It was a drizzly cold Sunday morning and the wifey and I were having breakfast at our favorite trailer trash greasy spoon. The waitresses were snotty, the coffee bad. Once the food started to make its way through our digestive tracks later in the day, quality time in the john was a little more explosive.

              Everything was just as it had always been. There was the logger-looking dude in the corner with the missing appendage, his prosthetic leg senselessly in the aisle producing an unexpected obstacle for the unprepared passerbyer, as his beard dangled in his eggs.

              There was the same preposterous décor hanging on the walls consisting of the workers’ family pictures of inbred looking, over-nourished babies coupled with NRA slogans hanging on the walls. Each of the pictures glazed in a thin, grimy coating, a mixture of cobwebs, bacon grease, and household dust clinging to their decorative surfaces.

              Then there was also the ever-present rock radio blaring from the cooks’ kitchen. It was the station I had grown up listening to which played all the classic rock favorites. Every time I heard the familiar radio announcer’s husky smoker’s voice station ID interwoven with the sounds of sizzling eggs, it gave me a nostalgic warm feeling recalling my early music listening years.

              That radio station had become for me, at least, a local cultural institution. As a kid I remember riding my bike to the motorcycle shop downtown and sneaking stacks of their promotional stickers into my pockets off the service counter when the employees weren’t looking. Countless numbers of those stickers were randomly placed on school notebooks, clock radios, doors and windows, on top of bicycle seats, each one bunched up and wrinkled. The stickers simply proclaimed: “KISW Seattle’s Best Rock, 100 FM.” The main portion of the logo popped out from the rest of the stark black and white background, the word “Rock” was emblazoned with flaming lettering, cocked partially sideways proclaiming to anyone fortunate enough to gaze upon its beautifully timeless message that Rock was here to stay.

              To be honest, aside from the occasional station surfing in the car, I hadn’t been listening to KISW in recent years. But we were always bound to hear the predictable programming at our favorite breakfast spot each visit. Between the segments of long-winded advertisements, hiss of the grill, and the occasional sound of water spraying from the dish pit, you could catch the distant sounding riffs and melodies of all the favorites. Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Foghat, AC/DC, and Rush all interspersed with one-hit wonders like Golden Earring or Europe.

              Something had changed though.

              Half of the programming on the station was still solid, but now after every couple songs a post grunge era stink bomb would go off. There we were, enjoying casual chit chat, picking at our eggs and nursing our bitter, tepid cups o‘ mud, heads bobbing to the back beat of “Back In Black” or “Smoke On The Water.”

              Then came a song from the band Staind.

              Linkin Park.

              Disturbed.

              Creed.

              Mudvayne.

              We weren’t the only ones to notice what was going on. In the back, towards the kitchen area, things had gotten quieter. The radio was still blaring away; pots, pans, and spatulas were still clinking, but the cook wasn’t singing along word for word as usual. The radio blared on with a diary entry-like chorus whining verbosely but in monosyllables on a vague theme about personal alienation, confusion, and pain; the vocalist reaching down deeply into his freshly neutered scrotum for his best post-grunge pseudo-Vedder yarl.

              I never met the cook in the back, but I believe there was something profound that we both understood at that moment. It wasn’t so much that the song in question, that had utterly broken the mood of our rock and roll breakfast, sucked—it did—but it was that we were being lied to.

              The new Mook Rock hits soiling the airwaves the past few years may have sounded like rock, and according to the videos and promotional posters, it looked like rock, but whatever was coming from those boom box speakers was most certainly Not Rock.

              Once I realized what was taking place, the cook poked his head around the corner. He was 40ish, squat, mustachioed, and a little thick around the belly. He was wearing Velcro tennis shoes, a stained white t-shirt, and a bandanna on his head. His face was drained of expression as he leaned against the entryway to the kitchen staring off toward the direction of the false-legged logger-looking guy in the corner. Then in a single movement he pivoted on his heel, slung a dishrag over his shoulder and trudged back to the lifeless daily grind.

              Breakfast had been ruined.

              Later that day, as I often do, I was pondering my theories about the meaning of rock for future content in the pages of BANDOPPLER. Some facts from my day started to come together in my mind: One, the rock and roll cook back at the greasy spoon was probably in grade school in the 60s; and two, by the looks of him, he was educated in the public school system like myself.

              But the rock and roll cook grew up in a different world than those born in the 70s or later. It’s not that he didn’t know the words to those songs that morning—the rotation order is the same as top forty, just in a different format—it’s that he didn’t relate to what the songs meant. As hard-edged as the music tried to be, their themes didn’t translate into anything he could identify with.

              There’s no way the public schools of the 60s were able to produce new curriculum fast enough to keep up with the times. Sure, the sexual revolution had already taken hold in mainstream America (anything proclaiming instant gratification can’t help but gain fast-track acceptance in the general culture), but the more subtle overtones of “The Revolution” took longer. It would have taken until the 70s before soft liberal hippy feminism had been accepted into the mainstream canon of the public school indoctrination of the day. It takes time to re-write history through a different lens—to produce, promote, and distribute the product.

              Subtle changes were afoot in how grade school aged kids in the 70s were taught to learn. What followed from the mid-70s on is the subtle yet systematic wussification of an entire generation of boys. This is a summary of the cultural climate that aided in ending real rock for future generations—and more specifically, from the 90s on.

              The accepted pop-psychology and sociology of the 70s taught that boys and girls come into the world neutral, as little blank slates. Kids respond to their surroundings and take on certain attributes because societal pressures are forced onto them. Consequently, girls take on certain attributes because their parents give them dolls for toys and give them indoor chores and activities, etc.

              It would follow then that this type of conditioning continues to produce the culturally traditional feminine attributes that are perceived as quietness, submission, obedience, and cooperation. Similarly, boys are given guns for toys, encouraged to participate in outdoor activities where competition is stressed—cultivating what traditional perceptions of social masculinity are.

              Over time, these university-level scholastic theories began to trickle down into general culture. There was a middle-class acceptance of the “blank slate” theory of child development, at the same time as a rejection of traditional ideas of gender. The push of feminism into mainstream culture meant that more feminine approaches in education were adopted. “Cooperation” was now the norm, not competition; and feelings were to be “shared.”

              In this sort of climate, average young boys became a problem in the classroom—they were perceived as aggressive, loud, and disruptive, for behavior long thought normal. They were obviously less likely to work out their differences through verbal communication. So they’re discouraged from scrapping in the schoolyard; are told to be quiet and sit on their hands.

              The problem with all of this is that boys get frustrated when these types of expectations are placed on them, because, simply, they are not girls—they’re not encouraged in masculine traits because masculine traits are seen as a problem in themselves. The real issue at stake is that there isn’t time in a classroom full of twenty plus kids to direct this energy in the right direction. Naturally these frustrated kids (mostly boys) will act out disruptively. So they’re deemed aggressive, hyperactive, or ADD. So what’s a public education teacher to do—or what ideology is he or she attracted to, in order to control the “chaos?”

              Fortunately, kids like to watch a lot of television, so a couple of “Me Generation” hippies—including Marlo (“That Girl”) Thomas, and actors Harry Belafonte and Mel Brooks—decided to get together and make an educational children’s film called Free To Be You And Me.1 In it a teenage Michael Jackson sings about how he’s not going to change when he grows up and Alan Alda directs and performs a cartoon about a boy who wants a doll.

              One of the standout portions of the film sports then-celebrity Rosy Grier singing the chorus to a song called “It’s Alright To Cry”: “It’s alright to cry / crying gets the hurt out / it’s all right to cry,” and then in his big black man’s baritone voice goes, “It might make you feel better.” The visuals to the song include close up shots of all kinds of people of all ages sobbing their eyes out.

              FTBYAM was intended as a sort-of pre-adolescent self-esteem boost as much as a challenge to cultural stereotyping— teaching that “We’re all winners and you can become anything you want if you just put your mind to it.” Above all, we need to learn how to share our feelings. Sound familiar? It should be, they’re the accepted mantras of our day.

              Now everybody’s popping anti-depressants like they’re breath mints, chanting the Stuart Smally mantra “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” But consider the cultural backlash.

              Take Tyler Durden’s speech in Fight Club for example: We were all told that we could be anything we wanted, that we were all going to be movie stars. Now we’re not. And we’re pissed. Overweight 50-year-olds don’t become world-class marathon runners, homely looking people don’t become pop stars, not everyone has perfect teeth, you won’t earn a million dollar salary, and none of us will ever win an Oscar, become president, or appear on the cover of Time for being a genius in quantum physics. Not even a big black man with a sweet Barry White tone in his voice can change that.

              Of course, any sensible person knows this. But our consumer mentality culture (or was that called the hippy baby boomer generation?) has spawned layers of industries that continue to spew the same bullshit hoping to puff us all up with the feeling of entitlement and self-esteem. Instead of actively doing something to combat the frustrations and limitations of life in general that WE ALL HAVE TO DEAL WITH, we’re trained to share our feelings about it. Or, when we just can’t cope, we wrap ourselves up with the security blanket of default entitlement mode. This is just an irrational leap that’s of course praised in our culture (try making it through an episode of “Oprah” some day). After all, it isn’t fair and damn it, you do deserve it!

              What does any of this have to do with rock and roll? Well, nothing explicitly. I would argue, however, that the way a man perceives himself and his culture will adversely effect what he produces.

              Here’s a simple fact: Rock and roll is essentially a temper tantrum aided by a few technological tools to throw a fit in the loudest possible way. But someone born in (say) the start of the 50s—who would have in turn produced music sometime in the late 60s or 70s—approached that tantrum in a completely different way than someone belonging to following generations.

              Here’s a little test: Take a survey of classic rock era rock sometime. Turn on the radio or borrow your dad’s vinyl collection. Notice how the themes to the songs are generally objective? As in, the songs are about something? Undoubtedly the themes about getting liquored up and chasing chicks in hopes of catching some tail are pretty retarded, lowest common denominator stuff. The Dungeons & Dragons type fantasy style themes aren’t much better. BUT at least the themes are either telling a story (ridiculously told as some of them are) or they were, at the very least, about activity. You know, “TNT, I’m dynamite,” “Been a long time since I rock and rolled,” “Smoke on the water and fire in the sky,” “We’re an American band / we’re comin‘ to your town / we’ll make you party down / we’re an American band,” “The Ace of spades,” “Heaviness is guaranteed / it was made for you and me / raw power honey just won’t quit / raw power I can feel it!” These themes are concerned with forward movement, competition, conquest, and achievement. It’s a response put into action.

              On “Back in Black” AC/DC honored its original leader passing away with macho gusto, and also insisted that WE ALL grit our teeth and get back in the ring fighting while we’re still alive. The only thing today’s Mook Rock seems to be concerned with, however, is its own navel—why we’ve fallen and can’t get back up. This is a response that comes from introspection, self-pity, and the exploring of “feelings.”

              Instead of the conquest, we get “We did it all for the nookie”—in other words, we consistently compromised all of our self-aware virtues just to get laid. It’s either that or the crybaby temper tantrums of Linkin Park. It’s hard to tell which is worse.

              Consider the following from AC/DC: “Getting old / getting gray / getting ripped off / underpaid / getting sold / second hand / that’s how it goes playin‘ in a band / it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll.”

              Compare that with Linkin Park: “I wanna heal / I wanna feel / What I thought was never real / I wanna let go of the pain I felt so long / I wanna heal / I wanna feel like I’m close to something real / I wanna find something I wanted all along / somewhere I belong.”

              The AC/DC example seems simple minded and shallow at first, but the point is—it reaches beyond the confines of self. It’s simply stating the hard facts of life from their prospective: people are out to rip you off and you’ve got to fight for what you believe in. In a rock and roll worldview, there’s got to be something bigger than your own life. Even if It’s Only Rock and Roll But I Like It, The Party (Highway To Hell) or The Conquest (You Shook Me All Night Long).

              Linkin Park appear to be more meaningful because at least they're honest, right?

              Consider this: Linkin Park’s Meteora contains ninety-nine references to “I” and forty-two references to “me” on the first three tracks alone. But the way that the old school references Me, Myself, and I, (when it takes the liberty to do so) is asserted in a fundamentally different way. AC/DC’s “I” is still fighting against the void to achieve something objective, while Linkin Park’s “I” is utterly impotent, a babbling of emotional “needs.”

              To be fair to Linkin Park, some of the riffs are okay (sugar coated, second rate Helmet riff rip-offs really) and some of the melodies are catchy, but it’s simply unlistenable. I don’t doubt that the dude writing the lyrics is a little maladjusted. But c’mon, quit committing the sacrilege of pissing on the good, noble purposes of rock and save it for personal poetry or your shrink. Maybe the guy needs to get a job or a hobby for between tours and the studio, like Tim Buckley did by driving a cab around Los Angeles (and coming up with a transcendent work of human engagement, Greetings from L.A.).

              Clearly the above-mentioned examples of “today’s rock” have already dried up for the most part, with emopop (which is different than Linkin Park and Staind because of ... higher tuning and less chords perhaps?) and million dollar “garage rock” being crammed down our throats as the “something new.” Neither sorry ass “style” has taken hold of mall culture like nu metal, or pop punk and grunge before it, though, and we’re in limbo right now between “next big things.”

              Which makes for perfect timing for those willing to participate in the musical archeological dig. There’s good stuff to be had. Arguably, most of it is coming from the underground, as it has always been.

              Certainly there are bands out there in Mook Land that do get it.2 (Queens Of The Stone Age, the White Stripes, to name a few), but a kid from the suburbs posing as the next rock savior is a little ridiculous. You see, there’s also the assertion that the best rock has always come from those genuinely disturbed and that can’t be comforted by liberal psychological theories.

              Unfortunately, for the subjects themselves (Lou Reed, Darby Crash, Iggy Pop), they’ve lived true, genuine tension and had to honestly deal with their own lives as all the rock fan voyeurs enjoyed they’re undoing. You just can’t fake that. (Or maybe I’m just buying into a romanticized point of view like everybody else. After all, we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we’re ALL victims.) Anybody can do the whole hedonistic asshole rock dude pose but there’s nothing like the real thing.

              Aw hell, forget your diary, man, The Rock is bigger than life and should be delivered through the The Almighty Riff as though nothing can get in the way of its own momentum. Philosophically speaking, the rock of yesterday was The Party and was a well-aimed piss into the existential void. All the greats understood this. You’ve got to grab life by the balls man, and YANK! Kick Out The Jams! Instead, today’s Mook Rock just wants to talk about “How do we feel about the existential void?”

              To loosely quote A Tribe Called Quest on ’91’s “Low End Theory,” “What is a poet? All balls, no cock.” Or put another way, all bark, no bite. Today’s rock just doesn’t deliver. It sounds aggressive, looks tough, by all accounts appears masculine, but really, it isn’t. It’s emasculated, subjective, introspective solipsism. Sure, the old stuff is certainly self-absorbed, but there’s a difference. There’s some action beyond the isolation of four walls, the burden of clinical depression and a bottle of Paxil. C’mon man, make that rock and roll cook’s day and save it for therapy.

1. Those readers younger than about 25 will most likely not remember this since they probably stopped showing this program in the classrooms by the mid-80s, since it would have been considered dated. Which basically means, none of you know what I’m talking about.

2. Andrew WK is a great example of someone who genuinely gets it and yet doesn't seem to be undergoing major personal turmoil, which is less annoying. Unfortunately, there are few that have perpetuated his good The Party vibe that has caught on commercially and he's well on his way out.