Steven Tyler's memoir is out along with Keith Richards earlier memoir and these really should be viewed as historical documents because with The Cloud and other digitizing monsters on the horizon music really is becoming a pluralistic phenomenon with front men as anachronistic as Barnum and Bailey. The Boss issues a press statement on Clarence Clemons death like an elder statesman and soon we should be getting My Life Born To Run or maybe Bono will give us his Irish take on the evolution of poor kid done good with Edge and the boys.
But one thing is for sure the rock memoir will run out of gas after the Classic Rockers have passed on and that will take a while but then we will be out of drugs and debauchery genre because there will be no coalescing force in rock and roll or rap there will be the Cloud and there will be the many. Maybe the inventor of The Cloud will write a memoir and of course Lady Ga Ga will get in there unless she burns out faster than she she can change clothes. But certainly the very nature of our evolving music universe is one of inundation or a battlefield of a million generals but no leaders.
Good for democracy and listeners blah blah blah. Bad for the the monolithic rock bands of yesteryear. Certainly the old rockers now resemble corporations. Again, Bruce didn't bother to comment on his saxophone players death, no he had a spokesman release his feelings. How unBruce can you get? Couldn't he have just walked up to the microphone and said a few words? But corporations don't speak individually do they? Brands don't speak individually, they speak collectively. And so it is with Aerosmith, U2, the Stones, ACDC, the old bands that punch out music for their customers.
Nothing new, but reading the review of Steven Tylers memoir in the NY Times Review of books reminds us of the power of these rock corporations. Keith Richards A Life also garnered a big review in the NY Times and has done very well. But these are the leaders of the war already fought and The Who, The Beatles, The Stones belong to an era when culture could be dominated by the few. The Cloud will produce a rain of millions of songs on our hapless heads and whose to say if we will be better or worse, but those old rockers better get out their umbrellas.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in July
But one thing is for sure the rock memoir will run out of gas after the Classic Rockers have passed on and that will take a while but then we will be out of drugs and debauchery genre because there will be no coalescing force in rock and roll or rap there will be the Cloud and there will be the many. Maybe the inventor of The Cloud will write a memoir and of course Lady Ga Ga will get in there unless she burns out faster than she she can change clothes. But certainly the very nature of our evolving music universe is one of inundation or a battlefield of a million generals but no leaders.
Good for democracy and listeners blah blah blah. Bad for the the monolithic rock bands of yesteryear. Certainly the old rockers now resemble corporations. Again, Bruce didn't bother to comment on his saxophone players death, no he had a spokesman release his feelings. How unBruce can you get? Couldn't he have just walked up to the microphone and said a few words? But corporations don't speak individually do they? Brands don't speak individually, they speak collectively. And so it is with Aerosmith, U2, the Stones, ACDC, the old bands that punch out music for their customers.
Nothing new, but reading the review of Steven Tylers memoir in the NY Times Review of books reminds us of the power of these rock corporations. Keith Richards A Life also garnered a big review in the NY Times and has done very well. But these are the leaders of the war already fought and The Who, The Beatles, The Stones belong to an era when culture could be dominated by the few. The Cloud will produce a rain of millions of songs on our hapless heads and whose to say if we will be better or worse, but those old rockers better get out their umbrellas.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in July
