[rcboals]

Originally Posted by DrumBob

I think rockabilly has become a caricature of itself, a cliche. IMHO, I find most of the musicians who are seriously into playing rockabilly to be just as concerned, if not more so, with their clothing, hair styles, tattoos and their girlfriend's Bettie Page looks. You have to play the "correct" guitar, have the "correct" style, look and attitude. I have spoken to rockabilly musicians who played around LA years ago, and because they didn't dress in '50's style rockabilly clothing, they were shunned and booed by the rockabilly crowd. Their look was more punk, and they took sh** for it. What does that tell you?

I saw a photo of a European rockabilly band on this board last year. The standup bass player was wearing a tanktop style white undershirt on a gig. No rockabilly musician back in the '50's would have been caught dead onstage dressed looking like a lowclass bum. Those guys back then looked sharp.

Today's rockabilly musicians need to move forward and stop living in the past.

Very well said. The "new rockabilly" (now pretty old itself) with the tats, t*ts, foul mouths, tough guy prison hard time inmate looks, punky mad at the world, ugly angry lyric songs, etc. etc. I originally thought they were just no talent skin head punks on rehab.

[james lee]

Originally Posted by Pete Gorilla

Just the lyric...

Brian Setzer - Really Rockabilly

Hair slicked back, they're real tough guys
Black T-shirt and a bad attitude
Better not step on their blue suede shoes

Livin' in a time that's long since gone
It's not quite right, there's somethin' wrong
Look! There goes another Betty Page
Get with it chick, it's all the rage

He's really, really, really rockabilly
Really, really, really rockabilly
He pissed in his pants
He's too drunk to care
He's wearin' 1956 underwear

There's neo-rockabilly
There's psycho-rockabilly
There's Starbucks-Orange-County rockabilly
There's euro-ja-ja-wir-machen-rockin' rockabill
There's Western-swing-traditional-blues-
inluenced rockabilly
There's Australian-shrimp-on-the -barbie-
carry-your-surfboard-to-Sears-
to-buy-you-rolled-up-Levi's rockabilly
There's rock a-Johnny. rock-a-Sally, rock-a-hillbilly
It's all so stupid, and it's just plain silly

He's really, really, really rockabilly
Really, really, really rockabilly
He pissed in his pants
He's too drunk to care
He's wearin' 1956 underwear

The man at the door
He's a rockabilly guy
He said you can't come in
Your pompadour's too high
Better grow them sideburns

Get a tattoo on your neck
Drink Pabst Blue Ribbon
Drive a rockabilly wreck

Has it come to this?
I want a new job
Rockabilly retards and rockabilly slobs
It used to be fun just to play the guitar
Now I just want to run real, real far

He's really, really, really rockabilly
Really, really, really rockabilly
He pissed in his pants
He's too drunk to care
He's wearin' 1956 underwear

Sums up just about anyone on a Gretsch site..

Hahaha.

Now don't get all offended, I've seen the pics posted on here.

[PacRat]

I don't think RockaBilly is dead . . . I do believe you've got the good and the bad . . . it certainly maintains a retro sound but that's not really a bad thing. I do think that some of the bad boy crapola is more poser stuff then real playing and can sometimes hurt the genre more then help it. IMHO

[drmilktruck]

I didn't even know it was in the hospital! Get well rockabilly!

Like any genre there are up & down cycles, "real" players and poseurs, varying emphases on the sound and look. But with the internet and home recording easier than ever, there will always be people making it and listening to it.

[fretbuzzard]

Originally Posted by Shakey1964

I don't follow DrumBobs argument. If I have it right, in one breath he criticises rockabilly musicians and fans for sticking to the 50s look over musical substance and then complains that a Euro musician was wearing gear that 50s musicians wouldn't have been seen dead in... Massive generalisation in my opinion as there are a number of excellent musicians for whom the music is really the be-all-and-end-all and the style etc. are secondary concerns.

I'm a little confused too. I guess one way to think of this is that many of the bands/scenesters who are most religious about "the look" (the ones Setzer is caricaturing in the tune cited above) are trying to recreate an image of 1950s America that does not match the reality. It's a kind of alternate universe 1950s. But all of that has precious little to do with the music...

[Lizardkinged]

Pffft. Music lives on. Is classical dead? Aesthetics come and go as they please almost as a person goes from room to room. This happens all the time.

Right now all my friends and I have a feeling that Music in general is kindof suffering (which turns into a Scion car argument. The primary argument being well they use so much oil wah wah wah its a car company I dont want music to support oil wah" that always ends in 'well thats ok I guess they pay musicians well and release their album for free... best exposure you can get') but also forget that Every medium takes oil. Plastics are all petroleum, and even the means to get it into your hands, and produce it (even the MP3 player it may have been downloaded to) so what about all the extra CD's hanging out on the shelves in stores not being bought. or the clearance CD's that barely pay for the plastics which distribute them.

Then you got Neil Young Capitalizing on people's emotional aim to be green, and at the same get the most audio quality for their money... when in reality you can get full quality music and have it on any MP3 player. (just buy that actual CD and rip @ lossless). But he's gotta sell his own model, and sell his own file format system and hes doing it all "for us"

Like when the drug company discovers a new disease we all have, and lucky us they have a cure! Previous remedies suggest diet and exercise, but who has time to care about your health BEFORE something happens to you? Well it depends on the individual priority.

When things become all about money and an image makes that money, it becomes "micky mouse"

[DrumBob]

I can see how a couple of you might have been confused by what I said about the doghouse bass player wearing a white undershirt onstage. To me, that was the worst possible example of the way I feel rockabilly has become a pathetic characterization of itself. The original rockabilly guys all dressed sharp, but to dress like it's 1956 today and parade around thinking you're cool being retro is completely ridiculous.

I wrote a few articles for Rockabilly magazine a few years ago. The mag went under last year, I think. I used to look at the photo spreads they ran of rockabilly get togethers, musical or otherwise, and I said to myself, "These people have got to be kidding." They weren't

Obviously, Brian Setzer agrees. Those lyrics are so true. I love rockabilly music...the real thing...but unless you're willing to move the music forward, you're just a poser with tattoos, a Gretsch guitar and greasy hair.

No offense to Gretsch guitars or anyone here. Just my thoughts.

[Sharkblues]

No offense to Gretsch guitars or anyone here. Just my thoughts.

To add to your point it seems mandatory for a rockabilly player to play a Gretsch these days. As I recall with the exception of one big name who of the original rockabilly guys played Gretsch?

[freddyfingers]

Dead? No. Its evolving like all other forms do. With the ability of many to now record and release, there will always be people carrying on all types of music. Main stream is not a good barometer to see whats still going. take blues, Not a lot of Muddy Waters on the commercial radio stations. But its on public radio, where people that like it, support it. I bet we will see a Sirious or XM station soon with rockabilly. As long as someone is playing it, its alive.

[sroux]

Dead?
Not really, BUT I think in general it has become a big of a caricature.
For a lot of the bands out there, it seems like image is as of, or more important than the actual music.

Our band plays "rockabilly" for lack of a better word. I generally hate labels in music, but for the purposes of telling people what kind of music we play we'll use that term.

We try to honor the guys that have gone before, but also not to get stuck in the nostalgia part of it.

As for playing a Gretsch guitar? I got my first Gretsch on a blowout special. It played well, and I saw it more as a great playing guitar than a "rockabilly" icon.

[sroux]

Originally Posted by Sharkblues

To add to your point it seems mandatory for a rockabilly player to play a Gretsch these days. As I recall with the exception of one big name who of the original rockabilly guys played Gretsch?

Can't think of any. In the 50's, Cochran was pretty it as far as BIG names.

Cliff Gallup played a Duo Jet in the Blue Caps, but most folks have no idea who he is. Probably the biggest NAMES that played Gretsches in the 50's were Chet and Duane, but of course they were not rockabilly cats.

[DrumBob]

Originally Posted by Sharkblues

To add to your point it seems mandatory for a rockabilly player to play a Gretsch these days. As I recall with the exception of one big name who of the original rockabilly guys played Gretsch?

None of them that I can recall, other than Cliff Gallup and Eddie Cochran who played Gretsch. Otherwise, they played Gibsons, Fenders, etc.

It was Setzer who inadvertantly created this "If you play rockabilly, you have to have Gretsch" business. Fred Gretsch should kiss Setzer's behind on a daily basis. He's sold more Gretsch guitars than any salesman in the world.

For Setzer to come out and say what bullsh*t the rockabilly revival is, says an awful lot. His band was almost singlehandedly responsible for the whole thing happening. He's moved away from it. Good for him.

[Synchro]

It strikes me that a lot of rockabilly fans are trying to relive a lifestyle that never existed. They are nostalgic for something that they know only from caricatures that the've seen in movies, TV and magazines. The '50s were very conservative times, Betty Page wasn't an accepted mainstream figure back then, in the '50s she was on the margins of society. Tattoos were not all that common back then (yes I do remember the late fifties) and the ones I remember seeing tended to be small, anchors on the upper arm, etc.

The proto rockabilly, IMHO, was Elvis. That's where it started and he was considered pretty marginal in his day. This was a real problem, BTW, because parents controlled their children's spending carefully back then. An artist that looked too punk would probably have starved back in the '50s.

Eddie Cochran probably was a perfect example of the balance desired. He did songs that were up to date and Rockabilly but he also was clean cut and dressed in a manner that parents could respect.

People yearn for relief from the very real problems in life. It is inviting to think that the '50s were carefree days of freedom and fun but life was tough then too. The scare of nuclear war was very real. Hot Rodders and Rock 'n' Roll fans were not accepted by much of mainstream society back then. An unusual haircut or a revealing outfit was probably not going to make it easier to find a job.

[Mark W]

Folks in the 50's were very uptight and controlling. Things lightened up in the 60's. But really with all genres of music it is inevitable that what is new is old and what is old is new.

[Pete Gorilla]

Gretsch wasn't part of the original rockabilly culture back in the old times. Brian Setzer made the link between Gretsch and Rockabilly and that was the point when Gretsch started to become an iconic rockabilly instrument. Setzer purchased it because of Eddie Cochran but use it as a rock guitar. This is what I think.

[MyBootsOnFire]

There's nothing new under the sun.

Rockabilly's not dead, there's still a rockabilly show every weekend around here in Southern California. Car cruise nites every nite of the week. Sure it doesn't look exactly like it did in the 50's but that's what happens. A lot of us grew up with punk/metal/rock etc and then found rockabilly, so what we play now reflects that. My band doesn't play anything i would actually call rockabilly, but you can definitely hear the influence. Things evolve.

You do have bands that are trying to be faithful recreations of the original style, and more power to them for playing the music they love, but there's more out there now than ever before.

[PacRat]

To add to this . . . people are always looking for ways to be different, to shock. in the 50's it was baggy pants and Ducktail hair cut, the whole rebel without a cause thing. The 60's brought long hair and flower power . . . it goes on and on. The bottom line is the rebellion that goes with the image of being different . . . I just think that most of the people that are basically giving the Rockabilly thing a black eye are the guys that are just going one step to far, They blur the line between a rebel and being punk . . . IMHO

[Pete Gorilla]

My real problem with rockabilly is the movement of simplification. Play it as primitive as they can, two note guitar solos, all songs in key A or E, the bass player plays 2 notes, acoustic guitar up in the neck, funny vocal techniques, outdated sound. This is a vicious circle, because as rockabilly is getting more simple and simple, the people start to think that "this is not hard at all, I will start a rockabilly band tomorrow with my two friends. I will look cool, buy a rockabilly looking guitar, learn the 3 basic chords and there we are..."
When I was first involved in rockabilly in the age of 17-18, started to practice the most advanced Setzer, Scotty Moore, Cliff Gallup solos on crapy guitars and I didn't quit until it sounded almost right, and I spent nights and days with red eyes just to do something advanced and made rockabilly as much appreciated genre as any other music style on the mainstream scene. But today the rockabilly bands separate themselves from the "normal" music scene. Sometimes I started to feel that most of the rockabilly musicians are not musicians just some kind of clowns in costumes, with no musical efforts, no musicianship but just a play on a nostalgic theatre stage in club scale. I am sorry to saying that but that's what I think...

The other thing is the Hipster era. You guys ever heard of the Hipster Fashion Cycle? This is very similar to the cycle that happened to rockabilly:

[ReverberatingDream]

Originally Posted by montereyjack66

Collective Wiz-dumb time, folks.
...Or is something like the Black Keys "Lonely Boy" a defacto Rockabilly 4.0?

What say you, oh mega experienced and completely inexperienced ones?

mj

Oooh, completely inexperienced? That means I get to post.
I don't listen to any "modern" rockabilly, here's why:

(By the way, I'd never call Black Keys rockabilly.) Part of me thinks rockabilly died in the 60's with the first wave of hippie culture. To me, rockabilly belonged to a time now long gone. The rest of me has a hard time taking a band seriously when it tries so hard to be 1950's era, sort of like taking The Darkness seriously when they dress in 1980s bodysuits, or visual kei bands seriously (I don't need to explain that any further...scary stuff). I respect the musicality, but the dressup distracts me from the talent.

That's pretty sad, isn't it? I just admitted how much a person's clothes prejudices me against them.
Pathetic! Somebody slap me.

I guess what I'm saying is that although the genre itself is alive and will be going strong forever I'm sure, to me it no longer feels sincere in this superficial, commercially corrupt, self-centred and narcissistic Facebook YT world where appearance is everything.

But you can ignore me, I'm just grumpy and need another coffee. No offense meant to anyone personally.

[Pete Gorilla]

Originally Posted by james lee

Sums up just about anyone on a Gretsch site..

Hahaha.

Muhahahahaha!!! Really?