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The Day The Music Was Killed

The second worst thing you can do on your own website is write a bunch of sappy crap about your cats. Well, guilty as charged, there. But as everyone knows, the absolute worst thing you can do is write about some stupid rock band that you like. But if you'll indulge me here for a few paragraphs, you'll come to realize that this article isn't about what I like, it's about what you hate.

I don't particularly care for music, you see. Well, to be more specific, I don't particularly care for listening to music. My car radio is always on a talk station, switching to FM only during commercial breaks. The reason I don't like listening to music is that I'm a musician, and if there's anything that'll destroy your love for music, it's being a musician. When I listen to music, I don't feel emotions, I don't "rock 'n' roll", I see numbers, and chords, and feel pressured to try to figure out how to play this bass line, or that guitar riff. It's like a pop quiz every time I pop a new CD in. All of the life and enjoyment is instantly sucked out of anything I listen to, as soon as I listen to it. You may be enjoying that new little tune you're singing to yourself in your car, but believe me, if I've heard it, it's already dead and buried, so you can forget about it. And besides that, whenever I flip through the dial, I either hear old stuff that I once liked, but have heard fifty-thousand times, or new stuff that irritates and pisses me off with the constant, droning sameness that has proliferated through the modern music scene over the past few years. I'm not blaming Pearl Jam specifically, here, but I mean, really.

This is why, when I actually find something I like, I covet it like a cool glass of water in the desert. I covet it like a starving person might covet a loaf of bread. I covet it like a porn channel in my hotel room that was left on from the previous person staying there. I can count on one hand (speaking of porn channels) the number of times I've found something I really like, music-wise-speaking. It's that bad. I lie in the darkness in my bed at night, praying to my IKEA corporate art that adorns my walls that something, someone, somewhere will come out with a few notes that I can stand, so I can once again feel the thrill of the beat surging through me, and the notes drifting and spinning around me like glowing pixies sprinkling their magic dust into my ears.

And this is why October 18, 2000, is the darkest day in music that I can remember. October 18, 2000 is my "Challenger". October 18, 2000 is my "Kennedy".

Because on October 18, 2000, Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine.

Now, trying to explain to another person why you like a certain band is like trying to describe to a blind person why you like the color red. There's just no context within which it makes any sense. But hear me out, at least. I mean, what else have you got to do but go back to the coffee room and see if you can catch a peek at the new receptionist who always wears the short skirts and whose name is something like "Carlene" or "Darlena" or something? Not much, obviously.

For those one of you who may not be familiar with Rage's music, let me describe it to you:

  • Tom takes his guitar and alternates between playing the same five notes as loud as possible, or pressing buttons and making screeching and scraping noises.
  • Tim plays his bass along with Tom as loud as possible, occasionally pressing different buttons to make different scratching noises.
  • Brad plays his drums as loud as possible, occasionally to a totally different song.
  • Zack yells "Motherfucker!" as loud as possible over the din of the other three.
Now allow me to explain, briefly I'm sure, why they were the greatest band to come along in 25 years.

They, better than anyone else, were able to both take everything that ever made rock 'n' roll great and crank it up several notches, and were able to blast through the envelope which began to suffocate hard rock under a gray, formulaic shrowd, and send music into the future, for better or worse, with only three albums. They were just as hard as Zeppelin, but angrier. They were just as funky as James Brown, but harder. They came at you with a barrage of rhythmic surges and earth-shattering heavy-metal riffs that kept your fist pumping and your toes tapping so long and so strong that you forgot to keep repeating that perennial white man's mantra, "I hate rap."

The term "rap-metal" didn't exist before Rage. And the countless me-too bands, from Korn, to Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, and all that crap, do not even come close, and do not understand the monster they are attempting to lick the steaming, scaly hide of.

Each of Rage's albums proudly proclaimed that "all sounds made by guitar, bass, vocals, and drums." The purity with which they approached the lumbering Godzilla of sonic assault that they created was truly admirable. In this, they returned to rock's roots, pulled the roots out of the ground, ate them for breakfast and shit them out through their amps. There is a rawness to the sound that hasn't been heard since the early 70's, when metal was born, even as Tom was exploring the future of searing, violent guitar work. By the second album, he had all but done away with the classic "guitar solo", opting instead for effects-laden instrumental breaks full of percussive screaming, scratching and squealing, sounding for all the world like you'd tuned your radio in between stations. This serves only to enhance the feeling that this band had somehow broken through the tired, stolid airwaves of modern rock to serve notice that a new day had dawned.

And then there's Zack. Zack, shouting out his inimitable brand of militant poetry, screaming at the world and all of its iniquities. Now look, I am not a political person, and don't even know what he's talking about half the time. I am, in fact, a pretty bad Rage fan. I mean, I don't know if Leonard Peltier or Mumia Abu Jamal are guilty or innocent, I don't understand the Zapatista movement, and I'm a rich white male, just who the supposed enemy is. (Then again, I doubt any of the band members are missing any meals either, but that's another story.) But the fact is, the pure vitriol and energy with which he is belting out these angry missives serves only to turn up the urgency of music already at the boiling point. It is almost too much to take. Which is just enough for me.

So that's why October 18, 2000 blows.

But like I said, that's not what this column is about. Then again, even *I* have stopped reading it by this point, so there's really no point in continuing, but I'll do it anyway.

Here's what this column's about:

  • 1988 - "Whole Lotta Love" comes on DC-101, and I accidentally play it a little too loud. This changes my life forever, as I discover Led Zeppelin, the greatest rock band in history. 8 years earlier, John Bonham had died, ending their reign. Well, these two aren't related, I don't think, but read on...

  • 1993 - I hear "Spirit of Radio" one too many times, and actually listen to the music underneath that squealing, girlish voice. Thus begins my love affair with Rush. After this, they make one more album, the drummer's wife and daughter die, and they disappear. Theoretically another album is in the works, but I'll believe that when I hear it.

  • 1996 - Soundgarden release "Down on the Upside". I happen to hear it, and embrace Soundgarden as the next coming of Zeppelin. One year later, they break up.

  • 1997 - I am charmed by the eclectic mix of stand-up bass, funky drums and heroin-induced lyrics of Soul Coughing. The next year, they release El Oso, and then promptly break up.

  • 1999 - Rage Against the Machine release "Battle of Los Angeles", and thus begins my new love affair with music. Eight months later, they break up.

My point is, I have a curse. Every band I ever liked immediately (if not before) died. It has happened every time before, and it will happen every time again.

Therefore, and the reason this column is about what you hate, I want you all to send me your vote as to what band you would like me to like next, thereby instantly consigning them to CERTAIN DOOM!!!

Whichever band gets the most votes, I will immediately go out and buy all their albums and listen to them nonstop for three straight months.

That oughta do it.

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COPYRIGHT 2001 BY BEN PARRISH