The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is tonight, and no matter what you’re doing, it’s better than having any part of that unctuous ego-orgy. Fuck off, R&RHoF, fuck off for forever and a day; take your precious Stratocasters in their security-glass sarcophagi with you; dump it all in Lake Erie and let it float away until someone needs to make another documentary.
No one loves you, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They just use you for the sales bump. Money’s on the dresser.
Anyway, they’ve run through all the deserving artists (not really) and now we’re left with an evening whose highlight may or may not be Steve Perry’s presence. Which–if you’re keeping score–does not count as a highlight in any reality except the one where you are wrongly accused of murdering a Girl Scout troop and Steve Perry is your alibi. In that reality, Steve Perry showing up is the biggest highlight of your life. In this one? Not impressive.
Here’s this year’s class; I will try my hardest not to do the “BUT THESE BANDS AREN’T IN” bullshit. None of this matters and it’s all offensive to anyone with an IQ high enough to spell “IQ.”
ELO ELO? Ugh. Meh. Nah. Psh. ELO was basically Beatles fan fiction with a disco beat. Jeff Lynne was also the weakest link in the Traveling Wilburys. One shining moment: soundtrack of Boogie Nights.
Joan Baez The first whispers of a Baez comeback/rethink are in the offing, and let me put a stop to it toot fucking sweet: Joan Baez sucks. Her voice is like a clumsy surgeon’s scalpel, and she appears humorless. (At least in her material. FoTotD David Browne recently interviewed her for Rolling Stone and she sounded tolerable, but it’s not the Sixties any more and I hate the fucking Sixties and the fucking Baby Boomers and they can all suck my balls and someone get a Time Sheath and send Joan Baez back to Woodstock so she can lecture people some more.)
Journey New rule: if you replace the lead singer with someone who used to cosplay as the lead singer, then you can’t be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Sure, there’s been a 20-year-long chain of Fake Jerrys in the Dead, but…
Huh.
Realize you had an indefensible point halfway through the sentence?
Little bit.
Kadlicek.
Yup.
Wanna apologize to Journey?
No. Fuck Journey.
Acknowledge you were wrong, though.
No. Fuck you.
Oh, I’m looking forward to the light and life you’re going to share with the world this evening. What a fine mood you wear.
Bite me.
Pearl Jam Ten was good, Vs. was great, and Vitalogy, No Code, and Binaural had their moments, plus I really dug the album they made backing up Neil Young. Here, check this out:
(There’s an official video, but trust me: you don’t want to watch it.)
So, yeah, okay, fine, whatever. Good job, Pearl Jam.
Tupac Shakur Tupac was Trixie’s high school friend, so I am glad for him.
Yes Yes is the only band more ridiculous than the Dead, and the only one on this list other than Pearl Jam that TotD has seen live: holy shit, was it excruciating. It was the Union tour, and Yes fans will remember the Union tour as the tour when every human being who had ever been in Yes was onstage at the same time: 20 or 30 deeply unpleasant-looking pale men waiting for their turns to solo.
Why did they do this? Well, there were two Yeses at the time: the Chris Squire/Buggles/Trevor Rabin version (which owned the name), and the version with Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe (who performed under the imaginative name of Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe). The two factions kept suing each other and cannibalizing each other’s ticket sales, so the record company mushed them together and threw them out on the road.
Did you miss the part about the Buggles? The guys who did Video Killed the Radio Star? Yeah, the Buggles were in Yes for a while. Swear to God. The only backstory with comparable complexity belongs to Cable from the X-Men, and that involves both time travel and alternate dimensions.
Fun fact: Rick Wakeman has joined and quit Yes five times, and he bought himself a new cape to mark each occasion.
Nile Rodgers Go look at this motherfucker’s credits. I dare you. Plus, he produced this:
So, there ya go.
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