Rock and roll was the other. Outsiders questioning precepts. It was anything but me-too.

No one wore their hair long before the Beatles. And isn't it interesting that today Paul & Ringo wear their hair short, and have for quite a while. They don't want to be boxed in by an identity, they don't want to trade on the past, they want to look forward.

Eric Clapton has short hair too. Judge him on his music, not his image.

So many denizens of the classic rock era have short hair today, because they've grown up, long hair is no longer a rebellion, but de rigueur.

Ditto on tattoos. Used to be dangerous, outré, taboo. But not anymore, as a matter of fact people are competing for attention with neck tattoos and face tattoos, to show that they're just more dangerous and out there than the rest, those with tramp stamps and sleeves. I laugh at these people. How demented can you be. You can't cover them up and they're PERMANENT! Never mind Gregg Allman getting hepatitis from a bad needle in San Francisco.

If you want to be an artist you should question convention, not adhere to it.

Who says you have to have long hair and tattoos to play metal music? You're ultimately appealing to an ever-dwindling base. This is the path for all fads. They're hip once, and then been there and done that and most people don't care. If you want to be taken seriously by anyone outside of the metal backwater, maybe try looking a bit different. Or slowing it down and not screaming... I don't want to sound like an oldster here (and I am!), I like heavy music, but when something is just a riff on what came before, I dismiss it. Metallica pushed boundaries. Imitations of Metallica? That's what's wrong with the hit parade, it's formulaic, which is why so many tune out.

I read today that "Stranger Things" is the number one streaming show of 2026, even though it came out in 2025. I definitely hadn't seen anything quite like it before. Although one season was enough for me. I was riveted by "Squid Game," I don't need anymore. Why? It's been played out.

Too many people think music is about the external, the totems. The greats are unquantifiable. "American Idol" contestants have good voices. That's a small part of the package, what about writing and performing? In truth, our greatest artists do not have conventionally pretty voices, but that does not mean they cannot convey emotion... Rod Stewart would be laughed off a TV competition stage, and he's not the only one.

Look at Janis Joplin. An outcast in her high school. She returned a star at reunion and they still didn't accept her. Meanwhile, is anybody else from Port Arthur even well-known, never mind in music?

This is why the sixties and seventies were a golden era. You never knew what would come next, you'd drop the needle and be wowed. People were taking chances.

And they were not locked into who they were. David Bowie tried a number of things before he truly broke through with "Ziggy Stardust," and then he broke up the band! Every album had a new sound and a different look. To his death he was testing limits. Knowing it's not about commerciality, but art. This is what Madonna specialized in, changing it up. But with less than successful recent recordings, she went back to the well to dance music. Whew! That's what I'm waiting for, more of the same. The reviews are positive, but not one person has ever e-mailed me about this album. Then again, if you want to know which way the wind blows don't read today's reviewers. They salivate at the tit of what once was. They're looking for access, there certainly isn't any money in it.

As for the loss of the "Brooklyn Vegan" and "Revolver"...believe me, if people were reading them they'd be successes, they'd march on. But who needs self-appointed experts in the form of a website when everybody's got an opinion online and you earn your stripes, i.e. your audience. Just like when MTV stopped showing videos... Because they were an on demand item online. All the oldsters crying in their beer... Oh, bring back what once was. Well, it didn't work financially, that's why they changed it. Like a wannabe act that pivots, and many of your heroes have...their initial recordings would make you laugh.

We look for artists to lead. That's your job. Assuming you're an artist. Just because you can play guitar and sing, that doesn't make you an artist.

And then there are people who completely challenged convention. Picasso with cubism, Jackson Pollack with his overall drip paintings. Made fun of at first, completely changing the landscape thereafter.

If you want to wear your hair long and get tattoos, that's fine with me. Just don't tell me they make you a musician, that you're dangerous... It's a fashion choice... And you know how fast fashion changes. You're locking yourself into a decades-old paradigm?

Let's go back to the garden. The so-called "White Album." The Beatles left the cover blank as a commentary on overdone gatefold covers. There was nowhere left to go, they couldn't outdo what had been done, they'd hit the apotheosis with "Sgt. Pepper." And isn't it interesting that "Abbey Road" was a single-sleeved cover when seemingly every artist had a gatefold.

Then again, artists need inspiration. And where is that coming from today? What I see is a bunch of whiners. Someone's blocking you from success, you're not making enough money. What do they say? SHUT UP AND PLAY! You're not endearing yourself to anybody, no one really cares, you're taking yourself out of the game.

You speak with your art.

And the heroes of yore spoke. You hung on every word. An interview in "Rolling Stone" was manna from heaven. Not anymore, it's just lifestyle and details, how they made the record. David Crosby was an a*shole, but he was a deep thinker, he could wrestle with the issues. Can you? No number of tattoos or long hair will deliver this. This comes from education and reading and..

That's hard.

So it's easier just to grow your hair out long and get a bunch of tattoos to become a member of the club. A club any true innovator wants nothing to do with.

We're hungry for different. And very few people can deliver it.

Bob Dylan said acoustic folkie music was done and went electric, he didn't want to repeat himself. People were angry, others laughed, but "Like a Rolling Stone" is frequently cited as the greatest rock track ever.

And speaking of Beatles... John Lennon cut his hair short, wore his specs and laid bare his issues. "1970s "Plastic Ono Band" was a commercial failure, but it inspired so many to reveal their inner truth. If John could, if he was tormented, if he wasn't happy... He no longer believed in Beatles but so many in the audience still did. So many going to see the old bands do the old tunes. That's nostalgia, and there's nothing wrong with that, but the arts are based on envelope piercing work. It's about the idea, and then the execution of it.

If you're wearing long hair and sporting tattoos, you're playing it safe. Can you own that? I doubt it. If you had long hair in the sixties, you were on the cutting edge, it was a badge of honor. Tattoos? I think their outrageousness expired sometime in the nineties, if not a bit thereafter. So if you've got 'em... Then again, there's a big business in removing them.

Want my attention? Do something good and different. People don't e-mail me about the same, they send me breakthroughs, that they're excited about.

Thinking comes first, execution comes later.

In order to leave your mark you've got to be inspired to create something unique. And that's really hard to do. So people fall into the trap of thinking the image will suffice.

It won't.


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