Friday Thoughts On...

...the ass-holes and the death of the American "classic rock" radio.  Let me give you a context--a few years ago my CD player in the car died. Naturally, while driving to and from my work I started listening to "classic rock stations" from Seattle area. Those are 102.5 KZOK, 92.9 KISM and, thankfully, 100.3 Q Vancouver, Canada. This, my friends, when I started to hate, otherwise beloved by me, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks and John "Cougar" Mellencamp, with his Jack and Diane, among about other 15-20 bands and about 50 to 70 songs which are being played and recycled non-stop on, as it turned out, ALL US "classic rock" stations. That, plus some excruciating dissonant shit from Nirvana and Pearl Jam (Pearl Jam has some good songs, but Eddy should take some Metamucil to relieve his constipation, because he sings like a fucking senior citizen who didn't go Number Two since last Christmas). But the final nail was when some creeps from KZOK in Seattle spoke to legendary Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep on his 75th, right before he died, but even after some few minutes interview, instead of playing some of the Uriah Heep's immortal classics they turned on... Tom Petty or Fleetwood Mac, I don't remember. 

At that time I got seriously tired from some tattooed white trash bitch from Bellingham or some recovering 1990s meth-addict constantly ordering on the "free music" hour same shit over and over again--either Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd or Even Flow by Pearl Jam. I wrote to them, I asked them questions where are all those great music acts such as King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Yes (except for the beaten to death Roundabout and Owner of the Lonely Heart), fucking Beatles, instead of nauseating and vomit inducing played to death You Can't Always Get What You Want by Rolling Stones, when they wrote some awesome other tunes; I will take Paint It Black or Lady Jane, or Satisfaction over same repeating shit of You Can't Always Get or Sympathy for the Devil. I thought I was lonely in my "standards"--I was wrong. Shitload of people all over the US complain about the same thing--in accordance to US "Classic Rock" FM stations, classic rock consists of Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Rolling Stones, Nirvana, other 10-15 bands and about 50-70 songs. They ARE dumbing people down and play to the musical sentiment of the people who do not even grasp what was so great about period of 1960s through 1980s. 

Just a demonstration of how America was dumbed down completely by playing same shit on FM "classic rock" radio (yes, they play Jessica once in a while) by not subjecting modern public to a truly great music. Recall Dicky Betts and Dan Toler absolutely killing it? That's classic rock for ya, but those moron DJs from all those radio stations who grew up with "rock stars" of 1990s who could barely play instruments--they don't have IQ to even grasp what they are denying their already drugged, drunk and tattooed generation, known as meat generation to be thrown into the meat grinder. 

That's real Classic Rock and Southern Rock. As is this incredible piece by Rolling Stones:

But then again, what do I know... I am just a mid-town USA consumer reeling from the withdrawal or, maybe, getting in on the new shit... Let's play Even Flow and Edge of Seventeen... after all we all have to feel for Stevie Nicks and her drug addiction... just like mine or hers (speaking on their behalf), because:

I'm a grinner
I'm a lover
And I'm a sinner
I play my music in the sun
I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one

Oh, you didn't, but you did, ass-hole, and we all live it today and we have to sneer at real talent, because it is not cool. You also populate today Political Action Committees, boards of directors of military subcontractors and media mega-corporations and US Congress subcommittees... because you "sure don't want to hurt no one." (c) 

And it is too complex, how's my 401K and Facebook and Raytheon Stocks are doing...