Rock Out There

I was driving out in Sussex County, New Jersey, on a day trip this past weekend, and on my car radio I listened to WNNJ-FM, a rock station serving the tri-state area - New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.  The backwoods area around Port Jervis, New York and Newton, New Jersey just east of the Poconos is known for its rural scenery and its small towns (and New Jersey's highest mountain), but not much else.  The culture up there doesn't reflect mainstream culture in the country at large, which may explain why WNNJ is still hanging on.

It's a classic AOR station, playing lots of Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rush, Pearl Jam, and even more pop-oriented acts like Journey and Bryan Adams.  (Not really a lot, if any of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Elton John, but they've never been heavy enough for traditional AOR radio outlets - but WNNJ does play the Cars.)  Even though it was gratifying to hear a radio station where rock is still taken seriously, I couldn't help but notice that all of the records it plays are from the previous century.  It seems that people's musical tastes in northwestern New Jersey are as conservative as the politics up there.  The only thing on the fringe at this station is its location in Sussex County.

Rock is still hanging on, albeit tenuously, on the radio in semi-rural areas and the exurban and outer suburban fringes, but in the big metropolitan areas, where musical tastes define the mainstream, rock radio has been relegated to the background and practically off the stage. And yet, there's some kid out there, playing his electric guitar in his room, thinking of starting a band, hoping to be the guy who brings rock back from the dead, and also hoping to be a big star with a beautiful wife.  Kid?  Put your guitar down, turn off that puny amp of yours, come out of your mother's basement and listen to me!  You're not going to make it as a rock star because rappers are the new rock stars and you're too white to be part of the new pop scene.  And you're not going to find yourself a glamorous wife and travel the world when you can't even afford a girlfriend and your travel is limited to going to the Wal-Mart where you work at your minimum-wage job.  If you want to pursue a career that involves traditional rock and roll, perhaps you should consider being a DJ on a station like WNNJ, in a remote area like northwestern New Jersey.  Just remember, though, they have a lot of bad winters in places like that.

Rock and roll is going through its own winter right now.