In praise of dad rock

No, not that kind of dad rock. I don't mean Oasis, Blur, Shed Seven, The Charlatans or god knows who else (maybe the Specials qualify, they're very dad rock these days I think. Or maybe it's grandad rock with these?). No, what I'm here to praise is dads who rock. Yes, dads who leave their armchairs, their televisions and their living rooms with floral wallpaper designs chosen by their wives, and er, go to gigs they're ill-suited to, find far too loud but - and here's the important thing - go to them anyway. Yeah man, I like dads who do this. My own father did exactly this a few times and I'll always be pleased to remember that he did. Back in the day (2004), I was staying over at my parents' house and happened to mention something about going to a gig in Birmingham that night. "Who are you going with?", asked my dad. "Nobody, I'm going on my own". "On your own?" Slight pause. "I'll come with you if you like." Er, yes, dad, why not? Great. It was slightly weird. Did he really want to go to see Herman Düne in Edgbaston? Did he have the faintest idea what it would be like? Well, either way he came along as I drove around the outskirts of Birmingham, sat nav-less, trying to find the venue one dark February night. He came along and ...  he enjoyed it. Yes, he found David-Ivar and André charming (which they are, sort of) and enjoyed their slightly bewildered comments about being surprised that Birmingham was the UK's "second city". The music? Well, this big band/Sinatra-orientated disliker of pop and rock ("the Beatles ruined music") didn't hate it. Success! A few weeks later this was repeated. To escape the torpor of an Easter weekend, he again invited himself to a gig in London - the Buff Medways in Holloway Road. Gulp! Yeah, they were a million times too loud and rock-y, and my poor old dad had to shuffle away with his pint into a side-bar and shield his 67-year-old hearing as best he could. But still, he also found Billy Childish's cheeky chappie Medway ramblings charming as well. Blimey, old timer won over by rock music charm.

Hey daddy-o, play that song again. But not so loudly

Admittedly, not everything went this well. There was a time I risked taking both my dad and my mum to a gig by John Cooper Clarke (circa 1999, a thing in a pub in Stoke Newington). Big mistake. A fusillade of fucks and fuckings in the first ten minutes created parental mayhem. Oh dear. Another time I dragged them along to the Notting Hill Arts Club for one of their Saturday Rough Trade Afternoons. Cowering in the bar as far away as possible from the band in the adjacent live area, all they kept saying was, "Why is it SO loud? It's so LOUD!". Yes mum, yes dad, it's quite loud. It's er, sort of traditional that it's loud. Er, anyway, you sit here while I go and watch them ...

No, these generational cultural crossovers are never going to be plain sailing. Maybe, in a sense, they're against nature. Just wrong. Oil and water. I don't know though. I must admit I like the fact that my dad heard Herman Düne singing My Friends Kill My Folks or the Buffs Medways doing Archive From 1959. And why not? After all, I went with him to hear the mainstream jazz my dad liked so much. I did my share of working men's clubs in Nuneaton or rural Leicestershire where I was 30-35 years younger than anyone else in the room, and I politely clapped the guys doing jazz standards (and it was decent enough in its own way). As it happens, I'm now not that much younger than my dad was when he braved the aural onslaught of the Buff Medways' garage-punk racket in the bar of the University of North London back in 2004. So, never mind dad rock - what about old bloke rock favoured by ageing music bloggers who refuse to stop going to gigs even at an indecently ripe age? Yes, readers, I believe I've just invented a new music genre. Anyway, I think all this goes to show one clear thing. That you should always be prepared to (symbolically) kill your parents, and you shouldn't spend any time worrying about it ...