Classic rock is not a genre of music, it's a radio format. Rock 'n' roll is a genre of popular music that spans over 50 years and has very many subgenres. Classic rock tends to only feature music from the mid-'60s to the late '70s. My issue with this radio format is not what music they play: it's what they don't play.
Like most people, I listen to the radio in my car. And I'm a compulsive channel changer: always looking for that tune I like. My typical favorite stations play hard/alt-rock, oldies, and classic rock. I listen to talk radio too.
Steppenwolf is one of my favorite bands. Listening to classic rock radio, you'd think the only songs they ever recorded were "Magic Carpet Ride" and "Born To Be Wild": two great songs. However, Steppenwolf has a great body of work. Couldn't we hear some other tunes by the band?
Since the turn of this century, the Jimi Hendrix estate has released great unheard material. I like the tunes "Purple Haze" and "Hey Joe," and it's refreshing to hear the different versions of these songs from the recent releases.
Who would have thought there would be a new Beatles record in 2007? LOVE is a fresh take on Beatles music, put together as the soundtrack for the Cirque du Soleil production in Las Vegas. George and Giles Martin did an excellent job reworking the songs. The most striking is the mashup of "Within You, Without You" and "Tomorrow Never Knows." It's effectively a new Beatles song.
But this fresh take on these radio staples go mostly ignored and the same old material is repeated in the same old format.
All roads lead to Liverpool and the Beatles with rock music since the mid-'60s. Of course the Rolling Stones have their place, too. These British bands opened the doors for others to follow through.
Since the mid-'60s, American bands like the Seeds, the Sonics and others produced a hard-edged sound commonly known as garage rock. Out of this movement came the seminal Stooges. Iggy Pop and the Stooges blazed the path for punk rock with their three albums, The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power.
Iggy Pop made great music in the mid-'70s (and beyond) with the albums Lust For Life and The Idiot. A song like "Lust for Life" has only entered contemporary popular sensibilities by being featured in television advertising. Why don't they ever play this song on the classic rock stations I listen to? Couldn't they bump Pink Floyd's "Money" (great tune!!) a few turns out of the rotation to make room for Iggy?
It's unfortunate that classic rock radio is ignoring this and other important work. It's revisionism. Even though he looms large in music history, Iggy has been airbrushed out of the picture.
Of course this matters little if music is only what you hear in an elevator or on hold with a telephone. Music has been a way of life for me—not only as a musician, but as a fan!
By today's sensibilities, classic rock radio programming could merely mimic the content of an individual's mp3 player. And it does, in a way. Playlists originate from a central location in the belly of the station's corporate headquarters.
Commercial radio also ignores electronica: true modern music. Radio is stuck in a certain part of the past. It wasn't always like this. Radio in the '70s didn't feature a heavy dose of music from the '30s and '40s!
Today, listeners hungry for challenging music can turn elsewhere, using different technologies not only to find new music, but to not ignore important artists from pop's echelon.
Note: This Thursday I'm hosting the Ron & Don Show on 710 KIRO from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. I'll be talking about free association and our democracy. My guests, so far, are Richard Winger from Ballot Access News, Stephen Gordon from Third Party Watch, and Matt Gonzalez, running for vice president on Ralph Nader's Independent ticket.
I've Lost a Tooth, But Gained a Gig
By John Roderick
I've had a very busy week, flitting from this high-society party to that glamorous music industry shindig, hobnobbing with famous and brilliant artists and musicians, and brooding introspectively in front of a crackling fire with a beautiful Russian double agent, but unfortunately the various non-disclosure agreements I was coerced to sign prohibit me from even referring to those events in print. Instead, I intended to offer my exegesis of the Book of Deuteronomy (which bears a surprising resemblance to the later work of Don Rickles), when I received a curious letter from my editors at Seattle Weekly.
I was asked to undertake this column a month or so ago as a short-term "residency," which served the purpose of legitimizing my claim that I was a "journalist" and so therefore would be financially unable to make restitution to the plaintiffs in the unfortunate miscarriage of justice that was the judgement against me in Radcliffe v. Roderick's Miracle Enhancement Pants. That ruse accomplished, I was prepared to draw the curtain on my writing career in order to concentrate exclusively on fleecing consumers by finding ways to get them to pay me to play guitar. But now the brain-trust in the executive office suites of Seattle Weekly, who answer directly to the cabal that runs the Village Voice from a subterranean cavern a mile under the Zugspitze, who in turn must submit to weekly spankings by the undergraduate members of Skull and Bones, have proposed that I continue to columnize.
