I don't want to be a rock star, just a rock musician. And I don't even really want to play rock music, but more of what I'd consider rock 'n' roll. I want to play music that sounds like its out of the late 1950s, and I want to do it full time next year.
I don't want a boss or a cubicle or a computer. I want a guitar or a bass, and I want a decent band that has a lot of heart and maybe the slightest chance. That's all I ever really wanted, but it's a lot easier to be a yuppie than a starving rock 'n' roller.
Last semester I looked into being a yuppie, but for now I've put it all on hold for a little while. I've had enough of the job search, but not enough of college.
Last semester I went to some career fairs, and every job I looked into seemed pretty much the same. Every job involved doing a lot of nothing useful, and I didn't go to one career fair where Chuck Berry sat at a table and talked to people interested in pursuing a career in rock 'n' roll.
Instead, it was all just a bunch of yuppie recruiters, who thought I wanted to be just like them, but I don't want to be anything like them. They don't play rock 'n' roll, and I don't think anyone does anymore.
Nowdays it's all just a lot of over-produced crap music recorded by a bunch of yuppies, and I want to hear something raw and bluesy. There's a certain sound in my head that I'm after, and when I have the house to myself I mess around with the settings on my amp and try to find it, but I can't. And maybe it doesn't exist any more.
I'm looking for a tone that's not clean and not distorted. It's a tone that to me represents rock 'n' roll, and to me looking for rock 'n' roll is a lot more liberating than looking for a job. To me, looking for rock 'n' roll is about feeling, not thinking.
Looking for rock 'n' roll is about turning the amp up just high enough that it shakes the floor. It's about thresholds, and it's about always falling just short of inspiration.
Sometimes I think that the only music left is uninspired and insincere, and I can't imagine that anything original or heartfelt could come out of our generic society. Everything now is influenced by subdivisions and corporate restaurants, and maybe it's best not to fight it. But I don't think anyone really knows.
Personally, I don't have a clue, but some days I think that a year from now I could be a yuppie, and I might like it, and some days I wonder if that's not what I want.
All I have to do is forget about the rock 'n' roll, and I'm set for life. That's it, and I'll be driving the Jetta in to work from the suburbs each morning. I'll be driving the Jetta, and I'll be listening to the uninspired radio, and it will be good.
