How New Music Makes Me Feel Old

Now Get the Hell Off My Lawn

I recently took a job in Buffalo’s Theater District and work a few doors down from the Town Ballroom, a well-known Main Street concert venue.

It’s pretty cool being so close. Every morning around 11, I usually leave the office and take a quick walk around the block to get away from my desk — a time that seems to coincide with bands unloading their gear for that night’s show. And, when I leave to go home around 5 p.m., bands are usually conducting their sound check and since the back door is often left cracked open, I’ll stand there and listen to them play.

I’ve seen some great shows at this hall. The Tragically Hip played one of my favorite concerts there in 2007. And, a few years later, I caught The Hold Steady in a sweaty, balls-out performance that literally restored my faith in rock-n-roll.

The ballroom gets a lot of shows and a lot of big names. And, as a lifelong fan of punk and indie rock, I’ve done a fairly decent job keeping up on newer music as I age. 

Still, there are many days in which I’ll walk down Main Street after returning to my office from lunch and I’ll look up at the venue’s marquee, read the name of the band playing there that night, and say to myself, “Who the fuck is that?” 

And that makes me feel really, really old — especially when the marquee declares the show is sold out.

Rock n’ Roll is not supposed to make you feel old.

Strangely, though, the musical ignorance I have recently been forced to confront has served as the catalyst to a newfound musical enlightenment. Often times now, when I see a band name with which I’m not familiar, I’ll go back to my office, find them on Spotify and give a listen. That’s helped me acquaint myself with newer music, and it’s also allowed me to discover some new bands with whom I’ve grow to like. Sometimes, too, I actually know a band’s music but just didn’t know their name. And, there’s more than a few occasions in which I’ll listen to a newer band which I’ve never heard of and realize, “Shit I’m not missing a goddamn thing. This band sucks.”

One thing I have noticed — besides many groups naming themselves ‘naked something or other’ (i.e. The Naked and Famous, The Nude Party, Naked Giants…) — is a lot of new bands, in my opinion at least, don’t rock. There’s a lot of soft moody music that meanders and moans. A lot of it has no direction. It lacks energy. It’s passive. Spineless. What’s the point?

Where’s the heart? The rebellion? The urgency? The drive? This is, after all, rock n’ roll.

It also seems to me that a lot of the music being made now sounds very similar to music from previous decades — from 1980s New Wave to recycled 60s garage music, to country rock, and folk. 

Of course, to be fair, loads of bands from every era have been — or accused of being — derivative, and I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. It’s hard to be completely original after 70 years of rock.

In fact, at my increasingly uncomfortable advancing age, I actually take some solace in knowing that a lot of the music being made today by bands I’m not young enough to know about is really just new music that’s basically old again.

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