Checklist Of Shame D

.....Three posts in as many days. I wish I could get this angry about the things I love. It's a great motivator. If you're tuning in late, I've been rustled out of my lethargy by a recent article announcing the nominees for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Over the last twenty-five years, the lists of those who eventually get inducted (not all nominees do) have taken some bizarre turns. To be inducted, an artist must have released a commercially circulated recording at least 25 years prior to nomination. Non-performers such as producers and writers can be nominated in a separate category, but must have been active in the same time frame. Now, for the first five years, the choices were fairly unassailable. Nobody's going to say that Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry don't belong in a Hall Of Fame devoted to rock. The Beatles had to wait until 1987 to get nominated for induction in 1988 (apparently the German singles don't count). Then in the 1990's, things started going off the rails. The problem wasn't so much that the newer inductees hadn't earned recognition as that other more obvious choices were being ignored. Long running and pervasively influential rock bands like the MC5 (still not in) and the Stooges (eligible 1994; inducted 2010) were being passed over for self-indulgent egomaniacs like Jefferson Airplane. It was becoming apparent that 20 million teenagers wearing your name on their chest decades after you've split up (or died) doesn't qualify as 'influence', but a California mailing address does.

.....In an earlier post I mentioned that there was a concerted effort to remove rock from most radio stations in this country from 1958 to 1962, primarily motivated by racial bigotry. It didn't work everywhere, but it shut down enough venues that black musicians avoided working in the genre and when rock did manage to inevitably resurface it was only because white musicians were playing it. As the years of eligibility reached that period, the number of black artists among the likely new candidates dwindled. That's hardly the fault of the Hall Of Fame, but it does create the false impression that they might be avoiding black artists out of personal prejudice. Their options seemed to be: (a) dig deeper into the past, a well that would eventually run dry; or (b) incorporate other genres, most obviously the blues and R&B artists frequently covered by nominal rock musicians. This shouldn't have been a problem. If Led Zeppelin's been stealing your music, you must have influenced rock, period. And when the years of eligibility reached the late 1960's, there would be black artists among the new candidates again. The point where the logic went out the window was when it came to the British acts who recorded the lion's share of the covers. Now, Motown doesn't exactly need free advertising. While we here in the U.S. were experiencing the 'British Invasion', London was having its own 'Tamla Invasion'. And back here, it wasn't the Beach Boys who gave the Beatles the most competition for number one records, it was the Supremes. However, blues artists were another story. Like jazz artists in the 1950's migrating to Europe, American blues artists in the 1960's found a much warmer welcome in England than they did at home. Ironically, during what Martin Mull called "the Great Folk Music Scare", the people who were the living vessels of American roots music were persona non grata in the U.S. Even other black Americans often regarded them as a throwback to darker times before the Civil Rights era rather than what they were, instruments of survival and perseverance in those times. Anyway, white American rock musicians might cover Bo Diddley or Chuck Berry, but not Howling Wolf or Muddy Waters. But British rockers would cover whatever American music had a beat. And they were dying to see the real thing. So, while various bluesmen are justly inducted into the Hall Of Fame because they influenced rock musicians, you could logically expect to also find the musicians who took that sound and ran with it, no? No. The Small Faces, a chart-topping powerhouse in England, became eligible for nomination in 1989. They are just being nominated now. And they are the tip of the iceberg.

.....From that point in the early 1990's on, every single stated criteria, except age, seemed to be contradicted during the selection process. For every act inducted there was an act passed over who had greater longevity, more pervasive influence on subsequent performers, more pervasive cultural presence, etc. And the longer the Hall tried to pretend that they hadn't made mistakes the more egregious they appeared. They couldn't even claim that there were more candidates than slots available in any given year because there was no fixed number of slots, with the final number of inductees yo-yoing up and down every year. I don't think anyone is losing sleep if their favorite band isn't nominated in their first year of eligibility, but increasingly I am hearing from people who couldn't care less if their favorite band is EVER nominated because the award has come to be meaningless. And that would be a shame, a lost opportunity for there to be a resource that could be trusted to preserve this slice of culture for posterity.

.....Recent years seem to be working to spackle over the sins of the past and to nudge them towards that end I am posting an alphabetical listing of likely candidates from an inventory of CD's I owned in the mid-1990's. Even from the narrow scope in which I'm working there's a wealth of ignored talent. We'll continue the list at 'D':

1. THE DAMNED- So many reasons to induct them: the first UK punk single, UK punk album, UK punk TV appearance and on and on. And they're Damned good.
2. SPENCER DAVIS GROUP- Another prime example of a British R&B band, even if it hadn't launch the careers of Steve and Muff Winwood.
3. THE dB's [or dß's]- As the first album says, it "stands for decibels". Peter Holsapple isn't quite the Kevin Bacon of rock (that's Mick Ronson), but he comes close. This early endeavor of his might be discounted on grounds of longevity, but certainly not influence.
4. DEAD BOYS- You would hope that the Ohio connection would help, but as this list will eventually reveal the Hall doesn't appear to like the neighbors. For the uninitiated, The Dead Boys was kind of like the reverse of a punk super group. Everyone became more famous after they left.
5. DEAD KENNEDYS- Yeah, I know Biafra won't go to the ceremony. I want to see them inducted not only because they deserve it more than half the people in there now, but because the possibility that Biafra might show would give Jann Wenner ulcers.
6. DEAD MILKMEN- Perhaps it would be to much to ask for the committee to exhibit a sense of humor, but punk and life in general would have been much darker if not for the Dead Milkmen.
7. DELANEY BRAMLETT AND BONNIE BRAMLETT- Together or separately they have been headlining performers, or possibly in the sidemen category.
8. DEL FUEGOS- They imploded after four albums (that I know of), but as I mentioned in an earlier post, Warren Zanes is now Dr. Zanes and was working for the Hall Of Fame until a few years ago. If he can do anything to keep them filling in some of the more obvious holes, then including his old band might be a fitting reward. Former bandmate and older brother Dan is now a children's entertainer (and probably happier for it) and drummer Woody Geissmann is doing excellent and needed work with Right Turn.
9. SANDY DENNY- Not the most 'rock and roll' of deaths-- tripped on the stairs; difficult for the scandal-sheet mongers to mythologize-- but she left an unassailable body of work that's been the basis for at least two boxed sets.
10. DEREK AND THE DOMINOES- Both Eric Clapton and the Allman Brothers are in the Hall now. If Delaney and Bonnie And Friends (see above) should get in, this one year project would become redundant. They left only a 2LP studio album (since expanded to a 3CD box) and a 2LP live album.
11. RICK DERRINGER- Formerly with Edgar Winter, he became famous for "Rock And Roll Hootchie Coo" and released several more albums on the strength of that. The way the Hall works, however, his work with Weird Al Yankovic will probably get recognition before his solo career does. (Side note: Edgar Winter isn't in the Hall, either.)
12. DEVO- I mentioned something above about bands from Ohio being ignored. This is a much more glaring example than the Dead Boys and one for which "Checklist Of Shame" is more accurate. Contrary to popular belief, Devo will occasionally be inactive for a year or two, but they never really split up. The body of work they've produced is actually monumental. After reading this I suggest going to the Internet Movie Database (imdb) and entering the name "Mark Mothersbaugh" and hope that your computer has enough processing power. There aren't too many bands who've been covered by Robert Palmer, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Lene Lovich, Soundgarden and They Might Be Giants. Oh, and Rachel Sweet. I don't think a year's gone by since their major label debut that they didn't appear on a soundtrack of some kind. Japan can't seem to get enough of them, even after they got old and fat. And what was it The Grand Wazoo said? "Fuck you if you don't like my little hat."
13. D.O.A.- Bloodied but unbowed, they were the preeminent punk band of Canada and your life would be vastly improved by adding them to it.
14. IAN DURY- I'd like to see Robert Wyatt show up at the Hall Of Fame with pictures of Ian Dury and Teddy Pendergrass and a large sign saying "I'd like to discuss handicap access with you." That would indeed be a reason to be cheerful.

.....I had to double check just now to make make sure they inducted Bob Dylan. They did. Whew; if I had to explain why that was necessary I think my head would explode. Well, there must be something missing from this list. I left off the Descendents, Dramarama and Dumptruck, but I'm wondering about that now. If you care passionately about musicians beginning with 'D', leave their name and rationale in the comments.