Look, I’m no fan. I admit that up front. So take from that admission that this will not be an essay of praise, but I will try my damnedest not to let this devolve in pure trash talk.
To begin—I watched a clip of Dave Grohl and that other guy from the Foo Fighters, the one who died, on Conan O’Brien’s show talking about how stupid the name of their band is. Which it is, but hey— some of us like stupid names. Even the best rock band of the late 80s, The Pixies, had a stupid name. The real reason I watched the clip was because the video title hinted that Dave would shit talk Nirvana’s old drummers. I expected (hoped?) that Dave might say a word against the Melvins’ great Dale Crover, my favorite drummer in rock history. (Yeah, I factor Bonham into my estimation.) Dale Crover was in Nirvana more as a fill in when they were without a permanent drummer, and he did play on a few tracks from Bleach, but, as we know, Dave Grohl was sitting behind the kit for the rest of their short career.
Grohl said nothing about Crover. Smart man— Crover is a monster wielding both power and subtly on those skins. Not that Grohl is a bad drummer, but. . . he’s no Dale Crover. Which is what I believe Kurt Cobain never let him forget, the Melvins being Cobain’s favorite band and the guys he looked up to/modeled Nirvana after. But I would have understood some shit talk; how often can one hear “Play more like Dale” before resentment sets in. And if you’re now that famous, whereas the Melvins remain a cult favorite, why not use your position for ego boosting?
Credit Grohl that he left it alone, and before I turn this into more of a Dale > Dave essay, let’s get on to what really concerns me.
I was thinking about how many people I know who love The Foo Fighters. And how little I care for that band. I am aware that me simply not liking a band in no way makes them “bad.” Again, I’m clearly in the minority, as Grohl is a bona fide rock star who plays stadiums and has his music in movies and commercials and all over terrestrial radio and streaming playlists. He’s a rock star, but what does that mean?
I’m wondering if being a rock star is even a thing anymore. The biggest names in the music world (that I’ve heard of, at least) are named Taylor or Beyoncé or come from South Korea. None of them play with I would call rock music. If you asked the Boomers in my life, they’d lament that a certain museum in Cleveland features pop acts and rappers, not what they’d call rock and roll. And they’d be (mostly) right, but again, so what? Well, if we’re going to make genre distinctions, then what remains of rock and roll or the shortened, and to my thinking, more malleable genre “rock”?
A Google search of “rock bands 2023” yields this list: Greta Van Fleet (never heard of her), Blink-182 (not as punk as they or their fans think they are), Metallica (certainly no longer metal), Imagine Dragons (I can, but I have no idea who they are), The Lumineers (folk, right?), Red Hot Chili Peppers (not rock, or funk for that matter, or punk or. . . what the fuck is that band?) and, yup, Foo Fighters. Despite my limited knowledge, these are surely big names, one of them definitely a rock band. Maybe the biggest in the world. Helmed by little Davey Grohl with Pat Smear by his side. Pat Smear! Of the Germs. So there’s an actual punk rock veteran in the band. But Dave Grohl is no Darby Crash, and this is no punk band. This is a rock band. The kind that makes songs for the video game Rock Band.
A rock band is a platonic ideal. Or aims to be. These days, we use the term “rock star” to describe a good parking spot. But the genre is hardly ancient (despite what the sagging visage of Keith Richards might lead one to conclude). And we humans have a notoriously poor grasp of history (we Americans— even worse), so to most of the living, the term “rock star” is imbued with a sense of timeless importance, cultural relevance, and a charmingly roguish cache of influence. Or not. Come to think of it, do the kids— the part of our population that really matters— give a goddamn? I don’t think any of the students I work with care about the Foo Fighters or rock and roll or rock stars. They love pop icons, they like something akin to rock music, but they are not thinking of rock stars the way my uncles thought of Aerosmith or the way I worshipped Eddie Van Halen. They may wear Ramones and Led Zeppelin T-shirts, but Gen Z doesn’t seem to care about rock music. I dare say they’d disparage Keith Moon’s hotel destroying antics. Such an asshole! Why didn’t he lead young people to voting polls like Chance the Rapper or spend an hour signing autographs like Taylor Swift?
Of course, there are still plenty of asshole musicians acting like spoiled idiots. They tend to do things like make it rain in the club or flaunt their wealth on Instagram, a post-Reagan era manner of demonstrative excess. But the chaotic, shambling mess on stage whipping his dick out or shooting heroin is a rarity if not a memory. At least in stadiums. If rock is alive, it’s in smaller venues, where, I’d argue, it’s always belonged. There may be nothing worse than a big outdoor stadium rock show. The fucking worst. But the old, dirty, small, chaotic clubs are still around and still letting a lot of great (and not so great) bands set up their gear and tear through three-chord RAWK! God bless these clubs. As if the tone of this essay were not enough of a giveaway, let me confess that I am of that age where I no longer frequent these establishments, but I pass the Metro and the Riv and the Bottom Longue and I see the names of bands on the marquees and think, Ah yes. Rock is not dead. Just rehoused. Or rerehoused? For while the rock never left the clubs, the bigger names did. (A guy who worked at the Vic once told me, “We get ‘em on the way up and on the way down.”)
I’ve heard Grohl tell the story of visiting Chicago and seeing Naked Raygun and having his mind blown or ass kicked or something somethinged. Stands to reason— Naked Raygun were one of the best bands around, still a favorite in the Francone household, dare I suggest the best band to come out of Chicago. They were punk, or at least punks liked them. But they were a band that played clubs, not arenas. Thank god. They were local heroes, not rock stars. They sang “What poor gods we do make,” and it made sense. Punks were never meant to be worshipped. They were no different than the audience, which is why part of the club experience involved jumping on stage or singing into the microphone when the band stuck it into the crowd. Punk’s ethos was always DIY. Anyone could do it. Grab a guitar. Bash out some chords. Give voice to your passion. Do it small, cheap, fast. Break away from the bloat of mid-1970s prog and overly theatrical shows. Sure, you can love and worship Bowie— he was a rock star, my favorite. But punks were the children of rock stars. The angry, funny brats who didn’t see value in aping Led Zeppelin. And who the fuck wants to sit in nosebleed seats and endure 20-minutes of “Whole Lotta Love” when the Ramones could give you a tighter set at CBGBs?
Come to think of it, was punk a reaction against mid-70s rock star bullshit or was it a return to rock’s core values?
Dave Grohl has some punk DNA, maybe. He played in Nirvana, a kinda punk band or a band that represented the next stages in what was already a genre that moved on. By the time grunge came along we were way past post-punk much less punk, which had morphed into hardcore. (Ah, sub-genres.) Grunge had the same elements: fifth chords, loud drums, plucked root notes on the bass. It felt a little sloppy. (I still recall fondly a friend’s reaction to the end of “Serve the Servants”: “I hate when bands don’t know how to end a song.”) It may have even felt vital at the moment (oh, to be young again), but it wasn’t too different from 70s garage rock mixed with Black Sabbath doom. The remnants of that short-lived and glorious time when I was fashionable (easy enough when dressing like shit becomes a fad) are a handful of bands that skirted along the grunge borders and offered up mostly uninspiring listener-friendly fare (Hello, Pearl Jam). Of course, the Melvins, often credited as the ur-grunge band, are still around though they never accepted being classified as grunge alongside Tad and Mudhoney. But I digress.
So yeah, back to whatever point I was aiming at. Grohl may claim some indie rock cred because he played drums for a band that started off underground, though shortly after he joined they became the biggest fucking band in the world. Which is fine— I’m not critiquing Grohl for his lack of indie-punk credibility. But it’s hard to see him as ever being anything other than a rock star in the sense that his first band was huge and his follow up is even bigger. And it only takes listening to his music to know that he was made to play unexceptional but undeniably pleasing rock tunes. And good for him. I suppose the world needs a few of them, though hopefully better than “Monkey Wrench.”
(Okay, I will say that “Everlong” is a solid tune. Great riff, melody— just a good song. But that’s about the only one I like.)
Actually. . . do we need rock stars? Nah. They had their time, and the best of them were of a moment (the late 60s-mid 80s) when such antics (hotel trashing, losing your mind on coke, bloated excess) was lamentably tolerated, but we’re older now, hopefully smarter. Not to mention there’s little to rebel against when you’re pulling in that kind of cash. The Stones, the Who, I love their music, but Jesus, fellas, give it a rest. Let the pop icons dominate. They’re supposed to be big and shiny. But rock? It’s always been best when it was dirty, raw, sweaty, a little unpolished, slightly underproduced, very dangerous. Rock and roll, to quote the Secret Chiefs 3, “is a thing that needs to die.” Or at least shuffle back to the small clubs.