What Happens To Rock Stars

This album cover is brilliant.

But this is what happens to rock stars, right? They age, they wither, and they eventually play 30-year-old songs to 50-year-old people who are doing their best to avoid nostalgia's bittersweet aftertaste while nursing an $11 Bud in the back of a basketball arena.

Yes. If you are very, very lucky.

If not, you end up dead in some shitty hotel room, your last meal cheap booze you snuck in, your last sight some fake impressionistic hotel art.

Or you end up unemployable, wandering around the last town you thought might be fun. People stare at you every now and then, but instead of the glint of "aren't you famous?" it's the pity/laughter of "weren't you famous?". What are you going to do, be an accountant? Get a law school degree? Invent some kind of stupid internet thing?

Regardless, Bowie's a master. Absolute master. I guarantee this new album is more compelling than anything the Rolling Stones have released since about 1983, and more adventurous than Johnny One-Note acts like AC/DC (who create nominally "new" albums to ever-decreasing effect).

Bowie has also resisted the lure of the cash-in tour. He could have reformed The Spiders From Mars and made a mint wheeling out Ziggy in a wheelchair. Or played nearly any of his albums in entirety. I sure would have paid bank to see that, and not for reasons of snark or throwing tomatoes or subpoenas.

Like all of us, Bowie is vaguely ridiculous at times. Like all of us, you'll really miss him when he's gone.

But unlike all of us, he is a true artist, and knows how to write songs.

Prey For Rock and Roll

"All my life, all I ever wanted to be was a rock and roll star...I got an electric guitar [and started a band]. That was 20 years ago. Today, and god knows how many bands later, not much has changed. Not the gigs, not the clubs, and not the money. Tonight we made $13.50 each..."

The movie's a bit too slick. The performance aspects aren't authentically grimy enough - the stages are way too big and well-lit, as is the "rehearsal warehouse".

The performances too clean, tame, and under-powered (I'd have tracked/filmed it all live, clams and all), and the songs commit the cardinal sins of being preachy, boring, or both.

The ladies are too pretty to sell things quite right, but many of the other details are pretty spot-on.

The hoofing of the gear.
The porch and the house. The drinking and cans of beer.
The smoking. The drugs.
The weird manager guy.
The hope and desperation and professionalism and naivete.

If you can look past the TV-movie sheen, excessive lighting, soundstage vibe, flat and clunky dialog , some awkward performances, and the ridiculous ending, this is about as good a movie as you're likely to find about being old and not making it.

Plus, Gina Gershon.

"It never occurred to me that I might make it...at what point do I become a joke? In 2 days, I'll be 40. Surprise, surprise, I ain't no rock star. I could quit and become the bitter old bitch who devoted her whole life to rock and roll and never succeeded...or I could stick with it and become the bitter old bitch who refused to give up... Either way, 'bitter' and 'rock and roll' end up together."

Not as good as the stellar and highly recommended "Still Crazy", which was about being old having made it once (all of my "peers" doing victory laps and playing their 30-year-old hits should see this).

Not as disturbing as "Hard Core Logo", either. And certainly not as intentionally funny as the Ur-film,  "Spinal Tap".

But it helped pass the time.

"Do you ever think about quitting?...being 50 or 60, hauling our gear around, fighting with the bartenders and sweating the rent?"

For all its significant flaws, it was written by someone who understands/understood band life.

"It all comes down to these few minutes of playing live..."

Nice or Serious?

Whenever someone asks me what I do, I smile.

I tell them "I used to be a rock star."

They say "what was your band?"

I say "Sid Luscious and The Pants. We were almost big in the 80s."

They say "Oh, I think I've heard of you."

I never know if they're being nice or serious.