The 97 Club

When you make a bunch of music that people like, use the fame and fortune you've acquired to become a decadent and self-destructive twat, and get yourself killed at the age of 27, you're revered as a hero.  When you make a bunch of music that people like, maintain self-discipline, and continue to make music and tour even when you aren't quite what you once were because you care enough about your fans to give them more of what they want, you're mocked as uncool.

Folks, this is insane.

For those of you who spend less time on Wikipedia than I, the 27 Club is the name for musicians who died at the age of 27.  The most notable members of this group include Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Robert Johnson (Clapton tells me he's good), and the guy from Canned Heat that I assumed was actually an unattractive woman until I was probably a sophomore in college.  What do these people (and by these people, I mean the three that you have seen more than two pictures of in your life, lookin at you 'Picture of Robert Johnson in a black suit and fedora holding his guitar') have in common?  They're musical icons, of course!  Each of these men have impressive musical resumes, to be sure, but they're also viewed as almost God-like figures (or in the case of Jim Morrison, scratch out the words almost, like, and figures when making reference to Oliver Stone).  Not a lot of people enjoy this reputation--I would argue that of the ten most insanely revered rock stars ever, these three are at least in the top ten if not the top five.

But while these men deserve acknowledgement, why do we as a society celebrate dying at 27?  Morrison and Hendrix died because of drugs; Cobain died because of a suicide that he was even more directly responsible for.  I know Pete Townshend wrote "I hope I die before I get old" in 1965, but the old bastard is still performing!  Why is it a virtue to freaking die at or before your creative peak?  So you don't tarnish your reputation by touring forever like the Rolling Stones?

Now, I've mentioned The Rolling Stones in several blog entries before because frankly I find them to be more fascinating cultural institutions than The Beatles.  The Beatles are fascinating because of the way they were famous in the 1960s, but the Stones have toured constantly since the 1960s and have had enormous highs and lows during the time period.  But part of the fascination is that the Rolling Stones have been largely irrelevant for almost thirty years.  Let's put it this way--if you look up the Artist Essentials of the Rolling Stones, the newest song you will find on the list of 25 huge Stones hits is "Waiting for a Friend."  This song was released in 1981.  I was negative-eight.

The Rolling Stones, though by all accounts quite a stage presence given their advanced ages (I haven't seen them live, though there was still definite charisma in Shine a Light), are no longer a great band.  They just aren't--their live performances can't compare to the best live bands of today or even to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, who although not contemporaries might as well be by revisionist standards.  But in what way does a few decades of mediocrity matter?  Maybe you don't want to shell over a couple hundred bucks to see a man old enough to be your grandfather strut around stage singing about how he can't get no satisfaction, but it's not like if you look at videos or listen to records of them in the 60s or 70s, they aren't evoking the same youthful exuberance they did at the time.

Several bands are going a lesser Stonesy path (lesser not because they aren't trying, but because they're younger bands and inherently aren't comparable to their elders).  The aforementioned E Street Band has had a few lesser hits in the last decade ("The Rising", "My City of Ruins"), but nobody's confusing these songs with "Born to Run."  U2 got back on modern rock radio with "Get On Your Boots", but it's not even as good as "Discotheque", much less "Mysterious Ways" or much less "Sunday Bloody (F***ing) Sunday".  But you know this already.  I don't like The Boss enough that I wanna pay a lot of money to hear him play maybe a couple of songs I like, because while I'd love to hear him do "Pink Cadillac" or "Cover Me", I know the odds of this realistically happening are extremely low.  I don't wanna pay to see him play, but a lot of people do.  If you're 35 today and were born in 1976, you were thirteen when the E Street Band broke up and therefore probably never saw them play in their original run.  But because they care enough about their fans to keep on plugging along, you can go see them today!

So I want to offer a challenge right here and now.  Rather than spend the next couple days as most will, talking about how the legendary 27 Club has added another legend lost too soon, let's start the 97 Club.  I like the idea of being able to take my children to a Rolling Stones concert when Mick, Keith, and Charlie are 97 years old--they might be in it for the money, but Goddammit, I'm a Rolling Stones fan and I want to see that concert.  I don't care if they aren't the same band that was frightening my grandparents in the sixties; I'll give them credit for every year they soldier on out there.