[wolfpat]

They did find a unique money stream in a difficult world.

As for the current sorry state of music, I blame the raising of the drinking age to 21. Prior to this, there were road houses everywhere. And all those road houses had bands every night. You could make a decent living just playing these road houses, and pretty good cash if you just played on weekends. When the drinking age was raised, and the 18-20 year old kids no longer could go out, it scuttled 80% of the road house clientele, and all the road houses went out of business.

These road houses were the “minor leagues” of music. It’s where musicians got good at their craft. And we not only developed our skills, we could try new and different forms of music.

Clubs had a stage, and bands had their own PA and light systems. People who attended these shows came away with the feel that they had been to a big-time rock show.

We did all this while maintaining the dream of “Hitting it big”, as some bands did. There’s no place to do that now, no place for young people to become musicians.

Whenever I go out to see a band play now, I come away depressed. The bands are relegated to a corner of a cramped bar, with something that just barely makes them heard over the din. And the band members themselves are my age, playing vanilla music with no spirit.

[Skooz]

You make a good point. I never saw it that way. Compelling post.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

These road houses were the “minor leagues” of music.

That's the best explanation I've heard. I've had enough of auto-tuned dance divas.

Where did rock go?

[SampleMan]

Perpahs Obamamusic, which will force young people to go to juice bars, where government selectected musicians from the nations grant fed music departments will play.

Yea, that should fix it.

[Alberta's Child]

Very good post, but I think there’s more to it than that. I blame the sorry state of music on the mass commercialization of music in a digital age where products have very short shelf-lives. The industry always has to have a number of “big acts” at the top of the charts, and they simply churn the content just to keep their customers interested.

[KevinB]

You make a good point. Hell, The Beatles got their start playing in the Cavern Club for the lunch crowd.

[SamAdams76]

These road houses were the “minor leagues” of music. It’s where musicians got good at their craft. And we not only developed our skills, we could try new and different forms of music.

Excellent point. Was reading about The Beatles recently and how they cut their teeth for years playing in dive bars night after night. They didn't all turn 21 until Feb 25, 1964 (George Harrison's 21st birthday), after they made it big.

So had the drinking age been 21 at the time, all of The Beatles would have been banned from the bars and would have had to go out and get regular jobs. We never would have heard of them!

A lot of people think The Beatles just kind of exploded on the scene in 1963-64. But they spent years before that playing in Hamburg night clubs and at the Cavern in England. All rough-and-tumble joints where they had to get good and get good fast just to survive. By the time Brian Epstein got a hold of them and cleaned them up a bit for the masses, they were already one of the tightest, rawest rock outfits out there. That's why they made it as big as they did.

[Rebelbase]

"there were road houses everywhere. And all those road houses had bands every night. You could make a decent living just playing these road houses, and pretty good cash if you just played on weekends. When the drinking age was raised, and the 18-20 year old kids no longer could go out,"