rock 'n roll ain't noise pollution

I was born in 1972 but my formative years were in 8 - 18. Yes, I am a child of the 80's.

I have a brother who is older by4 years and a sister older by 16 months. They both have had a great influence on my life and I love them both very much. Between the two my brother, Reese, had the greatest impact on my life that I feel the effects of still today. He introduced me to Rock 'n Roll.

From my earliest memory Reese has loved rock music. During the early 80's it was Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio, Van Halen (DLR days of course!), Motley Crue, Black Sabbath and subsequently Ozzy. And I was right there with him. I loved that stuff! Most of my friends were listening to Journey, Night Ranger, and Loverboy thinking those were rock...pssh. That was Power 99 stuff.

As the late 80's rolled around Reese was all about underground bands and recording videos from Headbanger's Ball. He still liked the hard stuff, but his flavor turned to glam. (Glam is a subset of what is now lumped as 'hair bands'; hair band is an all encompassing label that unjustly groups true rock bands with weenie bands simply because they all had long hair. This travesty is for a later post.)

My music interests also changed during the mid 80's. I started skateboarding and everyone knows when you first start skating you have to relinquish all ties to your former musical interests and pledge your allegiance to punk rock. I gave up my rock roots for a short time, but it wasn't long before I was watching MTV from midnight to 3am on Saturday nights again. My short marriage to punk, abstaining from all the rest, just stemmed an appreciation for different kinds of music. I broke the myth that says you half to only listen to punk to skate.

In the late 80's Poison, Warrent, and Bon Jovi were king. But there were other bands too. Bands like Skid Row, Bulletboys, and Dangerous Toys. These bands were not quite as popular but they were good. Still other, much lesser known, bands Junkyard, Black 'n Blue, and Kix were good too. The Masquerade was my favorite place to go see the less popular bands. I saw a million shows there.

So here we are in the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The mention of a hair band is done only for a laugh at the expense of the genre, Dee Snider is the hair band ambassador for those born after 1981, and Bon Jovi is still doing what he/they can to keep it real.

I'm 35, and on occasion I enjoy popping in Iron Maiden's Live After Death cassette, or circling in the youtube vertigo of rock 'n roll videos....until the other day when I saw a video through unstained eyes.

My friend and I pulled up the video of a lesser known 80's band for the humor factor. The singer had on denim cut off short shorts, some sort of fluffy shirt kinda like Seinfield's ruffle shirt w/o the ruffles, and a straight black cane. A cane! The setting was a old Western ghost town…

My friend's laughter opened my eyes to the absurdity of his attire. I remember when that attire was normal(-ish) so I didn't think anything about it until he pointed it out. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Other than the way they dressed and moved, their lyrics are far from wholesome. Not to sound like Tipper Gore, or my mom for that matter, but if they weren't singing about sex they weren't singing at all. Yes, I know, it hurts me to even say that. But seriously, they could slip in the element of sex anywhere. Listen to the lyrics sometime. What hurt the most is when we watched one of my favorite songs of all time, a song by Bulletboys. I never really thought about the lyrics because I’ve known them so long. But woah, I wouldn’t even say the title in front of someone I just met.

Dangit. I guess ACDC was wrong, rock ‘n roll is noise pollution.