Everybody's Right, Everybody's Wrong

I got pulled into a great discussion thread (as a lurker) at the Huffington Post by Googling a name found on a tweet by fellow blogger Kevin " Skwerl" Cogill over at Antiquiet. His tweet says:

 

"author / singer-songwriter" nathan harden, you are human garbage.



Seems Mr. Harden is another one of those geniuses who proclaims that Rock and Roll  has died, then points fingers at the "Generation" that killed it in an article/op ed piece at The Hufffington Post(well...there goes my republican audience) Here is the link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-harden/the-generation-that-kille_b_444428.html

He burps up some %s and #s and how it symbolizes the crumbling state of the industry..and continues with some opinions that we've all heard before ad nauseum. He happens to be a musician as well which may or may not add to his credibility as critic/cretin/pundit/pussy... If you check out the link, after the jump there is a lengthy discussion on who is responsible for this long and painful "death of Rock and Roll" 

I rant often here at Circle of Fits, especially about the music I don't like and the whores and sheep who sell and devour it...It is painful to see what is fed to the mainstream as music...but I only have one foot, no...one gangly little abcessed toe in the mainstream...so I shouldn't really care, right?.especially if the rest of my rock blogging time is split up between raving about new rock and roll that I found..dug up..excavated, stumbled upon, was turned on to and shined a light on....AND pining for the times of rock yore...a simpler chunk of years where misfits and aficionados sat in their bedrooms fawning over album sleeves and mix tapes, where basement bands could get a good opening slot with some hard work and good flier distribution..and nobody was distracted by technology.

But true rock fans need what they need, and they will dig deep to pluck a diamond from the coal. They are a smart, resilient, opinionated bunch of people of all ages, races..and languages who number in the many millions.....

 Rock and Roll is far from dead. It thrives. It has been splintered off into so many genres that even the most storied rock critic cannot keep track of them. Just pick one, find a song to relate to, sing it on the bus with ear buds on in a whispered hush,or scream it in the car on the way back home from detention... buy the t-shirt, go to an all ages show on a Sunday afternoon in a church basement somewhere..support local music. It happens every day.
It lives through word of mouth via websites that bands built all by themselves. It is downloaded illegally(or given away in little digital files) and deemed worthy enough to buy or discard, depending on your preference or how hard the economy has hit you.

You can go see a rock show in almost every city or town on any night of the week in any country. Take your pick...no cover, pass the hat around,10 bucks for three bands or 275 dollar nosebleeds at your local stadium(50 of which are service charges). You can still walk into a guitar center on any day and find an 11 year old kid struggling through the chords to Smoke on the Water or 21 Guns or Sanitarium while he tries out his first Mexican Strat.You can still go sneaking through your big brother or sister's music collection out of curiosity when they're not around..and you might have to log on to their Itunes to do so, now..but the rock will be there for you to 'dis or discover, then go run and tell your friends about.

Rock is everywhere. That will never change The system by which we learn about it, listen to it and buy it has changed. The value that big record companies once attached to it has changed. But the hunger for rebellion, release, expression and volume that we get from rock and roll preserves itself, like a fossil re-blossomming purged from the earth. like the most virulent strain of sounds you were ever infected with, like the endlessly growing and entwining branches and vines of the rock family tree from which it comes.

We can't escape it.