Excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.
Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them.
Your chaos won't convert them.
They're so happy to rebuild it.
You'll never really kill it.
Yeah, excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.
Rock'n'Roll Lifestyle
Cake
Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll go together like America, apple pie and baseball. The latter obviously seems more wholesome. Since the beginning of the ‘devil’s music’ the extreme has been a conglomerate of all things that heighten the senses and take you to another level of consciousness and sometimes unconsciousness. RnR is a lifestyle as much as it can be a cocktail of disaster. It defines living on the edge.
Rock ‘n’ roll fuels the industry of fashion, delivers a broad range of unique attitudes and sparks its own language. Of course, the music, sex and drugs create a lifestyle that is hard to ignore. Hard-drinking and hard-living are usually synonymous in the lifestyle. Musicians have always attracted "groupies" which seems to be a perk of fame. They spend most of their time with and often do sexual favors for band members. What guy wouldn't want that right? They are usually chasing the same high of being on stage as they do when off stage. Who wants to be normal when they can be a rock star 24/7?
Groupies have a self-appointed job description of being 'available' to celebrities, pop stars, rock stars, politicians and other public figures. Nancy Spungen (Sid & Nancy), Cynthia Plaster Caster and Pamela Des Barres (of the GTO’s), in particular are probably the best known rock n roll groupies. Another type of groupie was the young girls who dominated the backstage scene in the seventies. The best known were Sable Star, Lori Maddox and Geraldine Edwards, who was the inspiration for Penny Lane in Almost Famous.
Whether you are more like Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison losing your religion can mean losing everything. In reality, there is no such thing as money for nothing and chicks for free. We are all selling as well as buying. It is simple supply and demand and there is plenty of bad that feels so good. However, the law of average dictates that if we do anything long enough we can fall victim to it. When the drugs are not working anymore, you have no idea if the sex you had the night before was good or not and your creativity has evaporated, it might be time to get a new mirror and hope you can see more clearly. Everything we do has consequences. We all make mistakes but we should only regret the ones we do not learn from. Is it really better to burn out than fade away?
What do you want? I want Rock ‘n’ Roll!
By Trey Mitchell
My maiden name was Geraldine Edwards. I am mentioned in this article. My name is now Geraline Flemming-Mueller, I have been married since 2006. I enjoyed this article, which was pointed out to me my by my neice, who is enrolled in Women's Studies at UCLA, in her third year. She used Ms. Venezia's and your Double Standard article in one of her essays. I got a little chuckle over your usage of the phrase "devils music" which is saying alot. Very descriptive. The word "Rock & Roll" is now eponymous with a certain attitude and no longer attached exclusivly to the domain of music. But I do remember a point in history when the word was literally translated. But of course, change is a part of nature. It is understood that a major portion of the Rock & Roll lifestyle involved hard-drinking and hard-living, but perhaps not permanently. Witness the number of musicians still around and doing well. The lifestyle can certainly spell disaster for a person, but the point is arguable. Free will always enters into the equation. In the final analysis, it can dismantle your life if you allow it to do so. There really is no question that certain musicians chased a high onstage and off, often to their detriment. And if given a choice of being a rockstar 24/7, if a man were being honest and not P.C., he would choose the extraordinary life over the mundane. That is just human nature. The concept of "losing your religion" as an excuse to behave badly has never worked for me. If you are a reasonable person, and not all people are, you have to learn to be accountable for your own actions in life. That is the only way you learn and grow as a person. I am no aplogist for drug use and am zero tolerance. I have seen firsthand what drugs can do to a life. Drug use destroys creativaty and credibility. It fosters hoplessness and more. I recall the saying posted at the allegorical Gates of Hell. It reads "All ye who enter here, give up all hope." Why enter Hell willingly? Consequences will always be a part of life but hopefully so will redemption, something many people could use, and not in the biblical sense. Is it better to burn out than fade away? Those choices sound limited. I chose neither and simply evolved, as did many I knew in the rock scene. Keep up the good work.
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