Rock is Dead, So Go For a Head Shot

It’s looking to be a big summer for reunion tours of 80’s bands. The Police are coming to Fenway Park in July, and my girl really wanted us to go, but thanks to Nerd Prom, it looks that particular piano’s off my back. What can I tell you? I’m not as big a fan of the band as she is, and besides; the last time the police went to Fenway, it didn’t turn out so well.

Van Halen was supposed to be touring this summer, but amazingly, that seems to have gone sideways. On one level, the idea of Van Halen touring was exciting because they were bringing David Lee Roth back as the frontman, but at the same time, it ain’t 1984 anymore. In 2007, Diamond Dave in assless spandex pants probably only means that you’ll get a spectacular view of an abcessed goiter, and I can get that for a nickel at any carnival sideshow tent. And I’m sorry, but it’s just not worth a $200 ticket and drawer space for yet another $50 t-shirt I’ll never wear just to witness the engineering miracle it takes to keep a shitfaced old man upright using only the gyroscopes in his unnatural bionic hip.

I do feel kind of bad for Eddie’s son Wolfgang, who was supposed to take over on bass for Michael Anthony on the tour. It’s always a bittersweet moment to watch a man’s son pass through his adolescence, and become enough of a man himself for his father to finally acknowledge that his little boy is now mature enough to stop babying him and start firing him. Then again, Wolfgang can’t be surprised; Eddie’s hired and fired enough people in that band that, for all I know, I’m the bassist for Van Halen now.

On top of it all, you’ve got Steven Adler yammering at whoever’ll listen that he thinks that Axl Rose’ll agree to put the original Guns N’ Roses lineup back together. Of course, if you catch Steve on the right day, he’ll also tell you that he fails drug tests because Martians spray liquid morphine into his rectum from a circumlunar orbit, so take it with a grain of salt… which is how Steve would take it if it didn’t burn so much when he shot it into his tear ducts.

If you’re in your teens or early twenties, all these bands lurching out of their graves moaning, “Brai– um… Retirement money…” has to look depressing, because if the best that the rock and roll industry can give you is warmed-over, 20-year-old hits that were raped to death by Puff Daddy while you were still the secret shame in your Daddy’s Kleenex, they must not have anything new in the pipeline. Well, let me be the first to reassure you that you’re right.

They know that you’re getting sick of new records by current bands that sound just like the old records, so they’ll try to placate you with some good old music you might not have heard while they fling shit at the wall to see if anything sticks and gently cry themselves to sleep over the size of John Mayer’s contract.

However, trust your old Internet drinking buddy Rob: this is a good thing. Those of us who’ve been around for a while saw exactly the same thing happen in the late 80’s. In the face of a new Motley Crue album or knockoff clone every six months, we started getting reunion tours by the Stones, The Who, and even The Doobie Brothers. Hell, even ELO got back together, and not even Jeff Lynne wanted that. It got bad enough that Hip Hop began to become popular, even though we were introduced to it by Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer, which is like being introduced to handjobs and blowjobs by Edward Scissorhands and Jaws.

Meanwhile, out in Seattle, a few bands were working out in local clubs, and within a couple years, they wound up revitalizing rock music for an entire generation. So be patient; sit through the reunion tours, and go out and maybe check out a local band or two. Because pretty soon they might be the voice of a new generation, and if they’re anything like the voices of my generation, they will never do a zombie-like reunion tour.

They might, however, start requiring brains to live.

[tags]The Police, Sting, Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Wolfgang Van Halen, Steven Adler, Guns N’ Roses, Axl Rose, reunion tour, Fenway Park, rock and roll, rock is dead, dark humor[/tags]