Rock’nRoll is my Religion

‘When your idol’s rich and your guru’s smooth-talking’-Julie Burchill &Tony Parsons

Rock’nRoll as a religion is like Catholicism. Crowds gather to hear the messages punted through their icons and idols! They take your money with songs of praise as they get fat on your financial contributions, attendance and participation but most of all they draw strength and power from the belief in their supreme authority.

Hell, the way I see it that isn’t a bad thing. In fact I think its pretty awesome. Rock’nRoll’s a religion you want to be a part of. Like all religious organizations, the Rock religion offers its followers a sense of belonging and family.

We have our rules, ways to dress and not dress or speak and not speak. There’s the heirachy; the wags, the groupies, the girlfriends, the bands themselves -Rock Royalty you could say. And of coarse there are the gods! Dio, Iggy, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Janis Joplin, The Sex Pistols… -each and all have their wisdom to share and guidance to bestow.
Masses and masses of crowds gather in support of their esteemed leaders and await their pearls on how to live! Some would even die for their gods (or flash their tits in giant arenas).

There are territories claimed and wars waged on behalf of musical preference and elitist snobbery; people’s faces get smashed up for liking pop, you get evicted from clubs and venues for not fitting their image, there are venues reserved for certain types of music (and crews) and regular acts, timeslots allocated according to the profile of the band or who gets to play main stage at festivals. Many of the best bands are the underground ones with their cult-like followings and occasionally the breakout wave of popularity making the band fashionable like that wave of kabala-cool that totally stripped the religion of any integrity it once possessed.

The laws on our tablets are simple:
Sex.
Drugs.
And Rock’nRoll.

Money hadn’t quite made the list originally but if there were to be a Rock’nRoll New Testament it sure as hell would be in there!!

But back in the day there was another contender for fourth commandment; under the guise of “revolution”, Rock’nRoll was a tool for enlightenment. Everyone was doing the hippie thing. The Beatles embraced those weird Indian fretless sounds ala Ravi Shankar and Bob Dylan was whining country hymns. Mostly the bands (likes of Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix for example) devoted themselves to acid and LSD with religious zeal.
Everyone and anyone had been to a far off temple and returned with alternate tokens of their trip. Rock went on a journey of discovery from raw offensive honesty (the spirit of Rock’nRoll) to contemplative awareness and protest songs. It wasn’t as if backing the hippie ideals was a hardcore rebellious thing to do. The whole concept of revolutionizing the world was just as trendy and hip as going to Katmandu (that was “just like Butlins” according to Ringo Starr).

(Right is the Maharishi with the

fab four in 1968)

It was kind of an embarrassing time in Rock’nRoll history when the rich and the famous were running around their hotel rooms in imported leather jesus-sandals preaching the salvation of hallucinogens.

I have nothing against the enlightenment or the drugs. I do have a problem with the shoes. Bad style is just offensive. You wouldn’t catch Skid Row in a pair of strappy sandals.