Geriatric Rock!

... I was thinking, while reading last "Mojo" magazine... Iggy Pop, with his "uniform" of stone-washed jeans, boots and naked torso, showing to the world heavy signs of his age and abuses... and the canyon-like wrinkles of "Keef" Richards or Willie Nelson, as scuffed as his famous Martin nylon strung guitar... and Paul Simon and the salt/pepper, honest hairs of Emmylou Harris and of virtually ALL the great musicians still here decades after they begun stepping and jumping on the stages...

Is music something which must be brought to the VERY extreme - i.e. diying while performing at 96, or, like Compay Secundo and Bona Vista Social Club, touring 'til the last breath...

We'll see a bionic avatar of Mick Jagger performing from HUGE screens in digital form - in 2120 - in (real) Gotham City, the new monster-city spreading from Rhode Island to Florida?

... and Iggy Pop with his flaccid skin BUT never lacking an enormous energy on stage?

A cryo-stabilized version of a 150 years old Iggy will perform, like in Doktor Mabuse's laboratory, as a pure brain-with-cables wired to a computer to create a digitalized, immortal super-rock'n'roll hero, 'til the last sunlight and the VERY end of creation?

Is age and public presence of the above and many others in Rock Hall of Fame going on same par as composing and performing skill and freshness?

Has any "sense" - beside remembrance and nostalgy for the mighty, roaring '70s - attending to a concert of - say - (present) Deep Purple or Eagles?

Isn't much better watching to a DVD or a VHS of some historic performance and enjoying the real thing?

... while Rolling Stones are still touring worldwide with session-men behind the curtains or the like... BUT people still and always wish to see Mick and Keef jumping and grinning.

... I'm - sort-of - preferring more and more the records... they're far more an honest picture of "that" musician playing "that" music at "that" moment... it sounds to me far more sincere than a lazy, tired and tiring version of - say - Jumpin' Jack Flash, where Mick's jumps aren't the same they used to be...

Morrison, Drake, Hendrix, Joplin, Miles will remain always young... while looking to any artist getting older isn't - all considered - so... cool!

Rock is - indeed - a quite strange phenomenon... 'til the end of time?!?