It was like that for baby boomers, and the Lilith Fairs and Lollapaloozas of the 1990s brought full circle what Woodstock birthed. But those daylong blowouts showcased alternative rock, a genre that grew out of the back-to-basics grunge of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. That many of these bands’ home base was the hip Seattle was no accident, and their railing against the establishment felt like The Who all over again.
Today Rolling Stones songs like “Let’s Spend the Night Together” seem nearly as quaint as The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” next to “Black Hole Sun” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” But even Eddie Vedder and the boys grow older, and some classic rock stations are now programming Pearl Jam songs into their playlists.
Guess we haven’t died before we got old.
It could be argued that the 1970s were the heyday for pure rock, before things splintered into punk rock, arena rock, new wave, folk rock, on and on. At least that’s when the acts that define a classic rock radio playlist reached their zenith of popularity and, arguably, creativity. The rise of FM radio certainly helped that along, with the genre being pushed in an AOR (album-oriented radio) format urged along by concept albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Tommy and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
If you can afford Sirius/XM Radio, you can relive the glory days of Pink Floyd’s Animals or Steely Dan’s Aja by tuning in to Channel 40’s Deep Tracks, or Channel 46’s Classic Vinyl. If you have access only to terrestrial radio, as David Rezak, director of the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University, calls it, you can satisfy your classic rock jones by listening to Galaxy Communications’ WTKW-FM 99.5 (TK99), a true classic rock station, or Utica’s WOUR-FM 96.9, which can be caught playing some newer tunes as well in a format called active rock.
There you’ll hear the newest Springsteen track while TK99 focuses on “Born to Run.” It’s all a matter of taste, of course, but a Saturday afternoon on the beach, radio tuned to TK99, picnic in the works, cold beer at hand, makes for a wonderful walk down memory lane and serves as an introduction to the genre for the younger generation, many of whom are embracing the music their parents, ahem, most likely conceived them to.
“I don’t see the music going away, or the format going away at all,” says longtime local deejay Dave Frisina, the prince of classic rock radio in Syracuse. “We get more younger people listening to us all the time, and it surprises the heck out of me. Their parents turned them onto it and then they’re developing a taste for it themselves.”
An examination of the enduring appeal of classic rock must examine the, uh, genesis of the genre itself, and a look at those who have embraced it these last 50 years. “People in radio right now are trying to figure that out,” admits Frisina, who has spun classic rock for 30 years, when asked to define the genre. “I think it’s a sound, not an era. A band like the Black Crowes, which was popular in the early 1990s, they sound like classic rock, and we’ll play them. But a band like A Flock of Seagulls, even though they came out during the era of classic rock, would not be classic rock. It’s really all about the sound, a compatibility of sound rather than a specific date.”
Boom Babies
What can be tied to exact dates is the baby boom generation, the passel of American children born between 1946 and 1964 that peaked the year this writer was born, 1961, with 4.3 million births. It is precisely the demographic that ate at McDonald’s in the 1960s, embraced aerobics in the 1970s, got married and had children in the 1980s, sought therapy in the 1990s and ultimately decided to not grow old the way their parents had. Rock’n’roll has grown up with the baby boomers, who can’t quite let go of their Led Zeppelin IV or who plan field trips to Books and Memories in Eastwood, where hundreds of vinyl records for sale fill the basement.
“It’s part of the cultural fabric,” says Rezak, “this desire to stay young. You could probably chronicle this through music or hairstyles or gymnasiums. I was in New York City the first week of July, and it was the hottest stretch in the history of the city, and even in that blistering heat people my age were out biking and running. I have definitely noticed a heavy-duty uptick in fitness. I see a ton of people out sweating and running, a healthy response to the same cultural influence: catching a buzz, drinking a beer and throwing down with Cheap Trick. I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between going to party with a band and doing healthy things.”
Luckily for classic rock-happy Central New Yorkers, options abound for summertime aural pleasures. Mike Banks’ Market Block Party on Thursdays at the Regional Market will feature Adler’s Appetite, starring drummer Steve Adler from Guns N’ Roses, on July 22, plus Asia and Loverboy down the road. Not exactly in the same league as Eric Clapton or Neil Young, these artists nonetheless have their followers, and get regular airplay on classic rock radio.
Wednesdays on the Water, taking place at Syracuse’s Inner Harbor, brings classic rockers on Hump Days through Aug. 11. The July 21 show is Eddie Money, whose heyday was from about 1975 to 1985, and Dickey Betts on Sunday, July 25. Lou Gramm and The Outlaws will make happy different segments of the classic rock audience on July 28 and Aug. 11, respectively.
“We’re having a great time down there,” says Wednesday on the Water promoter Mark Albert of the Inner Harbor venue. “We’re coming into the real heart of the season now.” The idea for this new series, Albert explains, came from shows he and local music promoter Chuck Chao organized at the New York State Fairgrounds in the 1980s. “I was looking for the right music for people to make sure that everybody could have a good time without it becoming a rowdy party atmosphere. It’s geared toward folks coming out after work or bringing the family, and nobody being vulgar or fights breaking out.”
It’s also designed to introduce kids to the music their parents grew up listening to. “I don’t book anything that I can’t bring my kids to,” says Albert. “If I had to hide it from my kids I wouldn’t book it. A lot of today’s music, there’s no staying power to it. The acts of the 1970s and 1980s have staying power, and people still enjoy coming to see them and the performers enjoy coming out and putting on a show.”
One reason Banks decided to organize the Market Block Party every Thursday was to evoke days gone by. “I recall back in the day when Syracuse was a regular stop for concert tours, and we’re not seeing as much as we used to,” he says. “I wanted to bring in quality entertainment at a decent price and give people an opportunity to see someone who might not be appearing in Central New York otherwise.” Concerts take place Thursdays at the Regional Market, 2100 Park St., with upcoming rockers such as Donald Trump’s new hire Bret Michaels on Aug. 5, Asia on Aug. 12, and Loverboy on Aug. 19. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the concert will wrap by 10:30 p.m. Admission ranges from $10 to $25 and includes an adult beverage. For more information, visit www.cnymarketblockparty.com.
“A lot of people around here like that type of music,” Banks says of the classic rock format. “There are a lot of local bands that do cover songs and a lot of it is classic rock. I’ve brought in original guys, primarily, the same band name, the same songs and giving people a venue to see them at a very reasonable cover charge.”
All week, Turning Stone Resort and Casino will rock with four different classic outfits, all inside the 800-seat Showroom. Alice Cooper already shocked his fervent flock on July 20, but there is still George Thorogood on Thursday, July 22, Rick Springfield (really pop rock) on Saturday, July 24, and Peter Frampton, whose best-selling album Frampton Comes Alive! blew out a good number of speakers when it came out in 1976, who will definitely rock on Monday, July 26.
While the week also marks Turning Stone’s 17th year, talent manager Terri Torrey says the classic rockers converging on Verona was not planned. “It was a pure coincidence,” she says. “The scheduling worked well with certain bands that I was looking to put in the Showroom. Last year, some of them reached out to me. The timing worked well that they were all on the East Coast, all at the same time.”
Pat Benatar, another classic rock darling, has played the Turning Stone the last 10 years (and, yes, I saw her at the War Memorial in 1981). “She loves it here,” Torrey notes. She sure does: Benatar returns to the Showroom on Aug. 24.
The Turning Stone shows also provide cross-promotional opportunities for the local classic rock stations. “Another huge point about classic rock here,” Torrey adds, “is that I have supportive classic rock stations to help promote the shows. I do a weekly interview with {TK99 morning hosts} Gomez and Dave every Wednesday. Even WOUR is very supportive of us. I can have a hard time maybe with another genre because I don’t have as many supporting stations. For example, there are many great jazz entertainers who could play here, but I don’t have a strong enough jazz station to promote them. The classic rock stations are really great about promoting the shows we have, and it’s nice for the stations as well.”
Furthermore, the classic rock shows at Turning Stone seem to hit the baby boomers where they want to spend their discretionary income anyway. So instead of buying a Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes T-shirt after a Showroom show, they’re more likely to hit the gambling floor instead.
“Classic rock is a good demographic for our area,” Torrey says. “We get a lot of locals that will come out. If we do three in a short period of time, all three will sell out. Before and after the show, the gaming floor does well, the hotel sells out, we all do well.”
Classic Gas
”Classic” defines two types of music: the symphonies and sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, and the straight-on rock’n’roll of the Rolling Stones, The Who and John Mellencamp. Classic rock was originally conceived as a radio station programming format which developed in the early 1980s from the AOR format. While rock sub-genres like folk, southern and heavy metal certainly have their followers, it’s classic rock most baby boomers return to. “It’s comfort food,” Rezak says simply.
“A good song is a good song over time,” notes Frisina. “A lot of those bands had a real identity to them; they’re not going away. No matter where you go, there’s going to be a classic rock station, but the difference is in how they shade—you could go older, you could shade heavier. Our main objective now is to enhance the music and make it interesting by providing information about what the artists are up to now. It’s a continuous process to make the music relevant to our listeners.”
And while classic rock is as much a state of mind as it is a specific span of years, Rezak assigns it an approximate time frame. “The era that is most emulated in terms of classic rock radio and as a cultural touchstone seems to be about 1963 to 1983,” he says. “There are musicians whose contributions were artistically important, but they’re all mixed in with artists that were one-hit wonders. The Clash can now be considered classic rock even though they will forever be connected with the movement that we’ll know for the Adam Ants of the world.”
While all music genres have their one-hit wonders, classic rock’s roots as an AOR format means fewer individual gems. “Early on it was the album that was important,” Frisina says. “Concept albums are where you really benefited from hearing the entire thing, not just one random song. So albums like Dark Side of the Moon or Aqualung are still important to the genre.”
Frisina likened the continual time shift of his playlist to a bull’s-eye. “That center of the range right now is the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s,” he says. “So then the formula becomes how much do you drop and how much do you add from either end of the bull’s-eye? We’re not playing as much British Invasion as we once did, while we’ve added some Pearl Jam and Metallica tracks that fit. ‘Enter Sandman’ fits with a Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin song without much of a problem. At the same time, we’re not going to be so arbitrary as to just drop years from our playlist. There are songs from the early 1960s that sound just as relevant now as they were then.”
And for the misconception that Diamond Dave spins “Stairway to Heaven” daily, it’s just not so. “If I play ‘Who Are You?’ it won’t come up again until at least a day-and-a-half later,” he says. “You won’t hear the same song the same time of day. Being a classic rock station, we are not trying to make hits. We’ve already got the hits, so we don’t have to play the songs as frequently throughout the day as other stations.”
Oh, and as for my first concert? Rod Stewart, 1975, Utica Aud.
Do you remember the first concert you attended? E-mail us at editorial@syracusenewtimes.com. The most interesting entries will be reprinted in a future edition of The New Times and be eligible for a few prizes.
David Rezak, director of the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University, examines a rock’n’roll artifact: “Classic rock is part of the cultural fabric, this desire to stay young. You could probably chronicle this through music or hairstyles or gymnasiums.” MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO
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