an immodest proposal

anna & i watched the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame broadcast on HBO tonight.  i usually eschew these kind of self-glad-handing award shows.  a hall of fame is antithetical to Rock&Roll.  but tonight Roxy Music & The Cure were inducted.  i like The Cure well enough, but Roxy Music is my kind of jam.  singer bryan ferry is the fonzie of pop singers.  this dude is the epitome of cool.  he's going to play the Fox in oakland at the end of august & i've read that Avalon, that great, romantic, sexy, smoky, slowburn of a record will be performed by ferry.  but the fucking show is sold out & we didn't get tickets in time!

so we watched the show for both The Cure, which was a foundational band of every '80s teen who felt the societal outcast, lonely, misunderstood, imaginative, & yearning for those things in life that we, in our teens, don't quite yet have a name, & Roxy Music.  oh, Stevie Nicks was also inducted, & who can resist her witchy charms?  so was Radiohead.  i was surprised by Radiohead.  they've been around for 30 years?!  fuck me, i am old!  as i've just said, i don't care for awards shows.  in a just world there would be no awards shows, or awards at all.  but i must live in this world.

& in this world we have to content with awards & awards shows.  can we add punk acts to the roster of inductees?  is that too much to ask?  i don't mean punk bands like The Clash & The Sex Pistols, who each got commercial radio play.  i'm talking punk bands that are wildly influential but are still fairly underground, like Black Flag et al.  has Rock&Roll evolved enough to include these bands in the museum?

if so let me propose my nomination for the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame.  X.  their album Los Angeles is a great Rock&Roll lp.  X's music is gritty, harsh, visionary & head banging bangable.  you can slam dance to it, as well as just dance to it.  if there ever was a great punk band then X is it.  but would the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame awards ceremony get its collective head blown apart, & open, by their performance?  i mean, the song 'los angeles' is gritty as fuck.  the lyrics are controversial.  & and yet still, if pop music was ever called poetry then let the songs of X be so declared.

i am no guild man.  i have no skin in the game.  next year i'll most likely ignore the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame awards show, just like i ignore the Oscars, and the Nobel prizes.  unless, that is, a band, movie, or scientist & writer i admire wins an award.  i'll still poo poo the awards.  after all, they are a cod's game.  but fuck it.  if you want to valorize artists then do so.  include the non-mainstream.  for the Nobel give the award to a poet or two, more often, will ya!?  for the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame recognize the achievement of X, a great punk band.

okay?!