Hardcore v Jack Kerouac
"No-one talks about it, but Jack Kerouac's On The Road is shit, it's fucking shit. Jack Kerouac's On The Road is shit , it's shit ...". This is how Roo Stafford & The Innits ended their recent JT Soar show in Nottingham. No tedious "thanks for coming", "enjoy the other bands" or "please buy one of our t-shirts" nonsense. Just this, something entirely unconnected to anything in their weirdo-hardcore set. Great! More bands should do this kind of thing. Meanwhile, is Roo right? Is Kerouac's super-famous book ... shit? I reckon: no. No, it isn't. Admittedly I haven't er, actually read On The Road. About 30 years ago I tried to and gave up halfway through, finding it pretentious and semi-incomprehensible. So far, so shitty. But lately - belatedly - I've got quite heavily into Kerouac and I now think he's an unlikely choice for a slagging off from a musician. Why? Well, as I was suggesting in a blog on Kerouac...
