Great weather – blue skies and sunshine – and Andy and I met on the green and decided to ride to the Tatsfield churchyard. Armed with tea and BelVita biscuits we rode along the 269 and discussed our working week and then, on reaching the churchyard, we parked up, sat on our bench and put the world to rights as usual. Today's topic was Glastonbury and after we'd exhausted the subject, we rode home and that was it for the weekend. I slept badly on Saturday night and so aborted in the early hours, sending texts to Andy and Phil. Andy had already aborted and Phil was glad that I'd aborted as he'd had a late night.
Sunday's weather was changeable – raining one minute, sunny the next – but we would have escaped a soaking. Not riding was good in a way as it meant a later start and a more leisurely breakfast.
At 10am I drove Phil over to our mate Dave's house to buy his Kona Smoke. I had brokered a deal whereby Phil bought the Smoke as Dave never used it and Phil needs a new bike. It all went smoothly and Phil rode back home on it. Now we all have Kona bicycles. I really ought to be a Kona salesman.
Getting back to Saturday's ride, here's roughly what Andy and I discussed as we sipped tea and munched our BelVita biscuits.
Has Rock and Roll finally died?
There's always a danger of sounding like your dad, whenever discussing how things used to be. Back in the day – and that's another sign, the phrase 'back in the day' – when I discovered rock music and being a 'yoof', I often heard my dad passing comment on the music I was listening to, along the lines of, "he can't sing" or "that's just a noise" referring, perhaps, to an album by Frank Zappa or Pink Floyd or The Clash. He would often hark back, longingly, to the music of his own youth – Bing Crosby and other crooners were name-checked alongside phrases like 'they don't make 'em like that any more'.
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| Library image of the Tatsfield Churchyard steps |
In all honesty, I find myself doing the same thing and I think it's because we all have our moments in time, our eras, and somewhere along the line we turn a certain era into our default, boot-up setting, our home page, so to speak. There are people, for instance, who epitomise certain times – in my mind Dawn French and Ade Edmondson, for example, will always remind me of the 'eighties' and if you want to be a little more 'international' Don Johnson of
Miami Vice fame would fit the same bill. There are loads of people who can be pigeon-holed this way, obvious ones being famous icons of popular culture, such as Mick Jagger and Twiggy who would represent the 'swinging sixties'.
But once past the 1990s – a decade characterised by 'Britpop' – we enter a bit of a cultural wilderness that cannot be defined by a specific type of music or a particular group of bands (it's populated by X Factor contestants and hip hop artists) and that means only one thing: there are no more 'tribes' or cults, such as teddy boys, mods and rockers, punks and hippies with their own attendant group of bands that somehow support the cause and provide countless songs that define the people who follow them – and introducing the age-old 'chicken and egg' argument (in this case what came first, the band or the cult they represented?).
It's the Glastonbury weekend and these days, like most things, the festival has been hijacked by the corporate world, which means it costs a fortune to gain admission. In short, like most festivals, it's no longer the home of the great unwashed, but a place where the washed and the well-educated can play-act at being part of a phenomenon that is long past its sell-by date. The great unwashed and the middle class bohemians are either dead, mad or vagrant – or they've grown up and live respectable lives – and the entire premise behind music festivals (and the music itself) is not only greatly diminished but, in a sense, pointless – a bit like Roger Daltry singing
My Generation the other week on a one-off (but soon to be repeated) TGI Friday on Channel 4. When Daltry dies, thankfully, he'll definitely be 'old'.... and so will Pete Townshend.
Anthems of rebellion that might have resonated with somebody speeding their brains out in the mid-70s have somehow lost their potency in the 'sober' new world of today, bringing into question, perhaps, whether they were ever potent in the first place. In fact, the aforementioned anthems, when performed by now crusty old people who manage to retain a sense of youth by dying their hair and relying upon their hefty fortunes to fight the ageing process, are often viewed by the BBC's Glastonbury presenters with mildly amused nostalgia in memory, perhaps, of a time before Health & Safety and the nanny state.
Nineteen-year-old girls in 'shorty shorts' and Wellington boots are, in short, a contrived version of those who went before them and many – according to Mark Radcliffe on Friday – are simply apeing Kate Moss from a few years ago when she made a fashionable appearance at Glastonbury, possibly arm-in-arm with Pete Doherty. Doherty and Moss, incidentally, were pretty rock and roll and, arguably, kept the flame of yesteryear burning bright – because, like American comedian Bill Hicks used to say – I want my rockstars to rock!
In fact, that phrase,
"...a contrived version of those who went before them..." encapsulates the problem of today's rock music scene.
As I write this, Lionel Ritchie is on stage at Glastonbury. Lionel Ritchie! Back in the day it would be unwise to admit to liking Lionel Ritchie. Only 'straight people' with aeroplanes all over their round-collared shirts and little in the way of street cred liked Lionel Ritchie! Now he's headlining the festival, albeit in a kind of
"while we're all pretty wild rock and rollers at heart, we like to tone it down a little now and then and appreciate the dulcet tones of Ritchie" sort of way. Or perhaps, more alarmingly, he's just headlining the festival.
Perhaps I'm mourning the loss of my own youth, but that's not the whole argument. In fact, there are many points to be made. I've got mates who would still go to, say, an AC/DC gig. Why? Are they going to drink half a dozen pints of lager in the pub before the concert and then headbang their way through the gig in front of the stage? No, they're not. They will be way back in the auditorium, tapping their feet lightly... as if listening to Lionel Ritchie!
Then there's the question of whether today's bands are as good as those that went before them. I would argue no, they're not as good – but then, perhaps I'm starting to sound like my dad again. The last album I bought and enjoyed for all the usual rock and roll reasons was
Nevermind by Nirvana and, around the same time,
Troublegum by Therapy?.
Lastly, there's the lack of any discernible youth culture: teds, mods, rockers, hippies, punks. You only tend to see them at certain rock concerts. Where they go in between I don't know, but they're rarely seen on the streets. If there's no 'yoof' culture what is there to hang the music on?
Equally, who cares? Perhaps it's just a case of those days are gone for good, the festivals are now corporate affairs – in the same way that football matches are no longer about grassroots supporters – and, in short, everything is 'controlled' by the authorities (and Simon Cowell) and any sign of rebellion is beaten down with a stick. If that's the case then rock and roll is dead and probably has been for years and that makes festivals and rock music 'contrived' affairs, like boutique hotels, in the same way that 'cult movies' no longer
gain cult status, as in days gone by, but are produced with 'cult status' in mind. Quentin Tarantino springs to mind.
And with that I must fly as the very last
Top Gear featuring Clarkson, Hammond and May is about to be screened on BBC2 – yet another example of something good leaving the building, although word has it that once this last episode is out of the way, Clarkson and the team will set to work on a new show...
