Get Incensed

“And she’s buying a stair-lift to heaven …”

Led Zeppelin, or what’s left of the group, is touring again.

Oh, and I hear this feller Edison has invented some new-fangled gadget called the “electric candle.”

Can you remember a time when more acts with one foot in the grave were touring?

In the last couple of years The Who, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rod Stewart, Chuck Berry and Billy Joel all hit the road with the left blinker on the tour bus flashing for miles at a time.

Every other week it seems there’s an article on MSN about a rock band that is “still rocking” forty or fifty years after they first hit the music scene.

Hey, I’m still riding a bike nearly thirty years after I first took off training wheels but no one’s writing a breathless online review of my cycling skills.

Sure, Jerry Lee Lewis is still rocking at age 71, but it’s probably just because he’s got Parkinson’s.

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Coming soon to a wax museum near you
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Why is a rock band that’s “still rocking” news? Did your really think Neil Young was going to join corporate America and rise through the ranks to become the V.P. of Marketing?

It’s not like being in a rock band develops a lot of transferable job skills. Okay, maybe politics or porn … but other than that, it’s hard to imagine Keith Richards doing real well on a job interview with the personnel lady in the Ann Taylor suit …

Interviewer: Where do see yourself in five years?

Keith Richards: I dunno … coked up in a hotel room and shaggin’ your daughter?

Still, there is a huge demand for reviews of “classic rock” tours, so here are some tips on how you can break into the lucrative world of freelance rock journalism (and by “lucrative” I mean having your own blog).

First off, you need to recall an instance where you or someone you know first heard a song by the artist in question. In the case of Chuck Berry, who turned 79-years-old this year, maybe it was when your ancestors first tamed fire.

The best anecdotes will involve you losing your virginity/being drunk/getting high for the first time while listening to one of the band’s famous hits. If you lost your virginity for the first time more than once, that is an important detail to include in the story as it could lead to sainthood at some later date.

Or perhaps there was a period in your life that mirrored one of the scenes described in one of classic rock’s memorable songs. You know, one of those everyday vignettes we can all identify with like running into an old girlfriend in a topless bar, being seduced by a sexy older woman or marrying Christie Brinkley.*

Next, you’ll want to discuss how the band’s lyrics are still relevant to what’s going on today. This shouldn’t be hard since rock songs are usually about sex, drugs and rock and roll and all of those things are still around.

Want a tough assignment? Try being a classical music critic and explaining why Mozart’s theme for harpsichord and lute is still a just as powerful today as it was in the 1700s.

Price comparisons are always a reader favorite. You may want to mention how gas prices have gone up about two and a half dollars over the past 40 years but most concert tickets have increased by something like 20 bazillion percent.

Then explain to your readers why there is no national outcry to regulate ticket prices and pass special legislation to tax “excess” Ticketmaster profits.

Finally, you’ll want to end the article by quoting a pithy lyric that not only shows you can remember a song-line from your youth but also puts to rest the notion that heavy drug and alcohol use cause any lasting damage.

After all, you’re still rolling down the highway and won’t get fooled again.

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* Tangled Up in Blue, Maggie May and Uptown Girl for those of you playing along at home.

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