| GROWING OLD DIGRACEFULLY
So Bill Clinton is having
a 60th birthday party. No surprise, but given the current debate
about our own 67 year old Prime Minister’s retirement it does
remind us of how young Bill still is, having been Governor &
2 term President & his retirement from politics 5 years ago
at the age of 55. He won’t be having Fleetwood Mac play as
they did when they reformed to play his theme song, “Don’t
Stop Thinking About Tommorow “ at his 1993 Inauguration party,
but it will be a band who he is younger than, The Rolling Stones!
What a confluence of generational & demographic change, rock
music culture mutation & maturation in one microcosmic moment.
Obviously things have changed on both sides of
the stage. When the Stones & their peers first started out they
played to audiences of teenaged predominately female fans, that
was the audience for rock pop(ular) music. It was the screamage.
When rock began it was dismissed as a worthless flash in the pan
with no future, denounced from the pulpit & the podium, seen
as a threat, at worst a danger, at best worthless. It was a live
fast die young example of rampant juvenile delinquency & negligent
parents. People were expected to grow out of it rather than with
it.There was no career path either, a bleak future of cabaret, movies
or behind the scenes beckoned to the aging idol, no thought of growing
old disgracefully. People were expected to cease to sow their wild
oats & begin to eat them for breakfast.
But the audience did not disappear once they had
a mortgage & nor did their musical heroes, with affluence on
their side the so called baby boomer demographic bulge fed off each
other & refused to go away. Big Day Out may currently be the
biggest high profile festival, putting it in the running for The
Guiness Book Of Records to list it as the biggest child minding
facility in Australia, but the plethora of dad, mum, the fridge
& the deck chair festivals & events at wineries & regional
centres all over Australia far out number & out spend them.
As the waistlines have expanded so too have the musical agendas,
too good to be wasted on the young, hence the plethora of boxed
sets & remasters appearing on the market that cater to the tastes
of the generations that want to hear it all over again sounding
better than it ever has.
And what of the performers like the Stones that
have mostly avoided the Grim Reaper’s scythe & keep on
keeping on,walking that fine line between nostalgia & relevance?
Well 20 years ago, the man voted most likely to die during the 80s,
Keef would surely not have been allowed even in the same room with
a president past or present for fear of any number of probably illegal
behaviours, least of all as guest of honour. These days he &
his band have everyone’s favourite nudge nudge wink wink slightly
naughty old & lovable dotty uncles, all has been forgiven if
they simply just keep on rocking, for all of us. Longevity appears
to bring legimaticy to even rock’s baddest boys.
For years a pariah even in rock circles Iggy Pop
these days is treated like some sort of Muppet like wild man caricature
of a rock & roll frontman, Alice Cooper runs golf tournaments,
Johnny Rotten comperes shows on the Discovery Channel, whilst bat
biting madman Ozzie Osbourne was acknowledged by Bush at his inauguration
& thanks to his reality sitcom TV show is everyone’s favourite
dotty but lovable daggy dad.
Time has certainly tamed our rock & roll bad
boys, their implicit threat & antagonism to the status quo (
who have also Muppetfied ) has been commodified & dumbed down.
But one can hardly blame them, none of these people are working
to a longterm career master plan, they didn’t expect to be
still doing it or having an audience that wanted to see & hear
them do it at this stage of their lives, they & their audience
are just making it up as they go along.
So we’re all moving into uncharted territory,
music makers & music lovers alike, seeing a mutant music form
that wasn’t built to last not only endure but prevail, still
proving our parents & the powers that be wrong.
So happy birthday Mr President, as Marilyn Monroe
once cooed to JFK & enjoy your favourite band ( by the way for
those of us without an invitation Martin Scorsese will be filming
the event ) leave the saxophone at home & just be glad you didn’t
book The Who, Pete would have to sing “ I Hope I Get Old Before
I Die “ when he sang about my generation.
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