The Ashes of Joe's Garage

Frank's gonna get cancelled

In the '70s rock music was beginning to get angry. Forget the peace-loving '60s (that didn't really exist), and if you believe the Laurel Canyon rumors, some of which are very suspicious and true, it's been a game of political musical chairs for a very long time. Not political? You won't get anywhere fast.

For instance, one of the reasons a band such as the Ramones was unable to break out, while those who aped them with tacked on hamfisted political slogans cashed in, was almost assuredly based around the fact that they refused to engage in proselytizing with their music. In fact, the one song they did so in still gets radioplay despite another song that sounds just like it (with better lyrics and message) is ignored. It has been a rule since the 1960s that your music had to have some kind of message to be considered worthy. Being fun wasn't enough anymore. Just look at all the undeserved hate Huey Lewis got.

Doubt it? Then peruse any "music critic" list of best albums from the 1960s. When are the likes of Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran ever mentioned aside from being considered footnotes to what came later? There is no coincidence here.

The charade of the peace-nik 1960s persists to this day. The boomer myth has lasted far too long. However, what is rarely brought up is that by the '70s any pretense of peace and love had been cast off for doomsday visions of unbridled libertarian anarchy and a free speech wasteland of rampant sex and drug use straight out of a Keith Richards fever dream. It followed naturally from the era that birthed it.

One of the members of the Laurel Canyon scene was professional provocateur Frank Zappa, who was as abrasive as he was secretive. In 1979, the same year punk finally broke out (despite the Ramones putting out classics for three years at this point and just putting out a fourth) Zappa released an album called Joe's Garage. This was a rock opera filled with profane lyrics and various musical styles, ironically all of which have since been banished from the mainstream.

But I digress.

Roto-plookers, who were all for free speech at the time, loved this album of debauchery and railing against the man as the future of music. One of the themes is government censorship, which ended up being a crusade for Zappa mere years later and concluding with the end of places like Joe's Garage ever being built again.

You see, in 1985, about the time classic rock, blues, and rockabilly, were finally getting airplay again after years of being blocked by the mainstream, the PMRC was created in a church in Washington DC by a set of puritan boomers. They wanted a warning system for albums like they had for movies and a way to hide offensive album covers from the public eye. No, they didn't want an adult space for them--they wanted them tarred and marked. This was a way to protect the children, of course. At least, that's what we were told.

Eventually this led to tasteless looking stickers on album art saying "Parental Advisory Warning" which made those albums high sellers and sucking the air out of the room for anything that wasn't profane. Those who didn't care about explicit content such as the above musical styles were more or less out of luck. Just as MTV destroyed music-makers who (correctly) didn't care about visuals, so to did non-profane artists begin to fee the squeeze.

This is because the badge became a beacon for "rebels" that meant the album was worth listening to (even though it frequently was most definitely not) and led to a lot of otherwise subpar music getting radioplay such as pushing gangsta rap, a zombie genre that wore out its welcome 25 years ago, to take over rap and relegate the golden age to clearance sales. Funny how supposed rebels are so very easy to manipulate.

This trend has continued with modern pop in the years since. All it now is is explicit content, making that tacky badge irrelevant, and turning any wholesome or less try-hard content the minority. It is almost as if that were the point.

Needless to say, the PMRC helped to destroy music, despite those fighting it "winning" against them. The PMRC cared so much about the kids nothing exists like it now, despite music being far worse now than it was in 1979. This happened with the ACT, too. It almost makes you think.

You should. Radio won't.

But I'm going to stop derailing the point.

The PMRC was spearheaded by Tipper Gore, whose husband was voted into power twice (and almost a third time) by the majority of the music industry who supposedly suffered at her hands. The rest of the lineup was run by similar busybody soccer mom puritans, of the like that ruined the animation industry as well. They sent out a letter on their Christmas card list that summed up their entire quest perfectly:

"Rock music has become pornographic and sexually explicit, but most parents are unaware of the words their children are listening to, dancing to, doing homework to, falling asleep to. Some rock groups advocate satanic rituals, the others sing of open rebellion against parental and other authority, others sing of killing babies."

Note that music still does this now. In fact, rock music does it less than mainstream pop and rap does. The only difference is that no one listens to it, and the same political party that started this crusade against the material now openly embraces it without ever being called out on it and being voted in by those who "suffered" from them. I'm not dogging on the Democrats in particular here, but the sycophants in the industry that mindlessly vote for them. Either they're dumb, or complicit in their own industry's destruction. Neither speaks well of them.

"Porn rock" is now all that the mainstream accepts. It leaves one to wonder why this controversy was ever constructed to begin with, and if there ever really was one at all. Just like "Satanic Panic" I remain unconvinced it wasn't just a smokescreen by politicians hoping to seize an industry for their own nefarious purposes and profit. Heck, we have more censorship now than we did back then and the same people who fought against censorship openly embrace having their necks stepped on and their industries contracted. What activism has Rage Against the Machine accomplished recently n regards to their industry? Nothing. It might be paranoia, but there is a seed of truth to this.

Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snider, were the three biggest opponents of the PMRC at the time. They argued labeling of explicit material could lead to easy regulation of content and censorship of anything deemed inappropriate and appeared in hearings over it. Tipper Gore promised nothing would happen. Time had proved her a liar. They were correct about what happened, but not in the way they thought, as stated above. What ended up getting censored was rock itself.

Nonetheless, the record companies suspiciously complied to the puritans in record time, introducing the idea of labels by November of 1985. By 1990 it would be the infamous one Gen Xers and Ys would most remember. It changed overnight. The fact that this revolution happened in the span of a year without any push-back from the industry in question is highly suspicious and should be considered very disturbing.

But it's not. Is it? No one in the industry even talks about it accept in regards to victory laps over victories they never even had.

This is what was popular at the time. Not so much now, is it?

As stated, 1985 was a good year for music. There was trash like Madonna, as always, and there was explicit content, especially in the metal world, but no one aside from adults should have been buying them to begin with. Boomer parents hould have known this at the time. The Rolling Stones and others had put explicit and overt satanic messages in their music since back in the '60s. So why were boomers suddenly concerned with this now? It doesn't add up. This wasn't new.

30 years after Tipper Gore set this hoodwink off before disbanding the PMRC to become the Vice President's wife she said this, as quoted by Rolling Stone:

“In this era of social media and online access, it seems quaint to think that parents can have control over what their children see and hear,” she says. “But I think this conversation between parents and kids is as relevant today as it was back in the Eighties. Music is a universal language that crosses generations, race, religion, sex and more. Never has there been more need for communication and understanding on these issues as there is today.”

She added, “All of the artists and record companies who still use the advisory label should be applauded for helping parents and kids have these conversations about lyrics around their own values.”

That doesn't sound like someone who lost, or even changed their mind on the issue. Does it? There's only one reason she would say this. It's because she got what she wanted. She won.

Of course wannabe rebels still consider the PMRC vanquished and themselves having won victory over the "man" just like weekend warriors always do, despite the "man" not suffering anything and their peers far worse off than before. Rock music is no longer in the mainstream. Bands can never achieve the success of those who came before. But kids can still turn on the radio and hear tired sounds out of 1998 with kindergarten-level lyrics about having sex and taking drugs.

What a win.

The PMRC didn't lose. If they did then why aren't they still around fighting for victory? Just like the ACT, they got what they wanted. The music scene was censored--whole genres were excised from the mainstream and from TV and radio play. Payola is perfectly fine now that the bad music has been quarantined. The only ones left are the footstools of music execs and political hacks that mindlessly vote for the same party that destroyed their industry in a double-think about censorship that would make Orwell blush. There are no more scenes or underground successes. They're all dead and forgotten.

Joe's Garage doesn't exist anymore. It was burned down long ago. Whatever remains have blown away in the winds of the storms since. Zappa and Denver are gone. The superstars remaining won't live forever, and the mainstream will wipe them away when they do.

Rock isn't angry anymore, it's not even much in the way of debauched. Instead it is an underground phenomenon where it belongs. "Have guitar, will travel" was the motto of rock before the stadiums took it in, and it will once again be its mantra after being thrown out. You can find anything you want with the internet on your side--you don't need the false promises of Joe's Garage or the permission of hacks like the PMRC and their record company lackeys to sell you neutered and corporate approved goods. Rock still lives, and it will for a long, long time.

As it loses the influence of the mainstream rock only has the chance to get better. In fact, I would say the quality of rock music has gone up since the late 90s, and away from store shelves, and I find without much surprise that rock is back where it started, in the music halls and the garage, cleansed and purified, perhaps even ennobled, by its time among the slave-gangs of the record executives [Thank you for that, Mr. Lundwell]. You can find anything you want now.

So forget Laurel Canyon, Joe's Garage, or MTV. Rock is still alive, and it's no longer angry. It's merely alive and fun again.

And that's what's always been about being.

Modern music still has it

I may not be making music, but I am doing what I can to bring back fun fiction! Check out Gemini Warrior for an action adventure story of heroes, magic, and strange planets, the likes of which you've never seen. And there's more to come!

Find it Here!