The Walking Rock Alphabet: B

Here's a little warning for day two (or is it "day B"?) of my little project. There will be more whining about the weather, which is something that I dread to see coming from my typing fingers. I've always hated the cliched "how about this weather" conversations that seem to dominate every casual chat the "normals" have in public. Will I be transforming from an ageing hipster wannabe to a typical middle-aged Midwestern drone?

Now that I've warned you, here's the weather griping. Yesterday, the problem was that it unseasonably hot - over 80 degrees! Surely today wouldn't be much different, or so I thought as I dressed myself this morning. Since I don't listen to local radio or view those godawful TV news, I wasn't aware of a cold front coming into town. Imagine my surprise when I was confronted with temps in the mid-30's!

I still expected the weather to improve, but when my workday ended it was still roughly half the temp of yesterday. Oh well. I threw on a jacket and grabbed the iPhone to pick out today's selection.

There's a lot of great albums that start with the letter "B", but today I was in the mood for the classic Bad Music For Bad People by The Cramps. In some respects I'm cheating, as it is a compilation of their early singles. Fuck that. Bands like The Cramps deserve some bending of the rules.

As I make my way off my property to the scintillating reverb of "Garbageman", my mind races back to the announcement of the finalists for the next induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What a pile of bullshit! Randy Newman? The Meters? Chic? Rush? Kraftwerk? Procol Harum? Donna Fucking Summer?

Awful. Just awful. Sure, I am a fan of Joan Jett, but is she really a hall of famer? I also am an admirer of Kraftwerk, but this isn't the krautrock Hall of Fame. It's the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME! Let's keep out electronica, disco, hip hop, etc. They can all have their own gaudy building and overlong celebration specials.

No, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should be all about the guitar and the backbeat. It should be sweaty degenerates causing your ears and loins to react on primal instinct. It's about 2 1/2 minutes of debauchery, not thirty minute guitar and drum solos.

In other words, today's soundtrack should be blasted 24 hours a day in that gaudy Cleveland building. Few bands of the last three decades can even dream of coming close to the raunch and primal animal roll Lux Interior, Poison Ivy, and anybody else who dared to share the stage.

Bad Music For Bad People is exhibit one of why The Cramps is one of the Hall's worst snubs. Songs like "New Kind of Kick", "Goo Goo Much", "Human Fly"...the entire album is perfect! Their sound is the history of rock and roll in a blender - 50's juvenile delinquent rock 'n' roll intensity, 60's surf guitar, and 70's punk rock rawness with lyrics of blatant sex and drugs. I dare anybody to make it through this album without wanting to do shots of booze, shoot or snort some illicit substances, and do things in the bedroom that would have you arrested in 46 states.

Settle down, Scott. You are walking the mean streets of Sioux Falls suburbia. Let's just say that it's no energy drink I'm consuming now that I have successfully completed day two of my (almost) daily Rock Walk!