When the Music Mattered
Okay, I’m not going to write about You Know Who this issue.
I guess I’m just tired of writing about that buffoon right now. And of course, that buffoon can’t help being such a buffoon, so he’s always going to be a buffoon, so I’ll always be able to write about his buffoonery.
Last month we took the ride of our lives on the Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise. It was four days and nights of constant garage rock and roll. The experience was utterly profound, transcendent, almost transformative.
But first, just a little background. Little Steven, of course, is Steven Van Zandt, longtime guitarist with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Van Zandt is a major player in SiriusXM radio. He started with just his own show, Little Steven’s Underground Garage. Now he has a whole channel by the same name, as well as another channel. He’s also involved with the SiriusXM Outlaw Country channel as well.
His channels feature some hallowed-named DJs and tons of great, great music. They don’t just play the hits; they will play some deep tracks and rarities.
And last year, Van Zandt’s empire took the plunge into the world of music cruises, which is a growing industry. LSUGC is part of the Sixthman’s cruise portfolio. And a really cool thing is that Sixthman is a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line, which means it’s not owned by Live Nation or some other corporate conglomerate.
We didn’t go last year but found that many of the people on our cruise had gone the first time and just had to go again. We feel strongly in that direction as well, especially because next year’s headliners are X and The Damned.
And the lineup was fantastic. There were bands I knew but had never seen, like the Buzzcocks, the Sonics and the Big Star Quintet. These were bands that I didn’t think I’d ever get to see, and they didn’t disappoint.
We got to see The Courettes, a wife-husband duo based in Denmark. We saw them three years ago at Gonerfest and made friends with them. We got to see two great sets of their unique garage/60s Wall of Sound act. And even better got to reconnect and hang out a little bit.
There were bands we had seen before, and it was great to see them again. I’m talking to you, Barrence Whitfield, Redd Kross and Black Lips.
Then there were bands like The Mooney Suzuki, Low Cut Connie and The Surfrajettes that I knew but had never seen and found very impressive. Low Cut Connie played on the pool deck under a brutal son. The lead singer handed off the microphone then jumped into the pool. Then did a great cover of “Controversy.”
And The Mooney Suzuki flat out rocked their asses off. Nuff said!
And then there were those buried gems, those very pleasant surprises, artists I knew nothing about who were utterly impressive. Soraia rocked very hard, kind of a little goth, a little horror movie, just damn good rock and roll.
Gyasi featured gender-bending glam. Michael Monroe was the freaky-looking dude we saw at breakfast at the table next to ours who featured hair-metal glam.
And then there was Jason D. Williams.
His boogie-woogie piano playing was very reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis though somewhat restrained compared to the Killer. Still, Williams flat out put on an amazing show. One particular highlight, toward the end of the set, he covered the keyboard with the piano’s protective cover and banged and pounded on the keys, somehow in spectacular fashion drawing coherent sound from the instrument.
But again, like I said, profound, transcendent. Even transformative.
I literally walked off the ship feeling different. Changed for the better.
After taking a bit of time to process, I realized that the feeling was about community, about being immersed in this wonderful community who all have in common a great love of hard rocking music.
They bill the cruise as for freaks, misfits and outcasts.
Truer words have never been spoken. And there in that community, we felt a togetherness that we often don’t feel in what can be a very alienating society.
I found that I felt very happy. I smiled a lot.
Is it a bit escapist?
Perhaps. I tried to not pay very close attention to the news during the cruise, but then again, we’re inundated with it every day, so it was nice to have a break.
But to feel part of a community like this was really just a wonderful feeling. It’s not just about a group of people loving a certain type of music; it was about being around a whole bunch of people who all know that music matters.
Yes, that’s it: music matters.
Some could derisively say that it’s escapist, but I have to disagree. Music does matter and for many very important reasons.
Music is food for the soul. It is uplifting. It can help a person cope with all the crap going on right now but also can help one find the strength to keep living and fight.
As my wife put it, at pagan gatherings, music is crucial to being able to touch the divine.
I’m not particularly a believer, but that is a wonderful thought.
And then there’s what Tom Morello said about the protest songs, that it’s steel for the spine and wind for the sails.
Music matters.
I have come to realize that the experience of the cruise was especially poignant because of what is currently happening at our local community radio station. I don’t want to go into much detail, but a small cabal has essentially taken over the radio station. And let’s keep in mind that 80 percent of the programming is music. I would estimate that of the donations from listeners, 95 percent are for music shows.
Based on staffing and management decisions, this arrogant and foolish cabal has made it clear that they think music doesn’t matter.
They are wrong, dead wrong.
I’ve known this for a very long time, but the Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise powerfully demonstrated to me that yes, music matters, music matters very much.
They can take this and that from us, but they can’t take our music. They can’t take our hearts, and they can’t take our souls.
~