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Published: Thursday, February 2, 2006
According to Don McLean, "the day the music died" was Feb. 2, 1959, when an airplane carrying rock legends Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed in a cornfield just outside of Mason City, Iowa. The accident brought an abrupt end to the lives of three highly influential rockers, but perhaps more importantly, signaled the premature demise of Rockabilly culture. '50s dance music was effectively laid to rest on that day, leaving a void that would soon be amply filled by pot, flower children and all things psychedelic.
Such significant shifts of the American zeitgeist are usually best represented through the medium of pop culture. As each decade moves toward new sets of values and social mores, our icons, who were once truly gods amongst men, are thrown by the wayside into states of relative cultural obscurity. It is a heinous fate for many pop idols, as the struggle to find a life after fame is perhaps the megalomaniac's version of an earthly purgatory; a once vibrant soul is now but a shade that prays for a death that refuses to come.
Many believe that Nirvana slew the proverbial hair-metal hydra that dominated the American music scene for an entire decade. Generally, the release of Nevermind in 1991 has been rightly pinpointed as the end of many aqua-net fueled careers. I hoped, however, that metal's raucous spirit had lived on in some regard, if only for my personal sanity. The recent, albeit mild, comeback of Motley Crue this past summer was a sign that the sentiment of the deliciously depraved 1980s had not yet yielded to our increasingly conservative society.
But if there was ever a day I would have seriously considered getting plastered on whiskey and rye at my local levee, it may have been Jan. 3, 2006. It was the day that David Lee Roth took over Howard Stern's timeslot in several East Coast radio markets after the latter made the move to uncensored satellite radio. It was also the day I realized that rock and roll hedonism was officially dead, and that the terrorists had, in fact, won.
When I think of important men who truly defined eras, three names come to mind: Lincoln, Churchill and Roth, as there is no better personification of the decadent 1980s than Diamond Dave. As the front man for Van Halen, the most influential rock band of the period, he embodied a lifestyle of impish excess that every man, woman and child in America wanted to be a part of, if only on some subconscious level. And reaching him was as simple as guiding a turntable's needle into the appropriate groove, whereupon listeners would be offered three-minute teasers into a lifestyle they could never know, transported far from their banal existences to a better place where there is no more valuable a commodity than a ripping guitar solo.
Unfortunately, Roth has now been reduced to the rock-god approximation of a nine-to-five job. As a morning disk jockey, he is locked into a Monday through Friday, four-hour gig that starts at 6:00 a.m. The only way I feel comfortable thinking of Dave up at that ungodly hour is if he's stumbling into a random hotel room after a night of strippers, Jack Daniels and misdemeanors.
Instead of discussing topics like the effects of an incredibly sexy teacher on a young student or driving cars as fast as humanly possible, Roth now goes as far as to devote his insight to more serious topics like the war in Iraq. It is a subject he is strangely conservative about, promoting a view completely antipode to everything I was taught in the school of rock. One thing is for sure: There has never been a time I have been more conscious of the fact that he is old enough to realistically be my father. Sure, the same is true for Steven Tyler, but for some reason he's exempt from such a negative characterization. At the very worst he's that cool uncle who gives you alcohol from the open bar at your cousin's wedding.
On Van Halen's self-titled debut, it is proclaimed that the protagonist of "Running with the Devil" lives his life like there's no tomorrow, and this may have been true for the David Lee Roth of 1979. But for the DLR of 2006 there is a tomorrow, one that arrives all too soon, his former self but a memory to be briefly revived in discussions on VH1's I Love the '80s. But I will always remember how that music made me smile, regardless of the fact that its godfather can no longer wear his badge of chemically-altered honor.
Very well said
BAM
According to Don McLean, "the day the music died" was Feb. 2, 1959, when an airplane carrying rock legends Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed in a cornfield just outside of Mason City, Iowa. The accident brought an abrupt end to the lives of three highly influential rockers, but perhaps more importantly, signaled the premature demise of Rockabilly culture. '50s dance music was effectively laid to rest on that day, leaving a void that would soon be amply filled by pot, flower children and all things psychedelic.
Such significant shifts of the American zeitgeist are usually best represented through the medium of pop culture. As each decade moves toward new sets of values and social mores, our icons, who were once truly gods amongst men, are thrown by the wayside into states of relative cultural obscurity. It is a heinous fate for many pop idols, as the struggle to find a life after fame is perhaps the megalomaniac's version of an earthly purgatory; a once vibrant soul is now but a shade that prays for a death that refuses to come.
Many believe that Nirvana slew the proverbial hair-metal hydra that dominated the American music scene for an entire decade. Generally, the release of Nevermind in 1991 has been rightly pinpointed as the end of many aqua-net fueled careers. I hoped, however, that metal's raucous spirit had lived on in some regard, if only for my personal sanity. The recent, albeit mild, comeback of Motley Crue this past summer was a sign that the sentiment of the deliciously depraved 1980s had not yet yielded to our increasingly conservative society.
But if there was ever a day I would have seriously considered getting plastered on whiskey and rye at my local levee, it may have been Jan. 3, 2006. It was the day that David Lee Roth took over Howard Stern's timeslot in several East Coast radio markets after the latter made the move to uncensored satellite radio. It was also the day I realized that rock and roll hedonism was officially dead, and that the terrorists had, in fact, won.
When I think of important men who truly defined eras, three names come to mind: Lincoln, Churchill and Roth, as there is no better personification of the decadent 1980s than Diamond Dave. As the front man for Van Halen, the most influential rock band of the period, he embodied a lifestyle of impish excess that every man, woman and child in America wanted to be a part of, if only on some subconscious level. And reaching him was as simple as guiding a turntable's needle into the appropriate groove, whereupon listeners would be offered three-minute teasers into a lifestyle they could never know, transported far from their banal existences to a better place where there is no more valuable a commodity than a ripping guitar solo.
Unfortunately, Roth has now been reduced to the rock-god approximation of a nine-to-five job. As a morning disk jockey, he is locked into a Monday through Friday, four-hour gig that starts at 6:00 a.m. The only way I feel comfortable thinking of Dave up at that ungodly hour is if he's stumbling into a random hotel room after a night of strippers, Jack Daniels and misdemeanors.
Instead of discussing topics like the effects of an incredibly sexy teacher on a young student or driving cars as fast as humanly possible, Roth now goes as far as to devote his insight to more serious topics like the war in Iraq. It is a subject he is strangely conservative about, promoting a view completely antipode to everything I was taught in the school of rock. One thing is for sure: There has never been a time I have been more conscious of the fact that he is old enough to realistically be my father. Sure, the same is true for Steven Tyler, but for some reason he's exempt from such a negative characterization. At the very worst he's that cool uncle who gives you alcohol from the open bar at your cousin's wedding.
On Van Halen's self-titled debut, it is proclaimed that the protagonist of "Running with the Devil" lives his life like there's no tomorrow, and this may have been true for the David Lee Roth of 1979. But for the DLR of 2006 there is a tomorrow, one that arrives all too soon, his former self but a memory to be briefly revived in discussions on VH1's I Love the '80s. But I will always remember how that music made me smile, regardless of the fact that its godfather can no longer wear his badge of chemically-altered honor.
Very well said
BAM
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