Buckcherry

(Dreamworks)
by Scott Hefflon

Cock rock, it seems, is coming back. Secretly, I grin, wishing my embarrassing fashion choices on a new generation. Inwardly, I cringe, cuz I kinda like this stuff. Memories of The Cult, AC/DC, and far too many bands come to mind. Another round of “Ballroom Blitz,” “Born to be Wild,” and “American Woman” covers loom on the horizon. And the echoes of the last round have only recently faded to a tolerable, far-away screaming of memories locked in the darkest corners of the mind. Both New American Shame and Buckcherry are talented, no better or worse than any of their puffy-hair-parted-on-the-side-and-spilling-over-one-eyelinered-eye counterparts of the late ’80s/early ’90s. And hell, no one ever wanted AC/DC to “grow out of” their blue-collar, hard-workin’, hard-drinkin’, hard-livin’, heavily-hyphenated style, so perhaps driving hard rock is timeless and there’ll always be a need for it. I can’t listen to it without feeling nostalgic about strutting through malls in ripped jeans (no spandex beneath, thanks), cowboy boots (even though I’d not been on a horse since visiting a petting zoo when I was eight), black leather jacket (no tassels, mind you), and enough shaggy hair to resemble the mop my beanpole frame brought to mind anyway. (I used to prop myself against the wall of my kitchen “to disappear,” much like my awkward brethren, the ostrich, did with that head-in-the-sand trick. But I digress.)

Cock rock’s return couldn’t come at a better time. Perhaps now high school kids’ll stop pretending they’re Black, wear clothes that actually fit (let’s stop this trend before we reach the transvestite phase, huh?), and maybe get laid for a change. That’s all they really want anyway, right? Music to escape into when the parents (‘rents, one might say) are yelling, teachers are saying you’ll never amount to nothin’ unless you shut up and pass courses you’ll never need again, and some kinda bond with your gangly, fellow humans who’re just as confused, bored, and under-sexed as you are. Rebel rock is a more logical choice than middle class suburban white kids pretending they know anything about “the ‘hood,” so hell, if they bought into that subculture, this one oughtta be a breeze.