The Day Ganja Defeated Wiener Schnitzel
Dear Chris,
I want to close this quite enjoyable week with a plea for clemency. Let's
forgive Miller on two points.
One is his valuation of rock's lesser-known collaborators (Glenn Matlock,
John Cale, etc.). At this point, these come mostly as correctives to what's
been drummed into our heads by countless bios and Time-Life specials.
Flowers in the Dustbin is idiosyncratic enough that it's hard to imagine
someone taking it as a definitive text on rock history--believing that Lou Reed
was a Warhol puppet or that Johnny Rotten's rheumy dynamism was simply a
product of the Situationists. (And yes, the latter perspective does owe more
than a little to Savage's England's Dreaming . This must have been said
before, but if someone named Jon Savage wasn't born to write about the Sex
Pistols, I don't know who was.)
I've also come to appreciate the subtlety of Miller's critique a bit more
over the past few days. While doing his best to expose the men behind the
curtain--Ertegun, Warhol, McLaren--Miller rarely falls into the pat stance of
so many social-crit rock writers who, unable to trust their ears, rely upon
unspoken formulations like Commercial = Sucks and judge all music accordingly.
Miller actually tries to address the nuances that make a music succeed or fail,
which is pretty uncommon in his milieu. He recognizes that even prefab,
target-marketed music can have life-changing effects on people.
As far as the reggae chapter, I'm not sure how much slack to cut him. Is the
inclusion of reggae a worthy redress of a common rock-historical oversight, or
is it a cursory attempt to include still another music that discerning
white college-educated guys tend to have in their record collections?
I think you're right that Miller includes Jamaica--as befits his mode of
intellectual genealogy--mostly to represent rock's effect on the world and
vice-versa. The chapter even ends by imagining musicians in Kingston, São
Paulo, and Capetown, as "rock and roll rebels in Third World disguise." But
that's pretty parlous ground to dash over in eight pages. Miller obviously
enjoys the moment of The Harder They Come knocking The Sound of
Music out of Jamaica's No. 1 slot--implying it was a triumph of
rock-'n'-roll attitude over goody-goody moralism. Of course, it's also a
triumph of Jimmy Cliff over Julie Andrews, ganja over Wiener schnitzel,
and--isn't this a bit more important?--local art over cultural imperialism.
Moralism is certainly alive in today's rock (mostly around subjects like the
death penalty and Tibet), but it seems quite ably offset by crass irony, silly
provocation, emotional retardation of most pop culture. If we're going to
compare the moralism of this multimillion dollar culture industry with that at,
say, Oscar Night, I know which one I prefer.
The Carter administration: What a time to first hear "All Tomorrow's
Parties"! Energy crisis. Iran hostages. Village People. I think I first heard
it during Reagan's second term. Crack. AIDS. Huey Lewis. How differently did
Miller, you, and I hear it? Obviously, popular music needs some context
in which to be understood. But more and more of these disengaged bits of audio
expressionism are floating around us, daring us to make sense of them. To
listen intelligently, which I believe is still possible, you have to draw
parallels, be alert to links and exchanges, respond both musically and
socially. Which--to answer one of the first questions you asked me--is one
reason why it's hard to write well about rock.
But maybe we're all being too sloppy with this term "rock." Maybe Miller's
actually right to end his chronology at 1977, a year that most of my
favorite trends in this, er, "cultural form" began. Did all of the music,
personalities, and ideas that first captivated me--the Sex Pistols, Grandmaster
Flash, Public Enemy--do nothing but recycle Miller's paradigms? That would sure
make things easy for us content providers, but I don't think so. Still, maybe
all this newer music--born of new technologies, multiculti babble, youth/media
feedback loops--falls under some other rubric we have yet to define. The really
trenchant analyses often come years later. Maybe the etymological evolution
from "rock 'n' roll" to "rock" to whatever else we decide to call this intense,
edgy, corrupt, joyful form of musical expression is long overdue.
I'm accepting suggestions.
Yours,
Chris
