It's Weird to Be Dangerous and it's Dangerous to Be Weird

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the lack of danger in rock and roll.  It’s really hard to argue against that.  As Noel Gallagher recently said, they don’t want him, they want Harry Styles.  Someone to whom they can say, “go put on a dress” and they’ll just go put on a dress.

To be clear, a lot of what constitutes “danger” in rock music, at least as far as the public is concerned, is bad.  I’m not advocating for orgies with groupies, drug abuse and destruction of property, but those aren’t the only ways one can be dangerous.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say, today, those things won’t even get you any attention these days unless someone hits you with a #metoo accusation.  Then, forget being dangerous, you’re persona non grata.

What I’m talking about is giving a figurative middle finger to “the man”.  This is what Noel is talking about, everyone is so addicted to the attention, or money, or whatever, that they’ll bend over and take it, no matter what “it” is, just to get their fix.  There’s a human desire to conform, but to what lengths will you go to fool yourself into thinking you’re unique when you fit so perfectly into the culture?  As I have said for years now, after hearing Mike Ness from Social Distortion trash Donald Trump from the stage, “Fuck Trump” is literally the safest thing you can say from the stage at a punk show in California.  This is not anti-authoritarian or subversive.  To steal from Jon Cooper again, Rage Against the Machine, is the machine.

Listening to Kid Congo Power’s autobiography a little bit today, he played, not only in three of my favorite bands, but in three of the most dangerous bands that have ever been.  First, founding The Gun Club with Jeffrey Lee Pierce, then joining The Cramps and finally, playing with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. 

As he describes Jeffrey Lee Pierce, he didn’t fit anywhere.  He was the head of the Blondie fan club, he loved reggae music and he made this weird punk-blues music that drew on dark subject matter that made people uncomfortable.  As Kid describes first meeting him outside the Whisky, he had a white vinyl trench coat with bows in his hair.  Not entirely macho, but not feminine either.  He didn’t dress like the punks or the new wavers, or the surfers or anyone else.  He was his own weirdo.  It’s one of the many reasons he never became a star, but it’s one of the things I always admired about him the most.  It’s also one of the reasons I love early LA punk the most.  Where else do you get any of the following bands on a single bill?  The Gun Club, Social Distortion, Black Flag, Bad Religion, the Blasters, Los Lobos, the Plugz, Dwight Yoakam, X and the Screamers.

The core belief of the Cramps was rock music should be dangerous.  Your parents should not like your music.  Rock music was supposed to be sexy, funny and weird.  They acted like they were aliens walking among us.  It was campy, it was serious but not meant to be taken seriously.  They drew on old blues, old country and rockabilly and put it into a UFO and sent it to Mars and back.  They played better than you think they did.  They wanted to shock you, but they knew shock value alone wouldn’t keep you coming back, substance would, and they delivered on that too.

And Nick Cave, I’ve waxed poetic about Nick plenty of times in these blogs, but not only was he dangerous, especially back then, but he was firmly glued to reality because real-life is scarier than any B-Movie horror movie.

You don’t need to be rude or angry or whatever, you just need to be your own man or woman.  For a nation who exists because we rebelled against the Brits, the Brits have (in my opinion) largely done a better job of standing up to the system.  The Sex Pistols, Morrissey, Oasis, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison directly, but indirectly, Depeche Mode, Killing Joke, Stereophonics, and even The Cure did what The Cure wanted to do and not what anyone expected them to do.  There are Americans who have done this too, but every American “star” I can think of off the top of my head is safe.  Is anyone threatened by Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato? 

We can talk about diversity until we’re blue in the face, but all that talk, one, I think is just talk, and two, stops at things the government says you can’t discriminate against.  In music, you listen on Apple or Spotify.  We used to have all kinds of record stores.  If Musicland or Sam Goody didn’t stock the record you wanted, you could go to any number of independent stores to find what you were looking for.  Whether that was EDM, industrial, punk, college indie rock, or whatever, there are scores of artists who you would never have heard of if they had to make their way through algorithms and corporate controlled media the same way it is now.  Clear Channel owns anything radio or live music related.  There are few record stores.  If you don’t play the game, you’re up against it.

So what I say?  Fuck ‘em.  Damn the man.  Save the Empire. 

Bruce, Garth and the like are fat, dumb, rich and happy.  It’s time to let someone else be the voice of a generation.

Who is going to stand up and say what needs to be said?  Who is going to put their art out in the world, knowing it’s going to bring them more enemies than it will Benjamins? 

And when you come across that artist, will you support them?  Will you worry about what people will say about you if post something about Eric Clapton or Van Morrison?  It’s not always about agreeing with someone, it’s about respecting their backbone and their right to express themselves. 

In a world full of Harry Styles, be a Jeffrey Lee Pierce, a Noel Gallagher or a Nick Cave.