Thanks man,

I really admire Rollins for what he is doing.

It's a tough route he chose, but seriously, where is the social criticism / humour these days?

There's so much non sense goin on on a daily basis and all that you see in media is this mediocre politically correct / not too mind demanding bullshit they trying to feed you with to persuade you that you're in fact all right and the only thing you're missing yet is the shit they're advertising you.

I am always both - surprised and happy that his name is becoming quite well recognized, when I started to explore his work (around 1997) I thought I've found such an incredible underground thing, but over the years it seems his audience not only remained loyal but, probably with the help of his appearances on radio and TV (the IFC shows were released on a DVD recently and I can only recommend them) also broadened.

Bump for Steve

Agreed.

Yea what the fuck. Now he's turned into a fuckin hater. Why isn't everybody angry like me? FUCK OFF is what I say to that. Times fuckin change buddy.

He's loosing respect in my eyes for sure. He's just trying to find a new target market. Old Angry people.

He sounds like a crabby old grandpa. He's half a fag... i'm surprised he doesnt like techno

I think there are more people who pretend to like Rollins because they think it's cool than people who pretend to like techno (has it ever been cool to like techno?). No sense in getting worked up about it. The market decides what gets airplay. The music industry is about money, not quality. Britney Spears has outsold most of my favorite music artists/bands many times over.

As for hip-hop/rap attempts at or mergers with 'real' music, it should probably stop. It rarely works because rap isn't 'real' or traditional music by any means. It's street theater and poetry put to a 4/4 time signature looped breakbeat with samples and sprinkled with jingles. Most of the best raps have been done using these standard features, not live instrumentation or marriages to other genres. From what I've heard, it seems to work sparingly and only if the non-rap genre is the principle component of the song (eg. some of RATM's stuff, Aerosmith's Walk this Way featuring Run DMC).

I've never really respected Rollins, I prefer the Black Flag stuff with Dez Cadena, Chavo or Keith Morris on vocals, but those comments are pure bullshit, especially considering the kind of treatment that Punk Rockers got from mainstream society in the early 80's.

The problem with anything getting "popular" (and I'm meaning "popular" in the Rollins case) is that you get a whole lot of people who are jumping ANY wagon just to get a "status" or "to belong somewhere", so something that should in fact attract those who are not comfortable with the majority of "usual" shit that's goin on, will in fact attract fake kids that want to look different and original.

The same goes with punk rock / hardcore / trash metal movements you have a couple dedicated hardcore fans and a whole lot of fakes that usually bark the most, but they'll get their hair cut and thier job in daddy's firm soon.

If I identified with Rollins when I was 17?

Yes I did, and it's no wonder since we both come from very similar family background, we both were skinny outsiders as kids who started to work out frantically (I've gained about 45 pounds in the gym while on a high school), we both love music and can't help but comment on any douchebaggin that's goin on.

Now I'm getting older, but I still enjoy his spoken word and I still enjoy his older records, his publishing activities, his media activities (the Henry Rollins show on IFC is some of the best I've seen in TV in ages), the W3C activities, as well as most of his reading although I am lighter in the ass than I used to be.

The point is that some things / and these modern faggy electro music included are BUILT to attract those, who need a simple and easy "status".

Yeah I am going to the dance party - there's nothing else to say about it..

That's correct, rap used to be a form of poetry, a form of cultural expression of those who couldn't play instruments or didn't had money to buy any - most importantly it was an underground thing when it started.

Noone ever expected it to grow as big as those baggy pants they're wearin.

Do you know how those huge baggy pants came to existence? Kids from the ghetto were wearing their uncle's pants cause they were too poor to buy new ones, so now you have billions of baggy pants in the streets sold for 200 USD / piece to remind you on those, who couldn't afford any.

I think you may be right about this. I am old and angry and hate techno. I thought his comments were spot on.

LOL

well I guess that would be ingenious because we're all going to get old and angry, at least I hope so.

Times are fucked and the popular culture is more boring and more impotent than ever. It's like if you have a cage full of monkeys and want to calm them down, so you play something very easy to listen to.

You can tell from the fact that people get irritated if you say so, cause everything is so smooth and so nice, douche electro, douche rock, douche R&B. They're pushing the shit into your ears so intense that you have a hard time not to hear the latest anonymous / mainly multiethnic rhytmless jewel 20 times a day.

I actually thought about it - and here is what I concluded:

It's probably way better marketingwise to produce silly and shitty music and give those "performers" a year or three of fame when you can always dump them once they're washed up from coke / start to bark and want too much money, than to create anything that would be too recognizable or appealing to people so it would have a potential to live or be popular on its own.

Shoot 50 cent / drive his body to the forest and hide it - noone from the kids that are wearing the gangsta t-shirts and fake teeth will remember him after a year, cause there is 100 new ones just waiting to get picked up out of the instant celebrity incubator to fill in the pseudogangsta rapper space.

http://www.apexsql.com/blog/uploaded...ent-751694.jpghttp://www.theblackwallstreet.com/im...ucktbio_01.gif

And I can understand that - as a producer you really need something shitty and simple to market to the teenagers you're probably making the most of your money from, cause they're the easiest to convert - never really received the benefit of a choice so all of a sudden YOU as a producer is dictating their style, so you also want to secure noone grows over your head.

Create a real star and at the end of the day they'll have so much power / so much influence and so much money they'll just either cost you incredible money to maintain or they will even be able to go independent (like Prince did).

Pretty good

I went to a rave once. I paid the $65 or so to get in and stayed for about half an hour.