When in rock history where you could start your rock career?

If I can choose which era in rock history so that I could start my rock career, I would have belonged in the British Invasion period of the 1960s when bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who gained popularity. Being the John Lennon/Mick Jagger/Roger Daltrey type of leader of the group, I would shape rock history with concept albums, psychedelia, and rebellious music.What about you? When in rock history where you could start your rock career? Why?

Mid to late-70's and the Punk rock era. We had disco, bubble gum and singer-songwriters ruling everything in a wimpified atmosphere after the idealism of the 60's turned into family committments and crass commericialism. The musc world needed a kick in the a$$ and I would have loved to take part in that revolution.

Knuckles wrote:Mid to late-70's and the Punk rock era. We had disco, bubble gum and singer-songwriters ruling everything in a wimpified atmosphere after the idealism of the 60's turned into family committments and crass commericialism. The musc world needed a kick in the a$$ and I would have loved to take part in that revolution.

Hey! I happen to like a few of those singer-songwriters, and I'd argue that the overinflated bombast of both '70s arena hard rock and prog rock were the two biggest reasons why punk had to happen--Johnny Rotten scrawled "I Hate" on a Pink Floyd T-shirt, not a Jackson Browne T-shirt--and I say this as a guy who still listens to '70s hard- and prog-rock. (Well, maybe not Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or Peter Frampton--gotta have some shame, after all.)As for the era, the two decades, at least in the 20th century, that I'd most like to visit are the 1940s and the 1960s. There wasn't any rock in the 1940s (or was there--Fats Domino's first hit was in 1949), and the 1960s, I hate to say, are such a cliche by now. (In my head I can hear Peter Coyote's voice narrating another 1960s documentary on PBS as I write.)So, I'd pick . . . the 1980s. No, not New Wave or hair metal. or even New Jack Swing. Appropriately, as I'm listening to Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot" as I type, I'd want to be in the underground-alternative-avant garde scene. I definitely lived through the 1980s, and the first time I looked through the Trouser Press Record Guide in the mid-'80s made me realize how much rock music I'd overlooked--and how there was such a huge dichotomy between the mainstream and the underground.

DDT wrote:

Knuckles wrote:Mid to late-70's and the Punk rock era. We had disco, bubble gum and singer-songwriters ruling everything in a wimpified atmosphere after the idealism of the 60's turned into family committments and crass commericialism. The musc world needed a kick in the a$$ and I would have loved to take part in that revolution.

Hey! I happen to like a few of those singer-songwriters, and I'd argue that the overinflated bombast of both '70s arena hard rock and prog rock were the two biggest reasons why punk had to happen--Johnny Rotten scrawled "I Hate" on a Pink Floyd T-shirt, not a Jackson Browne T-shirt--and I say this as a guy who still listens to '70s hard- and prog-rock. (Well, maybe not Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or Peter Frampton--gotta have some shame, after all.)As for the era, the two decades, at least in the 20th century, that I'd most like to visit are the 1940s and the 1960s. There wasn't any rock in the 1940s (or was there--Fats Domino's first hit was in 1949), and the 1960s, I hate to say, are such a cliche by now. (In my head I can hear Peter Coyote's voice narrating another 1960s documentary on PBS as I write.)So, I'd pick . . . the 1980s. No, not New Wave or hair metal. or even New Jack Swing. Appropriately, as I'm listening to Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot" as I type, I'd want to be in the underground-alternative-avant garde scene. I definitely lived through the 1980s, and the first time I looked through the Trouser Press Record Guide in the mid-'80s made me realize how much rock music I'd overlooked--and how there was such a huge dichotomy between the mainstream and the underground.

That reminds me of something in the first Led Zeppelin box set, the four disc collection. One of the members of the Clash, maybe it was Joe Strummer, said something t the effect he had no desire to hear an album from Led Zeppelin because just looking at the cover made him want to puke. Hey, there was some good stuff back then, for sure. But add your very cogent points to my strike list and it had to happen.Did you know the Meatmen are touring? Outside of Tesco Vee, I'm not sure what original band members are left, but I don't think that's such a concern.Yeah, I would have loved to have been there with the burgeoning underground music scenes of the 80's. To see a live Replacements show in Minneapolis in 1985, when things went well, would be ultimate to me. I had a college radio gig in the early 90's, and there was so much great stuff just waiting to be heard, with the influential stuff still resonating as much as the next big thing, I feel like there was so much I had missed even while gaining exposure to it.

>>To see a live Replacements show in Minneapolis in 1985, when things went well,That's hilarious--The Sh*t Hits the Fans, indeed! Truly the Kinks of their day, in terms of shambolic gigs.Eons ago, I read an interview with Strummer (in--cough, cough--High Times magazine) in which he said that Eric Clapton had the opinions of a bricklayer, which in hindsight seems an insult to bricklayers everywhere, and is a large statement coming from the son of a British diplomat in any case.