Time To Smash The Myth That Rock Music Is Dead And Call Out Those Who Act As Gatekeepers For It.
My Panel Picker Proposal for SXSW2025 just went live for voting today.
Here is the link, please consider voting. There’s a BIG myth to be destroyed in the world of rock music.
My session will actually be a book reading of Sonic Seducer, which comes out next month — and has a book release party in Austin, Texas.
If you don’t recognize any of those bands above, blame the music industry and their monetizing gatekeepers — old Gen Xers and Boomers — who over 20 years ago decided to put their heads in the sand of rock and roll disruption.
So, it’s not your fault you are hearing some of the best music made yes, since the Age of Bowie. And, by the way, even that period whiffed on the full exposition of great bands like Atomic Rooster, Buffalo, Can, Granicus, Taste etc.
But, you know who didn’t? This generation of rock music, which has been going under the name of the underground monicker of stoner/desert/doom rock.
The scene has been evolving for over 30 years, and now there are well-established festivals(some as old as ten years) all over North America and Europe.
My book has a playlist of over 250 songs from the last 30 years, and right up until 2024.
I turned 60 this year, and this has been the favorite time in my life to listen to new music.
It’s not enough to write a book about it, I want to get down to SXSW in Austin next year and tell the musical world — in no uncertain volume — that rock and roll is not dead, only living in tours of aging millionaires or not-really-special bands like Greta Van Fleet or The Black Keys.
There’s only about 100 bands who are just good — if not better than the darlings of the aforementioned gatekeepers.
You know who you are. You know you stopped listening for new music when you chose to be an “expert” about music that primarily lives in the jukebox memories of high school reunions.
Below is just a SMALL sample of some of the best and most creative rock music created in generations, covering the widest territories of genres — garage, psych, metal, doom, space, blues, ambient, etc.
It’s time to burn the gates of music anachronisms and open the world up to…rock and roll. It’s a brave new world now — and has been since the last century. Come join the party!
