RE: re punk (off topic rant)

["Brian Cady" <cadyb@home.com>]

> I should have asked exactly what you meant, because I still can't
> make head
> nor tail of it.

No I guess I should clear things up:

1) I like punk rock. I really do. I think that rap and punk were the last
new forms of rock 'n' roll.

2) Almost everything I've said about punk has nothing to do with what the
bands did or felt towards the music that came before them. It has to do with
what it means now to music critics (and has meant for twenty years).

3) That rejection of rock music that came before punk, in the minds of these
critics (and a few of the actual British punks as well, by the way), was NOT
a rejection of Kiss, Loverboy, et al. It was perceived (and still is
perceived) as a rejection of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Yes, Rod Stewart and
all but the early works of The Kinks, The Who and The Rolling Stones. And if
you want to put a blanket term on it, what is the nastiest thing a punk can
call you? Not a heavy metal fan. A hippie. What was John Lydon wearing on
his T-shirt when he was discovered and put into The Sex Pistols? "Fuck Pink
Floyd"  Punk was (theoretically, mind you) a rejection of The Sixties and
the direction towards which the bands of the Sixties were pushing rock;
i.e., complexity, size and influences outside rock 'n' roll music.

4) This attitude was a shocking one for critics to voice back in the late
1970's. Those critics thought they were a small group attacking a prog rock
leviathan that would never be changed. After 20 years, however, it's become
holy writ with almost every critic, so much so that the fact that most punk
rockers don't hold to it doesn't change it. It is now understood by
practically every rock critic and writer in the U.K. and U.S. that good rock
music died when psychedelic music started in 1967 and good rock didn't
return until The Ramones and The Sex Pistols. Although Pete Townshend is a
great writer for penning "My Generation" and "Substitute" he will always
have a stain on his reputation for inventing the rock opera. All rock songs
that go over 3 and a half minutes are pretentious crap. Etcetera, etcetera.

5) My contention and goal, if you will, is to destroy this view and
ultimately to make room for both. To see punk not as salvation or the only
correct way to make music, but just one form of rock 'n' roll amongst
others. I want to say that liking NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS doesn't mean that
CLOSE TO THE EDGE isn't rock music. They're both rock music and as long as
we keep saying rock music MUST be this or that, must hold to a certain form,
we've as good as declared that rock is dead.

-Brian in Atlanta