I read Kill Your Idols a while ago, but it’s worth a mention. It’s a series of essays by Generation X and Y rock critics. The premise is pretty simple. Take aim at classic rock icons and open fire.
It’s a lot like shooting trout in a barrel. The essays range from fun to obvious to annoying. The best one (and I’m prejudice here) is by my friend Leanne. She takes on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Pronounced” album. But she turns it more into a commentary on Southern culture, which is incredibly on the mark. To quote:
“I’m here to tell you that the definitive Southern rock band is handing you an F-350 truckload of bombastic, sentimental bullshit. Its vision of the South as a land of rebels resisting all things modern, intellectual and Northern is as outdated as hoop skirts, and was even when the band made its debut in 1973.”
Other essays tackle everything from the Dead Kennedys to the Byrds. It’s fun in the way top 100 lists are fun. I didn’t even realize some of these albums were part of the canon. There were several I’d never heard. And when you look at the critics’ favorite albums in the back of the book, it’s amusing to note some of them list music that’s targeted in “Kill Your Idols.”
Definitely worth picking up for anyone who grew up with classic rock as their soundtrack …
Now Playing: Long Black Veil from the album The Pizza Tapes by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman & Tony Rice
6 replies on “Kill Your Idols”
i checked out leanne’s exerpt on the page… well said! this is an interesting project, for sure. ‘not sure that i want to see some of these trashed tho. does anyone want to question the value of their nostalgia?
oops… excerpt… bb, you need an edit function on the site!
Freebird! Freebird! (Er, Molly Hatchet’s version I guess).
Always been more of a “Stairway to Heaven” guy, myself. There’s something about bustling hedgerows that just gets me all charged up …
Yeah.
If I had a hedgerow, and discovered a bustle in it, I’d probably be alarmed no matter what Plant says.
I think every song he wrote was written on an acid trip while reading either Lord of the Rings or the Kalevala and eating Campbell’s soup, cold, right out of the can.
I think my favorite song might still be Flirtin With Disaster, though Sultans of Swing is right there too.
What I’d really like to hear is a supergroup consisting of the Allman Brothers, Skynard, Molly Hatchet, and the Marshall Tucker Band get together and record Pink Floyd albums from the Syd Barrett days.
With a little Jerry Douglas on dobro thrown in for good measure. But then my wife says I’m a sicko.
When I was in high school, every garage band in the county played Freebird. And if they didn’t, they couldn’t get a gig at any dance.
And people would yell out “Freebird” all night until the band played that damn, simplistic stupid song. I hated it. Still do.
But it was a hoot when I went to a Dave Alvin concert near the end of August 2001 (the night before I wound up in the hospital), and in the midst of the set, somebody in the back of the theater yelled out between songs, “Freebird!” Alvin stopped, turned around and said, “What, you think we don’t know it?” The band then launched into a note-perfect rendition.
It was a hilarious moment. The crowd got a big kick out of it. The moment is captured on Alvin’s “Out in California” CD, which is quite a document for me to own … my life before that night is 90 times different from what it’s been ever since. The hospital visit, 9/11 two weeks later … It seems like I was a different person then.
I guess I should be commenting on your post, but the mention of Freebird above just kind of set me off.