In many American bars, you get a vivid daily reminder that life, at its most meaningful, is still an epic battle between the rockers and the poseurs. Everyone’s looking for street cred and the best way to establish it in a bar is through what used to be called the jukebox. Now it’s called Touchtunes and a lot of poseurs have it on their phones and when they get off from work at Walmart they want to drink happy-hour beer and play the kind of music that is generated without musical instruments and has lyrics that include, “I’ll cap yo’ ass” and “She’s a fine white girl.”

Looking for cred in all the wrong places.

The app that controls the jukebox allows you to see what songs are in the queue and you can jump to the front of the line if you have enough rewards points or you’re willing to pay five bucks per song.

Well, a rocker can only put up with a poseur’s pursuit of street cred for so long and for the last forty-five minutes I’ve been using my phone to jump to the front of the musical line but the poseurs don’t know it. They think I’m an old homeless guy chewing on a cigar. They think I’m down on my luck, that I’m not smart enough to know what a smartphone app is, that I’m sitting scrunched in the corner because I’m mental and that I only have enough money for one beer and that’s because I cashed in some aluminum cans this morning.

Actually, I’m a fuckin’ Touchtunes assassin. I have a couple hundred dollars of song credits on this particular jukebox, in essence, enabling me to hunker down in this bar for days at a time like fuckin’ Rambo. I’m using classic rock songs like ammo and I’ve got the enemy pinned down and if the poseurs try to move I fire an Iron Maiden song in his direction or lob over “Round and Round” by Ratt. I just played the full studio version of Rush’s “2112” and to prove my point I’m not above playing the live version of “Dazed and Confused” or “Mountain Jam” by the Allman Brothers, both of which have a running time of over twenty minutes.

On this day, the poseurs have brought a pee-shooter to an ax fight.

I never make eye contact with the poseurs. I never pick up my phone. I have “International Icon” status on Touchtunes (that’s the highest level you can get bitches) and I’ve played over 5,000 songs, so nearly all the songs I’ve ever played are on a playlist and all I have to do is tap a song to play it. I leave the phone flat on the bar and stealthily tap song after song – I’ve been at the front of the line on this jukebox now for ninety minutes.

I don’t fight for street cred (it’s too late for me), I fight for rock, for the rock & roll our forefathers died for … for the blessed sacrament that is the blues guitar solo, for the songs that make you wanna OD on heroin, for the heavy-metal horns and the power ballads and for Gary Moore and Ronnie James Dio and for the freaks standing in the rain at Woodstock.

♦

It must have been payday at Wal-Mart because the poseurs have ordered another beer. They tell the bartender that they think the music app is broken because they haven’t heard any of their songs … fortunately for society, neither has anybody else. They walk up to the physical jukebox and put a five dollar bill in the slot (someone must have been saving like a motherfucker to come up with that fiver as most poseurs only have a debit card). It’s no use, unless they have jukebox status they can’t jump me … and so the rock played on.

At some point the battle ended, another victorious day for the rockers, another musical ass kicking for the poseurs. When I got to the car I could see that my phone was still attached to the jukebox and that I could still see my playlist and play songs. I decided to play one more song, the live version of “Moby Dick” by Led Zeppelin. The song is essentially a drum solo lasting nearly twenty minutes. I enjoyed the fact that John Bonham would be drumming in the bar long after I was gone.

I shall continue to do my best to defend our rock heritage and I raise my glass to all those who, on this day, strike a blow in the name of rock & roll.