THE JONAS BROTHERS!

I was gonna give my pal Billy Gibbons and his buds a break, but they got caught in the undertow too. Every manager who booked his twentieth century act on this train-wreck of a show has INSURED that his client is now a HAS-BEEN!

Do they think it’s the nineties? Do they think the Internet never happened? Do they not realize ALL EXPOSURE IS NOT GOOD EXPOSURE!

That was the old paradigm. When you couldn’t reach the public, when it was the winner take all world of MTV. But with the turn of the century came a new era. Rather than pounding yourself down someone’s throat, you lay back a bit, you let people come to you, you let your greatness grow and spread. Otherwise you’re just another fifty year old touring sheds to those with middle aged spread. I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, BUT WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PLAY YOUR NEW SINGLE! Illustrating to ALL that you’ve no longer got it!

Shit, didn’t these antiques realize THIS WASN’T THEIR AUDIENCE? "American Idol" isn’t about rock and roll stardom, it’s about TV drama. Its fans are primarily children, enraptured by the cartoon characters inhabiting the show. That’s who peopled the barn known as the Nokia Theatre. When these old acts took the stage it was like "The Producers"! Mouths in the audience were agape, as if they were singing SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER! Who are these old farts and why do we CARE?

Seal showed he could sing better than the contestants, but shouldn’t he just be satisfied that he won the matrimonial sweepstakes? A kiss from Heidi replaces the one from the rose, you’re TOAST!

Donna Summer just looked fat.

Bryan Adams should have been playing an electric.

George Michael was equivalent to Guru Pitka, shilling, his appearance a shameless plug for his tour. Come see the man that LOST HIS TALENT FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!

Even Jack Black wasn’t funny. All I could think of was "School Of Rock", which got it so right, when this show got it so wrong.

Billy and crew looked like such aliens, like they came out of some bizarre Texas time capsule, that it almost worked. Until the camera showed the somnambulant audience, and Billy refused to take the mic and growl.

But then there were those damn Jonas Brothers. Who we aged pundits decry on principle. Not only were they reasonably good, shit, THEY COULD PLAY THEIR INSTRUMENTS, their tune was catchy, almost in the league of the Monkees! Well, not quite, but one could understand the mania. And that’s what there was in the audience, as little girls were experiencing their first orgasm.

As for One Republic… This is an upbeat show. You just got on the one hit wonder train. You had status, now you look like losers.

Which David Cook was not. He should have won. He had the rock and roll cred. He deserved it.

But I wish he’d come in second and pulled a Daughtry. Showed these fuckers who truly had the talent. But the voting public is smarter than the assholes who put together this ridiculous train-wreck of a show. The public wanted someone of substance, a rocker, a voice…a person who had something to say. Of the finalists, Cook was the one. He faltered in last night’s competition, but he was the clear winner if you were watching.

If he’s smart, he’ll tell Clive Davis to go fuck himself. Insist on Rick Rubin producing his record. Create something that’s rock as opposed to schmaltz. Hell, it could happen…BMG and Sony are the same COMPANY!

A real rock producer. If there have got to be co-writes, why not dial up Chad Kroeger. You hate him, you probably didn’t even recognize the big number at the top of the show, "Hero". That ain’t no lame Enrique Iglesias track, that’s the work of the leader of the biggest selling act in the land, a rock band, NICKELBACK!

You want to make money in the music business? Don’t go pop, don’t even bother to rap. Break out your guitar and turn the amp up to eleven. Pound the drums and SHAKE US ALL NIGHT LONG!

Rock doesn’t need to make a comeback, it never left. It’s just that its purveyors didn’t make videos as good as the hip-hoppers. Too many rock artists were anything but hip, they were sold out to the corporations, they were playing it safe. But real rock and roll can be heard everywhere, from the supermarket to the stadium. If David Cook can create a track half as good as Daughtry’s, even Hinder’s, I’ll say that’s a correction factor well deserved, that augurs for an uptick in the business, a renaissance, a turn away from the manufactured pop that the powers-that-be foist upon us that we want no part of.

As for the has-beens… Why don’t they just fade away. And unless they realize it’s a new era, that you play to your fans, not the media gatekeepers, they will not radiate.