RAWK and Fuckin' Roll GLASGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

On facebook I am a member of a group entitled ‘Glasgow Apollo’.

It’s unashamedly nostalgic and leans heavily towards reminiscing about the rock acts that played the hallowed venue.

There’s not a great deal of discussions that gathers any pace if the original post is about one of the middle of the road bands/performers who took to the stage, and the punk years seem to sit uncomfortably next to the rock legends, but it is what it is.

The majority hold sway and the majority worship in denim and leather at the carved bone alter of the great Gods of RAWK.

If the likes of Alex Harvey, Bon Scott and Robert Plant are the legendary behemoths who carry the weight of the world Atlas like on their shoulders for you then it’s a comfortable page on social media to pull a bar stool up at.

You can have a look here if it’s of any interest.

I visit it daily and enjoy much of what is posted, but in the last few days the demise of Rock Radio - who’s sinking under the waves of on-air mediocrity may have taken the rock DJ legend that is Tom Russell with it - has set the cat among the pigeons.

Calls for support have been plentiful and discussions about the need for a dedicated rock radio station have sprung up.

In the main they have all been positive, but then there was the sharing of an article from the Guardian newspaper written by a journalist called Kevin McKenna, and if I am honest it’s the sort of thing that hurts my eyes.

If you took the hair out of my arse that is causing me a great deal of consternation and put it under a microscope then this article may well be laser etched onto it.

If you can be bothered reading it then click on this.

While the intent seems to be to laud the efforts of Tom Russell, and assist with a campaign to draw attention to the ‘end of days’ scenario for rock music on the airways, what really comes across strongly is the grumblings of a man who has reached a period in his life where he has decided that the best of pretty much everything only existed in his formative years, and anything else that flourished outside that era can be filled away under S for Shite.  

In the article Muse, Biffy Clyro, The Smiths, Franz Ferdinand and even Chatty Man Alan Carr all get slapped down as if their musical output, and Alan breathing, is directly responsible for everything negative that has ever happened to rock music.

You get the sense that if Fleetwood Mac fell short of selling out the Hydro by three tickets then someone should bring Kevin the head of Alex Kapranos on a silver platter.

In some weird way that most of us can’t understand his asking everyone to Take Him Out was probably the butterfly flapping its wings leading to those empty seats in the Hydro so many years later.

In fact when Alex sang ‘Take Me Out’ Kevin may have taken him at his word and started looking for a comfy spot on the grassy knoll.

I can imagine that right now in the alternative universe that McKenna has created there is an Angus Young doppelgänger wondering if it was Morrissey singing Vicar in a tutu, or Simon and co headlining at Wembley, that was the catalyst for Malcolm’s illness.

The whole article is supposed to be about one thing, but that then just becomes a thin veneer painted over McKenna conjuring up Dylan Thomas for a rock influenced karaoke take on ‘Do not go gently into that good night’, with them both downing jagers and slurring through the ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the night’ line as the barman shouts ‘Time Gentlemen, please.’

It’s not the issues with the end of Rock Radio as people knew it that I have a problem with.

In fact I am fully supportive of anyone looking to push Real Radio to reconsider, but I just think it can be done without leaving the likes of MUSE, Biffy Clyro, Franz Ferdinand, The Smiths, and even the Chatty Man, as collateral damage in the war of words that has ensued.

As a reader of the Guardian I am also left wondering if anyone actually checks the CiF articles anymore.

I really did think that I was going to read an article about the stations decision to axe Rock Radio rather than an extract from ‘the world according to McKenna.’

The whole tone of it was more suited to a curmudgeon pontificating in his local the age old ‘everything was better when I was a lad’ shtick that we have all heard more times than we probably care to mention.

And now that I have managed to get that off my chest I'm away to warm up the old wax cylinder so I can listen to ‘Things aint what the used to be’ by the legendary blues singer Miss Ann Thrope.

Meanwhile you may want to listen to the 'fey' Franz Ferdinand.