Posts Tagged ‘rock and roll’
“‘Scenius’ stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.”*…
Zachary Hastings Hooper on Mark Wilkerson‘s Pub Rock, an appreciation of a now largely forgotten legacy…
The history of popular music is one of continual evolution, with one generation inspired by and then replaced by the next. Think the Beatles and Rolling Stones usurping their idols Buddy Holly and Muddy Waters. In the U.K., conventional wisdom holds that the pretension and precision of early 1970s prog rock acts like Yes and Genesis were smashed by the intentional amateurism and outrage of later-decade punk rockers such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. This is perhaps best represented by the image of Johnny Rotten’s “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt.
Pub Rock (Bloomsbury), a new book by Mark Wilkerson, biographer of Pete Townshend and Thunderclap Newman, shines some light on the overlooked genre of pub rock that catalyzed the shift from prog to punk. Wilkerson traces the genre’s birth in London pubs in the early seventies and its gestation of the world-shattering punk and New Wave scenes that followed.
I’m the audience for this book. As a teenager honing his musical tastes in the late eighties, I was introduced, by MTV and college radio, to the sounds of angry young men like Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Graham Parker. Digging into their back catalogs, I discovered that Lowe especially was deeply intertwined with something called pub rock; his old band, Brinsley Schwarz, had been a major player in that scene. At the same time, I realized that Stiff Records—home to Lowe, Costello, and Parker, as well as the Damned and Madness—was run by two pub rock managers [see here]. In a sense, I’ve been waiting for this book for decades. And now that it’s here, I’m happy to dust off some old records while cueing up some new (to me) selections.
Wilkerson characterizes pub rock as “simply music that was played in pubs. A diverse mix was represented there: Roots rock, country, R&B, soul and rock’n’roll—both the good-time variety and the harder-edged stuff.” Unlike the sounds dominating airwaves and filling stadiums, pub rock was unadorned and earnest. It was neither glam nor grandiose.
While sonically similar to more mainstream rock and roll, pub rock had a slyly subversive allure. These seemingly square guys (yes, they are all guys) were about to birth punk. Every budding music snob tries to earn their bona fides with obscure knowledge. So learning that the dude behind “Cruel to Be Kind” had a previous professional life and that “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” was a cover gave me an undeserved sense of superiority.
Pub Rock is part of the 33 ⅓ Genre series of primers on musical subgenres. It hews to the imprint’s mission, offering a quick, accessible entry point to a genre with little or no knowledge required, just curiosity. Like any good synopsis of a genre or musical scene, it sends the reader off to their favorite streamer or record store in search of a new listen or three.
In the age of the algorithm, we’re accustomed to being told, “If you like X, you’ll like Y.” However, snapshots like Wilkerson’s go beyond the “what” to tell you why you should add Dr. Feelgood or Brinsley Schwarz to your playlist.
As the book’s title indicates, the scene grew around a series of pubs in London. Groups like the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Band strongly influenced the nascent pub rock bands, but as Wilkerson notes, pub rock arose as big-name British acts were increasingly focused on selling out stadiums in America, and economic pressures were closing the venues that sustained the sixties scenes. Pubs, which had historically featured jazz acts, gave new bands opportunities to hone their skills and build followings. Wilkerson posits that intimate venues forced bands to up their game: proximity to Carlsberg-swilling audiences meant that you had to play your instruments and entertain the crowd without hiding behind light shows and heavy amplification.
The pub rock movement yielded a couple of minor hits, notably Ace’s “How Long,” now a staple of yacht rock radio. But many of its key figures became leaders in the punk and New Wave era. Ian Dury from Kilburn and the High Roads became the iconic leader of the Blockheads, while John Mellor from the 101ers became the even more iconic Joe Strummer of the Clash. Ace’s Paul Carrack had chart-topping success with both Squeeze and Mike + the Mechanics. The aforementioned Lowe went on to chart success as a solo artist, producer, and songwriter. Parker and Dave Edmunds enjoyed long careers. And pub rock’s DIY ethos—finding new places to play, hauling your own gear, building audiences from scratch—directly inspired the punk and New Wave scenes that followed.
It’s been said the Velvet Underground and the Ramones only sold a few copies of their debut albums but everyone who bought them started a band. It could be suggested that, similarly, everyone who encountered Eggs Over Easy or Brinsley Schwarz at the Tally Ho did the same. Artists as diverse as the Sex Pistols, Costello, Madness, and the Stranglers trace their roots to pub rock shows…
“Punk’s Pub Crawl,” from @ctrrelpol-washu.bsky.social.
For more, and videos of exemplary pub rock performances, see “Raising the bar: the chaotic story of pub rock.”
And for more listening suggestions, see “A beginner’s guide to pub rock in five essential albums.”
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As we give credit where credit is due, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976 the one of the core pub rock bands, Dr. Feelgood, scored their only No.1 UK album when their live LP Stupidity went to the top of the charts– the first ever live album to go to No.1 in the UK chart in its first week of release.
Hear it here.
“It is impossible to win gracefully at chess. No man has yet said “Mate!” in a voice which failed to sound to his opponent bitter, boastful and malicious.”*…
… but perhaps the offense is muted if the call is remote.
Electronic gaming is huge– and growing, As Rolling Stone reports…
The gaming industry, fueled by platforms like Twitch and YouTube, has surged into a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse, projected to exceed $207 billion in 2026. These platforms do more than showcase gameplay—they cultivate vibrant, interactive communities where fans engage in real time, from live chats to virtual watch parties. Games like League of Legends, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike and Fortnite have become a cultural phenomenon, drawing in over 2.6 billion gamers globally, a number that continues to climb each year. Mobile gaming, accounting for over 60% of global gaming revenue, plays a significant role in this growth, making gaming accessible to a broader audience than ever before…
But as Danny Robb explains, using tecnology to play games remotely has a long history…
In 1897, the United States House of Representatives held a series of chess matches to find their most skilled players. The five winners were pitted against counterparts in the British House of Commons. But while the Americans sat down to play in Washington, D.C., their opponents sat in London. The players received moves by telegraph, and sent responses back over wires that crossed the Atlantic.
By this point, “cable chess” had been slowly evolving for decades. Historian Simone Müller-Pohl argues that this form of long-distance chess play offers insight into the cultural and political currents of the industrial era.
By the mid-nineteenth century, she explains, there was a growing sports culture in Europe and the US. Industrial technologies enabled more people to attend games and follow along from a distance. A growing middle class fostered this sporting culture, which came to include chess.
“Weekly,” Müller-Pohl explains, “the liberal and intellectual elites of the time assembled around chess boards in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, Moscow, Rome, and London.” Interest in the game spread, and chess clubs emerged. As clubs arranged tournaments and standardized chess rules, Müller-Pohl argues that chess “was gradually turned into a sport.”
Correspondence chess grew along with the game, in part thanks to cheap and efficient postal services. When the telegraph emerged on the scene, the application to chess was almost immediate.
“It was telegraphy’s fathers who pulled the strings behind the first schemes for cable chess,” Müller-Pohl explains. In 1844, inventor Samuel Morse arranged chess matches on a new telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. “All of the 686 moves necessary for the seven games played were transmitted without mistake or interruption,” Müller-Pohl writes.
Not long after, in 1845, inventor Charles Wheatstone attended a demonstration in London. Chess legend Howard Staunton played against his rival George Walker over the South Western Railway line between Portsmouth and London. Müller-Pohl describes how witnesses found the match “rather tedious,” but it received a lot of press. This was partly the point—the matches demonstrated and advertised the capabilities and accuracy of the invention.
The Staunton match had another interesting aspect. Müller-Pohl points out that “the lines were still used for ordinary traffic during the games, allowing a group of chess players from Southampton to have every move telegraphed to them.” A bit like modern e-sports, spectators could observe the virtual match…
The early history of e-gaming– when telegraph cables let chess clubs stage matches across continents, linking players and spectators in a new kind of long-distance competition: “The First E-Sports? Chess by Telegraph,” from @inverting-vision.bsky.social in @jstordaily.bsky.social.
* A. A. Milne
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As we note that what’s old is new again, we might recall that it was on this date in 1958 that Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” was released. It peaked at number two on the Hot R&B Sides chart and number eight on its pre-Billboard Hot 100 chart. Considered “the first rock & roll hit about rock & roll stardom”, it has been covered by many, many other artists and has received many, many honors and accolades, among them being ranked 33rd and 7th, respectively, on Rolling Stone’s 2021 and 2004 lists of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was also included as one of the 27 songs on the Voyager Golden Record (a collection of music, images, and sounds designed to serve as an introduction and record of global humanity’s achievements, innovations and culture, to alien/otherworldly inhabitants).
Apropos the piece above, it was released by Chess Records.
“If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry'”*…
Alex Abramovich with a dispatch on the headwaters of rock and roll…
‘There are ten thousand freedoms,’ the late Joshua Clover once said, ‘but rock freedom is definitely set – in the first instance – in a car, when it’s late outside. It can be ecstatic, it can be boring, it can be adjectiveless freedom, but you have reached escape velocity, faster miles an hour, you have no particular place to go, and you have the radio on.’
Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’ recently turned seventy. Recorded on 21 May 1955 in a studio on the South Side of Chicago, it tells the story of a man chasing his girlfriend down the highway. He’s in a Ford V8, she’s driving a Cadillac. She’s cheating, the car’s overheating, he’s trying to catch her before she gets away for good. ‘Maybellene’ isn’t Chuck Berry’s best song but it was his first single. Without it there’d be no Bob Dylan. No rock and roll as we know it. It’s a miracle.
There’s a story about the song, too….
Read on: “Escape Velocity” (archived link), from @lrb.co.uk.
* John Lennon
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As we roll over, we might send tuneful brithday greetings to Steve Young, a musical pioneer who followed Berry (the first singer-songwriter in the new era of popular music, Roy Orbison suggested)… and took a different path; he was born on this date in 1942. A singer, songwriter, and guitarist, known for his song “Seven Bridges Road” (on Young’s albums Rock Salt & Nails & Seven Bridges Road, but probably best known in the version by The Eagles). He was a pioneer of the country rock, Americana, and alternative country sounds– a vital force behind the outlaw movement.
Oh, and in 1979 this was also “‘The Night Disco Died’ — Or Didn’t.”
“I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”
Ever wonder what your taste in Classic Rock means? John K. Peck is here to help; a sample:
The Doors: You have been bitten by an animal while trying to get it stoned.
Ted Nugent: Your hair has at some point been caught in a ceiling fan, boat propeller, or lathe.
Led Zeppelin: The first three things you smoked were banana peels, catnip, and poppies, in that order.
The Grateful Dead: Your stories about the ‘70s make your daughter’s roommates at Tufts very uncomfortable.
AC/DC: You only remove your socks to shower, and then only reluctantly.
Kiss: You have partied on a boat in a driveway.
The Byrds: There is a thin layer of sand on the bottom shelf of your fridge.
The Band: You have misspelled your name while carving it into a picnic table.
Slade: You have smoked speed through a TV antenna.
Joe Jackson: You are an excellent speller.
Van Morrison: You have had to use bolt cutters to remove a mood ring.
Don McLean: You have used a lint roller on a dropped piece of toast.
James Gang: You have eaten two consecutive meals in a hot tub.
Vanilla Fudge: You have slept in a bathtub for two or more consecutive nights.
Much, much more: “What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You,” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), from @johnkpeck in @mcsweeneys.
* Angus Young (AC/DC)
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As we stroll down memory lane, we might recall that on this date in 1989 the number on song in the U.S. was soap opera star and vocalist Michael Damian‘s cover of David Essex‘s “Rock On.”
“The sound must seem an echo to the sense”*…
As devices once common fall out of use, we stop hearing the sounds that they made…
“Conserve the sound” is an online archive for disappearing sounds. The sounds of a rotary dial phone, a Walkman, an analog typewriter, a pay phone, a 56k modem, a nuclear power plant or even a mobile phone keyboard have partly disappeared or are just disappearing from everyday life. In addition, people have their say in text and video interviews and deepen their view into the world of disappearing sounds…”
The signature sounds of the items above and so many more: “Conserve the sound,” a project of CHUNDERKSEN.
Apposite: “Google Translate for the zoo? How humans might talk to animals,” a review of Karen Bakker‘s The Sounds of Life.
And. of course, 32 Sounds.
* Alexander Pope
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As we listen in, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986, in Cleveland, that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted it’s first class of members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Alan Freed, John Hammond, Buddy Holly, Robert Johnson, Jerry Lee Lewis, San Phillips, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jimmie Rodgers, and Jimmy Yancey. The I. M. Pei designed museum opened on June 7, 1993.
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