Let's Let Bygones Be Forgotten

I love rock and roll (don’t give me that ‘Joan Jett on line two’ stuff. Seriously? Play her this while she’s on hold) though how I define rock and roll and how you hear it may be two, or more, very different things. 

I’ve no idea where I read it (when you’re old, that happens) but I know I did, “Rock and roll is the music your parents love to hate.” Mission accomplished. My dad hated The Beatles until She’s Leaving Home from SGT Pepper and when that happened, I get weirded out. I don’t recall him having a warm spot for anything by The Rolling Stones. Funny, innit?

Fast forward a generation. Try as I might to be open-minded as a parent, it was sadly apparent  to me my children listened to abject crap, nothing at all like the good music I had when I was their age. 

I still am impressed by the irony of that observation and take solace that they, too, will find it funny when/if they have children and go through the same struggle. Ahh,  first world problems-it’s a hard rain that’s gonna fall (and leave water spots on the freshly waxed Beamer [sigh]).

Music, as all art should and does, builds bridges between and among different nations, politics, and generations but each of us has to cross or burn those bridges. Our choice and consequences. That’s why I smiled yesterday reading about the 2016 crop of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

I believe I own all the records each inductee ever released, and, lack of modesty conceded in advance, I interviewed just about everyone in every act, either in the band or as a solo artist, who's scheduled to be inducted, some more than once (Rick Nielsen, Bobby Lamm and Ian Gillan, I’m looking at you). 

That may be the only saving grace about growing old: we had all the best music. Just ask us (pretty sure Pete and Roger were joshing, based on how events worked out for them; we could ask Keith and The Ox but due to circumstances within their control....).

Or maybe not, if you ask our parents. And definitely not, if you ask our children. And when I look at who’s going in and who’s already there, maybe it’s human nature, I wonder about those not included, our forgotten friends. #ReconsiderMe.

-bill kenny