Rock'n'Roll

It's simple and plain. You can dance to it (most of the time). It's unpretentious and honest. It can convey profundity and stupidity in equal measure. It's fun. It constantly bucks against its own limitations. It's a big mystery even at its most obvious. It's immediate in its transcendence. Anyone can do it (in principle); it's kinda like sex that way. Its contradictions are an endless source of joy if you don't let them bug you.

I like every kind of music, but I LOVE rock'n'roll. I don't want to think about it too much, but that's a vain hope: I think about it, and listen to it, and play it, all the time. The purpose of this section of my web site is proselytization because rock'n'roll is not a solitary music. I want to get the word out. You might find this notion ridiculous - why should rock'n'roll need promotion when it has an entire megabucks industry behind it? Don't be an idiot! That industry is about money, not music. The fifth-rate hucksterism those weasels push on us each year makes me scream.

The late, great Lester Bangs, writing about the Stooges' music, pointed out something I think is true of all great rock'n'roll:

It comes out of an illiterate chaos gradually taking shape as a uniquely personal style, emerges from a tradition of American music that runs from the wooly rags of backwoods string bands up to the magic promise eternally made and occasionally fulfilled by rock: that a band can start out bone-primitive, untutored and uncertain, and evolve into a powerful and elegant ensemble. - 1970

In this section I invite you to take a ride on the mystery train. All aboard!!

Richard K. Kearney
271 Farrant Terrace
Teaneck, New Jersey 07666
Last revised: 11/11/2002 12:26:07