The Violent History of Rock’n’Roll; A review, of sorts, in free-verse.

This is the sound of
The violent history of Rock and Roll,
Like Elvis and The Beatles
In a knife-fight in the CBGB’s bathroom.
No. The anachronisms must be
Cleansed for the sake of the necessary dirt.
Rock is sterile.
Like the plastic ones
On your doorstep that
Conspicuously hold your
Spare suburban house-keys.
It always has been.
A marketing-scheme,
From the inception.
Selling soap-sullied rebellion to
Those who don’t really know
How. Or what. I want the
Improvised junky-dom of
Jazz, or a dirty beat to
Remind me how little a boatload of
“Skill” at the guitar can actually
Move you compared to the mere
Virtuosity-free choice of
Well-placed appropriate Sounds.
The sound of a knife-fight.
Conventional music is dead for
Those that care enough about music.
Really. Abandon the façade and
Slip deep into something that
At least completely admits
To be false and fabricated and
Existing purely for the
Mood and Feeling
That it can create.
Now. The texture of
The record pops and
Hisses over the dirty
Downtempo drums and
Stand-up on
Any given trip-hop
Record is far more
Relevant than the
“Greatest” guitar-solo
Ever written. I hear you can
Move your fingers fast.
I can as well, but I
Choose to defer in a
Gesture of the futility of
The act. This is
The sound of the
Violent history of
Rock and Roll?
Here’s a real
Rock’n’Roll
Shock for you;
There’s never
Been a knife-fight.

(this piece will serve, presumably, as a sort of a preface, an explanation of an elusive kind, to a particular sort of music (show, record, etc) review (and art criticism in general, which is, after all, the largest purpose of this site) that I intend to contribute to this archive in the future. Therefore, in any future entries into which musical opinions factor, this piece of poetry may prove useful to clarify otherwise peculiar assumptions that I may make. I apologize in advance.)