I was hoping to go to Recher tonight, but can't make it. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's show.
In the recent media frenzy surrounding the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, ABC News ran a puff piece on the state of rock ??n?? roll since the advent of the King. In chronicling the fallout, they showed clips of exactly four other artists: the unavoidable Beatles, the ludicrously outclassed Kiss, the inexorable Rolling Stones and, unnamed but represented by a reasonable portion of their video for ??You??re No Rock ??n Roll Fun,? Sleater-Kinney. While it would be preposterous to follow the implicit argument here and suggest that nothing else of importance has come about since the late 1970s, the point is well taken. If you??re looking for a bead on what rock ??n?? roll as it exists today is capable of, your search should begin, and may well end, with Sleater-Kinney.
That??s an increasingly common belief. Entertainment Weekly asked if they were America??s greatest rock ??n?? roll band, Time answered in the affirmative and Robert Christgau of The Village Voice suggested in his review of 2000??s peerless All Hands on the Bad One that Sleater-Kinney demonstrated the consistency and quality of the Rolling Stones during their late-??60s peak.
