Welcome To The Bunghole: The 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

You only needed to see the first two dozen rows in front of the stage of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Awards Show to figure out what’s wrong with the organization. Nodding in unison during the Faces set, you witnessed the entire out of touch spectacle of white men in their fifties and sixties, glad-handing each other like they were responsible for something great.

There’s nothing revelatory about the 2012 nominees; you could have ignored each one of this year’s contenders and replaced them with a more deserving or more influential artist. With no disrespect to the artists that were honored, there were dozens more still left behind and genres that continue to go overlooked.

A lot of that sniveling with shine as I run down the broadcast of the event with a total disregard for the truth and with a cynical view of what all this means.

Yes, the event of MCA passing makes it hard to find anything but praise for the Beastie Boys and their first year entrance into the hall. Even if you were to bring up the annual “rap vs. rock” argument, it’s hard to not see how the Beastie Boys belong in the rock hall just as much as they will in the rap hall of fame. Ad Rock and Mike D did a great job of holding their shit together and for acknowledging a few bands that probably belong in the hall ahead of them.

How great would it be to see Bad Brains nominated?

Freddy King’s induction sounded almost like the same after-thought that was his nomination. The entire celebration could have been a huge orgy of Texas performers who hold Freddy just a little bit closer than the rest of us, but it wasn’t. A Texas superstar jam would have got people talking, more importantly, it would have gotten people ready to discover who this Freddie King cat was. Instead, it was a performance more to the tune of “Who Is This Guy?” and “Why Should I Care?”

Laura Nyro? I still have questions about this one. And no matter how much Bette Midler loves her, it doesn’t ease my concern even when there’s no a dry eye in the house. Heck, Bette Midler didn’t need to be anywhere near Cleveland that night. One thing that was cool is having Nyro’s son on stage for his mother even when the Hall previously tried to have him out of the picture on the pretense of some family dispute that Jann Wenner or Tom Hanks should feel the need to manage.

Donovan came on, read a hippie dippie poem, and reminded everyone why this Dylan-wanna be shouldn’t gain entrance.

Who's the dude on the left? Adler's pants rule!

The million dollar question was “Will he or won’t he?” which is stupid if one only glances at Axl Rose’s track record over the last dozen years. Of course he’s not going to show! Of course he’s going to release a half-logical letter that tries to paint him as “the normal one” throughout all this. But then you see that train-wreck of a drummer Steven Adler, sporting a few promotional That Metal Show t-shirt as his wardrobe, presumably because they’re the only show/network that would let Adler on without Dr. Drew being in the same room.

The look of joy on this man’s face was priceless, and then it was promptly ruined by the face of Matt Sorum who managed to get in because no one had the good sense to admit it was Appetite that gets them to Cleveland, and nothing else.

Where the fuck was Izzy was the big question. Without a direct link to Indiana present, the rest of the guys looked out of place. The performance with some karaoke dude taking Axl’s spot, sounded just as safe as if they were G’n’ R impersonators, Mr. Brownstone.

And how did Green Day get the nod as presenters? I really disliked Billy Joe Armstrong’s smug delivery and, was it just me, or did he just out Axl as crazy? Was that a little fuck you to the frontman? Is he aligning himself with the Hall movers and shakers? The whole thing didn’t seem very punk to me, and was about half as ballsy as Armstrong seemed to think.

Which brings us to who I guess was considered the “headliners” in this year’s class: the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I used to like these guys but I jumped ship when BloodSugarSexMagic got played to piss and I wasn’t much into One Hot Minute. Now, I just find them to be mildly annoying radio fodder that may have peaked over a decade ago. I say this like I know what I’m talking about, but who knows, if someone played me their material since that shit with Dave Navarro, I just may like it in the right setting.

The stage used to be the right setting for the Chili Peppers, but I couldn’t get how strange Anthony Keidis looks now in that haircut and mustache. And it looks like he positively hated singing “Give It Away” for the thousandth time. So yeah, I’m kinda thinkin’ that leaving them in the mid-90’s was a good thing.

I suppose you could make the argument that the reason why the performance(s) were nearly on the same, lame award show level as everything else was because the money shot-Axl Rose on stage with the original G ‘n R members-was a no go.

Or you could say that maybe Billy Joe was wrong when he called Axl crazy, maybe W.A.R. had it right all along when he said fuck-all to the entire notion of a rock and roll hall of fame. Of course we all know his excuse was bullshit-the dude is certifiable when faced with the reality of how his entire career will be defined by one album-but a big “Amen, brother!” to him for throwing out some legitimate questions as to what the fuck this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is really all about.

The only time a real G ‘n R reunion will ever come about is when Axl is faced with a foreclosure of his lifestyle. And when people continue to pay $75 bucks a pop to see “Guns ‘N Roses” when the facsimile should only be able to make State Fair gigs, we can rule out any possibility of a true G ‘n R reunion.

At this point, that’s about as likely as the Rock Hall committee actually sitting down to take a hard look to see if their actions are actually contributing to the genre’s legacy or working against it.

Because there was nothing reminiscent of what I perceive rock and roll to be from what I saw during 2012’s ceremonies. It’s almost disappointing to watch some of my generation’s most notable artists succumb to something that contains none of the rock and roll spirit the Hall portends to exude. It has become as lifeless as the exhibits on display in Cleveland and it is destroying any reason for a younger generation to even want to gander at rock’s illustrious history.