E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

AMERICAN RAWK GAWD The American New Wave moment had some weird and off-genre (power po, and indie-rock) bands in it - all great in their own ways - think Devo, The Cars, The B-52s, Talking Heads, Blondie, Cheap Trick , The Ramones , and even ZZ Top - curated by an eclectic and hungry MTV that could make Huey Lewis appear avant-garde at first. Meanwhile, try and name a truly great American rock band to rival AC/DC, The Who, Led Zep, The Beatles, The Stones, T-Rex, ELO,  - The Doors? Foreigner? The Stooges? The Eagles? Fleetwood Mac? Tom Petty's lads? The Beach Boys? Guns 'N Roses? Aerosmith? Glass Tiger? Rush? (the last two Canadian) - The Band (last three). The Doors, and The Beach Boys, and Stooges, for sure, but hardly in the same league, really, as The Beatles or The Stones.  Which is where Cheap Trick come in. Improbably, these late 70s power pop oddballs (most famous for 'Dream Police' and 'The Flame' - quintessential high-school dance fixtur...

Sad news.   Jerry Leiber , who, with Mike Stoller his partner, has claim to be the greatest popular song-writer of the classic Rock and Roll era of Elvis , has died.

Today's Guardian mentions a study that shows that only 3 of the top 100 singles this year were in the rock and roll category.  Hip hop and Dance and Pop are the new kings.  Most rock stars are in their 50s, 60s or older, and few young Turks are on the way up with anything like the same levels of support or fanbase of their elders.  One commentator suggests rock and roll is as dead as Jazz.  What does this mean for performance poetry in the UK, which saw itself as a new kind of "rock and roll"?  Clearly, rap is, as David Brent noted in one episode of The Office , "the new Wordsworth ", but where does that leave contemporary mainstream poetry?  It seems hard enough to imagine ever being as popular as Elvis Costello , let alone hearing his genre is going the way of the Dodo too... or is that Dido ?