Ain't No Rock 'n' Roll

I'm old enough to remember when rock 'n' roll was anti-establishment, or at least pretended to be.

I still have a few spots open for an online course on the Rosicrucian documents of the 17th century (Fama Fraternitatis, Confessio Fraternitatis, and The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz). It starts October 20.

It is pretty safe to say that without rock ‘n’ roll I would never have become myself. It’s a destiny thing. This all started when I was twelve years old. A friend at school had found an electric guitar in the trash that I, by circuitous financial finagling, bought from him for $12. It was a battered instrument that I had to repair, a fitting metaphor for human existence. But it was also my Holy Grail. I’m completely self-taught—there was no money for lessons in my family in the 1970s—and became a musician by a mix of pure passion and will. This was in the Detroit of the MC5 and The Stooges, of The Amboy Dukes and Alice Cooper: a Detroit of working class kids angry at the system. And we were all definitely angry at the system.

Fun anecdote: in 1985 or so I was at a jam night at a local bar—all the great Detroit players used to show up there—and saw Rob Tyner, singer of the MC5 walk in. In a literally “hold my beer” moment, I told my friend to hold my beer: I was going to talk myself onstage. I did—and I played the classic song of rock ‘n’ roll defiance of the system, the song that turned “mother fucker” into a catch phrase, “Kick Out the Jams” and the following song with Tyner & Co. in what can only be called a peak experience.

Playing the guitar led me to writing songs (I was only about thirteen or fourteen) and writing songs led me to poetry. Poetry led me to literature. Literature led me, eventually, to a career as a teacher and, after that, as a professor and scholar. But it all started almost as if by happenstance on the curbside trash in Detroit. Like I said, it’s a destiny thing.

Beginning when we were sixteen or seventeen, my friend Graham and I started writing songs together. I think over the the following ten years we probably wrote upwards of 200 songs. By the time we were eighteen we had a record deal. Granted, it was a bad record deal, but we did sell a lot of records and see a bit of the world. Here’s the cover of our best-selling record:

Guess which one is me.

Yes, I was eighteen.

A few years later, our drummer Vic put together a claymation video of the song that appeared on MTV.

Eventually, Graham and I wanted to do something different. We had been honing our songwriting craft for a while and had been listening to a lot of folk music, a lot of country, and a good bit of Celtic. So we started a new band. Here’s a clip of us on a local Detroit television show:

As you can probably see, we made a progression from angry working class kids to neo-Romantics, two qualities that have characterized my personality ever since.

I left the music business in 1987 or so, but I never left music. I still play more or less every day. I also have come out of retirement upon occasion to play sessions, as I did eleven years ago to play with The Corktown Popes, a band led by one of the guys in the previous video (who also happens to be my brother-in-law now) and my old friend Terry, whom I met when we was young and hungry musicians in the 1980s Detroit music scene. Terry called to ask if it would be okay if they recorded a song he and I had written in 1990 and if I would like to play on it. It sounds like this:

I was also honored to play a couple of gigs with the Popes in which the illustrious producer Don Was played bass for us. I first played a gig with him when I was eighteen and have been strangely in and out of his orbit for much of my life (long story), and he is one of the kindest, most generous souls I have ever met in the world of music. Here are the Popes playing Bob Seger’s “Travelin’ Man” with Was on bass:

But I’m writing today, not about my musical career, but because yesterday somebody shared a song with me on X (Twitter). The song awakened many of the thoughts I’ve had about rock -n- roll over the last few years.

The song, '“Ain’t No Rock ‘n’ Roll,” by Five Times August, the solo project of singer/songwriter Bard Skistimas, articulates perfectly the betrayal I have felt over the past decade by so many musicians I once admired. This began for me when I saw U2, especially front man Bono, cozy up not only to Establishment institutions like Apple but become BFFs with Bill Gates—BILL GATES!—of all people! In fact, I have been entertaining the thought of writing on the U2/Bono betrayal for quite a while. To be honest, their betrayal hurts more than any other. First of all, they are of my generation (I think we’re almost exactly the same age). I also have always admired their musical innovation combined with their deep commitment to Christ (and I now have serious concerns about the latter). My friend, Billy, used to sell merch for them on some of their early tours in the US: he says they and their crew prayed before every show. And—they made Christian rock ‘n’ roll that didn’t suck (sorry every Christian band). But, after watching with horror how compromised by the Archons they have become, I find myself entirely unable to listen to them. If one of their songs comes on the radio, I turn it off. It didn’t have to be like this.

But the Covid pandemic was a complete game-changer as we witnessed what pro-Establishment shills and dutiful soldiers of the Archons these allegedly “rebel” musicians really are. With the notable exceptions of Van Morrison (maybe he is the reincarnation of William Blake), Eric Clapton, and John (“Johnny Rotten” ) Lydon they all lined right up, didn’t they? Even Neil Young (!), whose “Ohio” may be one of the greatest protest songs ever written (and I tear up EVERY TIME I play it for college students). And Rage Against the Machine? What a joke. They raged on behalf of the Machine for all of Covid. And so did almost all of them.

Despite these feelings of betrayal, I am still hopeful. At my core, I am still the reincarnated German Romantic I’ve always been, a poet and musician who still thinks the poetic can open to transcendence and a vision of a better world. The important thing, as we learn from the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, is to remember to not eat the food of the Egyptians. Bono, Neil, and Rage Against the Machine apparently went back for seconds. But, even so, there is still hope.

All it takes is three chords and the truth.