It’s been nearly thirty years since there has been a new rock band or a rock & roll song worthy of a place next to the bands and songs in our classic rock catalog – the one that gives us the will to live and to turn the radio on every day.

It makes me feel bad for the poor saps, the lost generations that have had to latch on to grunge or rap or electronica or hippety-hoppety but it mostly has me feeling sad and sorry for myself.

Like a six-year-old waiting for a written response from Santa to his Christmas list, I’ve been waiting by the radio, waiting for the next great rock band to appear. After Sinatra there was Elvis, after Elvis there was Buddy Holly, after Holly there was The Beatles, after The Fabs there was Zeppelin and Sabbath and the Allmans and then Van Halen and Metallica … we had the blues and hard rock and heavy metal and prog and then, and then, fuckin’ nothin’. There was no fuckin’ Santa, the fountain of rock & roll had trickled its last drop.

Months went by, years, decades. No new rock bands. None that go beyond the one-hit wonder, none with any sustained greatness or anticipated albums or rock shows that you just couldn’t miss. Antiques become valuable and cherished because they represent a thing that they don’t make anymore and so we cling to our CDs and our vinyl and the seventy-five-year-old lead guitarist because, well, we have no choice … generation next never showed up.

The very word “discovery” implies stumbling upon something new, realizing the existence of something just made. Not exactly true. One day not too long ago a song came on the radio. It was nuanced, there were multiple guitars and tempo shifts and a certain tension that builds in the best rock songs. I’d never heard this song before. How is that possible? Who could it possibly be? The station I was listening to precluded it from being the work of some new band. In fact, it was not new … it was very old.

It was a song called Phoenix by a band named Wishbone Ash. I may not have the most prolific rock credentials, but I pay pretty close attention to rock & roll and I’d simply never heard of them. To me, the ten minutes and twenty-six seconds of Phoenix was a rock & roll miracle.

Turns out Wishbone Ash influenced bands like Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy and has had a very serious cult following since their first record all the way back in 1970! They have released well over twenty albums since and, needless to say, we started buying them and we even had the chance to see them live (yes, there are still original members alive).

Divine rock & roll intervention.

♦

I knew of a guy in high school who was really into the band Supertramp. He was kind of a nerd and we made fun him for it because prog rock back then just didn’t seem to have enough testosterone for the way we rolled. Boy was I a dork. Last year the radio once again provided near-holy revelation. They played the Supertramp album “Crime of the Century” cover to cover. Holy shit, pure musical genius. It was like discovering a new planet … “Breakfast in America,” “Even in the Quietest Moments” … great music. Since then I’ve had similar epiphanies with Steely Dan and Blackmore’s Night and Mudcrutch. Documented rock & roll miracles every one.

The moral of all this miraculousness? The only great new music is really just old music you’ve never heard before. Don’t waste your time looking ahead for the next big thing in rock & roll … look back.

Photo credit: iggyshoot on VisualHunt.com / CC BY