(blogger’s note: I have self-established a limit of 1000 words for this entry.  We’ll see how that goes and if anybody wants more, let us know.)

Today is my 69th birthday.  I started listening to rock & roll at 5 years old, on the West Side of Columbus, in 1957, courtesy of my 12-year old sister and 15-year old brother controlling the dashboard radio in my sainted Italian father’s Oldsmobile.   

The first memory I have of loving a rock & roll song is “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly.  The InterWideWeb tells me that song was released in July, 1957, so that seems right.  I suppose a lot of what I say here is going to be derided by younger readers as “Okay, Boomer” nostalgia crap, but it’s just a Fact Of Life that I saw The Doors and The Jimi Hendrix Experience live in 1968, and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band live on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour in 1978, and experiences like that will fuck you up for life.  It’s a little tough for me to take the rather strange, affected young people I now witness on Saturday Night Live and late-night talk shows (my main outlets for new music these days) into my heart. 

Germane Ricki C. one-liner for the preceding paragraph, 1972: “I saw Jimi Hendrix play the fucking guitar live right in front of me, do you THINK I am going to take REO Speedwagon seriously?”  Updated for 2021: “I saw The Strokes at the Columbus Agora in 2003, do you THINK I am going to take Machine Gun Kelly seriously?” 

I have rock & roll ending in the early 2000’s with The Strokes and The White Stripes being the last gasp of a dying patient.  I really loved those two bands at the dawning of the 21st century, and I liked The Hives a lot.  I thought the three of them might launch a return to a garage-rock aesthetic that had been dangerously missing from rock & roll for at least a couple of decades at that point, but I was wrong.   

So rock & roll began for me in 1957 with Buddy Holly and ended in 2007 with an Icky Thump.  In between was a GREAT 50 years.  Here’s the first 10 things off the top of my head about that half-century……… 

1)     I never liked The Beatles much.  My two favorite bands of The British Invasion era were The Dave Clark Five and Paul Revere & the Raiders when American garage bands started to claw their way back into the Billboard charts.  These days, when I stage-manage Joe Peppercorn of The Whiles’ Beatles Marathon (which lasts 18-20 hours from load-in & soundcheck to load-out, with a full 14 hours of Beatles tunes being played), invariably one of the supplementary musicians who didn’t play the show the year before will ask me incredulously, “You don’t LIKE The Beatles?!?  WHY are you working this show?”  I tell them I really don’t know; I just love Joe & Matt Peppercorn and The Whiles. 

2)     While we’re on the subject of who I liked and who I didn’t in my Life of Rock & Roll, go to this link – Growing Old With Rock & Roll / The Best of Everything – if you’re at all interested in a fairly succinct little rundown.  

3)     The two greatest inventions in the history of the United States: The electric guitar and the American teenage girl. 

4)     The Five Best Bands That I Saw Live That You Never Did were (in chronological order): The Dantes, 1966, from my hometown of Columbus, Ohio.  (They once played my (very) Catholic high-school – Bishop Ready, by name – and lead singer Barry Hayden dedicated their Big Hit Song “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” to the nun who was the principal of the school.  My classmates audibly GASPED at Hayden’s announcement, but amazingly NO adults must have been listening or I guarantee you The Dantes would have been dragged off that stage and run off The West Side for their audacity.) 

Rounding out the Top 5: Brownsville Station, from Ann Arbor, MI, tons of times, from the Columbus Agora to the Valley Dale Ballroom, all through the early 70’s. (It was EXACTLY like having The Who play your town like a local band.); The Dictators, Bronx, N.Y.C., in 1977, opening for AC/DC at the Columbus Agora.  (I saw them more times after that, and once attended a KISS concert they didn’t open as they were scheduled to, and THAT couldn’t have been a WORSE experience.); Romantic Noise, 1978 (Willie Phoenix’s first Columbus band, more at The Ballad of Willie Phoenix, part one); The Neighborhoods, beginning in 1980, Boston, MA.  (More at Flying To Boston To See The Neighborhoods and The Neighborhoods / “Cultured Pearls”). 

5)     American bands are ALWAYS better than English bands.  (Except ones containing Joe Strummer.) 

6)     Three bands with NO redeeming social value and exactly ZERO good songs: Seals & Croft, Kansas, and The Dave Matthews Band. 

7)     Stupidest quote from a rock critic I ever remember reading, from The Boston Phoenix, when Bruce Springsteen’s The River was released: “Springsteen employs only four chords on the 20 songs spread over the two records of The River in order to illustrate the crushing limitations imposed on the working class by the powers-that-be in the United States of America.”  Bruce Springsteen used four chords on that record because THEY’RE THE ONLY FOUR CHORDS HE KNEW.  AND THEY’RE THE BEST FOUR CHORDS THERE ARE!!!  

My favorite rock critic quote of all time, from Eric Van in Boston fanzine The Noise, sometime in the 1980’s: “This song is catchy the way roach motels are catchy to roaches.  You know it’s no good for you, but you can’t help but love it.” 

8)     I consider the apogee of Western Civilization to be Jerry Lee Lewis’ recording of “Great Balls Of Fire.” 

9)     The rock & roll performer I’ve seen live the most times is definitely Bruce Springsteen (solo and with the incomparable E Street Band); at least one show every tour since Born To Run in 1976.   

The rocker I’ve seen the furthest time apart: Ian Hunter, solo and with Mott The Hoople.  First show, June 13th, 1970 (exactly a week after I graduated from high school), at the Cincinnati Pop Festival and eight or nine other times, culminating in 2013 at the great Kent Stage venue in Kent, Ohio.  (This mark will probably be broken next time I see Bruce Springsteen, unless Hunter is able to overcome the debilitating tinnitus he is currently experiencing and tour again.)  

10)  The six decades of rock & roll I’ve lived through, ranked best to worst: the 1970’s / the 1960’s / the 1990’s / 2000-2010* / the 1950’s / the 1980’s. 

* This decade comes in unnaturally high as – after working 35 years in windowless warehouses and playing music at night – I spent most of it on the road with Hamell On Trial and Watershed, and my day job was at an indie record store (Ace In The Hole Music Exchange), listening to CD’s and talking about tunes to largely knowledgable customers for eight hours a day AND GETTING PAID FOR IT!!!

So there ya go, that’s my 64 years in rock & roll. I guess if I could ask you to remember just one thing - from Chuck Berry to The Kinks to Buffalo Springfield to The MC5 to The New York Dolls to Elliott Murphy to The Patti Smith Group to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to Elvis Costello & the Attractions to Johnny Cash - it would be: All that matters is guitars & drums (and maybe a piano or two). - Ricki C. / June 30th, 2021.

 Sometime next week Pencil Storm will present a TV Party Tonight! of videos relating to/illustrating points from this blog. Stay tuned.