What Rocks

I know a lot has already been said about what makes for good rock music, especially when it comes to what sets it apart from other musical forms. But I guess Im feeling bold and want to add my little bit to the pile.

Rock and Roll has always carried an anti-establishment message, even just the sound of it was a breakaway from the novocain-induced tones of 1950s popular music, and I think this is what works most for me. I think its ultimately American in its striving for supreme individuality, its simultaneous juxtaposed communalism, and its departure from accepted practice. Elvis gyrated and the cameras (exclusively operated by men) could not help but tilt into The Kings throbbing lap in spite of the producers shrieking demands to not. Punk Rocks diving-crashing-cutting-punching cavort has always angled toward something beyond jobs, houses, babies, and groceries. I think, in spite of how captivating security and comfort can be, there is always a wildcat in us desperately wanting to tear the facade to shreds and run full-tilt-seppuku through the woods. Rock permits us a fantasy stroll through the edgelands of potential destruction and disaster, even if only for a moment or a night. 

During one of my first concerts (Loverboy/April Wine), while smashed to the front of the stage by the pressing crowd, my friend and fellow concert goer, John, took his shirt off to find relief from the greasy heat, then proclaimed he could not breath, then suddenly collapsed on the floor from lack of oxygen (he recovered shortly after and was fine). That moment marked the very edge of existence for one soul; the edgelands visited, partook, terrified, accepted, overloaded, vanished, returned, escaped; these the classic ingredients of ritual, contained in one nights Rock ordeal. 

Rock music furthermore mimics the thrilling arc and ritual of sex with the climax almost always there somewhere in a song, the screaming guitar solo or the throat-ripping scream of the singer lost to a rhythmic rapturous moment of temporary insanity. One of my current favorite songs is “Around the Horn - Jason Hill Mix” by The Bronx where the lead singer, Matt Caughthrans voice, literally sounds like its going to split into seventeen pieces while the microphone is clogged by his bleeding throat. This is the epitome of Rocks intent: the literal edge of the human spirit. Caughthrans shredded roar is equally backed by keening guitars and pile-driven drums, the listener clutched to the stick while the sonic airplane ground strikes and disintegrates into smithereens, yet somehow the passengers come out, not only unscathed, but invigorated by the flight crash chaos and return to calm once the song dies down.

I love what Rock does to me. Concerts are the places where I am most alive. There is some sort of communal catharsis that sweeps one up and away to a place where all separation from the other is gone. These are those long-sought moments of uterine sublimity where nothing matters beyond the now, where time stops and worries are impossible. It was quite feasible to be splashed with burning gasoline at a Crash Worship concert and to be incinerated on the spot, yet somehow worry never came to us goers because, “…we are all united in this danger!”

I am aware that Rock is a somewhat easier and cheaper version of what we once had when night fires burned, musicians played, nostrils caked with soot and dust, and we, the tribe, danced under starlight. Somehow, along the way, we lost our communal ability to frolic as one. Rock does what we no longer shall. It fills that space where airs are less important and just being prevails. Im ok with this replacement therapy, especially when the band kicks ass as much as some do. But its sad to me that we no longer share in musical edge-play rituals as we once had in ancient times but now instead use the bulk of our free time thumbing through to the next thing that someone else did over at their house, some goofy tiktok thing.