No Sugarcoating & No Bullshit: February
Written by Jo Hayes
Sunday, 23 February 2014 04:00
Hello again Uber Rockers, I didn’t provide you with your monthly dose of blogging nonsense last month, partly due to the fact that I forgot – oops.
Anyway, we’re a small way into 2014 now, and like last year, it got me thinking of upcoming gigs for the year. The one band I was looking forward to seeing was Motörhead, but poor Lemmy is still unwell so the tour has been postponed, so for now I’ll stick some Motörhead on the stereo and crank it up!
How long Motörhead have been on the go got me thinking that this year marks the Twentieth Anniversary of two things in the music world: twenty years since Green Day’s ‘Dookie’ this month, (love it or hate it, this propelled 1990’s Pop-Punk into the mainstream, and considering the whiney emo bands that claim to be influenced by the release of ‘Dookie’, I wouldn’t blame you for hating it).
The second anniversary being marked is Kurt Cobain’s death in April, he was only 27, despite the conspiracy theories of whether Kurt killed himself, or whether Courtney Love hired a hit-man, it was sad that someone else had to join the “stupid club” (musicians and otherwise famous celebrities dying for no good reason at the age of 27 – but you know that, and I need not patronise you!)
In my usual connect the dots fashion, I thought, what has happened which was musically important in the past twenty years?
Well, the combined teen-angst of Nirvana and Green Day definitely helped a generation of teenagers, with no idea of what to do, to pick up an instrument, bash some drums, or wail along out of tune to songs they’d created, even though this has been done for many years, this seemed to be on a bigger scale.
The bad things about rock music (in my opinion), were Nu-Metal and Emo. Nu-Metal certainly didn’t do itself any favours by purposefully spelling their made-up genre incorrectly (I can be a bit of a spelling and grammar fascist), but the music didn’t spark my interest as being particularly inspiring, but maybe I’m a music snob. Emo to me is just a bunch of people complaining about pretty trivial stuff in life, and completely unrelated but somehow relevant, having worked in customer services for a long time, and my patience wearing thin, has definitely made me hate Emo more and more!
The one main thing for me which has arrived, and is the pinnacle of catchy Punk Rock, melodic hooks, heavy guitar, but with a trashy sound (and I’m probably not doing this any favours), is the birth of ‘Glunk.’ As you know (or should do), Dom Daley of Uber Rock coined the phrase, but it sums up this genre oh-so-well. Where before I’d try and explain to friends what I liked to listen to, it would be: “Well, trashy, punky, catchy, heavy, rock ‘n’ roll”, which would confuse many people, and friends would say: “So, heavy metal? Or Emo?” (Ugh, the dreaded ‘E’ word.)
I know the likes of Backyard Babies (circa ‘Total 13’), Buckcherry and The Hellacopters aren’t inspired by the two anniversaries I mentioned, but I think those who were into Nirvana and Green Day, were hungry to find more rock ‘n’ roll (like myself), and therefore provided more of a fan-base for these bands.
For me, the starting points made me work backwards to the roots of the music I was listening to, and some of the shared roots, piqued my Rock ‘n’ Roll interest in the Glunk kind.
Punk may be dead, but who needs that, when it lives through another genre – long live Glunk!
Until next time…
Blog inspired by: Buckcherry (self-titled), Backyard Babies (Total 13), and Turbonegro (Apocalypse Dudes).