Suburbia Made Rock 'n' Roll Possible
Suburbia made the scenius of rock, not in a Viennese coffee house, but at Burger King or at the mall.
The recent passing of Boomer rock stars made me think about this again, not because I liked bands like the Eagles that much in the 70s, but it was the culture of radio and record-buying that contributed to the "clustering" of a like-mindedness, outside of urban centers, and in basements and garages in suburban housing developments.
Rehearsal was almost impossible to do in an urban area. Art can happen in a sketchbook, but it takes a special place for the "genius clusters" of pop music to make a zeitgeist. It happened for a while in the 60s and 70s. Now places aren't necessary for music because they are inside our heads or in a server farm. This is merely an example of an evolutionary process taking place, rather than a nostalgic rumination about what has passed. But there must be elements of innovation clusters in all periods of history, but they have always had different vectors, and are being displaced by new technologies. (The Boeing 707 and transatlantic flight displaced the scenius of Liverpool to other parts of the globe.) It's interesting to think that perhaps the basic elements of scenius leave their traces in perpetuity, such that Seattle is in the cultural exhaust of the grunge period for example. Blues will always have a bit of 47th Street in Chicago, but is massively displaced by generational forces.
This displacement is happening everywhere. In the book by Matt Ridley "The Evolution of Everything" he cites the example of blockchain technology becoming the next phase for business models:
"...not just driverless cars, but ownerless firms. Imagine a future summoning a taxi that not only has no driver, but that belongs to a computer network, not to a human being...that network has raised funds, signed contracts and taken delivery of vehicles, even though it's 'headquarters' is distributed all over the net."
Every new computer-based technology makes places less important. VR is likely to be make place unnecessary, just as on-line retail made bricks-and-mortar retail unnecessary, and is turning the streetscapes into walls of papered windows.
But scenius and/or social change can happen in the smallest places, like Soviet kitchens.
You want to be in a good place for things to happen. In retrospect, suburbia has become not so good of a place, compared to say, Athens or Florence on what it had done for art. But the Renaissance might become easier to reproduce in a virtual environment, while the places that made it possible are less important.
When the world is running down you make the best of what's still around--to the extent that it supports the world on the Internet.
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6/2024: A book I'm currently reading, Exurbia relates directly to what I was thinking about years ago with the The Better Rebels of Our Nature essay (still unfinished) re: my theory that the roots of insurrection arise from the second-ring “white-flight” suburbs. Not only did they make rock ‘n’ roll possible, they used rock and punk’s rebellion as inspiration. Some rock ‘n’ rollers will tell you that it was the American Revolution that was their inspiration. It’s all about not liking to be told what to do, but alas, here we are with half of the country escaping from freedom (in Erich Fromm’s definition) and into fascism. Also interesting that the author was from Chicago’s south suburbs--my old hood.
