Book Review: Chuck Eddy's Rock and Roll Always Forgets (2011)

Over the past 15 or 20 years, music criticism has become both ubiquitous and mostly disposable. The evolution of this once-hallowed literary endeavor can arguably be traced to the criticism of classical composer George Handel by his contemporary Charles Avison in 1752, although it would be modern scribes like Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Paul Williams, and Greg Shaw, among others, that would define and develop the dubious art form known as “rock criticism” during the 1960s and ‘70s.

As writing about music evolved beyond the milieu of handmade zines and poorly-distributed magazines, it would eventually become known as “music journalism,” and album reviews and artist interviews could be read everywhere from syndicated columns and glossy mainstream publications to small-town newspapers. Until recently, many big city newspapers usually had one, if not two writers working the “entertainment beat,” talking about music and such. Not coincidently, the downfall of music criticism can be traced somewhat to the advent of the Worldwide Web, which allowed anybody to be a publisher, and everybody to be a critic, albeit without editors and whether or not they had writing chops, or even a faint knowledge of music history whatsoever.

Now the Reverend has a vested interest in this unfortunate evolution of music criticism, what with being an old-school rockcrit who teethed on Marsh and Bangs and Metzger, and who mentored under, perhaps, the greatest of the early rock ‘n’ roll wordsmiths – the one and only Rick Johnson. But the Rev is no aging Luddite blaming all the publishing industry’s ills on the gosh danged Internet. While the web has definitely upset the traditional applecart as far as music magazines go, it has also enabled low-budget, high-quality media outlets like Blurt to exist.  

But even among the glut of online music zines and personal blogs, a few intelligent voices have managed to rise to the top like cream, writers like Jim DeRogatis, Martin Popoff, Fred Mills, and Chuck Eddy managing to bring new insight and perspective to an increasingly noisy critical realm too often overwhelmed by static and poorly-formed opinions expressed in too-brief reviews. Eddy, in particular, has distinguished himself as a critic to be reckoned with, both as music editor at the Village Voice and as a contributor to such publications as Creem, Rolling Stone, and Spin, among others. Eddy has also penned a couple of highly-entertaining tomes of music criticism and theory – The Accidental Evolution of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the controversial and often hilarious Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe, which made a strong argument for the inclusion of recordings by funk-soul diva Teena Marie.

Eddy’s latest book, Rock and Roll Always Forgets, is sub-titled “a quarter century of music criticism” and, as such, it collects essays and reviews chosen from throughout Eddy’s 25 years as one of America’s most entertaining and annoying music critics. While it suffers slightly from a lack of an overall concept as his previous books, Eddy has broken everything down to thematic chapters, such as “Predicting The Future,” in which he illustrates the futility of predicting where music is going by using his own past statements, and “Alternative To What,” where Eddy questions the often-mindless pigeonholing of music through reviews/essays on the Ramones, Big Black, SST Records, Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, and others.  

Much of Rock and Roll Always Forgets is entertaining and thought-provoking as only Eddy can achieve. Chapters tackle heavy metal (Metallica, AC/DC, Def Leppard); hip-hop (Sir Mix-A-Lot, Just-Ice, Spoonie Gee); and pop music (Debbie Gibson, Pet Shop Boys) as well as offering perspective on the racial aspects of soul and rap music with fascinating pieces on Eminem, Kid Rock, and the aforementioned Teena Marie. Most of this stuff is well-written and insightful, offering a unique perspective and personality that few music critics are wont to reveal these days. Eddy’s willingness to champion genres often ignored or outright disdained by the typical rock critic, such as metal and rap, is legendary, but he also displays a deft hand at writing about pop and even vintage music.  

Still, it’s easy to find evidence of middle-age dementia creeping into Eddy’s work. His complimentary reviews of contemporary Nashville floss like Mindy McCready, Toby Keith, and the horrible Big & Rich, among others, may read well, but they also provide cause to suspect Eddy’s critical credentials. Sure, Eddy has covered glossy pop like Michael Jackson and the Spice Girls before – and done so without a hint of irony or patronizing opinions – but his dismissal of “pseudo-traditionalist hypocrisy” as the “country party line toed by most rock critics” as an excuse to wax ecstatically about Montgomery Gentry is pure D bullshit.

Like whatever music that you wanna like, Chuck, but the Reverend is old enough to remember when Jon Rich was trying (in vein) to become a rock star in Nashville and Toby Keith was the punchline to a Music Row joke. Country music really was better back in the day of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and David Allen Coe, and its current persona as 1970s-era singer/songwriter lite-rock with twang is a slap in the face to those that came before. That’s not a party line to be drawn in the sand, that’s just reality. Coe might be one ugly sumbitch, but he can sing circles around today’s crop of country stars relying on Pro Tools and image consultants to get over with the suburban housewives that buy their records. Don’t try and sell us sour milk and claim that it’s aged whiskey…

Eddy’s critical flights of fancy notwithstanding, he’s a solid writer of no little wit and humor, and if we readers (such as yours truly) can agree to disagree on some of the dreck that he immortalizes in Rock and Roll Always Forgets, we can all find middle ground. As music critics go, Chuck Eddy has always been a bit of a provocateur, and his tendency to risk ridicule with absurdist or unpopular critical stances is what has always made him an engaging and intelligent writer. Rock and Roll Always Forgets certainly includes its share of those questionable moments, but it’s also an entertaining and informative look back at the past quarter-century of popular music. (Duke University Press, published August 10th, 2011)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2011

Archive Review: The Rick Johnson Reader (2007)

Hmmm…where to start, where to start? How do you sum up the tragically short career of a rock critic, that most ephemeral of literary pursuits? After all, only a few bona fide, truly insightful rockcrits have ever made the jump from the fleeting, yellowing page of the periodical to a culturally-significant-and-acceptable placement between the covers of a book. Dave Marsh has always done it well, Greil Marcus, Meltzer, Christgau…heck, the almost-famous Lester Bangs had to wait until he died to earn his own ISBN number. Of the current crop of music writers – most of whom lack the passion and reckless temerity of the aforementioned first-gen giants – only Jim DeRogatis is worth reading. Weaned on ever-evolving musical trends and “bloato hype,” today’s rockcrits aren’t fit to hold Lester’s stash, so why should we trust their opinions?

So where do you start when talking about Rick Johnson? Well, he was this guy, you know…“Ranger Reek,” a writer and critic…beloved by a smallish legion of fanboys and serious music geeks that troll eBay to this day looking for dog-eared copies of Creem to purchase. Ostensibly a “FOL” (Friend Of Lester) at the same time that Cameron Crowe was ditching his junior prom to write for Rolling Stone, Johnson was my reviews editor at Sunrise, a small mid-1970s politics-and-culture publication that today would be called a “zine.” Through his friendship with Bangs, “Reek” – as he was known to his readers – made connections at Creem that would later come in handy. In fact, Reek left Illinois in 1980 or so to live in the Detroit area and work at the Creem offices as a writer and editor. In between, he followed friend and editor Bill Knight from Sunrise, after its demise, to write for Prairie Sun, a record store-sponsored tab that carried on the great Midwest rock tradition.

Johnson’s brief writing career extended from around 1972 until 1984, when the ownership of Creem gave up on Michigan winters and moved lock, stock, and barrel to L.A. As best as I can tell, the vast bulk of Reek’s writing was done for three publications – Sunrise, Prairie Sun, and Creem – with a few pieces published by ‘70s-era cultural rag Fusion, skin-mag Oui, and a handful of other print forums. After leaving Detroit, Johnson went back to Macomb, Illinois, where he had previously attended college. Sadly, he published few pieces afterwards; even more tragically, he died last year, at the still-young age of 55, an obscure writer whose passing was noted only by friends and a handful of colleagues in the music journalist community.

So where do you start when talking about Rick Johnson? First, and foremost, he was deserving of a much larger audience than he ever received. If the magazine publishing world hadn’t become the namby-pamby, corporate-drone-filled haven for safe-as-milk scribes that it is today, some editor somewhere might have recognized Johnson’s literary brilliance and offered him a place for his words. But it did, and they didn’t, and Reek’s voice was silenced by small minds with no vision, and obviously no sense of humor; uptight assholes more worried about not upsetting the reader and keeping their own gigs than in publishing something insightful and entertaining and the least bit edgy.    

Not that Johnson was a controversial writer…on the contrary, he was a unique product of his day and age. Unlike his obvious influences – writers like Bangs or Meltzer, whose cultural perspective was formed by Beatnik poets like Ginsberg and Kerouac, and by Elvis and Chuck, Bob and the Beatles – Johnson’s creativity was shaped and molded by ‘60s garage-rock, baseball, television, and mass market advertising. His best and lasting role was that of the cultural commentator, and his overt influences typically spilled over into his reviews. Unlike some writers, Johnson never tried to stir things up; but when you start with the intellectual ammunition that he had at his disposal, and hurl your words-and-phrases rapid-fire at your readers like molten slag from the barrel of a critical Gatling gun, you’re likely to upset somebody’s tender vittles.        

Johnson was, above all else, a highly entertaining writer. Erudite and well-read, he was one of the few members of the rockcrit literati that could mix classical literary references with bits-and-pieces of TV sitcom humor and contemporary events to make some obscure point seem important and relevant. Reek’s work was (and is) always fun to read; as a writer, he was a clever wordsmith, quick with a phrase and inventive in his use of language, witty to the point of absurdity. Whereas Bangs might wander off aimlessly in search of an expression or reference worth quoting in his reviews, Johnson typically cut to the heart of his subject; even when he was being purposely surreal, he usually managed to tie it into the review in the end.

After his death, many of Reek’s friends and admirers in the world of music journalism lamented the fact that no collection of his work existed outside the bounds of over-priced copies of Creem. Bill Knight, Johnson’s editor at Sunrise and Prairie Sun and a professor of journalism at Western Illinois University, took on the task of editing Reek one more time. Knight got the “old gang” back together during the summer of 2006, two dozen former writers (including yours truly) who volunteered to type up Johnson’s old reviews and articles for use in a collection that was published this year as The Rick Johnson Reader: ‘Tin Cans, Squeems & Thudpies’.

The material chosen by Knight to represent Johnson’s writing legacy includes some of his best, brightest and funniest work. From album reviews, which provide the bulk of the book’s content, and television commentary to baseball forecasting and book and videogame reviews (a form of criticism that Reek pioneered), ‘Tin Cans, Squeems & Thudpies’ illustrates Johnson’s unique and original writing style, his absurdist sense of humor and, most of all, his ability to stay critically detached – it’s only rock & roll, ya know! The book features a lot of material from Sunrise and Prairie Sun, which is where Reek published an abundance of great writing, and which are nearly impossible to find these days compared to the early 1980s issues of Creem that his words appeared in.

All other considerations aside, the album review was Johnson’s true forte, and he brought no little insight and a great deal of joy to his work in this area. Reek was never beholden to the label hype machine, and he had great fun poking holes in sacred cows. He was never afraid to write about a little-known band like the Gizmos or MX-80 Sound, and was not reserved about fragging the overblown work of a behemoth like Jefferson Starship or the Eagles. He had his favorites…as do all critics…typically straight-ahead rockers like Thin Lizzy or the New York Dolls, but he would also hold their feet to the fire if so required. Johnson wrote an impressive number of reviews during his all-to-brief career and, after reading this book twice, I can honestly say that his work is never dull and always entertaining.

The Rick Johnson Reader: ‘Tin Cans, Squeems & Thudpies’ should be required reading for every hopeful rock critic, and most current so-called writers, the book providing an example of how good music writing can be. The best compliment that I can give Reek is that, after reading several of his reviews, I either bought the albums or put them on my “want” list for future purchase. Music lovers should rejoice in the collection, as it offers a snapshot of a decade in pop culture. Bill Knight and his crew have provided a valuable service by preserving Rick Johnson’s words for posterity.           

As a young rock critic, Rick Johnson was my first editor when I was published in Sunrise. Our brief friendship, which began around 1975 and lasted into the early 1980s, launched me on the dubious career path of the rock critic. I don’t know if I should thank Reek or curse him, but mostly because of him, I’ve had a hell of a ride. Deserving of space on your bookshelf, ‘Tin Cans, Squeems & Thudpies’ is an essential collection and a fine memorial to Johnson’s work. Buy or die, buckaroos!

Buy the book from Amazon.com: The Rick Johnson Reader: 'Tin Cans, Squeems and Thudpies'

That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014

On March 11, 2014 Excitable Pressworks will proudly release That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014, an anthology of writing about rock 'n' roll and the good folks that make the music.

That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014 offers artist interviews, essays, articles, and album reviews that cross the entire spectrum of rock music, from classic rock and heavy metal to punk, prog-rock, and beyond. Inspired by Da Capo's annual Best Music Writing series (which was discontinued in 2011), That Devil Music is focused entirely on rock 'n' roll and includes articles on Big Star, Imagine Dragons, Greg Prevost, Clutch, Emitt Rhodes, the Replacements, Jimbo Mathus, and much more!   

That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014 was edited by veteran music critic Rev. Keith A. Gordon and features the work of a diverse group of two-dozen talented writers including talents like Steve Morley, Tommy Hash, Fred Mills, Denise Sullivan, Jason Gross, and Lee Zimmerman, among others. The book reprints vital and exciting material from the previous year from publications like Blurt magazine, Paste magazine, Perfect Sound Forever, Metal Injection, and the That Devil Music.com website. That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014 is a 252-page, 5.5" x 8.5" trade paperback that features incredible Tim Shawl front and back cover artwork.

That Devil Music: Best Rock Writing 2014 is available directly from Excitable Press for the price of $14.99 in the US or £9.99 in the UK - we'll even pay the postage - by using the helpful PayPal buttons below:  

U.S. Orders: $14.99

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