Henry Rollins on the state of music today

[Tenstrum]

I like Henry and think he has several points, but tend to disagree with him on several.

 

 

And of course, when you don't have to worry about money that much, it makes singing the praises of "basement artists" a tad easier.

[Richard W]

He's starting to sound a bit like the crotchety old grandfather. "Back in my day we didn't have hair stylists, dad gummit!" Which is not to say he's not right, it just sounds funny to me.

 

The most important music has always come from outside the mainstream. That's been true since Elvis Presley.

[The Bear Jew]

Henry's biggest downfalls are that he cares too much and likes the sound of his own voice more than most anything else in the world. I don't disagree with his points, though. But, then again, I don't care enough about the state of mainstream music to make a speech about it. Also, nobody cares enough to interview me about my opinion on this subject because I wasn't the most well-known vocalist for Black Flag.

 

 

I think it should almost go without saying that the music targeted to the big media outlets today is generally kind of safe, primarily unexciting and heavily packaged. And all of these elements lead to a product and presentation that, in simplest terms, sucks. As Mr. Garfield says, it lacks that element of danger and humanity that drew a lot of folks into the punk rock world back when he was young.

 

On the plus side, as a frequent visitor of dank basement/DIY venue shows, I can most certainly tell you that there are definitely interesting, intriguing, dangerous, fun, exciting bands/musicians running around the country who eschew the traditionally pursued outlets for artistic exposure... and Henry's right... it's kind of awesome.

 

As I said, though, in my case, I don't get irritated or upset about the general suckiness of the mainstream stuff out there. Instead, I focus on the stuff that comes through those stinky basements. This isn't to say that the stinky basement stuff is always great (because it most certainly isn't), but at least it feels honest and unfiltered to me.

[jcadmus]

And stay off my lawn!

 

And I'm KEEPING your ball!

[butcherNburn]

I like Henry and think he has several points, but tend to disagree with him on several.

 

Me too but I'll add or expand on a few things.

 

It seems like "music" is almost too easy to make these days because of technology. There are way too many people that think they are making music when all they are doing is playing with gadgets. Yes, I'm aware similar things were said about R&R, electric guitar and keyboards. I know many will disagree but even if someone is very talented with turntables, a sampler, or a drum machine, it doesn't mean that you are making music. They might be, but it's rare.

 

Sure underground music can be great but you need someone to expose you to it. Where I grew up there were very few people that even listened to rock, Bon Jovi was metal, anything slightly harder was "kill your mother" music to most. A venue for someone under 21, let alone someone in more formative (13-15) years to hear live, non-stadium music was unheard of.

[The Bear Jew]

Sure underground music can be great but you need someone to expose you to it.

 

I'm not going to get into the "gadget/electronic-based music (hip-hop, etc) isn't really music" argument on here again... because it usually ends in hair-pulling, tears and people being sent to their rooms without dinner. And a fat bastard like me enjoys dinner too much to miss it, ya know?

 

So we can agree to disagree on that one, cool?

 

But regarding the statement I quoted above... Yes. It's true. Underground music is harder to find than the mainstream stuff. It just is. Not to sound pedantic (and I'm sure I probably do), but that's just nature of of underground stuff. It's... ya know... underground. It doesn't get the exposure of the mainstream stuff. And that kind of sucks. I think a lot of kids grew up feeling weird and out-of-place because they didn't like the stuff they saw on TV or heard on the radio... and I think a lot of those kids would have benefited from hearing some of the more obscure music of their times. And maybe they'd have grown to become happier adults if they'd have heard something from a non-traditional source that spoke to them in a special way during their youthful, impressionable years. That is a sad reality for folks of my age... and a little younger than my age... and definitely older. We had to work harder to find the "outside" stuff.

 

However... we have the internet now. We have Youtube, Reverbnation, Bandcamp and lots of other ways to find new music that wasn't made by/for a big media conglomerate with a specific marketing plan/package for a specific demographic base. And kids are good at finding stuff online. I only wish I had such a resource when I was a teen. Holy crap.

[Tenstrum]

I may have misunderstood his point, but what I got out of what he said was that all "main stream" music sucked and only "underground" music was true and cool.

Got to disagree with that whole heartedly.

I may be over exaggerating his point to the extreme but, I've been exposed to both kinds of music and I got to say that I like the kind of music that I like regardless of who, what, where, and when it came from.

 

And sorta OT:

You can call me a "middle of the road" kind of guy and that's OK. Cause being in the middle of the road is dangerous! Yeah...like Tom Cruise in Top Gun...

[Griffinator]

Henry's biggest downfalls are that he cares too much and likes the sound of his own voice more than most anything else in the world.

 

Probably could have ended the Henry discussion right there. He impresses me as someone who genuinely believes he is smarter than everyone else in the room when he first walks in.

 

Somewhere out on YT is a recording of his 3-minute rant about how stupid Iron Maiden fans are because HRB opened for Maiden once and everyone was screaming "Maiden" pretty much the whole time.

 

Duh, you're the fucking opening band, Henry. No one paid to come see you, they paid to see the headliner. Welcome to the reality of opening bands, no matter who they're opening for. Quit being butthurt because people didn't fall down and worship at your overinflated ego.

[butcherNburn]

I'm not going to get into the "gadget/electronic-based music (hip-hop, etc) isn't really music" argument on here again...

 

I don't believe that. OK, perhaps to certain degree I do but that wasn't where I was going. I hear many songs, in genres I don't care for, that I can hear a certain level of quality in. My point was that the ownership and operation of electronic gadgets does not make you a musician. I think a musician can use those tools and make music with them though.

 

I recall a David Bowie interview from a long time ago where he was talking about synthesizers and how engineers programed in sounds, like strings, that they thought musicians would want. Musicians really didn't like those sounds so they combined different one's and modified them to make different and unique sounds and that's how they made music.

[The Bear Jew]

My point was that the ownership and operation of electronic gadgets does not make you a musician. I think a musician can use those tools and make music with them though.

 

Sure. Just like owning a bass or guitar doesn't mean a person is a musician. No argument here.

 

I may have misunderstood his point, but what I got out of what he said was that all "main stream" music sucked and only "underground" music was true and cool.

 

Nah, I don't get that sense from Henry. In fact, he has often publicly claimed to be a big Madonna fan... and he was saying that back in the late '80s and early '90s... when she was really mainstream and hugely popular. So I don't think he's saying all mainstream music sucks--just a lot of it.

 

Somewhere out on YT is a recording of his 3-minute rant about how stupid Iron Maiden fans are because HRB opened for Maiden once and everyone was screaming "Maiden" pretty much the whole time.

 

Yeah, that's Henry. Self important and overly sincere... to a huge fault. He strikes me as an overgrown teenage boy who, through hard work and struggle, managed to land in a lifestyle that allows him to maintain a rather unwarranted ego alongside an honest appreciation of fairness and equity in things. So you'll find him whining about stuff like being disrespected by Maiden fans (I am sure that must have sucked), but I think he also has a lot of valid opinions about the music and entertainment industry as well.

[kenfxj]

Everything Henry did post Black Flag sucked.

 

I love speaking in absolutes.

[The Bear Jew]

Everything Henry did post Black Flag sucked.

 

I love speaking in absolutes.

 

Yeah, except that's pretty much true.

And a lot of his work with Black Flag wasn't too great, either.

[Tenstrum]

Oh, I don't know. I liked The Rollins Band more than I did Black Flag. Henry running around in a Superman costume pretty much kicks ass in any context!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgQalXaIxs

 

I've been to a couple of Henry's speaking engagements and he always comes across as humble, self debasing, and very intelligent. Until he starts talking about music...

I just happen to disagree with his musical opinions for the most part.

I was a fan of The Henry Rollins show on IFC and enjoyed some of the underground-ish bands he had on. Though I can't think of any that made me want to run out and buy their CD.

 

[jcadmus]

Underground music is harder to find than the mainstream stuff. It just is.

 

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I think that's what makes it "underground."

 

But to your later point, at least here is opportunity to find that stuff now via the Internet. Back when was a kid, there was no way to see/hear/experience much outside the mainstream except to find your way to one of those few, remote venues that offered it live. Otherwise, you saw and heard what TV and the radio played and what you could find in the local record store.

 

And stay off my lawn!

[Griffinator]

Yeah, that's Henry. Self important and overly sincere... to a huge fault. He strikes me as an overgrown teenage boy who, through hard work and struggle, managed to land in a lifestyle that allows him to maintain a rather unwarranted ego alongside an honest appreciation of fairness and equity in things. So you'll find him whining about stuff like being disrespected by Maiden fans (I am sure that must have sucked), but I think he also has a lot of valid opinions about the music and entertainment industry as well.

 

What I appreciated about Jello Biafra's spoken word tour stuff (I actually still have, somewhere around here, the triple LP of Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police) is that you got the valid opinions (for example, he accurately predicted, circa 1991, the Wal-Mart debacle we experienced over the last decade) without the misplaced ego. Jello was more of a John The Baptist type, the voice in the wilderness, and because his experience with DK was much more "underground" the entire way through, he never got full of himself over having a video on MTV, because it never happened...

[rumpelstiltskin.]

i tend to agree with the notion that music is doing better than ever, but that's really a distillation of the fact that i am experiencing more good music than ever before. and i agree that it's because of the internet. and satellite radio.

 

i saw it happening ten years ago when bands that i liked were being dropped by their labels, who wanted to focus more resources on acts like n*sync. instead of innovating in the face of change, record labels went to their binkies. they medulla oblongata'd instead of analyzed. they didn't realize the implications of their actions, that they were intentionally retracting the market, making it smaller and less impactful.

 

meanwhile U2 this last summer made more money than anyone ever playing live music on their 360 tour. there is still plenty of good music and plenty of money to be made at it, but it's not what we've grown used to over the last 60 years. the only question is whether you're comfortable with the paradigm shift. i am.

[Bottom End]

I only wish I had such a resource when I was a teen. Holy crap.

+1,000. Long ago I was one of those kids who put the transistor radio under the pillow so I could listen all night long and not get caught. I loved going to a new town and finding the best station, and the best times to listen. Almost always these were late at night into the early morning. Living outside Boston for 5 years in the '80's exposed me to tons of great music on mainstream radio alone (oh, WBCN, how the mighty have fallen), not to mention college radio, and the local radio Cape Cod alterna-hippies' station, I had to listen to the radio all the time in fear I'd miss something new and great and hitherto unknown.

 

With the internet, I'm even more spoiled for choice. Kids today don't know how good they have it.

 

Not only that, you can carry a month's worth of 24/7 music in your pocket. I was looking at my old Walkman cassette player, and remember having to listen to music 50 minutes at a time, then flipping the tape. How many tapes did I have to drag on a road trip?

 

Not all mainstream is bad, not all underground is good, and I like to listen to Henry in small doses. His spoken word piece about going to Afghanistan is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, and I had an audiobook of his from 15 years ago. Good stories, and like the best stories, based in truth and liberally embellished.

[kenfxj]

When I was a kid I would've loved to have a Walkman!

 

I remember using a tape recorder that looked like this to record songs off of a transistor radio that looked like THIS.

 

Played them back on that tape recorder too. Thought I was very hip with my free copies of Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) by Looking Glass and Lean On Me by Bill Withers. Good thing Lars Ulrich wasn't around back then.

[jeremy c]

How about a tape recorder that looked like this:

http://www.devicepedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/reel-to-reel-tape-recorder.jpg

and a transistor radio that looked like this:

http://raditaz.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/220px-regency_transistor_radio.jpg

That's what I had when I was a kid.

 

There have always been teenagers making music in their garages. If audiences start buying some of this music, the teenagers who aren't making money accuse the ones who are of selling out.

 

Mr. Rollins sounds like one of the accusers. However, he did make money. We all know that corporate music is pretty terrible. It always has been. Big deal.

[Richard W]

Towards the end of his autobiography, Eric Clapton wrote something like (and I'm paraphrasing here): Ninety-five percent of the music made today is complete rubbish, and 95% of it was complete rubbish in the 60s, too.

[kenfxj]

Well that's true of ALL art. Always has been. You think the only books written in the 1800's were things like A Tale Of Two Cities and War And Peace? I'm sure 95% of it was rubbish.

[jcadmus]

I find it interesting that when I go to my son's middle school, a lot of the kids are wearing AC/DC and Led Zeppelin t-shirts -- bands that have been around since before they were born.

 

Somehow I just can't imagine anyone wearing a Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber t-shirt 30 years from now, much less listening to their music. Just saying.

[jeremy c]

Yeah, and AC/DC and Led Zeppelin were not "pimply faced teenagers".

 

Let me know if you see any 13 and 14 year olds wearing Black Flag t-shirts.

[rumpelstiltskin.]

I find it interesting that when I go to my son's middle school, a lot of the kids are wearing AC/DC and Led Zeppelin t-shirts -- bands that have been around since before they were born.

 

Somehow I just can't imagine anyone wearing a Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber t-shirt 30 years from now, much less listening to their music. Just saying.

 

part of it is that AC/DC is an all-time great band. but a much bigger part is that AC/DC is all-time great brand. just like i buy my 6 month old son michigan state onesies (go green), i also have him listening to lullabye versions of weezer and radiohead. he doesn't really have a choice. just like i was steeped in miles davis, he will be steeped in nirvana, who still sells tons of t-shirts.

[Nicklab]

Henry has passion for what he's talking about. He's always had that passion. That's part of what makes his speaking gigs a lot of fun.

 

I've been to some amazing underground gigs. Just like I've been to some that were terrible. But those good gigs got REALLY GOOD. And a lot of that was because it was exciting to see a band that cool in a basement or a garage.

 

Some of those bands wound up touring nationally through a network of fanzine's back in the 90's before the internet really took off. They worked the phones and booked gigs all over the country that way. They got in the van and did their thing, crashing in fans houses. That kind of legwork paid off and they graduated to the club scene, and some of these bands got signed to label deals. I know one of these bands firsthand from my own local scene. They started by playing basements around New Brunswick, NJ and eventually wound up on the cover of SPIN magazine. Those guys wound up getting douchey though, too.

 

But plenty of the underground sucks, too. Henry knows that as well, but his love of what amounts to his old school is probably what keeps him from saying so.

 

But Henry is right about how the underground leads the way in some respects. The underground has paved the way for a new way of distributing music. File sharing, disc and tape trading (only for the hippest of hipsters) are the way most young people are getting their music. Corporate music has always fought this, but it's a losing battle.

[Groove Mama]

My point was that the ownership and operation of electronic gadgets does not make you a musician. I think a musician can use those tools and make music with them though.

 

Sure. Just like owning a bass or guitar doesn't mean a person is a musician.

 

WHAT?!!? Oh, great. NOW you tell me.

[Cthulhu Fhtagn]

So, whose job is it to go into the "stinky basements" and sift out the 95% of the dreck to find the other 5%? I see an awful lot of "self-entitled monsters" who think just because they have some hack garage project (not many basements here - the basalt is too hard to dig up), they should be granted a venue and an appricative crowd. Been in a couple of those bands. Open mics don't work because the people running them want/need to make them vanilla enough so everyone gets to show up, play, and not have decaying vegetation, torches and pitchforks hurled at them and the venue owners.

 

If it weren't for certain members of this forum turning me onto some really archaic and freaky stuff that I would NEVER think to look for (Thanks, Erick and JC), my CD collection would be about 2/3 rds of what it currently is.

 

Opinion: BoobToob, MeSpace, FarceBook all have made it HARDER to find those rare indy and jam band gems because of the sheer volume and number of "see above" posting their crap, breaking up, reforming, re-mixing and posting again. Worse part, they're there to stay. No one has the job of going "this hasn't been accessed or hit in the last five years ... let's get rid of it".

 

I can remember when I was (young and) in the Bay Area in the mid 70s/early 80 when all we did was basement clubs. We were too poor and underdressed to get into the normal clubs. And the CalJams and Days on the Green were too far between for us.

[jeremy c]

It's actually pretty easy to have an angry attitude. It's a lot harder to come up with music that makes some kind of sense and people will want to listen to it over and over and perhaps even sing along.

 

It's also pretty easy to slam "stadium bands" for "selling out". U2 is one band that gets slammed for that. However, they were a bunch of guys who could barely play that came up with something in their garage. They're still playing the same kind of music. This music speaks to a lot of people so they have become popular. Other stadium acts that became popular because their music spoke to people that really haven't changed much since the beginning are Jimmy Buffett, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead (RIP).

 

Question: is it necessary to have an angry attitude (and be poor) to be considered valid? That's what I get out of Rollins's speech.

[rumpelstiltskin.]

I know one of these bands firsthand from my own local scene. They started by playing basements around New Brunswick, NJ and eventually wound up on the cover of SPIN magazine. Those guys wound up getting douchey though, too.

 

i keep hearing that from people from around the way, but i still like their music. i saw them on their farewell tour a couple weeks ago.

[Nicklab]

I still remember that particular band's lead singer hanging at my own band's gigs and recording sessions when he was still underage. He would slamdance with our lead singer and help get the crowd going. He's also gone on to do some production, even though the band is calling it quits. I'll give him props: he's making a living doing what he loves to do.

 

As for the stinky garage/basement scene? I look at it as the modern equivalent of the Chitlin Circuit from back in the day. It's a hard life with tough crowds in even tougher venues. If you don't play a good show, they're going to let you know. The good acts will develop a positive reputation. And now with the internet and social media, word will start to spread faster than it ever has before.

 

I think there is some level of purty to that basement / garage scene. The business of music hasn't really crept into it yet, and it's still got a simple level of integrity: it's about bands connecting with an audience. And it's populated with kids who haven't become jaded by the perils of an industry that can be pretty cruel.