Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Years Of Operation 1976-present
Fits Between The Sugarhill Gang and Whodini
"White Lines (Don't Do It)" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Personal Correspondence When my older brother went off to college in upstate New York in the early '80s, he'd come home every break with cassette tapes full of Britpop and dance music, including the Grandmaster Flash classic "White Lines." At the time, hip-hop's presence in popular music—at least in suburban Nashville—was more at the novelty level, and until Run-DMC, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys helped make rap the first option for a lot of teenagers, almost everyone I knew treated the genre as something light and goofy. I confess that was my initial reaction to "White Lines," too. I liked it, but mainly because I thought it was kind of silly. But then I listened to it again. And again and again. And eventually I started to hear the complexity of the mix, and how the preachy rhymes contained a miniature document of New York cocaine culture at the onset of the '80s: the terminology, the social strata, et cetera. The only problem with my coming to appreciate Grandmaster Flash was that it made me more resistant to the stripped-down beat-and-boast hip-hop that dominated the middle of the decade. I expected more of a groove, and more sonic density, and too much of rap at the time sounded comparatively remedial to me. That is, until Public Enemy. But that's a subject for another day.
Enduring presence? There are some people who are bothered that Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five are in The Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame, because they're not "rock." These are the same kind of people who nitpick my pal Scott's "New Cult Canon" entries every week, not because of what he writes, but because the movies he writes about don't strike them as "cult-y" or "canon-y" enough. Look, terms of art aren't legal judgments. They're just ways of grouping, and sometimes they have personal meaning, and sometimes they have institutional meaning. "Rock 'n' roll" doesn't have any more of a hard-and-fast definition than movie genres like "comedy" or "drama" do. Ultimately, hip-hop shares the same roots as rock, and the Grandmaster Flash crew didn't just emerge from those influences, they extended them, and have proven influential themselves. That's what halls of fame are meant to honor.
The Grateful DeadYears Of Operation 1965-95
Fits Between The Band and The Allman Brothers Band
"jack Straw" by The Grateful Dead
Personal Correspondence There was a combination of factors that turned me into a Grateful Dead fan after years of willful resistance. In high school, when I was exploring '60s rock, I stopped short of the Dead, because their critical rep was low, and the few songs I'd heard on the radio sounded like a soggier version of The Band, whom I revered. In my college years, the Dead were beloved by the kind of mush-heads (and mush-head bands) whose company I couldn't abide… though to be fair, I probably wasn't such great company myself. Then I got one of my first real jobs—one that didn't involve tips or uniforms—working as a formatter for a legal publishing house, and one of my co-workers was a major Deadhead, who sang cool-sounding Robert Hunter lyrics at odd moments throughout the day. A few years later, I was impressed enough by the series finale of Freaks And Geeks—in which one character has her life changed by American Beauty—that I bought my first Grateful Dead album, and came to at least hear what was good about it, even if I didn't yet love it. But the real transformative moment happened six years ago, when I reviewed Dennis McNally's book A Long Strange Trip for The A.V. Club, and I started to understand better that what seems formless and lackadaisical in The Grateful Dead's music is actually built on solid foundations and thoughtful ideals, with far more complex explorations of rhythm than I had expected. (And as I hope I've made clear over the past 18 weeks, I'm a sucker for complex explorations of rhythm.) I bought some of live albums—including a few of the licensed bootlegs—and started to hear those hazy, sub-Band songs in the context of three hours of non-stop playing and subtle mood shifts. I'm still not a full-on Deadhead; I'm more an interested observer. But from their communal vibe to their DIY ethos to their constant grappling with how to amplify and record a mood, I've found they have far more in common with the art-punk and indie-rock I like than the anti-hippie crowd had led me to believe. I mean, I was already a Meat Puppets fan. Jumping to the Dead wasn't all that hard.
Enduring presence? I believe the knee-jerk Dead-disgust has died down some now that Jerry Garcia is dead—and thus no longer inching the band across the country for increasingly inert shows—and now that the jam band mania of the late '90s have subsided. I've even discovered that some respected rock critics—most notably Robert Christgau—have been Dead defenders for decades now. Tides do turn.
Green DayYears Of Operation 1987-present
Fits Between The Buzzcocks and Cheap Trick
"Jaded" by Green Day
Personal Correspondence The mind-changing process for me with Green Day has been slow, and remains incomplete. The first time I heard Dookie, I didn't just dislike it, I feared it, for the way it seemed to undermine two decades worth of aggression, rebellion and pop songcraft by giving it all a coat of arena-rock gloss. In the years since, a whole generation of pop-punk bands has made the Green Day formula even more sugary and fizzy, such that Green Day now sounds a lot more like ragged old-school traditionalists than they did in 1994. (Although truth be told, those distinctions have lost much of their meaning for me.) My problems with Green Day now are more basic: I think their songs tend to sound pretty samey, and most of their albums are about a half-dozen tracks to long. (It's the curse of the CD era.) And I think American Idiot was fussed over a bit too much by the press, though that's hardly the band's fault. Anyway, I give the boys credit for ambition, and I do take them seriously now.
Enduring presence? Much like Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam, Green Day have become rock elder statesmen simply by virtue of surviving.
They're among the most likely candidates of their era to one day make it into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, even though they were rarely the most acclaimed band of their generation. In about 10 or 15 years, rock's Hall Of Fame might well end up looking like baseball's Hall Of Fame, but only if the baseball's Hall Of Fame started inducting the likes of Bernie Williams over Ken Griffey Jr.
Green Rode Shotgun
Years Of Operation 2002-06
Fits Between The Raspberries and The Strokes
"Lost Song" by Green Rode Shotgun
Personal Correspondence Towards the end of my time on the local music beat, I had the bright idea to write a feature story that delved into some of the questions I've always had about success and failure in the music business. I had to perfect subject, too: Green Rode Shotgun, a very good Middle Tennessee rock band that at the time had released a promising EP and were shopping around their debut album, trying to get the attention of a label—indie or major. The band's manager, appreciative of some of raves I'd thrown GRS' way, agreed to let me come hang out with the band for a day, conduct an extended interview, and check out one of their shows. He also gave me contact info for some of the people they'd worked with (not always fruitfully) in the past, and gave me permission to play some new songs for various people I knew in the music business. The point of the article: Does this band stand a chance? And if not, why not? Ultimately, I think I sensed that Green Rode Shotgun were never going to break wide, and since they were one of my favorite new bands at the time, I was planning to use this feature to examine why my own tastes were so out of synch not just with the mainstream, but with the alternative crowd as well. My editor was gung-ho when I pitched the idea, but though I turned in a piece that I felt good about and that he mostly liked, in the editing process it got sliced nearly in half, and turned into a fairly conventional band profile, with only traces of the critical perspective I'd planned. As for Green Rode Shotgun, well, they didn't make it. A brief flirtation with a major label didn't pan out, and since the guys in the band were all approaching middle age—and most of them had decent day jobs—they called it quits, likely figuring that if they couldn't draw flies with music as good as what they were making, what was the point? On my end, the whole experience added to my growing disillusionment.
Enduring presence? Listening to Green Rode Shotgun again this week, I still think they were a great band, who with the right breaks (and maybe a better name) could've won some people over. From the moment I first heard it, I've been putting "Lost Song"—one of my favorite rock songs of all time, actually—in front of everyone I can. Not everyone digs it. I don't understand why.
Guadalcanal DiaryYears Of Operation 1981-89
Fits Between Matthew Sweet and Commander Cody
"Trail Of Tears" by Guadalcanal Diary
Personal Correspondence I've got an essay about Christian Rock in mind for some far-off future Popless, and when I finally get around to it, I'll likely return to Guadalcanal Diary, a sort of stealth CCR act that has dealt with faith and spirituality the way I prefer to see it dealt with in music—with healthy doses of doubt and humility, and with the maturity to make religion only one subject among many. On their stirring first few albums, Guadalcanal Diary sang songs about The Civil War, alcoholism, African safaris, The Three Stooges and genocide, all with a kicky sound that combined the Byrds-y jangle then-common to college rock with a heavy shot of roadhouse twang. The band's debut album, Walking In The Shadow Of The Big Man, was one of those mid-'80s cult favorites that didn't sell a lot, but was beloved by nearly everyone who bought it. (Although one of my mom's Civil War re-enactor pals bought that album because he liked the book the band was named for, and I'm sure he didn't get quite what he was expecting.) Guadalcanal Diary's follow up Jamboree didn't sound quite as fresh or tight, though it did contain some great songs, and when the band muscled up some for the next two records, they gradually lost a lot of their individuality. During the transition though, they knocked out 2x4, which contains arguably their most enduring anthem, "Litany (Life Goes On)." There were dozens of bands that sounded like Guadalcanal Diary on college radio and cluttering up local rock scenes in the '80s, but few had GD's scope or sense of purpose. They were something special.
Enduring presence? There's a two-fer CD that contains Walking In The Shadow and Jamboree, which I would almost call an essential purchase if it weren't for the fact that the disc's sound quality is too soft. Rhino Handmade released sterling limited editions of Walking In The Shadow and 2x4 a few years back too, but as with all the Handmade products, they're extra-expensive. Obviously, there's still some interest out there in Guadalcanal Diary, since their albums haven't exactly fallen out of print like some other bands' have, but they could certainly do with a good anthology, with decent sound.
Guided By VoicesYears Of Operation 1983-2004
Fits Between The Who and Half Japanese
"Blimps Go 90" by Guided By Voices
Personal Correspondence As mentioned above, Guided By Voices were one of the acts that I was iffy about until I heard an album (Alien Lanes) that changed my mind for good. One of the ways that Robert Pollard eventually wore me down was with his lyrics. Tossed-off phrases like "senators sipping on Gentleman Jack," and "we'll put on some Kraftwerk and do it up right," and "post-punk X-men" rattled around in my head, and even today stray GBV titles and lines leap to mind, depending on the situation (almost like Simpsons quotes). For example, my wife and I sometimes refer to our methodical six-year-old son—a high-functioning autist who speaks in loud, flat tones and can already do math on a sixth-grade level—as "robot boy," after GBV's song "Gold Star For Robot Boy." And as it happens, there's nothing my robot boy likes better than getting gold stars, so the name fits.
Enduring presence? I had an alternate GBV-related essay idea for this week, related to musicians who are so prolific that they eventually start to damage their reputations by drowning their fans in dreck. (I'll probably return to this subject later on.) Surely if Robert Pollard had quit making music after Alien Lanes, his output up to 1995—much of it as shoddy as his output afterward, honestly—might be more revered than it already is. But critics and fans alike got to the point where they greeted yet another spotty Guided By Voices release—and now yet another spotty Robert Pollard solo release—with something more like dread than anticipation. Pollard likes value for money, so it's a hard slog through a lot of mediocre bashers to get to the three of four pure-pop gems he buries on each new record. And yet, put any one of those late-period Pollard "good" songs on a mix CD, and they nearly always stand out. Put them all together a Pollard-only mix CD and you'll really have something.
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