Rock is Dead
By: Punit Pania
Tags: Art, Music, Metal, Stage, Rock

I used to think a band performing live was the coolest thing in the world. Four guys creating music with their bare hands. In cosmic unison. The crowd grooving to it in whichever way they feel right. And; of course, the four guys were best friends, for life. They didn’t have to deal with petty problems like career planning, house rent and hair loss. They were free in the truest sense. Not to mention the life-style and the groupies.

Imitation is the most base form of flattery. And I wrote for a while, poems that I preferred to call songs and stories that I thought were the best things to be ever put on paper. I even struggled with guitar lessons that cost more than the guitar itself. If it wasn’t for the mercy of day dreams city life would numb the senses before they even had a chance to breathe. But day dreams are best short lived. I stretched mine way too long. My over-aged fingers stiff from typing and twiddling finally gave up. Rock itself died a rather painful death making way for more plastic bite-sized music in keeping with the times. And the bands that did survive had to do reality shows.

Years later, while hurtling through the usual minefield of misguided career moves and misplaced love I discovered stand-up — “Blues for people who can’t sing.” It was perfect. No rules, no limits and you didn’t even need the three best friends on stage. The only rule — to be funny — could also be worked around. You either aim so low that laughs and forgetability become inevitable. Or aim so high that you can absolve yourself of not delivering. And the third option was plain old hard work. Most careers are a mixture of the three, tending towards one based on mood, belief-system and pressure to pay EMIs. Mine would be no different. The right side of market sentiment is often on the wrong side of history. Artists; of all people, should choose more wisely.

Having been both on stage and behind the scenes I now realize how much commerce pervades everything. The amount of bad tea and bad music the average person has to consume in his lifetime has got to be one of the biggest unspoken crimes of our generation. There must be more strawberry flavored gunk than actual strawberries in the world. Cheap imitations and second copies to the point where we can’t recognize good art even if it hits us in the face with a sledgehammer. It is also true that most artists do not know what they are chasing. Some childish idea of perfection protected by an array of delusions, egoism and border-line insanity. Many do come close but most die in obscurity.

All great stories have already been told and reveal themselves to the true seeker. But the passive consumer only gets to see what the doorkeepers and production houses deem saleable. Some of it is still good in the same way that fast food is still food. History only gets written in auditoriums and arenas after several handshakes and contract-signings. Most successful artists are therefore only good businessmen with a flair for words…or inheritance. Power structures are not in your hand but you own expression is. Always write for yourself first and the audience follows, if at all. Writers write for themselves, copy-writers write for the market.

And if you make it through the war-zone of show bookings, promotions, late payments, contracts, cliques, and constant self-doubt, you may have an outside chance at making history. And that by itself is more than worth the grind.

I still think a band performing live is the coolest thing in the world. But it is only the emotion that is to be chased, not the accessories. Rock is dead but revolution lives on.

- Punit Pania