Old rock bands depress me. “Hope I die before I get old” is not a gauntlet one can fling down at the world’s feet, and then pick up later to put back in your fanny pack with your Carmex, Metamucil, and Viagra. When I got to be forty-ish, I began to feel odd even playing covers of this sort of thing out in public.
It’s not adult music in the first place, so you get to be just another old man at a teen kegger pretty quick. I’d rather see young nobodies take a crack at it than old fogies depositing checks from the seventies along with their Social Security. Hell, Cheap Trick’s original schtick was two old guys and two young guys playing in a band together. Now the two young guys are old, the old guy is ancient, and Bun E. Carlos has too much sense to even show up.
It’s a testament to the mercenary nature of the “counterculture” that a flat-out ad is more entertaining and charming and less avaricious than an actual music video:
Happy Cinco de Mayo. I’m Irish a bit, so I know what’s it’s like to have a holiday in honor of your heritage that consists of nothing but an excuse to get loaded for the general population.
One Response
When the old band keeps trying to be the same young band they were 20 or 30 years ago, yeah, there are few things as sad. It's like the male equivalent of the granny trying to dress like Britney Spears.
Some rare musicians manage to grow in their music as they grow in life, though. When that happens, I tend to find the results just as good if not better when they're older than the music they played when they were young. And it isn't nearly so disturbing to watch…