Reasons to be cheerful - pleading the fifth

FLASH COONEY AND THE DEANS OF DISCIPLINE –LITTLE DEBBY

You know I really hate those old guys who say, “back in my day…” or “kids today have got it easy” but you know what?  I’ve become one of those old guys and let me tell you, “kids today HAVE got it easy!” This blog itself is proof of that.  We’re giving them the knowledge, we’re sharing the music, the meaning, we’re helping the ungrateful little buggers out and they don’t even have to leave their chair!  It’s all at their fingertips now, the music, the words, they can download songs, albums, movies, books, without even having to get off their arses. 

But it’s not just online either, the whole culture of “underground” is disappearing, long usurped by marketing managers, advertising and the quick buck chase of corporate shysters.  I mean John Waters does speaking tours now, people line up for their photo opportunity and his movies are mainstream. Burroughs and Ginsberg and Kerouac are t-shirt idols and bumper stickers, punk rock is just another genre now, marketed to the kids along with tattoos, body piercing and coloured hair, no longer for outsiders or outlaws, every 20 something schmuck has a full sleeve tattoo, bluebirds on their neck and mama across their back.  How do you rebel now?  There are no more discoveries for the kids, no more moments of “wow, who the hell are they?” it’s all marketed to them now, by demographic and location, the full back catalogue available online.  They are fooled into thinking they are individuals just like the other 1000 “friends” they have online who “liked” the same page. They think they are making great discoveries without realising they’re being manipulated, marketed to and pushed into the right boxes.  Anarchy until lunchtime when they use that voucher they got with the download to buy lunch at that cool new “underground” café in the mall.  So yeah, they have got it easy but it’s kind of sad as well.

 In a world where garage sale bargains rarely exist anymore because people think e-bay counts as a legitimate price guide, the thrill of making their own discoveries, of finding some obscure album that looks kind of cool just because of the cover or finding old paperbacks for a buck at a junk shop or uncovering old Crawdaddy mags in a box of crap, taking a chance on a 45 ‘cos the label looks interesting, those joys, that fun is fast disappearing for today’s kids.   

 They just go online, check to see if it’s ‘hip’ to like this band or author, make sure the cool points add up for owning a copy of the album or the book and walk away from the chance to develop their own taste, the chance to make their own discoveries, their own mistakes.  

 I grew up in a town of 500 or so people, depending on how the football team was going, two tv channels, am radio, no computers, no internet, (hell computers were a mythical machine that were bigger than your bedroom and only seen on science programs) – I found out about music by sticking one ear to the radio, by pouring through the few rock mags I could get my hands on, by going through my parents’ record collection  and their friends and my friends’ older brother’s and sister’s collections, by hanging around the edges at parties and listening to conversation, by scouring liner notes, finding things by pure luck and good fortune, by taking chances, stumbling onto songs, writers, ideas, searching for touchstones and gateways that would lead to other places, other songs and sure that leaves gaps in your musical education but sooner or later you find the things YOU need, the songs that mean something to YOU, the riff that sends a shiver down yr spine, the tune that takes you somewhere else, away from the shitty little box bedroom and out there somewhere else and when that happens you don’t care who their guitar teacher was or when the lead singer was first potty trained, you just care that the song means something to YOU and you alone. I didn’t wait for the t-shirt, I bought the records, I bluffed my way through, gradually building up knowledge, trusting my own instincts, enjoying the trash amongst the treasure.  I wasn’t worried about ‘cool’ – hell I was never gonna be cool, I was a skinny, redheaded mongrel kid who couldn’t play sports or fight, who lived in a dream world of comics and music and books, cool was never an option but I didn’t care cos I had songs, records, music pounding out of the shitty little cassette player in my room, the plastic record player on the bookshelf, I found my own way out.   

Sadly the kids today ain’t ever gonna find their own way… unless of course we help them.   I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing here, it does seem a little hypocritical since they’re still in their bloody chairs looking at a screen but hell, if they find the Deans Of Discipline on line they’re doing good anyway!  I found my copy in a record shop in New Zealand over a dozen years ago and I ain’t ever seen another!  Get out of the house kids, go searching at your local op shop,  take a chance on a beat up record with a name you don’t recognise, buy a book, ask your parents if they still have their records out in the shed, do something but don’t get complacent.  We ain’t gonna always be here to tell you what’s what. 

AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A DEANS O' DISCIPLINE PARTY

reasons to be cheerful part four

Gary Glitter  - Come On, Come In, Get on 

Now I ain’t defending this pedophile bastard, not at all but after years of just refusing to listen to his music, of bad taste jokes and pretending he just don’t exist I’ve come to realise something… Gary Glitter ain’t the bad guy, Paul Gadd (his real moniker) is.  See the way I see it, Paul Gadd is a rock spider, Gary Glitter is a rock star.  I wouldn’t give Paul Gadd the time of day, the bastard should be castrated and left to wallow in his own excrement in a small dark hole but Gary Glitter, the artist, the singer, the rockstar, well I’m gonna crank up those loud as fuck old school rock and roll songs again and sing along to the hits and misses! 

A touchstone to my youth, Touch Me was one of the first albums I ever owned (on cassette too) – Christmas 1974 and my parents had given me a cassette player of my very own just a week prior, my birthday falling just eight days before Christmas and Gary was one of my Christmas presents.  It was perfect fodder for a preteen boy on the cusp of teenage fears and pubic hair burst growth!  A booming rock and roll soundtrack complete with handclaps, singalongs, loud guitars and a band that was versed in the art of rock and fucking roll -  with two drummers holding down the beat, the horn section swinging like real rock used to be and songs with more hooks than a Japanese Whaler, you couldn’t go wrong with this baby turned up loud.   

Glitter was corny, he was dumb, he looked ridiculous at times but he was fun, that was the thing, he put the fun back into rock and roll.  And if he could do it, hell anyone could.  He gave us all hope, if this middle aged silly bastard in a too tight alfoil suit could be a rock star, a heart throb, then hell, anything was possible.  This tape was played so often during my youth that it eventually stretched beyond rescue and was thrown in the back of that drawer you have for things you can’t quite throw away though you know they ain’t ever getting repaired, ain’t ever gonna be used again.  Besides, I’d moved on, punk and noise and all the other growed up rock had taken over.  I’d put aside the dreams of the alfoil suit and the rock and roll lifestyle for the ripped shirt and dog collar existence of sid and nancy, the deadboys before drifting into comics and words and drinking like Bukowski or at least a piss poor attempt at it. This album was part of my youth, those songs were the soundtrack to walking the streets at night, dreaming of bigger and better things. I’m still chasing those dreams so I need that soundtrack and no rock spider scum is coming ‘tween me and my music.   

That’s the trouble with music and with musicians, how do we separate the artist from the song, from the memories we have, the emotions that songs can trigger within us.  Should we stop listening to Glitter’s songs because of his behavior twenty years later? Should we stop listening to Ike and Tina Turner because he was a wife beating arsehole? Chuck Berry? Elvis Presley’s drugged out fat arse? The White Album because Chuckles Manson misread its intentions? 

I ain’t defending any of these people but I ain’t gonna stop listening to their songs either  (except for the Beatles cos they are  over rated) – I know the difference between the singer and the song, between some three minute pop song and the predilections of some perverted fucker who needs a soldering iron between the legs, and I’m claiming my youth back, I’ve been flogging this (downloaded) album and this song to death for the last month and it ain’t faded yet, it’s still gloriously over the top, swinging, fist pumping, singalong, glorious rock and roll!  And we all need some of that in this age of plastic, computer simulated, mass marketed three minute wonders.  Gimme back my music you bastards, I want to hear it loud and distorted and proud.  Might even try and find that tape and see if I can fix it up. 

dance you feckers! this rocks