturing some really sincere bitterness instead of I'm-a-young-poseur cynicism, and get together with some friends to do a version of it that really kicked ass.

Hell, I'll bet you could just modify some existing song, making it your own and putting your anger into it.

But just playing "Panama" would not do that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:33 PM on June 17, 2007

gompa writes "That 17-year-old kid in the lede asking his 'cool' parents to keep it down - you think he'll have time for this kind of idle hobbymaking in 2040, when he's taking out a second mortgage to keep his parents in comfortably hip digs at the Hard Rock Resthome while socking away enough to maybe retire at 70 with no pension of any sort, just maybe manage an overnight stay that summer on the Jersey Shore presuming the spring rains don't wash it away entirely this time? "

Wow.

There is a lesson in this for those of us who are children of the boomers. Whatever we do during our personal time as we age, we should make sure it doesn't look enjoyable or indulgent, lest our children resent us for our selfishness.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:48 PM on June 17, 2007

Detachable ponytails for everybody!
posted by rob511 at 5:52 PM on June 17, 2007

I have a hard time seeing what on earth is wrong with people getting together and making music rather than spending their weekends watching television and going to the mall.
Oh, yeah. The saddest possible future for anyone who once enjoyed rock and/or roll music. I can't play a note on any instrument, but my kids are always telling me to turn the volume down* - you don't have to play yourself to enjoy music.

*except when I play The Doors, then they tell me to turn it up
posted by dg at 6:39 PM on June 17, 2007

Whatever we do during our personal time as we age, we should make sure it doesn't look enjoyable or indulgent, lest our children resent us for our selfishness.

I think there is real substance to gompa's indictment of the baby boom generation, and that last bit of venom in his comment shouldn't obscure it. I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to assign intent to what a generation values--that would be anthropomorphizing the concept of a 'generation'--but it is a fair criticism to observe what the values of the baby boom generation are, and have been, as evidenced by their actions from adulthood onward: self-indulgence, material comfort, and a distinct lack of awareness of community responsibility come to mind. I don't want to write a thesis here, but it's interesting to consider the profound differences in attitudes--as demonstrated by actions--between the boomers and previous American generations.

Also, it's a generation that has profoundly failed to produce civic leaders of any greatness, due in large part I think to the selfish patterns of consumption, self-referentiality and general myopia of its members. Though, again, I'm not convinced that's all because of a deficiency of character, or even conscious choice. I think the baby boomers are more likely the first and most acute sufferers of an overabundance of affluence (a disease from which the U.S. as a whole has been suffering for some time now).

(Or more succinctly: Boomers aim your righteous indignation this way! And I'm not sure what all this has to do with the old dudes rockin'.)
posted by LooseFilter at 7:24 PM on June 17, 2007

Also, I should say that my generation are no angels. (I was born in '72, so am an older "X"er--which is the dumbest name ever for identifying a generation....why aren't we called the Computer generation, or the Digital generation? It's the first generation in the nation to grow up with computers in our homes, and that's turned out to be a pretty big deal and has created the biggest generation gap I can think of. Anyway.) Gen X are the petulant, spoiled children of a group well-spoiled themselves.

The difference between Xers (as determined entirely anecdotally by my paying attention to my friends) and Boomers (as determined by paying attention to my older colleagues at work--some of whom are O.G. Bay area hippies from back in the day--as well as my older friends) is that my generation is aware of its vanity and selfishness. In fact, we apparently wallow in it. Boomers, though, continue to think that they are somehow a special group, and will still--eventually--make everything right in the world. Maybe that second Beamer will do it.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:43 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

For summer camp, I want to go here.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 8:34 PM on June 17, 2007

LooseFilter writes "The difference between Xers (as determined entirely anecdotally by my paying attention to my friends) and Boomers (as determined by paying attention to my older colleagues at work--some of whom are O.G. Bay area hippies from back in the day--as well as my older friends) is that my generation is aware of its vanity and selfishness. In fact, we apparently wallow in it. Boomers, though, continue to think that they are somehow a special group, and will still--eventually--make everything right in the world. Maybe that second Beamer will do it."

So, the primary distinction is that the Boomers are not as cynical? But both groups are self-serving and worthless? I can see how that is something to be proud of.
posted by krinklyfig at 9:22 PM on June 17, 2007

Reading Loosefilter's comment, I can't help but wonder if the reason the Boomer and Gen X talk has never resonated with me might be because I'm right on the divide between them and just don't don't identify with either.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:50 PM on June 17, 2007

I can see how that is something to be proud of.

I never said that it was. There is an obvious causal link between the Boomers' self-absorption and that of their children, that points to culpability in this regard.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:17 PM on June 17, 2007

No righteous indignation here, LooseFilter. My generation proved to be quite the hypocritical sell-outs. Not sure if the cynicism and "the new irony" of subsequent generations makes them any better, just only less sufferable. As for the so-called "greatest generation," that's another boomer conceipt, driven by guilt, me thinks. The current Iraq War vets are lucky they won't have my dad's old pals sitting around blaming them for losing the war.

"The Lost Generation" - now THAT was a generation...heh.

As to the old guy garage bands: the worst is when they actually get a set together and want to play out. They are super enthusiastic, loaded with gear, have a classic rock repertoire that no self-respecting professional would ever have and they are willing to play for free. (The only thing worse is the weekend warrior "blues" bands). Lucky for us old guy pros that enthusiasm does not equal talent, skill or experience. Likewise, the classic rock canon is fine as a radio format or for selling CD sets on TV or covering in a garage for kicks, but it leaves audiences indifferent with its familiarity and predictability. But club owners will book these guys because they cost nothing and for at least one night a month they bring a crowd, not their cult following per se but all the other moms and pops and folks at work and it's like a company picnic, with big tabs and drunken hijinks that always end nice and early, usually before midnight. It's certainly not about art or music or even entertainment. It's indulgent and self-congratulatory and very much fun for those whose hobby it is, but leaves most performing musicians and live music lovers cold. It's baby boomers hogging the stage yet again.
posted by bonefish at 1:13 AM on June 18, 2007

When someone goes around deliberately writing the word 'yer', then they're on very shaky ground making dick accusations.

And people who miss a Zappa reference (directly related to the subject matter of this particular thread no less) are on very shaky grounds when accusing people of being on very shaky grounds making dick accusations.

Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar, PeterMcDermott.
posted by three blind mice at 2:17 AM on June 18, 2007

I was born in '72, so am an older "X"er--which is the dumbest name ever for identifying a generation

Actually, you're right in the middle. So-called Generation X'ers include anyone in North America born between 1960 and 1985.

Yeah it is a dumb name, but Douglas Coupland (and Billy Idol) got there first, I guess.
posted by psmealey at 2:41 AM on June 18, 2007

Gen X are the petulant, spoiled children of a group well-spoiled themselves.

Wrong again. X'ers are predominantly the children of that generation that was born during the Great Depression and World War II. We mostly went to collage, but grew up under the spectre of an idiot/madman in the White House, wholesale urban decay, a Gulf War, and entertained ourselves with DIY punk rock.

There is an obvious causal link between the Boomers' self-absorption and that of their children, that points to culpability in this regard.

The only thing that's obvious is that you haven't done your homework. Most of generation X, grew up with parents born into scarcity and hardship, but that were quite a bit older than the baby boomers. We grew up listening to their derisive comments about at the hippies, yippies, yuppies and assorted miscreants that dwarfed their own generation. If you want to start looking for causal relationships, start there.
posted by psmealey at 2:59 AM on June 18, 2007

Oh god. One, if you have a 25-year span covering a marketing demographic it's going to include parents of various ages. Mine are (somewhat early) boomers. Those on the back end of that (jesus! ever-increasing! 1985?!) category are very likely to have boomer parents. Two, there's no way in hell any more than a small minority in this marketing demographic of ours ever entertained ourselves with DIY punk rock. Three, the boomers grew up under all kinds of specters, like, oh let's see, the threat of being drafted. Everybody does. I am glad I grew up when I did and not today.

And yeah, I think being aware of your own vanity & selfishness, and then wallowing in it, shouldn't be getting anybody any cookies.

(No way. Not 1985. Gen X means you remember the Cold War.)
posted by furiousthought at 3:21 AM on June 18, 2007

One other thing in these garages- a workbench and some power tools that dad never figured out how to use correctly.

Rock and Roll is those power tools. Before Rock and Roll you had to be trained to use them. Not many dads had a prayer of living out their Sinatra fantasies. Popular music was higher-caliber stuff. Piano was basically the reason why.

Then guitar-based stuff came along. Chuck lowered the bar (and I say this knowing full well how difficult it is to actually nail a Berry rhythm). Guitar-based music rewarded effort much earlier. Why, you can begin and end with Brown Eyed Girl.

So, here are the tools. Can you build a birdhouse? Some moms and dads build amazing stuff in the garage...
posted by Liv Pooleside at 4:35 AM on June 18, 2007

“It's indulgent and self-congratulatory and very much fun for those whose hobby it is, but leaves most performing musicians and live music lovers cold.”

Well, this is probably snobbish of me as someone more a fan than a musician—and marks me as someone who has never been a working musician—but I think all cover bands in bars suck, by definition. I've certainly never seen one that I was able to notice anything interesting about. I understand that actual talent gets stifled in that environment, bit still.

The one friend of the four of us that were best friends in high school, all drummers, who did go on to support himself, sort of, as a musician for many years, played in about as many cover bands as he played in, um, real bands. And all kinds of music, too.

He had a lot of natural jazz talent, went to NTSU for awhile, got noticed in Dallas in the 80s and had a couple of near breaks, but the last time I saw him play professionally was in the 90s in a touring country band, which did about half cover songs, playing in clubs throughout the southwest.

I noticed a huge amount of professionalism in his playing. He was always tight, but he got pretty drunk and yet played flawlessly, making it look like it was the easiest and most natural thing he could be doing. I mean, I'd watched him play for twenty years, often was a critic of his playing (though he was much, much, much better than me), and so I could see this development. Even so, it was mostly a cover band and even their original music wasn't very interesting. Pros, yes. Interersting, no.

When I saw him last summer and he played with his current band (though he's had a real day job for years now), and I sat in a bit, we later talked about the possibility of him still having some ambition in music even though he's in his 40s.

I argued that he should go back to jazz, as older guys are respected in jazz, you get a lot of seasoning in jazz and you are still able to compose relevant music. His response was that there's only a few places in the country where someone could even think about trying to work as a jazz musician and support themselves.

Anyway, this all occurred to me because I just didn't see a future for him trying to play any sort of rock music. The other guys in his band are also old, the guitarist also a talented also-ran who did a few things and never really made it in. They were playing covers, but their original music sounds lifeless and dated. That's because the only music the really seem to know how to write is music that is too stylistically old to have any vitality, not the least because the subgenre wasn't all that vital to begin with.

But for all his technical skill and music training, he was never a writer. I can spin out new stuff right off the top of my head, it was a long time before I understood that all other musicians can't do that. I've always been struck by how many highly-trained musicians I've known have great mastery at playing, but they're clumsy at composing with very limited creativity. I mean, I pretty much figure that everything I write is horribly derivative, I'm just remixing familiar stuff in my head, that's why it comes so easy. But a lot of really good musicians I know can't even really do that.

And I think this has relevance because, frankly, I don't think that anyone is really going to approach the authenticity of any of these genres, probably especially rock, unless they are writing stuff, unless they have something to say. Those are two different things: first they need to just have the capacity to write, second they need to have something to say.

So that eliminates a whole lot of really talented good musicians right out, anyway. Much less the folks that just pick up an instrument for the first time in middle-age and don't have a lot of natural talent and don't devote much time to develop strong skill.

Basically, then, I'm arguing that the kind of things we're criticizing these dad bands for are common to more than just the stereotyped middle-aged guys. It's most everyone. So are we then going to just say that since 90% of all those people out there are playing crap and ridicule them?

I don't think so. That's not fair, not the least because a lot of musicians enjoy playing music just because they enjoy playing music. Some well, some not so well. They don't have any pretense of being artists in the first place. And those that do, but don't have what it takes to actually be artists, well, let's be generous with them, too. We all have our little dreams like this—the artists that do have the talent and skills are most likely to never really support themselves at it, many giving up or whatever. Most probably never producing anything that good or interesting, anyway. So why not let everyone strive, whether they really have a shot at it or not, and let them enjoy making the attempt, or just having fun at it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:04 AM on June 18, 2007

“One, if you have a 25-year span covering a marketing demographic it's going to include parents of various ages.”

Yeah. 1960 to 1985 is an absurdly long span in which to include the Gen Xers. In fact, I don't understand why anyone would place the limits both that early and that late.

After all, "boomers" refer to the post-WWII baby boom. In 1960, the very first baby boomers were still only fifteen years old! And who would place the start of the boom in 1945, anyway? Move that up to, say, 1948 and make the first reproductive age for the boomers to the age of eighteen, and you get 1966 instead.

You can define the end of the boomer's generation in one of two ways to determine the earliest Gen X (assuming there's nothing between Boomers and Gen X). Either the year when the actual demographic surge stopped, or by some sense of shared cultural.

I can't provide the first number because I'm too lazy and tired to look it up (I'm still awake since yesterday). But we might be able to figure out the second. If we think of the formative years of the boomers as what's most important and then look at what years have the most in common, then you might start at the boomers hitting their stride at the age of 14 (1962). When did their generation end? Well, we could decide on guessing an upper age just by gut. Like, say, being 24. That ends it in 1972. Or we could look at the culture, which is the whole shared identity of boomers, anyway. That would put us slightly later, but not much. The beginning of the disco era would be the end of the boomer's identity era. So, let's say 1976.

So Boomers are the people who were about 19 in 1969, give or take six years. And that sounds exactly right for they and their culture.

Add three years to this, and you get the peak of the boomer's children's generation. That is, the peak was 1972 and you can give or take six years.

So, Boomers were born between 1948 and 1962. Gen Xers were born between 1966 and 1978.

I swear I didn't plan this out and work backward and didn't pay any attention to where I was heading even at each step of the way. And yet I end up with my birth year, 1964, being right in the gap between Boomer and Gen X, just like I said it was in a previous comment.

What my little, tiny in-between generation is called, I don't know. It's probably more sensible to add a couple of years on either side and allow people to choose when there's overlap. So the gap might be 1960 to 1968. We probably have about as much in common as a portion of us has in common with either the Boomers or the Gen Xers.

When did the Gen Xers start to reproduce? Well, let's say a little later in age than the Boomers, 25 instead of 22. That would be 1991 for the beginning. It makes a lot of sense to place the end in 2001. These are today's youths. What are they called? Are they Generation Z and the children of we in-betweens are Gen Y?

If so:

1948-1962: Boomers (Children of Greatest Generation)
1960-1968: In-Betweeners (Children of WWII)
1966-1978: Generation X (Children of Boomers)
1979-1990: Generation Y (Children of In-Betweeners)
1991-2001: Generation Z (Children of Gen X)

The Boomers are the children of wealth and involved in a great cultural revolution. They are a combination of idealists and spoiled materialists. Their music presents this contradiction.

The In-Betweeners are partly the children of the so-called Greatest Generation, partly the children born during wartime, and partly the children of boomers. They are perhaps what you might expect as a transition from the Greatest Generation to the Boomers: a little like both, not enough so to be remarkable in their own right. Not terribly interesting. Music? Cultural inertia.

The Generation Xers are the children of the boomers. They were born during difficult economic times and their formerly idealistic parents became more dour and worrying about material security. They inherited the cultural revolution of their parents, not really knowing what to do with it and not really wanting the responsibility of being expected to live up to it in the first place. They grew up very aware of the Cold War, as did their parents, but without much of the idealism that went along with their parents' fear. They grew up children of divorced households. The were spoiled by materialistic boomers anxious to pass along the new wealth and privilege the boomers acutely are aware of. The result is that they are ironic, pessimistic, not convinced by what they see as the naive idealism of the 60s, but wanting something they can sort of believe in and call their own. They are spoiled and aware of it. They are still looking. They are rootless. They're very comfortable with technology, but are aware of it. Their music is either ironic or someone else's that they've coopted.

The Generation Yers are the children of these not-really-anything-in-particular In-Betweens. They might have vague memories of the Cold War, but experienced the optimism of its end. They also grew up as children of divorced parents. Their parents don't have any really strong cultural generational affiliations, and they don't feel a particular affinity for one, either. They're not quite as spoiled as the Xers, but they're even more rootless. They're even more comfortable with technology and computers, but less aware that this is notable. Their music is also cultural inertia, though the tail end of X and the begining of Y inherit their parent's experience of the collapse of the optimism of the 60s and thus there's an angry undercurrent in the Ys.

The Generation Zers are the children of the Ys. I don't even know if they are capable of having a shared identity in the context of the culture they live within. Computer networking and text messaging may be a defining characteristic. I don't know. Their music? Cultural inertia.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:52 AM on June 18, 2007

Oh god. One, if you have a 25-year span covering a marketing demographic it's going to include parents of various ages.

Well, obviously. It's impossible not to generalize in this discussion, and when you generalize you do get a lot wrong, I just thought that Loose Filter was missing the mark. He was talking more about "Gen Y" (yeah, I know: grown) than Generation X.

The point is that it is (in fiction as well as in marketing) a defining characteristic of "Gen X", that it is not descended of the baby boomers (even though a significant portion of it might be). It is a tiny demographic wedged between two gigantic ones. It's a generation defined by 'zines, MaximumRockNRoll, BAM, the Stanger, the Onion, the Rocket, independent record labels, lo-fi music ripping up your own clothes to create your own style (now widely available at Urban Outfitters), and such. What he's talking about is a completely different set of folks.
posted by psmealey at 5:54 AM on June 18, 2007

So the gap might be 1960 to 1968

Yeah, that's pretty much been my experience as well. I'm not sure why the Wiki pegged it to 1985, which didn't make any sense to me.
posted by psmealey at 5:56 AM on June 18, 2007

Sorry, that last paragraph should say that the Zs are children of the Xs, not the Ys.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:02 AM on June 18, 2007

“The point is that it is (in fiction as well as in marketing) a defining characteristic of "Gen X", that it is not descended of the baby boomers (even though a significant portion of it might be).”

That contradicts my starting from first principles scheme. Ah, well. I do like mine, though. It makes sense. But of course it would make sense to me.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:04 AM on June 18, 2007

strauss and howe put the generations as follows

boom - 1943 - 1960
13th or x - 1960 - 1981
millennial - 1982 - ?? (both 2001 and 2005 have been suggested by others due to events in those years)

they suggest that the boomers are how we've described them, that x'ers are somewhat more nihilistic and cynical, yet prone to being practical and that millennials' biggest attribute is their tendency to follow the rules, cooperate with one another and think of themselves as members of a whole ... currently, they are beginning to hit the workplace and are somewhat puzzled and angered at the "everyone for themselves" mentality that is prevalent

they will eventually find an older leader to follow, get together and change it in a way that neither the boomers or the x'ers were capable of doing

their site has a good deal more ... it's much more complicated than i've explained
posted by pyramid termite at 6:37 AM on June 18, 2007

“13th or x - 1960 - 1981”

Yeah, but I have a problem with placing someone who came of age in 1978 in the same cultural box as someone who came of age in 1999.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:50 AM on June 18, 2007

people on the cusps tend to take on attributes of the next or previous generation ... it's best looked at as a collection of general tendencies rather than individual determinants and more of a spectrum than a few big boxes

some people would be inclined to define x as 1963 - 1986

and one can probably subdivide the generations, too ... as far as the boomers are concerned, i see a great deal of difference between the ones who were born in the 40s ... meaning they were old enough that serving in vietnam was a real possibility for them ... and those who came later, like me ... when we came of age, the war was over and the economy had tanked ... people who had grown up expecting that they would just get a job in the factory like their old man did graduated and watched with shock as the plants all closed down ... that may be more of a regional thing, though

also i think the earliest boomers tended to be the more liberal, rebellious ones ... the later ones are bush's core supporters ... people born after 1960 tend to be a lot more cynical and that's something the class of '78 and '99 have in common ...

i've noticed that those coming of age seem less cynical these days
posted by pyramid termite at 7:05 AM on June 18, 2007

also i think the earliest boomers tended to be the more liberal, rebellious ones ... the later ones are bush's core supporters ...

Not that this isn't a fun conversation, but I would attribute those to regional and socioeconomic differences rather than generational ones.

1966-1978: Generation X (Children of Boomers)

Here again, I think, is a regional/socioeconomic difference, i.e.: people in certain areas getting married and having kids later than those in others. For example, I was born (in the northeast) in 1967. My parents were born in the early 30s. Up until I broke out of my bourgeois mold a bit, switched career trackes, and moved to another part of the country, I can only think of one or two people at most in my peer group that had "young" (baby boomer) parents. By and large, my extended circle of friends all had parents that came of age in the 50s and missed out, almost entirely, on the fun and upheaval going on in the 60s and 70s.

I do not think this is insignficant. I think a key thing that we inherited (from our own parents) was a deep and abiding mistrust of anything to do with the baby boom generation.
posted by psmealey at 7:35 AM on June 18, 2007

“By and large, my extended circle of friends all had parents that came of age in the 50s and missed out, almost entirely, on the fun and upheaval going on in the 60s and 70s.”

Yeah, that's true for my parents, too. Not as much so as yours. But I was born in '64 and my mother was 18 and my dad 21. They came of age just before the 60s cultural revolution really started. They both identify completely with the 50s and the whole Happy Days thing. I grew up listening to my dad's 50s singes.

And then we moved to the small farming/college town in '67. The whole sixties thing just didn't exist for my family.

However, unlike yours, my parents were young parents. That certainly influenced my childhood. My dad was a mean drunk and fighter. And they were young and partied a lot. I really was given beer in my baby bottle. I remember parties and I remember my dad getting in fights more than once. I remember the police coming after he knocked out my best friend's father when we lived in married student's housing as in that second photo. Still, my dad was Fonzie, not Dennis Hopper.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:58 AM on June 18, 2007

It's fine for older people to get together and play music.

I think a key thing here is that most of the people in the article are not only middle-aged, but living very sedate, prosperous, suburban lives. I.e., they are the very bourgeois establishment that rock and roll was (once upon a time, in theory) supposed to be opposed to.

Of course, in a lot of ways, that mythology of rock and roll rebellion was a marketing fiction from very early on. But it looks all the more ridiculous when you see these guys trying to evoke it.

The article actually points to the reality of rock and roll: it's now mostly a nostalgia phenomenon. With very few exceptions, the genre stopped being a source of innovation a long, long time ago. Affluent, aging boomers ARE the true face of rock and roll. Younger kids in rock bands today, even the most "underground" and "indie" bands, are inevitably just following paths that are already quite well-traveled.

The fact that there are now so many dad bands -- and also, increasingly, a lot of kiddie (i.e., pre-pubescent) rock bands -- reveals how safe and cuddly rock has become. It's pretty much incapable of being new or edgy.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:53 AM on June 18, 2007

psmealey, point taken--my generalizations were too broad. I'm a child of WWII parents myself (born in 1940-41), so my parents are just barely pre-boomer. Plus, they (and I) grew up in the deep South, so the hippies were pretty far away. I don't think it's accurate to generalize, though, that many Gen Xers grew up with an active mistrust of young Boomers present among their parents--at least, none of my friends did. (We were happily fairly hippy in college, though that might have had more to do with our all being musicians and artists in my social circle.)

My sense, growing up, was that my peers' identities were influenced pretty heavily by the world the baby boomers were creating in the 80s--the material-security, suddenly politically-conservative, yuppie world. My politically-engaged friends were all Republicans in high school, and that attitude from a teenager (respect the establishment! dress well! uphold the status quo!) certainly seems anti-60s/70s on the surface, though my sense was the motivation was much less anti-anything, but rather was pro-80s culture. I don't think I was really even aware of what the 60s were until sometime during high school. I think that the ascendency of the Boomers in the cultural power structure through the 1980s, and the value system they have entrenched since then, was indeed a significant influence on my generation. Also, you said:

I think a key thing that we inherited (from our own parents) was a deep and abiding mistrust of anything to do with the baby boom generation.

For myself, I really don't think I inherited that from my parents--I came to that perspective on my own, as a teenager in the 80s and young adult in the 1990s. Seeing the greed and self-absorption of the 1980s turn into the hyper-acquisition ("success") of the 90s (along with divorce rate, etc.) was a sobering thing for me, and very much influenced me to mistrust the choices that generation was consistently making, and helped me to make better choices for myself. (For instance, I chose to follow my passion as a career rather than what was lucrative. That was a conscious choice that ran directly counter to the prevailing value system of the early 1990s.)

EB, your summary jibes very much with my intuitive sense of where our real generational identities are. My brother is close to your age, and he also has a difficult time identifying with the generation of which he is supposedly a part, so I think there's definitely something to your identifying an in-between segment.

Also, pyramid termite wrote: i've noticed that those coming of age seem less cynical these days

I agree with that--though I'm not sure it's at all a good thing, because cynicism has been replaced with a naive credulity that is at times quite unhealthy.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:28 AM on June 18, 2007

This one goes to 11.
posted by zorro astor at 2:33 PM on June 18, 2007