stroked1

It’s all about the music, man.

It’s what the music store guy sentimentally mumbles as he nods his head approvingly on the outskirts of a mosh pit. It’s the thoughts of the chick that wears mens shirts as she sings passionately to patti smith records. It’s the sincere and slightly slurred words your hear from the table of innocently wasted underagers at an overage gig in an underground bar, as they decide; it’s all about the music, man.

Ask any guitar toting team of indie kids what it’s all about, and that is what they will inevitably reply. It’s the slogan every young alternative rock and roller has tattooed on his/her sleeve. Well, used too. Because in this glittering world of rock and roll where the fur coats, nookie and cocaine are often better than the rock and roll itself, the tattoo’s are fading.

Last year (being 2000, just use your imagination....i wrote this in 2001 ok?), five 20-somethings from New York City calling themselves the Strokes, probably were those wasted underagers at the underground bar, saying those exact same words. Thanks to journalism and the biz, somewhere in-between the hype, the buzz and the haircuts, the Strokes tattoos were almost covered up by their faded t-shirts and shopworn pin-stripe dinner suits. But roll up a Stroke’s vintage leather jacket sleeve and brush the Bay City Roller’s haircut behind their ears and you’ll see that tattoo on their arm and rock and roll in their eyes and they’ll tell you it’s all about the music, man.

According, to Albert Hammond Jr. (guitarist, bringing you the colourfully bluesy solo from Last Nite) “everything else apart from the music doesn’t matter.”(October UK Guitar magazine).

I came across these spunk-stuffed punks from the old school of rock and roll earlier this year thanks to Richard Kingsmill of triple j and his generous airplay of these raw and raunchy rock anthems. My first thought when I heard these “rock and roll as groupies and cocaine and New York as subways and Seinfeld” tunes was; “this is good music”. My intrigue of whoever made those damn cool bass lines and had that tonsil ripping, sexy as fuck voice was written in clothing thanks to that guy with the curly mop of hair that works at Beat and his black T-shirt that said something special. No it didn’t say “Leonie rocks and I love her lots” (as much as I wish it did); it said The Strokes, but close enough. That inspired my second thought: “this a cool band that matters”.

As uninteresting and uninspired as my actual thoughts (yes, actual, this is a true story) sound on paper, that’s how I came across and was, as you might say “stroked” by these five 20-somethings from New York City that sent a re-invented version of pure rock and roll ecstasy to this little punter from Perth. That also goes to show how the Strokes should be taken: as musicans. Not style guru's, not male models, not MILF's (Musican's I'd Like to Fuck), and although they are all of those things, they are primarily musicans, fucking good ones.

Call me crazy, corny, Geraldine or freakishly obsessed, but to someone who thought she was the only one who wanted something other and better than the cloned lines of shittily produced, not-about-the-music-but-the-money-and-the-groupies-and-the-fame rap-rock, I don’t blame journalists for dubbing The Strokes “the saviours of rock and roll”. Like Joel from Eskimo Joe said in September Juice magazine, “Everything in music is either nu-metal or Coldplay”. Too true, Joel, but you spoke too soon. Coz along came The Strokes, toting mean and aggressive, yet hung up on melody, guitar rhythms. They kicked down the door with their old school converse sneakers and Beatle boots, blasting their sometimes bluesy, sometimes rocky, sometimes punky and sometimes even collapsing and overall fucking hard and talent ridden guitar solo’s into our ears. They twirled into the rock and roll ballroom (could I get more carried away right now? …probably, that sounds like a wager…) in leather jackets, dad’s wardrobe shirts and tight dirty jeans to the somewhat understated and Ramones-esque drum beats of the bobbing mop of hair and enthusiasm Fab Moretti. And man, no doubt I’ll say this again and probably later tonight and sometime tomorrow, I was hooked. I’d hardly call The Strokes the Jesus’ of rock and roll. The lack of sandals, togas and preaching will tell anyone that. But anyone whose grown weary of their Doors, Beatles, Pixies and Velvet Underground records and reached for Is This It will understand and agree that as far as current music goes, The Strokes are certainly “it”.