What no one recognizes anymore is that we have an appetite for rock and roll heroes. We need them, because, unlike the studio-engineered phoniness of movie idols, or the short-shelf-life of television-series actors, rock stars build their greatness and sustain their fame on their individual genius. Or, more truthfully in most cases, through the alchemy of several talents coming together. Think about Rush before Neil Peart replaced John Rutsey. In my humble opinion, that is the best example out there. The album Rush blended into the scene. Sure it rocked, but so did Aerosmith and Angel and a variety of other bands up and down the alphabet. But once Neil joined, and added his awesome drumming and spectacularly far-seeing lyrics to the mix, the band’s status as heroes was assured. The important thing, too, about heroic standing, and I can’t emphasize this enough, is that it lasts. By definition, a hero is someone we will never forget, heroes remain part of our collective history forever. We build monuments to them. I can guarantee that there will remain among the tiny group of English-speakers left alive in the year 2112 a handful of Rush fans, preserving the band’s memory, bearing witness to their accomplishments, made better by the band’s contribution to our shared culture. In fact, it could be that this small group of survivors, oppressed by some type of dictatorial authority, perhaps ruled by Chinese tyrants, will find in the inheritance of Rush’s noble vision the strength to resist, to carry-on, and free the world from the domination of Borg-like group-think.
As you can probably guess, I was always looking for heroes who could combine poetic and memorable metaphorical lyrics with 7/4 time. But the same year Rush was released, other bands that might have claimed the hero’s mantle were making music. Yes released Relayer and Genesis gave us The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Yet, looking back on those albums, with all we know now, it seems preposterous that anyone could believe those albums mattered. In fact, it seems obvious that Yes had begun its decline, dropping Rick Wakeman for the forgettable Patrick Moraz (and the keyboardists who followed and their sad stab at radio-ready songcraft) and the less said about the post-Lamb fate of Genesis the better. For these bands, their best days were behind them, and for any rock act of heroic stature, a bit of the original greatness must remain, despite the graying of hair, expanding waistlines, and the loss of youthful exuberant creativity. Bowie remains a hero, despite years of sub-par recordings, because that spark of inspiration, a potential for greatness when called upon, remains unextinguished. The same is true of Rush. Indeed, I would say that Rush improves on its craft with each successive album, a remarkable claim in a era when mediocrity is commonplace and many bands coast after initial achievements, accomplishing very little of note after the first 4 or 5 albums.
All of this, or at least some part of it, to a more modest degree, with certain reservations, can be said to be true of rock reviewers. Here I can speak with authority, because this is my particular craft. While I work between 8:30 in the morning and 5:00 in the afternoon in the reference department of the Northeastern Illinois State University library, my conscious energies and my proudest accomplishments are tied to the reviews I write for and post on the Atahualpa.com website, the on-line book and music superstore.
My goal is to provide a well-informed guided tour through the vast archive of rock and roll, highlighting the works that matter, unpacking their accomplishments for all to appreciate, while setting the record straight, here and there, regarding those compositions that, for whatever reason, most probably the corrupt machinery of marketers, are celebrated when they should not be. I provide this service in the most public place imaginable, on the Atahualpa.com website, where my opinions can be challenged (although I seldom find my challengers well provisioned for the contest) and my contributions can help purchasers make carefully considered decisions.
What I do is both subversive, because it undermines the efforts of the vast media conglomerates to peddle their garbage, and restorative, because I reposition works slipping into the shadows of our collective consciousness back in the bright light of our ongoing cultural dialogue. I won’t claim to be an artist, but I take my inspiration from the work of great artists, since I aim to both up-end the complacent taken-for-granted beliefs of the great masses, while excavating something wonderful and worth preserving from our past.
I am gratified by my accomplishments in my chosen craft. I am a Top Ten reviewer on Atahualpa.com and my reviews in almost every case are recognized for their helpfulness. Later I’ll discuss the several cases where the public has voiced uncertainty about my reviews, finding them less helpful than I might hope. I’m convinced that unscrupulous fellow-reviewers have, through what can only be called voter fraud, repeatedly voiced negative assessments of my reviews, aiming to undermine my credibility and advance their own poorly reasoned opinions. If Atahualpa.com had a method for identifying these fraudulent entries, I’m sure that on balance even my more provocative reviews would be acknowledged as helpful, despite the inability of many readers to fully grasp the subtlety of my analysis.
I need to return to my original theme. I don’t think I fully explained why we have such a deep-seated need for rock and roll heroes. The truth is that heroes bring us hope. In them we can see the potential for human greatness, and take comfort that we, too, may one day achieve unimagined greatness. And rockers, unlike so many pretenders who are thrust forward as heroes, possess an authenticity that distinguishes them. And furthermore, unlike the warriors that are so often put up on pedestals in community parks and positioned as heroes by public authorities, rockers never have to draw blood or kill others to accomplish their aims. They may bleed and too often they die too young. My point, though, is that they enliven our spirits, contribute to our collective advancement, without violence. It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword; I would argue that the guitar is mightier than either, since it alone can reach across the barriers of nationality and language and ideology to stir our emotions and spur us on to greater things.
And, of course, I should clarify that we have big heroes (like Rush; Bowie; post-Barrett, pre-Final Curtain Pink Floyd; Moon-era Who; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic through USA King Crimson; and Led Zeppelin) and smaller heroes (Thick as a Brick-period Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper when it was a band and not a cabaret solo act) and hard to categorize performers with heroic possibilities (like the Kinks, before they soiled their legacy with those horrible radio-friendly albums in the late seventies and early eighties). If anything, the lesser heroes mean more to us, because they seem to be close enough to touch. My reviews take in performers at all of these levels, and even others who achieved more modest successes. For example, I have devoted some time recently restoring the reputation of Triumph, which has been unfairly cast as a band of Rush wannabes. They, in fact, accomplished a great deal that they can claim as their own, even if, in the end, they can only be credited with a limited and forgettable contribution.
I don’t go about my work free of the needling annoyances of other reviewers, less serious men who hope only to promote their own opinions and who, in many cases, seek acclaim themselves (rather than restoring public acknowledgement of great works at risk of sliding into obscurity). Many of these pariahs have shifted their work to their own “blogs,” where they are free to express themselves free of public response. It is a sad, self-involved little corner of the media landscape. I continue to practice my craft on Atahualpa.com because it is, in many ways, the new public square, a place where everyone comes together. If you have something to say, shouldn’t you say it where people can hear you?
Nevertheless, I have decided I need to follow these lesser voices into the “blog-o-sphere” so my views can be more easily located by the young people who are being repeatedly mislead into believing in the importance of minor artists like Golden Earring and Vanilla Fudge. In fact, a good rule of thumb: If a band’s name is a combination of an adjective and a body ornament or a food, it’s not a band worth worrying about.
