The Swagger Factor

SWAGGER: To walk or conduct oneself with an insolent or arrogant air; strut; braggadocio.

Listening to Urge Overkill’s masterful 1993 album “Saturation” I come to the realization that I need a little more swagger in my life. I listen to an awful lot of “technically proficient” and “artistically adept” records as of late, but there’s something to be said for brainless, thuggish rock and roll and the adrenalin rush it conjures.
I’m sorry but The Beatles and The Kinks didn’t have it. As wonderful as they are, they never possessed that quality. They were too smart, too musically adept, to succumb to such a primal sound.
The Stones had it… for a while. Bon Scott era AC/DC had it in spades. The Stooges? Of course! Brainless and beautiful, sounds and attitude that make you nod your head in time with the rhythm section and play air guitar on your stick shift.
Stripper music. Cock-rock. Call it what you will, this hedonistic aggressive style of music has a secure place in the history of rock and roll and will never die. There will always be a place and a time for it as long as there are teenagers who feel alienated from their peers and society and want to get lost in a sea of angst-y chugg-a-lugging guitar mayhem.
For us thirty, forty and fifty-something’s it’s a wonderful form of release, a kind of therapy; a way to purge the day’s trials and tribulations.

It’s also fun as hell…